🏴‍☠️ Captain's Log #05– August, 2025

Your monthly update on Dreadnauts, my nautical horror hack of Mothership

Ahoy, Sailors!

Time for our monthly catch-up on Dreadnauts development. No bombastic news this time (well, maybe one…), but I’d like to touch on a couple of topics I mentioned in earlier Substack posts. If you’re not already following, be sure to subscribe!

So How’s the Work?

Development has hit a bit of a dead calm this month, mostly because of life stuff and summer breaks. That said, the downtime gave me space to reflect and polish some of the game’s cosmetic elements — especially naming.

A Game of Names

One thing the Panic Engine SRD (by Tuesday Knight Games) encourages is renaming some of the core elements to better fit your setting and reinforce theme. That includes Stats, Saves, Skills, Stress, Panic, Health, and Wounds.

I’ve been looking closely at other Panic Engine hacks I admire, especially Cloud Empress and Ruination Pilgrimage to follow suit.

But for now, I’ve decided not to rename any Stats or Saves (aside from adding the Presence stat), mostly to keep things user-friendly for players coming from the Mothershipsphere.

That could change after playtesting, obvioulsy.

Skills are trickier: some will change to reflect the nautical horror theme, others remain as-is for ease of adoption.

Since we’ve already talked about Classes/Stations here, let’s move on to…

Stress, Panic, and Trauma Response

Here, I felt that change was needed as there’s an opportunity to sell the core themes of the setting. So, as of right now, I’m testing:

• Dread for Stress

• Wreck for Panic

• Breaking Point instead of Trauma Response

So far, these terms have worked well in my closed playtests — but I’d love to hear your thoughts.

Playtest News

I said no bombastic news, but here’s one: I’m working on a Playtest/Quickstart document. It’ll be a stripped-down version of the game, designed to get you on board the development process. You’ll be able to test the waters and run your first Dreadnauts nautical horror scenario.

The Playtest/Quickstart will include:

• streamlined rules

• 10 pre-generated characters (2 for each Station)

• a pre-generated ship with some space for customization

• a ready-to-run scenario

• tools and tables for emergent play

More on this in the coming weeks, as work develops with the folks at Plus One Exp. Stay tuned and keep an eye on your inbox!

Well…

That’s going to do it for this update. I hope to have juicier news on my next development log.

Until then,

Steady winds and tall sails, mate!

Luiz.