Though
this set of rules haven’t been playtested, this adventure has actually been run
twice with different Players. The rules
were actually a homebrew adaptation of Paranoia
if you can believe it. Both times,
strangely, the adventure finished in the same dramatic way, so I’m pronouncing
it successful. The hitch here is that I
actually don’t have the original adventure anymore, just the map, so I’m going
with memory here. While this is a very
basic beginning scenario in the most obvious of settings, it should be a good
start to bigger things.
I
posted my original maps for this RPG setting a couple of years ago
here. There’s an internal layout
of a certain giant earth defense ship, an airbase, and a rebel base. I might make up a little intro adventure for
the other settings (Space War I, Reconstruction, and Space War II), if I can
come up with a good idea for each.
Adventure Setting: Hive occupied
earth. The Characters are a group of
rebels fighting them. This adventure is
written with four Characters in mind.
Foes can be fairly easily increased or decreased. (This adventure isn’t meant to be hugely
challenging.)
Mission Objective (2 XP): A Delta Fighter was recently observed
crashing near a small Hive research station.
Find out the status of the craft and recover it if possible.
Locations: A small town, Moriah, is nearby. The Hive
lab is located in the foothills outside of town.
Character Background: I don’t want to
wedge anybody in here. This might be an
independent group of rebels or a cell of a larger movement. Your call.
Their individual Character backgrounds are completely up to the Players,
as well as how they came together. It
would probably be a good idea that at least one of the Characters be a military
pilot at the start. Should the group
have any Support Characters? That’s up
to you too. This adventure may be where
they meet and recruit them. Of course,
you can just blow off any Character background stuff and just jump right into
playing. If you like the game, then
maybe do the backstories, if you want.
For
this starting adventure, each of the Characters should have Typhoons (their choice of type with
full armaments for each) and a G3 gun
with a rifle stock. They should also
have an appropriate kit to go with their type of Character and any personal
gear the Players choose. They can be EEF or a Rebel. They could even be
older ANS or EMDF who have somehow survived to this day. They could pick having a regular motorcycle,
a hovercyle, or a light truck as their special gear. Having a non-Proto-fueled vehicle could
useful.
Player
Knowledge/Character Knowledge: As distasteful as this might be to the
Ref, the Characters for this adventure should start off knowing the following:
Eye shots can kill Hive Drones and the Hive can sense Proto-fueled weapons and
vehicles at short range. This knowledge
will move events and combat along a little better.
Adventure Background: This is top
secret/Ref only/sneaky Players butt-out material. Actually, this is the seed for future
adventures. It’s a mystery that won’t
payoff in this adventure, but down the road.
The Hive Queen is
experimenting with Hive evolution and playing with human form hybrids. One of her early prototypes is Menus.
What the Queen hasn’t figured out yet is that these Hive/Humans might be
loyal to the Hive, but very much have minds of their own.
Menus
is running a little shadow operation within the Hive. He/She (your call, could even be hermaphroditic,
or lacking gender altogether being a prototype) is continuing hybrid
experiments with a captured human scientist, Doctor Yan Dmitri. These two
NPC’s motivations are up to you, but at the least, they should be very
internally conflicted individuals. This
lab is one of Menus’ project sites. The
Hive troops present have been mind controlled by Menus and are only loyal to
him/her/it. Neither Menus nor Dmitri is
present here (maybe?) during the adventure, but clues to their existence can be
found.
Adventure Start: The group starts near
the town of Moriah, heading towards a rumored rebel base in the mountains. They are looking for a contact named, “Geezer,” who has a lead on a possibly
salvageable Delta fighter.
Unfortunately, they don’t know him or exactly where he is, since he
lives in the hills, but he does routinely come into Moriah for supplies.
