Armageddon
This is the birth of Girrillian Vorask, one of my better and more complex adversaries. After years of running a psionic alien campaign with the Shri’ik, I decided to create one more grounded in “reality.”
Part 1 of the Girrillian Chronicles
BASICS
Planet: Arion III
Arion III was a major colony world within [Skaniis-Wen’tri] Joint Space. This region of space is fairly remote,lying between both [Skaniis] and [Wen’tri] Space. It acted as a hub for many of the colony worlds in this region. The Arion system was the capital system for the sector. It was the highly productive center of trade and commerce and many [Dominion] mega-corporations established major facilities on the world. This was all true until recently. Now it is a disaster.
Arion III is currently in a global crisis – Huge surface explosions originating somewhere beneath the surface, are leveling the land, destroying most of the major cities and killing millions. The only warning signs for these explosions are small tremors followed by small gieser like explosions. They happen on land and at sea. Millions have been killed by the initial unexpected wave of explosions.
Evacuations have been stifled by lack of organization and control. No single organization is stepping in the help. Corporations care little about civilians concentrate on getting their most valuable assets out. Pirates, seeing this as an opportunity, seize corporate transports and loot the surface for whatever they can.
There is a single station in orbit that acts as a central evacuation point – BARAT 61. They have recently managed to gain some control and have all ships report into their traffic control. They are trying to do the best they can to coordinate evacuations but have little authority and are under-staffed. On station, it is chaos. People are crammed into every corner, seeking passage out of the system.
ARION DEVELOPMENT ENTERPRISES (ADE) is a major corporation on Arion III, dealing primarily in mining , agriculture, and colonial development. ADE is a strong company but not without its enemies. TRANSGALACTIC COLONIAL DEVELOPERS of ARION is one of their major competitors and have a strong interest in taking over as many of ADE’s assets as they can.
PULL
Give each players a reason to go. Examples can be to get a family inheritance before it is destroyed; retrieve a family member; retrieve a holy item.
Encounter #1: Pilot is being hassled by a group of formidable people to steal his flight codes (to get out of the systems). PCs might feel a need to aid. The pilot does not have any plans on returning to the planet but knows somebody that does. He is an individual that needs a group of “muscle’ to help with an “evacuation.” But he is withholding the fact that the potential employer had a group of muscle – the thugs that the PCs just took out – and now needs a new one.
{One thug should escape to haunt them later. See The One that Got Away}
Encounter #2: Pilot from #1 sends the players to meet the prospective employer, someone named Girrillian Vorask. He wishes to hire a group to accompany him and his group down to the planet to do what he calls a “mission of mercy” to evacuate about 500 people. He needs the ship and muscle to do this. But there is already somebody else bidding for the job – Shi’i, a [Tor’Drani] mercenary with a sidekick named Jackrya, a muscular Vrusk with a hair-trigger temper. Mr. Shi’i has a group of 6 mercs (mixed races) who are ready for the job. Girrilliansays they must make a deal with Shi’i before he can hire them.
Shi’i plans to acquire a ship [SUBPLOT 1] large enough for the mission – A docked in-system freighter shuttle.
The One that Got Away: The one that escaped Encounter #1 may or may not have gotten back to Girrillian.
NOTE: Girrillian is intentionally pitting merc groups against each other to test them.
PUSH
Girrillianwill reveal that the area they are headed is currently being raided by scavengers and pirates. He will need the group to get through the raiders to get to the hidden group of refugees. They currently being held inside a facility that is being held by these raiders.
GIMMICK
Girrillian is lying. He doesn’t care about the refugees. He intends to steal ADE secrets. He is using the players to distract the raiders while he and his group steal the secrets. The complex the PCs will be attacking is an ADE corporate complex, where the staff was in a rush to evacuate when the raiders hit. The raiders did take 30 hostages including a few executives. The raiders are after weapons and anything that would aid them in further raiding.
Girrillian is after particular information TCDA and other companies want (SUBPLOT 4). He will be bringing a specialist to get into the corporate systems – a cybered Bengradi named Takash “Tracker” Nom, a notorious “truth assassin.”
The PCs will be sent to a warehouse and will find about 30 hostages. Girrillian hopes to get the information and leave the PCs behind. The PCs will know something is wrong when they only find 30 hostages. Girrillian when then be gone before the PCs can stop them.
See Subplot 2 – Finding a way off planet
SUBPLOT 1
Docked in-system freighter shuttle
The Wanderer is the shuttles designation and it has been docked for 6 months for unknown reasons. It is the only ship available that qualifies for their mission. Mr. Shi’i will be gunning for it too. All controls are located in the dock control rooms for each dock, which can be accessed remotely by command ops and secondary ops, Engineering, flight control ops, etc. The control to the moorings tractor beams, robotic arms, and the bay door are there as well.
The Wanderer is docked in a secondary docking bar, power to which has been redirected to more important areas. According to (highly protected) sources (as well as the signs on the door to the dock), it is under quarantine. Upon investigation, the PCs will discover that there has been some activity around the ship by some known criminals.
