Adventure: The TIMR is ticking down, Part I

Adventure: The TIMR is ticking down, Part I

Classic Reich Star

This is an adventure I wrote for Ken some time ago with hopes of it being used in his next project.  Had a little influence from Dark Conspiracy, Stargate (this may predate it) and probably the Philadelphia Project (movie).


BASICS

The PCs are part of a reliable and trustworthy network of resistance fighters.  They have worked on various jobs and the network has tried and true.  Many lives have been saved from the tyranny of the Reich because of their network.  This must be established up front so as to make the possibility of a mole a surprise and concern.

The PCs are told through the resistance network to meet a Imperial agent – Kido Hisamitsu – on the Imperial side of the former US at a given spot in Colorado. This place was hand picked by a resistance administrator named Dietrich Alamane Esterson for its isolation and reliability as a safe meeting place for the resistance and the Japanese. Dietrich Alamane Esterson should be known to the players as a resistance administrator in the upper command position. (Note: they should know him through some other  circumstances unrelated to this mission or he should be the deliverer of the assignment). Kido Hisamitsu says he has vital information for the resistance about a (formerly) secret Reich operation on Luna. The players are given false IDs, passports, and instructions on how to get there from the location in the AAU.

Hupton, Colorado

Located in a secluded spot in the high peaks of the Rockies, it was once a refugee town for Californians during the Japanese invasion. Hupton River – the river that secludes the town from (seemingly) the rest of the world.  It was once an old mining town, built over an old copper mine.

Information that the PCs can find out about Hupton

This particular town has been the sight of a few unexplained agent disappearances. The area was a sacred “evil” place to the local Native Americans during the US Frontier era.  Many legends stem from the area about beasts that rode the moon light from another world.

PULL

The PCs initial pull will be their devotion to the cause and desire to see destruction to anything Reich is attempting.

PUSH

The PCs will initially discover that the town to Hupton does not exist (anymore).  Upon getting closer to the area, they will notice suspicious things in the surrounding towns (Reich special security, etc) and begin to realize that there is something different about the town of Hupton.  One way or another (perhaps through a pre-war map), they will arrive in the town of Hupton, and find it deserted and glowing with age old radiation.

The PCs will meet Kido Hisamitsu but before they can learn anything, he is captured in an attack.  The players must be allowed to escape. The key thing about this attack was that it seemed to be waiting for the, as if the Germans were ready for them.  This should raise suspicions that there is a MOLE in their operation.  This can be a secondary push.  Their primary push it to find and rescue their contact.

ALIENS – (optional)  There is also an alien presence in the area that is confined to it.  The PCs will discover this.

SURVIVORS – THe PCs can start seeing ghostly images of people – former inhabitants of the town.  See Survivors below.

GIMMICK

The town of Hupton was destroyed in 2076 by a secret Reich operation.  The town was captured by the Reich secret special operations in 2070  and for five years until the “Accident,”  they put up an illusion that the town of Hupton was normal (through memory implants, etc).  They even went so far as to sent up a faux resistance network and contact point, which they used as a clean and neat way of capturing area resistance agents. They had a pretty solid operation until the “Accident.”

The Accident was originated from the secret operation the Reich was conducting under Hupton.  Hupton was special and there is a reason why it was taken by the Reich so ruthlessly.  The Reich (through a megacorporation??)  was preforming special experiments involving the TDI and dimensional travel.  A Reich special research and development division (of a megacorporation??) was working on what they called the TIMR (pronounced “timer”) – Transdimensional Initiating ManipulatoR.  This device manipulates the TDI frequency to the higher band to penetrate the “river flow” of Ultraspace (see Enigma) – to essentially cross the river of Ultraspace.

The Accident was just that, an accident.  During a test of the TIMR research, the TIMR device had a catastrophic failure and caused the equivalent of a nuclear explosion.  The difference is that half the explosion was in real space, the other half impacted in ultraspace and beyond – the bulk of it in the latter.  Huge chaotic radiation bursts ravaged the town, killing any survivors that weren’t caught in the ultraspace vortex that resulted (See Survivors.)

Just after the accident, witnesses were contained as best as possible.  The isolation of the town helped contain things but a few local farmers had to be “taken care of.”   A small Wehrmacht security base was built by the Reich to continue some semblance of the charade via a holographic projector that projects a busy town.  Security was tight, but not perfect.  Reich agents and assassins kept what they could from leaking but rumors were hard contain.

With reignited interest in the TIMR theory recently, the Reich (Amt VII A 1) upgraded the base to a research a small research facility just before the arrival of the PCs.  This facility is under a huge camouflaged cement dome.  The holographic was enhanced and the town looks even more normal than ever before.  But under the hologram, the buildings are all burned on and the only signs of the survivors are nuclear shadows on the stone walls.

