Mountain of the Dead

I found an article today, while checking out Reddit, about the Dyatlov Pass Accident that happened in the USSR back in 1959. This got me to thinking that it would make an interesting adventure for a Palladium game.

For some time I've been trying to come up with a story for a mystery genre adventure for AtB, and I think this might just be the one. Actually, it would work for just about any Palladium setting.

For setting this in AtB the group of ski hikers could be either Cardanian scouts looking for a pass, or a Philly Trade Caravan moving west, through the Appalachian Mountains. Reports come back a week later that the bodies of the scouts or caravan have been found dead in a remote portion of their route.

The player characters are then sent to investigate the scene and find out what happened.

Several skills would be required by members of the group (medical, tracking, survival, wilderness survival, chemistry, etc. ) to examine the scene and/or discover evidence. People skills would be required to interrogate/question locals of the last town visited.

Several red herrings would be tossed in to prevent the mystery from being too easy to solve. Of course the adventure could be designed so that there would be multiple endings for the GM to choose from like in the movie Clue.

I'll try to create something from this story and post it in a future article.