Post by torenatkinson on Aug 15, 2015 11:53:20 GMT -8
This again is not a Mutant Epoch game, but I took some inspiration from it, especially the cybernetic rules.
This campaign was set in a Nausicaa-like toxic jungle, filled with deadly spores and giant insects.
PLAYER CHARACTERS:
Rockslide - dendrophobic female cyborg, a whiz with technology (played by Jessie).
001 - big robot with flame thrower and obsession with ancient internet memes (played by Tomoko)
Manbearpig - a male humanoid bear/pig hybrid with homicidal somnambulism
Critta - a humanoid insect that speaks only in clicks but has telepathy and great grasshopper legs that allow for super-leaping.
Crayon - a small brontophobic and insectophobic humanoid chameleon with a long tongue and high stealth
Pardo - a human tracker with a shotgun
Meatsuit - human cyborg, mostly machine but with a human brain and rotting patchwork skin covering her metal body.
NONPLAYER CHARACTERS:
Pandad - a super-intelligent panda that taught his adoptive daughter Rockslide everything she knows
Trader Jo - a travelling merchant.
CHAPTER ONE: MOTHS TO A FLAME
Life is hard for everyone in the wasteland, and that includes the residents of New Town. Just ten years ago they had to abandon their settlement because the toxic jungle began to encroach upon them. Yes, the toxic jungle - home of enormous insects of every description, and colonies of intelligent humanoid "bug folk" (also known as clickers) who are immune to the otherwise insidious spores of the jungle. These spores can infect other non-insectoid animals, giving them the crazies. Infected animals eventually wander off into the heart of the toxic jungle, never to be seen again.
But now the residents of New Town have fortified their new settlement in the ruins of some pre-cataclysm factory. Pandad the mutated panda is a mechanical genius, and his adopted daughter Rockslide is a mechanical-armed chip off the old block. Rockslide has used the parts that Pandad purchased off of wandering merchant Trader Jo to create Robot Number One, a large fire-wielding battlebot filled with obsolete old world data.
Crystal Pepsi runs New Town, and when a group of clickers riding giant moths attack the supply stores of the settlement in the night, he sends Rockslide and Number One, as well as Crayon the mutated chameleon, Meat Suit the cyborg, Manbearpig, as well as Critta the mutated clicker exiled from its own jungle colony that sought refuge in New Town.
The heroes run to the scene of the chaos to find that the moth-riders are hurling fire-bombs into the settlement's supply stores. The town guards are overwhelmed and many are killed, but the heroes manage to route the insectoids and put out the fires. Only a few moth-riders get away.
After the rather intense battle, the heroes learn that while they were busy across town fighting the saboteurs, another group of clickers sneaked in and abducted Pandad, carrying him off towards the toxic jungle!
CHAPTER TWO: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
Manbearpig gets some major surgery and a bunch of painkillers to get him through his trauma. The rest of our heroes get a much needed rest and gear up tomorrow for the expedition to find Pandad. Joining the group is expert tracker and shotgun enthusiast Pardo, a human with a fear of stairs and slopes. They track the trail of the flaming moth which leads to its corpse on the plain. The rider is nowhere to be found but his tracks lead toward the toxic jungle. The group follows the tracks in and come upon some flying wasp-like bugs loitering around a green clicker's body. When Crayon falls out of a tree trying to get close to them, she disturbs some great lumbering insect that attacks the group. It plunges its stabby limb into Manbearpig's shoulder, destroying it. All the adventurers attack the monster and finally 001 burns it to death with fire.
Immediately thereafter they decide to deal with the flying bugs, but before they can can dispatch the insects, they sting Crayon and paralyze her.
Meanwhile, the group has discovered a hollow Bloat Tree. Inside the tree is a cache of hidden treasures, much of which seems to come from some place named Autonomix. There is also a map of the region.
CHAPTER THREE: IT'S GOT LEGS AND IT KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM
The group splits up the loot from the bloat tree cache, and Rockslide performs a successful 8-hour surgery attaching a cybernetic arm on Manbearpig. Crayon searches the ruins of a building nearby and finds some assorted items in an old toilet, including sex toys and Pepto Bismol.
