Copyright 1995-2003 Eoin Connolly and Tony Maguire. All rights reserved.
The players are Americans on a two week hunting trip, near to the Canadian border. Being Americans, they will most likely be heavily armed with high velocity rifles and some large calibre pistols. As long as the rifles are semi-automatic, anything goes. If the players want some of their weapons to have been illegally converted to full automatic, no problem. As long as the police have no reason to check the weapons, they should get away with it. The characters can come from all walks of life. They are assumed to be good buddies, but it is not necessary that all the characters are experienced hunters (in fact, it's more fun if they're not).
So the players fill the rucksacks with beer and ammunition, pull on the luminous
orange overalls and hit the trees. Players not wearing orange overalls always
run a chance of being shot by an over-enthusiastic hunter (and not be insured
in the case of accidents). It's about a five day hike out into the woods
to get away from the packs of city boys, all itching to shoot something before
they go back to their day jobs. As the characters move through the thick
forest, the game is sparse and occasionally they can hear rifle shots near
by. Things that can happen:
After five days, the weather has started to get bad. The combination of the rain and the lack of (real) game should be making the characters frustrated. If you want to really annoy them, have a deer come through the camp in the middle of the night. The first thing they'll know about it is when they hear it bark. The ensuing panic, light rain, bad light and guy ropes should ensure that the deer gets away. In fact, make sure the deer gets away. You want them angry and pissed off. Have one of the tents collapse and the rain start turning the ground to mud. The collapsed tent will start filling up with water and the characters will get covered in thick mud trying to get it set up properly. The next morning they are all woken up with the sound of a distant explosion. The ground underneath them practically shakes. No matter how tired they are from the previous night, they will all be woken up by the sound. Note: The explosion is also an excellent way of defusing tension if your entire group is close to topping themselves over some trivial matter.
The explosion was a plane crashing about two or three kilometres away. The smoke can be fairly easily seen (Easy Perception) through the trees. It's a good hour's hard hiking to get to the scene. Ask the players if they're packing up camp or if they're going to leave it set up and move light. If they're going to pack up, then the hike will take closer to two hours. The terrain around here is pretty rough with a lot of steep ground and sharp drops.
The aircraft, a small private jet, has torn a hundred metre strip out of the forest. Strewn around are parts of the fuselage and wing segments. Hanging from a tree, about seven metres off the ground, is a dead man in flight overalls. His face is covered with blood slowly dripping down onto the forest floor. Spotting him is an Easy Perception task but getting him down should be tricky and examining the body should reveal a bullet wound in his back (Hard Perception). By the time they get there the fires will be more or less extinguished and the air is thick with smoke and fumes.
The main items of interest are:
Inside the plane there is a dead man wearing a suit. One hand is tightly gripped onto a suitcase about the size of a briefcase but twice as thick. His other hand has been handcuffed to a seat. A parachute lies nearby but it has been shot repeatedly and is obviously useless. The suitcase has very sturdy locks which will have to be shot off to be opened. Anyone trying to pick these locks will do so against DIF 20.
There is a kilogram of C-4 attached to an electronic timer underneath one of the seats. The LED display has stopped with twelve seconds left to go. Any movement inside the plane has a 4 in 20 chance of starting it again. Once started, it makes a loud beep every second. The explosion should destroy the plane and kill everything standing within thirty metres. Players should be able to run thirty metres in twelve seconds, although if they are wearing a backpack, it will take an Athletics roll to get away in time. Anyone still inside the blast area, cowering on the ground or behind any piece of cover can take 2d10+50 points of damage. If the suitcase gets caught in the blast, it will be blown through the air and break open. Inside is what looks like a million dollars wrapped in plastic. There is actually ten million wrapped into fifty $200,000 plastic-covered parcels. Try and make sure that the parcels do not divide up evenly between the surviving players. Arrange it so that someone is carrying more than the rest.
Now the fun starts...
The dead man in the plane has ID declaring himself to be Walter Eames, Treasury Agent. The pilot also has Treasury ID (Warren Hilcke) as well as a holstered Glock under the overalls. The ID is genuine although it is unlikely that any of the characters will be able to tell for certain.
The plane was carrying ten million dollars across country. The shipment was escorted by three Treasury Agents. One of them, Walter Eames (the dead guy with no parachute), came up with a plan. He met with some dangerous types and told them the departure times of the plane. They were to arrive and pretend to hi-jack the plane, take the money, parachute out over the woods and escape into Canada. Eames needed their help as he didn't want any bloodshed and he knew that he couldn't get away on his own without killing his colleagues. With the help of his old Vietnam buddy, Col. Mike "Ice-cold and Frothing" Hiverson and eight of his extremely dangerous killing buddies, Eames could get away, with his cut of five million with nobody hurt. Of course, Ice Cold and Frothing wanted to kill all the Treasury Agents, Eames included, and escape with all the money. He has some very serious alimony payments to make and he also has an enormous survival retreat to build before the End of the World comes.
Eames also had a double-cross in mind. There were two suitcases on the plane. One filled with condoms, the other filled with money. Eames hid the money-case and when Hiverson did his bit, gave him the condom-case. Hiverson waited till all his dangerous buddies had parachuted out, knocked Eames cold, shot the pilot (the other treasury agent had gone free-falling with the buddies), shot the instrument panel, shot Eames' parachute and handcuffed Eames to a seat. His last touch was to toss the kilo of plastic into the back of the plane and jump out screaming for the dead of America's past.
Eames came round, opened the floor compartment and took out the second suitcase. Realising his hand was trapped, he also noticed his gun was missing. He was turning out his shirt cuff for his spare handcuff key when he saw the cockpit view fill up with trees. He got maybe one scream out before he died.
So, at this stage, the players should have the money and knowing only that possession means ownership they're all thinking about what they'll spend it on.
Hiverson will have beaten a metal suitcase to a pulp against a tree and emptied a mag into the contents. He will then be heading right for the plane. His buddies will be following right behind him, extremely eager to do things right and make him happy. When Hiverson is unhappy bad things happen to those around him.
A nice way of introducing the fact that they are being hunted to the players is to have Hiverson attack their camp (if they've left it standing). They should be half way back to the camp when they hear the gunfire. If they have already packed up their camp, let them hear a burst of gunfire anyway as one of Hiverson's buddies opens fire on a deer running for cover. The chase has begun...
Hiverson's first port of call is the plane. Once there he will realise that somebody else has been there. He will want these people dead, preferably strangled by him personally. Hiverson and another of his buddies, Arnold Grainger, are both expert trackers (Skill 16). Hiverson will stay with the plane, checking the terrain over thoroughly, while Grainger takes seven buddies and chases the thieves (the characters).
The characters are about three days away from the station where they left their vehicles. Hiverson has checked the map and has decided to try and make his way there on his own, hoping to intercept the characters if they get there alive. This leaves the players hunted by Grainger and seven buddies, Eddie, Lucky Dave, Holly, Quiet Joe, Gerbil, Espresso Sam and Slightly Annoying Pete. Grainger and Hiverson have radios so they can keep in constant contact with each other. They also trust each other implicitly, having saved each others lives in Vietnam where they spent all their time hiding in puddles waiting to kill people.
Grainger will go ahead, blending perfectly into the terrain. Behind him are two of the buddies and behind them are the other five. Grainger moves constantly around all of them, making sure they are all moving in the right direction. This really annoys them.
Things that can happen:
This sort of scenario needs a downbeat ending. The players cannot get away
with the money. Possibilities include:
If they do get away with the money, it looks like they‘ve beaten you. This can‘t happen so try the old Accidently Crossed The Canadian Border routine, followed by the Hauled Over And Thoroughly Searched Including Body Cavities routine. They could be pulled over by a cop for no good reason and if any of the players are wounded, they could be asked some probing questions (and then thoroughly searched). If all else fails, have them take a corner too quickly and go half over the edge of a cliff. As they try to get the money, the vehicle tilts dangerously. It will show that you have no shame, but it will also show guts and determination. If they give any trouble over such a derivative ending, have them go over the edge. And crash. And burn.
