Ruin

Crossing it

Navigate

DC 18

Forage

DC 14

Notice

DC 12

There is no consistent down. Navigation is between fragments, and the fragments are still moving relative to each other.

Exposure

• Vacuum

  No pressure and no air to breathe, with survival measured in rounds.

  • Countdown

    Without a seal, a creature holds out for a number of rounds equal to its Constitution modifier, minimum 1. At the end of that time its hit points drop to -1, unless they are already lower, and it is dying. It cannot be stabilized or regain hit points until it can breathe.

  • Decompressed

    Exposure inflicts the Decompressed condition, which a return to pressure does not by itself remove.

  • Holding your breath

    Holding a breath in vacuum ruptures the lungs. A creature that does so takes 2d6 damage on the first round and gains no benefit from the attempt.

  • Sound

    Sound does not travel. Verbal spell components, shouted orders and Perception by hearing all fail across open vacuum. Suit comms and touch are the only channels.

  • Unfiltered light

    Without air to filter it, the star's output arrives unreduced. An hour of unshielded exposure in direct sunlight counts as a failed Contaminated Atmosphere save against radiological dose.

• Zero Gravity

  Free fall, where there is no down, no moving body stops on its own, and a missed handhold leaves a creature adrift.

  • Movement

    Moving requires a surface to push from. A creature with nothing in reach continues in the direction it last moved until it reaches something.

  • Changing course

    Changing direction mid-drift requires a DC 12 Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. On a failure the creature continues as it was.

  • Melee

    An unanchored melee attack has disadvantage and pushes the attacker 10 feet away from the target after it resolves.

  • No falling

    There is no up, no down and no falling damage. A creature cannot be knocked Prone, and the Prone condition does not apply.

  • Mag boots

    Magnetic boots or a tether remove every entry above while a ferrous surface is underfoot, at the cost of half movement.

• Rift Flux

  Ambient Rift Energy at a high, unstable density, where channeling is stronger and less reliable.

  WIS save, DC 13. End of each hour. Your next spell attack roll has disadvantage, or the target of your next spell that forces a saving throw has advantage on it. Roll once on the Surge Table.

  • Dense field

    A spell cast here that deals damage or restores hit points adds its level to one of its damage or healing rolls, and a cantrip adds 1. A spell that does neither gains nothing. The bonus cannot be declined.

  • Unstable

    A natural 1 or 2 on a spell attack roll, a target's natural 19 or 20 on a saving throw against a spell, and any failed concentration save each roll on the Surge Table in the GM's Manual.

  • Instruments

    Anything calibrated against a stable Rift background reads wrong. Navigation, dating and detection checks that rely on one have disadvantage.

  • Warded

    A ward, a null field or a feature naming Rift density removes the save and the Surge rolls. The damage and healing bonus goes with them.

In play

• Variable gravity

  Gravity varies by fragment and by face. Each fragment has its own surface gravity, and a jump made on a wrong assumption of that gravity is a fall of indefinite length.

• Exposed mantle

  Material that sits hundreds of kilometers down on an intact world lies open here. Salvage rolls on a Ruin draw one grade higher than the source's Power Rating would allow.

• Collisions

  Fragments collide at irregular intervals. Once per day of surface work, a DC 13 Wisdom (Perception) check spots the debris front while there is still time to move.

• Cause

  Every Ruin has a recorded destruction event, and no two records name it the same way. Some Ruins still have Rift Flux, and no rule determines which.

Regions on it

• Near Space The last of the atmosphere, thin enough to count as vacuum for every purpose except drag.