The CSCSS Santa Cruz, a passenger, and light cargo vessel is departing from the Achorpoint Station.

Anchorpoint is a bustling space station on the far frontier, the last outpost on the ragged edge of colonized
space. You are among the lucky thirteen people - crew and passengers - making this journey. You each
have your reasons for wanting to be on this ship, which is bound for the prosperous ICSC capital of
Alexandria.

If everything goes smoothly, you are expected to arrive at the core system after 68 days of uneventful
cryo sleep. You look around at your fellow travelers and... you sure hope this goes smoothly.

Scenario Overview
Alien: DOA is a one-shot cinematic adventure for the Alien RPG. It works best with 5-6 players, can be
completed in a single session, and can work well as an introduction to the Alien RPG and setting.

Higher player counts are possible. With multiple GMs, the scenario could accommodate up to 12 or
possibly 15 players. With minimal modification, it could also be inserted into an existing campaign.

Players will choose a pre-generated character from among 13 crew and passengers making the journey -
each of which has their own secrets and personal agenda. On arrival near Alexandria, the characters will
realize the journey has not gone as smoothly as they hoped. One of their fellow travelers is missing and
the characters find themselves in a locked-room mystery that quickly turns to a desperate fight for
survival.

Cast, Crew, and Passengers

The following characters are involved in this adventure. Players should have these images available to
select characters and for reference during the adventure.

Players can choose a character from among crew and passengers. The ICC team members are not
(initially) available as characters. Malcom Alvarez is also not a selectable PC. But you should only
mention that if someone wants to select him.
Story Overview
On Anchorpoint station, a mysterious woman named Monica approached one of the travelers on the
Santa Cruz. We'll call this selected traveler the perpetrator or the perp. The perp was given three syringes
- each of which contained a perishable sample of a different strain of the black oil pathogen. The perp's
instructions were to inject each of them into a different live host. The expectation was that, once injected
into a human host, the pathogen strains would be stable while the infected person remained in cryo. On
arrival, the infected hosts could be slipped past ICC inspectors and then picked up within Alexandria
Station.

On the ship, the perp just needed to wake up while everyone else was still in cryo, inject three of the
travelers with the black oil, and then go back to sleep. On arrival, they could just walk out with the rest. In
exchange, they could keep their secrets, follow their dreams, and have a nice fat payday.

On departing from Anchorpoint, the perp used a local override card to have their cryo-chamber wake
them up after 28 hours. They got up and injected three of their fellow travelers. They concealed the
evidence, tweaked one of the other cryo chambers (to cast suspicion, if needed), turned off the alarms on
the others, and went back to sleep.

One of the people injected was colony scientist Malcom Alvarez. Malcom was injected with a strain
derived from the XX121 xenomorph. They took the Plagiarus bacteria that is typically implanted by a
facehugger, and injected it directly into Malcom. Even in cryo-sleep the pathogen was not as stable as
they expected. Within a few days, the chestburster burst from Malcom and busted out of the cryo
chambers. Not long after that, a full-grown xenomorph returned, scooped up Malcom's remains, and
disappeared back into the maintenance shafts to hide and hibernate, awaiting the sounds and scents of
fresh prey.

Meanwhile, Malcom has been ovomorphing in a quiet corner somewhere on the ship and is now a ripe,
somewhat man-shaped egg.

The other two infected people were not transformed during their journey. The original plan was based on
their rapid transfer onto Alexandria. That plan is quickly unraveling.

Getting Started
Show the players the list of crew and passengers and have them select characters. The full characters
sheets are available for download here. The GM should also be familiar with each of the characters and
their role in the story.

Hand out the character sheets to their respective players. They should keep this information to
themselves.

The players should have access to the Crew and Passenger lists during the game.

CSCSS Santa Cruz is a Hepatica-class starship. The layout is available here*:

The ship layout should be made available to all players.
Santa Cruz has the standard Hepatica configuration, with one modification. This ship does not have a
tractor hitch. Instead, the Tractor Hitch Control has been converted into a passenger cryo bay with
10 cryo pods. This is where the passengers will be traveling. The ship's crew will rest in the forward cryo
area.

