2nd Rad Zone Contest! - Theme? The Holidays in T2K?

[Jason Weiser]

This concept should be familiar to Traveller players and is borrowed shamelessly from the "Amber Zone" concept.

Ok, the way this is going to work is this. Please submit a maximum of 1500 words to this thread of a developed adventure seed (doesn't need to be a full adventure). The scenario seed must be at least 500 words in length, and it must have a developed plot line, potential ideas for complications, as well as suggestions to the Referee on how to use something in their campaign. The entry may be rules agnostic, or for a specific version of Twilight: 2000, be it 1st Edition, 2nd Edition, Edition 2.2, or Twilight: 2013.

All submissions must be original, and not published elsewhere, either physically, or electronically on the web in any form.

Extra points to someone using the "Amber Zone" concept of something ambiguous turning into something rather unpleasant indeed, or at least potentially so...

All submissions must be submitted by 1800 EST, Saturday, January 1st. A poll of the board membership will then decide the winner. In case of a tie, the mod staff will cast the deciding vote. Voting will be held until 1800 EST, Saturday, January 9th. All submissions should be in the form of a reply to this thread. You can either post it in the body of a reply, or as an attachment in .txt, .doc, .docx, or .pdf format.

Prize is TBD, but I am sure I can dig up something!

So, flex those creative muscles! I'd love to see what you all come up with!

Please refer any questions to myself or Rae.

[mpipes]

Looks like I'll be first --

This is a thread designed to startle your PCs with an entirely new set of problems in someplace other than Poland, the Gulf, or even the US.

Hope you enjoy!

Demonspawn

Player Info:
We had found a good spot off the main road for camp. I say main almost laughingly, as it was a dilapidated dirt road out in the hinterlands of either Ukraine or eastern Poland. We had spent the better part of a week running from that damn Spetsnaz team and dodging PACT patrols. We really weren’t sure where we were, but we were still alive and had managed to slip the noose so to speak. Just in time too, the horses were spent and we desperately needed to brew up fuel for the HMMWV FSV and the LAV-25. Damn it all! We are down to 160 rnds of 25mm, only three Tank Breakers, and just two AT-4s. OK, we did score six RPG-22s and captured that RPG-7V with four rockets. 40mm grenades and FRAGS we are short on too. Well, at least 5.56 was not much of a problem; we have almost 2000 rounds left of that crate of ammo we found plus seven 100 round belts of 7.62mm found in the same bunker. All of us have at least a full basic load of ammo, thank God! And equally lucky the trailer with the still is undamaged.
Billie thinks we are somewhere north of Holovne, Ukraine. Crap!! What the hell were we thinking! Kracow was sorta safe. We had carved out a presence. Made a few friends. Hell, it was life! So what do we do…hear about Operation Omega….lets saddle up and ride out. In a pig’s eye! Trying to traverse the length of Poland to get to north Germany. Idiots we are!
And me, here I am in command. I was Air Force ROTC for crying out loud! I remember the pitch, “free college degree…just give us four years active duty and commit to two in a Reserve unit.” Yea, I graduated in May 1996 and by January, I was at Rhine-Main AB in the middle of a war. Six months later the nukes start flying and before TDM, I am a 1st Lt in the 5th commanding a recon platoon; thirty-two men in three LAV-25s, a HMMWV FSV, and a Jeep. I’ve got six survivor and two “new guys” including Billie. Well, she is a girl. Lied about her age to get in; she is just 18. Smart. She was in a supply unit until she got sent to us as a replacement. Billie is the gunner on the FSV, and hell she is good! Fuel is our biggest problem. All our hoarded reserves have been burned up running. There is no way to get home now.
Anyway, I’ve got eight US army grunts, a German F-4F WSO we rescued from a Polish unit, a Pole, a Ukrainian, and a Czech, plus six horses, and our guide, a Russian deserter that owed us big time and offered to help us get to Germany. He is ex-KGB but became disillusioned with the commies, deserted, and was in the Kracow militia. Claims he was a Colonel and knew Yeltsin. Anyway, I am in charge of twelve souls, and all I’ve done is get them screwed.
Suddenly I heard some rapid fire shouting back toward camp. Is that Ukrainian? I turn around and jog back into camp.
Putin, our guide, and Capt Berkholt, our German WSO, were in animated discussion with a kid. He had a Russian sporting rifle slung over his shoulder and a pistol at his waist. His horse looks even more spent than ours. As I walk over, Yeltsin gets a weird, well horrified might be a better description, look as the discussion continues. Finally he glances over at me remarking, “Captain, we got problems.” Oh great! What fresh hell now?
The kid at issue is Melanovich Cronkev, a 17 years old Ukrainian, and he has a tale for the ages. Over a month ago, while he was out hunting, his village was raided by a group of Marauders. Hearing firing in the distance, he rushed back to find his family and neighbors being methodically forced into wooden buildings, which were then set ablaze. Those few villagers that managed to flee were gunned down. There were also several villagers writhing in agony, impaled on tall poles in front of the government offices. He managed to evade notice as he snuck back toward the family home, only to see what he was most anxious to protect; his 15 year old sister, Kaya, being gang raped. Knowing he would only get himself and his sister killed, he patiently watched. The Marauders spent most of the day raping, pillaging, and murdering everyone while Cronkev watched and waited. He managed to sneak into the family house and grab more ammo for his LOS-7 rifle and a .22LR Tokarev. When the gang departed, he saddled up the horse and rode out in pursuit. He has been trailing them for just over 6-weeks patiently looking for a chance to free his sister and avoiding the gang’s patrols. He is well armed with a LOS-7 sporting rifle (7.62mmR) w/7x fixed scope, 65-rnds and a .22LR Tokarev w/80-rnds.
The kid is unfailingly brave and very smart. He knows rushing in will get himself killed, and if he rides off seeking help, he may lose the trail. He is a good shot with the LOS-7 and can reliably hit a 6” target at 600 yds (skill 18). If they kill Kaya, he will stalk the Saints and kill them, one-by-one. He has also picked up a lot of intel on the group.
He has thought about warning possible targeted small villages, but “knows” that will get Kaya killed. So he waits and watches. He was scouting out the only route out of the town when he stumbled on fresh tracks of the LAV.

