Signs of Life 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 Pay what You Want 19-page PDF from DriveThruRPG. Two pages are the front and rear covers, three the front matter and three the Open Game License.
The opening paragraphs say there is a company that owns many worlds in a subsector of Sonora – though not stated, the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space setting – and one world’s purpose is a mystery to everyone else. It has a toxic atmosphere and no valuable deposits. There is a recently established domed facility on the world, but the company has lost contact with it and wants someone to investigate, explaining that biological weapons research was being carried out, and the scientists were also studying a small tentacle from an alien species. Vacc suits to protect the characters from the atmosphere are provided.
Patron gives the patron’s stats.
Complications explains what factors the patron was lying about – the scientists were doing genetic research, not biological weapons – and various different hazards at the facility.
The Creatures are the things that the scientists accidentally created that killed nearly all of them, and will attempt to do the same to the characters.
Key to the Bio Dome describes the various locations.
New Weapon has the stats for a flamethrower.
Requirements for Success are what the characters need to accomplish to get paid.
The final page of content has a map of the facility.
Signs of Life 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 follows a single column format and some minor errors were noted. There are no illustrations bar the cover and the map. Presentation is adequate.
This could be described as being as a fairly typical technohorror adventure. Scientists have accidentally made monsters, the monsters have killed them, the characters need to survive the monsters and find out what happened. Pretty straightforward, but not necessarily easy. It’s also unclear why the patron would have lied to the characters, as if they do their job properly, they will find out what really happened, making it a bit of a pointless lie. Signs of Life is a decent and straightforward adventure and it can be found by clicking here.
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