"The Children of the Silo — Extended Edition"

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Page 1 — Cover, hook, and parameters

THE CHILDREN OF THE SILO — Extended Edition

Subtitle: They were born sheltered from the world. Now the world is knocking at their door, and someone inside wants to answer.

In the middle of a dusty scrubland, the PCs catch a message as precise as it is improbable: a clean, patient Morse code call, repeated from beneath a hill whose ground still vibrates like a machine maintained with love.

The signal comes from Silo Mistrau, a former agricultural complex turned into an underground refuge before the Fall. Three hundred people have lived there for forty-seven years. They have water, crops, rules, archives, and a leader everyone calls Mother Cendrine. Above all, they have survived by locking the door twice over.

The problem is that an entire generation was born after the collapse. For these young people, the outside is not a traumatic memory but a forbidden idea. When a sick child, a forgotten exit, organized raiders, and hungry mutant wanderers all close in at once, the moral balance of the silo stops being sustainable.

Session parameters

System: Year Zero Engine, post-apocalyptic adaptation of survival and social tension
Players: 3-5
Duration: 4-6 hours
Tone: underground confinement, managed scarcity, fear of the outside, fragile hope
Promise: exploration of an intact shelter, negotiation between factions, gradual revelations, climax with moral choices

Content warnings

Children raised in confinement
Manipulation through collective trauma
Scarcity, illness, and control of movement
Threat of siege and communal violence
Choice between safety, truth, and autonomy

Summary of the conflict

The PCs discover that the Morse code message was sent by Leo, nineteen years old, born in the silo and determined to provoke a meeting with the outside world. Officially, he wanted to bring in a doctor for Naia, his adopted little sister, whose skin can no longer tolerate artificial lighting. Unofficially, he wants to prove that the outside is not just a deadly legend used to maintain obedience.

Facing him are two competing visions of the future. Mother Cendrine has refused any lasting opening ever since an expedition in 2064 ended in tragedy. Hamid Velu, head of the Cultivators, knows the agricultural levels are saturated and that the silo will not be able to feed three hundred mouths for another twenty years without access to the outside world. Meanwhile, the Ferro faction is closing in to turn Mistrau into a tributary farm, and hungry mutant wanderers can already smell the food beneath the hill.

The heart of the scenario is not whether the outside is dangerous. It is. The heart of it is deciding whether that danger justifies denying people born after the catastrophe the right to choose their own horizon.

Page 2 — Extended context, hidden truth, and pressure from outside

Before the Fall, Mistrau was not a military bunker but a cooperative cellar converted by Aurore Pelletier, an agronomist convinced that modern logistics chains would one day break for good. She turned vats, maintenance tunnels, buried greenhouses, and seed stores into a shelter for sixty people.

When the collapse came, forty survivors held out here with filters, lamps, reserves, and one simple idea: if the surface world still wanted anything, it would be their resources. Aurore led the first years, then her daughter Cendrine took over. For the elders, Cendrine embodies the reason their children still exist. For the youngest, she has become the guardian of an inherited fear.

Forty-seven years later, the silo is still standing but is saturated: overcrowded dormitories, recycled water pushed to the limit, mushroom farms producing less, children raised on the archives of the old world and then taught to fear it.

Hidden truth for the GM

The 2064 expedition did not prove that the surface was uninhabitable. It proved that a community that never goes outside cannot improvise a clean sortie. Twelve volunteers left poorly equipped, found orchards, usable buildings, and traces of barter, then ran into violent scavengers near a polluted water reservoir. Three survivors came back injured and feverish. Two later died in an improvised quarantine. Cendrine drew only one lesson from it: opening up kills.

Hamid knows part of the truth because his sister Leila was one of the returnees. Bastian knows the sickness that came back was mostly caused by inadequate medical protocol. Cendrine knows that too, but cannot bear the idea that her doctrine rests on a partial reading of the past.

The four forces in play

The Guardians: elders, logistics managers, airlock guards, educators. Their absolute priority is to avoid any political or sanitary breach.
The Cultivators: agronomists, water technicians, greenhouse managers. They want to open cautious exchanges to save the silo's productive capacity.
The Walkers: young adults born underground, repairers, students, handlers. What they demand first is the right to see and to choose.
The Outside: mutant wanderers, organized Ferro raiders, dry weather, rare areas still worth cultivating, and survivors who negotiate everything on the scale of a season.