There are 4 roles in this scenario that are determined randomly among the travelers. Each of them can be
a PC or NPC. They are:

1. The Perpetrator - This is a person who accepted the deal and who will awaken mid-flight and
infect their fellow passengers.

2. Infected #1 - This person has been injected with a stable pathogen. They will appear infected on
close medical inspection, but will otherwise have minimal effects.

3. Infected #2 - This character will have a neomorph bloodburster rip out of them shortly after
waking from cryo.

4. "Infected" #3 - This character will awaken with a bad case of "cryo-cough". Their sudden
emergence from cryo has left this character with a bad cough that occasionally produces flecks of
blood. Otherwise, they'll be fine and aren't really infected with an alien pathogen.

The third person to receive the pathogen is Malcom Alvarez. He will have died of the chestburster, and
been taken by the resultant xenomorph while everyone else was still in cryo-sleep.

Each of the 4 roles should be determined randomly. Any of the characters (PC or NPC) can be the
perpetrator. Powers and Synthia should (probably) not be among the infected.

Act I: Up and Away

The scenario begins just prior to departure on Anchorpoint Station. The crew is getting the ship ready for
departure and the passengers are boarding.

Give each player chance to introduce their character and describe their activities as everyone is boarding
this ship. Describe the NPCs and what they are up to. Give everyone time for some brief interactions as
the ship gets ready for departure.

Departure from Anchorpoint goes smoothly. Soon everyone will be asked to proceed to their cryo pod.
Synthia will do the rounds to make sure everyone is settled in. And then everyone enters cryo for the
journey.
Act I Interlude
While the characters are in cryo-sleep the GM should meet privately with each player.

During these meetings, you can discuss any aspects of the character and their secret agenda. Each PC
who has been selected for one of our 4 special roles should get additional information:

1. The Perpetrator - the person will learn that they are the perpetrator. You can tell them about their
meeting with Monica and decide on their motivation and the terms of the arrangement.

The perpetrator will have received a credit-card-sized override card that they inserted into their
cryo-chamber. After departure, while everyone else was asleep, they were awakened. They
opened the cryo chambers of the 3 people to be infected and gave them the injections.

The player has no choice in this. It's already happened. They can decide what they did with the
syringes afterward. Starships are designed so that nothing can be ejected from them while under
FTL.

If the perpetrator is among the crew or infecting one of the crew, they will have noticed that
Synthia is sleeping in one of the crew's cryo pods.

After performing the injections, the perpetrator returns to their cryo pod and prepares to awaken
with everyone else on arrival.

2. Infected #1 - During cryo sleep this person experiences terrible nightmares. They have dreams of
black worms crawling under their skin They will wake up with +2 stress.

3. Infected #2 - This character will wake up feeling a little off. Maybe they are feeling bloated and
have a little tightness in their chest. A neomorph will burst out of them (killing them) in Act II. But
you don't need to tell them about that now.

4. "Infected" #3 - Tell this player that their character will awaken with a bad cough. Their sudden
emergence from cryo has left this character with a bad cough that occasionally produces flecks of
blood. Otherwise, they'll be fine. They aren't really infected with an alien pathogen. But you don't
need to tell them about that now.

Once the GM has met with each of the players, we can move to the arrival at Alexandria to begin Act II.

Act II: Scene I: Rude Awakening

While the travelers on the CSCSS Santa Cruz were sleeping, the chestburster ripped out of Malcom
Alvarez. It smashed and melted it's way out the cryotube and ran off to hide in the ship. In time, it grew to
adulthood. Since it could still smell his copse, it decided to come back and snatch Malcom's body from
the cryo chamber. The xenomorph found a quiet spot to ovomorph poor Malcom, and retreated to the ship
superstructure to await fresh prey.
The shattered cryo chamber and a missing person will be the scene that greets the travelers as they
awaken.

The ship will have largely completed it's journey, have spun down from FTL, and be on approach to
Alexandria when the first characters awaken. Kathleen Ripton and Synthia will be the first to awaken.
Synthia always sets her own pod to awaken before the others so that she can pretend to have been
awake the entire time. Whether accidentally, or intentionally, the perpetrator set Kathleen's pod to open a
little early.

