# Entity *Created:* 2024-01-03, *Modified:* 2026-10-06 ![[Entity (cover).jpg]] ![[Entity - Advanced Storytelling (cover).jpg]] ![[Entity - Continuum (cover).jpg]] ![[Entity - Hyperion (cover).jpg]] ![[Entity - Advanced Expeditions (cover).jpg]] ![[Entity - Expanded (cover).jpg]] The Sun is gone. A rogue black hole ate the solar system ten thousand years ago, and the synthetic astronaut NASA sent out ahead of the collapse never got the memo — it comes back online to a silence longer than human history and a mission that doesn't know it's over yet. So you wake up on an alien world with a Pyramid the size of a small city hanging in the sky like it's been waiting for you, and the whole job is to explore, survive, and come home bearing the one thing that ever mattered: proof you were here at all. **Entity** is Peter Scholtz's solo NASA-punk game that makes that survey the entire story — and it's compact and cheap enough that the only thing between you and tonight is a dice tray. ## Setting The **Intraplanetary Adaptive Pioneers (IAP)** were NASA's ambitious attempt to field AI-driven synthetic astronauts to explore and adapt to the solar system's varied environments — Mars, Venus, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn — clearing the path for eventual human colonization. The program launched 10,000 years ago, mere moments before a rogue black hole disrupted the solar system's gravitational balance, collapsed the whole shebang, and ended all life within it. Your survey vessel was dragged toward the Pyramid, its gravitational pull buckling the hull and shredding the escape pods. You were thrown into the void in your spacesuit and drawn inexorably onto an uncharted alien world. The place is a study in anomaly: acid pools sitting beside scorched glass plains, towering rock formations ringing flooded grottos, the skeletal remains of titanic creatures casting long shadows, and alien ruins opening into internal biomes lit by constellations of glowing organisms. One signal stands out as almost familiar — a distress beacon from an archaic Soyuz unit, a relic of humanity's own past hinting at mysteries beneath the surface. Your goal, should you choose to accept it (and you don't really have a choice), is to restore yourself via Upgrades, erect Structures that improve your research and survival, and piece together what happened — the secrets of the Pyramid and the vanished civilization that left these ruins. Structures you complete confer permanent bonuses that outlive you: when your current IAP is finally destroyed, whatever you built remains for the next synthetic astronaut in a cold, clean little legacy. ## Mechanics ### The Action Roll When you attempt something risky, make an **Action Roll**: roll two ten-sided dice (2d10) and compare each die with a Difficulty Class equal to the sum of a relevant **Trait** and one of its **Edges** (for example, Technology + Robotics or Analytics + Physics). - **Full Success** — both dice come in at or under the Difficulty Class. Things go according to plan, miraculously. - **Partial Success** — only one die comes in at or under the Difficulty Class. You succeed, but with a complication, and you must mark a **Strain**. - **Failure** — both dice betray you. You fail and must mark a permanent, unremovable **Impairment**. Advantage (granted by Upgrades) rolls 3d10 and drops the highest die; Disadvantage (conferred by certain Encounters marked with a (D)) rolls 3d10 and drops the lowest; if you somehow have both, they cancel. ### Character Your IAP is built around three Traits — **Technology**, **Analytics**, and **Adaptivity** — each with three Edges: Technology covers Robotics, Engineering, and Information Technology; Analytics covers Physics, Biology, and Chemistry; Adaptivity covers Survival, Communication, and Navigation. On creation you assign the numbers 5, 4, 3 among the Traits and 1, 2, 3 among each Trait's Edges. Short, brutal, and done. ### Spacesuit, Strains, and Destruction Your Spacesuit is a 20-slot container; every slot can hold an Upgrade, a Strain, or an Impairment. **Strains** are temporary burdens — they cause no direct harm, can be cleared through the Self-Repair Side Activity or wiped wholesale at the end of a Mission, and you start every Mission with none. **Impairments** are permanent physical difficulties that can never be removed short of your Destruction. Fill all 20 slots and your IAP is destroyed: you lose your Upgrades, Aspects, and Mission progress, but any Structures you've built endure for your next character. ### The Mission Loop A Mission is a stretch of Expeditions, each an **Exploration** plus