...Or you could be a sucker and let them get away with it. This shows a lack of respect for a callous disregard of your players feelings and, as such, we cannot condone it.
Stats DL 7, Aptitude 14. Special skills - Tracking 16
Tag Permanently pissed at something or somebody and convinced the
world will end, real soon. "You listenin‘ to me, boy?"
Quirk Never panics.
Weapons M-16, Mini-Uzi, .44 Magnum and a holdout MAC 10. He is prepared.
Stats DL 6, Aptitude 12, Special skills - Tracking 16, Perception
15
Tag Convinced that when he wants to, he can turn invisible‘
Quirk Sometimes it works, sort of (Stealth 20).
Flaw Prefers to go in with the knife rather than shooting someone.
Weapons G-3 and a very large cuttin' knife.
The Buddies
Eddie, Lucky Dave, Holly, Quiet Joe, Gerbil, Espresso Sam and Slightly Annoying
Pete
Stats DL 5, Aptitude 10. Special skills - Bitchin' about forests 15
Tag "Don‘t turn your back on me. What did you say about my mother?
If you‘re so clever college boy, why ain‘t you the one with the
gun and the good haircut?"
Flaw They are all appalling shots. Firearms 5. Also bitchin' all the
time makes a fair bit of noise.
Weapons An assortment of submachine guns (MAC-10's, MP-5‘s,
Intratec‘s), nothing useful at long range whatsoever. Of course visibility
in the woods is usually between 10 - 100 metres. They also are all carrying
flick knives, butterfly knives and one even has a machete.
This scenario is intended for three to six players. The characters they generate should be professional types; lawyers, doctors, accountants (all the exciting professions). Find out which characters are married, and if they are married, how many children they have (including their names and ages - it's the little touches that mean so much). Combat skills are not particularly needed in this scenario - in fact they might turn out to be a hindrance. The characters should all know each other and are assumed to live in or around London, although any city will do.
The scenario kicks off with the characters returning from a holiday in Scotland. If your players are amenable to the slaughter of wild animals they could have been shooting grouse or fishing. They should all be in reasonably high spirits, lungs filled with fresh air and the stink of dead animals. It is the early hours of the morning and they are driving back to London on a narrow, winding country road. On their right is a lake, the surface reflecting the moonlight, on their left is a forest, the trees looming over the road. Suddenly a shape darts out of the trees to the left and with a sickening thump goes under the wheels of the character's car.
An Average Drive Car roll should be made to avoid crashing the car. If this is failed, everyone in the car will take 1d10 points of falling damage for every 20kph of speed. Anyone in the car wearing a seatbelt will only take half damage. This is not a terribly serious crash, the car has only gone off the road and should still be in one piece and reasonably drivable. Give the car the same damage as the characters, the cost of repair is £20 for every point of damage sustained. The DL of an average saloon car is 5, a tough off-road vehicle has a DL of 8. Cars can be eventually fatal like people (they break down instead of dying).
If the characters stop their vehicle to check of what they have hit, they will see a small bundle on the road, about thirty metres behind the car. They have run over a young girl aged about ten. She is wearing a thin cotton dress, the soles of her feet are bloody and she is very much dead.
The characters now have a choice. They can either put the body in the back of the car and bring it to the local authorities or they can weight it and put it in the lake. There are bound to be blankets in the car and rocks by the lakeside so either choice is practical.
As the character perform either choice a rat scurries out from the woods and runs over one character's foot. It vanishes back into the undergrowth beside the lake.
If the characters decide to bring the child to the nearest authorities, persuade them to put the corpse in the boot of the car or at the very least, wrap it in plastic to avoid getting the inside of their car covered in blood.
If the body is brought to the authorities (a policeman at the next village, twenty miles further down the road), they will be quietly laughed at by the law. The police man asks them if they know the difference between a child and a goat. The characters will hopefully be very insistent that they do know the difference. The policeman then takes the body shrouded in blankets from the boot of the car and empties it on the ground. The body is in fact that of a young goat. It's neck is broken and it does indeed look as if it had been run over by a car. The cop will point out that, seeing as the goat does appear to be wearing a dress, it is a mistake anyone could make. He doesn't say this with any great conviction and will be more than happy to resolve the incident and get some sleep. He asks for the character's names and addresses and tells them if he hears of anyone missing a kid, he will get them in touch with the characters and they can pay them sufficient compensation.
Undoubtedly shaken by the events of the weekend, what with road accidents and children turning into goats, the characters eventually return to London. A few days pass and as the shock fades, they will start to think that nothing will come of what has happened. One by one, starting with the character who was touched by the rat at the roadside, the characters will bump into an old man. His name is Lang, sometimes he calls himself Doctor Lang and it was his creation the characters killed on that road in Scotland. Adopting a number of disguises (sometimes a tramp, at other times a priest or businessman), he will touch the characters one by one, meeting them individually and keeping the encounters as mundane as possible so the characters pay little attention to it. Doctor Lang The man the characters have managed to anger is a sorcerer - a raiser of the dead and summoner of things from the bad places. He is possibly the least happy camper the characters could ever meet. For some months he had been making preparations for a meeting of like-minded individuals. One of the treats for the meeting was to be a devil chained inside a body. The good doctor had selected a young goat for the dubious honour of housing the immortal essence of the devil Athabraxus, a demon specialising in pestilences. The demon was summoned, forced to assume a form that was pleasing to Lang and, over the course of the next four weeks, was in the process of being bound to the Doctors will. Lang kept the demon trapped in a room in his house until a momentary lapse on his part resulted in Athabraxus escaping and fleeing from the house. After a few miles running, pursued by the irate Doctor, Athabraxus managed to run under the wheels of the character's car. The Doctor was without his treat and Athabraxus had returned from whence it came and in time the goat reverted to it's natural form.
Lang is mightily peeved at the characters for having destroyed his big night and has cursed the characters with the influence of Athabraxus, a curse which reveals itself in the form of weeping sores which eventually cover the entire body.
Within two days of meeting Lang, each player must roll their character's CON. A failure means that a cumulative -1 AAM is taken (20 is always a failure). It starts with what looks like a slight rash on the chest and feelings of lethargy and quick exhaustion. Over time the rash spreads, sores start to appear and drip pus. By the time the character is at -5 AAM the sores will be present over the entire body and when they have reached -10, the entire body is covered with erupting skin and weeping open wounds. Eventually the skin will be repeatedly sloughing off and being re-grown, only to slide off once more. Once -15 is reached, no more CON rolls are necessary. Only those with STR's greater than 15 will be able to walk unaided at this stage.
Obviously looking like a giant, leaking bag of pus will not go down well at the character's places of employment and small-minded bosses might tell the characters to go home and not come back until they return to normal. Any characters visiting their doctor will have skin and pus samples taken away to expensive labs where experts can get baffled and demand more skin and matter samples. Doctors will recommend expensive skin specialists who will in turn recommend even more expensive skin specialists in Zurich or California. Medical science is a clueless as far as demonic curses go and will make up for this lack of information with very very large bills to make it look like they're up to something.
The curse is not all bad however. Despite the likelihood of being at -15 for the rest of their lives and having grown adults running from them in the street, the characters will also find that suicide is no longer an option. Characters attempting to blow their brains out or immolate themselves will find themselves still living after the event and healing at an increased rate (1 AAM per day until the disease level has been reached). The curse will keep the characters alive, possibly for all eternity.
Actually finding Dr. Lang isn't that hard. There are only four dwelling places within ten miles of where the accident took place. Any of the people questioned about the man the players have seen prior to their illness will point them in the direction of Alastair Lang's house in the hills overlooking the lake.