The group heads north into the sinkhole zone, and begins to cross a giant sinkhole via a giant tree's root system. As they get about halfway across, numerous giant mites clamber out of holes in the tree and begin attacking. They drive most of them off but then are attacked by an enormous centipede which injects Pardo with terrifically painful venom. Crayon is so afraid of the beast that she falls off a root and falls over 90 feet onto rocks below, but miraculously survives. Manbearpig and Critta manage to ride the creature and when Manbearpig pulls out its antenna it too falls into the sinkhole, never to be seen again.
CHAPTER FOUR: HIVE ISLAND
The group finds another bloat tree and nurses their wounds.
In the morning, they continue north towards the red clicker colony, and before long they encounter the red clicker sentinels at the border of their domain. Critta parleys with the clickers and the clickers tell her that the New Towners can follow the clickers back to the hive, but only five of them. The group leaves 001 and Rockslide behind and follow the clickers to the lake. At the lake, one of the clickers puts their drum on the water surface and repeats a beat on it, and soon a bunch of giant mutated water striders stride towards them. The clickers instruct the heroes to get on the water striders but Crayon is so freaked out by the insects that she faints. Critta picks her up and carries her along with the group.
On the island at the center of the lake, they are greeted by Pandad and a strange green mutant who introduces himself as Pylon. He explains he was raised by the clickers and is an honorary member of the colony. Pandad explains that the clickers kidnapped him to help them with a problem. Pandad then beckons the group down into a chamber inside a bug mound where they find a dead clicker - but this is a green clicker not a red clicker. Not only is it from that other more aggressive, larger clicker colony, but it is also fitted with many cybernetic parts. Pandad invites the group to take a closer look, and they notice that although it has spear wounds all over it, it has been dead for a while. Yes, green clicker corpses animated by cyborg parts are roaming the toxic jungle, killing creatures and hauling them back into the jungle. But to where? Pandad explains that Trader Jo knows.
Trader Jo has gone to the old church, deeper in the toxic jungle, but he didn't tell Pandad why. He did say to Pandad that if he doesn't return soon to send someone after him. The clickers had hoped that Pandad could figure out how to defeat these robotic monsters, and they decide they need a strike force to enter the source of the cyborgs. Pandad was going to go back to New Town to gather a force, but now luckily he doesn't need to!
The heroes mount giant dragonflies and travel with some of their new clicker allies towards the old church as it starts to rain. They hear gunshots and hurry to the church where they see Trader Jo battling a half dozen of these cyber-clickers. The heroes attack! After a terrific battle the last cyber-clicker is destroyed and they have a word with Trader Jo.
Jo tells the group that the cyber-clickers are coming from an old world facility called Autonomix. She came to the church to collect some supplies out of a hidden cache - namely, some C4 explosives. The group pulls all the cyber-clickers together and Pandad begins to disassemble their bits.
CHAPTER FIVE
The group decides to camp in the shelter of the church while the storm rages. Trader Jo explains that she can take the group to the Autonomix facility, and that they can either enter it from the surface, which will be crawling with cyber-soldiers, or go in through a back way that she knows which will involve caves and swimming. She also offers two methods to deal with the enemies - C4 explosives or using the Hack-o-Tron 5000 mobile computer system that she produces from her courier bag.
Pandad learns that the cyborgs are battery-powered, that they have a receiver/transmitter, and have a computer interface in their head. He puts a bunch of components in a sack that he can bring with him. After a time more red clickers show up and explain that the dragonflies aren't coming back during the storm, which continues unceasingly.
Critta, Pardo and Manbearpig each take a cyber-clicker's transmitter, hook it up to a battery and keep it on their person. Then they begin the trek towards the Autonomix facility. About half way there they stir up a literal hornet's nest underneath their feet. As they fend off the giant vespids, a cybernetic dog corpse comes out of the foliage and seems to examine them. Manbearpig, 001 and Rockslide also encounter another cybernetic green clicker zombie as well as a cyber-zombie human. The zombies appear to be waiting for something, but when that something never comes the dog attacks Crayon. Crayon scrambles up a rock face while the rest of the group attacks the zombies. One of the clickers knocks out Rockslide and begins to try to carry her away but 001 destroys it with punches. The dog is also finally disabled.
