Random Encounters in the Underhive-Part 3

This is Part 3 of a 3 Part series on 100 Random encounters that coud occur in Prospero's Underhive. Here's Part 1 and Part 2

Sub-Table 8: Smells

1. Rotten Garbage
2. Decomposing Corpse
3. Fire Smoke
4. Fresh Cool Air
5. Sulphurous Hot Air
6. Acrid Burnt Fumes
7. Fresh Excrement
8. Burning Hair
9. Cooking Meat
10. Raw Sewage

Sub-Table 9: Artificial Intelligence

1. Hive Worker Droids
2. Hive Scout Drones
3. Hive Solider Combat Droids
4. Spy/Assassin Cyborg (Terminator)
5. Hive Droid Exploration Outpost
6. Hive Droid Manufacturing Station
7. Hive Meat Slaves (Humans enslaved via implants)
8. Hive Droid Homebase
9. Hive Symbiont Bug Droids
10. Hive Droid Laboratory

Sub-Table 10: Weird/Supernatural

1. Cultists performing a Sacrifice
2. Hidden Cult Temple
3. A Brass Puzzle Box
4. Distant Weeping Female Voice
5. Some Creep Dressed as a Clown
6. Cannibal Abattoir
7. Yuggothian Minning Operation
8. Yuggothian Brain-Mecha
9. Feeling/Sounds as if your being stalked
10. Feeling as if your being watched

Random Encounters in the Underhive-Part 2

This is Part 2 of a 3 part series of 100 random encounters that could occur in Prospero's Underhive. Part 1 can be found Here.

Sub-Table 5: Creatures

1. Sarthogg (Frog-Man)
2. Giant Lantern Spider
3. The Grinning Man (Mothman)
4. Judas Mantis
5. Hellwasp
6. Conduit Naga
7. Shrapnel Rat
8. Tommyknocker
9. Witch Hound
10. Plague Zombie

Sub-Table 6: Sounds

1. Crash of falling debris
2. Clash of combat
3. False call for help
4. Genuine call for help
5. Splashing/Dripping liquid
6. Clanking/Whirring machinery
7. Door Banging open/close
8. Large Explosion
9. Hiss of Gas/Steam
10. Hum of Oscillating fan

Sub-Table 7: Items/Finds

1. Modern/Primitive Weapon
2. Broken Tech (GPS, data pad, com-link)
3. Drug Paraphernalia
4. Clothing (Even male, odds female)
5. Bag (1-7 Empty, 8-9 roll again, 10 roll twice)
6. Bones/Corpse
7. Food/Water
8. Light Source (Flares, Candles, Lamp)
9. Ammunition/Power cell (batteries)

10. Lost and Important Plot Maguffin

Random Encounters in the Underhive-Part 1

This is Part 1 of a 3 part series of 100 random encounters that could occur in Prospero's Underhive. Check for an encounter every 6 hours the PC's spend in this subterranean labyrinth. Generally an encounter will occur 50% of the time, but this can be increased or decreased at the discretion of the GM. At some point this list would be made into a master list so all the rolls would use a percentile roll. In the mean time I have broken it down into a series of d10 rolls in order to make it more manageable as a blog post. If an encounter is rolled, first roll for what kind of encounter occurs, and then roll on that respective sub-table. This is a pretty bare bones table and at some point I would probably flesh it out a little more. In the meantime it gives you a basic idea of the kinds of encounters you might have in the abyssal hell of the Underhive.