This scene can play out a little differently, depending on if Synthia or Ripton are PCs, but Kathleen will
wake up and see the shattered cryo-chamber. Her first priority is Madeline's safety. She'll grab some
clothes, and possibly her pistol, and then go to the cryo controls and try to awaken the other travelers.

Synthia will awaken in the crew cryo-chamber. She may see some warning lights on the cryo console or
otherwise go check on the passengers. She'll come upon Ripon at the cryo-controls and see the smashed
and bloody chamber. Ripton will activate the emergency cryo awakening procedure for everyone on the
ship. (If Ripton is interrupted or doesn't try to wake everyone, Synthia or MU/TH/UR should do it).

Emergency premature wake up from cryo-sleep is very unpleasant. Each character should make a
stamina check. Everyone who fails takes a point of damage (and an associated point of stress) from the
overly rapid awakening process.

The characters will all awaken with the crew and passengers in their respective rooms. The passengers
will all see the shattered cryo-chamber. Everyone will begin the process of sorting out what's happened
and begin to decide what to do about it.

Act II: Scene II: The Hunt

The process of investigating the scene and sorting out what's going on is the heart of the adventure. This
can play out very differently, depending on which characters are PCs, and what their roles are. In all
cases, the PCs should take center stage. The NPCs can contribute but should be generally in the
background.

The following character notes assume the character is an NPC. They could also be guides and
suggestions for PCs playing these characters.

Joanna Franks: On approaching Alexandria the ship will be contacted by ICC. The ship will not be
allowed to dock and risks ICC quarantine with something as suspicious as a mysterious missing person.
Franks will spend her time at the bridge trying to smooth things over with ICC. She will deputize a PC to
lead the investigation. She will insist that everything needs to be sorted out and that they absolutely have
their story straight before the ICC arrives.

Synthia: Synthia might face questions about why she was unaware of what was going on in the ship
during the trip. She will never admit to being on cryo-sleep and will deflect or insist she never left the
bridge.
Cole Beckford: If Beckford is an NPC, he will tell people that he was fired from his marshal's job.
Somebody else will have to sort this out.

Lucia Alvarez: Lucia is horrified by her father's disappearance. She has a cutting torch in her bag and
will use it as she demands an explanation. She'll insist her father is found. If interrogated, Lucia will say
that her father was a botanist who worked with grain on Terraform 3. Lucia is confident that he wasn't
involved with anything like this. She swears he was fine before getting onto the ship.

Dr. Benson Powers: Dr. Power's priority is protecting his secret. He definitely wants to avoid ICC or other
scrutiny. He'll want to destroy himself before risking exposure. Things like floating off into space,
decapitation, or other measures that would be sufficient for silencing a human are insufficient for a synth
that wants to ensure that it's memory can never be accessed. Dr. Powers is designed as an infiltration
unit and is able to simulate cryo-sleep. He may or may not have some awareness of what transpired while
everyone was asleep.

Joshua Hines: Joshua Hines is on this ship to track someone smuggling alien pathogens. He's the least
surprised by what's happened and will smugly accuse the corporate types (Vickers, Ming, and Ripton) of
infecting passengers, messing with forces they can't comprehend, and endangering them all to make a
profit. He expects they were trying to slip xenomorphic materials past ICC quarantine in live hosts. He'll
also claim that Malcom is certainly still alive. He is transformed and reborn!

Hines is mostly correct. He is also pretty crazy. People might not trust or believe him. Joshua's top priority
is making sure alien substances don't fall into corporate (or ICC) hands. In the conflict between the aliens
and humans, he'll be on the side of the aliens.

Madeline Ming and Kathleen Ripton: Madeline has rented one of the quarters in the living area as her
personal room. She will want to retreat there with Kathleen while this is all sorted out. If left alone, the two
of them are pretty easy prey for the neomorph

Additional Evidence:
In addition to information gained from interrogating people, there is some physical evidence of what has
transpired. Most of these should require an observation/investigation, comtech, or another check to
determine the amount of information that can be gained.

Malcom's Cryo-Tube: The cryo-tube is made of thick rugged plastic. It would require considerable
strength to break in or out of it. There is old, dried blood spattered on the inside. The pattern of shattered
glass suggests that something broke out and that something smashed in. Some acid scoring can be
found on some of the melted plastic.

