Backers

Backers are powerful individuals, organizations, or factions that sponsor the players. They are not traditional employers who give direct orders, but rather enablers who provide resources, connections, and opportunities in exchange for loyalty, favours, or the advancement of their own agendas. This relationship can range from a minor sponsor providing basic gear to a shadow sovereign offering near-unlimited funding, and it comes with benefits that often have strings attached.

How Backers Work

Role: They are enablers, not direct employers. They provide support without usually giving direct orders.

Support Provided:

A backer allows players to gain Backer Points by spending either Experience Points (XP) or Criptoscrip (CS). These points represent the backer pulling strings, calling in favours, or directly funding the crew's needs.

Gaining Backer Points from Your Backer:

Spending Backer Points on Assets:
Players can spend these Backer Points on any assets they choose, completely ignoring keyword restrictions unlike assets points. The backer's influence is broad enough to acquire anything the crew needs, regardless of their usual organizational keywords.

Spending Backer Points on Backer Actions:
Alternatively, players can spend these Backer  Points to have their backer perform specific favours or interventions.

Loyalty Dynamics: A backer's loyalty is fluid. They can be genuinely invested or manipulative. Players can lose backing without losing the NPC; the backer might lose influence, withdraw support, or become an obstacle.

Benefits Expansion: As players prove themselves, backers increase their support with more free gear, bigger stipends, better contracts, NPC allies, and exclusive perks. Players are encouraged to invest money back into their backers to grow their power and increase these benefits.

Consequences of Losing Backing

Losing backing can result from actions against the backer, consistent failure, or excessive requests or overuse of backer points. Consequences can include:

• Termination of contacts, requiring players to pay their own maintenance.
• Having to independently source equipment.
• Gaining a powerful foe who seeks to repossess assets or destroy the players.

Players as Backers

Player characters can also act as backers for other PCs or NPC teams. They must follow the same limitations as NPC backers (finances, contacts, feasibility) and face shared consequences if they fail to deliver. This dynamic adds interpersonal stakes and strategic depth to the campaign.

Organisations 

Organizations represent groups, institutions, or criminal enterprises a character has founded or built from the ground up. To create an organization, a character must pass a listed organization skill test, pay an initial cryptoscrip investment, and wait the required time for the organization to become operational. Once founded, an organization provides a passive income and asset points which can be redeemed for listed bonuses. You may only own one of each organisation type. 

Development Levels

Each organization has unlimited Development Levels. The first level represents a small, local operation. Later levels represent significant growth and regional influence.

Increasing Development: Development increases if you re-invest in the same organization. For each new development level, the Difficulty Score, the credit cost, and the founding time double. This also doubles the listed monthly income and asset points.

Failing a Check: Failing a test to increase development will reduce a development level.

If an organization at level one fails its check, it provides no asset points (and therefore assets are unavailable).

Additionally, instead of receiving income, the organization's costs must be paid. This cost amount doubles for each success level the character missed the target difficulty score by.

Asset Points

A player can spend their asset points on the following rewards if their organization shares at least one matching keyword with the asset:

Organization Keywords:
Criminal, Medical, Industrial, Corporate, Research, Commercial, Manufacturing, Extraction, Agricultural, Military, Spiritual, Dynastic, Commune, Wildlife, Political, Transport, Universal (can always be used)

Organisations Types:

Members (Asset Point Options)

Wildlife (Asset Point Options)

Vehicles (Asset Point Options)

Convert Asset Points to Monthly Income Multiplier

An organization can choose to convert Asset Points into a multiplier applied to its monthly income. This represents using assets to have a productive month. you gain this bonus to next income and then point is expended and lost. 

Resources (Asset Point Options)

Organizations can acquire raw and processed resources using Asset Points. These resources can be used for manufacturing, trading, or stockpiling.

Manufacturing System

To manufacture items, a character must:

Acquire the required resources (raw or processed) in the specified quantities and qualities.

Access an appropriate manufacturing room, deck, or facility (see Rooms section). Each room specifies:

• The items it can produce
• The resource inputs required
• The manufacturing time needed
• The skill test required
• The base output at one success

Pass the specified skill test associated with the manufacturing room.

Spend the required manufacturing time (during which the room is occupied).

Output is determined by the number of success levels achieved on the skill test:

Raw Resources

Raw resources are the basic building blocks of the Manufacturing system. They can be used directly or refined into processed resources.

Processed Resources

Processed resources are the primary materials used in Manufacturing. They are created by combining Raw Resources.

Quality & Cost

There are three levels of quality that apply to both raw and processed resources. Quality 2 resources are twice the base value while Quality 3 resources are three times the base value.

On Manufacturing: A Primer for Game Masters

The decision to introduce manufacturing into your campaign is a strategic one. It shifts the players' relationship with the game world from one of simple consumption to one of production and ownership. While the acquisition of gear through purchase is a functional baseline, manufacturing offers a fundamentally different dynamic, one that builds player investment and creates narrative opportunities.

Self-Sufficiency and Strategic Autonomy
Every credit spent in a market is a thread connecting the players to the existing power structures of your setting. Purchased goods come with strings they can be traced, their supply can be withheld, and their use can be leveraged against the players by merchants, factions, or governments. Manufacturing severs those threads. When players control the entire pipeline, from raw ore to finished product, their capacity to act becomes independent of external goodwill. No one can cut off their supply, dictate the terms of use, or hold their logistics hostage. This autonomy is the foundation upon which long-term, large-scale player initiatives are built.

The Capacity for Scale
The open market is rarely equipped to handle the needs of an insurgency, the arming of a ship's crew, or the stocking of a remote base. Such bulk purchases attract unwanted attention, deplete treasuries at an unsustainable rate, and often simply aren't available. Manufacturing is the solution to the logistics of ambition. It allows players to translate raw material and industrial capacity directly into military or economic power, transforming a few tons of ore into the equipment necessary to project force and secure their position.

Economic Depth and Player Agency
The manufacturing chain is an ecosystem of value. Raw ore is a commodity; refined materials are a more valuable intermediate good; finished products are the highest-value export. This structure allows players to engage with the economy at any level that suits their interests and capabilities. They can specialize in mining, refining, printing, or final assembly. Each stage offers a path to profit, providing a tangible sense of progression and reward as their operation grows from a single printer to a full-scale industrial concern.

Forging Narrative Hooks from Player Investment
When players build something, they create a stake in the world that is far more compelling than any purchased asset. A player-owned factory is not just a source of gear; it is a source of narrative gravity. The printer that breaks requires a perilous journey for a rare replacement part. The successful operation attracts the unwanted attention of a rival corporation. The factory's output makes the players a target for protection rackets or, conversely, a valuable ally for a faction in need of a steady supply line. Their sweat and success in building the operation ensures they will care deeply about its defense, its expansion, and its legacy. You are no longer just running a game about adventurers; you are running a game about owners, industrialists, and the keepers of their own destiny.