Underhive Encounters

1. Hivers
2. Surface People
3. Criminals
4. Hazards
5. Creatures
6. Sounds
7. Items/Finds
8. Smells
9. Artificial Intelligence
10. Weird/Supernatural

Sub-Table 1: Hivers

1. Scavangers
2. Scouting Party
3. Hunting Party
4. Scrappers
5. Trader
6. Trapper
7. Deranged Hermit
8. Hungry Cannibals 
9. Mutant Savages
10. Raiders

Sub-Table 2: Surface People

1. Police Sweeper Team
2. Maintenance Crew
3. Urban Spelunkers
4. Mercenary Group
5. Aid Organization
6. Science Survey Team
7. Engineering Team
8. Media Reporter
9. Stupid College Students
10. Runaway Child

Sub-Table 3: Criminals

1. Underhive Gang (The Morlocks) 
2. Underhive Gang (The Devil's Rejects)
3. Serial Killer
4. Fugitives
5. Drug Deal
6. Drug Lab
7. Gang vs. Gang
8. Gang vs. Surface Group
9. Gang vs. Hiver Group
10. Gang/Criminal hideout

Sub-Table 4: Hazards

1. Scalding Steam Jets
2. Poison Gas
3. Dripping Acid or Pool
4. Giant Fan Blades
5. Deep Shaft
6. Live Electrical Wires
7. Manmade Booby Trap
8. Cave In
9. Collapsing Stairs/Catwalk
10. Radiation Zone

What I’m Reading: It

Can an entire city be haunted?

This is the question the Mike Hanlon asks in the first interlude chapter of Stephen King’s novel "It". And what a "monster" (pardon the pun) of a novel "It" is (sorry again) that it took him four years to write. In fact I would be willing to bet my left testicle that this question was in fact the very seed, the simplistic what if? Snowball of an idea that grew and grew as King was compelled to produced this masterpiece of horror fiction.

Here’s the blurb from the inside cover of my copy:

Welcome to Derry, Maine….
It
It’s a Small city, a place as hauntingly familiar as your own hometown. Only in Derry, the haunting is real….
They were just kids when they first stumbled upon the horror. Now they are grown-up men and women who have gone out into the big world to gain success and happiness. But none of them can withstand the force that has drawn them back to Derry. To face that nightmare without an end, and an evil with out a name.

　
I freely admit that was not always a big King fan. I’ve read precious few of his books. This has been something that I’m slowly working to rectify. Previous to this point I've read The Stand, Dreamcatcher, and the first four books in the Dark Tower series (The Gunslinger, A Drawing of Three, The Wasteland, and Wizard in Glass). Just last year I read both Bag of Bones, and On Writing.

With the exception of A Drawing of Three I enjoyed all of his novels very much. But it was the last two books I found extremely difficult to put down. The kind of books that grips you by the balls and keeps you up all-night reading. The kind of book that refuses to loosen its firm, and tenacious grip on your family jewels. Today I myself just as helplessly addicted now. That’s right, this novel has made of me an unapologetic Stephen King crackwhore and I will suffer no intervention to save my soul.

I think it was probably the fact that Bag of Bones and Dreamcatcher both touched on the town of Derry that compelled me to delve deeper into the mythos surrounding it. I knew that the Dark Tower series had its tendrils streching throughout many of King’s other stories. Yet I had no idea that such a great number of his stories seemed to intersect with that cursed place. As I explored more I discovered that the City was first really fleshed out in his novel "It" and that the town also played a significant role in the novel Insomnia.

Like some Lovecraftian antiquarian I felt compelled to unearth things better left alone and undisturbed. According to wikipedia, Derry was King’s homage to Lovecraft’s Arkham. If that’s true and I have no idea if it is, I can see, or more appropriately "feel" the haunting similarities between these two fictional New England towns. If any Call of Cthuhu Keeper worth his salt wanted to get the proper feel for how to run a town as troubled as Arkham, then reading "It" would be a great primer.

For what its worth, I’ve been enjoying the proverbial shit out of this book. I would urge anyone into King's other books or into horror in general to pick this one up and give it a shot. Worst case scenario, you’ll have lots of kindling for you’re next fire, or a great doorstop. But quite frankly I’d be surprised if it came to that. In fact I’m sure that this book will one day be hailed as an one more American classic.

Breaking Bad: Actions & Consequences

Lately I can’t tear myself away from the boob tube as I’ve been ravenously devouring the television series Breaking Bad on DVD. As of this writing I’m a little less than halfway through the second season and it’s taking all my will power to sit here and write this post instead of slacking off and watching just one more episode. So yeah, thus far the series has been effing amazing to say the least. I highly recommend that you check it out if after reading this has compelled you to investigate further. Just be warned, viewer discretion is highly advised. This ain’t no Disney warm and fuzzy make you feel good family flick. Got it compadre?