Meanwhile, the giant hornets keep coming out of their hive, but Crayon dips her arrows in peanut butter, jelly, and sugar and then shoots it at the dog corpse. The hornets take the bait and begin to carve up the dog corpse with their mandibles.
The last standing cyberzombie begins to flee the scene but Pardo gives chase and cuts it down with his shotgun. The group collects more transmitters from the four fallen cyberzombies, and continue trekking forward. When Trader Jo tells them they are getting close to the facility, they all stop and build a falling log trap in the woods, hoping to lure a cyberzombie into it to collect another transmitter. When a hovering robot drone detects them all, they are unsure what to do. The drone seems to scan each of them and then takes off back towards the facility.
They continue waiting and finally they hear some more activity in the foliage nearby. Manbearpig tries to lure whatever it is into the trap, and finally succeeds when a cyberzombie human tries to interface with him. The trap crushes its torso and they cut off its head.
CHAPTER SIX
Our heroes, each with a cyber-transponder, proceed towards the facility. They see a large antenna stretching into the jungle canopy. Drones hover, circling the compound. Two large domes, crumbling relics from the old world, are guarded by cybernetic men and a dog. The group follows the trail towards the entrance and guards do nothing to stop them. Inside the ancient building, they use Trader Jo's Autonomix pass cards to open doors. They detect a tiny creature hiding in some rubble with a cybernetic human eye, but they ignore it and proceed past a cybernetic dead chimp into the elevator. They notice what look like security cameras pointed at them.
On the second level, they move through a seemingly derelict workshop, offices, and toilet. They reach a cargo lift, and activate it down to the third level, where they find a cargo hold stacked not only with barrels and crates, but also dozens, perhaps scores of dead bodies. They are watched over by a maintenance bot. Crayon gums up the security camera while Pandad deactivated the robot and took its pass card so that they can open the door to the medbay. In the medbay they see six cybermen seemingly recharging along the walls. There is also a medical robot which they use to heal their wounds. Pandad reprograms the droid to sedate anything that comes in the room after they leave.
The group proceeds to the next room - a laboratory - where a robot is working on a cyborg. As they begin exploring the room, a person comes out of a door and that person seems to be an exact duplicate of Trader Jo. The duplicate says "what do you hope to accomplish here?"
Trader Jo responds "we are here to shut down this facility"
The rest of the group demands to know what is going on. Trader Jo explains that she is an android, created by Autonomix hundreds of years ago before the Great Calamity. She and her android friend wandered the wastes for some time until her friend was tragically destroyed. When Trader Jo finally discovered this Autonomix facility with a whole cadre of new androids, she got to work reactivating them. These new androids however, were not interested in becoming her allies, and instead got to work with a plan to exterminate biological life and replace them with cybernetically-controlled corpse-soldiers. Trader Jo managed to escape the Autonomix facility and has since been working on a plan to thwart them, thus bringing the wasteland heroes into this predicament.
The android warns the group to leave or be destroyed. The heroes launched at the android but she pressed the alarm and everyone could here and see doors opening. The cybermen from the medbay began charging towards them, and Pardo threw a grenade into their midst. During the fray, Pandad moved away and started working on a remote detonator for the C4 explosives they had brought with them. More cybermen came out of other doors and somebody grabbed a keycard from the incapacitated android to open the door from which he appeared. It opens into a control room filled with more Trader Jo androids, all busy at their terminals. Crayon, Trader Jo, Manbearpig, Pandad, and Critta storm into the room but the androids opened fire with their pistols. They also close the door behind, separating the party into two small groups.
In the lab, Pardo and 001 are dealing with numerous cybermen, and then another door opens revealing a huge cybernetically enhanced gorilla corpse. It steps over its fallen allies and drills a giant hole into 001. Pardo lobs one atomic grenade and one fragmentation grenade at the ape and in so doing, disintegrates 001.
Trader Jo tries to wrestle the facility controls away from one of the clones, but is laid out. Pandad finds a free terminal and begins to hack into the network. Critta is killed but so is the gorilla finally, and then Pandad puts all of the cyborgs into sleep mode. And android shoots Pandad to death while another android slips away, making her escape. The last remaining android surrenders but the group terminates her in short order and sends out a signal for all the cyber-creatures to return to the facility where they will either deactivate or repurpose them.
