Introduction

Welcome to Blue Shift, an RPG set in a strange, far-away future junkyard where mutations, nanotechnology, and random dumb luck create interesting creatures, plants, and machines. The game itself is meant to be played as an amalgamation of short scenes, each a half hour or less, and it is both comical and absurd. Think Heavy Metal meets Futurama.

"Bioluminescence" by Kris Williams is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

You'll need at least two players to play – one of whom will be the Gamemaster (GM). Because of some details in character creation, the recommended number of players is four or more to help create richer stories.

As far as tools go, you'll need:

 •	Index cards or paper for each player
 •	Pencils, pens, or other writing implements
 •	Polyhedral Dice – A traditional set (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20, d100) will lead to more interesting rolls, but a handful of d6 dice will work if that's all you have.
 •	Fate Dice – If you don't have Fate Dice available, see What can I use in place of Fudge Dice?

Finally, for added inspiration, you may want to spend a few minutes browsing the following links. If the GM is preparing for the story ahead of time, these are also great sources for ideas and handouts.

 •	https://www.reddit.com/r/HybridAnimals/top/
 •	https://www.reddit.com/r/SpeculativeEvolution/top/

Welcome to Tau Ceti X

For as long as there has been industry, mankind has struggled with waste. How do we make less? What are the health impacts of having it around? And where do we keep it? In the earth's 21st century, disposal typically involved burying it in the ground. 

When man finally took to the stars, the problem only multiplied. Waste became more radioactive, volatile, and deadly. But it turned out that aliens, from those that looked like us to those with arsenic-based DNA, hadn't found a magical solution to the problem either. Instead, they had simply come to an accord.

Tau Ceti X was selected as the intergalactic landfill. The nearest habitable planet had been bombed to pieces during a lengthy war and the solar system was plagued with unexploded munitions. All in all, it made the area undesirable and avoided the universal “Not in My Backyard” reaction.

That pact, made in the distant past, has held to this day. Every species has sent their waste there for countless generations, resulting in a vast collection of stuff. No one gave it a second thought until a few decades ago when, overnight, the entire planet shown blue in the night sky.

A bloom of algae, meters thick and as dense as custard, had flourished in a matter of hours and coated everything. But the sudden emergence of life didn't stop there. Complex life forms, from highly organized colonies of dust mites to mounds of semi-sentient garbage, suddenly sprung up. 

Trees, towering as tall as skyscrapers, grew various vegetables previously only known to grow underground. Pigs, blessed with massive wasp wings, gorged happily without ever touching the ground. Metal-fused vines, guided by their own will instead of simply growing towards the sun, grew into lightning-catching webs that let them power old video displays that continuously play ancient Earth musicals.

Simply put, everything came together after the Blue Shift. 

And now, the planet has colonies, warlords, fiefdoms and, well, civilization. There's people who care about Tau Ceti X – after all, it is their backyard. But the other species aren't quite ready to find a new place to put their garbage.
Where Characters Come From

Empires whose technology verged on the magical, who had mastered the art of assembling and reassembling matter, bent the universe around them. On one world, a bacteria was engineered to turn toxic synthetic oils into flowers. Another society selectively bred its people to more readily respond to the most common medical treatments, lowering healthcare costs. This breeding led to overactive sebaceous glands, but greasy hair was a small price to pay.

But what happens when a freighter full of oily corpses is dropped into a flourishing colony of that eager bacteria? Living tissues that never would have combined if not for the garbage mound combined from far flung planets.

Enter accountant Stanmek Lobacum. The original Stan had come from a great dystopian empire that had encoded his genetic structure and muscle memories on to a few pieces of light, ready to clone him if he ever got out of line. But that data chip had been smuggled off world by a radical liberation group in a shipment of day old food the government thought was better discarded than donated. On Tau Ceti X, that little bit of Stan met a discarded last-gen nano-computer. The nano-computer, desperate to be useful again, found an autonomous birth sac that had been used to grow super-soldiers for a long forgotten border skirmish. The AI loaded Stanmek's data into the birthing sac and then set about feeding it organic compounds as the child grew. It started with tiny things, like insects and plants, but eventually resorted to the decaying corpses of mutant animals. And thus, a copy of Stanmek Lobacum was created, an accountant pumped full of super-soldier steroids, mutated to camouflage with metal like the wiliest octopus.

But it didn't end there. 

Other societies had created more insidious methods of control. Stanmek, upon being hatched, heard a subliminal jingle that invaded his brain and told him what he must do next: become a talk show host. That was his destiny.
Character Creation

Your character is a fledgling creation of the Blue Shift. Your character is powerful or skilled in their own right, new to a strange world, and (relatively) mortal. 

