Aboard Prospero's Dream and across the Rim, humanity is enslaved to the market - the all-powerful Credit. Every breath of oxygen, commodified. Every body, slowly replaced by cyberware. The minds of the desperate, rich and poor alike - addicted to the sight of that number climbing ever skywards... unmade by the pursuit.
Grim Merchants is a campaign supplement for the Mothership Sci-Fi Horror RPG, co-written by Joshua Kramer and Michael Kramer, introducing four shady new vendors to the notoriously lawless city-station of Prospero's Dream. Each one will offer exciting and dangerous new wares alongside a host of novel role-play opportunities!
Discover hidden treasures at Ephemera4Cheap, a black-market pawn shop with a host of mysterious and exotic wares all in questionable condition. Sift through the packed shelves for something truly special and haggle a good deal out of the eccentric owner, DuBose. A huge random table of brand-new weapons, gear, and artifacts, along with rules for randomized condition and haggling.
Make some money on the side with Attica Destinations, a coreworld corporation giving out cyberware to desperate debtors. Once installed, you're paid handsomely to surrender use of your body to a rich someone-or-other broadcasting their brain to the station. These tourists want to see how the 99% live without risking their own skin... so they'll just risk yours instead. A jacked-up carousal table allowing PCs to make money during downtime and incur a truly heinous series of complications. Where do they wake up, and what did the tourist do with their body?
Pursue true freedom at the TITAN Interstellar Aftermarket, an auction house for repossessed and salvaged spacecraft. Outbid the competition and inherit a second-hand ship replete with its own name, history, quirks and upgrades. An expanded ship generator tying heavily into the Mothership Shipbreaker's Toolkit, giving PCs an opportunity to acquire a unique new spacecraft as owner-operators, and a dynamic auction mechanic to make acquisition memorable.
Enhance your capabilities in the Craftsmen's Play, the illusory playground of the mad mechanist Dr. Theseus. Purchase black-market Skillslicks to learn new skills (and inherit new traumas) or sell your memories for a pretty penny... A sinister NPC with random tables for corrupted and imperfect cyberware, offering great power at a cost to PCs willing to take the risk.
Each vendor is a plug-and-play toolkit of new ways to make and spend credits, compatible with any ongoing campaign or adventure. No matter how you're tackling the behemoth that is Prospero's Dream (or whichever corner of the Rim you're stuck in for that matter), it'll always be better with more shops!
If you back this project, you'll be getting a ~40-page, full-colour, half-letter (5.5"x8.5") saddle-stitched zine full of maps, art, shady proprietors and bonkers rollable tables! We also have art by the inimitable Simon Taylor of Spellbook Inc., author and artist for the excellent module Wolfsbane and the upcoming Year Eleven: Day of the Ring Walker!
Dr. Theseus buys memories and refines them into new installable Skillslicks. He lives two lives, cybermodding his realspace body to the gills while posing as a sleek, porcelain android in Slickspace.
With the $16 Digital Edition, you'll get yourself a PDF copy of the zine and any digital stretch goals!
With the $26 Physical Edition, you'll get a PDF+print copy of the zine, along with any digital and physical stretch goals! You'll also get the exclusive "Do Not Operate" vinyl sticker to slap on your favorite repossessed laptop, vehicle, or notebook.
With the $36 Deluxe Edition, you'll get all of the above, plus your name in the credits and a deluxe variant cover featuring proper Prospero Magenta and gorgeous golden UV foil printing!
Note that shipping is not included in the above prices and will be charged post-campaign via the pledge manager. Good news on shipping, though - read the "MOTHERSHIP MONTH" section below.
Slap it on your microwave. Slap it on your segway. Sign it yourself and slap it on a players' character sheet.
And we would be remiss if we didn't mention the Early Bird "Tourist Aboard" embroidered patch! Pledge at a physical tier in the first 48 hours of the campaign and you can mark yourself as a desperate contracted "Host" with Attica Destinations. Most days you're you, but when you're working? A core-world asshole's in control...
WIP design mockup, subject to change.
Stretch goals will not be exclusive to this campaign - everything we unlock will also be available digitally as part of future Grim Merchants releases! (Physical stuff may be made available separately).
Cross-Collab: Grim Merchants x No Gods, No Masters
As part of Mothership Month 2025, those who back both Grim Merchants and ThereWolf! Games' No Gods, No Masters will receive a bonus piece of content for both modules! ThereWolf is producing a unique new "Greed Is Good" embroidered patch, which you can see below in all its glory. For our part, we will be creating a pack of digital 4x6" postcard-sized Mission Cards, one for each Grim Merchant!
WIP designs, subject to change. Not to scale.
Each card will be two-sided and feature brand-new procedures and mission hooks unique to each vendor. They'll each have their own motives and rewards for sending your players into the METAStatic Inc. Tower. Gear up at the shops, then go kick down some doors!
