Second Edition

Adventure Seeds

1. The Ferryman's Empty Ledger — At Bankside, a ferry operator quietly stops charging workers after dark. The Three Canals Authority demands back fares from every passenger on a ledger that lists people who never boarded; the troublemakers must expose the forged accounts without costing the ferry operator her licence.

2. Mudline Saints — A low-water watch exposes a narrow Bankside footpath beneath the Grand Canal's retaining wall. Families use it to reach jobs, but a rival shipping concern offers the corner a fortune to close it before inspectors find that the wall itself is failing.

3. The Blue Ticket Quay — At Long Pond, a waterbus company prints tickets that promise a safe crossing during a coming lock shutdown. Its boats cannot carry half the passengers already booked; the troublemakers can force refunds, commandeer extra craft, or decide who travels first.

4. Seven Inches of Water — Someone quietly lowers a lock gate at Sullen Cut each night, leaving residents' cisterns dry while factory barges pass unimpeded. The culprit is a lock keeper following an order whose signature belongs to a dead official.

5. Bridge Tax for the Living — The residents of Hangside's Birdhouse Bridge revive a toll to repair their suspended homes. The Provosts declare the toll illegal and secretly offer its collectors a cut to charge only outsiders; the corner needs a fair crossing before retaliation begins.

6. The Last Floating Stall — A canal market's final cooperative grocer is ordered to anchor permanently beside an expensive redevelopment. The paperwork is valid, but moving the boat would turn its customers into trespassers; can the crew secure a lawful berth that still serves the poor?

7. A Lock with No Keeper — A lock at the edge of the crew's corner opens on schedule after its entire staff walk out. Its hidden operator is a machinist who wants the union to win; exposing her could save lives but break the strike.

8. The Night Barges of Clearwater — Clearwater Break's cleaning contractors ship their refuse out at night to an impoverished canal bank. When their usual route closes, the crew can document the dumping, bargain for proper disposal, or organize neighbours to turn the barges back.

9. The Canal Pennies Inquiry — Shopkeepers refuse a fresh batch of canal pennies, stranding wage earners who have been paid in them. A respectable money changer holds the only working test stamp, and she will certify the coins only if the corner endorses her new fees.

10. A Map for the Drowned Street — A mapmaker identifies a submerged street that could shorten the route to the nearest clinic. An old family claims ownership of every threshold beneath the water and threatens to sue anyone who installs a walkway.

11. Smoke Without Fire — In Burningfell, a chimney emits smoke during watches when its furnace is shut. Workers discover a nearby factory selling the appearance of production to keep its subsidies; closing it would also end the only affordable heat supply to the corner.

12. The Spare Shift — A Hammerman Wynds workshop adds an unpaid ninth watch to every worker's schedule, claiming its clocks run slow. The clockmaker can prove otherwise, but the workers need a plan to keep their contracts after the revelation.

13. Blackout Dividend — A district-wide power cut leaves the crew's corner dark while a private line illuminates the Powerhouse's empty annex. A technician offers to divert the current for three nights, provided the corner hides her family from her employers.

14. The Union's Borrowed Voice — A fake notice calling off a strike circulates around Reeking Street Gasworks. The union's own duplicating machine printed it while locked away; identifying who borrowed the key matters before workers cross the picket line by mistake.

15. The Building That Pays Rent — Residents of a crumbling Dreamingspires tower receive rent credits every time engineers record new cracks. Their landlord has insured the tower against collapse and is deliberately delaying repairs; stopping him means replacing the credits tenants rely on.

16. A Window on Fogwarren — Someone installs ventilation shafts through packed Fogwarren tenements, improving the air below and filling the top floors with soot. Both groups are neighbours. The crew must find where the ducts really lead before the dispute turns violent.

17. Inventory of Lost Nails — Standard Metal & Ordnance blames a Rookery cooperative for missing fasteners that were never delivered. An internal shipping error is easy to prove, but admitting it would trigger a mass recall of dangerous structures across the City.

18. The Wages in the Wall — Workers in Merryhell discover pay envelopes sealed behind fresh brickwork at their lodging house. Their employer insists the money was delivered; the building's caretaker insists she has been rescuing it from an informant who reports every withdrawal.