Pressure Meter — The Outside Keeps Pushing

Use a shared counter from 0 to 8.

Add 1 for each:

hour of fiction lost in deliberation without a decision
failed Push Roll on a central action
public lie that fractures a faction
noisy scene at the airlock, in the secondary gallery, or in the technical yard
worsening of Naia's condition
open Ferro approach or panicked movement among the Walkers

Recommended effects:

0-2: suspicion, rumors, silhouettes around the hill, the Morse signal still discreet
3-4: mutant wanderers draw closer, first Ferro scouts, Naia weakens, the young start talking about opening the door themselves
5-6: ultimatum from Ferro, attempted vote or internal lockdown, filters and discipline begin to give way
7-8: siege, riot, or forced sortie; the climax becomes inevitable

Reduce Pressure by 1 when:

a major truth is spoken publicly and reshapes the debate
a concrete agreement protects a vulnerable faction
the PCs provide credible proof that the outside is neither safe nor absolutely deadly, but manageable with method

Push Roll reminder

In this scenario, pushing a roll should never only produce more successes. It must leave a visible social or material trace: jammed door, lost ration, suspicion, injury, one word too many, radicalized youth, humiliated guard, noise in the tunnels. If a PC pushes a roll while talking alone with someone from the silo, bring out a personal memory tied to confinement, fear of the outside, or debt to Cendrine.

Page 3 — Act 1: approach the silo and cross the first wall

Act 1 must establish one clear idea: the real lock in this scenario is human, not technical. Mistrau is not a ruin to plunder but a compressed society.

Read aloud to the players

The hill smells of turned earth and hot oil. Nothing here looks abandoned. Salvaged solar panels follow the sun like broken flowers. A makeshift antenna pulses in short bursts behind camouflage netting. At the foot of the embankment, an armored door shows between the stones, too clean to be old. Then a click from an intercom cuts through the wind. A woman's voice, gentle to the point of erasure, asks: "Who taught you to listen to what should never have come out of here?"

Opening scene — The Morse code and the intercom

The first scene is a test of posture. The PCs can introduce themselves honestly, conceal that they understand Morse code, pretend they are just passing through, or ask for a doctor.

What the scene reveals:

the voice on the intercom is Cendrine's herself if she feels threatened, otherwise that of a Guardian named Ysée
the silo has been watching them for several minutes
someone elsewhere in the structure is discreetly sending back a new Morse fragment: "NOT ALONE"

Useful tests:

Observation or Tech, Danger 2: confirm that the secondary signal is coming through the ventilation network, not the main antenna
Empathy or Command, Danger 2: realize the intercom is lying when it claims there is no sick person inside
Mobility or Survival, Danger 3: spot an old service hatch hidden in the dry grass a hundred meters away

Three ways in

Offer at least one social success and one exploration success.

#### 1. Official entry through the main airlock If the PCs make themselves useful, hand over a rare medicine, talk about the Morse code, or prove they understand the situation without using violence, Cendrine can bring them into the Terrace, a reception area cleaned up to impress and control.

This path gives direct access to the political debate and forces them to respect the rules of the place.

#### 2. Passage through the secondary gallery The gallery really exists, sealed but not collapsed. The Walkers know it from rumors; Hamid from necessity; Leo from obsession. The PCs can use it to contact the sender before facing the Council.

This route gives immediate access to Leo, Naia, and the residential quarter, with the risk of looking like proof that Cendrine no longer controls the exits.

#### 3. A threshold meeting with an intermediary Hamid or Leo can step outside briefly under the pretext of maintenance if the PCs answered the Morse code with enough precision. This option works well if you want to play a first exchange outside before anyone enters.

This path creates a more intimate negotiation and gives the PCs a strong reason to decide whom to protect once Cendrine demands answers.

First faces

Act 1 works best if the PCs quickly meet four figures who embody incompatible truths.

