Spaceport

Spaceport
The Space Shuttle Atlantis lit up at night on Launch Pad 39A, Kennedy Space Center, before the last shuttle flight in July 2011 · Bill Ingalls, Public domain, Wikimedia Commons

Landing pads behind blast walls, hangars that never close, and a concourse full of travellers from a dozen worlds. Shuttles stack in the sky waiting for a slot, customs open every third bag, and the repair bays smell of hot metal and fuel. Whoever wants to leave a world, or arrive on it unseen, comes through here.

Light
Lit
Going
Easy

Hear it

Hazards

  • Engine wash. A craft lifting off or landing throws out a blast of hot gas, grit and noise. The pads have blast walls and warning lights for a reason; whoever is caught on one at the wrong moment is burned and deafened. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: a creature within 30 m (100 ft) of a craft taking off or landing, with no blast wall between them, makes a DC 14 Dexterity saving throw, taking 4d10 Fire damage on a failure or half as much on a success. Within 60 m (200 ft), it has the Deafened condition for 1 minute unless its ears are protected.
  • Crowds. Bodies shoulder to shoulder in the markets, the stations and the queues. A crowd hides whoever wants to vanish, slows whoever wants to run, and stands between a shooter and the target. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: a packed crowd is Difficult Terrain (each foot of movement costs 1 extra foot) and gives Half Cover against ranged attacks. A ranged attack that misses a target in the crowd by 5 or more hits a bystander.
  • Watched streets. Cameras on every corner, face scanners at every gate, drones overhead. Every face is logged somewhere, and a face someone is looking for draws security within minutes. D&D 5e (House rule): House rule: for each hour a wanted creature spends in the open, roll a d6; on a 1 or 2 it has been recognised, and security arrives in 1d4 × 10 minutes. A good disguise, or a DC 13 Intelligence (Investigation) check to plan a route through the blind spots, makes it a 1 only.

What may happen

  1. The departures board scrolls faster than anyone can read, and a whole family stands under it pointing at different lines.
  2. A customs officer wants to open the party’s luggage; her scanner beeps at one bag.
  3. A shuttle lifts off beyond the blast wall; the windows hum, the floor shakes, and a hundred conversations pause together.
  4. A freight crate with a quarantine seal stands unattended in a service corridor, and it is warm to the touch.
  5. Above the port, shuttles circle in a slow stack waiting for a pad, their lights blinking in rhythm.
  6. In the repair bay, a mechanic needs someone to hold a thruster housing while she bolts it.
  7. A teenager is hiding in a container bound off-world, and puts a finger to her lips when the party sees her.
  8. In the transit lounge, travellers from a dozen worlds sleep on their bags, each in a different time zone.
  9. The party’s booking has vanished from the system, and the clerk insists it never existed.
  10. A quarantine alarm closes gate nine; masked staff walk the passengers into a side room in silence.
  11. A pilot offers passage off-world, no questions asked, leaving tonight from a pad that is on no map.
  12. At shift change, hundreds of cargo drones rise from the freight depot like a swarm of bright insects.
  13. A fuel line is leaking on a pad; the smell drifts into the hangar, where a mechanic is lighting a cigarette.
  14. Two crew members swap identical cases by the washrooms, a little too smoothly.
  15. The announcements repeat in nine languages, and by the ninth the gate has changed again.
  16. A shuttle lands hot with one engine on fire, and the ground crew is two people short.
  17. The duty-free shop sells bottled air from a famous mountain world, at the price of a week’s wages.
  18. A bounty hunter is showing a picture to every pilot at the bar.
  19. Crew just down from a long haul cross the concourse with stiff, careful steps, getting used to their weight again.
  20. The baggage handlers stop work, and nothing leaves the holds until someone talks to their foreman.
  21. Traffic control clears every lane for a convoy under military escort, and each departure slides back six hours.
  22. A traveller’s pet, something with six legs and no eyes, has escaped its carrier in the middle of the concourse.
  23. A tout sells guaranteed seats on a full flight, and the badge on his chest looks almost real.
  24. The hangars stay lit all night, and a lone mechanic sings to an engine as she works.
  25. A ship on pad four has not opened its hatch since it landed two days ago, and the port authority will not say why.

Adventure hooks

  1. A customs officer will look away from one crate if the party carries another one through for her.
  2. A pilot needs a crew before dawn, because at noon her ship will be impounded.
  3. Every ship that left pad seven this week has gone silent within a day of lift-off.
  4. A passenger wants to leave the world with her name on no manifest, and three people at the gates are watching for her.

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, Prison hulk, Research lab, Crashed freighter, Nebula, Neon city, Junktown, 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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