19. The Quiet Furnace — An experimental low-smoke kiln in Burningfell lets workers breathe freely for the first time. Its operator plans to license it exclusively to a Trust; the troublemakers have one watch to negotiate open access before the plans leave the burgh.

20. A Roof for Twelve Families — A vacant upper floor in Coldbath Fell could house neighbours displaced by a local fire. The owner will lend it only if residents conceal the floor from a pending inspection, risking closure of the whole block.

21. Correction at the Cathedral — The Broadcast Entertainment Trust announces a bridge closure a day early, stranding workers on the wrong side. An editor will air a correction if the crew supplies proof of the real date; the Authority that issued the schedule refuses to put it in writing.

22. The Unplayed Record — A street musician hears her own unreleased performance during a sponsored broadcast. The recording contains the voice of a missing organiser; to recover the original, the crew must navigate a dispute over who owns sounds captured in public.

23. Minutes from a Future Meeting — Someone distributes accurate minutes of a council meeting that has not happened yet. The councillors plan to cancel it, but doing so would abandon a promised sanitation vote; the crew can trace the leak or make the predicted vote impossible to ignore.

24. The Printer's Blank Page — A community paper in Mire End prints every page except its advice column. The missing letters document a pattern of boiler accidents; a printer is withholding them because the only repair fund comes from the manufacturer.

25. Names Under the Paint — A painted list of supposed informants appears on a Fogwarren wall each morning. The names are all people who challenged a local rent rise; the crew must protect those named while finding a way to discredit the list without drawing more targets onto it.

26. An Audience of One — The Grand Emporium's public announcement system begins addressing a named shop assistant during closing watch. The assistant knows the voice is a practical joke, but its precise descriptions of locked storerooms expose theft by the management.

27. The Mapmaker's Apology — A map circulating in the crew's corner marks an occupied building as vacant. Its author wants to correct it, but the mistaken symbol has become the basis for a useful claim to public space; who gets to decide what the corrected map says?

28. The Last Honest Signal — A community talkbox relay in Skank Hill carries a warning about an approaching industrial leak. The Trust offers a stronger transmitter in exchange for editorial control, just as residents elsewhere begin relying on the relay's independent bulletins.

29. The Actor's Other Alibi — A performer at the Cathedral can prove a neighbour's innocence, but revealing where she really was would expose the shelter housing her estranged family. The crew needs a witness statement that protects both households.

30. Proof in the Margins — At Calculus Tor, an annotated technical manual shows that a city's measuring standards were altered years ago. Reversing them would give underpaid tradespeople back wages and bankrupt their small employers; the crew can choose when and how the evidence becomes public.

31. The Forest's Closed Gate — The Forest shuts a public entrance after gardeners find an invasive fungus. An orchard supplier knows a safe treatment but insists the corner first identify who brought in the contaminated soil; closing the gate leaves neighbours without their usual produce.

32. Bread by the Bell — A Folly Hills bakery starts giving away unsold loaves whenever a nearby chapel bell rings. The bell's custodian sells the ringing time to wealthy customers, so the crew must secure a reliable distribution hour before the queues turn on each other.

33. The Missing Herb Bed — A public medicinal garden in Skank Hill is replaced overnight with ornamental stone. A survey shows the herbs were moved to a secure roof, but patients cannot climb its access stairs; the crew needs to bring the medicines back within reach.

34. The Clinic's Second Door — A Coldbath Fell clinic offers cheap treatment through a back entrance while billing wealthy patients at full rates. When an audit threatens its licence, the crew must find an honest funding arrangement before either entrance closes.

35. Flour for the Feast — A delivery of flour meant for a Mire End communal meal arrives marked for industrial use. It is safe to eat, but the seller mislabelled it to avoid a price cap; reporting him might also cut off the neighbourhood's most dependable supplier.

36. The Inspection Picnic — Clearwater Break officials schedule a public cleanliness inspection on the day a neighbourhood mutual-aid kitchen opens. The kitchen has adequate facilities, but its borrowed tables cross a disputed property boundary; the crew must settle the line before meals are seized.

