Black Bpn
SCL requirement 8
Remuneration – 1000cr per op, 500 bonus for each civilian brought back in one piece.
Basic Brief – Contact lost with Outpost L4-2V6, Karma research facility, operatives required to investigate cause of silence, vehicle and equipment will be provided. Bonus to be paid for safe return of the researchers.
Contact - Karma facility 47
Upon accepting the BPN, the operatives are summoned to Karma sub-building 47, on the outskirts of uptown. For those wanting the full picture of the building, this paragraph should do the trick.
“As you exit the monorail, The sheer scale of the building strikes you. Two separate towers arc into the sky, each one of them nearly the same size as the main karma building in Central. As you take in the view, you realise that although it was light when you left the station, it’s now dark and more disturbingly, it’s dry, there’s no rain here. Looking up towards the sky, you see that the two towers have a massive plate balanced upon both of them, held in place by massive bio-constructs that shift and flex to keep the plate stable with all the weather above them. Creatures can be seen crawling over the upper levels, like giant arachnids, but far larger, each one of them completely single minded in its course. As you pause for a moment, the main door opens to admit a crack of light, and with a noise like breaking limbs within the human body, the doors open wide and a small woman dressed in regulation Karma clothing steps out to greet you.”
The woman is called Catherine Devereux, and she is the head of the department that authorised the experiments on the outpost. She’s spent more than thirty years working the career ladder to get where she is and she’s very concerned about the possibility that whatever went on there might come back to get her. She knows a lot more than she will willingly let on and she will play on the fact that she’s smaller than all the players are and (seemingly) far more fragile. She is both devious and cunning, and will do anything to make sure that her pet project does not come back to bite her.
The basic brief of the BPN is that the project was nearing completion, and the final testing was being done when all contact from the outpost was cut off. No transmissions to indicate what had happened made it out, although one single transmission was made shortly before all access was cut off, and this was about a month ago. If Devereux can get away with it, she will give them just this information and send them on their way. If the players have any brains at all, they will try and get more information on the subject. Devereux will play her cards very close to her chest, what she knows is listed below, but it should be stressed that the players should have to work very hard to get all this information out of her. She’ll be perfectly happy if the operative team fails and the whole site gets wiped off the planet (it’ll cover her tracks far better if this happens)
The transmissions were not cut, they were deliberately
stopped
The project is dealing with a weapon involving Sonics
and harmonics
A new type of stormer was being prototyped at the area
and there are several models currently active in the
facility, she has the full details on these stormers
and their capabilities. (detailed later)
The Facility had twenty researchers at it, with a
backup admin staff of two hundred, of these, thirty
were on leave at the time the transmissions were cut,
and three of these were researchers.
Two transmissions have been received since the basic
daily transmissions were cut, both of these are on
file, but classified SCL 3, Devereux has the access to
play these for the operatives if she so wishes. (GM
note, if the players are given these things to listen
to, the GM should have a suitable piece of noise for
them to hear. Good examples of this are the brief
transmission from Event Horizon, the Beacon noise from
Alien, or if none of those are available, static or
white noise should do the trick, it should be very
obvious that the transmission was from nothing within
known SLA space).
The weapon that was being developed does not affect
anyone in Hard armour with the audio system turned
off. (Hard armour is classified as anything that is
completely sealed), this also holds true for anyone
wearing a helmet with the ability to seal the user
from outside noise.
Karma will provide fully sealed suits with audio filters if the players ask for them, these suits can be put on over or under armour, but if worn under armour, give a DEX penalty of –1 due to their bulk. If the suits are worn over armour, they are PV2, ID30 for the whole suit, if they are punctured by anything, they will cease to function as an audio protection device. If the players are really insistent, Karma do have a polymer that they can apply to existing armour to render it immune to the weapons, but they will be very reluctant to put on the polymer as in the wrong hands, it could be worth millions.
Karma will also provide transport to and from the facility, with a pilot standing by off station for when they return. The pilots will have been given strict instructions (on pain of summary termination for ignoring them) that they are not to go within five hundred metres of the facility.
