Adding Maladum Beasts to Core Space

Dungeon crawling is a dangerous business and Adventurers can never be sure what hostile creatures will be waiting around the next corner. Why should Traders miss out on all that fun?

The two games share the same mechanical DNA, and Maladum is set in Core Space’s future, so converting the fauna to work in Core Space is fairly easy. This means they are ideal for adding some interesting variety and challenge to existing Missions, or to your own custom scenarios. You’ll be battling eldritch horrors and fierce predators in no time.

Bringing the creatures into play

The first decision you need to make is about how you want to have these creatures come into play. You’ve got a few options depending on what you want to achieve, the sort of Mission you are playing,  and the type of creature:

• Use the Hostility Tracker: before you start a Mission you could decide to substitute the main enemy for it with a creature of the same rank. For example, in a zombie themed game Lamentors could replace Harvesters, Hellfonts could replace Iconoclasts etc. Or you could be more selective and keep the main foes for the mission, but have creatures turn up when a Ganger or Civilian might be generated.
• Just add them: an even simpler approach is to just decide before the game starts what will arrive at the start of each Hostility band. Place the creature next to the band on the Hostility Tracker as a reminder.
• Start with the creature in play: You could place the creature(s) you want on the board before the game starts. Perhaps they have escaped from a transport crate on a cargo ship, or have made themselves at home in an abandoned base? They could even be the point of the Mission, with the goal of defeating a dangerous creature being the main objective.
• Use Event Cards: before the Mission starts decide what cards will trigger the arrival of what creature and then shuffle them into the deck. For example, a card that might bring in a Rock Worm, could bring in a Blood Worm instead.
• Auxiliaries: Companions work as Auxiliaries in Core Space. That means that you could have them arrive as the pet of an enemy or NPC, or securing one could be the primary objective for the Mission. Otherwise, they can be hired in the Trade Phase just like the other Auxiliaries.

General Rules

When converting creatures from Maladum to Core Space the following rules work the same way regardless of the creature:

• These icons don’t apply in Core Space*, ignore them if they appear on the Character board: Night Sight, Worthy Opponent, Otherworldly, Sharp, Bludgeoning, Malacytic Conduit, Parry, Vicious.
• The following icons bring their rules from Maladum: Creature, Pack, Reactive, Reach, Piercing, Hit and Run, Plunderer. (These rules can be downloaded for free from this website).
• Any Character that has the Creature icon counts as a Beast in Core Space and can be hunted for Trophy tokens by Game Hunters.
• These icons use existing rules from Core Space: Burning, Poison, First Strike, Fast.
• Magical Armour is replaced by energy Shields.
• Terrifying uses the rules for Fear.
• The Volatile rule works as it does in Maladum, but is generated on a Misfire result, rather than a Blunder.
• If a Character has multiple heart tokens on their board, these work the same way as they do in Maladum, i.e. they must all be removed to defeat the creature.
• Event Cards: Unless otherwise stated, the rules from the Character’s Event Card don’t apply.
• Fly becomes Hover.
• Hostility. If something has an impact on the Dread track it happens to the Hostility track instead.
• Entangling: Instead of a Fatigue token, place a Reminder token on the target. The target must then use an Action to clear just like a Fatigue token.
• The Relentless ability works as described in Maladum, but it only works on Physical Armor (there are no cracks for rats to squirm through with energy Shields).
• All of these creatures will be hostile to any Character that isn’t the same species as them. Adversaries will be hostile to any Character that doesn’t belong to their group, e.g. Hellfonts won’t attack other Revenants, but will be hostile to anything else.

*Note: These rules are harder to adapt for Core Space without changing more fundamental things about the game so I’ve left them off for simplicity. For example, Darkness isn’t a game term in Core Space, nor are different damage types, but feel free to experiment with them in your games if you want to!

Maladum Starter Box

The starter box comes with some good candidates for models to include in your games of Core Space.

Revenants

Starting with the Revenants, the easiest to include are the Lamentors, Hellfonts and Rot Troll. The Myria and Malagaunt don’t really fit the sci-fi setting as effectively, so I’d leave them terrorising fantasy settings.

Lamentors

From Mass Effect’s Husks, to the people infected with the protomolecule in the Expanse or Fallout’s Ghouls, zombies turn up in sci-fi settings nearly as often as they do in modern ones.  This means it’s easy to drop them into Core Space as a rank 1 enemy to replace Harvesters or Drones in a mission. Perhaps they are the result of a new pathogen, nanites gone wrong,  the twisted experiments of a big corporation – or even of the First Born. In Core Space, they play just the same way as they do in Maladum.

Hellfonts

Hellfonts already look a little sci-fi with that big tank on their back and are probably the result of some horrific experiment. In Core Space, they retain their immunities and potential to inflict Burning which could make them a dangerous foe.

Rot Troll

Some settings have zombies that are the bigger and tougher versions of their more traditional cousins. In Core Space, the Rot Troll could be a nastier zombie created from some large alien species. It counts as Massive and is otherwise just as terrifying as it is in Maladum.

Wandering Beasts

Troglodyte

Troglodytes could be another species of alien found in the Accord worlds. You could use its Maladum board, keep the rules for Plunderer, use the camouflage character ability from Core Space. Or you could just use the model to represent a Scavenger using one of the existing boards from Black Star Rising.

Drakon

There are sure to be some terrifying predators that Traders bump into from time to time as they explore the galaxy, so adding drakons is easy. Heck, they might even be the same creatures you find in Maladum.