A ceremony is held for Critta, Pandad and yes even 001. They gave their lives to save the world!
THE END.
This campaign was set in a Nausicaa-like toxic jungle, filled with deadly spores and giant insects.
PLAYER CHARACTERS:
Rockslide - dendrophobic female cyborg, a whiz with technology (played by Jessie).
001 - big robot with flame thrower and obsession with ancient internet memes (played by Tomoko)
Manbearpig - a male humanoid bear/pig hybrid with homicidal somnambulism
Critta - a humanoid insect that speaks only in clicks but has telepathy and great grasshopper legs that allow for super-leaping.
Crayon - a small brontophobic and insectophobic humanoid chameleon with a long tongue and high stealth
Pardo - a human tracker with a shotgun
Meatsuit - human cyborg, mostly machine but with a human brain and rotting patchwork skin covering her metal body.
NONPLAYER CHARACTERS:
Pandad - a super-intelligent panda that taught his adoptive daughter Rockslide everything she knows
Trader Jo - a travelling merchant.
CHAPTER ONE: MOTHS TO A FLAME
Life is hard for everyone in the wasteland, and that includes the residents of New Town. Just ten years ago they had to abandon their settlement because the toxic jungle began to encroach upon them. Yes, the toxic jungle - home of enormous insects of every description, and colonies of intelligent humanoid "bug folk" (also known as clickers) who are immune to the otherwise insidious spores of the jungle. These spores can infect other non-insectoid animals, giving them the crazies. Infected animals eventually wander off into the heart of the toxic jungle, never to be seen again.
But now the residents of New Town have fortified their new settlement in the ruins of some pre-cataclysm factory. Pandad the mutated panda is a mechanical genius, and his adopted daughter Rockslide is a mechanical-armed chip off the old block. Rockslide has used the parts that Pandad purchased off of wandering merchant Trader Jo to create Robot Number One, a large fire-wielding battlebot filled with obsolete old world data.
Crystal Pepsi runs New Town, and when a group of clickers riding giant moths attack the supply stores of the settlement in the night, he sends Rockslide and Number One, as well as Crayon the mutated chameleon, Meat Suit the cyborg, Manbearpig, as well as Critta the mutated clicker exiled from its own jungle colony that sought refuge in New Town.
The heroes run to the scene of the chaos to find that the moth-riders are hurling fire-bombs into the settlement's supply stores. The town guards are overwhelmed and many are killed, but the heroes manage to route the insectoids and put out the fires. Only a few moth-riders get away.
After the rather intense battle, the heroes learn that while they were busy across town fighting the saboteurs, another group of clickers sneaked in and abducted Pandad, carrying him off towards the toxic jungle!
CHAPTER TWO: WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE
Manbearpig gets some major surgery and a bunch of painkillers to get him through his trauma. The rest of our heroes get a much needed rest and gear up tomorrow for the expedition to find Pandad. Joining the group is expert tracker and shotgun enthusiast Pardo, a human with a fear of stairs and slopes. They track the trail of the flaming moth which leads to its corpse on the plain. The rider is nowhere to be found but his tracks lead toward the toxic jungle. The group follows the tracks in and come upon some flying wasp-like bugs loitering around a green clicker's body. When Crayon falls out of a tree trying to get close to them, she disturbs some great lumbering insect that attacks the group. It plunges its stabby limb into Manbearpig's shoulder, destroying it. All the adventurers attack the monster and finally 001 burns it to death with fire.
Immediately thereafter they decide to deal with the flying bugs, but before they can can dispatch the insects, they sting Crayon and paralyze her.
Meanwhile, the group has discovered a hollow Bloat Tree. Inside the tree is a cache of hidden treasures, much of which seems to come from some place named Autonomix. There is also a map of the region.
CHAPTER THREE: IT'S GOT LEGS AND IT KNOWS HOW TO USE THEM
The group splits up the loot from the bloat tree cache, and Rockslide performs a successful 8-hour surgery attaching a cybernetic arm on Manbearpig. Crayon searches the ruins of a building nearby and finds some assorted items in an old toilet, including sex toys and Pepto Bismol.
