26 Draconis Trilogy – Part I
Pull up a chair at The Black Dog Tavern.
This is the story of the derelict that taught us not to trust each other.
Campaign: Alien RPG – Cinematic Module Format: One-shot (run multiple times) Status: Completed Series: Life in the Big Black – Campaign #2 Trilogy: 26 Draconis, Part I of III
If you reduce the Alien films to their bare bones, the story is always the same. A group of ordinary people are pushed somewhere they shouldn’t be, something goes wrong and they turn on each other long before the Company finishes the job. There's Xeonmorph involved and a handful survive, if they’re lucky.
Chariot of the Gods understands this, then quietly changes everything.
There are no Xenomorphs here. Well, not the ones you’re expecting, anyway. What the scenario gives you instead is something slower, stranger, and far more corrosive: secrets, directives, and a universe that has been lying to you for decades.
What Makes Chariot of the Gods Different
At first glance, this is classic survival horror.
A disenfranchised crew.
A sudden corporate reroute.
A long-lost ship drifting in the dark.
A problem no one signed up for.
But beneath that familiar skin is one of the smartest pieces of design in the Alien RPG line.
For players, everything feels recognisable; the tech, the tone a familiar rhythm of exploration and dread. Nothing feels out of place, and nothing feels recycled.
For Game Mothers, it’s something else entirely.
The module is dense with background. The 26 Draconis system is seeded early. The disappearance of the USCMS Cronus hangs over everything. AGENT A0-3959X.91-15 is introduced in detail, but only its consequences ever reach the table.
It rewards reading. It rewards restraint. And it rewards running it again once you understand what it was really doing the first time.
Our First Run
Most of the table had come straight from Hope’s Last Day. They knew the system now. Or, at least, thought they did. Everyone received new characters and agendas. They all quietly absorbed new reasons not to tell the truth.
The scenario plays like Alien (1979) at heart: a haunted house in space. That familiarity is intentional. It lulls players into thinking this is about navigation, survival, and monsters. It isn’t.
It’s about pressure. About what people do when their objectives don’t line up. About how quickly friendship gives way to self-preservation once stress dice start stacking.
Paranoia set in early, the first casualty of the Big Black is Trust. Something we would explore in detail when we played te Frontier War.
Again, spoiler-free, because this is a module that deserves to be played. But two moments from that first run still define it for us.
Standout Moment #1
The Locked Door
The crew find themselves in a control room, buried in the engineering decks of the floating haunted house / derelict, trying to bring the ship's systems back online. In the corner of the room is a heap of tattered, discarded pressure suits. A helmet pokes out of the pile, its visor misted, milky and opaque.
Player: “I go over and kick the pile of clothes.”
GM: "What?"
Of course, everything goes wrong immediately. It definately isn't a tattered pile of clothes, initiative is rolled, panic spreads. And then the most human thing possible happened. When one player’s turn comes up, he makes a choice that will go on to define the foray into the Big Black.
The same player who ran when danger appeared in Hope’s Last Day decides to do it again. He bolts for the exit and locks the door behind him.
There is a moment of stunned silence around the table. The three remaining characters resolve the 'issue' and the door is eventually unlocked. Some words are exchanged, none of them are particularly kind. (No real-world feelings are hurt. Everyone laughs it off.) But nothing resets. From that moment on, the game changes. Trust is gone. Every decision is questioned, every action is suspect.
What comes back is never quite what left.
Standout Moment #2
“Daisy, Daisy…”
Late in Act III, due ot the chatter within the Tavern, we bring a new player into the game. There are no characters available for them to play, so an NPC is repurposed and a quick briefing is given.
GM: “He’s been badly affected by a long time in hypersleep. Think about how that might affect how he talks and acts.”
Player: “Got it.”
For the rest of the session, the character refuses to answer questions about his past, he sings “Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do…” under his breath, and he wrestles a shotgun away from another character the first chance he gets. When the escape pod becomes an option, he doesn’t hesitate. It was unsettling, funny and perfectly wrong.
The finale is, as you would imagine, chaos.
The Verdict
Chariot of the Gods is more than an introduction to the Alien RPG, it’s a statement of intent. Run it once and you’ll have a great night. But run it again and you’ll see how carefully it was built.
What Worked
Deep lore that rewards repeat play
Personal agendas that generate real tension
A structure that supports slow-burn paranoia
Familiar themes twisted just enough to surprise
For Game Mothers
The module doubles as a reference guide to the Alien universe
Connections to the wider 26 Draconis trilogy are hidden in plain sight
Player betrayal isn’t a risk, it’s the point
AGENT A0-3959X.91-15 begins here, whether players realise it or not
For Players
Trust is optional
Agendas matter more than loyalty
Survival isn’t the same as winning
The derelict remembers things you don’t
Why It Matters
This was the campaign where we learned something crucial. Alien isn’t about monsters, it’s about systems; corporate, mechanical, and human.
People didn’t die because they rolled badly, they died because they made choices. And we all knew better by the end.
We went back out anyway.
From The Black Dog Tavern