#### Mother Cendrine Pelletier Sixty-eight years old, economical gestures, steady voice, noble fatigue. She speaks of the silo as a collective body she keeps alive. She does not hate the PCs. She hates what they represent: the unexpected.

#### Hamid Velu Forty-five years old, head of cultivation, hands stained with soil and liquid fertilizer. He welcomes outsiders as a calculable risk. He is not a revolutionary. He is the accountant of the future.

#### Leo Mistrau Nineteen years old, born here, gaze too direct for someone raised under total authority. He does not want to destroy the silo. He wants to break the monopoly of fear.

#### Doctor Bastian Sorel Seventy-three years old, memory still sharp, body slowed, conscience heavy. He has treated everyone for so long that he no longer has the strength to believe in a clean solution.

Immediate hooks

A PC recognizes, in a classroom, a map of the old world annotated by the same hand as a notebook they own.
Leo claims he called the PCs in for Naia, but what he really wants is for them to describe the sky.
Hamid offers a discreet bargain: help him assess outside land in exchange for access to the archives of 2064.
Cendrine tests the PCs with a simple, terrible question: "When your last shelter ran out of water, whom did you serve first?"
Bastian notices a medical or mechanical skill in one PC rare enough to revive the idea that a real mission might finally be prepared.

Page 4 — Act 1: explore Mistrau and understand why it still holds together

The silo must be played as a living place. Everything is too close, and each level has its own moral logic.

Priority locations

#### The Terrace Long tables, repaired benches, thick soup, scrubbed walls, lamps adjusted to flatter faces. This is the room where the silo performs serenity. Visitors see order here. Residents feel surveillance.

#### Agricultural levels Hydroponics, capillary beds, mushroom farms, insecteries, condensation on metal, the white noise of pumps. This is the economic heart of Mistrau. Hamid rules here less through authority than recognized competence.

#### Residential quarter Stacked dormitories, sheets hung to create fake interiors, corridors too low, children's drawings on the partitions, school turned into a meeting space at night. This is where the PCs understand what it means to be born without a sky.

#### Archives and Council chamber Files on the Fall, Aurore's charter, ration logs, old voice recordings. Cendrine uses the archives as sacred memory. Leo sees them as proof that his generation inherited an incomplete story.

#### Service tunnels Cables, valves, filters, dust, old plaques still bearing the names of the cooperative cellar. The secondary gallery starts here. The Walkers gather here because no one else comes down to speak freely.

What the PCs need to learn before Act 2

Deliver these truths through scenes, not exposition.

#### 1. The silo is not dying, but suffocating Hamid shows the numbers: yields down 18% over four years, recycled water increasingly stripped of minerals, overcrowding driving disease. The system is not about to die tomorrow. It is making every choice crueller every year.

#### 2. Naia is real, and her illness is not just an excuse Naia is eight years old. Her skin reacts worse and worse to the silo's lamps. She lives in shadow and covers herself even to cross lit corridors. Bastian believes treatment from outside, or simply a different light spectrum, could relieve her. He no longer has the means to verify it.

#### 3. The official account of 2064 is incomplete In the public archives, the failed expedition is summarized in six lines: twelve volunteers, contamination, deaths, permanent ban. Bastian's private files or Leila's diary tell a different story: poor preparation, improvised quarantine, outside violence, and the discovery of land still worth working.

#### 4. The Morse code was not sent by one person alone Leo started it, but several young people took turns continuing it: Sacha, Inès, Milo, Rani. The real movement is not one isolated hero. It is a generation that found a secret language in which to breathe.

Recommended interaction scenes

#### The shared meal Perfect for conveying collective pressure. Everyone watches how the PCs eat, speak, and judge. A child asks whether clouds really cast shadows.

#### Leo's nighttime visit If the PCs sleep in the silo or isolate themselves, Leo comes to them. He does not ask them to follow him blindly. He asks them to tell him the truth without filtering it. Does rain still exist? Does the ground outside kill if you touch it? Can you fall in love with someone you chose for yourself, rather than just someone you happened to meet in the right corridor?

#### The interview with Cendrine Cendrine can be admirable if played straight. She reminds the PCs what each liter of water cost, each child saved, each repaired filter. She asks whether they would personally answer for a single infant death caused by opening the door. Her strength lies in the fact that no good answer is comfortable.