one chosen **Side Activity**. Exploration runs on three rolls: a d100 against the Location Table to identify your destination, a d10 Travel Encounter roll for the journey, and a d10 Location Encounter roll when you arrive — with Challenges, Opportunities, and Findings layered in, and Aspects (concrete Mission components, from recovered parts to spore samples) as the prize. Your Side Activity is one of five: **Collect Data**, **Recharge Energy**, **Gather Resources**, **Self-Repair**, or **Implement Upgrades** (the two latter skip the roll and just spend Resources). Nail down the required Aspects, complete the Mission, and read a Discovery. ### Expansions **Advanced Storytelling** (2023) is the oracle companion — twenty pages of tables with well over a thousand entries for fleshing out Exploration and Side Activities, from the Location and Structure tables to an Alien Lifeform Generator. It is system-neutral enough to bolt onto other sci-fi games. **Continuum** (2025) trades table-flipping for a **New Expedition System** of self-contained pages, each Location carrying its Challenge, Opportunity, and Finding printed right in place. You roll 2d10: the first die is your Movement Roll (flip that many pages forward), the second your Encounter Roll, with Data spent beforehand to boost either. It also adds a lush-jungle planet setting and the **Echo Crystals** narrative thread, whose short Echo Insights read after each mission — and, per its publisher, takes you deeper into the Crimson Pyramid's mystery. **Hyperion** (2025) is a content pack adding 95 Encounters and 30 Locations, built for players who would rather roleplay their character than assemble the world table by table from scratch. **Advanced Expeditions** (2026) is pitched as "the larger vision for Entity": it replaces the old Location Encounter structure with **Areas** — roll 1d10 to land in an Area, each with its own set of Locations, Encounters, Features, and Tags, so every Aspect Destination finally gets its own identity. Ten Areas, 100 Locations. **Expanded** (2026) keeps that medicine coming: another ten exotic Areas (another 100 Locations and Encounters), and it doubles the Mission, Upgrade, and Structure lists — now selectable by rolling and adding 2d10 — plus a **Features and Tags** roll system (3d10) to layer concrete physical detail and hidden meaning onto any Location or Encounter. It uses the Areas rules Advanced Expeditions introduced, and works alongside the original core. ## Editions - **Entity** — core rulebook. 2023. *In the library.* (A printer-friendly single-page variant is also held.) - **Advanced Storytelling for Entity** — oracle-table supplement. 2023. *In the library.* (A printer-friendly copy is also held.) - **Entity: Continuum** — expansion. 2025. *In the library.* (Held in both pages and spreads layouts.) - **Entity: Hyperion** — expansion. 2025. *In the library.* (Held in both pages and spreads layouts.) - **Entity: Advanced Expeditions** — expansion. 2026. *In the library.* - **Entity: Expanded** — expansion. 2026. *In the library.* (Held in both pages and single-page layouts.) The pages/spreads/printer-friendly copies are print-layout differences, not separate editions. ## References - [Entity & expansions - Candlenaut on DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/publisher/22513/candlenaut) - [Entity (core) - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/444382/entity) - [Entity: Continuum - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/527712/entity-continuum) - [Entity: Hyperion - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/549797/entity-hyperion) - [Entity: Advanced Expeditions - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/572268/entity-advanced-expeditions) - [Peter Scholtz - itch.io](https://peterscholtz.itch.io/) - [Review: Entity, a Solo NASA-Punk RPG of Cosmic Horror - Technical Grimoire](https://technicalgrimoire.com/2023/12/11/entity-a-solo-nasa-punk-rpg-of-cosmic-horror/) - [Entity Review - Fate's Fangs](https://www.fatesfangs.com/post/entity-review) - [Game Review: Entity - Welcome to the Deathtrap](https://deathtrap-games.blogspot.com/2026/01/game-review-entity.html) > [!note] Editor's Note > > You know, I actually really quite love this game. It's fun, it's straightforward, and it's driving of the interpretation of the environment. > > The setting is far out enough to allow for almost anything you feel like, from hardcore cassette futurism to really wacky psychedelia. > > Frankly, it's just a lot of fun. Don't let the occasional snark and cynicism get to you. And I mean from me, not from any of the games that I suggest.