Sergei & The Ghosts From Space

"The ghosts from space have burrowed in my face."
- Darkest of the Hillside Thickets, "Space Ghosts"

To play Sergei & The Ghosts From Space you're going to want to print out at least one of each of each side of the bookmark that it's printed on. You're also going to want a d20, a bunch of d6, and some scrap paper and writing implements.

My challenge here is not to write MANY more words to describe & explain Sergei than actually went into its writing. If the game could fit on two sides of a bookmark, in a more perfect world it would take only a business card to describe it but here goes. 

One player takes on the role of Sergei. Everything that player gets to know about the game is on the "Sergei Side" of the bookmark. Each other player takes on the role of a Malign Influence (MI) and all they get to know about the game is on the "Ghosts" side of the bookmark. Sergei gets to choose his Role in the crew and to name the Crew Members not already named, assign Traits to all crew members (himself included) w/o pre-assigned Traits  and roll for what the Phobos' weakness is. Meanwhile, the MIs roll to determine or select their Power (different for each MI), their Fell Purpose, True Nature and Secret Weakness (shared among them).

Neither side gets to see the other side's card, which contains the rest of the info needed to play the game, so the players must, in that sense, cooperate to figure the game out, even as the Ghosts cooperate amongst each other to kill the crew and take permanent psychic control of Sergei, whose player competes with them.

Clarifications On The Crew: First off, Sergei can of course instead be female--his distaff counterpart  is named Natasha. The Sergei player roleplays as Sergei at all times he is not under direct control, and as every Crew Member except for Dr. Wu when the MIs are interacting with those Crew Members. The Ghosts players control the Crew 'NPCs' when Sergei is interacting with them, but must "play fairly" in this aspect of their role as "GM"...with the notable exception of any crew members they have possessed. 

The pre-named crew members (except for Sergei/Natasha), the comatose captain and Dr. Wu, can be renamed and otherwise altered in subsequent games. They are just named and defined as jumping-off points for the shotgun start of the first session.  The name Sergei/Natasha and the name of the ship, Phobos, are meant to be constants.

Game/Session Length/Replay Factor:
One game of Sergei & The Ghosts From Space can be completed in one game session of approximately 3-4 hours, or spread out into multiple sessions. A lack of playtest data means I'm uncertain but I would doubt that the game can sustain a campaign of more than 4 or so sessions, and I would guess an average group will spend two sessions on it.

It might be fun to replay the game,  giving each player a chance to be Sergei.

How To Start: Start the game with Sergei regaining control of himself in his space suit somewhere on the outer hull of the ship, doing EVA repairs (or "repairs"). He does not remember how he got there or what he is supposed to be doing, and this is not his first experience of "lost time".

Notes To Visual Artists & Game Publishing Aesthetes

Yes, I am aware of all of the artifacts in the text on the Ghosts sign of the car and how hideous the overall effect is (I made the black background translucent but enclosed portions of letters like P and D still have solid black in the "middle")...

A) This project just doesn't warrant me taking the time to individually fix all of those hundreds of messed up ugly letters.

B) I have actually come to think that the janky-ass text has a certain charm to it.

Art by Monica Garnega & Bruce Warrington

"Hellmet" Photography by Levi Stute, Luke Southern

Add'l Art & Graphic Design by Devon Oratz