The house, a small three room cottage with a tin roof, sits in a clearing in the woods. A thin dirt road leads up to the cottage through the trees. A small shed containing some goats and chickens rests against one wall of the cottage. The windows of the cottage are covered over with wooden shutters and if Lang hears the characters outside he will go quietly to his bedroom and go down the hole to the cavern. The hole is under the old man's bed and, once on the rickety wooden ladder leading down to the caverns, he will pull some mouldy rugs over the hole, concealing it from casual view.
The front door is locked with a bolt on the inside so it shouldn't take a mastermind to realise that Lang must still be inside the cottage. The house is filthy; old newspapers and fetid rotting clothes lie scattered everywhere. The air is stale and foul smelling and the inside of the roof is crawling with insects which constantly fall to the floor only to scurry back up the walls. The front (and only) door leads directly into the living room/kitchen. An open fireplace with a greasy, blackened cooking pot sit against one wall and a motley assortment of tables, chairs and cutlery fill the rest of the room. There are two door leading from the room. One leads into a small room with a spotlessly cleaned flagstone floor. In one corner, the one furthest from the door, a chain lies fixed to the wall. The end of the chain is a metal loop, lying broken open. The last room is Lang's bedroom. A bed piled high with filthy blankets and old clothes is set against one wall. Spotting the hole under the bed, which leads to the caverns takes a straight Perception check.
The stepladder goes down into the dark for about four metres, going through earth and then bedrock before resting on a rough rock floor. Directly beneath the house is a cave tall enough to stand up straight in. Sitting at the far end of the cave is Lang. In front of him is a chicken, it's head in a bag, wriggling madly as he cuts it's throat. He then begins chanting softly under his breath. As the chicken blood drips into a small bowl, the chanting gets louder until only characters with cotton balls in their ears could miss it (Perception +10). It is clearly audible even in the cottage above the cave.
In front of the chanting Lang is a small stone altar which looks like a large, polished, rectangular block of stone. As the chanting reaches it's climax he flicks the head of the dead chicken down onto the altar, spattering it with warm blood.
If the characters approach him, he will laugh openly at them, calling them damned and daring them to kill him. He tells them in an insulting maner that he is the only one they know who can remove the curse and they have as much chance of him doing that as the moon has of growing a beard. If any of the characters make an overtly threatening gesture, he will flick the chicken-neck in their direction. The person the chicken blood strikes will take -1d10 AAM instantly as the blood causes their flesh to erupt with blood and pus. Obviously they can't take too much of this and if they humour the old man long enough, they'll all be sliding out of there. The only real thing to do at this point is kill the old man. He's an annoying old bastard anyway and he does seem hideously pleased with himself. Lang should be quite surprised if anyone puts up a real fight. He's used to the good old days when peasants ran from him at the slightest sight of the dark arts. It's probably for the best that he doesn't fight back as it's possible some of the characters could be mugged by a toddler at this stage.
Beside the alter is a small wooden box, bound in brass, closed with a silver clasp. Inside the box are three sheets of parchment covered in spidery lettering and diagrams, mainly circles and what looks like arabic writing. At the bottom of the box is piece of card measuring about fifteen centimetres by ten. Printed on the card in black ink is 'The Convocat requests the company of Dr. Alastair Lang at the Grand Meeting on the 20th of October, to be held at Dunstan Castle'. On the back of the card, in fluid handwriting, 'We look forward to meeting you and hope that your surprise is ready in time'.
The 20th of October is only two weeks away (if the dates are already set in stone, then give a date two weeks in the future - if you've prepared the card as a handout then set the date as far ahead as a month to allow for sloooow players). Dunstan Castle can be located by going to any library and getting an Arts(Research) roll. The time for the task is one hour.
The writing on the sheets of parchment is in latin. It gives almost step by step instructions on the summoning of the devil known as Athabraxus. It states that Athabraxus can be bent to the will of the summoner and can be forced to perform tasks (usually involving a pestilence or plague of some form). It also gives details of the Curse of Athabraxus which is what the characters are currently experiencing. There is no mention on the parchments of how the curse may be lifted but it is implied that Athabraxus, when summoned, could have the power to lift it's own curse.
The summoning requires a spotlessly clean room. In the room are drawn three circles. The summoner must stand inside one of the circles which, if drawn correctly, the demon cannot cross. The second circle is for the person performing the sacrifice and cannot be crossed by the demon. The third circle is where the devil will appear. If the circles are drawn correctly, the demon may not pass through any without being given permission to do so from the summoner.
The only bad thing about this almost perfect demon-summoning lesson is that the parchment does not tell the full truth and is completely incorrect in places. These deliberate mistakes were introduced to catch out the uninitiated. The chant it asks the summoner to call as the creature is sacrificed is completely correct. The drawing of the circles are correct in every detail. It is the third circle that is unnecessary as the demon will appear inside the sacrificing circle, entering the body of whichever creature takes it's fancy.
To summon the demon, the summoner must roll their WIL (including any penalties from the curse). If they are successful, the demon will enter the body of the person who killed the chicken. Roll a d20 for each circle - the circles are only drawn incorrectly if a 20 is rolled. Make sure to warn the player doing the summoning that anyone leaving the circles must ask their permission to do so. If it is a bemused non-vegetarian NPC in the sacrificing circle, then keep things moving along quickly and keep asking the question 'Can I leave the circle?' in a bored, slightly annoyed way. It could take a lot of times to get it right and the person doing the summoning will get bored of asking everyone their true name and demanding they adopt a form pleasing to their eye.
Eventually the summoning will be successful and Athabraxus will live inside a human being again. It will ask in the same bored way if it can leave the circle. If the summoner has got lax and impatient and tells the demon to get out and get another chicken, then it will slip out, smiling a very wicked smile. Once out of the circle it is not bound to the wishes of the summoner and the ones trapped are those inside the summoning circle. They can't stay in there for ever and a demon can wait for a very long time...
If the summoning has gone correctly and they haven't got lax, it is a simple question of asking Athabraxus to remove the curse that plagues them and then go. It will do this, albeit grudgingly, and leave the body of whoever it had occupied. The characters will recover slowly over the next week.
If they have messed up (and to be honest it's more fun if they have) Athabraxus is on the loose. Because it's a demon and enjoys a bit of fun, it will offer them a deal. In return for everything it will take the curse away. Everything in demon speak means removing their existence from the face of the earth. They were never born, their identity papers are clever forgeries, none of the friends will recognise them, strangers will be living in their homes and they will be left with the money in their pockets. Of course, being a demon, Athabraxus will do disgusting, merciless things to their loved ones before doing the deed. The characters who take the deal should feel very bad about themselves and that sort of misery is bread and butter to Athabraxus.
The demon will not molest the characters or those they love, even if they leave the circle. It wants them to break themselves and will constantly approach them and offer it's bargain. Citywide people will start to become sick as the plague Athabraxus unleashed in the Middle Ages returns.
The only other way to remove the curse is to approach the Convocat and offer them Athabraxus. The characters are the only people who know which form Athabraxus has adopted and if they capture the demon without killing the human host, the Convocat can imprison the demon inside a circle to do their bidding. Of course, what the Convocat will do with an imprisoned demon can't be very good. Killing the human host will remove the demon from the Earth but will not end the curse.
Dunstan Castle is a ruined shell of what was once a large medieval castle. It is situated in the countryside, about two miles from the nearest town and over a mile from the nearest human dwelling. On the 20th the Convocat arrives. There are almost thirty people in this coven, gathered from all parts of the world. To protect them from earthly threats are six bodyguards, all armed with pistols. The people start arriving at ten in the evening showing their invitations to the bodyguards at the castle gate. Each person present has an invitation. The crowd mingle, swapping introductions and small talk. In the grand tradition of satanist conspiracies feel free to have some Big Names present at the meeting. At midnight a bell rings and a man wearing a big robe and a mask enters the courtyard. He pauses and if one one the characters has sneaked into the ceremony using Lang's invitation, says, "One of us is not one of us." It will only take him a minute to locate the guilty party and it would probably be better if the person involves came forward and tried to brazen it out.
