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The Ship — design canon (Palimpsest campaign)

Status: Design canon for art + table use. Feeds ship exterior/interior art and top-down battlemaps. Ship: Verdigris (the green patina on aged metal — a junker and a living thing) Registry: VRD-7 Last updated: 2026-07-18

Concept in one line

A beat-up mid-size transport that is secretly an oasis of life in a dead sky — plants everywhere, a greenhouse for a heart — because in this universe magic comes from life, and space has none.

The magic-in-space rule (core canon)

Party implications (built-in tension):

• Ivan — primary pilot and long gun; strongest in the dead void where mana throttles everyone else.
• Elias — technomage / ship engineer; keeps fusion and life support alive; arcane throttled in deep space unless the garden holds.
• Talyra (Karthunai shaman) — chef, botanist, nurse, backup pilot; grows the ship's mana; powered-armor armorer when the job goes loud.

Scale & class

• Size reference: roughly Serenity (Firefly, ~82 m) / the Bebop — a mid-size working transport, crew of ~3–6, not a warship, not a fighter.
• Registry: VRD-7 · CHC II · ~72 H-tons · ~200 displacement-tons · legal crew minimum 3.
• Read: "used future" — patched, mismatched hull plating, weathered paint, functional not sleek. A workhorse with character.
• Distinctive silhouette: a glass greenhouse dome/blister on the dorsal (top) spine, glowing warm green — the one obvious spot of life against the void. This is the ship's signature; nothing else in the sky looks like it.
• Decks: three.

Ship systems, quality & rebuilding

Verdigris now has a complete engineering record in SHIP-SYSTEMS-QUALITY.md. Every subsystem uses three independent ratings:

• Capability 0–6 — what the system can do when it works.
• Build Quality — Improvised, Utility, Certified, Precision, or Exceptional.
• Condition — Failed, Failing, Worn, Serviceable, Sound, or Fresh.

Do not average those into a whole-ship score. Verdigris is a mismatched working vessel: standard drive and cargo capability, basic sensors and life support, improvised living-space and garden retrofits, worn structure, and two empty hardpoints. The mismatches are the useful part.

Verdigris quick profile

Numerical engineering values not already locked remain Unsurveyed. That includes reactor MW, cargo tonnage, armor thickness, hardpoint arcs, radiator area, tank map, and escape capacity.

Build or refit another vessel with SHIP-BUILDER.md. It covers new construction, upgrades, survey depth, retrofit scope, tool packages, shipyard levels R0–R5, commissioning, time, and cost.

Drive & FTL

In-system: fusion torch (canon = reaction drive)

Model (canon): The Verdigris moves on a fusion torch — the reactor heats reaction mass and throws it out the nozzle. This is a real reaction drive, not a Traveller "reactionless" M-drive. Fuel is a tracked resource (that's the whole point — it feeds the broke-crew economy). See ECONOMY-AND-UPKEEP.md for the ₡ lines.

Two fuels, one gauge:

Verdigris drive stats (canon):

The core decision every transit — coast vs. torch:

• Coast — short burns at each end, long drift between. Cheap, slow (days–weeks). Default for a broke hauler.
• Torch — continuous thrust, flip at midpoint, burn the whole way. Fast (days), eats fuel and ₡. For when the bounty has a clock.

Time is set by thrust, not a "top speed." In space the engine gives you acceleration; the tank gives you a delta-v budget (total velocity change = your real range). Continuous-burn (brachistochrone) time ≈ 2 × √(distance ÷ acceleration). At 1 G a ~0.5 AU hop is ~2 days; a 5 AU cross-system run is ~6.4 days. At the Verdigris's 0.5 G cruise, multiply by ~1.4. Double your G and trips get ~1.4× faster (diminishing returns — cheap ships stay viable). You never "hit a top speed"; you run out of fuel to keep burning.

High-speed stress (table rule). Cruise (0.5 G) is free on the frame. Push harder and the flight-linked d100 maintenance rolls (hull, engine room, cockpit, cargo) climb: 0.6–0.9 G = +10, 1.0–1.4 G = +20, and ≥1.5 G redlines the hull = guaranteed damage (skip the routine band, roll 75–100, +1 Wear automatic). Speed you can buy; the bill comes due on the damage charts. Full procedure + weapon/fuel lines: GM panel → Verdigris → maint-verdigris-fuel-weapon-cheat-sheet (mirror of this doc).

Between stars: Concord gates (+ rare legacy jump)

• Concord gates. The Verdigris has NO onboard jump drive. Like ~every civilian hull in 2277, she can't cross the dark on her own — she pays the tariff, queues at the ring, and folds gate-to-gate at ~1 minute per light-year (near-instant). Then she still crosses the destination system sublight (the torch section above) to reach the actual job. Her H-ton tanks are rated for gate cycles + in-system margin, not private star-jumps.
• Onboard jump drives still exist — but they're specialist kit, not civilian: treaty navies (strategic mobility off the toll road) and survey scouts (jumping to ungated stars to map new gate sites) run them; a handful of pre-ring legacy relics survive. Concord keeps them off the civilian market and scraps strays to protect the gate toll (normal capitalism, not a cackling plot). Even ships that have a jump drive prefer the gate — cheaper, easier, far faster (minutes vs. a week in jumpspace). The Traveller / IW jump-drive rules stay in canon. A loose jump ship = off-grid travel with no gate logs = a plot object (smuggler gold, legal nightmare, everyone's target). Full write-up: SHIP-CLASSES-AND-REGISTRY.md → Jump drives.