Ammunition for players’ weapons will be provided free of charge (three clips per player), as will modifications of existing armour to have audio filters if the players ask for it.
Full maps of the facility can be obtained fairly easily, and will fit to any Nav-Map, however, Karma will insist on the players using the Nav-Maps that they provide (this is because they have been coated to resist the effects of the weaponry in the Facility.
FIRST CONTACTOnce the players are on their way, they will be given the second part of their briefing, this entails one of the three researchers who was on leave at the time of the termination of transmissions. They will be a little more forthcoming on their information as they would like to see their teammates again. The project was to come up with a device that could use certain resonance frequencies to break down molecular cohesion in targets. They had already achieved the frequencies to work on their own products (having had a great deal of spare material), but they were still working on the frequencies for harder armours and other races. When they left, they were still working towards this particular result. They will also be able to tell the players that it has in fact been three months since the incident, not one as Devereux will have told them.
As they approach the outpost (approximately four hundred miles north of Mort, on the edge of the ocean), they may want to do a fly by of the facility. The pilot will obey their instructions and not get within five hundred metres of it, but the players can use the onboard cameras on the ship to take a closer look.
The Facility has sustained no exterior damage, the power is still active, and the distress beacon has been activated, but only on the local setting for some reason. All the doors are sealed shut, and the storm shutters are active, there are power readings coming from the main core and the secondary power stations. The weather outside is what you might expect on the edge of civilisation, the rain is coming down in sheets, and the thunder outside is loud enough to rattle the windows of the ship, and the pilot will express concern about staying out in this sort of weather.
An exceptional (20+) detect roll will let the players notice that while there is no exterior damage to the shutters, at least two of the doors have large dents in them coming from the inside, as if something was trying to get out.
Once the players have made all the assessments that they want to, the pilot will drop them off at a safe distance and take all non-operatives with them to a safe distance.
The players can get in in several ways, the first of which would be the usual player response of trying to crack the door through hacking the lock. Anyone with computer subterfuge can make the attempt, the difficulty of the lock is 20, a regular success will get them in, and an exceptional (20+) will indicate that the doors were locked from the inside.
If they can’t do this, they may try the old fashioned way of blasting the door. On one of the main blast doors, this will prove futile, but any of the secondary doors or the storm shutters are ID 300 to make a large enough hold for any operative short of a chagrin to pass through (400 ID to get a chagrin through).
If both these options fail, the pilot and researcher on the ship have the access codes to let them get in without any force being needed. If the players ask beforehand, they will be given these codes freely.
GM Note – This is where the danger begins, throughout the rest of the adventure, you must be aware of whether or not the players have on their audio filters or not. If they do, you must keep all extraneous noise out of the room, keep it as silent as you possibly can. If they don’t, then the creatures primary attack form might affect one or more players, see later notes on the creature.
If the players aren’t wearing their audio filters, then you should have a CD player close by, choose one song (preferably one that you like, or it might send you mad), put it on repeat, and play it softly in the background. It is suggested that you already have a set of three different songs set up, one for each of the creatures in the base. One of the pieces should be calm and peaceful, something instrumental (pieces like Adagio for Strings and Agnus Dei by Samuel Barber work well for this). One of the pieces should be heavier, something with a strong centre line and a solid beat (Tracks two and four from the matrix soundtrack work well for this). Finally, one of the pieces should be something that suggest absolute evil and ancient death, made form by faceless corporations hell bent on exploitation. Anything by Britney spears should work. For future reference, these pieces of music will be referred to as tracks one, two, and three, as detailed above. The music should be in the background, not immediately obvious, but subtlety there, but also something that is memorable, something that the players might decide to sing along to or hum in the background. The more that a tune does this, the better.