End of Act 1

Act 1 closes when the PCs understand that staying neutral already means siding with immobility. Give them a concrete lever:

the exact location of the secondary gallery
partial proof of the lie about 2064
Naia's rapidly worsening condition
word that a Ferro scout has been spotted on the heights

Page 5 — Act 2: complications, expedition, and revelations that cannot be put back in the box

Act 2 begins when a private truth becomes a collective problem. Naia suffers a more severe attack, a guard reports tracks near the solar panels, and Ferro is not going to wait for the internal debate to end.

Option A — Small reconnaissance sortie

Hamid or Leo convinces the PCs to pass through the secondary gallery and reach an old cultivated slope. This sortie serves three purposes.

show that the surface is not instant hell
reveal traces of the old barter network and the disaster of 2064
bring them into contact with the real threat posed by Gray and her people

What the PCs discover outside:

twisted olive trees still alive, maintained as recently as a few seasons ago
an old agricultural basin polluted on one side but usable elsewhere
the ruins of an improvised 2064 guard post with a satchel containing Leila's notebook
bones stripped too cleanly to belong to animals

Option B — Internal investigation through the archives

If the PCs prefer to stay inside the silo, they can search for proof of the 2064 lie in the Council archives, the infirmary, or Bastian's personal effects.

What they can obtain:

a treatment log proving the returnees were kept together because there was no room elsewhere
an older note by Aurore recommending regular sorties as a mental-health measure
Leila's diary describing an outside hamlet and a partially drinkable spring
voting records from 2072 showing an exploratory mission was rejected by 12 votes to 2

Meeting Gray

The mutant wanderers are not a speechless mass. Their leader, Gray, remains partly rational. Her tribe has smelled the silo's food for weeks and knows Ferro is interested in the hill.

Gray can offer three things if approached without contempt:

the location of a hidden route used by the raiders
proof that other communities survive in the region by paying tribute
a kind of perimeter pact in exchange for food, water, or treatment

Recognizing Gray as someone who can be negotiated with forces the people in the silo to reclassify part of what they call "monster."

Revelation 1 — Leila's diary

The diary establishes three things:

Leila saw the sky, and it did not kill her.
She saw poor but real crops, and humans still trading with one another.
She accuses Cendrine of turning a failure of preparation into absolute proof against all future freedom.

Revelation 2 — Naia's illness is not "the mark of the outside"

Some Guardians start whispering that Naia is morally paying for the signal Leo sent. Bastian knows that is false. Her photosensitivity comes from the lamp spectrum and a chronic fragility, not symbolic punishment.

Revelation 3 — Ferro does not only want to steal

Ferro operates like a mobile micro-lordship. They want to keep Mistrau productive under tribute, take young people as labor, and use the silo as a secure storehouse. Even if Cendrine refuses to open the future, she may still lose the autonomy she thought she was protecting.

Recommended complication scenes

#### The return to the airlock The PCs come back with proof, and proof calms nothing. One guard wants to confiscate it. The Walkers want to show it immediately. Hamid demands a Council. Cendrine insists on political quarantine, if not a medical one.

#### The spontaneous attempt to leave At least three young people try to open the gallery while everyone is arguing. Some of them only want to see the light for one minute.

#### A filter collapse A secondary system gives way at the worst possible moment. Mistrau runs too close to the margin to survive social chaos without technical damage. Act 2 gains a lot if the PCs must choose between repairing, talking, and securing.

#### Ferro's first message An exterior loudspeaker or a scout under a white flag delivers a clear proposal: ten percent of production, then twenty, then human guarantees. The tone is polite. That is what makes it disgusting.

Page 6 — Act 2: the broken assembly and the road to the breaking point

The second half of Act 2 turns information into alignments. Every NPC should now reveal what they are willing to sacrifice to remain consistent with themselves.

The silo assembly

If the PCs push for transparency, Hamid demands a general assembly. Cendrine can block it, but only at the price of appearing for the first time as a leader afraid of her own children.

Run this assembly as a layered scene.