Hardpoints & armament (Traveller / IW)

Status: Table canon. GURPS 4e at the table; Traveller: Interstellar Wars hull rules for mounts (Gaming-Books/GURPS/GURPS - 4th Edition - Traveller - Interstellar Wars.md, Starship Design / Turret Weapons).

Hardpoint rule (canon): A hull gets one hardpoint per full 100 displacement-tons of internal volume. Displacement-tons are not the registry H-tons on the plaque — H-tons are the Concord fuel-volume index (see SHIP-CLASSES-AND-REGISTRY.md). Each hardpoint carries one turret; you can wire a hardpoint at build and leave the turret empty until you can afford — or legally justify — a gun. (IW also allows a stricter surface-area method — base hull area × config modifier — if we ever want engineering-grade precision. The per-100-tons rule is canon for the table.)

Verdigris: ~200 displacement-tons of hull (≈82 m LOA) → 2 hardpoints. Currently 0 turrets mounted — she is unarmed but hardpoint-capable. Up to two turrets fit without a refit; a third means a yard cut into cargo/structure and a displacement bump (GM may rule her 300 dt → 3 if a story wants it).

Turret types (IW)

Weapons that fit a light turret (civilian-plausible)

(Exact per-weapon MW and ₡ get locked from IW Turret Weapons Table, p.194, when we stat a real loadout — flagged so a garbled OCR figure never freezes into canon.)

> Weapons draw power, not fuel (canon). Energy weapons don't burn a trackable amount of fuel — they consume reactor OUTPUT (MW). The fusion plant's endurance is measured in years (Traveller/IW), so firing a laser doesn't dent the fuel gauge. What guns actually cost you is MW headroom: the plant must cover maneuver + weapons at once, or you're underpowered and the crew has to choose what to run (burn hard OR fire the beam laser — not both). Missiles/sandcasters cost cargo tonnage (ammo), not power. The only star-crossing fuel bill is the jump drive's hydrogen — which the Verdigris doesn't have.

What guns cost the Verdigris (the real tradeoffs)

1. Cargo: every turret eats 1–2 internal spaces straight out of the hold; missile magazines eat more (ammo is tonnage). An armed Verdigris hauls less.
2. Power (MW headroom, not fuel): energy weapons pull MW off the same fusion plant the technomage taps with Draw Power/TL (see KHESRET-MAGIC-AND-ENCHANTMENT.md / GURPS Magic p.180). Fire the beam laser and the mage's safe-conduction headroom shrinks that turn — guns and magic compete for one reactor. Under the vivified/lossy Draw-Power ruling (canon — see magic doc), the mage's draw is also the one thing that burns measurable feedstock, so a hot fight where the gunner and the mage both lean on the core costs power AND a fuel bite.
3. Credits: turret + weapon + yard install + annual ship-weapon registration — heavier than the personal long-arm line in ECONOMY-AND-UPKEEP.md.
4. Legal heat: a CHC II civilian transport with live turrets is a customs flag — scans, higher gate scrutiny, "purpose of armament" paperwork, and (like an over-cap Life-Cell) manifest-felony exposure if undeclared in a tight port. Flying unarmed is part of why the Verdigris flies quiet.

Design intent: workhorse, not a gunship. Canon default = 2 hardpoints, both empty. The story upgrade is a sandcaster + missile rack (cheap, low-power, defensible) when jobs turn dangerous — not a beam laser that starves both the mage and the cargo manifest.

Deck layout (3 decks)

Deck A — Top / Dorsal

• Cockpit / Bridge (forward) — pilot + co-seat, wraparound viewport.
• Greenhouse / Mana-Garden (dorsal aft, under the glass dome) — lush, overgrown, humid; the shaman's domain and the ship's magical heart.
• Garden service interface — access and environmental trunks are confirmed; exact pressure-door and crawlway geometry is Unsurveyed.

Deck B — Main / Living

• Common Room / Galley (amidships) — the heart of crew life; mismatched furniture, kitchen, the "wagon" equivalent — where the group gathers.
• Elias's Berth (port) — sleep, research, technomantic work, and experiments nobody insured.
• Talyra's Berth / Armor Bay (starboard former double berth) — raised frame, armor morgue, diagnostic bench, herbs, cool-pelts, garden access.
• Ivan's Berth (aft) — weapons bench, rifle rack, exercise fittings, entertainment, and the strongest local Null bleed.
• Medical Bay (midline) — cracked human-calibrated auto-surgeon, manual trauma care, monitors, expired stores, and Talyra's herb shelf.
• Head / washroom — confirmed; fixtures, recovery capacity, Karthun accommodation, and exact location remain Unsurveyed.
• Jarvis's charging alcove — beside the galley stores.
• Pressure divisions and escape routes — not yet mapped. Do not invent them until the battlemap or keel survey establishes them.