All
of this does imply that the Characters are a dedicated group of freedom
fighters and have sources of information in the resistance. I could see having a pre-adventure with no
combat (or only non-lethal personal combat) where the Characters meet each other
in the larger neighboring city of Mountain
Town, and form a group. (This is a
devastated city, of course. Feel free to
change the name and place it wherever you want.) They could meet a contact, who gives them the
rumor about the Delta, and perhaps have a run-in with a Hive sympathizer
gang. You can make up your own adventure
for that, based on the Characters’ backgrounds.
You should award 1 XP for such an introductory adventure.
Scene 1: Moriah
(Award
1 XP for getting a meeting set up with Geezer and not getting into a shootout
with the locals. Here the Characters
will have some opportunity to use those Social Interaction skills to influence
them. Award 1 XP for some productive
role-playing if merited.)
Yeah,
it’s your stereotypical one-horse Old West Hive-Era town. (In other words, it’s a complete oxymoron for
a sci-fi show, but you know how the show was.)
There’s a dusty main street with some shops and a few private homes in
the area. Maybe it’s an old movie set
that got turned into an actual town after the Hive invasion (I’m just kidding).
Depending
how the group is dressed, nobody should notice them. Even someone in an EEF uniform isn’t going to
attract attention, unless they’re armored up.
Yeah, that’s going to be a no-no.
Unless you’re entering a completely lawless gang town, if the group
comes in brandishing arms, the populace is going to assume you’re a bunch of
bandits about to pillage them. You will
be met with armed resistance immediately in most places with any civility left.
The
only thing worse than being identified as bandits, would be rebels. One problem the Character group is going to
have constantly is that of Hive Sympathizers.
Mass resistance to the Hive is over.
Many in the populace would rather turnover or turn away rebels than let
them in. Moriah has some small amount of
autonomy because the Hive mostly just terrorizes the more populous Mountain
Town. There are regular Hive patrols
over Moriah and they raid the town for a small number of slaves once a year,
but otherwise leave the town alone.
Thus,
the group will be confronted by the town Sheriff
upon entry. His name is Andy (Police Officer Support class, Expert
level). Now, he seems really down home
and laidback, but depending on how the group looks and acts, he may inform them
that they are in the sights of four snipers.
(If the group looks around, they only see two, but there are four. They’re first level Thugs with AK-47’s.) Let
this be a little primer for the group on the people they’re fighting to
liberate.
Sheriff
Andy has accepted that he can do nothing about the Hive, but he can at least
keep his citizens safe from predatory humans.
Perhaps his mind could be changed about fighting the Hive if he could
see them defeated in a battle. Or, maybe
he’ll actively sabotage anybody trying to fight them. These are things to keep in mind if the
Characters have more interaction with him after this adventure.
If
the group can either look and/or act harmless enough (Social Interaction, ahem), the Sheriff will relate that some
citizens have recently disappeared from town and that the people are a bit on
edge. The possibility of Hive
involvement has ended his investigation.
He’ll tip his hat and motion them to the bar if they’re thirsty and
maybe looking for a job. Hopefully, the
party is polite and doesn’t get into a firefight before making it to the bar. Andy will be keeping an eye on the group
while they’re in town.
Welcome
to the Last Gulp Saloon (unless the
party has a better idea of what they want to check out). Sam
the Barkeep is your source of information in town, as long as you’re paying
for drinks. (Just assume everyone has
some pocket change.) He’s got an
ANS-inspired tat on his left arm. He was
a radar tech during Space War II (Tech
Support class, Beginner
level). Now he tends bar with a surly
attitude and a bad limp (“The only thing I got from the war.”) Is Sam burning for a chance at revenge on the
Hive or will he cravenly sellout anybody fighting them to stay safe?
He
knows Geezer, but points the group to Keileigh
the Mechanic down the street, as someone who knows him better. If asked about the people who have
disappeared, he mentions that scavengers have often disappeared in the hills,
but lately people around town have disappeared too. The Hive normally just come down Main Street
and grab people, so it doesn’t seem like them.
