The Illuminati comp

A very silly (or maybe not) and kinda truthy entry for your Illuminati BPN comp. It’s not quite what you’d call a proper Illuminati type situation, but it just jumped into my head when I read your little entreaty for entries yesterday. Probably a bad idea to take this seriously, but then again…

I don’t have my MRB right now, so I apologise if the details are a little sketchy. Feel free to correct any obvious errors you spot.

denotes editors notes

BPN card details

Contact:Mr Alexiov at A&A. Innovations seeing as he has a thing about using Tek Trex parts for his own projects.
Training Package Recommended: Investigation/Any
Colour Code: Yellow Could be a white.
Control: Station Analysis
Consolidated Bonus Scheme: 1500c per squad + 50c bonus for any tek trex retrieved- there now its a yellow
Details: Reports have been received of sporadic attacks and robberies of civilian businesses in the Morrison Court area of Upper Downtown by a group of Tek Trek drones. Analysis of reports suggest that the attacks are being deliberately directed by persons, and to a purpose, unknown. Squad required to investigate reports and track down the individual or group responsible.

Information available:

  • The size of the attacking group is currently unknown - estimated to be around 15 - 30 drones
  • Businesses targeted include a convenience store (no report on specific stock damaged/stolen), an electronics supplier (a wide range of stock taken, some other stock damaged/destroyed - list of stolen items up to GM if requested), 2 pet shops (all the pets were released, in each case a small number were also violently slaughtered), a toy shop (most of the stock was trashed - no-one bothered to check for stuff stolen), 2 jewellers (several small items taken in each case, nothing of particular value), an outdoor/camping store (most recent attack - damage report not yet available)
  • attacks all occurred when shops were closed
  • the majority of the drones are (y’know…the wee ones - I can’t remember the name) vito A69, pg 281 of MRB, but a couple of (the bigger ones - Raptors, was it? close it was Buzzard) have been spotted. Vague reports of unidentified other models are as yet unsubstantiated. this is what has peeked Mr Alexiov's interest
  • witnesses already identified include a small group of gang members, an elderly civilian woman, a civilian bar worker and a SLA-accredited independent financeer

Further information must be gleaned by investigation.

The facts:

The attacks have been perpetrated by a group of Tek Trek drones as reported.
Any shopkeepers interviewed will only know about what they found when the shop was opened next day. There are a couple of witnesses in the local area however;

  • half-dozen young gangers (aged 14-17 - local gang known as ‘the Fleeto’) - they saw a bunch of about 25 or so drones ducking between two alleyways - the drones had disappeared by the time the kids got to the end of the alley which is open-ended anyway. Sighting was after the robbery of one of the pet shops. Unfortunately they’d been drinking (as they are when the squad finds them) and didn’t really see all that clearly. They’re pretty sure that the drones were painted “like they all belonged to different gangs” - i.e. that the drones seem likely to have been stolen from varied sources. The kids will put on the tough-guy act, but they’ll be really impressed by any ‘cool hardware’ the squad is carrying and will recognise any op who’s had a good bit of media exposure, or has done anything particularly memorable on-screen (good chance to remind players of a televised cock-up).
  • erratic and paranoid old woman (age unknown - will only give name as Mz. Holt) - she will be so afraid of the Ops taking her ‘precious things’ (maybe not ;] ) that the most they’ll get out of her is that she saw “a whole bunch of wee metal things running away down the street” in between repeated demands to see their ID (even after she’s already seen it already) and threats to call for the Shivers (so far as she’s concerned, Ops are just teevee stars - Shivers are the real trouble-shooters, and she does actually have a degree of respect for them) - note that trying to sweet-talk her is likely to make her more suspicious, but intimidation may actually make her calm down enough to tell (if asked the right questions) that some of the ‘things’ had arms, and that one of these seemed to be giving the orders. If the squad do really well, she might even make sense enough for them to realise that she actually saw them twice - once after one of the jewellers and the second time last night when the outdoor shop was hit. They’ll never make enough sense of what she’s saying to figure out where the drones went to, or even if she knows at all.
  • wraith bar-worker (age 7 - name Astin Foss, nickname ‘Bunny’) - ran away from home on a small wraith colony planet to work for SLA but he dropped out of Meny after two months and landed this job just five weeks ago. Will be at turns jealous of the squad’s status, awed at the same, and anxious to get home (his girlfriend gets jealous whenever he’s late home from work, and she’s a bit violent at times, but he’ll try not to let the squad know this unless they really press him - he’s ashamed about the situation). He saw about 27 drones, mostly (the wee ones) with maybe three (biggies), plus four he describes as looking like miniature heavy powersuits. The tallest of these was around 2 feet high. He tried to follow (he may have flunked as an op, but he’s still wraith), but one of the (biggies) fired a volley at him and he backed off, so he doesn’t know for sure where they went. If the squad really press him he’ll hurriedly describe to them where he thinks they went - down through a basement window at the back of a nearby retail block.
  • human indy financeer (age 25, name ‘Big Mo’) - this guy is quite big, but none too well toned, and has the nature of your typical toady wee dodgy accountant. The whole time he’s being interviewed he’ll continually try to get the squad to work with him. If they agree he’ll be as helpful as possible, but either way he’ll constantly bug them about working with him, to gain re-assurance if they’ve already agreed. Note that if they do agree at any point he’ll constantly bother them afterwards, never totally taking no (or even ‘FUCK OFF’) for an answer. He didn’t really see all that much - he got a glimpse of about 15 drones hopping out of the back entrance to the convenience store, but didn’t stop to watch. What he did do, however, was call it in to the department - hence the BPN. He saw the drones as a way to get some ops down so he could harangue them into working with him.