Other Cryo-Tubes: The cryo hardware override card can (likely) still be found in the perpetrator's tube. In
addition, the cryo-tubes are equipped with alarms. Synthia will insist they were all activated originally.
They have all been turned off.

Passenger Cryo Room: Some scratching and acid scoring can be found near a small ventilation vent.
Within the ceiling super-structure and larger vents, there can be found old, dried blood smears.
MU/TH/UR: The ship is not equipped with internal cameras or active motion sensors. MU/TH/UR would
have records of the 4 cryo-chambers that were opened early in the flight (the perpetrator and 3 infected -
including Malcom). The precise order they were opened might not be available.

Medical Examination: A medical aid check can reveal if someone has or hasn't been infected with the
alien pathogen.

Clever players (and/or good rolls) might discover other useful information.

Finding Malcom
At some point, the players are likely to go looking for Malcom. His ovomorphing corpse is tucked away in
one of the smaller rooms or access shafts on Deck B of the ship. Which room he's in is left up the GM.
You can decide beforehand. Or when you feel it's dramatically useful, you can have him be found
wherever people happen to be looking.

It's best if the characters have had time to do some investigation and speculation before they find
Malcom's body. During the past few weeks, he's been turned into a xenomorph egg sack. When found, he
will be curled up in a very uncomfortable-looking fetal position, and have a massively distended chest and
stomach, almost like he is pregnant.

Malcom is quite dead. His body is now a xenomorph egg. If anyone gets close (like to check if he's
deceased) his stomach will peel open and a facehugger will pounce on the nearest person.

Anyone fully caught in the facehugger's embrace will fall unconscious and be on the path the burst a
chestburster of their own.

Birthing a Neomorph
The character chosen as infected #2 is doomed to give birth to a neomorph. If it's a PC you could,
periodically, subject them to a 10 dice attack (each success does 1 damage) opposed by their stamina. If
they are broken then the neomorph bloodburster will pop out.

Alternatively, you can provide a few warning signs, but then just have the bloodburster come out at a
narratively convenient time. The bloodburster will rip out it's host (killing them). It will make a rapid dash to
hide somewhere and grow.

The bloodburster will quickly grow into a juvenile neomorph and return to stalk the characters.

The neomorph birth can happen at any time. The best time is probably around when Malcom's body is
discovered. Multiple things going very wrong at the same time should ratchet up the tension.

By the end of Act 2, the players should have done some investigation and may have a sense they have a
betrayer among them. They will have encountered a facehugger and there is likely a juvenile neomorph
staking them.
Act III: Coming Home to Roost

Through all of this, there has been a mature xenomorph drone hiding on the ship. Characters might have
seen some evidence of it's existence. Maybe someone caught a glimpse of it, found some black resin, or
it's picked off an alone NPC. Mostly, the main xenomorph can stay in hiding until the third act.

Once the egg has been found, and the neomorph is born, then the main alien can emerge. How you want
to use the main alien is up to you. They do like to stalk lone people or small groups. Once it emerges, it
should begin to rapidly pursue the remaining characters. The xenomorph and neomorph can also attack
different groups of characters at the same time.

The characters should quickly find themselves in a desperate fight for survival that is the core of Act III.
They will also have their personal agendas and a betrayer to contend with. How this all plays out can vary
considerably between groups.

The neomorph and xenomorph are not friends. They will attack one another on sight. But they might
prefer to hunt the characters.

Additional Information

What's On the Ship

The precise contents of each room on the ship are deliberately ambiguous. You can have characters
make a survival roll to find something in particular. An observation check might yield a useful clue. But,
unless otherwise noted, the contents of particular rooms are up to you, or unimportant.

Armory

The only weapon in the armory is the captain's 12-gauge shotgun and a box of shells. Normally, the
shotgun is locked in place with an electric lock.

Escape Pods

The ship is equipped with 2 class B Type 20 EEVs. Each of these has seats for two people.

Cargo Bay

There are 7 cargo shipping containers in the cargo bay. The crew will all know about them. Passengers
might have seen them during boarding as well.
The containers are:

● 3 refrigerated containers labeled with a logo from Carvalho's Cuts. They are packed with sides of
beef from Terraform 3.
● 2 standard shipping containers from Weyland-Yutani. These are sealed tight. They contain
mineral samples and barrels of black crude oil.
● 2 climate-controlled containers from Lasalle Bionational. These contain Madeline Ming's
"biological samples" which are high-yield cold-weather tomatoes.

