The Ship Teaches You to Build

Clearing the Barrier Peaks wreck is easy. The hard part starts when you stop looting and start reading the manuals.

ACKS already has rules for a mage who stops being a backpack artillery piece. Sanctums. Rituals. Constructs. Laboratories that turn gold into things the setting cannot ignore. The starship is simply a sanctum that arrived finished. The robots are golems that do not require a month of carving. The power plant is a ritual that already works. The difference is that you did not pay for any of it. You inherited it.

Once you own the decks, the next step is not defense. It is reverse engineering. Take the principles the ship still demonstrates and teach them to people who know magic. Crossbreed the two. A techno-golem that carries a laser the local smith cannot name. A ritual that keeps the lights on without feeding a demon. Devices that glow because the power is real, not because you described them that way. The neighboring lords will call it sorcery. Your rivals will call it a threat. Your own people will call it a city.

A glowing settlement does not require the rest of the world to become science fiction. It requires one domain that decided the ship was a factory, not a trophy room. The old modules give you the hole. ACKS gives you the rules for what happens when the survivors stay and start manufacturing.

You can strip the wreck for parts and go home with a story.

Or you can stay long enough to make the next generation of problems. The first laser was found. The second one was built. The city that runs on both is the campaign the map did not know it was waiting for.