The group heads north into the sinkhole zone, and begins to cross a giant sinkhole via a giant tree's root system. As they get about halfway across, numerous giant mites clamber out of holes in the tree and begin attacking. They drive most of them off but then are attacked by an enormous centipede which injects Pardo with terrifically painful venom. Crayon is so afraid of the beast that she falls off a root and falls over 90 feet onto rocks below, but miraculously survives. Manbearpig and Critta manage to ride the creature and when Manbearpig pulls out its antenna it too falls into the sinkhole, never to be seen again.
CHAPTER FOUR: HIVE ISLAND
The group finds another bloat tree and nurses their wounds.
In the morning, they continue north towards the red clicker colony, and before long they encounter the red clicker sentinels at the border of their domain. Critta parleys with the clickers and the clickers tell her that the New Towners can follow the clickers back to the hive, but only five of them. The group leaves 001 and Rockslide behind and follow the clickers to the lake. At the lake, one of the clickers puts their drum on the water surface and repeats a beat on it, and soon a bunch of giant mutated water striders stride towards them. The clickers instruct the heroes to get on the water striders but Crayon is so freaked out by the insects that she faints. Critta picks her up and carries her along with the group.
On the island at the center of the lake, they are greeted by Pandad and a strange green mutant who introduces himself as Pylon. He explains he was raised by the clickers and is an honorary member of the colony. Pandad explains that the clickers kidnapped him to help them with a problem. Pandad then beckons the group down into a chamber inside a bug mound where they find a dead clicker - but this is a green clicker not a red clicker. Not only is it from that other more aggressive, larger clicker colony, but it is also fitted with many cybernetic parts. Pandad invites the group to take a closer look, and they notice that although it has spear wounds all over it, it has been dead for a while. Yes, green clicker corpses animated by cyborg parts are roaming the toxic jungle, killing creatures and hauling them back into the jungle. But to where? Pandad explains that Trader Jo knows.
Trader Jo has gone to the old church, deeper in the toxic jungle, but he didn't tell Pandad why. He did say to Pandad that if he doesn't return soon to send someone after him. The clickers had hoped that Pandad could figure out how to defeat these robotic monsters, and they decide they need a strike force to enter the source of the cyborgs. Pandad was going to go back to New Town to gather a force, but now luckily he doesn't need to!
The heroes mount giant dragonflies and travel with some of their new clicker allies towards the old church as it starts to rain. They hear gunshots and hurry to the church where they see Trader Jo battling a half dozen of these cyber-clickers. The heroes attack! After a terrific battle the last cyber-clicker is destroyed and they have a word with Trader Jo.
Jo tells the group that the cyber-clickers are coming from an old world facility called Autonomix. She came to the church to collect some supplies out of a hidden cache - namely, some C4 explosives. The group pulls all the cyber-clickers together and Pandad begins to disassemble their bits.
CHAPTER FIVE
The group decides to camp in the shelter of the church while the storm rages. Trader Jo explains that she can take the group to the Autonomix facility, and that they can either enter it from the surface, which will be crawling with cyber-soldiers, or go in through a back way that she knows which will involve caves and swimming. She also offers two methods to deal with the enemies - C4 explosives or using the Hack-o-Tron 5000 mobile computer system that she produces from her courier bag.
Pandad learns that the cyborgs are battery-powered, that they have a receiver/transmitter, and have a computer interface in their head. He puts a bunch of components in a sack that he can bring with him. After a time more red clickers show up and explain that the dragonflies aren't coming back during the storm, which continues unceasingly.
Critta, Pardo and Manbearpig each take a cyber-clicker's transmitter, hook it up to a battery and keep it on their person. Then they begin the trek towards the Autonomix facility. About half way there they stir up a literal hornet's nest underneath their feet. As they fend off the giant vespids, a cybernetic dog corpse comes out of the foliage and seems to examine them. Manbearpig, 001 and Rockslide also encounter another cybernetic green clicker zombie as well as a cyber-zombie human. The zombies appear to be waiting for something, but when that something never comes the dog attacks Crayon. Crayon scrambles up a rock face while the rest of the group attacks the zombies. One of the clickers knocks out Rockslide and begins to try to carry her away but 001 destroys it with punches. The dog is also finally disabled.
Meanwhile, the giant hornets keep coming out of their hive, but Crayon dips her arrows in peanut butter, jelly, and sugar and then shoots it at the dog corpse. The hornets take the bait and begin to carve up the dog corpse with their mandibles.
