Dare says, “What you've described about the magic reminds me of what G: Fantasy had to say about dark fantasy… Might be interesting to take the Dark Heart Of Space concept from d20 Future, and make it interesting…”

	Ships have started going missing. Sometimes they show up later, “ghosted” — the crew, and the ship itself, crippled, but “alive” with some malevolent energy, which drives them to mindless violence.
	Efforts are ongoing to restore the minds of ghosted crew, but the ghosted ships themselves are so dangerous they must be destroyed.
	Sadly, so must some of the crew.
	Perhaps more worringly, our attempts to restore the ghosted are fighting against that malevolent force trying to spread — it's unknown what kind of exposure allows it to pass, but those who deal with the ghosted must be on guard for the malevolence starting to lurk in their own hearts.
	A growing faction blames our FTL technology, the usual crazies blame the pleasures we bring each other, but whatever the cause, travel is dangerous — especially on the fringes.
	A new faction has emerged: Those who would go out to face these ghosted ships, and capture them — or at least capture a few ghosted crew — that they might be recovered.
	Often, these people serve as mercenaries, hired by private individuals who want their loved ones back.
	Occasionally, these people are hired by governments who want their citizens back.
	Ghost ship repo, terifying regions.

	So, what are the dark hearts out there?
	Perhaps HyperspaceIsAScaryPlace, but it's chronic, not acute — if your mind builds up enough hyperspatial derangement, it starts a cascade that reduces you to a space zombie.
	Perhaps there are SpaceSargassos out there — literal dark hearts, with dead ships in decaying orbits, bathing them in negative energies until they rise up against the living.
	Now imagine JAGS Wonderland, hundreds of years later, where we've figured out an FTL drive that travels through lower chessboards…

	Now, the original concept was more boring than that, with one trite dark heart, and “ghosting” being impossible to restore, with everybody knowing that.
	So the task is reduced to boarding ghosted ships and slaying the ghosted crew, until you're strong enough to kill the boss monster.
	However, if scientists are making headway in restoring ghosted people, and the dark hearts being numerous, mysterious, and Out There…

	We could start as ghost-catchers, but it may be neater for us to start as free traders whose ship was captured by a SpaceSargasso.
	We are the few who made our rolls to resist death, a random sample of the ship's population, and we must strive to escape a dead ship while it animates as undead, through our family members/coworkers/etc. rising to stop us, and bring back word.
	We have stared into the darkness, and it has stared back into us.
	Being bathed alive in dark energies, we're a little turned, but have some control over it…
	This is magic. The taint of the dark hearts of space. The impossible made possible by the hand of an unknown foe, jockeying with our will for control of our own minds.
	So the cost of magic is Taint, resisted by Will; this functions somewhat like loss of Sanity, but the evil isn't beyond paying attention to humanity.
	Hell wants you.
	Maybe this time you'll get a good Will roll, and resist all the Taint. Maybe this time you'll accumulate some Taint, but you can hold your evil, for now. Maybe this time you'll wake up tomorrow covered in chains and blood.
	Maybe this time you'll get it done without casting a single spell, Just In Case.