The Facility is clear, completely clear, track one should be playing at this point if any of the players have their filters off. The floor is clear, and the only oddity that is to be found is that all the windows within the facility have been shattered, and none of the doors are closed. The facility on this level is completely dark, all the lights and computers are inoperative, and unless the players have either a light source or infrared vision options, they will not be able to see. They will be unable to use Ultra-Violet or Night-vision options as both of these require an ambient light source to function. Unless the players are wearing the special suits that karma may have provided or had their armour coated in the polymer necessary to resist the weapon, their suits will be degrading at a rate of 1ID on all locations each five minutes. The referee should keep track of this privately and inform the players when their armour starts failing. Referee’s may wish to allow the players a few passive detect rolls to notice the paint job on their armour failing and flaking, but given the darkness, the detect rolls will need to be exceptional (20+).
It should be noted that any soft armour (deathsuits, paqquil, other similar types) will not take any damage at this point, neither will anyone who isn’t wearing armour. However, the GM should take a note of anyone who hears the music at this point.
At this point, the noise on this level has been calibrated only to affect armour and equipment, and as such, weapons will not be affected at this level. However, if the players are using their own Nav-maps, they will quickly find them inoperative, the same goes for most of the equipment that the players will be carrying, however, this is at the GM’s discretion.
The Control room is on level two, It is reached from a sealed shaft in the lower levels, the players can reach it only by this route, and only with the required passwords (which karma will provide if asked), or a computer subterfuge roll of 15+. If the players didn’t think to get the passwords and don’t have computer subterfuge, it is at the referee’s discretion as to how they might get in there.
The Control room is silent, there is no sound in here, only one person in the corner, a young woman who is semi catatonic with fear. If the players are still wearing their audio filters, they won’t be able to hear anything at all, and the woman will try and escape. This will prove fatal if she succeeds (see later).
The Control room has fully video access to all four levels of the facility, level one will not be visible due to the lack of functioning cameras on that level. Level two is this room only, Levels three and four are clearly visible, there are several pools of what appears to be blood on the floor of level three and level four is coated in some sort of resin. The only other area of the facility that is not visible is the lower core area on level four, but there are several life signs in that area, two stormer and twenty plus humans.
If the players want to get out at this point, let them, they fail the BPN for not fully investigating the facility. If they follow through with what they should be doing, then they will have to make plans to get down to the lower levels. There is one central shaft of stairs that leads to all levels of the facility, and this is located at the rear of the room.
The young woman who was found in the control room (if she is prevented from escaping) can be a goldmine of information to the players, she was one of the researchers at the facility, and as such, knows quite a bit about what’s going on there. However, this is a delicate situation, if she is treated roughly or abusively, or if there are any stormers in the group, she may become slightly catatonic with fear. Assuming that she isn’t rendered senseless by the players, these are the things that she knows.
The facility was created some twenty years ago when SLA encountered a conflict war race that had somehow survived from the massacres so many centuries ago. This race had mastered the use of harmonics for use in war and peace, and were willing to trade their knowledge in return for safety. The safety that they were promised did not materialise, and their race was dissected to the last person to find out the secrets of how they worked.
This knowledge was put to work on several new stormer variants, each one of them with a particular type of vocal chord, one designed to crack inorganic things, one designed to damage organic material, and one designed to disrupt electrical impulses. Ten of each of these stormers was created, and were being trained in the use of their weaponry, but the problem occurred when all three different types were put on the battlefield at the same time. The key to the different resonance was not in their single effects, and this was what SLA failed to understand, the key was when the frequencies were combined.
Each of the stormers was badly affected by the combinations, and this shattered their loyalty programming, causing them to fight amongst each other until only three remained, one from each type, and at this point, the Karma scientists regained control of the three.
Or so they thought.
Shortly after the recapture of the stormers, level four of the facility was lost, no one knows what happened, but only a few of the admin staff got out of the level, reporting that there had been a malfunction of some sort. The Stormers found their way through the facility, using access codes that they shouldn’t have had, and from start to finish, had taken all the people in the facility within two weeks. All attempts to communicate with the outside were blocked, as if something had been jamming them from the outside.
The young woman escaped by hiding in the food locker, only leaving when she found the coast clear to send a message, these two were the transmissions that got through to karma, badly scrambled.
The players may think it a bit of a coincidence that the young woman escaped, and this was in fact the case, the stormers are more than they appear to be. They knew that if one person was left alive, a rescue party would be sent, and more people could be snared.