These four people just disappeared all at once.
Also
present in this overly stereotypical Western bar, is, of course, the town Madame, Charlotte (Rebel
Sympathizer/Connection, Expert
level). I’m not going to assume your
tastes, so design her as you will. In
any case, she will personally offer herself to whoever seems to be the leader
of the group. She’ll get fairly
insistent and will finally lean close and whisper this person’s name to get
them to come upstairs with her. If the
party doesn’t want to be split (like good D&D players), she’ll tell them
they can come up and watch, for an extra fee.
In
Charlotte’s boudoir, she motions them to be quiet and turns on a recording of .
. . some vigorous activity. With that,
Charlotte speaks quietly in the leader’s ear, “I was told to expect your group
by She can tell them that Geezer lives up in the
hills and that he claims to have seen a Delta fighter crashland near one of his
observation posts. The issue is that
there’s a Hive Lab there. There’s something odd about it though. It’s keeping a very low profile to the point
of being nearly undefended, which is why this recovery operation is being
attempted.
Charlotte
suggests meeting with Keileigh to arrange a meeting with Geezer, as he isn’t
partial to strangers. And with that,
your time is up. She will want some
payment (for appearances, of course). She’ll
leave the group with a couple of bucks. Charlotte
is indeed working with the rebellion, but is really working for herself. She could certainly be useful to a rebel
group, but would always be questionably trustworthy.
Being
a one-horse town, finding the town garage and mechanic isn’t too
difficult. Keileigh the Mechanic (Mechanic
Support class, Expert level) is an
adorable, plucky, upbeat individual. She
can give the group directions to a rendezvous point with Geezer. She’ll contact him to let him know that
they’re coming.
Keileigh
would like to join the rebellion, but is obligated to stay in town and work to
take care of her little sister, Jade. Her sentiments might make her a target for
Hive sympathizers, but she’s the only person in town who can keep the machinery
going, so she’s actually pretty safe.
Right now, she’s kind of upset because Jade was one of the people
abducted yesterday. Geezer thinks the
people taken went to the Hive Lab, but he’s not sure. Obviously, she’d like the group to check it
out. Time is of the essence.
A
stern middle-aged man hails the group after they meet with Keileigh. He’s Caster
(Medic Support class, Beginner level), the town doctor, who’s
standing outside his shingled office.
He’ll ask the group what they’re doing here in town, but will answer for
them, “I think you’re here to cause trouble.”
He’ll warn them to keep a low profile, not to involve the people here in
whatever they’re involved with, and then to move along. Caster has a family and cares about the
community more than any fool uprising.
Caster
doesn’t want any part of a rebellion, which he guesses they’re part of given
who they were talking to. Of course,
that opinion could change, if something happens to change his mind. If properly politely chatted with (more
Social Interaction), Caster will open up a bit.
He is worried about the abductees though and will ask if they know
anything. He’ll mention there was a
fifth person that was nearly taken. He
treated the woman. A Hive Regulator had
been seen with an unidentified accomplice, but they were scared off by a
passerby (not at all Hive behavior). The
woman had been hit by a tranquiller dart of human-make, not Hive.
(Note:
Obviously, don’t force all of these encounters.
You can suggest them or skip some to move things along. Charlotte, Caster, or Sam can also set the
meeting with Geezer indirectly. You know
your playing group better than I do.
Maybe you want to add some more townspeople.)
Scene 2: Hive Patrol
in the Hills
(Award
1 XP for getting past this patrol, the easy way or the hard way.)
If
the Players weren’t sure who was in charge here, the purpose of this encounter
is to educate them. The group will be
travelling in the foothills outside town towards a shelf mesa. Travelling down a ravine, they will hear the
familiar whine of a Hive patrol coming towards them. There’ll be 2 rds before the Hive and the
group see each other. The Players know
that the Hive can detect their Proto-fueled powered mecka and weapons if
they’re turned on. There’s plenty of
scrub brush in the area.