If the character involved can produce both the shell which contains the demon and the parchment sheets from Lang's cottage, the Convocat will happily move the demon from the body it was in and place it in the body of a goat they happened to have lying around. They will then force Athabraxus to remove the curse on all of the characters. The only thing left to do is kill the new vessel of Athabraxus, grab the parchments and run off without being killed by the bodyguards and the thirty angry satanists. Reasonably simple.
If the characters have forced Athabraxus to remove the curse, the only thing left to do is burn the parchments to avoid them falling into the wrong hands. If the characters decide to keep the papers, there's no telling what sort of person might try to get them back if you decide to continue on the game, using it as a springboard into an occult campaign.
If the characters have been forced to approach the Convocat to try and enlist their help in dealing with Athabraxus, the possibilities exist for a longer game where the players try and remove this nest of satanists from the Earth. If the head satanist has escaped with the parchments then the characters will have to do something to make sure that evil does not flourish (or something). If you intend continuing on the game in this direction, it might be best to introduce another handout in Lang's cottage which might lead the players to one of the satanists after the Convocat has been held.
If you prefer a more action packed ending at the Convocat, you might want to have the curse instantaneously lifted from the characters to enable them to be physically active when they need it most.
Stats Aptitude 10, Specials - WIL 15, Occult 15.
Tag 'You didn't honestly think I would help! Fools! Ha Ha! Fools Suffer!
Suffer!'
Quirk Very, very old. About 200 years old, in fact. Can adopt the
form of an animal.
Stats Same as host body (not too good if forced into a goldfish).
Tag 'I'm sure we can come to some... arrangement.'
Quirk Excellent at things pestilential.
Flaw Forgets how weak it really is. It can be killed and can also
be trapped in a chalk circle, for example. Its main weakness is assuming
that all humans are too stupid for it to really worry about. It will also
reckon that none of the characters will harm it until it makes them better.
Athabraxus cannot enter a place of worship (unless they're worshipping evil,
dark things).
Stats Aptitude 10, Special skills, Occult 15.
Tag 'Of course, I do have powers beyond the ken of normal men, y'know.'
'You're from London. How very interesting. I was under the impression that
I knew all of the London members.'
Flaw Due to their hedonistic lifestyle and their over-reliance on
the help, most satanists aren't much use when it comes to a good kicking.
Combat 5.
Stats Aptitude 14. Special skills - Perception 15, Combat 15.
Tag 'Everything appears to be in order, move through.'
Flaw Due to their brains having been satanically removed by their
overseers, these bodyguards have no real idea of personal survival and will
rarely duck, try and get into cover etc. They will literally, and easily,
lay down their lives so that the satanists may escape or survive.
This scenario is set in modern day London although there is no good reason why it may not be set in any large city of the referee's choosing. The characters are co-owners and principle employees of a private investigation/bodyguard agency. In the best cliche, the agency should be always teetering on the edge of bankruptcy (which means they can't afford to turn down any jobs). In addition to the characters there should be a full-time secretary; someone who can take calls and keep the office running while the characters are off doing exciting stuff like finding missing husbands and spying on divorcing couples. The agency should have one car for every two characters, a nice office on the fourth floor of an office complex and (1d20+10) hundred pounds in the bank. Running costs for a company of this size are about £500 a week (before any of the characters get paid) so it is in their best interest to keep the money coming in.
It is best if there is some degree of specialisation in the characters before they are generated. A surveillance expert (skill comes under Trades or Sciences); a language expert; someone who can butter people up the right way as well as dealing with bureaucracy and a plethora of contacts in the police, legal profession and possibly the criminal underworld. Combat skills are excusable as some of the characters will be ex-military. As you will see, characters with high Combat skills will come in very useful for the referee. Characters have a 50/50 chance of having a license to carry a concealed weapon, due to their bodyguarding work.
The office is visited by a man calling himself William C. Sheldon. He is a well-preserved man in his early fifties with slightly greying hair and an expensive suit. He walks with a sslight limp and carries a cane. He has a briefcase in his other hand, also of highest quality. He speaks with a slight southern accent (the southern states of America) - possibly Texan. A Hard (-5) Languages roll will tell anyone that there are also traces of a New York accent in there too - an odd combination.
Mr. Sheldon's wishes are simple. He has to go on a business trip to Japan and is unable to take his wife with him. He suspects his wife of infidelity and wishes to have her kept under 24 hour surveillance while he is in Japan. He tells the character in charge that he is a rich man and sometimes rich people make bad decisions when choosing their partner-for-life. If the characters agree to take the case (they'd be mad not too - the man practically smells of money) he will give them a £5,000 bank draft in advance and agree on a final fee of £15,000 plus expenses. He will then give the characters his wife's details.
Patricia Sheldon - Patricia Sheldon is a remarkably good looking blonde woman in her late twenties. A Hard Perception roll will tell anyone examining her photograph that she has had plastic surgery on her face in the past, not too surprising for the wife of an oil millionaire. They have been married for three months. She is currently staying in Room 373 in the Hotel Augustan, an expensive hotel in the centre of London. He will finish by giving the characters his business card in the name of Sheldon Oil which has the telephone and fax number printed on it. He admits to not knowing his full itinerary in Japan so any calls to him will have to be placed through his Houston office. He will then shake the characters hands (his hands are slightly rough - a man not unused to hard work) and bid them adieu. He leaves for Japan that evening and will expect a full report, including expense sheets, when he returns in two weeks time.
A background check on Sheldon Oil (using Business or Research) will pick up very little information. It appears to be trading from the Bahamas and is possibly the subsidiary of a much larger company with wider interests. A Very Hard Arts(Research) roll will reveal that Sheldon oil, as it currently exists, has been in operation for only six months. The time for this task is 8 hours. Attempts to call the number on his card will put the character involved in touch with a recorded message telling them that they are in a queue and an operator will answer their call if they are willing to wait. The message will occasionally ask the character to press certain buttons on the phone depending on their needs, 'Press 1 for customer relation, 2 for management services, 3 for appointment booking etc'. This will loop for as long as the character is willing to run up the phone bill. It does appear to be very difficult to get Mr. Sheldon's company on the phone. Faxes are never answered.
Hotel Augustan is a very expensive hotel. Its opulent interior and over-helpful staff should alert any characters entering to the need for good clothes. Room 373 faces outwards onto the street and is, as you would expect, on the third floor. Everything in the hotel is expensive - the cheapest room costis £80 per night and faces the back of the hotel and the more expensive suites (of which 373 is one) face onto the front of the building and cost upwards of £250 per night. The bar and the restaurant are similarly expensive and characters might find their expense account skyrocketing if they spend too much time at the hotel.
The security is excellent at the hotel. Visitors and new guests are escorted to their rooms and guests' appointments are always confirmed with the room in question. There is a computerised booking system which has no outside connections. Flower deliveries and messages are brought to the room by the staff and if anything has to be signed, a member of staff will ensure that it is signed and the docket returned to the messenger.
There are also wandering patrols of the hotel security staff (the chance of encountering the security staff while on a corridor up to funny business is 3 in 20). These have radio transceivers and a panic button which alerts the other security staff. Infra-red docking points ensure that the security staff can pinpoint the distressed staff member. All the staff wear a tag without which all internal doors will not open. Guests have the tag attached to their electronic room key and are required to carry the 'key' in their hand when moving through the interior of the hotel. The rooms on either side of Room 373 (371 and 375, respectively) are both vacant and cost £350 per night. All the 'rooms' on this side of the floor are three-room suites comprising of a large socialising room with an adjoining bedroom and bathroom. The furniture in these rooms are antiques, the consumer electronics are unobtrusive and the drinks bar is very well stocked (with it's own dishwasher). The staff expect a generous tip for every small deed and service will slip drastically if any of the characters tip badly.