The elders want simple answers: does the outside kill, yes or no?
The young want a more important sentence: who decides in my place?
The Cultivators want a plan, not a symbol.
Bastian wants to confess his silence before he dies.

Useful tests:

Command or Manipulation, Danger 3: get people to listen to the end without the room collapsing into shouting
Empathy, Danger 2: sense the moment when Cendrine is about to shut down completely
Lore, Medicine, or Tech, Danger 3: present the evidence without it sounding magical or false

How to play Cendrine in this scene

Do not make her stupid, only cornered. If the PCs expose Leila, 2064, and Naia, Cendrine can react in three ways.

Harsh denial: "Even if it is true, I had no right to teach hope to three hundred people without guarantees."
Defensive confession: she admits the past was more complex but maintains that uncontrolled opening would kill more surely still.
Intimate rupture: she recognizes that she no longer knows how to govern a generation that does not share her fear.

Hamid's choice

Hamid is not an obvious good man. If power is offered to him, he may accept opening up first and foremost to save yields. The PCs have to force him to articulate an ethic, not only a logistics plan.

Leo's choice

Leo wants freedom, but he is not ready to watch children die for the sake of a symbol. If the PCs show him that the surface requires method and escort, he can accept a compromise: a supervised first sortie rather than a romantic exodus.

Ferro's second face

At Pressure 5 or higher, Ferro does not stop at messages. Two representatives approach the door under a negotiation flag. They call Cendrine a "manager" and offer protection, fuel, pump parts, and road security in exchange for a levy. They already know there is an internal fracture. That means they have had eyes around the silo for some time.

Gray's role before the climax

If the PCs established contact with Gray, she can intervene before Ferro assaults. Not as a free savior. As an interested force.

She can:

divert an armed approach through an ambush
bring proof that Ferro captures children and scavengers alive
demand, in exchange, a share of the harvest, treatment, or access to water

Moving into Act 3

By the end of Act 2, the group should face an active, costly choice, not just an opinion.

organize the defense of a silo that is still closed
open the airlock symbolically or concretely at the exact moment Ferro arrives
exfiltrate Naia and a few Walkers through the gallery
depose Cendrine politically before outside weapons impose a solution

The climax works best if the community finally learns the truth at the same moment it can no longer afford to process it calmly.

Page 7 — Act 3: the siege of Mistrau and the real choice of the door

The climax begins when Pressure reaches 7, when Ferro launches its final ultimatum, or when a mass departure becomes irreversible.

Recommended dramatic setup

Ideally, bring these elements together at once.

Cendrine must choose between order and truth
Leo must choose between symbol and responsibility
Hamid must choose between economic survival and political dignity
Ferro is physically close enough to make any hesitation costly
Naia or another child makes the question of the future concrete
Gray, ally or threat, is present within the perimeter

Three possible climax locations

#### The main airlock The place of speeches and of the first irreversible gesture.

#### The secondary gallery The place of escapes and exfiltrations.

#### The Council chamber The place of political reversal.

Major possible actions

#### 1. Collective defense of Mistrau The PCs help the silo stay shut long enough to repel Ferro, with or without Gray's support.

Possible central roll:

Command, improvised tactics, or Tech, Danger 5

Risks:

deaths among the inhabitants
proof about the outside buried under the urgency
military victory reinforcing the power of the Guardians

Reward:

autonomy preserved in the short term
possibility of a negotiated opening after the assault, if trust is not completely broken

#### 2. Public opening and threshold pact The PCs secure a controlled opening of the airlock in front of the whole community. This option turns the door into a scene of political birth.

Possible central roll:

Empathy, Command, or Manipulation, Danger 6

Risks:

a Ferro shooter or a panicking Guardian triggers violence
the elders experience the opening as absolute betrayal
the agreement must include Gray or at least take her into account

Reward:

the community sees that the door can open without the world ending immediately
Leo gains something better than an escape: a precedent

#### 3. Partial exodus through the gallery The PCs choose to save Naia, Leo, and a small group while the silo remains divided.