The ship was arranged to be quarantined by a drug dealer group. The drug dealers set up a processing plant within the ship’s cargo bay. The drug dealers are primarily [K’Dasi] with one [Candrosian] thug. They process a stimulant called Blue Flame, which is very popular on planet and station. It temporarily boosts STR and STA to extremely high levels but the side effects are that they turn muscle and bone tissue to mush eventually.
SUBPLOT 2
Finding a way off planet
Once the PCs are abandoned on the planet by Girrillian, Arion III goes through another wave of destructive eruptions. The PCs should realize they were betrayed and try to get off world. The hostages are unaware of any nearby ships. The executives seem to be more worried about what was stolen by Girrillian. They blame to the PCs for their losses. They even order the last remaining security guards to arrest the PCs.
The execs, after the PCs convince them not to arrest them (or otherwise avoid it), begin to plot. They eventually disappear at some point while the PCs are dealing with something else related to the disaster going on.
The execs’ goal is to get to the huge dome atop the corporate HQ, which the PCs should be alerted to earlier – on descent or in briefing, perhaps as a landmark. This dome is the secret executive orbital yacht designed to take the highest ranking execs and corporate computer core into orbit in case of emergency. It has in-system capabilities and is heavily locked-up by a series of codes only a specific group of people know. There are no high-ranking execs in the group, but the secretary (who is in the group) knows the codes. But she fears for her life as she has been told never to reveal them to anyone else under the high execs.
SUBPLOT 3
Help from a mysterious benefactor
Through out the adventure, the PCs will get the feeling that there is some one helping them; mysteriously over-watching them, helping them if they make a wrong move. {Subtle but not obvious}. Continuous help, some coming from mystical visions and dreams.
STACKTEEL ARASTEEK is more than the PCs know. They should know that he is Girrillian’s front-man. But what they do not know is that Stackteel is a Psi-corp specialist from Star Law, working undercover to bring Girrilliandown.
SUBPLOT 4
The information Girrillian acquired
The PCs may be drawn to it to use it as a weapon against Girrillianif they get off the planet. When the execs have the slightest notion of what Girrilliantook, they will do anything to protect it.
Inside the corporate system, they can find tell-tale signs left behind by Tracker (perhaps under the influence of Stackteel). The information was deep within the core of the computer system, under many firewalls and security codes – called the Club House. The information stolen was ripped from memory but trace data signatures reveal two things.
- Operation Thunderless
- An Accident
The information deals with Operation Thunderless – a highly secretive but fairly innocent project developed by ADE. ADE developed a new power generation system involving orbital particle beam generators/solar collectors and a collection of power generation plants on the surface. In theory, this single set up could power the entire planet. The particle beams, generated through special radiation emitted by the rare sun of Arion, combined with rare element found in Arion III – Thundranium – would be collected on the surface and distributed wirelessly throughout the planet.
Unfortunately, the research on the consequences did not dig deep enough. They secretly cornered the market on Thundranium through covert subsidiaries, against Arion III law, and developed the entire project in complete secrecy. On its first test run, things want well. Only a few employees came down with a mysterious illness. The second test was officially written off as an accident. The orbital emitter missed the surface collector array and struck the ground. This caused a slow but massive chain reaction that resulted in the surface explosions they are seeing now. The particle beam caused a domino effect on all the Thundranium deposits on the planet.
In truth, TCDA sabotaged the project and was in the process of stealing the information when an explosion killed him
SUBPLOT 5
Getting to the Yacht
Getting to the top of the corporate HQ will prove to be more challenging than the PCs may have foreseen. Power is out all across the city and the HQ is running on battery backup, running only essential systems. The building has been ransacked by the pirates and bodies are everywhere. Rooms are destroyed. Walls are torn apart.
The majority of the destruction seems to center around the R&D lab (can be discovered by tapping into security systems still on backup) on the 11th floor. That floor is completely enclosed and heavily secure.
Girrillian had his hacker release three genetic experiments that were stored on this floor. The floor is also completely filled with a halon-like gas (which apparently does not effect the mutant creatures. The PCs have to pass through the 11th floor to get to the yacht.
Environmental controls can normalize the atmosphere of that floor. Once done, the PCs have to deal with the genetic constructs. There are 3 types:
Class 1 – Combat Drone – Small flying creatures that inject neuro-parasites into the blood of their victims with front and rear tentacle stingers.
{Original concept sketch}
Class 4 – Genetically Engineered Construction Worker – Has natural electro-shock, acid-secreting bio-drill and acid-welder.
{Original concept sketch}
Class 10 – Mining Construct – A black mass of think tar-like substance that consumes everything and adds what it consumes to its mass, continuously growing. Highly vulnerable to Rafflur & Mazer attacks.
SUBPLOT 6
The Executive lifeboat/yacht & Thunderless Moonbase
It is only orbital. It only has enough fuel to get the ship to the Moonbase on Arion III’s only moon.
This moonbase is ADE’s primary Thunderless research and control facility. It is also an Thundranium mining facility. More secrets and danger are revealed about the Thunderless project and Thundranium .
- Thunderless Battlesuits
- Thunderless Grenades
- Thundranium Instability and Radiation sickness
- Thunderless particle cannon
Girillian, now aware of the moon base, will arrive at the moonbase around the same time as (or before ) the PCs. Final confrontation with Girillian possibility interrupted by Star Law.