Orbital Blues - Holiday Heist

The Stat Sheet

With Orbital Blues Month having just ended, I thought it would be a great time to share the Holiday Heist I ran at the end of 2025. Before this heist, I had run Orbital Blues once before and really liked the sytem. My group liked it too even though I tried to squeeze All that Glitters into a 2-session scenario. Suprise, it's not super feasible, because there's a lot of faction play that should marinate a bit before exploding. I was also a much less experienced GM who struggled to improv and found the minimal information that OB adventures provide lacking. This time, I did a bit more preparation.

The Snapshot

• Explored Rudi's Pub for leads
• Saw someone working on their roof and wrongly accused them
• Chased Ol' Nik through Brightgrove
• Helped Ol' Nik blow up Arkady infrastructure and fled

The System

If you want more information on Orbital Blues, I recommend Personable's quick read through post of it. The system uses 2d6 and an 8+ is always a success. Players have 3 stats - Muscle, Grit, and Savvy. Players earn Blues throughout play to do cool, sad cowboy stuff. Each player has a Trouble and when it's narratively triggered, they gain Blues. If a player ever dies, their Swansong is triggere where a song is played (chosen at character creationg), and they go out in a blaze of sad, epic glory.

The Party

The Naughty List adventure provides 2 Gambits, Merry and Once Bitten and Twice Shy, and 2 Troubles, Scrooge and Grinchy, to further tie mechanics and narrative together. One character took the Scrooge Trouble which I was delighted by.

1. Dave - Vincent | Trouble: Reluctant Vagabond (ship mechanic, just needs the money right now, greasy)
2. Zak - Thanh | Trouble: In Too Deep, was part of a security org and fled them and a detective (looming threats, not quite on the run, brooding)
3. Mark - Rook | Trouble: Scrooge (bitter, condescending, senses any weakness = character flaw, no problem conning people)

One of the many things I've struggled with in OB is when to dole out Blues. I think it's supposed to be player managed but when introducing players to the system, I kept a list of when Blues would trigger and also actively tried to provide narrative opportunities of them to.

Blue Triggers

DAVE: Reluctant Vagabond

• You remember what you left behind.
• You see others living comfortable, stable lives.
• You complain about your new life.

ZAK: In Too Deep

• You rely on a talent your learned from an old friend. (Observational awareness)
• You hold yourself back from violence that used to be second nature to you.
• You force someone to do something they don't want to do.

MARK: Scrooge

• Begging of any sort can be heard.
• Conversations about 'how difficult life is' arise.
• You are asked to be charitable.

The Module

Like all OB materials, the layout and design provide the bulk of the vibe of the module. Essentially, the company, Arkady, fired Ol' Nik who decides to make some scrappy bombs for the company's board and deliver them on Christmas. It's tongue and cheek and over the top in the best way Orbital Blues can be with serious topics of labor woven throughout.

The Prep

I used Watabou's medieval fantasy city generator to create a place called Brightgrove. I wanted the Districts within the city to be pun-based and spent time re-rolling District names until I ended up with this. The generator worked well for this, since the module describes the location as, "pre-industrial towns with brick and mortar houses" It's a tourist trap of old times on a forested planet called Tannenbaum.

With the map, I went ahead and wrote a real brief on each District to get a better sense of what and who was in each area.

Tannenbaum

Mostly forested planet designated as an ecological preserve for its luscious forests.

• Major exports are lumber (rarity in the galaxy)
• Clean air commonly used to offset the pollution of more industry heavy colonies and systems

Aesthetic and Vibes

• Pre-industrial towns with brick and mortar houses
• Chimneys burn for the aesthetic (it's a rich person thing)
• Antiquated ways of living are charming
• HCOL location to visit and live here
• Tourist Town through and through

Redbark Ward

Docking Bay for ships decorated in Christmas decorations. People are jovial and eager to wrap up ship manifests.

• Logo of ARKADY Travel Company that sponsored your trip on many of the dockworkers
• Party notices it's snowing

Smithsbridge

Memorial to the ARKADY Travel Company, a large statue in the ARKADY Travel Company logo.

• Memorial status
• Christmas parade comes through

Everfall Market

Delicious smells waft throughout the market. Mint, chocolate, cinnamon, nutmeg. Each one is filling your nose as you pass by a variety of stalls. Lots of vendors sell marked up goods, knowing tourists don't mind and can afford it.

• Rudi's Pub
• Grandma's Cookies
• Beggars on the edges of the market

The Docks

Last minute packaging for the holidays makes this space congested and chaotic. It's easy to lose someone here. Kids run around, unsupervised, playing games. Laughter mixes with work.

• Warehouse of presents
• Gambling Den

Spicegate

Nice, large homes hug the river here. The farther East you travel, the smaller the houses become. Well lit streets and many chimneys burning. The smell of pine fills the air.

• Large Christmas tree in the town Square
• 3 of the CEOs live here

Eastern Slums

Shabby homes with lights that blink in and out as the electrical grid can't quite handle.

• Ol' Nik's House
• Rudi's House
• 2 CEOs live here (1 has a gambling problem, and 1 drinks a lot)

This was a fun exercise to (1) better prepare the module (2) make the material my own, and (3) have quick notes to reference during play. We didn't use most of this as the party only went to a few of the districts, but it was nice to have on hand.

The last bit of prep I did was to create a list/progress clock for Ol' Nik. This was to help me keep pacing on track and to see how many board members died before he was captured.

Ol' Nik Clock

1. Gambling at The Docks
2. Drinking at Rudi's Pub
3. Pisses on the memorial at Smithsbridge
   • Graffiti on the memorial says, "FUCK YOU!"
4. Returns home to get explosives
5. Planting bombs at Spicegate

Gambits: Lucky

• Once per Arc, you can force yourself or any other character to reroll a single Check with either the Upper Hand or Against the Odds and choose either result.

Trouble: On the Run

• You evade a problem instead of fighting it.
• You see your pursuers when they are not there.
• You abandon someone to escape.

As players gathered info, I marked the map with where Arkady board members lived, using snowflake icons for it.

Alongside thise, I used a green Gingerbread icon for where the party was, and this fun red Santa icon for where Ol' Nik was when they eventually found him.

All in all, this prep probably took me an hour to generate. I spent a lot of time re-reading the module and used most of the prompts and plot beats provided to thread a loose and improvised narrative. In the end, the party said damn the company, helped Ol' Nik, and took him on board their ship, haha. A sound success, I say.

The Takeaways

Module Flavor

The design and layout were pretty solid for this adventure. I think there could be some extra clarity provided. There's a lot of important information that's in visual design pieces that if you don't spend a significant amount of time reviewing the module, it's easy to miss like the list of jazz inspired Board Member names and the stats for Ol' Nik in case you enter combat with him.

It was a refreshing and nice to have an adventure that was accurately themed as a holiday adventure. I'm always on the lookout for themed adventures to run throughout the year, and this did not disappoint.

Pros

• Fun and absurd in a sad way like OB always is
• Found a way fast way to prep in a way that works for me as a GM

Cons

• Always need to prep an OB adventure, never have enough as is provided (somewhat intentionally I think)

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