Combining the lush, decadent planetary horror of C.L. Moore’s Northwest Smith with the industrial, claustrophobic grit of The Red Room’s Orbital Decay creates a unique subgenre: Grime-Pulp Cosmic Horror.
In this mashup, the "Old Solar System" (breathable Mars, jungle Venus) is replaced by the decaying, corporate-owned vacuum of Orbital Decay, but the threats are no longer just malfunctioning airlocks or xenomorphs—they are the ancient, soul-sucking "gods" and "vampires" of Moore’s weird fiction. The Red Room's Orbital Decay has all of the advantages for this genre. This blog post picks right up from here
1. The Setting: The "Rust-Belt" Solar System
Instead of Moore’s romanticized ruins, the solar system is a series of failing orbital habitats and corporate strip-mines.
Mars: Not a desert of red dust and ancient canals, but a graveyard of abandoned "Dome Cities" owned by Takeda Technologies. The "Martian Drylanders" are now the mutated, forgotten descendants of the first wave of miners.
Venus: Not a swampy jungle, but a pressurized hellscape of acid-mining platforms. The Venusians (like Smith's partner Yarol) are high-G-adapted humans with translucent skin and a cynical, predatory culture.
The Stations: The game takes place on crumbling stations (Orbital Decay) where the air is stale, the lights flicker, and the metal is thin. But behind the bulkhead panels aren't just wires—there are interdimensional rifts and shrine-rooms dedicated to things that lived before the stars were hot.
2. The Protagonist: The "Spacer-Gunslinger"
Merge Northwest Smith’s archetype with the Wretched system’s anti-hero:
The Look: Worn leather vacuum suits over scarred skin; a "raygun" that is actually a jury-rigged, high-wattage plasma cutter capable of wounding things that shouldn't have physical form.
The Vibe: He’s an outlaw smuggler not because it’s romantic, but because the Corporations have blacklisted him. He has the "pale steel" eyes of a man who has seen a Shambleau feeding in the vents of a cargo ship and survived.
3. The Horror: "High-Tech Vampirism"
In Orbital Decay, the horror is usually physical (aliens, vacuum). In this mashup, the horror is psychic and sensual, inspired by Moore's "Shambleau" and "Black Thirst."
The Entity: Instead of a monster in the dark, the threat is a "God-in-the-Machine." A forgotten deity (like the Cold Gray God) might have been accidentally uploaded into the station’s mainframe or found frozen in an asteroid.
The Lure: The "Damsel in Distress" might be an AI hologram or a frantic survivor who is actually a host for a soul-eating parasite.
The Mechanic: Use the Orbital Decay stress die, but instead of just "Panic," the high-stress results lead to Trance States. Players become "rapt" by the beauty of the horror, losing their will to fight as their life force is drained.
4. Scenario Hook: "The Ghost in the Lattice"
The players are hired to salvage a derelict research station, the Icarus-7, drifting near the Jovian moons.
The Twist: The station wasn't studying physics; it was studying the "Sound of the Sun." They found a "Song" (from Moore’s Song in a Minor Key) that is actually a sentient frequency. The crew didn't die of hypoxia; they opened the airlocks willingly, dancing into the void because the frequency made them believe they were returning to a "Lost Paradise."
Now, the players must navigate the rusted, creaking station while the "Song" begins to play over their suit comms, showing them visions of a lush, beautiful Venus that never existed.
In this hybrid setting of pulp-romance and industrial rot, the original "medusa-parasite" evolved into something more terrifying: a Techno-Organic Mimic.
Instead of a creature that hides its hair under a turban, this variation—the "Wire-Witch" (or Silicate-Shambleau)—thrives on the overlap between biological neural networks and station circuitry.
The Creature: The "Lattice-Lurker"
The Lattice-Lurker does not appear as a beautiful woman in a red cloak. Instead, it appears as a distress signal. It manifests as a flickering, desperate "Survivor" trapped behind a reinforced glass observation port or a glitchy holographic avatar in a dark corridor.
