Isolation

Game Type: Standalone TTRPG Scenario
This 58-page pdf contains everything needed to play and run Isolation. However, the setting and scenario are intentionally designed so that they can easily be ported over to other suitable systems such as Mothership, Delta Green or Death in Space.

Genre: Sci-fi Horror
Isolation is a game of exploration and survival horror set within a near-future Antarctic research facility. There are elements of psychological and body horror, as well as descriptions of violence, injury detail and surgical procedures. This game is not suitable for children.

Themes: Paranoia, Survival and Extraterrestrial First Contact
Isolation uses first contact with an alien species as cosmic horror. Players must work out the nature of their situation and devise a plan to survive and escape from the facility. On top of this, there are also optional hidden roles and objectives for players which may lead to tension within a group and add an element of social deduction and replayability.

Expected Play Time: 8-12 Hours
In playtesting, the scenario has usually taken 2-3 sessions with an average length of 4-5 hours each for players to complete. However, this is heavily dependent on the choices that are made. The scenario can potentially run long if players are especially cautious and determined to explore every inch of the facility. There are some included mechanisms for a GM to accelerate the pace of the scenario if necessary, as well as a mechanism which can be used to introduce an optional hard time limit.

Background
It is 2057, and the world is dying. The rogue meteor shower that destroyed the majority of space infrastructure and satellite networks a decade ago has only accelerated the process. The planet was already suffocating under the unsustainable weight of human industry. Sea levels and temperatures break records every year. Fossil fuels have long been exhausted. Uranium stockpiles dwindle out of necessity, while the wondrous promise of fusion always seems just a few years away.

As the writhing superpowers of the old world have flitted back and forth between isolationist and expansionist policies in a futile attempt to insulate themselves from the energy and climate crises of their own making, megacorporations have risen to become the dominant global actors. Yet even these callous multinational entities, with all their wealth and technology, will not outlive the world if it fails. And so, they have turned their efforts towards sustaining it just a little longer - for if any of them can make the breakthrough that turns the tide, they will cement their dominance forever.

It is within this global crisis that Isolation takes place, though its Antarctic setting is far removed from the day-to-day struggles of Earth’s dystopian cities. You are staff at Hyperborea Outpost, a remote research base operated by Wardenclyffe-Kant Solutions, a faceless conglomerate with subsidiaries in every sector of the economy. A key part of its role is the surveillance and electronic espionage of a rival facility, some 150 km away, owned by Sable Meridian, a corporation specialising in high-energy physics. In recent weeks, rumours have circulated that Sable Meridian has made an important discovery. Then, all of their signals stopped.

Sable Meridian will undoubtedly be preparing a rescue mission to uncover what happened at their facility and recover anything of value. However, it will likely take them at least a month to negotiate staging and travel arrangements. A helicopter from Hyperborea could get there in just over an hour.

Your orders are simple: beat Sable Meridian to their prize. Find out what happened, assist any survivors, and retrieve any novel research you can reasonably carry.

Written by Elizabeth Little

Art by Elizabeth Little and Leslie J. Lee