Unbeknownst to the players, the stormers are actually monitoring the whole conversation from level four, they rigged the equipment to report back all the things going on in the room directly to them and they will now put into play their complete plan.
Practical information that can be gleaned from the woman is that wounds caused by the sonic weapons do not regenerate and cannot be healed by drugs, as the damage caused is the disintegration of muscle chains and bones. Karma has ways to replace the damage, but it requires full medical facilities with a bone and tissue regeneration device. Some limited effect may be done with the Ebb skill of healing at levels 11+, but they did not get time at the facility to test the theory. It is up to the GM as to what they do. The weapons do not cause bleeding or internal bleeding, merely the disintegration of the bonds between the joints. It should be noted that on the tests for these weapons went against all known races, and the only difference they found was that the deathsuit of the ebon races did not react to the inorganic weapon, but to the organic one, a fact that karma intended to use to their favour in the coming years.
As the woman finishes explaining about what has happened, a faint keening noise will come from one of the speakers, innocuous by itself, it will have a terrible effect on the young woman. As the noise starts, the woman starts shaking, then puts her hands to her head and sinks to the floor screaming. If any of the players touches her, they will be able to feel a tremendous shaking going on, seemingly inside her, and no matter what the players do, the result is inevitable.
.After a few seconds, the woman will clutch her chest and fall to the floor, all lifesigns will fail, and no matter what the players do, she will die. This is not so disturbing as what happens next. As the players stand around for the few seconds afterwards, the body will shrivel and shrink, with all the blood and tissue within it leaking out through any available orifice. Anyone with medic training and equipment to do an analysis will find that the fluids that leak out contain traces of most of the internal organs in the human body.
What the players do from there is up to them, there are no set paths for the BPN to follow at this point, what follows is what the enemy will do, the GM should decide how well the plans of each work. Upon the death of the young woman, the sensors in the lower levels of the facility will come back on line, and movement will be detected.
The cameras are still functioning in the area, and if the players look, they will see several of the human researchers making their way towards the exit, this is a diversionary tactic, the stormers are looking to get out of the facility and this is the best way they can think of. All the researchers are under their direct control, and if intercepted by the players, they will attempt to do nothing but escape, becoming hysterical if they are not allowed out.
At this point, the players might be thinking get out while the getting's good, and that’s a sensible plan, but the stormers have thought of this as well, they know that there is no way that they can get on to the ship without being spotted, so the only way to get Karma to send a ship that they can get on it to release too many people for the first ship. As the players do a count, they will realise that there isn’t enough space on the ship for all the people who have been released. This presents a problem, as the ones who are out of the lower levels refuse to be left behind, and will overload the ship with personnel if they are allowed access to it. Trying to separate them and keep some behind will result in the players having to be a little brutal with them, as they will not take no for an answer.
The ship can signal back for another larger carrier to be sent, and Karma will comply with this request, sending one within two days, but until this happens, all the personnel will have to remain behind.
Unless the players go homicidal and kill a few of the researchers to make space (in which case, their careers are over when they get back), then there is no way that they will get out of there at this point.
As the pilot makes to take off, there is a short burst transmission to the ship from the base and the ship fails to take off, anyone investigating will find that the pilot has been reduced to a shrivelled sack of skin and a pool of blood in the cockpit. The ship is still functional for the most part, but they now have no one who knows the access codes for the ship.
The players have two choices, stay outside or go back in, whichever one they do, several things are to be noted.
Firstly, any of the captives who go in the control room will suffer the same fate as the pilot and the young woman, this will not affect the players, but will easily panic the captives. If questioned about the lower levels, the captives will indicate that there are several people still down there who need rescuing. The players should not be forced to go down there, but they should see that something has to be done about it.
Most players will get the idea of blowing up the power core upon leaving the facility, the power core however is of a type that cannot be overloaded (well, not by them anyway).
The cameras on the lower levels will now be inoperative, but the motion scanners are working fine, and movement can now be seen all over the complex, the lifesign monitors will indicate that several humans and a few stormers are around the complex. The only complication arises when they count the number of stormers and find that there are twelve of them, and six are on level one, approaching the control room.