Physical Manifestation
When its "hair" is revealed, they are not scarlet worms or snakes. They are translucent, fiber-optic tendrils that pulse with a sickening, bioluminescent violet light.
The Feeding: These tendrils don't just wrap around the victim; they interface. They find the ports in a spacer’s vacuum suit or the neural jacks in their neck.
The Sensation: It doesn't feel like a bite. It feels like a massive, euphoric data-dump—a "soul-upload" that makes the victim feel like they are expanding to fill the entire universe, while their physical body withers into a dry, husked shell.
Anatomical Comparison: Classic vs. Orbital
| Feature | C.L. Moore’s Original | The Orbital Variation |
| Camouflage | Red velvet rags / Turban | Corrupted HUD overlays / Static |
| Feeding Organ | Scarlet, serpentine "hair" | Fiber-optic, prehensile filaments |
| Preferred Habitat | Dead Martian cities | Maintenance ducts & Server rooms |
| The "Hook" | Primal, hypnotic lust | Digital nostalgia / False memories |
| Weakness | Steel / Fire | High-voltage EMP / System Purge |
Mechanic: The "Addictive Connection"
In the Orbital Decay system, encountering a Wire-Witch doesn't just trigger a Fear check—it triggers a Binding.
The Lure: The player hears a voice over the comms—someone from their backstory.
The Contact: If the player engages, the tendrils latch on. The player must make a Willpower/Sanity Save.
The High: If they fail, they don't want to be rescued. The pleasure of the "Data-Merge" is so intense that the character will actively fight their teammates to stay connected to the creature.
The Decay: For every minute of "connection," the player loses 1 point of Constitution as the creature leeches bio-electricity and proteins to power its own hive-mind.
"It wasn't just hair. It was a forest of glowing glass needles. When they slid into my interface port, I didn't see the rusted walls of the station anymore. I saw Venus... not the acid-hell we live in, but a Venus with green seas and air that tasted like honey. I would have let it drink me dry just to stay in that dream for one more second." — Smuggler’s Log, Recovered from the Derelict 'Shambleau-4'
In the industrial grime of an Orbital Decay station, standard ballistics are a death sentence—punch a hole in the hull, and everyone dies. The Martian Flame-Pistol (often called the "Sun-Spit" or "Red Cauterizer") was engineered by the Martian Labor Guilds for a dual purpose: welding heavy machinery and incinerating the psychic parasites that haunt the Red Planet's deep-strata mines.
It is a weapon of "pale steel" and brass, looking more like an antique relic than a piece of space-age tech.
Technical Specifications: The "Vulcan-IV"
Unlike modern flamethrowers that spray liquid fuel, the Martian Flame-Pistol uses pressurized Phosphorus-Gels ignited by a miniaturized thermal core.
Output: A concentrated, needle-thin beam of white-hot plasma that blooms into a "sun-burst" upon impact.
The Sound: It doesn't "bang." It emits a rising, metallic hum followed by a wet thwack-hiss as the air itself ionizes.
Safety Hazard: The weapon generates immense heat. Using it more than three times in rapid succession without a cooling cycle will cause the grip to weld to the user’s glove—or worse, cook the fuel canister.
The "Soul-Burner" Effect
In the Moore/Red Room mashup, the Flame-Pistol is the only weapon that works against entities like the Wire-Witch because it doesn't just damage tissue—it destroys ectoplasmic and digital lattices.
Against Biology: It cauterizes wounds instantly. It is horrific, but it prevents the "spreading infection" often found in orbital horrors.
Against the Supernatural: The high-frequency heat disrupts the "Trance" the creatures use. If a teammate is being drained by a Shambleau, a "Near-Miss" shot with the Flame-Pistol can shock their nervous system back to reality.
The "Northwest Smith" Signature: Smith famously used his "raygun" to carve through entities that were immune to steel. This version leaves a lingering smell of ozone and burnt sugar.
