Preview - Dying Hard on Hardlight Station: NS-1365 Anthology Edition
A downloadable game
Corporate takeovers, alien infections, and danger around every corner: just another day on Hardlight Station.
Launching on Kickstarter March 3rd, 2026, this is the free preview of Dying Hard on Hardlight Station: NS-1365 Anthology Edition, an expanded hardcover version of the cult-favorite Mothership adventure. This edition transforms the original zine into a nearly 200-page campaign setting packed with station locations, faction conflicts, and interconnected adventures. It’s everything you need to run tense survival horror, desperate heists, or corporate espionage on the far edge of settled space.
In the full book, your crew will dive into the chaos of Hardlight Station, a boomtown at the nexus of Nakatomi Sector 1365’s jump routes, where conniving corporations, alien horrors, and desperate factions collide in pursuit of ill-gotten gains and dubious glory.
This free preview gives you a taste of the anthology’s tone, design, and usability. Inside you’ll find:
- A Preview Sector Map charting the known worlds, stations, and dangers of Nakatomi Sector 1365.
- One of the 12+ Expanded Station Locations: The Docks, a bustling entry point filled with sketchy deals, faction agents, and dangerous cargo.
- Two of 11 interconnected but modular adventures:
- Shear Zone by Daniel Hallinan, a murder investigation gone wrong on a remote asteroid mine, fully illustrated and ready for immediate play at your table.
- Lacuna by DG Chapman, a massive alien arc ship has appeared drifting of the starboard bow of Hardlight Station. Join the goldrush to discover it's secrets before its unstable hyperdrive sucks it into the darkness once more.
Inspired by A Pound of Flesh and The Monster Overhaul, the NS-1365 Anthology Edition is a dense sci-fi sandbox built to fuel months, or even years, of play with minimal prep. And this preview gives you plenty to get started.
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Development log
- One Month Countdown!3 days ago
- The Hardlight Anthology Preview has LandedOct 05, 2025
Comments
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how would playing the preview interact with the full game?
All content in the preview is forward compatible with all Anthology contents. The full book will include expanded info on the locations in the sector map, more setting tables, the full 10 adventures and over a dozen 2-4 page station locations. So, this is a great taste of what is to come and a fun opener to kick off your Hardlight Campaign. I started my most recent run through with Shear Zone and it went great!
I noticed that your sector map connects with your other mothership scenarios. Are there going to be larger connections to those other scenarios in the Hardlight Station book?
Definitely, the Anthology connects all my previous work into one shared universe. There will be direct links to most previous adventures, connections through factions, rumours, and hooks. Also, I plan to include an Atlas style write up for every location on the map to with a paragraph description and a couple key NPCs and hooks.
That said, the book is stand alone, so it doesn't mean you need to have my other adventures to use it. It just provides a framework to fit them all together.
Does playing the original spoil the new version? Like, will I be able to run it with players who have already played the original?
I'm going to include a section that covers what to do scenarios for tables that have already played the original and had things go... sideways on the station.
So, yes, you can run the content of the book even if you've already played the original. Though it will require a little tweaking depending on what the results of the initial adventure were.
This is really cool. Super excited to see it once its done.
Thanks so much! Excited to show more of it off soon.
Maybe the most exciting 3pp Mothership book in the works right now.
Ahh, thank you! Today is a big milestone. Both excited and nervous to have the preview out there.
I did catch an error: the text swaps between the names Wizard's Veil and Sorcerer's Veil for the nearby nebula a few times.
EDIT: Also, is Heeloy the "Simon" mentioned a few times in the text? He seems to be, but it's never spelled out that he's Simon Heeloy.
Thanks for catching these. I'll get them fixed and update the PDF. Much appreciated!
Oh dear, the update introduced a new snag - his name is now "Heeloy" in half the spots (8 times) and "Heeley" in the others (9 times)!
Haha, oh my. Eric sent me a new update this morning so maybe he caught it. We shall see.
Fixed!
LOVE IT.
THANK YOU VERY MUCH, SETH!