After posting that rather loud message on adventuring, I thought I
better put my money where my mouth is.
So, here is something I've tried out recently on the hapless
victims I lure -- uh, er -- imaginative players I invite to my
house every Saturday night.
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LET'S GO OUT TO THE MOVIES
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So far, I've sprung 3 movie-based scenarios on my players. Here
is one of them...
THEY CAME FROM BEYOND
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(inspired by INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS)
Junidy/Aramis/Spinward Marches, backdated to the year 1053, was
the location of this scenario. I've embellished the story as
enacted by myself and my players for the sake of reading
enjoyability. However, the plot-line is essentially the same as
the way it unfolded during our playing session.
The player characters were:
James L. Tiberius, an ex-cop,
Baraka "Bugeyes" Lews, his informant,
Arthur Lawrence Cage, an ex-marine visiting his old friend James.
World Background:
Excerpts from IISS survey records, on file at Junidy Down
Starport, 205/1105:
Junidy/Aramis/Spinward Marches (B434ABD-9 S) -- Junidy is a
showcase of the adaptability of sophonts. It is but a small
world, with an atmosphere too thin to support most life, yet it
is home to more than 28 billion citizens. Two species of
intelligent being make Junidy their home: Humans, and
Llellewyloly, dividing the world's population roughly in half
between them.
Llillewyloly are quintupedal (i.e., they have 5 legs), each leg
ending in a tripod of digits. The being's legs protrude from its
central hairy body which resembles a big fuzz-ball or the blossom
of a dandelion gone to seed. Their resemblance to the weed of
Earth-origin is made complete when they stand on a single leg and
fold their remaining legs up under their bodies, flamingo-style.
This is the posture they take when sleeping; it is an evolved
behavioral trait adapted for heat conservation. Because of their
appearance, the humans of Junidy often call them "dandies" and
"daddy long-legs". The llellewyloly resent the nicknames, and
regard them as vulgar racial slurs.
A llillewyloly's toes serve equally well as fingers, being only
slightly more awkward than a human's manipulators due to their
large size, but making up for it in finesse granted to it by
virtue of having its visual and audio sensory organs in its
stalks and fingers.
Llellewyloly (pronounced "yeah-yeah-wee-lolly") are fully adapted
to Junidy's sparse atmosphere, unlike their human counterparts,
who must live in pressurized habitats and use air compressors to
breath outdoors or else quickly suffocate to death.
The cities of Junidy provide the primary shelter for the humans
of the world, while most but not all llelleweloly live out in the
country.
Junidy is within but a hex or two of the Imperium's coreward
border. It is often visited by trade enclaves and merchants from
the Vargr Extents from beyond the border, and is a thriving
trading center. Vargr visitors are often seen wandering the
streets, and many of them have actually made Junidy their home.
For backdating purposes, as of the year 1053, I estimate the
world's population to have been approximately 18 billion, and its
tech level at about 8 in most areas.
The Adventure:
Baraka slammed his bony fist down onto his apartment's control
console. None of his llellewyloly contacts were responding to
his comcalls today, not a single one. It was like all the
"dandies" just left town or something.
It was funny how much information he got from the stringy
quintuped natives of Junidy. The humans of the world often
disregarded the alien sophonts as they spoke to one another. They
were too bizarre-looking to be intelligent, but they were. They
may have looked like big dandilions when in their typical
flamingo stance, but they were as intelligent as humans, some
even more so. Baraka pursed his lips tight in frustration. No
tips, no dough. It's how he made his living. He was an
informant. A street rat.
Baraka lived in the Astoria Whaldorf, a run down housing complex
on the edge of the commercial district. He was home all alone,
and was not enjoying himself.
The irritating grating sound of the door buzzer broke the
silence. Baraka reflexively flipped the com switch on the control
panel before him, and blurted involuntarily "Who is it?" A rough
monotone voice replied "Big Eddy sent us."
Big Eddy was a local crime lord, his men regulary shook down
businesses from Main Street to the Turban Desert Turnpike. Baraka
was in near panic. This couldn't be! For probably the first
time in his life, he didn't owe anybody anything, so he had no
idea why Eddy's men were there, unless he had blown his cover.
He protested, "I paid him off last week!" The vaguely strange
monotone replied through the com, "Big Eddy wants to see you." A
chill went down Baraka's spine, and his body started to shake.
He didn't want to die.
With the fight-or-flight response twisting his gut into knots,
Eddy stumbled across his apartment and retrieved his body pistol
from its hiding place in the wall vent in his bedroom, and put it
in the utility pouch at his waist. He left the pouch unzipped.
After turning up the thermal control on his jumpsuit, still
shivering he walked over to his apartment's control console and
pushed the "open" button sitting next to the master door switch.
This might be about nothing, and he'd be suspect for sure if he
didn't let them in. Then again, even if this was it, and he kept
them locked out, they could simply cut their way in with laser
drills and then torture him all the worse for resisting. Better
that he talk his way out of this one. He'd done it before, and
he could do it again. Baraka was as slippery as they came.