Shipping and physical fulfillment for this project will be handled by none other than Tuesday Knight Games! This means that your physical pledge for Grim Merchants will be bundled in with most other Mothership Month 2025 projects to save on shipping costs. We are shipping everything to TKG, and they in turn are compiling all of your pledges to ship them all at once to you. You can learn more about how this will work down in the "MOTHERSHIP MONTH" section, but the gist is that we're aiming to have physical fulfillment complete in Fall 2026, before Mothership Month 2026 begins!
Based on our production timeline (also see below), digital fulfillment is expected to occur well in advance of physical fulfillment - February 2026. So, the two milestones are going to be a bit spaced apart but you'll get the advantages of bundled shipping in exchange.
Digital fulfillment be will handled by DriveThruRPG, same as with my previous campaigns!
Grim Merchants is in an advanced state of completion, with the majority of content written and going into layout as we speak!
So short version: the book itself is almost done. We aim to have all content completed by January 2026 and have it fulfilled across the board in the Fall!
This is my (Joshua's) third Mothership crowdfunding project! So, with more names on board, more items, more logistics, etc. it's a bigger one than the previous two to be sure - but I am confident in being able to deliver on time and without significant issues! We've been keeping our project's scope nicely constrained to a handful of uncomplicated items, and I have connections plus experience with multiple local print shops who have tackled similar projects in the past.
The biggest hurdle is, of course, the looming spectre of international shipping. We've got to get your books and stickers and patches over the border from Canada to Tuesday Knight Games in the USA, and then they need to make their way to you. It's certainly not an ideal set of global conditions, but we've budgeted to make it happen! Our intent is to finish everything as soon as possible so we can print and ship in roughly the same conditions that we have budgeted for. The first priority in all of this is stability - you get your books, and we get to sleep soundly at night!
Of course, if (and/or when) anything comes up, we will be communicating it with you so you're always in the loop! Beyond that, the plan is to keep touching base with more routine updates every month.
Joshua Kramer is a Canadian graphic designer and author who has been publishing Mothership content for the past year (A Mansion Most Vile,Providers, and others) and has been playing TTRPGs for years.
His first games were run by none other than his older brother, Michael Kramer! Michael is an accomplished Game Master and writer/game designer in his own right and has chosen this project as the formal debut of his formidable skills.
Together, we have created a book that blends both of our styles into a unique beast all its own that neither of us could have created on our lonesome!
This work is AI-Free. It does not include content or media that was AI or Machine Generated. Supporting this work means supporting real people.
Logo provided by Lone Archivist through a CC BY 4.0 license https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
This year, we're trying something different. Nearly every Mothership Month project is part of a shared shipping initiative. That means:
One pledge manager. When Mothership Month ends, you’ll receive one combined pledge manager survey for all participating projects — our “mega pledge manager.” That means just one survey and one shipping payment for multiple projects.
One shipping charge. Because these projects will ship together, you’ll only pay shipping once, saving you money.
One fulfillment timeline. All participating campaigns are scheduled to ship at the same time, ensuring your rewards arrive together.
Two exceptions. Only two creators (Bombs Bursting in Air and Roach Motel) have opted out of this group fulfillment plan; their shipping will be handled separately. Why did they opt out? These two projects are very close to being ready to fulfill, and it didn't make sense to their teams to wait.
Estimated Shipping
Below is a table of estimated shipping prices based on weight. You can see at the bottom what the estimated weights are for different items. Prospero's Dream should be around the same weight (maybe slightly lighter) than the Mothership Core Set. Additionally, if you order several items you'll incur a small charge for additional items, which varies based on your country.
This does not include any applicable VAT or taxes. A reminder that these shipping prices are an estimate and its possible they will change based on global conditions beyond our control.
When will these projects ship? Our collective goal is to have all Mothership Month 2025 projects fulfilled before Mothership Month 2026 begins. Some projects are further along than others, so their timeline for digital rewards will vary. But we have roughly a year to fulfill before Mothership Month 2026, which gives everyone enough time to finish up and get their products to our warehouse.
What is Mothership Month?
Every year, Tuesday Knight Games and dozens of third-party creators launch new Mothership projects around a shared theme. This year’s theme (“The Dream Returns”) centers on Prospero’s Dream, the infamous X-Class back-world, black market space station. Each project ties back to the Dream in some way. Not only that, but we'll be opening up Prospero's Dream as a shared setting for all third-party creators going forward.
Get your exclusive Supply Pod!
This year we're changing up the Supply Pods. Now there is just ONE BIG SUPPLY POD. It's unlocked once all projects fund and it improves as we hit more group achievements. How do you get the Supply Pod? Back 5 or more projects at the physical level and get access to all the cool goodies.