Possible central roll:

Mobility, Survival, or Stealth, Danger 5

Risks:

Cendrine sees it as a mutilation of the community
Ferro may intercept the fugitives
the children of the silo immediately become a vulnerable nomadic group

Reward:

living proof that another future exists
possibility of a roaming campaign afterward

#### 4. Cendrine's political fall If the PCs have gathered enough proof and support, they can push Cendrine to surrender authority. That does not solve the siege, but it changes who speaks for Mistrau at the critical moment.

Possible central roll:

Manipulation, Empathy, or public presentation of evidence, Danger 4

Risks:

power vacuum
settling of scores between generations
Hamid or another leader reproducing the same control by other means

Reward:

the community finally stops being confused with the fear of a single person

Playing Ferro at the climax

Dara Cendre-Froide knows how to read the dynamics of weakness. The more divided the silo appears, the more civilized she seems.

Her strong lines:

"I can leave you your leaders, as long as you pay."
"Doors never stay with people who hesitate too long."
"You call this freedom. I call it an unsecured resource."

Cendrine's possible sacrifice

Cendrine can choose to hold an airlock alone, divert a Ferro charge, or publicly admit her mistake at the exact moment it strips her of all authority.

Page 8 — Act 3: four major resolutions and their aftermath

The resolutions below can be played as written or combined.

Resolution A — The Pact of Two Thresholds

Condition: the PCs secure a controlled opening, drive off or deter Ferro, then establish a public agreement between Guardians, Cultivators, Walkers, and possibly Gray.

Result: The door is no longer sacred; it becomes regulated. Mistrau creates two thresholds. The first protects sanitary safety inside. The second allows supervised missions, limited barter, and a rotation of scouts. Leo does not get a romantic revolution, but he does get a written right. Hamid gets land to assess. Cendrine remains memory, no longer sovereignty.

Cost:

the silo loses the innocence of being a closed shelter
the elders undergo a form of political mourning
Gray or another outside group must be dealt with as partner or neighbor, not background noise

Resolution B — Fortress saved, future postponed

Condition: Ferro is driven back, the PCs support closure, and Leo renounces or fails to secure a concrete opening.

Result: Mistrau survives militarily and may even come out stronger in the short term. The Guardians tighten protocols. Morse code is forbidden. The young are scattered into tasks and dormitories. Cendrine thanks the PCs sincerely, convinced they saved three hundred lives.

Cost:

the question of freedom is buried, not resolved
Leo may become a long-term clandestine dissident or disappear later
Hamid now knows the model is doomed in the medium term

Resolution C — The Children's Road

Condition: the PCs escort Leo, Naia, and a reduced group out of the silo through the gallery, with or without official approval.

Result: Mistrau remains standing, but missing part of its willing youth. This ending shifts the campaign elsewhere. The children of the silo learn wind, distance, smells, unmeasured hunger, and the possibility of choice. The outside is not kind, but it stops being abstract.

Cost:

permanent rupture with Cendrine, unless she consents at the last moment
very high logistical vulnerability
the fugitives become a target for Ferro or a symbol for other enclaves

Resolution D — The Fall of Mistrau

Condition: the siege goes badly, Ferro gets in, or internal civil conflict erupts in the middle of the fighting.

Result: The silo does not have to vanish in an explosion. It can fall more slowly, through tribute, occupation, or the forced departure of its leadership. It is the darkest ending, but it can open a campaign of resistance, reconquest, or dispersal.

Cost:

civilian deaths
loss of seeds, archives, or authority
the PCs will have to live with the question: could they have secured an opening early enough to avoid an opening by force?

Debrief questions

Who inside the silo was hardest for you to judge honestly?
What truth did your character speak too late?
If a child from Mistrau asks you what it means to be free, what answer do you dare give now?

Recommended short epilogues

Naia sees the sky for the first time; she cries or laughs, and no one can tell which feeling is winning.
Cendrine, alive or dead, leaves behind one of Aurore's notebooks finally accessible.
Gray sends an offering or a warning, proof that the outside now remembers the silo's name.
Another Morse signal, farther away, answers a few days later. Mistrau may not have been the only closed door in the region.

