Marine with examination loadout - WHooooo that is a real (awesome) warning sign. Don't fear the scientist, fear the marine with this gear, for they will be a butcher of all things. Also if a mysterious benefactor pays for a delivery, but you want the PCs to get into all kinds of hijinx, tell them that the benefactor will pay them for any interesting/weird/anomalous discoveries. Also, don't forget that vehicles have a speed stat - driving fast is more about that than a character's speed stat.
It's Friend's Nighttime Delivery - Geoff the marine, Jeff the Teamster, and Steaksauce the Android driving an A-6 Grizzly from Bixby to Lyons, a strange box in the cargo hold, at the behest of Friend. I'm running the same scenario with two different groups.
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| Art by Karl Sisson |
Session 1 -> The android drives because it, nicknamed 'Steaksauce', cannot become bored. He fails a driving check and the roadkill encounter gets lodged under the Grizzly. The marine finds some roadkill and cuts out its brain for science. They drive off and the roadkill drags itself away. They come across Roland's Bait Shop, hear Sara asking for their help over short-range comms, warning them of automated turrets around the place. They use the Grizzly to shove 2 wrecked vehicles at a turret until it expends a lot of ammo. They bolt the remaining still-moveable wreck to the front of their Grizzly and ram a turret - it gets off a shot at the Grizzly but the ATV's armor handles it well, and the turret is destroyed in the collision.
They bust into the Bait Shop looking for Sara in her panic room and pallets of food to scavenge. Not in that order. They find a computer and watch CCTV footage of the God destroying Roland and Darren, Sara's Dads, who with her had run the gas station for years. Sanity checks as it mists its way through a fist-sized hole, reforms in its pale maggot-colored flesh, and wrecks havoc on Darren and Roland.
Then bioscanners detect a strange reading vectoring in on the Bait Shop. They frantically break into the hatch leading to Sara's panic room, she clambers out and deals with what has happened as they load themselves into the Grizzly. Jeff stares out at the God through his IR goggles but fights down panic. As they climb aboard the Grizzly and drive off, Roland's corpse begins to stand up, shouting that "God is here." Sara panics and wrestles for her pulse rifle, Jeff and Geoff try to de-escalate the situation, and Steamsauce slams the gas and Sara hits a bulkhead and is knocked out. Geoff and Jeff look for rope with which to tie up Roland, who comes at them. Overall, lots of good tension buildup.
Session 2 -> Sara's knocked out in the cargo hold, Roland pins Geoff's arms to his side. Steaksauce is driving away from the God, Jeff is watching it in the turret through his IR goggles. Jeff, hearing Geoff struggle, slides down the ladder and runs behind Roland, hitting him with his crowbar. Roland, distracted, let off some pressure on Geoff, who struggled free and levered up his stun baton but missed. Steaksauce, listening into comms from the driver's cockpit, slammed the brakes and only Geoff remained standing, who snatched up some stowing rope and struggled against Roland to tie up his hands. Roland stood and launched himself at Jeff, headbutting him and biting him. Geoff failed to trigger his stun baton optimally - eventually Steaksauce briefly halted the vehicle, ran back to tranq Roland, and sprinted back to the cockpit to drive the ATV away.
As Steaksauce had driven well and put in a big lead against the pursuing God, and as he was away from the cockpit for ~15 seconds, I figured It had not caught up with them, though he had a 3rd drive check to speed away from It. I sadly forgot to use the vehicle's speed for these checks; the God would have probably caught up to the ATV had I remembered. Fancy maneuvers - I could see using the Android's stats. Pure 'drive fast' - should have used the vehicle's speed. Regardless, out-driving the monster is less scary, but it's how the dice fell. It'll turn up again, I'm sure.
They tried to understand Roland. They hypothesized that the God might be broadcasting and receiving data from him. They turned their bioscanner, medscanner, cybernetic diagnostic scanner and electronic repair tools to the task, and knew it was so. Roland's cyberbrain prosthetics were doing this, as were the burnt-looking black marks upon his scalp, which seemingly wired into his cyberwear.
Sara woke up and as usual, seems to roll well, passing a 'panic check or no' Instinct check. She spoke to Jeff and Geoff as though in a dream. She seemed surprised that they were keeping her father's body when it was clearly dangerous, when it was raving about God, back from the dead but clearly Wrong; she asked them why they were studying Roland's body rather than dumping it. She indicated that it wasn't Roland anymore.
They rolled up on a curve in the road, boxed in somewhat by somewhat steep sides. Boulders on either shoulder. The road itself had a patch that was carved up as though by a laser cutter. Jeff threw a box of twinkies at it from the pallet, to no effect. Geoff knew, from his military training, that mine triggers are set to weights close to what they are designed to attack - an anti-vehicle mine won't go off from a 5 pound weight. He crept close and noticed detonator pressure sensors and mines or IEDs wedged into the road carvings. Steaksauce drove the ATV around, critically succeeding and thereby running over an android hiding under camo blankets near one of the boulders.
They came up to a Grizzly parked 200m or so from the IED ambush, and watched as a rubber-faced android climbed into the turret and pointed a pulse rifle at them. It told them to turn off their engines and dismount. Steaksauce locked all external doors and came in the back to scheme, and because he wasn't sure if the pulse rifle rounds would punch through the driver's cockpit. The android promised them shelter, and that it was not familiar with the God of Route 11b, and the party was not wholly convinced. They decided to dump Roland out the back and see what the Android did with him. As they roll up the backdoor, they spot another 2 androids in the distance, behind boulders, aiming weapons at them. They throw Roland out and slam the cargo door shut as pulse rifle rounds impact off it.
The android on the radio calls them. 'We tire of this. Step out of your vehicle, it is time to meet God.'
I figure the next session starts with a panic check. They were very convinced androids would not be swayed by the God, as Roland was. When hope is drastically cut away, panic checks.
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| Art by Leo Haslam |
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