By The Intrepid — 12 Oct 2026

The Black Waterside

A setting for use with The Black Hack (v1.2)

A near-future coast after an arrival nobody can agree happened. The tide leaves salvage; inland still buys it; institutions keep calendars and lose continents. Play is taking a thing off the beach and finding that explanations fail in public.

The Setting (Tier 1)

Where play begins. A seasonal waterside town: shacks on the sand, leftover houses on raised ground, tracks onto a chalk plateau. A day's travel is the beach, the storm-ridge bars, and the first blockhouses. Past that: poured cement, half-dead neon, crash sites, and roads that no longer promise another country. [ASSUMED]

Danger and scarcity. Dangerous: inland crews, leftover night flights, salvage that will not stay an object, and the arrival when the air goes expectant. Scarce: flour, petrol, a night that remains yours, a story of the crisis two people will share.

Why adventure. Salvage washes up daily. Most of it sells inland if you have a contact. A few pieces are too live, too valuable, or too embarrassing to leave. Worth entering: markets, crash-hulls, rooms that still open, rooms that copy a building and then fall down.

Magic. Mixed. [ASSUMED] Daily slots and the Spellcasting test stay. The two lists become two habits, not churches. Keeping (Divine): make a thing stay ordinary a little longer. Listening (Arcane): make a thing speak, move, or change. Anyone may own salvage; only Keepers and Listeners spend slots to force that on purpose. Each working is a short loan of the world's remaining agreement that things are still themselves; after a few loans the agreement runs out, and only an ordinary night's rest (Spellcasting: eight hours) puts you back among the people the world still bothers to include. Redesign (no lists) is in Open Questions; reskin-only would have left Raise Dead and Teleport standing, which the premise cannot take.

Who the PCs are. People who still go to the water or inland with a bundle. The four competencies: take one thing off the sand, hit what will not wait, hold a remaining system, pay attention to objects that are not behaving. Missing: a state, a church, an academy.

Ordinary people. Drive if there is petrol, bake if there is flour, keep a kitchen knife, a phone that sometimes holds a charge, and a story about the arrival that contradicts the neighbour's. They do not wear armour or spend slots.

Lethality. Sudden and unceremonial. Out of Action stands. Powerful Opponents bites on a noticeable arrival (high HD even when it does not fight). [ASSUMED]

On-screen tone. Baffling first, bleak second. Ordinary objects doing one wrong thing. Violence brief. Do not explain the arrival. [ASSUMED]

Deeper Truths (Tier 2)

Death. Bodies stay dead. Speak with Dead borrows a voice. Raise Dead, Restoration, and Finger of Death are cut.

"Evil." Not a moral camp. Those spells, and Banishing Undead, act on leakage: jelly, changing flesh, rooms that will not keep their shape, voices that arrive before their owners.

Threats. See table. The arrival is scenery and weather unless a row is used. No purpose is given.

Power. Whoever can move salvage to a buyer, keep a vehicle running, or make a room stay a room. Night flights still go out. No national compulsion.

How people treat PCs. Necessary nuisances. Useful if they leave. Watched if they bring a bundle through the bars.

What happened / what is changing. Years ago something arrived. Competing stories exist; none is picked. A war is still flown at the problem. A neighbouring continent has been mislaid. Right now the beach is producing salvage that talks, heals, and will not stay sold.

The Situation

Something the size of a child has come in on the tide. It is wrapped because looking at it for long is a mistake. It will not stay the same size, the same number of hands, or the same kind of object. The beach will not keep it. Someone inland will pay, or claims they can quiet it. People have already tried to cut it up. It is still moving. No cause is given.

Characters

Comber (Thief)

Reads the beach and leaves with one thing.

Starting HP / HP per level: d6+4 / 1d6
Weapons and armor: one-handed blades, pistols and other ranged, workwear (AP 2), leathers (AP 4), small shield. Limit is access, and not looking like a Hand.
Attack damage: 1d6 / 1d4 unarmed or improvised
Special features: Advantage on DEX to avoid traps and leakage. Advantage from behind: 2d6 / 2d4 + level. Advantage on delicate tasks, climbing, hearing, moving quietly, written marks, locks.
Leveling up: extra rolls for DEX or WIS
Magic: none
Constraint: Must not build salvage into a dwelling.
Standing: Expected on the sand; searched at the first bar inland.

