The Big Blackout - Contemporary Mini Campaign

This is a mini campaign I intended to run and that was replaced with another game. It is intended for players who don't care for fantastic elements. It is supposed to feel at least somewhat like GTA. Everyone plays a person that was convicted for a crime. It is the player's choice if the crime was actually committed by the character or not. Use the crime table to find out what the crime is.

It all starts in a courthouse. It is focused on an unspecified city.

COURTHOUSE (Plot Point 1 = PP1)

All the characters are in one room together at the court, after being sentenced by judges, waiting for a transport back to prison. With a giant guy (Blabes). “I don’t like your face!”

2 cops (guns) are also in the room, but will ignore fights without weapons.

There is sudden tumult, sirens, cops whisper, then run out (PP2). Blabes starts attacking right away.

6 more cops (guns) are in the building. SWAT (8) will arrive, but are busy.

1 girl (secretary): “I can show you a secret way out, if you swear to pay me back.”

Hands over 2 key cards for -2 floor elevator. “Just follow the Hieroglyphs!”

UNLOCK PP3

AMOK GUY (PP2)

A psycho with trenchcoat has entered the main hall of the courthouse. He blocks basically the only exit. He has 5 hostages. SWAT teams (24) come from outside, but 8 cops are on the other side.

The Amok guy asks to talk to the president and newsstations, because “we are all controlled by beings on couches in another world. we are just imagination! they are even drunk!”

After 4 hours of waiting, the SWAT team (16) comes in. Probably a short fight. They take everyone prisoner again. Shortly after the Complete Blackout! (PP4) starts.

THE DOG CAVE - ANUBIS (PP3)

Under the courthouse there is a cave. It can be accessed by following hieroglyphs (1st Scarabeus, 2nd Ankh, 3rd dog head) in old archive file rooms (encounter: old file lady).

In the final room, remove a shelf to find an neo classicist Egyptian mural. Press in order of path: Scarabeus, Ankh, dog head. Opens mural as secret door: wet stairs down cave.

Dark, dog barking. Then attack by dogs.

Cave has many forks. Main way leads  to old subway tunnel not longer in use. You can walk out over rails at a station. When coming out, it’s completely dark. Complete blackout! (PP4) Some scared people are in the subway station. They just lie on the floor and cry.

COMPLETE BLACKOUT! (PP4)

Electricity is out for a few hours and it’s getting dark. There are traffic jams everywhere, as all the traffic lights stopped.

People walking to their apartments in poor neighbourhoods will have them either be blocked off by police units (1d4)- there is a fight going on behind, nobody is allowed to pass - or by gang members with knifes and guns.

In rich neighbourhoods corporate security by Janus Systems or Group 7 have closed down the entrances and don’t let anyone in

After dark the looting starts. 1d12 looters take stuff from a store. After 1d20 rounds police or a gang will show up.

For more details use the Blackout Random Tables

STREET BLOCKADE

While driving a car, the characters notice that the street is blocked ahead by cars parked together. 2 people with rifles stand in fron, 6 more with guns are hiding behind the cars. They look like a random group of everyday citizens. Some wear suits or business dresses, others shirts and shorts. The are between 35 and 80.

They don’t want anyone to pass and send cars back.

“We don’t trust you! Go away!”

THE ONE LIGHT

While most of the city block is completely dark, there is one bar that seems to have normal light. There is a crowd of people in front drinking. It seems everything is normal. Inside the bar is crowded. They only take cash obviously. There is a basement with a disco.

The bar has it’s own generator. It’s run by a survival maniac called Inza. She tells that she saw that coming and that she is prepared. She says she is looking for guys with guns to find her friends (actually a militia, but she won’t tell), as they did not show up. She has to stay at the bar.

Behind the disco a steel door leads to a bunker where she stores a lot of weapons. Even anti tank bazookas. She won’t tell anyone about it. The weapons are for her friends, militia.

The militia members (4 with guns) actually ended up - paranoid - as they are, dug up in the telephone franchise shop of on of the members only 2 blocks away. They had a stand off with a local gang and 2 gang members have been killed and lay out on the street. From time to time gun shots may get the attention of people nearby. The gang decided to wander off after some hours, but left 2 kids at the corner, who are supposed to ask for reinforcement (running) when someone moves inside.

Vornheim / Zwillingsseen: The Temple of Icedeath

The Temple of Icedeath is a building out of pure ice. The only entrance is a big bronze gate. After knocking the door opens itself and whoever enters comes to a big hall.

For every person entering one hallway, barely high enough for the person, leads from the hall. It is so incredible cold in these hallways. Who hesitates in there will freeze to death. The hallways are around seven or eight meters long and end at a curtain.

Behind the curtains there is a shadow that will engulf anyone crossing the curtain. Whoever touches the shadow will turn unconscious and wake up in a shaft, next to a doppelganger of him- or herself.