The doors slid apart and two burly men walked in, dressed in the
planet's customary one-piece jump suits. Baraka picked up a
printout on kluupa racing odds laying next to the console, forced
a smile, and walked halfway across the room to greet his
unexpected and unwanted guests.
"Come with us, Big Eddy wants to see you", said the bigger of the
two men. Baraka's heart pounded. This was bad, a standoff may
have been better. More often than not, people who were brought
before the boss were never seen again. Baraka noticed they were
not hoisting laser drills. He grimmaced slightly. The escorts'
faces were expressionless, their blank stares seemed to pierce
right through him. Trying to act casual and unconcerned, Baraka
answered "Oh yeah, what about?" He failed miserably in masking
his nervousness, but his guests didn't seem notice. He started
spasmodically flipping through the reams of data he was holding
as if it actually interested him.
A moment of silence went by, and then the apparent leader of the
duo responded in an almost computer-like voice, "He has some
questions to ask you." Baraka looked up briefly, and became
accutely aware of the size differential between these two men and
himself -- they were nearly twice his size. His nose darted back
down into the printout. "Questions?" he queried, "What
questions?"
The monitone resumed. "He didn't tell us. And we don't want to
keep Big Eddy waiting." Baraka's thoughts raced. He wondered
why Eddy was called "Big" in the first place, the man was only a
4'2" shrimp! The grunt Baraka had been quibbling with took a
step forward, his right hand extended forth. "Come." Seeing no
other way out of this situation, Baraka agreed to go, "Sure I'll
go, I've been meaning to pay Big Eddy a visit anyways."
He stepped forward, looked up, and handed the man his printout.
"Do you like pornographic novels? Well this one is a real
teaser!" While the man was momentarily distracted by the document
now in his hand, Baraka's free hand darted down into his open
utility pouch, and then with body pistol firmly fisted, it darted
back out and up to beneath the chin of the silent one of the two
grunts, and blew his brains out. Having built-in silencing
capability, the compact ppz24 plastic pistol barely made a sound.
It would hardly have mattered though, as each apartment in the
building was nearly sound-proof.
Adrenaline surging within him, Baraka twitched around before his
slain enemy had even hit the floor, and as he fearfully backed
away to take aim at his other would-be nemesis, he hardly noticed
the green splatters on his gun and hand. His printout fell to
the floor as the remaining brute lunged forth to grab him. As
combat-inexperienced as Baraka was, battle-shock had not yet set in,
it all was happening so quickly. But he had actually killed a
man. His first kill. Skipping backwards, Baraka fired away again
and again into the big man's chest, exclaiming, "Die, you son of
a Vargr whore!" just as he had seen in the movies. And to his
utter amazement, just like would happen in a movie, green fluid
flowed down the front of the man's jump suit, and he kept coming.
Bewildered, Baraka skipped back and around the end of his sofa,
and darted for his bedroom, aiming and firing his gun behind him.
He hit his assailant at least three more times. It stopped
momentarily, so Baraka did likewise and braced himself as he
continued shooting at it. It wouldn't go down, and just stared
right at him as he fired into it. Its eyes revealed a slight
glint of green. Then the creature in human's clothing came for
him again, and it started to scream.
The shriek it made was like a dozen sirens sounding
simultaneously, each one a steady monotone on its own, but
combined they were a polyphonic nightmare, a cacaphony worse than
a thousand fingernails being pulled across a screaching
blackboard.
The sound pierced Baraka's mind. He couldn't stand the terror of
it, it was driving him insane with fear. The sound was
unbearable, the wail of a creature that wouldn't die. The sound
of death, and it was almost on him. He tried to dart backwards
as he shot, his now empty pistol clicking as he slammed into and
fell back onto his bed. Down upon him the roaring thing came.
Baraka screamed as the mindless terror grabbed at him. He rolled
to one side and off the bed just as the creature tore at where he
was a second before. The snitch scrambled to his feet and dodged
to one side as the thing came at him again. Like the lowest of
animals, he struggled to survive. He jumped up onto the bed and
off the other side, and as the deadly beast tried to follow,
Baraka raced back out of the bedroom. He leaped over the couch,
raced past the corpse on the floor, and lunged at the panel
switch next to his front door. The screaming stopped.
Baraka slammed his fist into the panel next to the gate which was
his freedom from death. He lunged into the widening crack as the
doors started to part, a huge feeling of relief sweeping through
him as he did, but slammed into them as they suddenly stopped and
closed once again. Abject terror gripped him. In a state of
panic-verging horror, he swung wildly around to spot the creature
before it could get at him. The inhuman monster that still
looked vaguely human was standing quietly at the apartment's
control console, staring at him. Its hand was pulling away from
the apartment's master door switch.
Baraka's eyes filled with tears. It wasn't mindless. It was an
intelligent fiend. And he was trapped in here with it, his gun
out of bullets. Intense panic gripped him. He never new what
hell was like until now. He knew he was going to die. The alien
approached.
To be continued...
(Let me know if you want to read more)
Sincerely,
Roger Sanger