This adventure was inspired when I parked behind my local Post Office one afternoon and saw surplus safes sitting on the loading dock... (I TRIED to come up with a holiday theme for it, but failed...)
We had broken camp and were just about loaded up and ready to move out again, when I heard Private Rankin yelling at someone. I could hear male and female voices pleading in Polish, which Private Rankin only understood a smattering of, and then only if they spoke slowly. These people WEREN’T speaking slowly…
It took a few minutes to sort out, but in the end, it turned out that one of the refugees had worked at the Poczta Polskaa (Polish Post) a couple of towns over. A few days after the 5th passed through last month, a couple of U.S. Army trucks showed up late at night, unannounced. They showed the mayor and the Postmaster some paperwork and then transferred a number of unmarked, but heavy, parcels from their trucks to the Post Office’s safes and then drove off, promising to return. Not long afterward, the town hall, which had become the town’s storehouse and barracks, was shelled. The mayor was killed and the Post Office, because of its stout construction, became the replacement town hall for the village. The Postmaster had the safes, along with the mail sorting machines, moved outside the building to make more room for living quarters and storage.
Last week, the town was overrun by marauders and the Postmaster was killed. In the chaos, the refugee grabbed the Postmaster’s backpack instead of their own as they fled. Inside, they found an inventory of the contents of the safes, along with the combinations…
Safe Contents
The Referee is welcome to put anything (or nothing) inside the safes. For example, if the players need ammunition, the safes could contain a cache of ammo, or a small amount of ammo and reloading dies and other equipment for their guns. They could also contain ammo and reloading dies for rare weapons – Auto-Mag .44 of Dirty Harry fame or .45 Long Colt of the “Wild West” or something equally arcane. (My personal favorite is the .32 H&R Magnum round). The safes could actually contain the implied gold bars and/or art, placed in the safes at the direction of MilGov or CivGov (if playing a V1 or V2 game in the US), or stolen by the commander of the unit, who was subsequently killed during the collapse of the 5th ID (if playing in Poland). The safes might contain drugs (some or all of which might have been destroyed when the safes were moved to the loading dock) and a small cache of MREs.
Another option would be that the safes were filled by the CIA/DIA (if in the US) or the KGB/GRU (if in Poland) or by another secret police/intelligence agency (if in Sweden or elsewhere) before the nuclear attacks. The safes might have electronics that were protected from the EMP effects of the nuclear attacks and are now almost priceless (or worthless, like VHS players…) They might have “priceless” government records (now useless), or textbooks / law books / training manuals / fiction on microfiche / microfilm that would be enormously helpful in rebuilding “civilization” (however the players define it). But did the people filling the safes include a microfiche / microfilm reader?
Alternate Ideas
- Obviously, the Post Office can be in any country, anywhere in the world (my original plot had the Post Office in the United States, and the gold had been stashed before the Thanksgiving Day Massacre…)
- The Post Office can be placed to entice the PCs in the direction the Referee wants them to go, especially if they have mis-interpreted other hints (or are just ignoring them entirely).
- The town can be far away to increase the difficulty or close at hand, to decrease it.
- Likewise, when the safes were loaded, and when the town was overrun can be adjusted.
- The safes could have been at some other kind of business, maybe even a lock and safe supplier/manufacturer. One option could have them moved to a junkyard near the Post Office, making them less likely to be accidently found.
Complications
- The marauders, unaware of the treasure, have occupied the town.
- Former officers or senior NCOs of the unit that stashed the treasure are now leading one (or more) marauder groups. They have finally worked their way back to the area and will attack the town just after (or just before) the PCs arrive.
- Units of both sides have learned about the treasure after capturing and interrogating former members of the unit that stashed the treasure.
- The manifest is fake and the safes have something else entirely in them.
- The manifest is accurate, but the combinations are wrong.
- By the time the PCs arrive and secure the town, the safes have been found, opened, and looted. They bargained / negotiated / fought their way to the Post Office, only to end up empty handed…
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