Page 9 — D6 tables, detailed NPCs, and creatures

D6 Table — Incidents inside the silo

1. A pump suddenly slows; the next Tech action suffers -1 die unless someone secures the circuit.
2. A child asks an innocent question that silences an entire room for ten seconds.
3. A Guardian recognizes a word from Leila's diary and realizes they have been lied to for years.
4. The Morse signal starts up on its own for three bursts while Leo is under watch.
5. A ration goes missing; suspicion falls on the Walkers first.
6. Bastian briefly collapses, murmurs "it wasn't the outside, it was us," then refuses to say more in front of witnesses.

D6 Table — What can be found near the secondary exit

1. An old flask marked with Leila's name, still stoppered with cloth used to filter water.
2. A nest of small mutant animals, proof the zone is not sterile.
3. Recent prints from disciplined boots: Ferro scouts are less than a day away.
4. An old graffiti from a 2064 returnee: "We saw trees. Don't let them erase that."
5. Remains of a dismantled barter beacon, proof an outside network once existed here.
6. An improvised medical kit with half-dried homemade sun ointment.

D6 Table — Complications during the siege

1. A stray shot punctures a secondary water line.
2. Two young people want to run outside and fight to prove their worth; they are badly equipped.
3. A wounded mutant wanderer collapses on the threshold and begs in almost understandable words.
4. Dara Cendre-Froide suddenly offers a private truce to one PC.
5. A Guardian blocks the secondary gallery without warning anyone.
6. Naia disappears, convinced she is making everything worse for everyone.

Compact YZE blocks — NPCs

Mother Cendrine Pelletier — Leader of the silo, memory of disaster

ATTR Strength 2 · Agility 2 · Wits 4 · Empathy 4 Toughness 4 · Stress 3 Skills: Command 3 · Manipulation 2 · Observation 2 · Survival 1 EQUIPMENT: airlock keyring, Aurore's notebook, lined council coat, old pistol kept under lock ATK Old pistol +1 [2 damage] · Range M SPECIAL: Deep authority. Once per scene, Cendrine can impose silence or a one-minute delay even on a tense crowd, unless proof from 2064 is waved publicly against her. PUSH: if she pushes a social roll and gets 1s, she unwillingly reveals the intimate fear that drives her harshness.

Hamid Velu — Head of cultivation, pragmatist at the edge of his margin

ATTR Strength 3 · Agility 2 · Wits 4 · Empathy 3 Toughness 4 · Stress 2 Skills: Tech 3 · Lore 3 · Observation 2 · Manipulation 2 EQUIPMENT: yield slate, pruning knife, filtering gloves, pouch of rare seeds ATK Pruning knife +1 [1 damage] · Range C SPECIAL: Living calculus. Hamid can grant +2 dice to a scene tied to resources, harvests, water, or the feasibility of a sustainable plan. PUSH: on a 1, Hamid reduces someone to a useful variable and loses 1 Empathy for the scene.

Leo Mistrau — Voice of the Walkers

ATTR Strength 2 · Agility 3 · Wits 3 · Empathy 4 Toughness 3 · Stress 2 Skills: Mobility 3 · Observation 2 · Manipulation 2 · Stealth 2 EQUIPMENT: hand lamp, Morse notebook, patched jacket, improvised gallery key ATK Light bar +1 [1 damage] · Range C SPECIAL: Speaking truth simply. When Leo speaks plainly about life in the silo, he grants +1 die to everyone trying to rally the young or humanize the debate. PUSH: on a 1, he turns sincerity into provocation and raises Pressure by 1.

Doctor Bastian Sorel — Silo physician, witness to the lie

ATTR Strength 1 · Agility 2 · Wits 4 · Empathy 4 Toughness 3 · Stress 3 Skills: Medicine 4 · Observation 2 · Lore 2 · Empathy 2 EQUIPMENT: medical kit, cracked glasses, old registers, photosensitivity ointment for Naia ATK Emergency scalpel +1 [1 damage] · Range C SPECIAL: Buried file. Once per scenario, Bastian can produce a medical document or testimony that lowers the Danger of a truth-exposure scene by 2. PUSH: on a 1, guilt paralyzes him or makes him confess the wrong thing at the worst moment.