Hand (Warrior)

The person a blockhouse sends, or fears.

Starting HP / HP per level: d10+4 / 1d10
Weapons and armor: any. Military leftover is access, not training.
Attack damage: 1d8 / 1d6 unarmed or improvised
Special features: Once per hour in combat, regain d8 HP. One attack per level as part of an action. Sunder a shield — or a lid or door used as one — to ignore that hit.
Leveling up: extra rolls for STR and DEX
Magic: none
Constraint: Walk the beach armed like an inland crew, and Combers will not sell that day.
Standing: Let through doors; not invited to stay.

Keeper (Cleric)

Holds a remaining system: clinic, list, open room, tomorrow as still a day.

Starting HP / HP per level: d8+4 / 1d8
Weapons and armor: blunt weapons, pistols, workwear, leathers, riot leftover (AP 6), any shield. Taboo: looking like a soldier of the leftover war.
Attack damage: 1d6 / 1d4 unarmed or improvised
Special features: Advantage on CON vs poison or paralysis (drowsy salvage-flesh counts as poison). Quiet the Leak: Banishing Undead, aimed at leakage.
Leveling up: extra rolls for STR or WIS
Magic: Keeping list from 2nd level. Slots as Daily cleric spells. Starts with 1d4 level 1–2 Keeping workings. Casting test: WIS.
Constraint: Must keep one ordinary practice in public; without it, Disadvantage on workings until it resumes.
Standing: Trusted for a hot drink; blamed when the sky glitches.

Listener (Conjurer)

Gets salvage to say what it is doing, which is not understanding it.

Starting HP / HP per level: d4+4 / 1d4
Weapons and armor: one-handed blade or staff-length tool
Attack damage: 1d4 / 1 unarmed or improvised
Special features: Advantage on INT vs leakage, salvage, and other people's workings.
Leveling up: extra rolls for INT or WIS
Magic: Listening list from 1st level. Slots as Daily conjurer spells, except 7th-level slots (see Magic). Starts with 1d4+2 level 1–2 Listening workings. Casting test: INT.
Constraint: After a rest, a Minute with salvage or the sea, or the first working of the day is at Disadvantage.
Standing: Useful until the bundle starts talking; then people stand further off.

Equipment Changes

Start with 3d6 × 10 marks, clothes, and one allowed one-handed weapon. Unlisted gear keeps its rules line.

Item	Cost	Usage Die	Notes
Workwear / padded jacket	50	—	AP 2
Leathers / storm kit	100	—	AP 4
Riot / military leftover	350	—	AP 6
Improvised plate / vehicle panel	600	—	AP 8
Lid / small shield	50	—	AP 2
Riot shield / door	100	—	AP 4
Petrol tin	20	d6	Makes a car more than cover
Phone charge	5	d4	Inland contact
Wrapping rags	2	d8	Skip one Live cargo roll per watch
Comber's kit	25	—	Thieves' tools
List or charter	25	—	Holy symbol: +2 WIS to Quiet the Leak
Bottled salt water	25	d4	Holy water vs leakage
Pistol ammo	10	d10	Ranged = class damage
Long gun	50	—	Two-handed rule

Magic

Slots and the Spellcasting test remain. After each working, test WIS (Keeper) or INT (Listener), adding the working's level; failure spends that level's slot — the loan of agreement is used up. Banishing Undead → Quiet the Leak (WIS, add HD, targets spend 2d4 Moments moving away). Evil-named entries act on leakage.