It should not be a problem to find the stormers on level one, but anyone looking through any sort of optics that can see in the dark will see that the stormers are both human sized and shaped, and seem to be in karma clothing. This is accurate, they are not stormers, but the sensors have been reprogrammed to register them as stormers. Anyone with computer subterfuge will be able to reprogram the computers accurately, but anyone attempting to do this runs a risk of shutting the whole place down, and if the stormers get wind of the idea, then they will certainly shut the place down.
The Stormers have not wasted their time, as the players leave the control room, they leave level four and begin to make their way up into the facility. They will try and target any players who are by themselves, but if they cannot do this, they will withdraw the humans who are on the facility to the lower levels and wait there. The players will be forced to go to the lower levels if they want to rescue the humans who are still there.
If the players have demonstrated ways to see in the dark, then the stormers will leave the lights on in the lower levels, and they will group all the humans together in the same area. If the players have had problems with the dark, then they will shut down the lights in those areas, they will then wait.
Level three has Track two playing on it, this particular one damages organic materials at the rate of one point of ID per minute or one hit point per five minutes. Deathsuits damaged in this way can be boosted, but cannot be regenerated, the exception to this is if the players are still wearing sealed armour with sonic protection, in which case, they will take no damage from this level. The players will have no resistance on this level in the way of opposition, indeed, the stormers want them to go down to level four.
Level four looks like most Karma facilities, half biotech, half hard tech, some of the walls will be organic, and most of the doors will function on a muscle basis rather than a hydraulics basis. This means that the stormers cannot control them, which gives the players a slight advantage. On this level, Track three will be playing, this has the effect of giving the players –3 on all their actions as the electrical impulses in their brains are scrambled by the continuous harmonics. Again, any player in sealed audio protection will not suffer this penalty.
At this point, the stormers will move out their slaves and attempt to separate one player from the rest. If they cannot do this, they will try and take the most heavily armed player first, using a combination of their attacks on a hit and run basis, using the humans as cover.
The Combinations of the weapons that the stormers possess go as follows.
Stormer one possesses the attack that shatters inorganic materials, this will do 20 ID per attack, and has a range of thirty metres. Stormer two possesses the attack that disrupts organic materials, this attack does 20 ID to deathsuits or five hit points of damage to unprotected targets, this also has a range of thirty metres. Stormer three is the leader of the group, and has the final attack, this one was not seen by the karma scientists, and has the effect of controlling the target for one phase, the attack is short ranged, with only ten metres being its operable distance. The target is allowed a Conc Save to resist the effects, or the next phase they have to act on, they will perform an action of the stormers choosing.
Stormers one and two combining form an attack that shatters weapons and equipment instantly, at the beginning of the combat, they will use this combination attack to shatter heavy weapons and suit equipment like the jets on the silverback armour type. The attack has a range of fifty metres, and any weapon hit by it is instantly destroyed. If the weapon was an explosive one (such as grenades), then it will detonate on the person who was carrying it, inflicting full point blank damage to them.
Stormers One and Three combine to form an attack that works in the same way as a hotline round, this attack has a range of thirty metres.
Stormers Two and Three combine to form an attack that damages the memory of the target. Anyone falling victim to this attack loses two points from one of their skills, usually the one that is more prevalent I their mind at the time. so in most cases that will be the weapon skill
All Three stormers combine to form an attack that does fifteen hit points directly through the armour of the target, it was this that did the woman on the upper level, but she had already been infected with two of the weapons when the final one finished her off.
Anyone falling victim to this final attack and losing all their hit points will be reduced to an empty sack of skin, and unless the players get a miracle and LAD turns up, there is nothing that can be done for them.
The Stormers attack plan will be to get the players into the larger of the rooms, usually the vat area, then use their abilities to pick off the larger weapons before commencing an assault.
If the players are still (somehow) wearing the karma sealed suits, then they will be immune to all of these attacks, however, anyone still wearing this suit will be mobbed by the humans who will attempt to damage it to the point of not being protection any more.