The current research facility’s security is covered by a strong force of Waffen-SS troops and Geheimdeinst security agent and armor units. Kido Hisamitsu, after being captured, is being held in the lower levels of the domed research facility. There can be many ways in:  Sewers, old mines, or sneaking in.

MOLE

Dietrich Alamane Esterson is an agent for the Geheimdeinst security and the mole that alerted the Reich of the mission.  He is the reason why the Reich was ready for the PCs from the beginning.  The PCs may spot him early on during the attack or in the facility.

ALIENS

(optional) Due to their lack of knowledge with respect to what they were dealing with, the Accident brought an alien presence into our reality.  Only a few of these beasts got through, but they have been able to survive for years, feeding off local animals.  They have since started a small colony in the underground tunnels of the old mine.  They are intelligent but don’t seem like it outwardly, because of their alien outlook.  They are only encountered at night.

SURVIVORS

(optional) Some survivors from the town of Hupton were caught in the vortex after the Accident, caught between ultraspace and realspace.  During certain times (thunderstorms, experiments being performed at the facility, etc), these survivors can still be seen as ghostly blurs in a whirlwind of energy.  They are caught in an ageless dimensions, in semi-stasis dreamstate.

RESCUING THE AGENT

The PCs should be able to get into the research facility sometime in the game, probably with some difficulty.  They will find him close to death, suffering from sever torture worlds, etc.  As the man is dying, he utters a few words and give them something.

“Frank McLever … he is in San Francisco under our protection … You must take him to the moon, take him home.  And destroy the timer.

He hands them an address and a picture (on data stick).  He also hand them a US Penny from 1998 (something that should not exist, a lead into part 2).

ENIGMA

The TIMR

The TIMR device is not working the way the Reich {corporation) had hoped.  However, they know what they did wrong and there should not be another Accident like before.  The Theory behind the device is based on the concept of the Continuum,  put forth by an Austrian and French physicist working in the Reich.  It states that ultraspace is simply a barrier and is the only thing between our reality and others.  Their hope is that the TDI can be manipulated, given enough power, to go beyond ultraspace and punch a hole into other realities and opening new places for the Reich to conquer.

The research facility is also acting as special training base from the new Transdimensional Guard – a crack assault team of Waffen-SS Kommandos and  Geheimdeinst agents specially trained to withstand effects of dimensional travel and be battle ready when they take their first steps into new realities.

The Erde-bound base on Colorado is paired up with another base on the moon, doing the same kind of a research there.

MOLE

The Reich-spy Dietrich Alamane Esterson infiltrated the resistance for the soul purpose of trapping resistance fighters in Hupton.  He had a big plan to make Hupton known to the resistance as a safe-house town for them.  He is notorious meglamaniac as well as a great actor and con artist.  {Optional: Telepathic?}

ALIENS

(optional)Called the Abrafians, these beings are the creatures unintentionally pulled into our reality by the Accident are relatively peaceful, usually.  However, for some unexplained reasons (anger, side-effects from dimensional travel or the Accident), Abrafians hate humans and savagely butcher any that trespass on their territory.  They are highly sensitive to our sunlight and full moons.  They are also very sensitive to cold and the high peaks of the Colorado Rockies is no tropical paradise.  So they generally stay underground, near heat exhausts of the TIMR device.  They have intelligently survived through adaptation and cunning.

The Reich staff in Hupton are only partially aware of the Abrafians, seeing them more a a myth or boogie man of the TIMR device.  The aliens leave no sign of the butchery, so the disappearances are written off as TIMR effects.  Abrafians do not communicate through normal vocal means using instead airborne pheromones to communicate each other.  Humans sense these pheromones as a pungent and unbearable smell.

THE SURVIVORS

The survivors are those who were caught in the Accident’s dimensional vortex and are not caught in the timeless void caught between our reality and ultraspace.  They would live and have long been dead if they were in our world and would have died instantly if they entered ultraspace, but because they are caught between, the remain in an ageless state.  These people include prisoners, scientific and security staff of the original research center.  They are trapped here, in the dimensional fabric around the town and the farther away they travel, the less likely they will survive.

The players can only save these people by causing another Accident.  Until they are able to arrange that, they can serves as a means to pass on “fuzzy’ information through visions, dreams and ghostly messages. A person with Telepathy can communicate with them easier.  If there is another Accident, they will either be freed from the dimensional fabric or killed. Either way, they would prefer it rather than be caught in the type of semi-existence there were in.