Spend a few minutes picking two disjointed creations that a space-faring society might discard. You might pick something topical today, like advanced chemicals to fight wildfires, and something mythical from sci-fi or fantasy literature, like a genetically-engineered fish that is a peel-and-eat sushi roll: “The banana of the sea!”

Think about the sentient creature that would be created if those two things mixed in the primordial soup where DNA, magic, and good luck come together.

Once you have an idea, take out a note card and write down a name for your character. Follow that with two traits. Each trait is a one word descriptor that can be applied to your character, followed by a sentence or two that explains the technology that led to that trait and/or the impact it has on your character's life or body.

Example

Banana “Anna” Hana

Gel – Anna is part experimental, now banned, fire retardant made by the Phos-Arsenic corporation. It makes her body semi-translucent and extremely mailable.  
Aquatic – Part fish, Anna is a natural swimmer and relies on a heavily customized SCUBA setup to walk around.

Once everyone at the table has written down these three details, go around and introduce the characters. Knowing who is involved will be important for the next step.
On the back of your note card, you'll add more detail about your character and establish their relationship with other players at the table. 

First, think about an emotional need that your character has and a tangible goal that reflects that need. Then consider the character of the player to your left. You now need to tie those together and should do so collaboratively with that player. Perhaps their character is helping yours with the goal or is on the same question, albeit for different reasons.

Second, come up with a secret that your character has. The character of the player to your right is the only other character at the table that knows this secret. You two should decide how their character came to know the secret.

For each of these details, write a few sentences. Feel free to create and name non-player characters that the GM will then be able to use in the story as it unfolds. Given that the other players will be working with you to create their character's details, you may want to also make a few notes about their goal or secret, as appropriate.

Example

Goal: Anna wants to meet the ruler of The Fifth Chasm from The Northeastern Heap, who's name is Ja. Mulisha, the character to her left, is the tour guide she's hired to help her cross the interposing four chasms. 
Secret: Anna plans to assassinate Ja. Harris, the character to her right, knows this secret because he hired her for the job. Since Ja's chasm is rumored to be half-filled with apple wine, Anna seemed like the perfect person.
Other's Goal: Harris' goal is to seek justice for his dead father who was killed by Ja. He's hired Anna to deliver the death stroke.
Other's Secret: Mulisha is a disgraced guide from the Destroying Angel National Park who was fired after an entire group of tourists died. Anna is aware of this, but is giving her a chance to prove herself.

As you can see in the example, by working with the other players to establish these four story points for your character, you help shape your group's story and explain why these characters have come together. It also helps define your character's attitudes towards others, how well the characters get along with each other, and more.

'WAGR "AYD" 1st Diner/Buffet No.AYD540' by Hugh Llewelyn is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
First Scene

All stories in Blue Shift start in the same place – Pegs'n'Eggs. This roving diner is an ancient smuggler's spacecraft that's now being drawn across the waste by a team of giraffe-sized seahorses that have wheels where their tails should be. The famous eatery always seems to be about when things get tough and someone needs a good meal before things go sideways.

Between you and the other players, you can decide if your characters are purposely meeting at Pegs'n'Eggs or if fate, luck, or a mysterious guiding hand brought them together at the same time. Regardless, the first scene of your story happens here, with the GM introducing a plot hook or problem via a challenge.
Example

Anna, Mulisha, and Harris are meeting up for one last meal before heading off towards The Fifth Chasm. It'll take a few weeks to get there on foot and freeze-dryed algae snacks aren't anywhere near as good as the macaroni-and-fleas from Pegs'. 

While they're sitting at a table, having a subdued conversation, an ostrich raider busts in the door, a large turret embedded on it's back. It levels the gun on Mulisha before squawking out: “You killed my farmhand. Prepare to die.”

Pegs'and'Eggs always has the same three traits: grease-covered, bustling, and on-the-move. Peg, the sole waitress and owner, has the traits nicotine-stained and puffy, given that she's a bipedal puffer fish who smokes like a chimney. The GM may add other non-player characters (NPC) to the scene.
Later Scenes

For scenes after the first, it is up to the players to decide what they want to accomplish during the scene. Typically this will be related to one or more characters' goals, although acting in small, incremental steps will make for a fuller story.

Example

Anna's goal is to reach The Fifth Chasm but first the group will need to cross or circumnavigate the first four chasms. After running from the ostrich raider at Pegs', they decide that their goal is to find the quickest way over or through the first chasm in hopes of putting more space between them and the massive gun.

After the players determine a goal and location (general or specific), the GM will start to describe the area. During this narration, the GM will pick at least two defining traits of the location. Like character traits, the GM should note these on an index card with a single adjective followed by a sentence or two of detail.

Additionally, the GM may introduce or callback an NPC or group of them that is in the area. NPCs have their own traits (at least two) and should be tracked on one index card per NPC or group.

