Space Station Riga has been overrun by an Alien horror. Sated for now, the bloated monstrosity sleeps, watched over by a multitude of obscene offspring. The children sleep less soundly than their dark mother, stirring to investigate and neutralise potential threats.. and to feed.

A desperate battle was waged by the crew, and it shows. The station is badly damaged. Only a fraction of the original complement remain to serve as a captive living food source. Cowering in their quarters and work spaces, they await the tell-tale scratching at their door which signals their time has come.

Synopsis

3-5 players co-operate to explore the Riga and rescue survivors while trying to complete their personal mission. Players may choose how many actions to perform on their turn, with more actions generating more sound. The more sound the players make in a turn, the more aliens awake at the end of the turn to hunt them down.

Each player begins the game with a single survivor. As you explore the Riga you will have the opportunity to rescue others and add them to your Squad. As a group the players must evacuate a certain number of survivors to win. This number depends on the number of players. Only players who have completed their mission may evacuate survivors.

If you complete your mission and the evacuation target is reached, you win. Otherwise you lose. If a player loses their final survivor before the evacuation begins, the game ends in defeat for all players.

A standard game takes from 10-13 turns, but the duration can be reduced to make a shorter, more challenging game. If enough players complete their missions the evacuation can be triggered sooner.

The Riga

The exploration of the Frontier Worlds is a colossal undertaking with vast profits awaiting the lucky and the bold. Only the most promising prospects merit the attention of a City Class Research Station. These huge, mobile platforms can be found wherever the economic or scientific stakes are greatest. Their insatiable thirst for labour and supplies is a magnet for traders, refugees and chancers, while their proximity to the newest and most interesting finds attracts the elite.

One crimson dustbowl of a world in Star System Gliese 892 would be an unlikely venue for all of this, were it not for the ruins of an alien civilization. The steady stream of relics brought up from the surface will delight xeno-archaeologists for generations to come. Regrettably not everything brought up was a relic. Or dead.

The under decks of the Riga are infested with Aliens. As your survivors explore they will discover areas where the Aliens have broken through onto the main decks. From these spawning places the three types of Alien will emerge; Scouts, Soldiers and Monsters. Scouts are small and delicate. Soldiers are powerful. Monsters can be difficult to eliminate without heavy weapons. All are dangerous.

Setting

Zeno is set in the distant future. The invention of the Star Drive enabled mankind to finally reach for the stars. In distant systems and the dark places between, humanity has discovered new resources, new homes and some disturbing truths.

The Lonely Ones are the only sentient species yet discovered, if that is what they are. Infrequent as they are terrifying, their enormous vessels strip everything in their path. No signal sent to them has ever been responded to. No ship sent to fight them has ever returned. Mercifully, they are few.

With the rush to the stars, old certainties are failing. New religions spring up to offer radical answers to old problems. Most are harmless. A few are not.

Humanity itself is changing. Robotic organs have consigned many diseases to the past, but immortality is elusive. While Androids are ever more human all attempts to imprint human brain patterns on them have failed. In every case the result is madness and despair.

Here & Now

At Gliese 892 man has stumbled on something as sinister as it is dangerous. It is no mere infestation.

The Aliens have a psychoactive effect. Their presence tugs on the mind, opening pathways to dark impulses. 

Under their influence resentment flares into hate, casual wants become desperate desires and the unthinkable is not only considered but done. The Riga is strewn with the consequences

You will feel this as you play; the constant pull toward your own objectives at the expense of the group, as well as more overt temptations.

Most survivors have ulterior motives and few personal missions are therefore heroic. Swap your personal mission for a Faction Mission to explore the dark side of the game. Here are missions directly at odds with the other players; the venal, the mad and the sinister.