From publisher blurb:
Stowaway is a new 20-minute demo for Ashen Stars from ENnie Award presenter and all around nice guy, Kevin Kulp. This demo premiered at GenCon [2011] to rave reviews. It’s a great introduction to Ashen Stars and includes six pre-gens.
From Demo Goal:
Your job is to give new players a fast 20 minute experience that feels like the best part of Star Trek, Firefly and Aliens put together. This requires a cinematic demo that stays rules light, even as it explores the game’s major mechanics and themes. A quick game like this gives the player the cinematic feel of ‘holy crap we’re all going to die,’ lets them save the day against high stakes, and lets them see how general and investigative skills work. Just be sure to split up the tasks between different PCs, and have only 1-2 PCs on any given task. Ignore all extraneous rules and skills and only focus on the relevant ones. Don’t explain any rule until it actually becomes necessary in the demo.