Gray — Wanderer leader, still capable of making a pact

ATTR Strength 4 · Agility 3 · Wits 2 · Empathy 2 Toughness 5 · Stress 1 Skills: Survival 3 · Observation 3 · Close Combat 2 · Intimidation 2 EQUIPMENT: scavenged blades, coat of oiled hides, polished-glass talisman ATK Claws and short blade +2 [2 damage] · Range C SPECIAL: Nose for the perimeter. Gray detects a large human approach, a food stockpile, or a fresh trail before anyone else. PUSH: on a 1, hunger or distrust takes over and any agreement becomes temporarily void.

Creatures and adversaries

Ferro Soldier — Disciplined raider of the mobile lordship

ATTR Strength 3 · Agility 3 · Wits 2 · Empathy 1 Toughness 4 · Armor 2 Skills: Ranged Combat 3 · Mobility 2 · Intimidation 2 · Observation 1 EQUIPMENT: shotgun, salvaged vest, flask of hard liquor, short-range radio ATK Shotgun +2 [3 damage] · Range M SPECIAL: Group pressure. As long as at least two Ferro fighters are together, they gain +1 die on intimidation and cover actions. PUSH: on a 1, the soldier fires too early, reveals their position, or hits a useful resource.

Hungry Mutant Wanderer — Human altered by exposure and hunger

ATTR Strength 3 · Agility 3 · Wits 1 · Empathy 1 Toughness 4 · Armor 0 Skills: Survival 2 · Stealth 2 · Close Combat 2 · Observation 1 EQUIPMENT: broken tools, ropes, bones, thick rags ATK Charge and bite +2 [2 damage] · Range C SPECIAL: Scent of harvest. A mutant wanderer gains +1 die to track a food source or a poorly watched exit. PUSH: on a 1, it forgets all caution and throws itself at the nearest target.

Page 10 — Appendices, worldbuilding, campaign hooks, and FTL notice

Daily life in Mistrau

A typical day explains many of the silo's tensions. Wake-up by section, filter checks, cultivation or maintenance work, class, rationed communal meal, technical quiet hour, gradual lights-out. The young lack privacy as much as they lack horizon.

Myths the silo tells about the outside

The sky drives mad those who have forgotten it.
Open harvests always draw raiders before neighbors.
All natural light eventually reveals the weaknesses people hide.
Children born underground fall sick if they see too much vastness all at once.

None of these myths is entirely false. None of them justifies absolute confinement.

Linking this scenario to a larger YZE setting

The Children of the Silo fits easily into any post-apocalyptic campaign centered on enclaves, barter roads, and societies rebuilt around a single trauma.

Use Mistrau as:

an ambiguous refuge the PCs return to in order to negotiate treatment, seeds, or an alliance
the possible origin of a PC born underground
the starting point of a micro-confederation of rural communities if the opening succeeds
a tragic example of what happens when technical survival slowly replaces political consent

Campaign hooks

The coordinates found in Leila's diary lead to an old chain of agricultural enclaves, some of which may still exist.
Ferro does not forgive a humiliating failure; Dara prepares revenge with more people or with bought internal allies.
Naia could become the first child from the silo to be treated sustainably outside, making her an unwilling political symbol.
Gray asks the PCs to help her negotiate with another community that refuses to recognize mutants as human.
Aurore's notebook contains incomplete plans for other cooperative shelters that were never confirmed.
A second Morse signal begins transmitting from an old pumping station, as if Mistrau had awakened other hidden human pockets.

Atmosphere advice

Always describe the contrast between relative abundance and claustrophobia. The silo is not miserable; it is too closed to remain healthy.
Do not reward only physical bravery. In this scenario, speaking a truth at the right moment can matter more than a successful shot.
Make the outside harsh but breathable. If you make it totally unlivable, the social dilemma collapses.
Let every side keep its dignity. The scenario becomes stronger when the PCs understand why condemning Cendrine is difficult without minimizing what she truly saved.

Year Zero Engine Free Tabletop License notice

Published under license for the Year Zero Engine by Tomas Harenstam / Free League Publishing. This product is based on the Year Zero Engine Standard Reference Document, designed by Tomas Harenstam and published by Free League Publishing. Published under the Year Zero Engine Free Tabletop License (FTL). freeleaguepublishing.com