Chapter 4.8: Supporting Characters

Your main character cannot be in every scene. A ship needs more than one set of hands during a crisis, and a player whose character is elsewhere deserves something to do besides watch. Supporting Characters solve this: light, quickly built characters that a player defines and calls into a scene, played the same way as a main character while that player actively operates them.

Chapter 4.4's Companions are specific, ongoing relationships. A Supporting Character fills a temporary gap in the crew and enters play through the calling player's Momentum.

Chapter 3.2 covers Momentum and its mirror, Threat, in full: what generates them and the rest of what they buy beyond what follows here.

Building a Supporting Character

Start with purpose. What gap is this character filling: a field medic, a local guide, a salvage broker, a hearth elder who knows the dispute better than anyone offworld? Write a Trait naming that purpose (Field Medic, Local Guide, and so on); it is the character's whole identity until play gives them more.

• Species. Choose one (Chapter 4.5) and apply its Attribute modifiers.
• Attributes. Assign 10, 9, 9, 8, 8, and 7, in any order, before species modifiers.
• Specializations. Assign 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, and 1, in any order. The 4 should match the purpose named above.
• Focus Loadout. Choose three active Focuses. At least one should match the purpose. Mark any personal or embodied Focus as Rooted (Chapter 3.5).
• Interface and kit. Choose a cysuit, a Synthetic chassis, or an unbonded character using external equipment. Record that interface as a Trait, then give them one Hardware or Equipment Trait suited to their purpose.
• Talent. None at creation. A Supporting Character earns their first through reuse (Growing a Supporting Character, below).
• Value. None at creation. Without one, they draw no Determination (Chapter 3.3); their first Value, earned the same way, changes that.

A Named Specialist. Some gaps want more than a light hand: a fixer whose skill actually rivals the crew's own, a contact whose word opens doors nobody else's will. Build one the same way, with a heavier spread: Attributes 10, 10, 9, 9, 8, and 8; Specializations 4, 4, 3, 2, 2, and 1; four Focuses; and one Value from the start. They begin a commission with 1 Determination when they first appear (Chapter 3.3). Bringing a Named Specialist into play costs more than a lighter build; see below.

Bringing Them Into Play

Spend 1 Momentum to introduce a Supporting Character to the current scene only, whether built on the spot or carried over from earlier in the same commission. Spend 2 Momentum instead to introduce them for the whole commission: once paid, they are free to bring back into any later scene of it without spending again. A Named Specialist costs double either way: 2 for a single scene, 4 for the whole commission.

There is no hard limit on how many Supporting Characters can be brought into play this way. Your own Momentum is the only real limit on how much help you personally can call in, and every point you spend here also hands the gamemaster a point of Threat (Chapter 3.2) to spend against the whole crew later.

The gamemaster may also simply place a Supporting Character into a scene because the story needs one there, with no Momentum spent and no Threat generated. A relay technician who answers a hail, a bystander who saw what happened: ordinary narrative authority is enough to establish their presence.

Every Supporting Character has one current controller. Whoever spends the Momentum to introduce one begins as its controller. The gamemaster begins as controller of a Supporting Character placed through narrative authority. The controller operates the character and supplies the resource pool: players spend Momentum and the gamemaster spends Threat, including when the character's action helps the crew. Surplus successes enter the controller's pool under Chapter 3.2.

Control can move. The gamemaster may hand a gamemaster-controlled Supporting Character to a player when another voice or pair of hands will help the table. That player becomes the controller and uses their Momentum while control lasts. The transfer costs nothing. The gamemaster may also create a Supporting Character through narrative authority and hand them directly to a player; creating and transferring that character costs no Momentum or Threat.

A player chooses, at the start of each scene, which character they are actively playing: their main character or a Supporting Character they control. Transfer control before the scene when another person will operate the Supporting Character.

Bigger Help

Momentum's reach does not stop at a single character. The same Momentum that brings in a Supporting Character can call in a squad, a local defense circle, or an entire allied ship with its own crew, when the story and your crew's Standing (Chapter 2.6) can support it.

Treat an asset at this scale as a scene-level Trait, present and useful for exactly the problem it was called in to solve. The gamemaster sets both the Momentum cost and what calling it in actually does, scaled to how much the asset changes the scene: a specialist squad might cost 2 or 3, a ship in open support might cost 4 or more. Chapters 5.1 and 5.2 cover the crew's own ship; this rule is for help that arrives, does its job, and moves on.

Running a Supporting Character

When its controller takes up a Supporting Character for a scene, it acts with the full range of actions a player character has for as long as that scene lasts. It carries no resource pool of its own. A player controller pays Momentum for its abilities. The gamemaster pays Threat while controlling it (Chapter 3.2).

When a Supporting Character is present while its controller actively plays another character, it remains under that person's control and acts more narrowly:

• They perform whatever Minor Actions the scene needs, and follow the lead of whichever player character is actually steering the moment.
• They cannot attempt a Major Action requiring a Task above Difficulty 0. A player character may spend a Minor Action to direct them; they may then attempt one Task at Difficulty 2 or lower as their contribution that round.
• They can Assist a player character's Task, once per round.
• They can be hurt, defeated, or complicated against like anyone in the scene, but cannot spend anything to soften it. A player may instead choose to have their own character absorb what would have hit the background Supporting Character.
• They can be treated as a Trait: an extra pair of hands and an extra set of senses, enough to turn an otherwise impossible Task possible, or to ease a hard one.

Growing a Supporting Character

A Supporting Character reused in a later commission gains a single improvement, its controller's choice:

• Value: gain one. May be chosen up to four times.
• Attribute: increase one by 1. May be chosen once.
• Specialization: increase one by 1. May be chosen once.
• Focus: gain one. May be chosen up to three times.
• Talent: gain one the character qualifies for (Chapter 4.9). May be chosen up to four times.

Each Focus improvement adds one active Focus Slot, to a maximum of six. A cysuit-equipped or Synthetic Supporting Character may change Loadable Focuses under Chapter 3.5. Grown all the way out, a Supporting Character carries six Focus Slots, four Talents, and four Values, same as a main character, with Attributes and Specializations still running lighter.

A Supporting Character grown far enough, or simply needed badly enough, can outgrow this chapter entirely. Two paths, at the table's discretion:

• Joins the Crew. A new player, or a main character lost or retired, picks up the Supporting Character as their own, built out the rest of the way through Chapter 4.7.
• Moves On. The character leaves for other work. They stay reachable as a contact and a source of plot hooks, outside these rules from here on. Some go on to be a main character in someone else's campaign entirely.