Deck C — Lower / Working

• Engine Room (aft) — the drive, wiring, the guts. Normal fusion tech — mundane engineering, NO plants, NO magic-tech. Gritty industrial. (Magic lives in the greenhouse, not the reactor.)
• Cargo Hold — mag-clamps, nets, overhead crane, loader tug, and tight CHC II mass headroom.
• Aft ramp / pressure interface — cargo and personnel access; exact docking-collar and lock geometry is Unsurveyed.
• Storage / ship systems — confirmed volume, but tank boundaries, bus trunks, pump rooms, and locker count remain Unsurveyed.
• Lower sump / machinery access — visible below the engine-room rail; full drainage and coolant routing remain Unsurveyed.

(Exact room adjacency gets finalized on the top-down battlemap pass.)

Crew (the players) — quarters reflect them

Visual reference: the hero poster (images/scifi-site/hero/). Crew maps left→center→right.

1. Elias — technomage / ship engineer

• Poster: left human — wild dark hair, pistol, red-lined coat.
• Ship role: Engineer — fusion drive, life support, field patches, maintenance d100; not primary pilot.
• Magic: life-fueled arcane + tech; throttled in deep space (needs the greenhouse).
• Backstory: Infant delivery via Jarvis courier bot; Aldith drills; Navy with Ivan; Verdigris loan — see ELIAS-BACKGROUND.md.
• Room vibe: cluttered, chaotic-genius — chalk sigils, schematics, half-finished experiments, notes pinned everywhere, a dead plant he keeps forgetting to water (running gag / mana anxiety), scorch marks. Barely-contained energy.

2. Talyra — Karthunai shaman (chef · botanist · nurse · backup pilot)

• Poster: center — towering female Karthunai, silver fur, etched plate.
• Ship roles: Chef (galley), botanist (mana-garden), nurse (medbay), backup pilot (co-seat); also grows ship mana and maintains powered armor.
• Magic: herbalist shaman; keeper of the greenhouse.
• Crew history (shared only): Joined when dome was failing — crew/talyra background; pre-crew history = player-authored.
• Species tech: Karthunai build the best powered armor in this arm of the galaxy — masters of close-quarters combat through technological superiority. Warrior-engineer as much as shaman.
• Room vibe: tech-heavy — a powered-armor rack/exo-frame stands in her cabin, an armorer's workbench with tools, diagnostic panels/HUD screens, spare plating and servos. But it's fused with her soul: drying herbs, carved bowls, a single well-tended plant, Karthun cool-pelts over the bunk (ice-republic bedding that wicks heat — human ships run too warm for her). Calm order with an undercurrent of "do not test me." High-tech armory meets herbalist sanctuary. Likely adjacent to / opens toward the greenhouse.

3. Ivan — Null pilot / sniper

• Poster: right human — dreads, rifle, gold chain, duster.
• Ship role: Primary pilot; sniper and muscle on jobs.
• Ability: Grounding Null (II) — no magic; touch drains and pops active magic. No Wither/Anchor bubble.
• Crew history (shared only): Met Elias on Navy destroyer — crew/ivan background; pre-crew history = player-authored.
• Null bleed: Plants don’t thrive ~3 m from where he sleeps — greenhouse d100 +5 if he bunks adjacent to the dome (not a no-mana zone).
• Bloodline: Family from Harrowdeep Claim (TR-B-774) in Torchless Reach — ungated dead lane, no Concord jump. Mine cohort → 100% Null lineage; diaspora on Khesret. GM cards lore-torchless-reach, poi-harrowdeep-claim.
• Room vibe: disciplined but vain — rifle broken down and immaculate on a rack, workout gear, trophies, mirror, souvenirs from conquests (of all kinds), a good bottle. The one clean room on a plant-choked ship (plants don't grow as well near a null — Null bleed, not a bubble).

Art deliverables (generate one at a time, review each)

Style note: interiors + exterior use the painterly-cinematic house style (matches the intro cinematic — these are "real places" you look into), not the bold poster style (that's branding/marquee only). Battlemaps are a separate top-down orthographic mode for table use.

Save location: WCP_Website/images/scifi-site/ship/

Open decisions

• [ ] Match the intro cinematic's landing-pad junker, or design fresh? (intro may be cut — leaning fresh)
• [ ] Any 4th+ crew berth to leave open for a future player?
• [ ] Complete keel survey: pressure zones, tank map, radiator layout, hardpoint arcs, docking collar, and escape capacity.

Economy & upkeep (table)

Verdigris is an old Class II transport — gate fees, parking, registry, bounty licenses, and two d100 charts (hull + greenhouse) are built to keep the crew broke but flying. The dorsal garden is a weekly ₡650+ sink and the mage's mana battery; neglect hits the wallet and spell power.