Damocles by Jospeh 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 44 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 Damocles Station is one of the most lawless places in the Sonora sector – the adventure is set in the Frontiers of Space – and is built in an asteroid in the Glusrerosia system. The system has a dense and heavily mined asteroid belt, and the station is a good place to get goods that are cheap and not always legal.
Glusrerosia has details on the system; after several attempts by entities to claim it, resulting in war, it is now unclaimed by any major power and its mineral resources are free to be exploited by all. Mining companies still fight each other and pirates prey on everyone. Damocles is the only civilisation in the system.
Patrons explains that there is no specific patron, but examples are given of why the characters might visit the system.
Complications are the various dangers in the system, including a doomsday device capable of destroying any world within 20 parsecs that can be launched from Damocles.
Damocles Station gives an overview of the station, has 3d6 random encounters, with a supplementary table of 1d6 reasons for the encounter, and 2d6 random events, and 3d6 rumours to hear, marked as true or false. The station is then described. Also covered in this section is the doomsday weapon, 4d6 potential patrons with goals, 4d6 merchant ship crew, 4d6 pirate ship crew, 4d6 belters, 4d6 other visitors, 2d6 casino personnel, 1d6 administration staff, 4d6 guards, 2d6 restaurant personnel, 2d6 bar personnel, 2d6 prostitutes, 1d6 engineers and mechanics, 1d6 salesmen, all Talamor, 1d3 upper management, 1d3 medical personnel, 1d6 life support personnel and various commodities that can be found for sale, many illegal at least in some places.
The final page of content has a map of the station.
Damocles 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 some minor errors were noticed. Bar the map and covers, there are no illustrations. Presentation is adequate.
Much of this supplement is taken up by pages and pages of NPC stats, most of which are not needed. In the majority of cases, a couple or so stat blocks would have sufficed, along with notes and names to differentiate the NPCs. In some cases, only a name is needed. This is not so much an adventure as a location that could be the source of adventures. Damocles can be found by clicking here.
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