🧬 PROJECT HELIX – Game Master’s Guide

🧭 OVERVIEW

Genre: Sci-fi Horror / Psychological Thriller
Tone: Mystery, transformation, claustrophobia, transhuman dread
Structure: Semi-linear with optional open-floor exploration

🎯 YOUR CORE GM OBJECTIVES

Keep the players asking: "What am I?"
- Drop small, conflicting memory fragments.
- Make their powers unpredictable at first.
- Use NPCs to hint at different backstories or lies.
Pace the reveal of the facility and their origins.
- Unveil the true purpose of Project Helix slowly.
- Early levels give information and gear; later ones pose moral and metaphysical threats.
Make choices meaningful and personal.
- Give them opportunities to sacrifice, betray, or protect.
- Use their “Recovered Memories” as leverage points for fear or power.

🏗️ STRUCTURE & FLOW

🟩 Act I: Reawakening (F2–F3)

Goals: Establish mood. Introduce identity issues. Present first choice: descend or escape?
Challenges: Locked systems, corrupted logs, flickering AI guide (FRAGNET).
Reveals: Players are not clones—they’re reclaimed dead rebuilt for testing.

🟧 Act II: Descent & Evolution (F4–F6)

Goals: Challenge body/mind. Reveal twisted experiments. Show player powers evolving.
Challenges: Biotech creatures, rogue implants, unstable power grid, morality dilemmas.
Reveals: Players’ past lives are stored in the Memory Vault—and editable.

🟥 Act III: The Final Directive (F7–F8)

Goals: Force the players to confront who made them—and who they want to become.
Challenges: Facing past selves, surviving against Ascendant prototypes, escaping the Ascension Directive.
Reveals: Project Helix was never just about resurrection. It was about replacement.

💀 ENEMIES & ENCOUNTERS

TypeDescriptionRogue ReclaimantA failed subject—fully mutated and hostile.Memory WraithManifestation of corrupted memories; steals identity points.Auto-Surgeon DroneMalfunctioning bot with bone saws and AI trying to “repair” players.Phase-3 AscendantFormer subject who embraced their mutation and now thinks like a god.ECHO LoopRoom replaying a traumatic player memory, forcing moral decision.

Let them talk. Let them beg. Let them say your character’s name.

⚠️ STRESS & CORRUPTION

Track each player’s Instability (0–10 scale):

Triggers: Using powers, witnessing trauma, false memories, certain enemy types
Effects:
- 3+: Audio hallucinations or violent urges
- 6+: Memory bleed (GM temporarily controls player or inserts fake memories)
- 9–10: Player begins becoming a new Phase-3 prototype unless stabilized

Let players trade clarity for power. Or vice versa.

🧠 NPC TYPES

Dr. Calder Myn (Ghost Log):
Ex-lead scientist who left encrypted messages inside Memory Vaults. Possibly their creator—or executioner.
FRAGNET (Split AI):
Fragmented facility intelligence. Part helper, part jailer. Two subroutines: Caretaker and Warden.
"Subject Red" (Boss/NPC):
Reclaimant who embraced mutation early. Now wants to uplift the PCs—by force.
Dead Loved One (Echo Memory):
Used by the facility as emotional leverage. Possibly just a simulation. Possibly not.

🔓 PLAYER CHOICE PATHS

QuestionEffectEscape vs. Discover TruthPushes game toward survival vs. existential endgameRestore Memories or NotRestoring can grant power, but bring pain or reprogramming risksReject Mutation or Embrace ItEmbracing mutation grants powers but raises InstabilityTrust FRAGNET or Disable ItAI can help, hinder, or attempt to overwrite their minds

🧩 TIPS FOR ATMOSPHERE & HORROR

Use unreliable narration. NPCs lie. Logs are fragmented. Voices don’t match mouths.
Let hallucinations mirror the players’ past lives and fears.
Limit knowledge. The players should never be sure what’s real.
Pace the powers. Don’t give full control over abilities until they’re earned or lost.
Describe sensation over action: burning behind the eyes, metallic taste, impossible gravity.

🎁 SAMPLE MYSTERY HOOKS

Why does the AI call one player “Control Subject Delta”?
What’s on the other side of the Phase 3 rift in F7?
A memory shows them dying… by the hand of another PC.
An entire log entry seems written in a PC’s handwriting—but dated before they were born.
it’s me. Hi. I'm the problem i- NO

NO TAYLOR SWIFT

Hello there though.

Call me Winston just like pls

I'm 13

I like F1

a lot

My favorite team is SCUDIERRA FERRARI JOIN THE TIFOSI NOWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW

Favorite driver is Kimi Räikkönen (Current Charles Leclerc)

I like college football (the sport nobody else likes), and most pro sports. (also NASCAR)

I like rap, rock, some metal, and country (i know my music taste sucks)

yeet

I have literally every game on the Nintendo Eshop

31 years, 1 month, 4 days.

Life status overview:

Single, but not available (yk?)

Living

School's out [insert partying emoji]

might be depressed so that's cool

Baseball, huh?

That tracks...

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So far away, we wait for the day
For the lives all so wasted and gone
We feel the pain of a lifetime lost in a thousand days
Through the fire and the flames, we carry on

Those shoutouts cuz yeah:

@TheEvanMack RIP bro, he got lost in the waves of employment

@BasixWhiteBoy yes.

@cupi- wait. @velvetcupid right? idk what to put here

@BunWithGun25924569365982307 idk more numbers. yoooo fellow christian

@BlueHairedFemboy13 A. the hell is this username B. possible fellow azali listener

I'll put more here later

Twitter is called Twitter

dm me "memes" for memes (current shortage)

To all the club users, join OTF

I play

Basketball

MURICAN football

Bowling

Chess

Favorite opening?

Anything that gets me past 5 moves

jk I know a lot of opening theory

I need to get a life

lisen to this now

Winston1234e