Keeping (Divine list)

1 Keep Cure Light Wounds, Light, Purify Food and Drink. Protection from Evil → Stay One Thing (Advantage vs leakage, 1hr). Cut Detect Evil.
2 Keep all five.
3 Keep Cure Disease, Locate Object, Prayer, Remove Curse. Daylight → Un-glitch (Nearby outdoor weather behaves, 1hr). Speak with Dead → Borrowed Voice (3 questions; answers need not be true).
4 Keep Cure Serious Wounds, Neutralise Poison. Create Food/Water → Make Do (one food usage die steps up one size, once per day). Protection from Evil → Stay One Thing, Wider (Nearby allies, 6 temp AP vs leakage, 10mins).
5 Keep Quest. Commune → Ask the Room (3 yes/no facts about this building). Dispel Evil → Dispel Leak. Cut Finger of Death, Plague, Raise Dead.
6 Keep Animate Object, Find Path, Speak with Monsters. Word of Recall → Back to the House (cast it in one ordinary room the Keeper maintains; for the next year, as the rules' duration, they and what they can carry can return there). Cut Blade Barrier, Conjure Elemental.
7 Wind Walk → Night Road (the Keeper and what they can carry make one day's ordinary journey on the roads without being seen by leftover flights; the day still takes a day). Cut Aerial Servant, Astral Spell, Control Weather, Earthquake, Holy Word, Restoration.
Slots: Daily cleric table unchanged. The level-10 7th-level slot still has Night Road.

Listening (Arcane list)

1 Keep all six. Detect Magic → Detect Leak. Magic Missile is salvage discharging.
2 Keep all six.
3 Keep Dispel Magic, Read Language/Magic, Magic Mouth, Darkvision. Fireball → Discharge (same numbers; that piece of salvage steps its usage die down).
4 Keep Confusion, Polymorph Self, Remove Curse. Wall of Fire/Ice → Wrong Weather in a Doorway. Cut Dimension Door, Polymorph Other.
5 Keep Feeblemind, Telekinesis. Wall of Stone/Iron → The Room Agrees. Animate Dead → Get Up and Carry (labour one Minute, then fail). Cut Cloudkill, Conjure Elemental, Contact Higher Plane, Teleport.
6 Anti-Magic Shell → No Leak Here. Stone to Flesh → Settle (changing flesh goes inert). Cut Death Spell, Disintegrate, Invisible Stalker.
7 Cut all. A Listener's 7th-level slot (character level 10) is spent as an extra 6th-level slot. Listening stops at 6.

Threats

Damage by the HD table unless noted. People and outfits use HD as reach.

Creature	HD	Actions and Specials
Beach gang	1	Wants the first portable salvage. Knives. Will trade on a decent reaction.
Inland crew	3	Wants a cut at the bar. Pistols. Reinforcements on a bad reaction.
Drowsy eaters	1	Tasted live salvage: Disadvantage on tests, will not stop cutting.
Leftover flight	5	Overhead unless it comes down. Then fire and wreckage, not a duel. Wants a target it was given years ago.
Changing salvage, small	2	Grows back a missing piece per Minute. Speaks in borrowed phrases. Wants to be taken somewhere.
Changing salvage, carried	4	As above. Unwrapped Nearby: CHA test or treat as Charm. Eating it: CON or sleep.
Clear jelly	3	On grass and trunks. Touch: DEX to avoid, or clothes take a d4 usage die until burned off.
Copy building	6	A room or front that lasts a week. Wants to be used. Collapse is the attack (DEX to avoid).
Arrival weather	8	Not a body. Expectant wind, wrong stars. Powerful Opponents vs any test to deal with it. Quiet the Leak buys a band of distance or a Minute of ordinary air.
Buyer who will not pay	2	HD is reach (two contacts). Wants the bundle and the story. Capture on a hostile reaction.

New Rule

Live cargo. Salvage the table has decided is live uses a Usage Die (start d8). Each time it is unwrapped, injured, questioned, or taken across a familiar boundary (sand to town, town to inland, inland to plateau), roll. On 1–2 it steps down and does one unwelcome thing it can already do. At d4, a 1–2 changes its category (object, animal, voice, weather) and resets the die to d6. Wrapping rags skip one roll per watch if you do nothing else with it. Without this, the moving cargo is only treasure.