The last standing cyberzombie begins to flee the scene but Pardo gives chase and cuts it down with his shotgun. The group collects more transmitters from the four fallen cyberzombies, and continue trekking forward. When Trader Jo tells them they are getting close to the facility, they all stop and build a falling log trap in the woods, hoping to lure a cyberzombie into it to collect another transmitter. When a hovering robot drone detects them all, they are unsure what to do. The drone seems to scan each of them and then takes off back towards the facility.
They continue waiting and finally they hear some more activity in the foliage nearby. Manbearpig tries to lure whatever it is into the trap, and finally succeeds when a cyberzombie human tries to interface with him. The trap crushes its torso and they cut off its head.
CHAPTER SIX
Our heroes, each with a cyber-transponder, proceed towards the facility. They see a large antenna stretching into the jungle canopy. Drones hover, circling the compound. Two large domes, crumbling relics from the old world, are guarded by cybernetic men and a dog. The group follows the trail towards the entrance and guards do nothing to stop them. Inside the ancient building, they use Trader Jo's Autonomix pass cards to open doors. They detect a tiny creature hiding in some rubble with a cybernetic human eye, but they ignore it and proceed past a cybernetic dead chimp into the elevator. They notice what look like security cameras pointed at them.
On the second level, they move through a seemingly derelict workshop, offices, and toilet. They reach a cargo lift, and activate it down to the third level, where they find a cargo hold stacked not only with barrels and crates, but also dozens, perhaps scores of dead bodies. They are watched over by a maintenance bot. Crayon gums up the security camera while Pandad deactivated the robot and took its pass card so that they can open the door to the medbay. In the medbay they see six cybermen seemingly recharging along the walls. There is also a medical robot which they use to heal their wounds. Pandad reprograms the droid to sedate anything that comes in the room after they leave.
The group proceeds to the next room - a laboratory - where a robot is working on a cyborg. As they begin exploring the room, a person comes out of a door and that person seems to be an exact duplicate of Trader Jo. The duplicate says "what do you hope to accomplish here?"
Trader Jo responds "we are here to shut down this facility"
The rest of the group demands to know what is going on. Trader Jo explains that she is an android, created by Autonomix hundreds of years ago before the Great Calamity. She and her android friend wandered the wastes for some time until her friend was tragically destroyed. When Trader Jo finally discovered this Autonomix facility with a whole cadre of new androids, she got to work reactivating them. These new androids however, were not interested in becoming her allies, and instead got to work with a plan to exterminate biological life and replace them with cybernetically-controlled corpse-soldiers. Trader Jo managed to escape the Autonomix facility and has since been working on a plan to thwart them, thus bringing the wasteland heroes into this predicament.
The android warns the group to leave or be destroyed. The heroes launched at the android but she pressed the alarm and everyone could here and see doors opening. The cybermen from the medbay began charging towards them, and Pardo threw a grenade into their midst. During the fray, Pandad moved away and started working on a remote detonator for the C4 explosives they had brought with them. More cybermen came out of other doors and somebody grabbed a keycard from the incapacitated android to open the door from which he appeared. It opens into a control room filled with more Trader Jo androids, all busy at their terminals. Crayon, Trader Jo, Manbearpig, Pandad, and Critta storm into the room but the androids opened fire with their pistols. They also close the door behind, separating the party into two small groups.
In the lab, Pardo and 001 are dealing with numerous cybermen, and then another door opens revealing a huge cybernetically enhanced gorilla corpse. It steps over its fallen allies and drills a giant hole into 001. Pardo lobs one atomic grenade and one fragmentation grenade at the ape and in so doing, disintegrates 001.
Trader Jo tries to wrestle the facility controls away from one of the clones, but is laid out. Pandad finds a free terminal and begins to hack into the network. Critta is killed but so is the gorilla finally, and then Pandad puts all of the cyborgs into sleep mode. And android shoots Pandad to death while another android slips away, making her escape. The last remaining android surrenders but the group terminates her in short order and sends out a signal for all the cyber-creatures to return to the facility where they will either deactivate or repurpose them.
A ceremony is held for Critta, Pandad and yes even 001. They gave their lives to save the world!
THE END.