Cankers

Cankers definitely look like the kind of beastie that you’d encounter in a sci-fi setting. In Core Space they count as Small. They keep their Vampiric rule but it applies ammunition instead, removing 3 Ammo pegs on a Critical hit. Apparently, they find it tasty! If there are no Ammo pegs to eat, they will remove a Health peg instead. If you use their Elite stats, then the protection they get from their magical armour comes from a Shield instead.

Beasts of Enveron

The Beasts of Enveron expansion is also a great source of foes for your Traders, giving you options from the fairly mundane, to more arcane horrors.

Split-tail rats

Rats… in space! Split-tail rats make perfect sense in Core Space, their more mundane form has followed us pretty much everywhere else we’ve been, so why not into space? In Core Space they count as Small.

Great Bear

Bears are a bit harder to explain in space, but it’s feasible that we took them to new planets with us. Perhaps your Traders meet this one on an undeveloped planet? You can essentially pick the Great Bear up from Maladum and drop it straight into Core Space, where it counts as Massive and is likely to be a dangerous foe.

Bloodwym

These critters already look like they belong in a sci-fi setting and could be the smaller cousins of the Rock Worms found on First Born asteroids. In Core Space, they count as Massive. They also lose Immobile, to make them less vulnerable to ranged fire.

Crag Troll

The Crag Troll could be a dangerous type of alien creature for your crew to encounter. In Core Space it counts a massive and is likely to be serious threat!

Alary

These flying pests could be nuisances straight out of an alien jungle, and that Piercing shot is potentially dangerous too.

Skin Shifters

Shape changing creatures are found in many sci-fi settings, such as the Changelings from Deep Space Nine, or Dr Who’s Zygons. That means you could decide that the Skin Shifter fits into your games of Core Space. After all the Purge Live Ones often do something similar. Perhaps you could decide to have one arrive into play instead of a Live One?

Oblivion’s Maw

If the Corrupter slipped through a portal from a dungeon vault into a cyberpunk corridor it would look just at home (or at least equally not at home). Its flailing tentacles could be taken straight from a sci-fi horror movie or a battlefield in the 41^st millennium, so why not add it to Core Space?

The cosmetic appearances of the Cursed Chest and Cursed Portal don’t suit Core Space, so perhaps they should stay in the dungeon.

The Corrupter

In Maladum the Corrupter is summoned into play by an Adversary Commander using talismans. Thematically this doesn’t make sense in Core Space, so you could set defeating the Corrupter as the objective and have the model in play on the board from the start of the mission. Alternatively, you could have enemy NPCs bring it into play through portals when some condition is met – perhaps First Born using a Gate of Ry’sa, or some misguided Black Star scientists have unleashed it through an experimental Dimension Gate. You can decide what NPCs it will be hostile to depending on the scenario – perhaps First Born can control it, but it will lash out at Black Star scientists and Traders alike.

In Core Space it counts as Massive, and retains the Immobile attribute.

Potent ranged weapons are more common in Core Space so the Corrupter responds by opening a miniature portal for each tentacle so they can reach further. When the Corrupter is placed in the game area the tentacles are separate from the body. Scatter each tentacle twice to determine its starting location ignoring walls, then place the tentacle as close to that position as the terrain will allow. On its turn, if a tentacle can’t reach any Characters that it is hostile to, the tentacle will use an action to relocate so it is adjacent to a random Character that it is hostile to.

The Tentacle Die is not used. The Maw die works as described in the Oblivion’s Maw expansion, but if you roll a Dark Energy result the target is Scattered once and knocked Prone instead. Ignore the instructions for replacing Staging points with Portals.

Cursed vestiges

These beasties look like nasty little alien bugs, so you could use them with or without the Corrupter. In Core Space they are Small and lose their Maw die.

Forbidden Creed

Wandering Beast

Maladite Golem

Battling the hulking Maladite Golem would give you a showdown that could have come straight out of Galaxy Quest* into Core Space, and would be a great challenge for an experienced crew. 

Converting the golem for use in Core Space is simple and it counts as Massive.

Companions

Traders in Core Space encounter all kinds of exotic creatures, so the Companions can be added to Core Space by using the rules for Auxiliaries. They have more utility and health than standard Auxiliary Characters so convert their Guilder cost directly to UA when hiring them to reflect this. They can be used as described on their Character Boards with the following adjustments:

Nynn the Farseer

In Core Space Nynn is Small. If a Trader targets a Character in Nynn’s LoS with a Ranged Assault, apply the Target Lock attribute. This replaces Nynn’s normal Companion Ability.

Miri the Healer

In Core Space Miri counts as Small and only uses the Free side of the board. Miri’s healing ability works the same way that it does in Maladum, but does not cause Corruption on a blunder.

Astet the Wise

Ignore the rules for Master, Purification, and Regeneration. Astet counts as Small and can use its Persuade skill as described in Maladum, but ignores the rules around Corruption.

Reeki

Reeki is simple to add to Core Space using the standard conversions at the start of this article and should make a fierce ally.  

Tilik’eti the Mule

Tilik’eti is like a tougher Gurnrit when used in Core Space. Keep the rules Indestructible but ignore the rules for Tilik’eti’s Companion Ability.

*Still one of the best Star Trek films ever made, despite not being a Star Trek film.

As you can see, adding creatures from Maladum is pretty simple and adds lots of fun options. Take care out there, and happy gaming!