Glossary

Arrival / the arrived: whatever came; not a body you can interview; no purpose given.
The bars: drinking rooms on the storm ridge, where the beach ends and inland starts; bundles get searched here.
Hinterland: the cement, neon, and blockhouses behind the beach; same as inland.
Keeping / Listening: the two slot traditions (Divine and Arcane lists under other names).
Leak / leakage / working: a brief failure of the world to stay agreed; a use of a slot.
Live cargo: salvage that will not stay an object; see New Rule.
Marks: starting coin, plus IOUs a contact will honour.
Night flights: leftover aircraft that still go out after dark; what they hit, and whether it matters, is not agreed.
Quiet the Leak: Banishing Undead aimed at leakage.
Salvage: what the tide leaves; some of it sells; some of it talks.
The war: the campaign still flown at the arrival; it has no public front and no public end.
[SETTING NAME]: the waterside town and its day's travel; unnamed on purpose.

Change Log

Coins called marks; 3d6×10 start kept — prices now mean petrol, flour, and a hinterland contact.
Armor, shields, bows, and two-handed weapons renamed to leftover kit, pistols, and long guns; AP, costs, class damage, and the two-handed rule kept.
Usage dice added for petrol, phone charge, and wrapping rags — those are what run out here.
Class weapon limits read as access and custom; Comber list is the Thief list under those names; Listener sword/staff is a blade or pole; Hand may sunder a lid or door used as a shield.
Keeper gains pistols, which the Cleric list does not have; drowsy salvage-flesh counts as poison on the Cleric CON test (one-line ruling).
Constraint and Standing added to each class (not in the uploaded class entries).
Random encounters: d4 per watch on the beach or per few hours inland, not every 15 minutes of real play.
Banishing Undead and every Evil-named spell act on leakage, not a moral camp.
Raise Dead, Restoration, Finger of Death, Plague cut — death is ordinary.
Create Food/Water reskinned to Make Do (one usage die steps up once a day) — a free feast would erase scarcity.
Commune and Contact Higher Plane cut or shrunk to Ask the Room — a working cosmology would erase failed explanations.
Word of Recall reskinned to Back to the House (same one-year return; the site is one ordinary room the Keeper maintains).
Wind Walk reskinned to Night Road (one ordinary day's journey, unseen by leftover flights; bands not used as speed).
Teleport, Dimension Door, Cloudkill, Death Spell, Disintegrate, Invisible Stalker, Blade Barrier, Polymorph Other, Conjure Elemental cut — scale or cosmology the premise cannot absorb.
Fireball reskinned to Discharge (same numbers; that salvage's usage die steps down).
Detect Evil cut; Detect Magic, Protection from Evil, Dispel Evil, Daylight, Speak with Dead, Animate Dead, Wall of Fire/Ice, Wall of Stone/Iron, Anti-Magic Shell, Stone to Flesh renamed to local procedures with the same numbers.
All 7th-level Listening spells, and Keeping's Aerial Servant, Astral Spell, Control Weather, Earthquake, Holy Word, and Restoration, cut — scale or cosmology; a 10th-level Listener spends that empty 7th-level slot as an extra 6th; the Keeper's 7th-level slot remains for Night Road.
Monster list replaced by the threat table — the uploaded bestiary is another world.
Travel between beach, town, inland, and plateau takes a watch of walking or driving; fight ranges stay on the four bands.
Live cargo added as the one new subsystem — without it the moving salvage is only treasure.

Open Questions

[ASSUMED] Place left as [SETTING NAME].
[ASSUMED] Magic is mixed. Redesign: cut both lists; Keepers get Advantage on WIS to make a room stay a room once per watch (Nearby at 5th); Listeners keep INT Advantage on salvage and add their level to Discharge damage. Slots go; that is the replacement growth engine.
[ASSUMED] Out of Action unchanged. Options: drop Dead, or treat 5–6 as Dead.
[ASSUMED] Guns = class damage. Option not in the uploaded rules: guns deal a fixed die for anyone.
[ASSUMED] Encounter clock by watch.
[ASSUMED] Pistols allowed to Keepers. Option: they do not get a gun.
[DISCOVER IN PLAY] What would look strange to an outsider; this week's price; who can still read a map; whether phones reach past the plateau; how a Listener first heard an object; what the arrival wants.
No KEEP OPEN list was supplied.