Crawler

A crawler is a vehicle similar to a spacecraft, but which is used to survey and travel through Unallocated Space rather than through a real, physical space. These vehicles take many forms to suit the aesthetic tastes of their owners and their prescribed mission profiles, but all serve the purposes of providing transport and islands of stable 'reality' in the neuroelectric void.
Crawlers are primarily used by blanks who lack the knowledge of The Word to propel themselves through Unallocated Space unattended, don't have connections with patrons who can provide discontinuous travel (i.e. the doors of Club Chorus as controlled by Onesby), or need to haul more than just themselves and what they can carry to a new location. Crawlers also see use as mobile surveying and construction platforms for the creation of new instances, search-and-rescue craft at the sites of metaphysical emergencies, and even combat platforms.

Power Generation

Like the blanks themselves, crawlers are 'powered' by the radiance of the black hole 'sun' at the core of the Matrioshka brain and 'piloted' through clever assemblages of animating verses. Should a crawler be created within an instance for some reason, its power supply and propulsion systems are instead appropriate for the physics, attained technological level, and aesthetics of those domains, but the underlying principles remain the same.

Weapons & Armament

Crawlers that are intended to go up against blanks, regions, and whole instances overtaken by corruption are frequently armed. Armaments include offensive verses given physical form, typically appearing as banks of laser cannons mounted on, or floating near, the hull. Inside, such crawlers feature well-stocked armories manned by those with knowledge of physical and electronic warfare in equal measure; in the broader Matrioshka Multiverse, there is little distinction between the two.
One of the rarest (and potentially most powerful) weapons found aboard crawlers are special 'reality field projectors' which, as stated, allow a crawler so equipped to manipulate the flow of natural cycles (see Additional & Auxiliary Systems) within a region of space beyond the hull of the crawler itself. In the rare engagements where such weapons have been used, surrender has often been achieved by forcing the enemy crew to suddenly realize that they haven't slept or even breathed in a long time, incapacitating them in comparatively short order and with minimum actual injury.

Armor and defense

If not from an instance, the outer hull of a crawler is often an abstract, flowing form of opalescent white carapace often resembling a particularly aerodynamic piece of driftwood or wind-sculpted stone. This outer shell is forged of the same material used in the creation of Substrate floor tiles, among the most hardy of 'substances' that the engineers of The Substrate can muster. Verses related to vision replace most exterior windows, as such openings would present structural weaknesses in the result of physical attack. Those crew members versed in The Word can further reinforce the structural integrity of their crawler with words or verses of their own.

Sensors

Crawlers possess a wide variety of built-in sensor equipment, all of which is based on verses relating to perception and sensation. In particular, crawlers are sensitive to the conformations of Unallocated Space itself, making it possible for a crawler crew to assess the health of the world's physical and programmatic architecture in equal measure. For example, a crew approaching a heretofore undiscovered region of spatial distortions which might otherwise serve to trap a solo traveller will instead detect the distortions from a long distance away and be able to react accordingly. Crawlers also have artificial windows (see Armor and Defense) that project the surroundings of the vessel on inside wall and ceiling surfaces when active, allowing for line-of-sight observations.
In part to prevent instance blanks from comandeering crawlers - should they somehow find and enter one, that is - the sensor equiment aboard a crawler is meant to be accessed only through specific verbal commands in the native chime language of citizens of The Substrate. Thus, pilots unfamiliar with the language and not informed of the appropriate terminology will be forced to operate the vehicle blind.

Additional & auxiliary systems

Crawlers have the unique ability to generate pockets of 'reality' within them if so desired. Normally, in Unallocated Space beyond The Substrate or any instance, 'natural' cycles are suspended; for example, a person visiting the space no longer ages, requires air to breathe, or grows hungry, and their equipment similarly does not rot, corrode, or gather dust. This may not be desireable in certain circumstances, however, such as in interrogating unsuspecting instance blanks or testing construct blanks' abilities before disembarking them at an instance. Similarly, for those accustomed to more 'human' modes of existence, such as elder blanks, time-based desires are nostalgic and help to ground the psyche in times of stress. To satisfy these requirements, crawler skippers may chose to have portions of their ships generate 'reality fields': pockets of simulated naturalistic cycles. In contrast, when operating within a region of Unallocated Space where naturalistic cycles are already in force for some reason, these fields instead counteract the effect, 'suspending reality' within them for as long as desired.

Hangars & docked vessels

There are a few crawlers large enough to carry other crawlers and similar craft within them. Most of the time, however, if more than one craft is required for a given mission, more than one mid-sized crawler will be sent as part of a fleet rather than a single 'crawler carrier.'

Complement / Crew

Varies

Cargo & Passenger Capacity

Varies