All of the shipping companies, and especially W-Y and Bionational, would have contract clauses that state
that their shipping containers will not be opened or disturbed during transport. Crew members would all
be aware of these clauses and know that the financial penalties for breaching them can be quite severe.

ICC Inspectors
When the ICC hears about the irregularities with the ship, they will not permit docking at Alexandria
station. Instead, they will direct the ship to a position away from the station and send a shuttle to meet
them.

The ICC should be used to create time pressure on the ship. Several characters (Franks, Powers,
Synthia, Oleg, Qing, the perpetrator...) really do not want to be subject to ICC scrutiny. There should be
pressure to sort things out and the arrival of the ICC team should not be seen by many as a source of
relief or rescue.

The precise arrival time of the ICC should be vague, likely "in a few hours". They may not actually arrive
at all during the session. They should only appear if that would usefully complicate things for the players
or if you are running out of living characters for your players to play.

Synths and Secrets

Benson Powers is secretly a synth. And Synthia is secretly not actually a synth. You'll want to give them
the opportunity to preserve their secrets, and so may need to fudge some mechanics accordingly.

Powers does not need to accumulate stress. But he can fake it. He can track stress as normal and even
roll stress dice on ability checks. He can voluntarily comply with panic table results. But he can also
choose to ignore them. He can not gain successes from fake stress dice.

If he wishes to, Powers can also choose to roll fewer base dice than allowed (to conceal his abilities). And
he can choose to replace base dice with stress dice. In those cases he would still get the stress dice
successes, and panicking would be voluntary.

Synthia has the opposite problem. She accumulates stress like other humans. But she is good at hiding it.
Until Synthia accumulates 4 stress, she can't roll a meaning full result on the panic table. So, she can roll
base dice instead of stress dice and will never panic. If she tries an ability check with 4 or more stress,
then she can no longer hide it and must roll normal stress dice (still with the -2 modifier on the Panic Table
from her Nerves of Steel talent).
Synthia finds the act of mimicking a fearless synth to be very therapeutic. While she remains calm and
behaves like a proper synth she can lose a point of stress every turn.

Hull Breach
Gunfire is especially dangerous on a spaceship as you really don't want holes in the side of your ship.
Any missed or panic-induced shots in the direction of the ship exterior have a chance of breaching the
hull. In those cases, roll the ship's armor rating (5) vs the base damage of the weapon. A single point of
pass-through damage will make a small hole. If more than one point of damage gets through, the hole will
be substantially larger. This will likely result in explosive decompression of the chamber and everything
and everyone in it will risk being sucked into the cold vacuum of space.

Xenomorph acid will have a similar effect. If the xenomorph is damaged or destroyed roll it's acid splash
rating (8) vs the ship's armor. The acid can pass through multiple decks.

Xeno-induced Malfunction (Optional)

The xenomorph has been crawling around in the ship's superstructure for weeks. It could easily have
damaged a few things. The characters could wake up a few cases of Minor Component Damage (p. 198).

Character Count
Even before the ICC arrives, this scenario involves 12 different characters, each with their own agendas
and personalities. GMs who have concerns about juggling all those NPCs will probably want to reduce
that count. Free free to decide that a few of the less involved characters decided not to make the trip.

Character Death
The scenario is meant to be deadly. Characters will die. NPCs can certainly disappear or meet some
grisly end. If a PC is killed or otherwise broken beyond use, you can let them mourn for a bit. Then have
them select from among the remaining characters and give them someone new to play.

What's the Real Story

Exactly who is behind this attempt to slip alien pathogens into Alexandria is deliberately left as a mystery,
Monica's employer might also change depending on the chosen perpetrator.

As for where the pathogen came from, that is also a mystery. But, if you want to include these events in a
broader narrative, it is certainly possible that the materials found on the USCSS Chronos found their way
to Anchorpont Station.

* The Hepatica ship specifications were created by Staffan Guildevall and are available on Facebook.
Thanks to Staffan for creating such a cool and useful ship design.