Room 371 adjoins the bedroom and Room 375 adjoins the bathroom. It is not possible to listen to any conversations being carried out in the socialising room from either of these rooms. The member of the group in charge of surveillance should have no trouble planting listening devices in the adjoining wall which will remain undetectable from either side (Average skill roll).
The lock on the door is an electronic swipe lock with an additional press-button number combination lock. Picking this lock requires a Very Hard (Burglary averaged with Electronics) roll and takes thirty seconds.
At eleven (2300) on the first night of the surveillance job (which should be the same day as Mr. Sheldon left for the airport - he wants immediate action), Ms. Sheldon leaves the hotel and goes to a happening nightspot. Any character following her might have trouble gaining entrance to the nightclub if their clothes are not up to scratch. In the nightclub, Patricia will sit by the bar drinking mineral water and fending off drunken advances. She makes no attempt to dance or to mingle. She will spend three hours in the nightclub, which is a thirty minute drive away from the hotel. This should give the characters more than enough time to seed her hotel room with bugs. An opportunity from heaven or so you would believe...
Room 373 is neat and tidy. The bathroom is complete with women's toiletry and there are make-up items on the dresser by the bed. Next to the bed is the room's cordless telephone. A message pad lies beside the phone, a gold pen resting on top of the unused pad.
The three white suitcases under the bed have been unpacked and various item's of clothing can be found packed away. One of the suitcases contains a small oblong box covered with white leather. It is locked with what could only be called a vanity lock (+5 Burglary to open and close). Inside are some items of jewellery, net value about £2,000, and $1000 in cash. Not that much for an oil millionaire's wife... Apart from this small amount of personal possessions and furnishings, the room is empty.
Day 1 Patricia goes to nightclub at 2300 and stays for three hours. She returns at 0300.
Day 2 Patricia spends all day watching television, mainly quiz shows and soap operas.
Day 3 At 2200 Patricia receives a phone call...
This is a transcript of the phone call received on the third day of the surveillance:
Caller : Greetings, little sister. Is your father in better health?
Patricia : He is unwell, I fear it is the weather. Is the south still
sunny?
There is a ten second pause.
Caller : You are to go to 74 Harcourt Drive. Take a taxi, but not
to the door. Knock three times and wait. You will receive further instructions.
Your aunt sends her love.
Patricia : Goodbye Uncle Otto. I will send you a postcard from the
Tower.
The caller is male, in his late thirties and sounds vaguely East European. A Hard (-5) Languages roll will narrow this down to the Ukraine. If the call is traced, it will lead to a public pay-phone in North London.
After this intriguing conversation, Patricia puts on her coat and leaves the hotel. At the door of the hotel, she walks straight into a taxi which drives off. If they are doing their job, at least one character will be following her.
There is no Sheldon Oil company, there is no Mr. Sheldon and Ms. Sheldon is not a simple millionaire's wife. The characters are being drawn into an international conspiracy which will culminate in the death of a businessman and a foreign diplomat. The characters are being set up as the fall-guys in this operation.
The hit team consists of five men and women. The man pretending to be Mr. Sheldon was executed in the car bringing him to the airport. The woman is an ex-CIA operative whose instructions are to facilitate observation by the characters. She will receive fresh instructions through a combination of dead drops and covert passes in public. The hitter is Hiram Roscoe, also ex-CIA. He is responsible for the assassination of the two targets and for the post-operation clean-up. They are assisted by two men and another woman. The woman is ex-Mossad and the two men are ex-KGB. All of the members of the team are expendable and it is up to Hiram to make sure that they are expended after the job is done. The members of the team are completely unaware of this fact which is probably for the best as they wouldn't take too well to this piece of information.
The two men to be killed are involved in the trade of an x-ray device which would enable a Middle Eastern power to build terrorist-friendly nuclear weapons without having to test them outside a laboratory. The businessman is American and is meeting the diplomat from the foreign power for the first time to finalise the transport details. A large sum of money is also changing hands. The characters are there to make it look like a covert British operation or the work of some freedom-minded individuals (and not the work of a CIA sponsored black op.).
If any of the characters have military experience, members of the hit team will break into their homes, closer to the time of the hit, and plant various weapons (but no ammunition) and bomb-making equipment. Surveillance photographs of the characters participating in illegal or suspect acts will also be taken in the course of the operation.
Patricia will tell the taxi-driver to stop at the end of Harcourt Drive and she will walk the seventy metres up the road to the front door. She knocks three times on the door which is opened from inside and walks in. The characters will not be able to see the person that lets her into the house. She stays in the house for eleven minutes. There are no lights visible in the house and none are turned on during her visit. After leaving, she walks down the main road and flags down a passing taxi which takes her back to the hotel. The house on Harcourt Drive is a forty-five minute taxi ride away from the hotel.
The house is a small terraced house with a cramped concrete yard at the back surrounded by a two metre brick wall lined with broken glass. The door to the yard leads out onto an alleyway with walls on either side, leading into the back yards of the two adjoining rows of houses. Characters trying to determine the ownership of the house (Average Research - 3 hours) will find that it used to belong to an old woman who died and whose relatives have left the house vacant for the last three months.
This is a description of the house after Patricia has left.
Items of interest on the body are as follows:
Under the bed is a disassembled Steyr Aug 5.56mm assault rifle wrapped in a canvas sheet complete with a 45cm long silencer and a single magazine of ammunition. It can be re-assembled in just over thirty seconds with a Hard (-5) Firearms roll. The weapon would fit easily into the toolbag with enough room left over for the spare clothes. The ammunition in the magazine is not normal 5.56 ammunition. There are no calibre or manufacturer's markings on the base of the round and the tip of each round has been drilled, filled in with wax and coated with a yellow resin. A good lab will be able to tell the characters that the substance inside each bullet tip is cyanide. Anyone shot by these bullets must roll their CON opposed against the poison's STR of 20. To fail means agonising death over the following five minutes (if the bullet has not already done the job). A success on the CON roll means that an additional -5 AAM is sustained within 1d10 rounds of being hit. This will last for the next 1d10 days.
Rudolph Tuomi - One week before the characters got involved in the case, a freelance assassin named Rudolph Tuomi was hired to assist Hiram. Tuomi, a Finn who had spent over half his life working for the KGB, was supposed to meet Patricia that evening, pass on her outbound travel information and then leave by the back door while she waited ten minutes before leaving by the front. Unfortunately for Rudolph, he was only ever going to help in the set-up and was killed by Hiram thirty minutes before Patricia arrived. Hiram passed on the new travel plans and left by the back warning Patricia not to mess up. Hiram is a man who likes his work and he doesn't mind telling people this. Patricia was slightly shocked by the killing of Rudolph but is keeping her fears hidden from Hiram whom she no longer trusts.
If a character manages to get close enough to the house during that first minute, they will hear the two arguing in hushed whispers. Hiram is quietly talking to her, giving her the required information while she is trying to ask about Rudolph. When Hiram is leaving by the back door, he will ignore the presence of anyone lurking outside but will take extreme precautions to make sure he is not followed. Keeping track of Hiram as he tries to throw anyone following involves rolling the character's Stealth against Hiram's Stealth of 15. To notice anyone following is Perception opposed against the follower's Stealth. If Hiram fails two Perception checks in a row he will cease his precautions and go to his car and drive to 84 Felby Lane, his headquarters for the duration of the operation.
While the house is being searched by the character(s) one of the team enters by the front door. His job is to remove the body and leave everything else for the characters to find. He has been sent there by Hiram. He is carrying a CID identity card and is carrying a silenced 9mm pistol. He is being reasonably quiet and it will take a Hard perception roll to hear him come through the door. This is Mikhail Badim, one of the ex-KGB members of the team (and like the other KGB member, is considered more expendable than most in Hiram's eyes and is just used as a gopher and muscle). If he is discovered, he will try to shoot his way out (with his silenced 9mm) to his rented car and drive away. If he gets killed, the CID identity papers will make the characters less willing to go to the police, something Hiram counted on when he sent Badim to the house to be killed. The only other item of interest on his body is a wallet containing thirty pounds.