Satan’s Saints

Victor Kaskov leads the group. Kaskov appears to be a hopelessly delusional, insane psychopath. He preaches a brand of cultism that holds that his Saints are the ordained, chosen servants of the Devil. Kaskov was a barely functional Russian “heavy metal” rocker before the war, and he has embraced the chaos. He believes himself to be a demon in human form. There is no limit to his or his followers depravity.
 Group routinely eats its victim.
 Throw live victims into a vented 55-gallon drum and then place it over a fire to roast the live victim to eat.
 Routinely barbeque children, often crucifying parents and then killing, butchering, barbequing, and eating their children in front of them.
The group is moving about in the no man’s land between the Soviet army and the Ukraine army raiding small villages. Word has filtered back to officials on both sides of the line, but the Saints have so far managed to pass themselves off as “poor refugees” in any encounters.
Travelling by wagons and horses and modified trucks and cars, Kaskov can maintain a certain air of sanity when passing checkpoints or moving through towns and villages too large and prepared for a raid. They usually spend a few days in larger towns brewing up alcohol fuel and gathering any needed supplies, where they also hold nightly concerts charging admission. Three bands are on the roster, Kaskov’s “Screaming Panzers,” a 4-man Beetle’s imitators band, and a two-couples band singing Abba-type rock songs popular in the region.
The group numbers ~50 men and women, mostly armed with AKMs, AKS-74Us, PPS-43s, or sawed off shotguns, which they keep hidden. There are a few worn sporting rifles displayed for appearances only, and the roughest looking are held out as “security” armed with various shotguns or a few well-worn lever action rifles.
Kaya Cronkev is an extremely pretty 15-year old with very striking green eyes and blonde hair (that saved her life). Kaskov keeps her as a pet; usually naked, chained by a collar or locked in a cage hidden on one of the trucks. He treats her like a pet and expects her to act like one. She is often led around on a leash with her acting 100% like a dog. There are several other similarly situated captives and all are raped regularly.
The player’s group is on a collision course with the gang. They are about 10km away in a town too organized to raid. The group can’t go back, and they are in a bind if they move forward. What next?

Referee’s Info:
There is one tiny little major problem; Kaskov REALLY IS a demon and relatively immune to weapon’s fire. He has 200 hit points divided evenly on his body. He only suffers 1 point of damage for every hit < 12.7mm; 2 points of damage for every hit from 12.7mm to 25mm; and 5 points for any anti-tank weapon (ATGM or rocket), and 3 points from grenades. Once he absorbs enough damage to “kill” him, his body will vanish revealing a black demonic shadow, which will melt away accompanied by a spine chilling wailing. He uses normal weapons, but anything he wields/fires is with skill 15.

[mpipes]

Attached file.

[Jason Weiser]

Hey Everyone!
Two more days to get those entries in!

[Gunner]

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…

[Matt Wiser]

A POW rescue operation....it can be set in Poland or Iran:



Mission: Breakout


This adventure is best run as a follow-on to a rumor, or resulting from an encounter if set in Poland, but if it is changed to Iran, it can be run as either an official mission, or while the PCs are en route to an objective or to an extraction point.