The show’s central focus is on the continuing story of Walter White, a struggling high school chemistry teacher, who at age 50 discovers that he has terminal lung cancer. Desperate to provide his wife (in the middle of an unplanned pregnancy) and his 15-year-old son (who has cerebral palsy) with some financial security before he dies, makes the choice to cook and sell Methamphetamine. Seriously, this guy got dealt a shitty hand in life, and without revealing any spoilers its not about to get any better.

The series creator Vince Gilligan was interestingly enough, and unbeknownst to at the time I first started watching, also the writer and producer for a number of episodes of the X-Files, and the full run of the Lone Gunmen series. During the special features Gilligan spoke of how one of his mantras while workingon this particular series was that "actions have consequences".

Actions have consequences. No shit, duh we know that. But more specifically significant actions, create significant consequences and its that friction that fuels the forges of both drama and character development. That’ the very reason that I find this show so damned compelling. The drama created by Walter dealing with the often brutal and unexpected consequences that arise in the wake of him pursuing his own agenda is exciting. Forged in the fires of consequence we watch Walter in transform before out eyes from a timid middle age man into a bad ass criminal genius.

I see a parallel between the dramatic use of actions have consequences in television and other media and player characters in RPG’s. It’s my contention that as game masters we should seek to emulate this formula of significant PC actions combined with tough and unexpected consequences is the key to great dramatic campaigns. Your campaigns and stories will become richer and more compelling for it. Forged in a crucible of having to deal with the aftermath of significant choices your PC’s will transform into something more than how they began at the beginning of the campaign. Of course not every choice the PC’s make should be burdened with a trial by fire, but if used with moderation, this advice can become a powerful tool in your GM toolkit.
　
　

The Digital Dark Age

As I continue to write out my thoughts on the P.A.L.A.D.I.N. Blues campaign a thought continued to nag at me. While P.A.L.A.D.I.N. Blues is meant to be a cyberpunk police drama it’s far from the only story that could be told in this dystopian universe that has begun to take form in my minds eye.

In fact the whole idea for the Tempest System first emerged years ago from a failed attempt at another campaign I called The Saints of Los Angeles. I tell you more about that campaign later, but suffice it to say that was frighteningly similar to Firefly/Serenity. Frightening in the sense that since I had never seen an episode of the Firefly television series, nor the Serenity movie. In fact I knew absolutely nothing about the franchise at all. It blew me away at how it was possible that my own idea could be so similar.

Finally it dawned on me what it was that was bothering me. I was working on writing more than just the details to be able to run this P.A.L.A.D.I.N. Blues story arc. I was in fact creating a campaign setting that was quite capable of being utilized as shared universe. A setting that in my mind could be plundered to tell as many other stories that could be imagined. Stories told by me, or by others.

After having identified this particular issue the next step in my mind was to provide some sort of framework as to what this campaign setting was all about. I went back to my stack of spiral notebooks and took a gander. That was when I found the notes I had written for my own personal vision for a Shadowrun inspired setting of my own design. A setting I had called the Digital Dark Age.

At the time those notes were meant to be used in conjunction with Monte Cook’s Arcana Unearthed, a d20 rules variant and fantasy campaign setting. Consider the idea that if a mash up of Cyberpunk 2020 and D&D were the major inspiration for Shadowrun, then a mash up of Shadowrun and MC:AU was the inspirational seeds for the Digital Dark Age. Not a new concept by a long shot, but at the time I was pretty excited about the idea. Of course like most of my hair-brained ideas it never got off the ground. Yet the notebook and ideas endures to this day. Heck, I just might take another shot at that idea again some day. Except this time I might call it Burning Arcana, or something similarly riffing off the Arcana Unearthed or it’s updated abd expanded incarnation, Arcana Evolved titles.