The job of Sarah Kahan, the ex-Mossad member of the team is to covertly photograph the character entering and leaving the house. She will make no attempt to warn Badim of the presence of others in the house. There is no love lost between her and the KGB and knows their only function is to die while bringing the characters closer to the trap. She is concealed in a house facing the back of Harcourt Drive. In the room behind her, an old man lies in a bed killed by a heart attack induced by a chemical spray.
If all has gone well, the characters should realise that Patricia Sheldon is up to no good. Obviously it's best for the scenario if they do not take any direct action at this stage. Encourage them to watch and see if they can find out any more. The characters will hopefully be in possession of the Steyr Aug at this stage. This is not essential to Hiram's plan but it is obviously in his interests if the characters are in possession of a duplicate of the eventual murder weapon. Hiram hopes that, having got the characters interested, he can now progress with the second part of the plan. This is to get the characters to a place from which they can perform the assassination. He will then eliminate his targets, contact the authorities on his mobile phone and get the characters arrested for the murders. He will then mail the police the incriminating photographs of the characters entering and leaving Harcourt Drive and receiving money from known KGB Agents. This is what the other Russian is for.
Separate the member of the party with military experience. If this character also happens to be a gun fetishist with a stash of illegal automatic weapons in display cases in their cellar, all the better. If it proves difficult to get them on their own, have them receive a message telling them to be in the lobby of the Hotel Augustan at 1400 on the fourth day of the surveillance.
The character will be met by Victor Kotov, a heavy-set man in his early forties with a thick Russian accent (it was he who phoned Patricia). He will approach the character and hand them a thick padded envelope. He will say the phrase, "This is for services rendered. We thank you." He will then walk out of the hotel and get into a taxi. If he is pestered for extra information, he will repeatedly say, "I am only carrying out my instructions. I have no further information." The taxi will drive him out of London and into the countryside. The taxi will deposit him outside a ruined church on a hilltop, fifty miles out of London.
The nearest dwelling is one kilometre from the church. The church is surrounded by other hills, the nearest being only 250 metres away. Victor will wait outside the church. Hiram is on the other hilltop and intends to check out the accuracy of the rifle and bullets. He will put one round into Victor, aiming for 20 combat rounds to bring his chance up to 20. If the character is trying to obtain further information from Victor while he does this, Hiram will enjoy himself all the more.
Victor is unarmed and is carrying an additional fifty pounds sterling on his person. In the lapel of his jacket is a simple radio microphone which has a transmission range of around twenty metres. There is an envelope in his pocket with 'To be opened at 2200 hours' written on it. Inside the envelope is a sheet of paper with the handwritten message, 'Dear Victor, The Cheque is in the mail.' This is Hiram's idea of a joke. Victor is known to the intelligence community as a KGB operative whose skills are currently for sale to the highest bidder.
The meeting between Victor and the character was recorded by Sarah Kahan, on both video and audio. The video camera was discretely set in a briefcase she had on her lap, looking for all the world like a businesswoman waiting for a dinner engagement. This footage will be in the package Hiram will send the Police after the event. The church gave Hiram the chance to dispose of one more of the Russians. Hiram will then move back to his hired car (which is twenty metres back on a side road) and drive back to London by a circuitous route. It will take a Perception roll at -15 to spot Hiram on the hilltop, there are at least three to chose from within rifle range although the one Hiram fired from is the closest.
Inside the padded envelope given to the player by the late Victor is £1000 and a passport with a photo of the character under the name of Drew Hill. Drew Hill is a known alias of an infamous drug smuggler, so anybody trying to get out of the country on this passport will set off more alarms in Customs than they would creeping into Mr. Ben's Alarm Shop in the middle of the night swinging a blue light around their head. Aside from that, the passport is expertly forged by Hiram himself. The photograph was removed from the office files in a midnight break-in. If the files are checked, they will see that it is indeed missing. This curious occurrence might start the other characters thinking that someone they know is not telling the full truth but the level of paranoia will hopefully not resulting in the party tying that character to a chair and attempting to beat the truth out of them. If Badim managed to survive the encounter with the party at 74 Harcourt Drive, Hiram will kill him at the house at 84 Felby Lane when he returns. Hiram won't be too happy with the place of execution - after all, you don't shit where you eat - but the time of the hit is drawing near and he does not want the Russians around as he feels he could never trust them (which is ironic considering they trust him implicitly).
Feel free to move the hit further ahead if your players have not progressed as quickly as expected. You want them to be rushed, but not frantic. They must feel that they are in a position of power, while all the time you reel them further and further in.
1300 Patricia will receive a phone call. The caller says one word in an American accent. The word is, "Green." She will begin packing and will then wait by the phone for the next four hours.
1700 She receives another phone call. The voice says, "1900." Again an American accent.
1840 The characters receive yet another envelope. If they are staying at the hotel, it will be delivered to their door by one of the staff. The person bringing them the envelope does not know who asked it to be sent up. They will still want a tip. If the characters are in a cramped van, hunched over listening equipment, have the envelope delivered to the office and have the secretary ring them and read out the contents. They must receive the information contained in the letter, although comfort yourself with the knowledge that it is Hiram's problem how the envelope is got to the characters (after all he's the one rail-roading them with plot-devices - not you). It is an unmarked, sealed, manila envelope. Inside is the handwritten address of an office building near the centre of town. The building is ten minutes away from the hotel. On a separate piece of paper, in is the message, "The one you are looking for is on the roof. Be careful. He is armed and dangerous. Good Luck - An interested party."
1845 Patricia receives another phone call from Hiram. "Okay Patsy, we don't need you anymore. Time for you to get the hell out of London. Doesn't look so hot from up here anyway. You know something? The thing I like best about these long-distance jobs is you don't need to change your clothes afterwards. They're very wardrobe friendly (laughs). It's been real. Catch you on the beach."
The calls are coming from a cell-phone within two kilometres of the hotel. The person calling is Hiram. It was he who sent the envelope, although he had Sarah write the inscription as soon as he found out where the two were meeting. The phone calls are for the character's benefit. It is to let them know that an assassination is taking place and that Patricia is no longer needed. This will hopefully get them rushing over to the office building, ignoring Patricia. Patricia's real instructions upon hearing the phrase 'See you on the beach.' are to go to the house at Felby Lane, making sure she is not followed and wait for a further phone call from Hiram. She, however, has different ideas and intends to get as far away from Hiram as possible. She will leave immediately upon receiving the phone call, taking only one of her cases. She will go down to the lobby via the stairs and take a variety of taxis, buses and tubes to a railway station where she will pick up emergency ID from a locker and take the next train heading to France. She has no hard information on the hit, just a series of instructions on what to do at certain times. She has received half her money up front and would prefer to stay alive rather than be twice as wealthy. If the players have not received the enormous plot-device letter giving the addess of the office building and the supposed location of Hiram, Patricia could always tell them where Hiram is (on the roof - as far as she knows) if they will leave her alone. She just wants out and away from Hiram.
This is a wise move on her part. Both Sarah and Patricia have instructions to wait at Felby Lane until Hiram phones and gives them their final instructions. Hiram, however, has fitted a small explosive charge to the gas main under the house. The charge is set to detonate at 2015 and will rip the entire house apart and start a fire which might remove half the street. This is Hiram's way of tying up the loose ends. He does like to keep things nice and neat, which is why he is never out of work.