The target of the PCs is a column of prisoners held by a Soviet (or if in Iran, Tudeh at referee's discretion) unit. If in Poland, the Soviet garrison has its own prison compound, while in Iran, the Tudeh insist on holding a number of American and Iranian POWs separate from the Soviets' own POW system in the rear of the Transcaucus Front.

If a rumor, the referee may decide that the source of the rumor is a merchant, hunters from a nearby community, or the result of an interrogation of a captured Soviet soldier. If an encounter result, the PCs may actually encounter the prisoner column.

The prisoners are a mix of NATO nationalities and civilians. Americans, British, Germans, Danish, and Dutch are the POWs (if in Poland), or if, in Iran, Americans and Iranian military. The civilians can be suspected of partisan activities and counting themselves lucky not to have been shot, or simply those unfortunate enough to be press-ganged into forced labor for the Soviets or Tudeh. They are used for road repair, farming, cutting wood, digging trenches for fortifications, and other hard physical labor. Many are ill and all are undernourished.

Nearby is a prison compound where the prisoners are held. A barbed-wire enclosure with a number of ramshackle huts (wooden if in Poland, mud brick if in Iran) that house the prisoners, with a punishment compound of several small, one-person metal boxes (similar to that in the movie Bridge on the River Kwai) where disobedient prisoners are kept in between rounds of torture for infringement of “Camp Regulations”, disobedience to guards or the officers (real or imagined), A smaller compound houses a number of female prisoners-some are NATO, others are local. Some are used on the labor details, others work in the camp kitchen, or to clean the officers' and guards' quarters. They are also used as a source of “entertainment” for the camp personnel. Any female officers will be singled out for the most humiliating work the Commandant can think of. Four guard towers, each with a single PK machine gun, provide guards with a full view of the compound.

The Guards number about thirty, and are a mix. Some are too badly wounded to return to combat duties, having lost hands or feet, but are still able to serve on limited duty. Others are former guards in “Disciplinary battalions” and served as guards in Soviet or Tudeh military prisons or penal units. Some may be recent conscripts who found themselves in this assignment, and would like very much to desert. They are the ones who are the most likely to be sympathetic to the prisoners. The guards' barracks-built to a better standard that the prisoners' huts, are adjacent to the compound.

The Officers: Four officers, not counting the Political Officer, are present. One officer always accompanies the labor detail to supervise the guards assigned to the detail. The Commandant has a hatred of Americans, and views those who fight alongside Americans to be only marginally better-unless they are Germans, in which case they are worse. If in Iran, the Tudeh Commandant will view any Iranian prisoners as “Counterrevolutionaries”, and all are deserving of the most harsh treatment possible, short of killing them. The Political Officer, who is naive, will be trying to convert the prisoners to their captors' cause, or at the very least, to serve as trusties. The Commandant has an office/torture room inside the compound, but quarters for all of the officers are adjacent to the compound, in housing either newly-built for the purpose, or local homes taken over by the guard force.

The local garrison: in the settlement nearest the prison compound is a Soviet (Or Polish Army, or Tudeh) unit. The garrison numbers 1D10x10 soldiers. On a roll of 1-3 on a D6, they are infantry. A roll of 4-5 has them as cavalry. A roll of 6 has them equipped with armored vehicles, including at least one tank (type determined by the Referee). The Referee may determine the types of vehicles, or select from the Encounter table for APCs/IFVs, as well as any heavy weapons.

Running the Scenario: This can be done in several ways. First, the prisoner column can be attacked, and an attack from the outside is the last thing the guards are expecting. They do not have a radio, and only a fleeing guard returning to the compound would bring word of the attack. However, the other prisoners at the compound (1D6 who are seriously ill, or too injured to work, along with 2D6 female prisoners) would be left behind.

The column could be trailed back to the compound, where it can be observed, and a plan of attack devised. If the PCs have made contact with local anti-Soviet guerrillas, either Polish or Iranian, they may be of help (especially if the guerrillas have friends or family among the prisoners, or if they have American or other NATO Special Forces as advisors). If in Iran, the location of the compound can be marked, and the PCs make their extraction. A follow-on mission to assault the compound and free the prisoners, can then be laid on with approval from the PCs' command authority. Insertion and extraction procedures from King's Ransom can be copied.

Complications:

Marauders may attack-they may believe the prison compound has gold or silver mined by the prisoners (a rumor, but a false one).

More prisoners arrive, complicating plans for the rescue.

The local garrison is reinforced, and said reinforcements include armor and mechanized infantry. Are they passing through, or are they now assigned to the garrison?

Weather may help, or hinder, the raid on the compound, as would the moon (or a lack of one).