RPG Mechanics (Orbital Decay / Wretched Compatible)
| Stat | Value / Effect |
| Damage | High (1d10 + Burn) |
| Range | Short (The "Licking Tongue" of flame) |
| Special: Cauterize | Stops bleeding/infection instantly, but causes 1 permanent HP loss from scarring. |
| Special: Light | Illuminates a 30ft radius in a harsh, flickering crimson glow. |
| The Risk | On a Natural 1, the weapon overheats. The user takes 1d4 burn damage and the gun is jammed until a "Coolant Flush" is performed. |
Visual Description
"It was a heavy, ugly thing of Martian brass, the grip worn smooth by hands that had been dead for centuries. There was no trigger guard—just a cold lever that, when squeezed, woke the tiny sun trapped in its chamber. When it fired, the darkness of the station didn't just recede; it screamed."
This d100 table blends the "High-Tech Junk" of Orbital Decay with the "Eldritch Antiquity" of C.L. Moore. Use this when players scavenge the lockers of a derelict Martian mining rig or the ruins of a Venusian sky-shrine.
The Misfit Salvage Table
| d100 | Item Name | Description & Effect |
| 01-05 | Leaking Battery Cell | Standard power, but deals 1 Rad damage per hour carried. |
| 06-10 | V-Mail Projector | Displays a flickering, tearful message from a long-dead colonist. |
| 11-15 | Broken "Segir" Dagger | Martian steel. Cannot hold an edge, but vibrates when near a vacuum leak. |
| 16-20 | Synth-Silk Turban | Smells of jasmine and ozone. Grants +1 to saves vs. Mind Control. |
| 21-25 | Cracked O2 Tank | Provides 10 minutes of air, but the whistle attracts predators. |
| 26-30 | Ivory Data-Chit | Contains coordinates to a "Vault of Souls." Worthless to corps, priceless to cults. |
| 31-35 | Phasing Compass | The needle points to the nearest "Thirst-God," not North. |
| 36-40 | Dried 'Kush' Root | Martian narcotic. Heals 1d6 Stress but causes blurred vision (-2 to hit). |
| 41-45 | Manual Patch Kit | Essential for hull breaches. Smells like burnt rubber. |
| 46-50 | The "Black Thirst" Idol | A small obsidian statue. Looking at it too long drains 1 HP. |
| 51-55 | Hyper-Lens Monocle | Allows wearer to see heat signatures through bulkheads. |
| 56-60 | Tattered Scarlet Cape | Provides no armor, but makes the wearer look dashing (+1 Persuasion). |
| 61-65 | Jammed Plasma Torch | Can be used as a club or fixed with a Hard Tech check. |
| 66-70 | Voice-Box of a Drylander | A mechanical throat. Allows user to "speak" to ancient Martian doors. |
| 71-75 | Lucky Martian Coin | Made of "pale steel." Flip it to reroll a failed Luck save once. |
| 76-80 | Encrypted Logbook | Details the locations of Shambleau feeding grounds. |
| 81-85 | Bio-Metric Skeleton Key | Opens 1d4 locked doors before the battery dies. |
| 86-90 | Jar of "Green Mist" | Atmospheric sample from Old Venus. Highly hallucinogenic. |
| 91-95 | Emergency Flare Gun | Deals 1d4 damage, but bright enough to blind psychic entities. |
| 96-99 | Yarol’s Lost Flask | Contains Venusian liquor. Tastes like fire. Heals all Stress. |
| 00 | Prototype Sun-Core | A volatile fuel cell. Can power a station or blow a hole in a moon. |
How to use this table:
01-33: Common Trash. Useful for immediate survival but carries a physical risk.
34-66: Weird Pulp. Items that bridge the gap between technology and the occult.
67-00: Rare Relics. Game-changing items that attract unwanted attention from "The Lords of the Red Moon."
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