Example

The GM describes the first chasm as a yawning rock formation, seven or eight stories deep into the red stones. At a handful of locations, brightly colored bridges span the entire distance of the chasm, made of oversized toy building blocks. Standing on the bridges, like artistic statues, are petrified humanoid forms, each holding one of the building blocks over their head.

After the players call out a few ideas for additional details, the GM notes the traits deadly because of the depth of the chasm and quiet because it seems “too quiet”. The GM also makes a card for the petrified humanoids, using the traits petrified and builder, for obvious reasons.

As the scene progresses, the players talk through and narrate their actions until a challenge is necessary (see below). The scene may continue after the challenge or may wrap up with the challenge.

Ending Scenes

A scene ends when it reaches it's natural conclusion. In the opening scene, this is simply when the characters leave Pegs'n'Eggs and set out on to their next goal. For later scenes, it will be up to the players to define their goals as the scene is set up. Obviously, they may fail to achieve all they want to in a scene, but it still ends when they are successful or shut out.

If a scene is dragging on and becoming long in the tooth, the GM can call for a flash forward challenge, wherein everyone at the table rolls as part of a challenge and the winner summarizes the rest of the scene in a few sentences. The outcome of a flash forward scene doesn't result in any one character or party getting everything they hoped for in the scene, but it does heavily favor whoever is narrating.

“The Steelworker” by Jack Pearce is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
Challenges

There will come a point in the scene where the outcome of something your character or team is trying to do isn't certain. These are the normal conflicts that arise in all stories: us vs. others, us vs. society, us vs. nature, or us vs. ourselves. This might occur when your character is trying to climb the side of a derelict rocket that is slippery thanks to the algae. Or when your character tries to overcome their coulrophobia by attending the giant flea circus. And it always applies to combat and fights, because even the fiercest gladiator can be felled by a lucky shot.

Like everything else in Blue Shift, conflict resolution involves combining things together. You'll select two or more traits that you can weave into a narrative to explain what your character does during the conflict. This can be your character's own traits, something from the environment, the trait of a team member that has agreed to help you, or even your opposition's own traits if you can convince the GM that you can use it against them.

For each trait you're using, select any one polyhedral dice. Which one you use is up to you, but you should try to justify it in the story.

Example

Anna is going to swim underneath that bubblegum submarine to attach a bomb to the hull. She's using her own trait, aquatic, with a d20 because she is a natural swimmer. She's also using the bubblegum trait of the submarine at a d12 because it is very sticky. Finally, Harris is lending his volatile trait as he's building the bomb. Anna uses a d4 for this because she doesn't know much about bombs and is afraid it will explode prematurely.

If your challenge is against another player, they will select their dice in the same way. Otherwise, it is up to the GM to select traits based on the environment, the available NPCs, and they may even turn your character's traits against them.

Example

The GM notes that the water Anna is swimming in is shark-infested but uses a d6 because Anna's gel nature might not be that appealing to sharks. However, since Anna is made of gel, the high pressures of the deep sea will hinder her ability to swim – the GM picks a d12 for this trait.

After everyone has selected traits and polyhedral dice, they also need to pick up one less fate dice. These dice will decide how the results of the polyhedral dice are combined, if at all. A blank face on a fate dice negates one polyhedral dice, while a plus sign lets you add two polyhedral dice together. Conversely, a minus sign forces you to subtract one of the polyhedral results from the total.

Once all the combining has been done, whichever party has the higher total wins the conflict and narrates the outcome. In the case of a tie, the parties involved must collaborate to narrate an outcome where neither side gets exactly what they wanted.

Example 1

Anna rolls a d4, d12, d20 and two fate dice vs. the GM's d6, d12 and one fate dice. The results are 2, 2, 3, +, and blank. The GM rolls 6, 8, and -. Anna eliminates one of the 2's because of the blank fate dice, and then adds the 2 and 3 for a result of 5. The GM subtracts 6 from 8, for a result of 2.

Anna's player wins the conflict and narrates the outcome. She tells a story of Anna swimming down and, since the GM had to subtract the result of the gel trait, decides that the intense pressures actually help keep the volatile bomb from exploding before the trigger was pressed. As Anna wanted, the submarine is sunk and flooded with shark-infested sea water.
Example 2

Anna rolls a d4, d12, d20 and two fate dice vs. the GM's d6, d12 and one fate dice. The results are 4, 11, 17, -, and blank. The GM rolls 6, 8, and +. Anna eliminates the 11 because of the blank fate dice, and then subtracts 4 from 17 for a result of 13. The GM adds 6 and 8, for a result of 14.

