Allotment of Caring

Allotment of Caring (Goliath Class Factory Ship)

Acquired at a bargain price from an Eden shipbroker

The Allotment serves as a mobile fleet supply hub, enabling several large vessels to operate independently for extended periods of time and transporting bulk goods.

Need to make two ordinary (+10) Pilot + manoeuvrability (+15) test to harvest plasma from a blue-giant star. Test takes three days. Failure of either test by 5 DoS or more results in ship smashing into the star. This should not be attempted with a crew of rating 25 or below.

Cargo
The vessel has three vast cargo holds capable of carrying over a million standardised containers each. They are designed to hold larger cargo containers for bulk goods or oversized items, and can be refitted for temporary habitation with relative ease.

Hold 1
Currently empty

Planning on loading up on goods from Drakon
 * Abundant ornamental material (want to start a fashion on High Khessar and monopolise the market)
 * Juvenats
 * Unknown exotic organic compound?
 * Rare animals

Hold 2
Construction materials for Drakon V Once dropped off on Drakon, going to load up on goods from Ffrikksonbrannd
 * Ferrocrete mix
 * Industrial metals
 * Prefabricated fortification components

Hold 3
Goods for sale in Lithesh sector
 * Ludd Lunar hardwood
 * Ludd Luna Ironbark
 * Exotic salination material

Complications
Ancient and wise (-4 hull integrity but +10 to all maneuvers)

Haunted (Reduce Morale permanently by 10. However, strange premonitions flicker on the augur arrays, granting a +6 to the ship's Detection. All non-crewmembers suffer -5 to Command tests involving boarding actions or hit and run actions against the haunted vessel.)

Description
Long and boxy, painted a deep but fading red. Squad bridge tower at the aft and the prow is taken up with an octagonal plasma scoop with the associated processing machinery. The middle portion of the ship is given over to cargo storage of one sort or another, with loading apparatus protruding from the dorsal spine.

The Allotment was presumably a mechanicus vessel at some point, though it's so old that there are no records of it ever being owned by the priests of the omnissiah. Mechanoarchaeological investigation indicates that the ship dates back at least to M34, and the crew's oral history claims that it ferried supplies in the Great Crusade; though records demonstrate that the crew was almost entirely replaced a mere two centuries ago, so these tales are probably nonsense.

Either way, the vessel is starting to show its age. Most of its wondrous ancient components have been replaced with their less efficient equivalents produced more recently, though these have still been running for centuries and are in somewhat urgent need of a tune up. Substantial structural damage from old war wounds persists and the interior, though functional, tends towards the dank and creepy (even discounting the ghosts). Still, the Allotment of Caring is a tough old thing and remains more than capable of reliably doing its job with minimum fuss.

The Haunting
The Thousand and One Crusaders, ghosts (supposedly) of the first crusade into Lithesh, who march out of the ship and vanish at port but march back in with their death-wounds when the ship leaves and take up residences in various portions of the ship, many but not all of which are known by the crew. Propitiatory rituals for the spectres are believed by the crew to be essential for averting disaster; there are at least a thousand and one of these rituals, and each crewmember may be an expert in their local ghosts and the proper offerings - a throne discarded into a vent, a portion set aside at a meal, double punching the holes for certain rivets and the like. Notable phantoms also lend their nicknames to locations in the ship or certain duties.

The Engine Singers
Though much of the ancient culture of the ship has been stripped away over the course of successive crew changes, some facets remain. As with the various rituals that keep the ghostly apparitions in check, the Engine Singers are considered vital to the proper functioning of the old transport vessel. The Singers' task is to patrol the maintenance and monitoring corridors surrounding the plasma and warp drives, chanting in melody with the rhythms of the thrumming machinery. Their song produces eerily soothing harmonies when the ancient engines are operating nominally, but even the slightest deviation from tolerable parameters will produce dissonance that all inhabitants of the enginarium decks instantly recognise. From the slightest wavering in the harmonics, experienced crew members can discern the specific system that is performing sub-optimally, enabling them to quickly remedy the problem and ensure that the ship responds with far greater grace than its bulk would suggest.

Housed in cloisters located in the depths of the enginarium, the Singers live in monastic isolation and are forbidden from speaking with the secular crew. The crew view them with solemn reverence and leave offerings of food and spare machine parts. It is believed that the Singers are descended from a caste of tech adepts and, though they keep themselves covered in heavy robes while abroad amongst the crew, occasional flashes of augmetics can sometimes be seen alongside little remaining flesh.

The Great Spine Train
Down the length of the keel runs a large conveyor system - two sets of maglev tracks along which hauler carts rattle. The train system provides bulk transit of raw materials, components, cargo, and crew throughout the ship. Each cart is independently controlled by a twisted servitor protruding from the front; they are left with a relatively high degree of function, serving to catalogue goods as well as directly piloting the carts, and maintaining sufficient variation for the crew to ascribe them personality and affectionate nicknames.

The tracks run most of their length over a coarse metal grating, designed to allow seeping water or oil easy passage to the bilges below, preventing dangerous buildups of electrical energy. Of course, other items drop down too - loose bolts, small tools, coins, etc. The ghilliams inhabiting the bilges have generated diverse belief systems surrounding the train and its bounty - beliefs that often come into conflict, occasionally necessitating a crackdown if the idolatrous fervour of the sub-humans grows out of hand.