Are you looking for a physical version? Copies are available on my web store. 

CW: darkness, tight spaces, marine wildlife, peril, bodily harm, extreme solitude

Thought space was full of horror? Try being trapped 70 metres underwater. On your own. In the dark.

THOUSAND EMPTY LIGHT is a psychedelic-xerox adventure zine that brings solo play to Mothership RPG (1E). Written throughout as an in-game corporate document, the zine takes the core game’s rules and builds a procedure for playing single handedly. It is a 36 page survival horror adventure, short story and universal solo toolkit all wrapped up into one.

The adventure casts the player in the role of a lamplighter hired by the HAZMOS service corporation. Their job? Enter an abandoned underwater tunnel on an uninhabited planet alone and restore power and light to each section. As they proceed, the player will discover that things aren’t quite what they seem.

This is an experiment in tabletop adventure design, requiring a healthy amount of interpretation from the player (a digital example play document is also provided). 

What's inside?

A Mothership solo procedure

The engine behind Thousand Empty Light, a simple procedure provides rules for how to play solo. This can easily be used for other Mothership adventures.

Unique xerox artwork

Grainy black and white artwork inspired by the heyday of the photocopier and spiked with unsettling psychedelia.

Twenty hazards

Readymade hazards including creatures, environmental effects and a rogue AI. Statblocks are provided for combat-able threats. These are designed for Thousand Empty Light but could be dropped into another adventure.

Five specialist items

Readymade pieces of specialist equipment to discover and wield during play.

Unfolding lore

Twelve pages of setting material including transcripts from the previous lamplighter which tell the unfolding story from section to section.

Unique PANIC table

Mothership’s Panic table has had a redesign to encompass problems related to decompression sickness and nitrogen narcosis.

Combined Systems Semiotic Standard

A d50 table of safety signs for determining narrative detail, inspired by Alien’s ‘semiotic standard’.

Lashings of dread, conspiracy and body horror

All the basis is there for you to embark on a deadly and terrifying tunnelcrawl.

Secret stuff

There are secrets to be solved in the zine which will lead you to discover more about the lore of the setting.

One of the most expansive solo modules for a non-solo ruleset that I've ever seen.

— Geek Gamers

Extras

Audio recordings

Updated: November 2023

Half of the content in this adventure module is made up of transcripts from reports left by the lamplighter who came before you. Instead of reading these, you can listen to the audio recordings themselves! The .wav files of these MemoComm reports are available to download as a zip folder.

A massive thank you to Man Alone for voicing these recordings. He also has a playthrough of the game that is well worth checking out.

Soundtrack

There's an official soundtrack by Gus BC (Twitter / Instagram) and accompanying bonus module for this adventure called Sleeping in a Drowning Stone.

Free download: Combined Systems Semiotic Standard

THOUSAND EMPTY LIGHT features a d50 table of safety signs for determining narrative detail, inspired by the ‘semiotic standard’ created for the 1979 Alien movie. This is designed to be useful as a solo oracle for Mothership and other sci-fi games generally, and is available for free below (under 'Download demo') .

Play example

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED: A play example is provided to help with getting your bearings with this adventure - see below (under 'Download demo'). You should look through this before you play either the physical or digital version of the game.

Digital site

There is also a dedicated website courtesy of Beast to help with playing Mothership solo: https://beastnaylor.github.io/1000EL. This includes:

• a reference sheet for THOUSAND EMPTY LIGHT's procedure
• a randomiser for the Combined Systems Semiotic Standard
• a random alien creature generator
• a secret message decoder

Try before you buy?

There's a plaintext version of this adventure available for free (under 'Download demo'). Thousand Empty Light has been designed as a visual artifact so this version does not really compare to the full experience, but it will give you a good idea of what this thing is.

If you like what you see, please consider buying the adventure.

Physical copies

The physical version is available from my web store: https://www.hausofvalley.com/product/thousand-empty-light

Ratings & Comments

If you have enjoyed reading or playing this adventure, please consider leaving a rating and a comment.

Due to the way itch.io handles comments (it’s a bit broken), if you want to leave one please consider posting it with your rating AND also separately on the page itself. 

That way, other users who come to this page will be able to see it. Thanks!

Attribution

This product is based on the Mothership® Sci-Fi Horror Role Playing Game, published by Tuesday Knight Games. This product is published under license. MOTHERSHIP® is a registered trademark of Tuesday Knight Games. All rights reserved. For additional information, visit www.tuesdayknightgames.com or contact contact@tuesdayknightgames.com.

The title of this adventure was provided by Chris Bissette's Random Adventure Title Generator, and is submitted as part of the Random Adventure jam.