Adventure: Phoebe’s Song

JM Romig has been at it again! He is launching his own concept too: Wellerman-stories. This is the first of these adventures, shared freely for everyone’s enjoyment.

This first Wellerman adventure is perfect for your Halloween Expanse RPG session: Phoebe’s Song!

Here is Josh’s introduction and description of Wellerman-stories:

It started as a one-shot idea inspired by the old sea shanty The Wellerman. The more I thought about it, the more I realized it could be a whole series of little side-stories.

These stories always follow ragtag crews of Weller Resupply Company ships, contract haulers whose job is to keep stations and colonies stocked with the stuff they need to survive. They’re not the James Holdens, Naomi Nagatas, or Bobbie Drapers of the world. They’re working stiffs trying to get a paycheck and keep their ships flying while the universe constantly changes around them. And yet, by sheer bad luck or cosmic timing, Wellermen crews end up brushing against galaxy-shaking events all of the time.

Think of the Wellerman-stories as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead or Forest Gump meets The Expanse. Tales of side characters fumbling through the margins of history, sometimes playing a role in events, sometimes just surviving them, and often realizing that nobody ever thanks the resupply crew.

Three siblings – Jonathyn Crick, Georgina, and Edmond Weller -founded the company in the early days of fusion-driven long hauls before the Epstein Drive was invented, naming all his ships Wellerman and a number, a nod to a folk song he heard in his youth. Painted orange-and-black, the Wellermen became a common (if unremarkable) sight throughout the system.

That’s the hook: the ships are everywhere, and so they can be anywhere in the story. They’re delivering rations to Phoebe, hauling recyclers to Ganymede when the mirror falls, dodging rail guns at Io, or quietly keeping a colony alive on the edge of nowhere after the gates open.

The inaugural Weller one-shot, Phoebe’s Song, tells the tragic horror story of how the Phoebe Bug was discovered, setting the course for the entire series of events with the protomolecule. What I like about it most is that it pays homage to the roots of The Expanse by centering the story around working class folks in over their heads. It sets the tone for what the Wellerman Misadventures can be: flexible, atmospheric side stories that explore new angles of the universe we know and love. 

This has been a fun project to throw myself into, and honestly, anyone can write a Wellerman Misadventure if they want to. I’m not here to tell you how. But for the ones I write, a few things will always be true:

• Low-prep: Every adventure will be a ready-to-run one-shot with tight pacing (3 pages or less).
• Fresh Takes: Each story will dig into an underexplored corner of The Expanse timeline.
• Level 1 Crews: Wellerman Misadventures will be designed in part as tutorials for new players, so it makes sense to start everyone at level 1. The other reason is to be a reminder that these folks are working stiffs in over their head, not superheroes.
• Canon-adjacent: While nothing in The Expanse gets rewritten in one of these adventures, Wellermen-stories will still matter in a James Gunn-esque found-family of misfits kind of way. And if, by some miracle, a Wellerman crew saves the system? Nobody will ever know.