That doppelganger is evil and wants to replace the person. Or is the person awaking the doppelganger and the other the original? The doppelganger pretends to work with it's twin though. E.g. helping them climb out of the shaft to throw them down back into the shaft while hoping to kill them.

The shaft lies a few meters behind the shadow that disappeared when merging with the character. By climbing out of the shaft, visitor can return to the curtain, hallway and main hall. The hallway is still dangerously cold.

After some time in the shaft the Highpriest of Icedeath will appear floating and try to talk to the prisoners. The Highpriest is looking for visitor to the temple whose doppelganger will show unusual characteristics. Some crank mystics proclaimed hundreds of years ago, it would have to do with the gender of the doppelganger.

Coming back out, between stalactites of ice, on the ceiling you can see a seemingly formerly not existing exit. But the ceiling is very high and the walls really slippery... The Highpriest can levitate so it is easy for him to access the quarters up there.

There is an exit from the shaft: sometimes  a small tunnel open giving visitors the opportunity to crawl out and land at the outside of the temple, near the stairs leading to the bronze gate.

On closer inspection of the main hall one mysterious extra feature can be found: the floor is actually a thick, but nearly transparent layer of ice that covers a cold, cold pool. When people end up down there, they most likely will be frozen for decades until they get out seemingly unharmed.

Paid or Free: D&D5 Adventure List (Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition)

I found this really useful list of ALL adventures published so far for D&D 5th Edition.

The list is sorted by levels. Here you find the D&D5 Adventure List.

I hope this list will be well maintained, as even currently it looks like offering so many choices. I am sure there will be many more modules and free adventures added.

Savage Synnibarr Adventure: Secret of the Drake Temple

Overview

1 line summary: The characters are sent to a jungle island to find 2 missing alchemists.

Opponent's plan: One of the alchemists - Durana - plans to “liberate” the City of Terra by setting free the Plague, that reduces intelligence of victims and caused the Dark Ages.

Main location: Durana found the virus in an old temple to Drakes that she turned into a biological weapon factory.

Starting the adventure

The characters get a mission from the Adventurer’s Guild in Terra. The 2 young alchemists Durana and Rea went missing 2 months ago on the island TARBOON. It is possible that they went rogue. A reward of 20,000$ is up on finding out about their plans and reporting all details to Terra.

The characters are taken by Giants’ ship to the main town of New Vornheim on TARBOON. There the adventure starts.

Tarboon

The 80 miles diameter island is covered by jungle. New Vornheim is the main harbour. The 3 fishing villages of Ior, Caplan and Hole and far off, each on another side of the island. In the centre of the island you can find an old temple to drakes: Drakestone

Dangers:

• Cannibal Sasquatch tribes hiding all over the jungle.
• 3 Scarlett drakes settle on hills over the island and attack airborne vehicles.

New Vornheim

The town has a around 50,000 inhabitants (80% human). Except for the harbour it is surrounded by jungle. Most buildings are very simple white blocks with flat roofs. Streets are narrow, many even too narrow for the few cars.

The one standing out building is the steel-glass skyscraper of the City Hall. Next to the mayor Howser’s office, it also houses the local alchemist laboratory of Marveen and his 2 assistants.

The few adventurers in the city and more wannabees meet in a rowdy inn called Lazermead.

Travelers to the city will be interviewed by 2 local police officiers. There is a registration fee of 40$ per person and an import tax of 100$ per weapon, but theose can be easily concealed. Police officers are happy to take bribes to answer questions  or to support “customers. They are well connected. Trouble-makers will be jailed for a night. All cash and weapons are taken in as penalty fee. If a fight starts, 2d6 police officers show up. If overpowered they call in a Police Mech (of 5 in the city).

Infobits - those can be retrieved by Streetwise roles or interaction with local NPCs. Information in square brackets are only revealed by asking further questions or a Raise.

• Two female alchemists indeed showed up some weeks ago.
• Those alchemists went to Marveen and  the Lazermead.
• The alchemists recruited aroung 15 locals as guides tor a jungle expedition.
• There is an old Drake temple in the jungle [that the alchemists looked for].
• There is a Drake cult in the town, but it is for teenagers.
• A wereman, 2 amazons, and a Talking Raccoon have been recruited by the alchemists 2 weeks ago in the Lazermead Inn - for a jungle expedition.
• It’s not wise to fly over the jungle, there are [3] Scarlett Drakes attacking planes, etc.
• The alchemists went with an expedition to the jungle 10 days ago.
• There are trails through the jungle that cars can use.
• Sasquatch sometimes kill people in the jungle.
• The local alchemist Marveen moved here from Terra 5 years ago. He never leaves the town, because hates the jungle (and the general provinciality of the island).
• Marveen never uses his glider he brought from Terra.
• Marveen builds a device that should be able to fly through the werestorm [by switching power source every milisecond].