So this all this is all a roundabout way of saying I’m hijacking the Digital Dark Age title and using it for this current world building project right now. Some times we have an idea that’s ahead of its time. Some times I even think our ideas are like that jar full of mixed types and sizes of screws we all have stored away on a shelf somewhere. Every once and a while we take that jar down. We rummage through it, or pour it out looking for the perfect screw for the job. Some times you might even try a few of the out to see how they fit or if it can do the job just right. So welcome friend to the Digital Dark Age. Cyberpunk roleplaying set in a new Dark Age of mankind’s far future.

Prospero’s Underhive: Hell’s Attic

Despite the fact that the entire of Planet Prospero is covered by one large city, living space here is at a premium. Prospero’s Mega-City is divided into sectors based on many of the original municipal boundaries of the cities that were first built during Prospero’s colonization period. The average citizen works for the government, or is a cog one of the massive corporations that bases their central headquarters on the planet. This means that the mid-to-high middleclass citizen on Prospero tends to live in one of the many spartan arcology complexes located throughout the city.

Citizens of Prospero’s privileged wealthy and elite class however, get to bask in the luxurious and spacious, penthouses and condominiums that scrap the city’s skyline. These veritable palaces tend towards the ostentatious, are lavishly decorated, and often sport large swimming pools and lush indoor gardens full of exotic plants gathered from the far reaches of the Galaxy.

But for many even the luxury of a basic arcology apartment is far beyond their means. For those unlucky enough to have to make a choice between food and shelter, the Underhive City of New Kowloon are all they can ever afford to live in. But even these desperate people consider themselves lucky. When the average impoverished citizen of New Kowloon considers the desperate lost souls who find themselves forced to live in the proverbial belly of the beast, they consider themselves wealthy indeed. Located deep in the bowels of Prospero there are forgotten sewers and service tunnels. Here can be found the worst of Prospero’s hive-like ghettos, and one of the most notorious of these abyssal hellholes is Hell’s Attic.

Hell’s Attic
If for some unexplainable reason you wanted to visit Hell’s Attic, the easiest way to get there would be to descend into the dark dregs of the Liberty Trench that divides central New Kowloon east and west. This dark and scary place echoes with strange sounds, reeks of garbage, and other unidentifiable smells. Junkies and other sub species of humanity wander aimlessly around in the shadow. Once here you might think that you have reached the "Attic". This would be a mistake. Your journey is just beginning and it takes you even deeper into the stinking bowels of the planet. Here you must navigate through a labyrinth of zigzagging tunnels, cross-shaky catwalks that threaten tumble fall into chasms. Then finally after what seems like an eternity of following ancient power cables and pipes encrusted with flaking mold and paint and avoiding the putrid fluids that drip from them, that you will eventually find yourself in the infamous ghetto known as Hell’s Attic.

It the "Attic" one finds an odd juxtaposition of people and places. Looking to your left you are quick to discover prostitutes soliciting their carnal services. While directly opposite of them a priest gives an impassioned sermon to a motley congregation of the desperate and hopeless. Squatting inside the burnt out shell of an ancient vehicle a young mother breast-feeds her newborn child, while she waits for her drug addicted boyfriend getting high in the flophouse across the street. Making your way deeper into these warrens of sin and flashing neon lights you can see an armed team of aid workers from the surface. Quickly and quietly they unload much needed medical supplies into the only clinic for miles around. A long line of sick and malnourished "Hivers" squat along the front wall of the clinic hoping for a small measure of food or medical aid. Across from the clinic, the thunderous bass of heavy metal rock music blazes from a gang’s clubhouse. Young hotheaded gang members can be seen inside roughhousing and drinking toxic homemade booze. On a balcony above scrawny dirty children play video games in a cheap arcade. By night the children will be kicked out and Arcade will undergo a subtle transformation into a combinations strip club and brothel. In short Hell’s Attic is a very strange complex place and difficult to generalize about. It’s a place that’s both extremely frightening and yet also a place where people continue to lead normal lives.