Adventure 1 – Mission to Vantage Point
This was the intro adventure into my Shatterzone campaign. It was hacked together from ideas throughout the books, adventure seeds mentioned here and there, and input from the players. Strong influence from Babylon 5 and Aliens, if I remember right.
BASICS
The PCs are recruited by Fleet to help find a missing agent and perhaps being down a terrorist threat in the Fringe. They are chosen for this mission because of their low profile, their criminal record and their ship. In return, Fleet will wipe their record clean. They are asked to infiltrate the terrorist group in question – Hykosian Liberation Army – and find the lost agent – Aljoron Baraydal (human Psionic).
They are given cargo to take to the HLA – stolen weapons and supplies. They are to portray as smugglers at first, trading with the HLA contingent on Vantage Point. Once there, learn as much as they can about the Army and convince them that the PCs wish to join. Meanwhile, they will dig for the lost agent.
PUSH/PULL
Scene I – Alien Ships
Upon arrival into the Proscenius system, they will encounter an large alien ship in orbit over the planet. They are promptly attacked. The weaponry is far beyond the technology of the known worlds. Drone fighter swarm them like bees. Dark matter based blasts tear through their shields, armor and hull. They will be forced to crashland on the surface.
A Bolter in the group may recognize the ship or some aspect of the technology as something related to the Armagons or one of their slave races.
Scene II – Crash Landing
Crashing on a frozen lake, their ship immediately begins to sink. They will be met by HLA scouts who will help them retrieve the cargo before the ship sinks. The HLA scouts say that they have a way to retrieve their ships and asks the group to accompany them to their headquarters. They will have to make it on foot.
Ecounters
1 – Frozen lake creatures (Ice Squids)
2 – Snow plains creatures (Broluti herd)
3 – low-tech nomad fringers
4 – Bad weather
5 – treacherous terrain
6 – multiples of above (roll more than once)
THE MOLE
While trekking across the tundra, one of the PCs will learn that the HLA already suspects that Fleet has infiltrated them with one or more agents. {GIMMICK: There is in fact an agent amount this scout team, working for a dark faction within Fleet {Redeemers} that wishes to have the lost agent killed before he reveals the information he knows.
Scene III – Contact Mission
The PCs arrive at the HLA headquarters which is contained within an abandoned mountain-based factory – a factory built between four peaks of the Casaron Claw Mountains, suspended over a deep valley. I thas since been refitted and refurbished for the HLA purposes, renamed Fort Grash – named after a mythical Hykosian hero.
Keytar Serusa is the HLA leader.
Krom D’Hyss is the head of Security at Fort Grash. He will interrogate the new arrivals (PCs). (This will be an opportunity to express their interest in joining).
Proving Ground
They are given a chance to prove themselves by joining a strike team to make contact with the alien ship in orbit. {Encounters with the Alien Ship??}
Leads to the Lost Agent
After proving themselves, the PCs will learn that the Fleet agent they are looking for went off on a mission that started on a place called Fool’s Gate (located in the Vux system, Xenos Sector).
Scene IV – The Moon
The PCs’ ship is retrieved and repaired. They are given permission to leave and told they will be in contact by a HLA handler. They are also given one more mission. They are presented with two green skinned humanoids (telepaths), a human male teenager and a human male (HLA guard), all passengers. They are told to take them to the moon, Telex 4.
Gimmick: They will have to learn before reaching the moon that the guard intends on spacing his prisoners on the moon. It is presumed that the PCs wish to stop this. (Personal connection to one of the prisoners might help motivate the PCs).
Telex 4, the moon of Telexia, has an abandoned mining facility, which is currently occupied by Shatrats. They are using it for a storage facility. There are also miners that still live in the abandoned facility, left behind by the corporation 12 years ago. The survivors do not have enough firepower to resist the Shatrats, so they hide in the lower levels of the facility, stealing what supplies they can. The Shatrats are allies of the HLA.
The survivors will appeal to the PCs for passage off, if they can make contact. The teenage boy knows the location of a Brodie colonist camp on Vantage Point that these survivors would be welcome.
GIMMICK
Aljoron Baraydal, the Fleet agent, is following leads that link a faction within Fleet to alien factions beyond the Shatterzone.