Anna's player has lost the challenge and the GM tells the story. They tell a story of Anna swimming down and being crushed by the deep water (the dice for this trait rolled higher, so the GM chose to use this more prominently in the narrative). Anna dropped the bomb and it slowly sunk into a nearby trench before detonating, alerting the submarine to Anna's presence.
Example 3

Anna rolls a d4, d12, d20 and two fate dice vs. the GM's d6, d12 and one fate dice. The results are 4, 3, 17, -, and blank. The GM rolls 2, 12, and +. Anna eliminates the 4 because of the blank fate dice, and then subtracts 3 from 17 for a result of 14. The GM adds 2 and 12 for a result of 14.

Because they tied, Anna's player and the GM must decide together what happened. Anna's goal was to destroy the submarine while the crew on the submarine sought to survive and locate the would be attackers. In the neutral resolution, where neither side gets exactly what they want, the crushing waters render the volatile bomb inert. The submarine is not destroyed but Anna escapes undetected.

It may be apparent that the mix of any size polyhedral dice plus the modifications by the fate dice can lead to large swings in dice results. Life after the Blue Shift is chaotic and not every mutation or accidental creation is a positive one.
Combat and Injuries

For every ten points you lose the challenge by, your character suffers an injury. You should take one token from the pile and keep it near your character card. While you have injury tokens next to your card, any opponent you face in conflict can add a dice to their pool using a temporary injury trait against you.

If you suffer two injuries in the same challenge, your character is removed from the scene and the GM will narrate how and why this happens. If your character is the last player character in the scene, the scene ends after this narration.

Once you've accumulated three injury tokens, your character has died...
Death and Rebirth

Death on Tau Ceti X isn't that dire. Too many churning forces, sentient beings, and chaotic processes will conspire to combine your body with something else. When your character dies, pick one of the descriptors from your immediate environment, the nearby non-player characters, or even other player characters. Think about how that descriptor combines with your existing ones; it will change or add to your character's form.

Note the new trait under your existing ones and then add a sentence or two as a record of how it was added to your character and the impact it has. New traits added this way behave exactly like your existing ones.

Your character can rejoin the story during any later scene at any time. For dramatic impact, this is best timed after another character fails a challenge. Your character can intercede on their behalf, effectively making a new challenge role.
Example

In the last scene, Anna died when she was consumed by a venus flytrap made entirely of acid-washed denim. This scene, Mulisha finds herself running from an algae patch fire. She fails her challenge roll and is destined to be consumed in blue flame when Anna suddenly bursts through the patch's surface. Her recent encounter has given her acid breathe, which she deftly uses to sear a break in the path of the oncoming flames, saving Mulisha.

Alternatively, if you decide that your character's tale is over, the forces on the planet simply tear the corpse apart and use the various component pieces in other creations. You can work with the GM to take over control of one of the heretofore non-player characters, or craft a new character that will be introduced in a later scene. As described above, you can introduce this character in a dramatic way to aid another character. Because this character is being created mid-story, their goals and secrets may not necessarily tie in directly with other characters, but you should try to weave them into the ongoing story.

Ending a Story

Stories in Blue Shift are open ended, meaning that your group can continue to play scenes as long as you're having fun. You may end up spreading this over many different sessions or wrapping up after just one. This will be determined, in large part, by your characters' goals and when they are fulfilled (or become hopeless).

In our ongoing example story, the overriding goal of the party is to see Ja assassinated. Assuming the players achieve this goal after ten or so scenes, they will probably wrap up the story.

The characters themselves are still perfectly playable and you may choose to use yours in a future story. When doing so, you should keep all of their traits but start from scratch in terms of goals and secrets. This way, your character will have the tie-ins to the other players' characters, even if they choose to make fresh characters. Even if everyone chooses to use the same characters for a new story, they will need new goals and something that was a secret in the past may not be a secret any longer.

“Scrap Metal Blues” by Sten Dueland is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Appendix: Slang

Brown Shift: The signing of the accord that turned Tau Ceti X into the universe's junkyard. Officially known as the Whirlpool Accords: Storing Terrestrial Excess.

Blue Shift: The day the blue algae flourished on Tau Ceti X, covering the planet in oxygen and a subtle bio-luminescence. 

Red Shift: An oft discussed future rebellion or war that will be necessary to get the other empires to stop dropping their trash on Tau Ceti X. While many believe that bloodshed is inevitable, rational minds understand that the shiftborn are outnumbered and outgunned. 

Shift Dropper: A derogatory term for both the ships and crew members responsible for dropping fresh trash on to the planet from low orbit. 

Shifter: Used to describe any ship or crew that goes out of their way to do the least damage possible when dropping fresh waste. Traveling lower in to the atmosphere or to an uninhabited area means a higher fuel cost, so shifters are often well regarded.

Shiftborn: Any organism brought to life by the unpredictable forces of creation on the planet.

Nightshift: Any sentient shiftborn creature that eats, hunts, or otherwise kills other sentient shiftborn creatures. Also known as phantasms, freaks, and lanterns, based on regional lore about the scariest or deadliest local killers.