other witnesses at GM’s discretion, but there shouldn’t be more than 2 or 3 more - it’s only because it’s Upper DownTown that they got this much.

The squad should eventually find out that the raids are emanating from an old retail complex which the area has been built around (area plans are still a little sketchy for this area). Buried at the heart of the block there are still a couple of rooms left from old shops, etc., and there are one or two points of access not known to many. The squad are in for a bit of a surprise when they find out who does know about it.

The Beef:

sorry, but here’s where things get a wee bit silly.
Here?
The truth of the matter is that the attacks are being co-ordinated by a Halloween Jack doobrie (did you guess yet? ;D ). But this is no normal doobrie. (Based on what Tim said about everything living that Karma makes having a piece of an RT soul ripped into it), this little critter has a fully-realised RT soul, and he knows he can fuck with things, although he doesn’t know quite how much. But he’s content to work on building up his little army.
He escaped nearly two years before and since has been slowly building his forces. The drones have been stolen by a varied group of doobries under his command - his ‘right-hand man’ is a chagrin stray he found just after escaping.
He’s taught his doobries how to use basic weapons, but when he found a trashed drone and managed to figure it out he decided to start acquiring more. Currently he commands a total of 28 (wee ones) and 7 (biggies). He has also recently begun salvaging parts from busted drones and play-robots to cobble together a semblance of armour for his doobries (the unidentified drones with arms).
But his true masterpiece in this area is a broken manchine he’s found and is trying to repair. He’s not quite there yet, but (depending on how the squad are doing) may have done enough to power it up. Even if he does get it going, it really doesn’t work too well - it’s movements and attacks will be very erratic and un-co-ordinated, even to the point of attacking walls, furniture, etc.

Should the squad manage to capture this doobrie alive and take it back to Mr Alexiov, he will be more than happy to take it off their hands and 'deal' with it.
Hmmm how powerful do you think this force would be if they got access to the A&A I. A.I subnet data.....

And why is this an Illuminati game at all?

He isn’t the only one.
BomBaby, the Karma subsidiary set up to manufacture doobries, have little or no concept of the Deathwake Principle, and the few in Karma who do have an inkling haven’t even thought to check, but for some reason the process of ‘inserting’ soul shards into doobries is flawed, and occasionally full souls will be ripped into them. And the structure of the personality programming seems to give a more stable platform for an ‘awakened’ RT soul to come to terms with the situation (total bodge I know, but it’s pretty much meant to be a fun BPN).yeap