If the players kill the stormers, all the humans who were under their control will revert back to type, and in most cases, will be overcome with relief at the fact that they have been saved. This however, may be celebrating a little prematurely. The harmonies are still active on the upper levels, and while level four is still silent, level three still has the organic destroying harmony playing, and the controls for the base sound system are located in the control room.
Or are they?
Astute players will remember that the stormers had a lot of control from all the way down here, and they will probably seek to find out where the control centre was. If they don’t, any human researcher trying to get through level three will certainly be liquefied before they make it. How players deal with this is up to them, but if they go further into the base, this is what they find.
At the back of the vat area is a small lift leading down, the researchers will beg them not to go as the area is classified SCL2, and the only ones among them who were cleared to look in there are now dead. The lift is big enough to take one Chagrin sized or two normal sized operatives and goes straight down.
If the players decide to go back to the upper levels themselves and turn off the harmonics from there (bearing in mind that level two still has organic destroying sounds and level one still has armour destroying sounds on it). They must make an exceptional roll on computer subterfuge (20+) to de-activate the sound system, if they do, then the researchers can be led to safety. If they fail more than three times, the failsafe device left by the stormers kicks in and activates the organic destroying noise on all levels, similarly, if they botch it, the same thing happens.
If they manage to get the researchers out at this point, excellent, they win, the ship will turn up and nothing got on board to sneak back to the city……..
Honest…….
However, if they follow it through to the end and go down the lift to see what’s down there, they get this………….
Whichever players go down in the lift first, make the other players leave the room, and put on track Three………..
The bottom level of the facility is a giant living organism, what the researchers didn’t know is that when the alien race dies, their bodies are the only thing that dies, the rest of them waits to find a new body to inhabit, there are six such creatures down here, three of them possessed the stormers on the levels above, and the rest waited here to see if transport could be secured to get them off planet. The problems started when the researchers came to this level and left the bodies to be examined at a later point. As one of the stormers was brought past, one of the souls latched on to it and took it over, two more of the creatures were quick enough to do the same thing before something was found out, but the rest are just waiting.
If the first player down is a stormer, then they have a problem, the aliens can only take over Stormers for some reason, something about the engineered nature of their bodies makes them ideal hosts for the parasites. If a stormer player goes down, the referee should inform them that as they step into the area, they feel as if their head is going to explode, the player should make Conc Rolls every ten seconds that their character is in there, if they fail even one, their character is possessed and taken over, at that point, the player must abide by what the referee is telling them to do. What will happen at this point is that the possessed player will turn off the harmonics and leave the area, indicating that the problem has been dealt with and that there’s no problems. The player will not stop the other players from going down there, but when other players go down there, nothing will happen, the aliens have want they needed, and they won’t jeopardise anything else now.
If the player gets out, then another player may give it a go, sealed armour does not help here, if the character is a stormer, then the aliens will try and possess it. If there are no stormers in the group or the players’ figure it out, then the aliens have prepared a different tactic. The Aliens can use any piece of harmonic transmitting equipment to keep themselves alive, this includes the players’ communications systems. If the player has a breached suit of any sort, or any communication device that is out in the open, then one of the creatures will latch on to it. This will have the effect of rendering it temporarily out of service, but other wise it should not cause any alarm to the player.
Once the aliens have either a stormer under their control or one of them in the comms device of a player, then they will cause no further interference and allow the players to leave. This is their part of the plan completed, and they know that one of them will make it to the city and bring back more bodies for them.
There are several conditions for success in this BPN, they are listed as follows.
If the Players manage 1,2, and 3, but not four, they will be treated as having succeeded, but later on in the game, the failure on point four will come back to haunt them.
If the players leave people behind on level four and refuse to go down there, they fail the BPN due to there still being people alive in the facility that they have not rescued.
If the Players succeed in all the objectives, then they should be justifiably proud of themselves.
A swift note to the GM, any player killing a scientist will be fined 1500 credits per kill upon their return. For the record, botching the sound system and killing all of them counts as intentional.
=====
Dodd
313