This is the operational headquarters. it has much the same layout as the house at Harcourt Drive, the only differences being the larger number of beds and the wider variety of foodstuffs piled next to the camping stove. If Badim had to be killed by Hiram in the house, he will be in the bath, covered in bleached water and wrapped in black plastic. The occupants of the house will depend on who has a job to do. Hiram spends as little time in the house as possible, whereas the others; Victor, Sarah and Mikhail have no choice but to stay here when they are not out harassing the player characters. There are no really interesting items in the house apart from a selection of weapons (a few pistols and an mp-5k - all silenced) kept by the team members. Recording equipment, both audio and video is stored in the front bedroom and there is a miniature camera over the front and back door. There should always be someone watching the monitors. A radio scanner sits by the monitors and is tuned into the local police frequencies.
The address on the note sent to the characters is a run-down office building. There are several plaques beside the door, most of them very old indeed. The front door is slightly ajar and the reception area is empty. The building inside is clean but hasn't been re-decorated in about ten years. It should remind the characters of their own office building. Access to the roof is made even easier by the fact that the elevator in the reception area goes up to the roof (It couldn't get any easier). There are also stairs which go all the way to the roof. The stairs and elevator both open out onto a small landing with a door leading onto the roof. The roof itself should be fairly cluttered with raised sections of the building blocking off large sections of the roof from easy view. This should lead to a nail-biting slow advance around every corner, not knowing which one hides a maniac with a gun. Of course, Hiram isn't on the roof.
Hiram is in the building but is situated two floors below in a disused office. He has removed the glass from the window and replaced it with a sheet of clear plastic. The Steyr is set up on a bipod two metres inside the room, resting on a table. Beside the waiting Hiram is a mobile phone and a briefcase. Inside the briefcase is a silenced mp-5k. If the case slammed up and down while a catch in the handle is depressed, the mp-5k will be released from the case and into his hands. He has practised long and hard to do this and he can release it in a single round, taking only a -10 to his DEX to get it ready. He has a Glock 10mm in a shoulder holster. The mp-5k has three magazines clipped together for easy reloading.
From the room, and indeed from the roof, there is an excellent view of the roof of a multi-story car park about 150 metres away. It is on that roof that the meet will take place. Hiram is ready to make sure it gets somewhat disrupted. Thirty seconds before he makes the hit, he will speed-dial Sarah Kahan and let the phone ring once. She will contact the local police station and tell them that there are people acting suspiciously on the roof of the office and they look like they have guns. The police should take three minutes to arrive and Hiram's escape route down the stairs to his car at the back can be accomplished in two minutes fifteen seconds.
The meeting is taking place between the two men on the roof of a multi-story car park due to the two party's misguided fear of being recorded. They have not even considered the possibility of a mad sniper...
The American will bring two minders with him. One is armed with a pistol, while the other has a silenced MAC-10 concealed under his coat. They will arrive on the roof five minutes before the diplomat. The wind is quite strong on top of the building and the American spends his time looking down at the street, holding his coat closed at his throat. There is only a metal railing surrounding the roof (which is why no cars are allowed up here). The diplomat also has two bodyguards, each of these are armed with silenced Scorpion machine pistols and one is carrying a Dragunov SVD sniper rifle in a long cardboard box. Once on the roof, the Dragunov gets taken out of the box and the bodyguard starts scanning the surrounding buildings while the other watches the entrance ramp. The diplomat is carrying a black briefcase containing $500,000 dollars. This is the down-payment for the American's help.
The two men approach each other and shake hands. This is when Hiram will fire. He will kill the American with a carefully aimed shot to the leg and then begin firing at the diplomat, aiming for a round between shots. When both have been hit or after firing three shots, whichever comes first, Hiram will leave his hiding place, abandoning the Steyr and switching to the mp-5k in the briefcase.
It is a Very Hard Perception roll to spot the meeting going on 150 metres away and even then, it looks fairly innocuous. Once Hiram starts firing however, there will be a flurry of activity on the other roof-top and if the bodyguards spot the characters, there is a chance they will be fired upon (if you want to add to the excitement, you could have the American's bodyguards open fire on the diplomats's minders). It is also a Very Hard Perception roll to realise that the firing is coming from the building they are standing on. Only one side of the building faces the car park and anyone looking down the side of the building will be able to see the window with the plastic covering (Average Perception). It then becomes a big race to see if the characters can catch or kill Hiram before he escapes. Hiram will put up a struggle but will not fight to the death. He knows too much to be allowed to go to prison and, in his eyes, one employer is as good as another. If he does not get stopped by the characters, he will leave the building, get into his hired car and go to the airport. He has tickets for the next flight to New York and will leave the briefcase in the car, taking a small suitcase filled with clothes into the airport with him. In the airport he will mail the envelope he is carrying on his person to the police (this is the one implicating the player characters). If all goes according to schedule, he has a fifteen minute wait for his flight. If he is delayed, he has another set of tickets in a locker which will take him out of London on a flight to Brazil. This leaves one hour after the flight to New York.
How the players fare at the end of this one is anyone's guess. At the very least, they must stop Hiram getting away scot free. The file he will send to the police will incriminate the players in at least one murder (Rudolph Tuomi) and one of them will be arrested for possession of an illegal weapons and bomb-making equipment. When the body or bodies turn up on the car park, the characters could be in for a lot of prime pokey time. The ideal ending, obviously, is where Hiram gets killed, the incriminating evidence gets destroyed, the characters get away from the police and no-one is any the wiser about what had been going on.
Stats Aptitude 15 Special Skill - Perception 20
Tag 'My mom always told me to make your hobby your work.'
Quirk Meticulous planner.
Flaw Uses his team members like a box of disposable tissues.
Possessions Glock 10mm, mp-5k in briefcase, tube concealed up left
sleeve which sprays prussic acid to a distance of two metres (same effect
as cyanide but kills in 1d10 rounds). Hiram takes the antidote every day
(he keeps them in his trouser pocket). Garrotte around right wrist. Lockpick
concealed in right shirt cuff.
Stats Aptitude 12 Special Skills - Perception and Stealth 15
Tag 'This is getting a bit too surgical.'
Stats Aptitude 12 Sarah's Special Skills - Burglary and Surveillance
15
Tag 'One day we will see the motherland again. More vodka Mikhail?'
'Stop your whining about your motherland, you damn Russians!"
Stats Aptitude 10 Special skills - Business 15
Tag 'Without a free market, none of this would be possible.'
Flaw They do not realise that the CIA is on to them.
Stats Aptitude 14 Special Skills - Perception 16
Tag 'Everything looks fine here. Smooth as silk. What the..! Where's
the hitter! Get the client down! Can you see the shooter! Ohmigod I'm bleeding!
Weapons Various pistols, machine pistols and a Dragunov SVD sniper
rifle.
The characters are a squad of Russian soldiers on their way back from a one week patrol of the ice blasted tundra that surrounds their base. There are ten soldiers in the squad, the players and a group of NPC‘s controlled by the referee to make up numbers. One player plays the Lieutenant, another the sergeant, another the corporal, the rest are privates. They are equipped with winter clothing and are all armed with AK-74 assault rifles, 10 spare magazines and two hand grenades each. They used to have a powered sled, but it broke down two days ago and has been abandoned in the tundra. The long winter has just begun to set in.
The characters arrive at the base. The first thing they notice is that the gate is open and there are no sentries in the guard towers. The base is quiet and still.
Research Base 428 is a military outpost in the middle of nowhere. While it is listed as a research base, there are no scientific staff in the base. It is more of a military prison without bars on the windows. Soldiers who annoy their commanding officers get transferred to one of these 'research bases' for a twelve month tour of duty. It is assumed that they have learned their lesson when they return to society. Research Base 428 is situated almost 500km from the nearest human settlement. It is 40km from the sea to the north and 200km from the nearest forest. It used to have a contingent of around 60 troops. The base consists of four buildings surrounded by a three metre high wire fence. A guard tower is situated at each corner of the fence. A frozen machine gun hangs from it‘s pintle mount in each guard-house. A helicopter pad for resupplies is ten metres outside the front gate.
