Dark Matter by Joseph Mohr is a role playing game supplement published by Old School Role Playing for use with Cepheus Engine. As such, it is covered by the Open Game License and some parts are considered to be Open Game Content as a result.
The supplement is available as a 26 page Pay What You Want PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs explain that the characters are approached at a starport to find and kill an individual who is believed to be arriving at a casino with stolen classified documents that could be embarrassing. The adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space setting, though this is not stated.
The Patron has some details on the person hiring the characters.
The Target has details on the person they are hired to find.
Complications has various potential problems that there may be with completing the adventure, including the fact that the patron hasn’t told the entire truth; it’s not entirely clear why the lie has been told.
Rarirus-1 Casino gives details on the various locations in the casino.
Encounters is eight pages of stats; there are 4d6 random casino visitors, 2d6 station security, 1d3 medical personnel, 1d6 station command personnel, 3d6 station casino personnel and 1d6 station engineering personnel, most of which are given more details than are needed.
Six pages are colour maps of the casino, one level to a page.
Dark Matter in Review
The PDF lacks bookmarks and is long enough with enough different sections that these would have been useful. Navigation could be better. The text maintains a single column format and appeared to be free of errors. Bar the cover illustrations, and the colour maps which are functional at best, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
This is a short and simple enough adventure, as long as the characters have no problems with essentially acting as assassins; they are being paid to find and kill someone on another person’s say-so, after all, and the person hiring them is lying. If they have a problem with this, and that is perfectly feasible, this will be a very short adventure. As is fairly typical for these adventures, the stats for people encountered are excessive; the majority do not need covering in that sort of detail and many could be replaced with a single stat block. Dark Matter is an adequate adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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