The
patrol is 3 Scout Drones. If the group chooses to hide (the smart
option), roll a Stealth check for the group (DC 12). If necessary, someone might need to use an FP
to succeed. If they blow the Stealth
check, they’ll have to spend the first rd of combat, turning on their
mecka. If the group chooses to fight,
they may be in trouble right out of the gate and everybody may be using
FP. If they’re really having some bad
luck, suddenly a rocket attack from behind them hits one of the Drones. They will be stunned and attempt to find the
attacker. Next rd, they’re attacked from
another flank. Unable to find a target,
they’ll retreat (for reinforcements).
Either
way, the group will then be hailed by an old man waving a rocket launcher. “I figured you guys might be attracting some
trouble!” He’ll wave them over to a
dilapidated shack overlooking the shelf mesa.
Scene 3: Geezer’s
Shack
(No
XP, but the group will be given some armaments.
I don’t know why I thought “Geezer” was a good name back in the
80’s. We’re stuck with it.)
The
old man introduces himself as “Geezer.”
He’s spirited old codger to put it mildly. (Feel free to play up him as being
crazy.) The small, ramshackle wooden
shack has weapons haphazardly piled in a corner. He describes this as one of his “Observation
posts.” (He actually lives in a cave in
the area with an arsenal.) From this
perspective, the group can get a good look at the Hive Lab sitting on the shelf
mesa. (Let them see the map.)
Geezer
has had this complex under observation for about a month. A small force of Hive showed up and took the
squatters there into custody. They then quickly
converted the farm house. “They been
doin’ some weird sh*t in there.
Unnatural sh*t. I’ve seen ‘em
tossin’ bodies out like trash.” Last
night, he observed four captives being taken inside.
It
gets weirder though. “There were humans
with ‘em. Workin’ with ‘em. Bastards!”
He’s seen two of them specifically: a guy in a lab coat and somebody
else wearing shinny, weird armor. The
guy in the lab coat took off this morning with some Hive Drones. He’s not sure whether the other one left or
not. Even more strange, the Hive there
don’t patrol. There are guards, but when
a Hive patrol like the one the group just faced comes by, they hide.
In
any case, the group can make some plans here.
(Every PC plan of assault: “Let’s charge uphill, guns blazing!”) Given that the Hive can see the same in the
light or the dark, there’s no reason to wait for sundown. Geezer has seen a couple of Urban Regulators
that hang out in the Well House. There
are some Regulators in the house.
There’s two Drones around somewhere, but he’s not sure where at the
moment.
The
Delta is behind the Lab complex in a ravine.
That fighter tried to stop the Hive from taking the farm and was shot
down. Geezer watched the fight. He was able to sneak into the ravine later. The pilot and the Typhoon were gone, but the
fighter landed there, so it’s probably okay, just mostly out of ammo. There’s no way to move it without getting
into a fight, though, and without missiles or guns it’s just going to be a
target.
Geezer
supplies the group with some explosives to help. (Gee, how unexpected that this guy likes to
play with explosives.) He gives them:
2 Cobalt mines (these mines can be
set and remote detonated or set to go off if stepped on)
2 Cobalt grenades
4 Rocket launchers
How
the group uses them is up to them. (There’s
no accounting for what kind of hair-brained schemes a bunch of Players will
come up with. They’ll probably blow
themselves up. Have replacement
Characters ready.) Geezer, himself, will
be “supervising” the operation. He’ll be
observing the complex and giving the Characters a heads up on things moving
around there. Obviously, we want the
Characters doing the action. Also, this
gives us an option to cheat later. (Which
is what I did both times I played out this scenario. Actually, I had Geezer fake his own death
before the attack. Don’t do that. After the Lab raid, the group will find 2
Rocket launchers, 1 Cobalt grenade, and 1 Cobalt mine in the shack if they go
back and look.)
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