The jungle

It takes a Survival success to find the way to the temple. The optimal trip takes 2 days. A failure means a day is lost and there is 75% chance to get ambushed by 4 Sasquatch with boulder traps. Their aim is to kill and provide a feast for a shamanistic ritual.

It’s necessary to cross a river filled with piranha swarms to get to the temple.

Near this river, the Alchemists’ expedition has been attacked by Sasquatch. 3 guides and the Talking Raccoon have been abducted and eaten. Destroyed equipment marks the location.

The Drakes temple

It is visible from some distance because it is erected on a 100m high stone needle. The temple has the shape of an abstracted drake head with 2 platforms outside and an entrance through “eye gates”. A big gatling gun is mounted on each platform and there are 1d6 guards with guns present any time on each them.

Inside the temple, in the huge hall behind the eyes, there are weird alchemist machines and pool of a green liquid: whoever touches this goo will be infected by the Plague, and their Smarts are reduced to d4 until they get an antidote. The antidote is actually to inject the same goo. 1d6 guards with guns are in this room.

An arch leads to another section of the temple: this whole section must have been carved out after the drakes left and is human sized. It contains mostly the quarters of the alchemists and their mercenaries. In Durana's quarter (the biggest and most luxurious one) there is a high tech cryocoffin that contains Rea. She was subdued by Durana after she disagreed on the plan to spread the Plague.

Durana's plan

Durana and Rea found out that the drake temple on Tarboon was probably the last place where the Plague virus existed and went there for research.

On the way there Durana came up with her plan:

To give an ultimatum on Terra to stop the surveillance of the citizens there. She wants to transport the recreated virus in a dormant host body to Terra and then hand over the antidote only she owns only in case her requests are fulfilled.

The dormant host body - it turned out to be Rea, as she wanted to stop Durana - will by transported in a cryo coffin. Once opened, the virus will spread from human to human. It has an incubation period of 24 hours.

To be sure that the virus works, Durana wants to do a test on New Vornheim. As soon as she has proof that the virus spread there, she will blow up the temple, so that the facility to produce the anti dote does not any longer exist and she cannot be circumvented in rescue missions.

Herself and her mercenaries get the antidote regularly. She is the only person having access to it, if everything goes according to her plan.

She is contact with a criminal gang in New Vornheim, the Red Lizard gang, to use their underground facilities to handle the cyro coffin. Before the Red Lizard gang members will notice that they are infected themselves, they will already have passed the cryo coffin on to a crew of Tenjohussan (frogmen) on their whale "submarine", who will transport the cryo coffin to Terra. The Tenjohussan wait in a cave under the city. This cave contains direct access to the sea.

Durana stays in the penthouse of City Hall in the meantime. She will not directly go to Terra herself but has created 12 drones that relay her ultimatum messages so she won't be found too easily.

The Drake Temple City

What she does not know is that there is a 2nd place that can produce the antidote: the ancient Drake Temple City at the equator, where humanoid worshippers of the drakes gather frequently has the same pool of goo hidden in the main temple. There are always 3d20 drakes present in the city.

The 3 Scarlett drakes of Taboon are aware of the pools in both temples. But they have no reason to help humanoids. In the hoard of the drakes there is also an drake encyclopedia that contains that knowledge.

Random adventure generators

Random created adventures seem to solve many of the problems people have with GMing. They are created superfast and instead of preparing stuff that maybe never come up for hours you can fill in the details really needed during the session.

With the only versions you don't even need to roll on a lot of tables.

I found this nifty adventure generators recently. Give them a try!

Random dark future adventures.

Random fantasy adventures.

Bonus: a random Viking generator.

Free RPG Dungeons: Every Day

Ôkay, Free RPG day is over, but there is still much more great free RPG stuff out there on the web than anyone will ever be able to play. Especially free short adventures, dungeons and modules seem to be very handy. Next to the One Page Dungeons, especially useful with D&D and the Savage Worlds One Sheet Adventures, I especially like the 5 Room Dungeons.

They offer a topological drama structure that inspired my own FAWS7 adventure sketching technique. The most interesting of the 5 Room Dungeons really offer a dungeon and organize the rooms in an interesting way. Honestly we were never able to play more than 5 rooms in an average session anyways. Some see the 5

Anyways: Here you find the link to the dozens of 5 Room Dungeons usable for D&D, Savage Worlds or whatever fantasy system you enjoy.

And a short rant to finish this post:
When I was young I assumed a good module or scenario needed to have been written out in at least 64 pages. I hated hook, line and sinker adventure sketches for examples. But later on I realized: only the short stuff is flexible enough to keep all options open for the players and a GM will rarely be able to remember all the details in long adventures anyways. So what write the details for? For the GM to learn it by heart?Or for him to read it to the players? Ough. That always seems super pretentious.
Anyways: in our good session the adventure is only a simple framework that hopefully does not interfere with our characters' motivations and interactions. The characters should be in the spotlight, not the "plot".