-- Under Construction -- This article has been a work in progress for several years. I will keep it as an active post to encourage discussion, and to keep it somewhere a bit more visible to encourage me to work some more on fleshing it out... Comments and questions are encouraged.
NOTE: This adventure is intended to be played by any level of experience, letting the players and the GM decide on the level of difficulty. While this game was written to take place in and around Cardania, it was originally intended to take place anywhere in the world of After the Bomb, so feel free to relocate it to wherever your campaign is taking place.
Player Background
The local government is looking for volunteers for an expedition to a distant ruined city. Pay will be the usual advance for a scouting mission (4000 Bucks), with a bonus paid at the end depending on what information is brought back. When the characters are ready read the following:
You arrive at the address listed on the posters for the scouting mission, a typical low key two story government office building of little note located downtown. Inside you are directed to a large conference room where you met by a mid level bureaucrat, who carries herself with the air of someone with a military background.
“Good day, everyone. My name is Samantha Gree, Director of Frontier Operations and I have been placed in charge of organizing the mission you have gratefully volunteered for. Earlier this week we received a report back from Specialist Devrin Chram, a frontier scout that was investigating the ruins of Gaius, a city that is said to be host to numerous hostile creations from before the Great Death. It is also rumored to be... haunted. Both of these are reason enough that most scavengers never go near the place, and those that do are said to never return. Devrin requested to investigate the rumors and the ruins to see if there was any truth behind any of them. His first report verified that there were numerous savage creatures lurking the ruins and the surrounding wilderness, and that there were no other signs other activity in the area. His last communication with us was as he was preparing to enter the ruins; that was three weeks ago. Last week we were able to tap into the game camera that he had posted at his camp, and pulled several images before the connection or the camera died. The images we recovered have caused us much concern. In the earliest images, you can see the ruins of Gaius as you expect them, but in the last few images it appears that several of the buildings have been… rebuilt.”
Gree hands out a number of printed images. These images are all taken at a good distance (approximately 5 miles), from the top of a hill overlooking the ruins. The last two images show three 10+ story buildings that look bright and shiny in the daylight, almost brand new, and another that appears to be in process of renovation (the lower portion looks brand new while the upper two thirds look as rotten as the rest of the ruins).
“Nobody can build buildings like that anymore, certainly none of the powers that currently threaten us. So, we want to know who is behind this activity and why. If this is a new power, we need to know who it is and what their intentions are.
“We will be outfitting you with a transport and communications gear, as well as cameras and video equipment to gather as much intelligence as possible. Do not engage whoever is behind this, we do not want to be seen as an aggressor on this mission; especially if they have the technology to rebuild a city. It’s a well known fact that it’s much easier to destroy a city than it is to build one…”
Game Master Information
Following her briefing, Gree is open to questions from the characters. Not much is known about the ruins other than it was one of the newer cities build during the last golden age of humanity before the Crash. Ruins like these have been notorious as scavengers magnets, but this one was always deemed taboo. Gree may not admit it unless pressed, but she has long wanted to send someone into the ruins of Gaius, and quickly agreed when Chram requested the assignment. Gree’s interest were piqued as a young girl when she heard about the city from an old human who told her that Gaius held great powers from before the fall of humanity, but that it was all now guarded from the world by the ghosts of those who perished and the monsters that they had created.
Gaius is located over 650 miles away through rough country with few intact roads and even fewer standing bridges. With the transport, it will take the characters roughly five days to pick their way to the edge of Gaius. Maps of the area are of little use for navigation, except to show possible alternate routes when the one they are on turns out to be washed out or blocked.
If the group is inexperienced or not well equipped, Gree will issue weapons and ammo, in addition to the transport, and equipment. (See mission equipment section, later in the module)
The group may, if they prefer, arrange for their own transport to Gaius, but Gree will not easily agree to subsidizing the expense unless persuaded.
Scenario Information
Gaius was one of over a dozen autonomous tech city projects that were built around the world in the years leading up to the fall of the human civilization. These cities were serviced and managed by autonomous drones and androids, and directed by the Central Civics Management System, an Artificial Intelligence system named Gaius, after the city. Humanity, now unburdened by mundane bureaucracies in these cities, were freed to pursue academic, scientific and artistic aspirations, while Gaius managed all the trivial details of daily survival. When an EMP was detonated over the city during the Great Death, the AI was shut down and the system collapsed.
In the decades that followed, bands of militants, survivors, and scavengers destroyed the the city and the few remaining automatons that still tried to service it. Gaius soon fell into ruin. The ruins are now populated by wild mutant animals from the surrounding wilderness as well as bioroids. Bioroids were genetically engineered creatures designed for all manner of purposes--mostly recreation and entertainment, but also combat. Several of these bioroids progeny still roam the ruins looking for prey.
Soon after entering the ruins, Chram encountered one of these bioroids and was hunted for several days before he finally escaped into the CCMS facility. Wounded and cold Chram repaired several systems, which inadvertently reactivated the cities AI, after which he was misidentified as an escaped bioroid and apprehended by the cities reactivated security bots.
Reactivated, and sensing the state of the city, Gaius has replicated new automatons to repair and rebuild the city, and hopes that once it is restored to its former glory, it will attract a new populace to serve and manage as it did before. Already it has sent out a small number of drones carrying the message that “Prosperity and Security await in Gaius, the city of tomorrow!”
Previous Notes: Reports of new buildings being seen in the ruins of an distant city have officials wondering who is building them and why.
A colony of constructor bots have reactivated and are hard at work rebuilding an pre-crash city. In addition they have rebuilt and reactivated the cities civil defence network which are ready to defend the city against any aggressive actions.
Reference:
http://www.gizmag.com/maintenance-drones-repair-cities-leeds/40008/
http://www.defenseone.com/technology/2014/12/why-eel-drones-are-future-naval-warfare/100500
https://www.festo.com/group/en/cms/10216.htm
https://www.festo.com/group/en/cms/10157.htm
More:
http://news.discovery.com/tech/robotics/10-animal-like-robots-that-slither-hop-run-and-fly-150403.htm
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