Welcome to the first of our Perseverance Tales, narrative modules designed to bring the setting to life at your table. Each Tale highlights a particular flavor of frontier drama, from smugglers and Rangers to rebels and relic hunters. Think of them as ready-to-play mini-campaigns, steeped in the dust, danger, and hard choices of the Perseverance setting.

We’re starting with The Long Haul — a gritty tale of smugglers, couriers, and rogue traders trying to survive job to job across the lawless stretches of the frontier.

Cinematic Opening

You’ve got five crates of contraband tech in the hold, a broken promise in Port Arvid, and a bounty ping from the last two towns you passed through. The crew is arguing over who double-crossed who, but the navboard’s lighting up: a checkpoint drone’s picking up your trail.

You gun the throttle and ride low along the canyon rim. You don’t know if this job will pay off — or if it’s even worth the fuel — but one thing’s for sure: you’ve got to keep moving.

What This Tale Is About

The Long Haul is a Tale about surviving the fringes of civilization — as smugglers, blockade-runners, shady couriers, and unlicensed haulers. It’s about keeping your ship in the air, your crew paid, and your name off the wrong lists.

Each episode follows the crew as they take on a new job — cargo runs, information drops, illegal rescues, artifact smuggling, or just getting involved in other people’s trouble. Whether they stay coldly professional or get drawn into deeper causes is up to them — and the consequences.

Core Themes

Survive, Then Decide

The crew doesn’t always have the luxury of moral clarity. When you’re one job away from losing the ship, the line between what’s right and what pays gets blurry. First you survive. Then you figure out what that survival cost.

A Ship, A Crew, A Code

Each crew makes their own rules. Maybe they don’t kill. Maybe they never run guns. Maybe they just stick together, no matter what. It’s a fragile balance of trust, routine, and desperation — and that’s what makes it worth playing.

Found Family (or Found Friction)

These people didn’t grow up together. They came together through need, debt, or common enemies. But over time, grudging respect becomes loyalty — or betrayal. Every session should test the bonds between them.

Running the Fringe

Out here, nothing is fully legal, fully safe, or fully known. Jobs fall apart. Clients lie. Commonwealth patrols show up at the worst time. Rivals wait at every port. The crew will never run out of trouble — only time and fuel.

Sample Missions

Hot Freight

The job was simple: pick up a sealed crate and don’t ask questions. Then a storm grounds you mid-run, and the crate starts making noise. What’s inside — and what happens if someone comes looking?

Commonwealth Inspection

A routine refuel stop turns into a locked-down sweep for rebel tech and smuggling rings. The ship is grounded, and the clock is ticking. Can the crew stay clean, hide the goods, or escape?

Scorched Earth

A desperate client offers double pay to extract refugees from a mining camp before the site is "cleansed." The crew has to choose between profit, principle — and firepower they can’t match.

Old Debts

An old crew contact calls in a favor — the kind you can’t refuse. But that trail leads straight into a rival syndicate’s turf, and they still remember your last visit.

The Wrong Kind of Cargo

An ancient artifact picked up as "bonus freight" turns out to be cursed, hunted, or both. The crew must decide whether to dump it, sell it, or unlock its secrets.

The Crew of the Whisperjack

The Whisperjack isn’t the only smuggling skimmer running the canyons and dust lanes of Perseverance — but it might be the most infamous. Sleek, black, and quiet as regret, it cuts through the frontier with speed, stealth, and just enough firepower to deter pursuit.

Her crew? Complicated. Loyal — mostly. Dangerous — always.

Captain Joran Vex – Commander of the Whisperjack

Stoic ex-military with iron in his spine and a stare like a held breath. Joran wears a worn brown greatcoat over a mustard shirt, his steel-gray hair trimmed with soldierly precision. He speaks in orders, not suggestions – snd rarely repeats himself. The crew doesn't follow him because they fear him. They follow him because he never flinches.

He keeps his people disciplined, tight, and focused. Jokes die in the air around him, but so do most problems. Rumors say he was once a Ranger – re neither confirms nor denies. But he carries the weight of old missions in his step, and he always seems to know when trouble’s coming.

Renn “Halo” Korr – Pilot of the Whisperjack

Meditative, almost mystical, Halo moves like a man tuned to some quieter frequency. His golden-blond hair is tied in a neat topknot, and a short, sculpted beard frames a face that always looks halfway through a thought. He wears a worn yellow jumpsuit with blue shoulder stripes, a single hoop earring, and the calm confidence of someone who trusts the wind more than the map. Claims the stars “speak to him.” Maybe they do – oe’s never crashed.

He flies with a strange, uncanny grace – eore instinct than reflex. Watch him at the controls and you’ll swear the ship answers him before he moves. He might be full of it. Or he might be listening to something the rest of us can’t hear.

Vika Spinn – Engineer and Chaos Artisan

Fast-talking and bright-eyed, Vika wears a patch-covered yellow vest over a green jumpsuit, with tool belts strapped tight and always clinking. She’s never without a screwdriver in her teeth, a half-disassembled gadget in hand, and a theory about why it could explode better. She modifies things that weren’t broken, fixes things that didn’t ask, and occasionally turns "maintenance" into minor demolition. Her hobby? Unstable experimental mods. Also: explosives. Lots of explosives.

Barl Dorn – Enforcer and Shield of the Whisperjack

Towering and stone-faced, Barl Dorn radiates menace without saying a word. Dressed in worn tactical gear stretched tight across arms like granite, he carries more knives than a butcher’s guild – dnd uses them with grim, surgical efficiency. A former mercenary with a reputation soaked in fear, Barl doesn't talk unless it's a threat. And when he does, people listen. He’s the last one to draw, but always the last one standing.

Sariel – Diplomat, Spy, and Whisperjack’s Wildcard

Elegant, poised, and sharper than she lets on, Sariel glides through the world in flowing crimson garments trimmed with gold – dourtly attire that conceals more than just armor. Her emerald eyes miss nothing, her every word and gesture carefully measured. She speaks like a noble, moves like a dancer, and when violence erupts, she either vanishes like a shadow… or strikes fast and deadly, like a cobra. Her loyalty to the crew runs deep – put never unquestioning. Sariel always plays the long game, and only she knows where it leads.

What’s Next: Dustbound Justice

Not every story in Perseverance rides the edge of the law — some are the law. Our next Tale, Dustbound Justice, flips the perspective. Step into the worn boots of a Commonwealth Ranger and their posse, charged with holding the line against chaos. When justice is a matter of grit and reputation, who keeps the lawkeepers honest?