Update: The next jam is the 2026 Cyberpunk Mission Jam.

Spun-off from the annual Sci-Fi One-Shot Jam, the Sci-Fi Derelict Jam is all about making derelict spacecraft, stations, outposts, and other abandoned places to use in your favorite sci-fi tabletop RPGs.

The Optional Theme: Extremophile

Extremophiles are organism adapted to extreme environments (from our perspective): high or low pH, high radiation, high or low pressure, high or low temperature, and any other extreme circumstance.

Perhaps this could take the form of a cool alien monster (say, a Perfect Organism) with unique adaptations aboard the derelict? Or maybe the derelict crash-landed on a hellworld littered with extremophiles?

I know you'll come up with something good.

The Rules

1. Create a sci-fi derelict for the tabletop RPG of your choice (or make your derelict  system-agnostic).
   1. Derelicts can be spaceships, space stations, planetary outposts, subsurface facilities, mega-vehicles, or any other abandoned sci-fi location.
   2. See this post from Playful Void analyzing what system-agnostic means and the pros/cons.
2. Finish the submission during the jam. No pre-existing derelicts; we want new stuff.
3. No AI-generated text or images.
4. No bigoted submissions. 

You are free to submit as many missions as you want and charge whatever you want for them, as long as they each follow the above rules.

Hard Mode Challenges

Looking for an extra challenge? Here are some additional rules:

• Use even more themes:
  • Ancient
  • (From the) mirror-universe
  • Muppets
  • Unraveling
  • Untended Growth
• Limit the submission to a single sheet (two A4/letter pages).
  • Use the One Page Dungeon Contest or old One Page Derelict Contest entries for inspiration.
• No images or diagrams, only text (ASCII art is allowed).
• Make it system-agnostic.
  • Again, see Playful Void's blogpost.

Community

This jam is sponsored by the Sci-Fi TTRPG Collective, a Discord server dedicated to being a welcoming safe space to discuss, play, and make cool stuff for sci-fi tabletop roleplaying games. 

Useful Resources

• Our thread listing useful resources. 
• Orbiters Local 519 by Archon's Court. Fun derelict-scavenging game with a very useful derelict generator. Useful if you need help coming up with an idea.
• TTRPG Pamphlet Template by Hugh Lashbrooke - Free templates in Google Docs, Canva, and Microsoft Word. Useful if you want to use the one page hard mode challenge.
• WTF Pamphlet RPG Template by Wizardthieffighter. Free pamphlet template for Affinity Publisher (the pay-once alternative to Adobe InDesign). Useful if you want to use the one page hard mode challenge.
• DungeonScrawl. Free software for making maps. If you want to charge for your submission, you'll need to sign up for the paid version of DungeonScrawl.
• Itch Game Page Image Guide & Template by Star West - Helps you create itch.io project pages and properly-sized images for them.
• Sci-fi character portraits project by Ashen Victor - 100 free, Creative Commons-NonCommercial portraits. Ashen has a second and third collection (paid) with additional portraits.
• NASA Images - The US's National Aeronautics and Space Association has a bunch of images in the public domain. Double-check with their guidelines before using any of their images.
• OpenGameArt.org - massive repository of artwork with a variety of licenses.
• Mothership Third Party Publishing Guide - If you want your submission to be Mothership-compatible, you need to fill this out and get approval. It usually takes a week, but can take longer.

Art Credit

"Starwreck" by Christof Grobelski as part of the Stars Without Number: Revised Art Pack.