Although doobries have been on the market for only three years, this problem actually dates back to the early prototype models, some dating back a decade. Giving plenty of time for a few escapees to set up a secret network. Almost every doobrie given an RT soul has escaped (there are always a few who suffer from “stormer suicide”) so there’s actually a few out there (well, say around 30-40 in the WoP, most on Mort). They haven’t quite managed a level of organisation on par with DN, but they’re a lot more organised than Global Video (sorry … personal grudge, but still true!).
The ‘head’ is one of the early prototypes, a 2-foot tall thing that looks vaguely like something between a human and a stormer, but his features seem kinda smudged - they hadn’t figured out how to get the tissue to set properly yet.
They are limited in that they can only really communicate by written word (AFAIK, doobries can’t talk - even ones with RT souls), but what they can do is organise some of the normal stray doobries (and there’s tons of those!), and the armies are building.
Within the ‘organisation’ there are some vague contacts with isolated DN cells, as well as a number of Props and indy Contract Killers … and just maybe there’s something going on in Cannibal Sector 2. And people have become so used to seeing stray doobries around the better-off (but not too swanky - no strays there) parts of Mort that they have easy access to areas other groups can have trouble getting in to.

The leader of the group in this BPN has been charged with the task of getting this manchine hooked up again (there’s a problem with the power management system), as well as building up his ‘cell’.
If he’s killed the ‘movement’ will take it personally (doobries can be seriously moody - RT ones even more so). The squad, or maybe just the guilty party (if there are any doobrie witnesses left alive) will have made a small but nevertheless dangerous enemy, who is focused enough to cause problems for some time.
This of course gives a great and valid excuse for throwing the odd ‘fun’ game into an ongoing campaign. Even in a non-Truth campaign, there should be little problem in introducing the idea of ‘accidentally intelligent’ doobries, so long as the players have a decent sense of humour (and if they don’t, make them play Paranoia for a few months).

I reckon this is gonna go in my doobrie sourcebook as well. An odd wee adventure to introduce the darker side of doobries to normal SLA games. Of course, there’s also gonna be the other game where you play a doobrie, but that’s a different kettle of fish altogether!

Told you doobries were taking over my brain!

If you have any idea that might help this poor obsessed man get out more send them to.. Jason "The Doobrie man" Rein.

Initially I wasn't sure about this one, it's didn't seemt to be really illuminati, however as I've been coding it and its grown on my brain I can see its potential.
The whole point is this little organisation can go anywhere. They can easily subvert the youth of mort. Not sure yet what there long term goal would be (Kind of like the A&A I.' A.I.'s) but they could make for some very strange and very dark BPN's [kind of like what happens if you play Paranoia seriously].

Obviously - Being the only entry- This one wins, however it is a lot more worthy of the prize than I originally thought.

Sue

And this BPN has actually been run by Roger...

BPN was fun. They never found out about the Doobries, which have not yet been released by Karma.

They got shot up lots, filed a BPN for the capture of the 'factory' in addition to the retreival of material (love those F& A Ops :}) and wasted a portion of the factory when they slagged 6 TT which exploded shortly after. They should have figured after they had run into 4-5 explosive booby traps which were being used to slow them down on their way in.

The 'scuttlers' as they named them, cost them about 500c in armour repair until they figured out that shotguns were a good thing to have.

They did find a filing cabinet with 3 doobrie 'apartments' in the drawers. but never matched that up with the highly 'intelligent' TT 'powersuit' they ran across.

Scuttlers:

Be warned, 10 of these in close combat can cause 4+ hits in a phase after armour is gone.
Each injecting 1 doses of drug, and causing 1 wound and 1 HP damage.
Which can put someone at losing 3 HP per round in 1 phase.

On the other hand, they climb quite slowly, and are vulnerable to Hotline/Jolt

The doobries evacuated most of the TT (ie about 20 of the 30) into a transport in the sewer through an opening in the room that was destroyed by the TT exploding.

so HJ may return to fight another day, but with better tactics.

Their base was 2 abandoned warehouses scheduled for demolition. The sub basements with the power supplies had been joined. 1 sealed from all other expernal access (main bunker), and both filled with machine equipment which was being used to refine and modify the TT.

Primary entry point was surrounded by a maze of metallic objects (pipes, drums, crates, etc) and enclosed in a cloth shroud to cut down visibility.

The TT entry point (not the main door) lead down a 4x4ft duct, which they used as a shooting gallery when the PCs first attempted entry.