Building 1 This is the barracks. There is a large room with bunk-beds for the troops and a separate room with toilets and showers. There are belongings scattered all over the floor and the entire building looks like it was vacated in a hurry.
Building 2 This is the motor pool. The large sliding door that takes up most of the front of the building is open and the machinery inside is covered with snow and ice. There are no vehicles remaining in the building. Before the characters left there was a truck and two more motorised sleds. Most of the tools are still present and welding gear lies scattered in one corner. There are a few forty-litre cans of gasoline piled up against the back wall.
Building 3 This is the building which houses the generator and decontamination unit. The generator is still going full blast, so the lights and heating are still on in every part of the base. The generator is fuelled by an underground tank of petrol which is located beside the building. The tank is less than a quarter full, and the camp was resupplied just before the players went on patrol. The airlock to the decontamination unit is jammed shut but the players can see dents on the door. If they do get the door open they will find the camp‘s Geiger counter (broken) and four spare rad suits.
Building 4 Administration centre. This building houses the medical centre (most of the drugs are gone), the officers quarters (deserted and in the same state as the troop barracks), the administration office, the canteen, the radio room, the political correction (and briefings) room and lastly, the brig. The radio only emits static regardless of what button is pressed or dial is turned. A 400 page manual sits in a drawer for anyone who wants to work out what is wrong. The reason it doesn‘t work properly is that a valve has been removed. The brig contains the only sign of life in the entire base...
Lying on a bunk behind the bars of the brig is Private Dimitri. Everyone knows Dimitri, a hard drinker but basically a good old boy. He doesn‘t move from his bunk as the characters approach the brig. From three metres away they can smell the vodka fumes. When they eventually wake Dimitri up, he will tell them his story.
Dimitri‘s Story: Dimitri knows nothing. He has been blind drunk for days, the last thing he remembers is striking one of the camp‘s officers and being slung in the brig for a week to cool him off. Since then he has been unconscious on the bunk, underneath which are four empty vodka bottles. Dimitri vaguely remembers shouting and other noises but he has no idea that everyone has left the camp. He‘s basically a decent sort, strong as an ox and always willing to help, his only problem being his occasional drinking frenzies.
Outside the camp, about ten metres from the wire is a mound of dug up earth. The earth has frozen over again, so digging it up will prove difficult but not impossible (explosives were used to dig it in the first place). At the bottom of the shallow hole are the charred remains of about four bodies. The characters can find the badge of the camp Commissar, Major Gregori, and the flashes of the camp commander, Captain Ptojr Kropotkin. These were the two highest ranking officers in the camp. This should help foster the idea in the players heads that a mini-revolution has taken place...
There is enough fuel for one month‘s heating, more if the heating is turned off in certain buildings. There are enough rations left in the base to feed the entire squad for the next two months. It will, however, be three months before the resupply helicopter turns up. It will also be a month before anybody shows up to ask why they haven‘t replied to radio signals. Make it clear that the trek to the nearest town, 500km through the harsh winter winds, will kill all involved. Their best bet is to stay put.
The referee‘s job is to help the players think that a nuclear war has broken out. Emphasise the static on the radio, make it clear that there is no reply from the outside world (small transistor radios could never pick up anything from the base - magnetic interference). Place undue emphasis on the decontamination unit and play up the shooting of the officers.
Three days after the squad left the camp on their patrol, an alien life-form (brought in by a soldier interested in meteorites) infected the soldier and then the camp Commissar, Major Gregori. Panic spread through the camp, culminating in the death of the Captain, the Major, the soldier who brought the life-form in and a mechanic who got in the way. The camp fled in panic, taking all the vehicles, intent on reaching civilisation to warn them of the danger (a plan suggested by a forceful corporal). About 250km from the camp, they realised they had brought the alien with them (the forceful corporal and quite a few others) and a firefight ensued which ended up with all the vehicles being destroyed. The soldiers eventually froze to death and the aliens returned to their slumber waiting for the rescue team to thaw them out. Back at the camp, Dimitri disabled the radio and waited for the patrol to return, his alien being quivering at the thought of fresh bodies to subsume.
Hopefully, the characters will let Dimitri out of the brig, if not he can always slither his alien bulk through the bars when no-one is looking. He will turn the NPC‘s first and then go for one of the player characters. After that it‘s a free for all with players concealing their alienness from the other players, waiting to get them on their own so they can subsume them. The first noticeable thing that will happen is that one NPC will shoot another. He will say that the dead NPC tried to attack him. The truth is that he was interrupted mid-schlupp and had to kill to preserve his secret. He will only put up a bit of a fight if a summary execution is brought up. If he is shot, he will play dead until the majority of the sentient beings on the base are also aliens. Dimitri's favourite way of luring people away from their comrades is to offer to tell them the location of one of his vodka stashes. Once he has the character on his own, he will transform in the blink of an eye into a hideous, indescribable thing from beyond the stars. There might be a burst of gunfire, perhaps a few screams; but by the time anyone turns up at the scene, there will just be Dimitri and the character standing there. Just shooting at imaginary Americans, they'll say, when a ricochet hit Dimitri and gave him a nasty cut.
Obviously, if all the aliens are dead and incinerated then the players will have won. This might prove difficult to accomplish as player will eventually be pitted against player and no-one will know who is human and who is alien. The players should be able to fabricate primitive flamethrowers from the welding equipment and kerosene cans in the motor pool and there is enough petrol in the underground tank to toast the entire base. A direct hit from a flame attack will burn (and do cumulative damage) for 1d10 rounds. The damage is done to three random locations every round (Re-roll locations every round). Molotov cocktails have a damage of 2d10+30 and flamethrowers or other immersions into flame do 2d10+50 points of damage. If the players do win, they are still trapped on a base in the middle of nowhere. If the playtests are anything to go by, the entire base could easily be burnt to the ground by the time all the aliens are dead. It's still a good ending, the lone survivors huddling together, freezing to death as the long night draws in, still wondering if they are all still human.
It is a secretive creature, capable of mimicking those it subsumes perfectly. It is fairly resistant to bullets and other trauma damage. It‘s only real enemy is fire. Because of it‘s weakness it will try to remain as quiet as possible for as long as possible, only attacking a squad member when they are alone and there is no chance of being caught. One trick to entice a character into a building is to show them a stash of food hidden in the barracks, that should give any self respecting alien the chance to feast. The alien kills it‘s intended victim with it‘s bare pincers and it takes almost five minutes to assume the form of the victim. Once the victim is dead it absorbs the remains and splits into two forms, the attacker and the victim (except the victim is now an alien). It can change it‘s form quickly, opening up it‘s head to reveal teeth, elongating limbs to attack and sprouting extra mouths with which to bite the victim. Note that the aliens cannot spot other aliens and it would be possible (and potentially embarrassing) for two players, both aliens, to try and attack each other.
Stats Aptitude 20, DL 20, Damage 2d10+20 (Two attacks each round)
Description Indescribably hideous. Teeth, pincer claws, eyes, extra
limbs and inhuman cunning, it‘s got them all in spades.
Quirk As it is really terrifying and alien, it can cause Panic checks
for those who see it for the first time.
Flaw Although it has a high DL to normal attacks, the alien goes up
like tissue paper when hit by a molotov cocktail or a home-made flamethrower
(DL reduced to 5 for flame attacks).
Stats Same as the creature above. The huge strength of the creature
won't give him away as Dimitri was a very strong man before he was absorbed.
Quirk Everyone loves Old Dimitri. Still a Private after fifteen years
in the army, Dimitri's lack of respect with authority and his simple
good-naturedness have made him very popular.
Flaw His quick temper and drinking have got him into a lot of trouble.
He was kicked out of the tank corps after drinking a lot of anti-freeze,
stealing a T-72 and mounting a one-man invasion of China. He was demoted
to Private (from Sergeant) in Afghanistan. He had been short-changed in a
coffee-house so he threw a grenade into the building as he left.