The Starship From Hell is a system-agonistic toolkit to be used at the table during sci-fi RPG sessions. With a handful of dice, generate a starship's type, category, name, nearby phenomena, reason for distress signal, dangerous cargo, and passengers or crew members with horrific secrets.

The end result looks like this:

The colonial barge Obsidian Mistress, carrying religious pilgrims (en route to a horrifying ritual involving mass murder and handmade altars), has encountered a 2000 km/s Moreton wave. Worse, all trace connection to the brain-frame has been lost, and the captain no longer has control of the ship. Something else is trying to establish a remote connection to the brain-frame; the crew doesn't recognize the cortical pattern, and they're terrified.

Dr. Beata Lorel of the Hallowed Chirocracy (planet Alecto) is aboard. Imperious and arrogant, Dr. Lorel is an expert in surveillance. She's in the weaponry cockpit. In her attache case, she has a finger in a small crystal tube. It's been sliced from the hand with a surgical laser, and the stump has been cauterized. It belongs to someone well-known to one of the PCs (a friend, lover, ally, or bitter enemy).

Now grab a liter of Araxan bile-wine, a writing stick, and a square decimeter of tanned human skin. It's time to build a starship and crew!