Prison hulk

An old ship stripped of its engines and parked in orbit to hold those a world wants gone. The guards rotate out, the prisoners do not, and the real rules are written by whoever controls the air.

Light
Dim
Going
Slow

Hear it

Hazards

  • Decompression. A hull breach or a door opened at the wrong time: the air rushes out with everything loose in it, bulkheads slam shut and whoever is on the wrong side has seconds to find a mask. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: each creature within 9 m (30 ft) of the breach makes a DC 13 Strength saving throw or is pulled 6 m (20 ft) toward it, taking 1d6 Bludgeoning damage for each 3 m (10 ft) if it hits a wall. A creature pulled through the breach is in vacuum. After 1 minute the section is airless. Starfinder 2e: Decompression (GM Core): a creature thrown from pressure into vacuum takes moderate bludgeoning damage (4d6 to 6d6) and starts suffocating at once, with no breath held. Archives of Nethys
  • Weightlessness. Nothing falls. A person drifts in the direction they last pushed, tools float away if not tied down, and a fight is a matter of handholds. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: a creature without a Fly Speed moves only by pushing off a surface, at its Speed in a straight line, until it meets another. Each attack it makes without a handhold has Disadvantage unless it has trained for weightlessness. Starfinder 2e: Zero gravity (GM Core): creatures are clumsy 1, off-guard and untethered; they move by Push Off from something their size or larger, or with propulsion. They lift and carry ten times as much, and thrown ranges are multiplied by 10. Archives of Nethys
  • Whoever holds the air. The scrubbers and the oxygen stores are the real power on board. Whoever controls them can seal a deck and wait. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: a sealed deck has air for 1d4 hours per person in it. When it runs out, each creature holds its breath for 1 + its Constitution modifier minutes (at least 30 seconds), then gains 1 Exhaustion level at the end of each of its turns. Starfinder 2e: Holding breath and suffocating (Player Core): a creature holds its breath for 5 + its Constitution modifier rounds; then it falls unconscious and attempts a DC 20 Fortitude save at the end of each turn, taking 1d10 damage on a failure and dying on a critical failure, the DC and damage rising each time. Archives of Nethys

What may happen

  1. The prisoner count is one short, and nobody admits it.
  2. Shouting on the lower decks, then the scrubbers go quiet.
  3. A guard offers to sell the party a key, and a prisoner offers to sell them the guard.
  4. A shuttle brings a new prisoner in chains, and the whole hulk falls silent to watch.
  5. An old air vent, too narrow for a guard, just wide enough for someone thin.
  6. The hulk has its own market in a stripped cargo bay: cigarettes, batteries, favours and news.
  7. A guard at the end of a long rotation asks the party, quietly, whether they have heard when the next relief shuttle comes.
  8. A prisoner tattoos with a modified suit needle, and her work is the best on the hulk. The waiting list is months long.
  9. The air on the lower decks costs extra. Whoever runs the scrubbers takes a cut of every ration.
  10. An old prisoner who once studied law prepares appeals for others in exchange for food. He has won two.
  11. Visiting hour: a few families on a screen, delayed and grainy, and a long queue for a short call.
  12. The solitary cells are old escape pods welded shut. Someone in one of them is singing.
  13. A surprise search turns the decks upside down. Someone slips a small package into a party member’s pocket.
  14. A rumour runs along the decks: someone has found a way out through the old engine room. Nobody says who.
  15. In a corner of the hulk prisoners have made a chapel for every faith at once, candles replaced by little lamps.
  16. The warden, a soft-spoken woman named Okonkwo, invites the party to dinner and asks very few questions.
  17. Mail day. A prisoner who never gets letters asks a party member to read one aloud that he has kept for years.
  18. The old hull groans as the hulk passes from sun into shadow, and every prisoner looks up at the same moment.
  19. On one deck the prisoners share everything: food, tools, medicine. Their leader is a former nurse.
  20. The food line moves slowly. A tray is passed back from hand to hand to an old man who cannot stand in line.
  21. Someone grows mushrooms in a damp duct behind the laundry. The guards pretend not to know.
  22. A new guard, very young and very nervous, is posted to the lower decks on his first day.
  23. A prisoner is released after twelve years. She stands at the airlock with a small bag and does not know what to do with her hands.
  24. Lights out. The decks go dark, and from every cell come whispers, coughs and the hum of the scrubbers.
  25. Scratched into a bunk frame, a map of the hulk’s ducts, with one route marked in a different hand.

Adventure hooks

  1. A prisoner claims to be innocent and the files back her up; the warden says the files are forged.
  2. The prisoners have taken the scrubbers, and they want to talk to someone from off the hulk.
  3. The hulk's decaying orbit will bring it down in six weeks, and nobody has budgeted for the prisoners.
  4. Someone outside is paying to get one particular inmate killed before her appeal.

Who and what is met

Each is an SRD stat block under another name, as game masters reskin them.

Other places among the stars

Orbital station, Derelict ship, Colony outpost, Precursor ruin, Asteroid field, Gas giant orbit, Deep space relay, Terraforming works, Research lab, Crashed freighter, Nebula, Neon city, Junktown, Spaceport, War front, Alien hive, Living ship, Undersea base, Lava foundry

This work includes material from the System Reference Document 5.2.1 ("SRD 5.2.1") by Wizards of the Coast LLC, available at https://www.dndbeyond.com/srd. The SRD 5.2.1 is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode.

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