The Galaxy is full of prying eyes and informants. Anything you do might be witnessed, and there’s always evidence left behind. To reflect this, your crew acquires HEAT as they commit crimes. This represents the amount of pressure the local system police and law authorities can bring down on your character.
After a job or conflict with an opponent, your crew takes Heat according to how the job played out:
| Heat |
Description |
| 0 |
Completely quiet; others are blamed. |
| 1 |
Smooth and quiet; low exposure. |
| 2 |
Contained; standard exposure. |
| 4 |
Loud and chaotic; high exposure. |
| 6 |
Wild; devastating exposure. |
There are also actions that garner additional Heat from the law. Add the following:
| Heat |
Description |
| +1 Heat |
High-profile or well-connected target. Public use of artifacts |
| +2 Heat |
Killing of Hegemonic citizens (whether the crew did the killing or not—bodies draw attention). Massive property damage. Illegal weapons use. |
| +3 Heat |
Damaging a hyperspace lane or system gate. |
You mark HEAT on the system sheet the job was performed in.
Each system tracks HEAT separately.
If a job spans multiple systems, place the HEAT on the system in which the majority of the illegal activity happened. If it was loud and chaotic across multiple systems, discuss the situation with your table. You may have picked up illegal cargo in Rin but fought a freighter in Iota. In that case, maybe you put the HEAT in Iota, as that’s where the most “noise” of the job happened, or divide the HEAT between both sectors.
GMs: Whenever possible, don’t duplicate HEAT (if you moved illegal goods from Rin through Iota to Brekk, all three systems should not get HEAT) unless major public events happened on each leg of the job.
When the tracker is full, mark a
Wanted Level and clear all the HEAT.
CLEARING HEAT & WANTED LEVELS
Running on the bad side of the law eventually catches up with you. To clear HEAT and WANTED LEVELS, your crew can
Lay Low in a different system.
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