Working Spacers
Repair the reactor under fire, bluff your way past customs, bargain for one more day, and improvise when every reliable system fails at once.
A Crew-Survival Science-Fiction TTRPG
A crew. A ship. A job. The consequences follow you home.
Take the jobs nobody sane wants, cross systems where help is days away, and keep a battered ship flying long enough to get paid. Every shortcut, promise, injury, and enemy comes back aboard with you.
The GameLife Between JobsBuild a crew worth fighting for, call a battered ship home, and take dangerous contracts where getting paid is only the beginning.
The Crew Is Home
Survival matters because the people do.
Awake in the Black puts your crew aboard a ship that is equal parts refuge, workplace, and liability. Chase contracts across the dark, trust the people beside you, and discover what everyone is willing to risk when the next payday may be the only thing keeping you in the air.
01
Build the Crew
Forge loyalties, grudges, debts, and shared history until the crew feels like people who have already survived too much together.
02
Claim a Ship
Choose the vessel you will call home, then give it scars, strengths, failures, and just enough character to become another member of the crew.
03
Take the Job
Chase paydays through hostile ports, failing stations, rival factions, scarce supplies, and employers who never tell you the whole truth.
04
Live with It
Bring the damage home. Heat, debt, enemies, promises, and wounded relationships survive the mission and reshape whatever comes next.
Pressure Changes Everything
You know what you are doing. The universe does not care.
Your crew is skilled enough to survive; survival still has a price. Even a clean success can burn fuel, break systems, expose a secret, create an enemy, or leave someone owing a promise they cannot afford to keep.
Persistent Strain
Wounds, panic, empty tanks, and damaged systems do not vanish when the scene ends; they become the crew’s next problem.
Quiet Human Moments
Share bad coffee, old jokes, private arguments, and the rare quiet night between jobs; these moments make the next risk worth taking.
Core LibraryRules, Crew, and Table ResourcesEverything your crew needs to launch a campaign, survive the first contract, and track every scar the ship brings home.
Start Here
First Session Kit
Start with the Player Handbook and Digital Character Sheet, then build the crew together with the Crew Creation Guide. The Game Master can use the Core Rulebook to turn the first contract into pressure, hard choices, and consequences that keep moving after the credits should have rolled.
Bundled files and tools open in a new tab. Digital tools store working data in the current browser.
AwakePDFBundled
Awake in the Black Core Rulebook
Run complete campaigns of desperate contracts, shipboard crises, faction pressure, hard bargains, and consequences that refuse to stay buried.
AwakePDFBundled
Player Handbook
Step aboard fast with the player-facing rules, build a capable spacer, and discover how your role, history, and choices change the crew.
AwakePDFBundled
Crew Creation Guide
Turn separate characters into a real crew by creating shared history, loyalties, conflicts, expectations, and the kind of shipboard chemistry that drives a campaign.
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Spacer and Character Names
Name the next captain, fixer, rival, drifter, or doomed contact without slowing the session; built for fast inspiration across the black.
CharacterPDFExternal
Printable Character Sheet
Keep every approach, ability, problem, strain track, and piece of gear ready at the table when the job turns ugly.
External file; opens in a new tab.
ShipPDFExternal
Printable Ship Sheet
Track the crew’s real home: its systems, strain, upgrades, failures, and the lasting damage earned one contract at a time.
External file; opens in a new tab.
Table RecordPDFExternal
Printable Combo Sheet
Put the crew and ship on one compact reference so the table can see exactly what is holding together and what is about to fail.
External file; opens in a new tab.
Digital SupportCharacter, Ship, and AI ToolsBring the campaign to the table with live character and ship consoles, persistent browser saves, and an AI Game Master built for the pressure of the black.
Character + CrewLive
Digital Character and Crew Sheet
Build your spacer, save the crew, and keep the rules that matter in reach through a responsive console designed for active play.
Ship ConsoleLive
Digital Ship Sheet
Run the ship like it matters. Track systems, strain, upgrades, damage, and every campaign change from a dedicated shipboard console.
AI Play SupportLive
Official Awake in the Black GM
Drop into a job with an AI Game Master tuned for desperate contracts, ship-centered play, dangerous factions, and consequences that follow the crew home.
Requires access to ChatGPT; opens in a new tab.
PublisherAn Apogee Games TitleMeet the independent Apogee Games title built for crews who survive by skill, trust, and the willingness to take one more impossible job.
Apogee Games
Built around the people who keep the ship flying.
Awake in the Black is an independent Apogee Games TTRPG created by Brandon Sligh for players who want capable crews, dangerous work, and science-fiction consequences that remain personal.
The game makes the crew the campaign’s beating heart: working spacers with real competence, a shared ship worth protecting, and choices that keep changing the people who made them.
LegalCopyright and LicensesOfficial ownership, attribution, and licensing information for the game and its current public release materials.
Awake in the Black
Awake in the Black is an original Apogee Games tabletop roleplaying game created by Brandon Sligh. Preserve the copyright, attribution, and licensing notices included with the current rulebook and every public release package.
ChangelogLatest Site Updatev1.1.1 aligns the header identity with the browser favicon by replacing the temporary AITB text mark with the official Awake in the Black favicon artwork.
Unified Header and Browser Identity
Replaced the temporary AITB text badge in the site header with the same official favicon artwork used by the browser tab, creating one consistent visual mark across the deployed site.
Responsive Header and Player-Facing Copy
Rebuilt the mobile header so the game title and menu remain fully visible on narrow screens; replaced the favicon with the official Awake in the Black logo; and rewrote the game, resource, tool, publisher, legal, and social descriptions to better communicate the experience to prospective players.
Dedicated Resource Site Launch
Launched the standalone Awake in the Black hub with the current rulebooks, crew resources, printable records, digital character and ship tools, official AI Game Master, and a direct route back to Apogee Games.