Bathtub Reviews are an excuse for me to read modules a little more closely. I’m doing them to critique a wide range of modules from the perspective of my own table and to learn for my own module design. They’re stream of consciousness and unedited critiques. I’m writing them on my phone in the bath.

Cleaning of Prison Station Echo is a 51 page module for Mothership by D. Kenny & Haig Morrison and illustrated by Evlyn Moreau with maps by Guy Pradel. In it the player characters are unarmed janitorial staff on a prison full of zombie-like ex-prisoners. I purchased this myself.

The writing itself could easily have overextended itself: There are nineteen pages of set up alone, before the prison itself is described. Admittedly, some of this is optional, like the two additional starting scenarios, but most of it is necessary set up: Factions, the virus, and the like. These are individually, thank goodness, brief and punchy, with no single section (not description, but collection of all the faction descriptions for example) being more than half a page long. The descriptions aren’t pretty, but are juicy, and lend themselves to the sense of corporate farce that lead to a zombie outbreak that only a team of janitors can solve: “…failure means death if it interferes with XeroCorp’s public image.” and “I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave…just kidding, I probably can.”

I really enjoy the location descriptions. They fun, and collect a fun situation in a nutshell, and they don’t outstay their welcome at only 16 rooms. It’s a fun romp across two levels, although the maps don’t leave much room for spatial or exploratory play and are largely playgrounds in which to place the admittedly compelling characters and scenarios. I don’t love the choice to place the two levels at opposite ends of the book, though, as I spent a significant part of my read-through thinking there was no map of the basement at all. I should add that this module is packed full of charming tables: Each level gets its own set of tables; there is a custom panic table; a bunch of unique backgrounds. This stuff is all great. Just great.

The last ten pages of the module are a “sandbox” for playing on Carnath, the planet that the prison is on. This extra section just screams Kickstarter stretch goal to me. I put sandbox in quotation marks, because honestly it’s not enough. It’s five well-described factions (two of them present in the core module), with a faction diagram that masquerades cleverly as point-crawl style map of the surface of Carnath. I can probably work with this; the factions and their characters are strong and interesting, the relationships really clear. This seems like an incredible basis for a sandbox that is missing from this module, and I’d love to see that sandbox actually developed into something a little more like Desert Moon of Karth, rather than tacked onto the end. It shows that the authors are capable of great things, they’re just not showing me in the scope of this module, so it feels like wasted space, especially as three of these factions don’t tie into the core dungeon.

Layout is colourful and clear, in A5 zine format, using a unique colour palette that complements the exceptional art which is also very unique in the Mothership line. I don’t love the heavy bullet pointing as an aesthetic choice, but I don’t think it affects the usability. I can never praise Evelyn Moreau’s art enough, it’s so characterful and charming. Evelyn, we have to collaborate on something one day! The maps are excellent and match the overarching style; especially the opening spread with incredibly charming isometric cut outs of the various areas of the station. Prison Station Echo at once has a spread-to-spread experimentation and an abundance of typefaces that feels recognisably Mothership but also has a voice of its own.

Overall, the core of Prison Station is an excellent module, more of a point-crawl than a dungeon-crawl. Highly recommended. It strays a bit from its primary directive, though, with a bunch of additional starting scenarios and an abortive attempt at a sandbox, which dilute the main product from a succinct and excellent one. That said, excise those from the module and use them as a basis for your own work, and they’re great. I know that from the creator’s perspective, this is bonus content, but from the readers perspective, it’s incomplete work. Aside from those additional concerns: This is a fun, corporate horror comedy take on Mothership, with a unique voice, that I’d enjoy running, and probably would run over the excellent Gradient Descent for something that sits in a similar ballpark if I’m pitching to my table.

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