37. A Place to Sit — At the Grand Emporium, a new rule removes benches used by elderly visitors and exhausted staff. A shop assistant offers to sponsor replacements if they are disguised as advertising displays, leaving the crew to decide whose messages get the space.

38. Night Soil, Morning Flowers — A Rookery gardener turns collected waste into fertilizer for a shared courtyard. A sanitation officer objects to the handling and offers a safer method the garden cannot afford; the crew can obtain equipment, challenge the officer, or relocate the beds.

39. The Borrowed Crutches — A repairer near Inferno lends mobility aids to patients without charging deposits. Her stock is recalled as hospital property, though most pieces were discarded years ago; recovering proof of abandonment may mean entering the institution's chaotic storeroom.

40. The Queue That Moved — A food depot changes the direction of its queue, pushing hungry customers across the crew's corner into the path of freight carts. The depot manager has a genuine safety reason; the crew must redesign both routes with people who distrust one another.

41. The Surveyor's Chalk — Survey marks appear across the Contested Grounds, claiming a path through a neutral refuge. Both armed sides deny responsibility. The marks were made by residents seeking a safe route to work, who now need protection from everyone assuming a trap.

42. A Garden of Paper Trees — Children in Dreamingspires build a rooftop forest from discarded forms, and their drawings seem to match a lost district plan. The plan could win the neighbourhood a long-promised park, but publishing it identifies families living in buildings officially erased.

43. The Bell That Needs Rest — A congregation near the Holy See petitions to silence a bell that wakes sick neighbours. The ringing schedule also tells night workers when a hazardous steam vent opens; the crew needs another warning system before either side can safely win.

44. Permission to Be Lost — A Lostfinder brings home a resident who insists they never went missing: their family filed the report to stop them joining a rival corner. The finder wants payment, the family wants them back, and the crew must defend the resident's own choice.

45. The Spare Shadow — At Calculus Tor, a watchman's lantern casts a second silhouette on the rock even when he stands alone. A Fulgurator wants to seal the ledge; a nearby community uses it as its only dry night route. Investigating the oddity must wait for the people who need the passage.

46. The Witness Wall — In the Contested Grounds, families quietly paste dated accounts of disappearances to a surviving factory wall. Both sides offer to protect it if their own names are removed. The crew can preserve the whole record, copy it, or move the families before the next raid.

47. The Roof Above the Rain — Rain stops falling on one narrow street in Fogwarren. A landlord charges admission to the dry pavement, until a surveyor suspects a hidden canopy of scrap held up by failing cables; the crew must keep the shelter accessible while making it safe.

48. The Cartographer's Holiday — A reliable mapmaker takes a day off, and familiar shortcuts across Hammerman Wynds suddenly end at closed gates. The gates belong to residents trying to secure their homes from delivery traffic; the crew can broker shared access without turning private rooms into public thoroughfares.

49. The Third Watch of Silence — An entire block in Sullen Cut observes a nightly minute of quiet for workers lost to an old accident. A new workshop claims its machinery cannot stop. A retired engineer says it can, but doing so requires a costly restart that someone must fund.

50. The Key to No Address — A dying neighbour leaves the crew a key stamped with an address absent from every official register. It opens a service room containing decades of community repair records; a Trust claims the room as its property and could use those records to charge for all the work neighbours did themselves.

Notice

These unofficial adventure ideas are offered for anyone who wishes to use or adapt them for their own A|State (Second Edition) campaign.

This is an independent, fan-created collection and is not affiliated with, endorsed, sponsored, or approved by Handiwork Games.

The material is provided freely for personal, noncommercial use, and I receive no money or other compensation from its creation, distribution, or use.

Notice

Currently, these are nothing more than conceived thoughts on exploring the world of A|State (Second Edition). As I consider them further, they will be expanded with more detail.

Notice

Original adventure seeds for troublemakers defending a corner of the City. Each seed gives a local problem, an interested party, and a choice that can change the neighbourhood. Locations and factions draw on the attached second edition core rulebook. These are independent fan-created ideas, not official Handiwork Games scenarios.