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General Halloween Scenario?

Baron

SOC-12
For this year's Halloween one-shot, to be played at our annual party, I'd like to introduce the group to (Classic) Traveller through a short scenario that could be accepted as suitable for Halloween. I don't have a lot of time to write something up; it would be easier if I could just modify something that's already in existence.

My interweb skillz have already unearthed The Derelict by Ben Overmyer, but a derelict spaceship is a little too predictable. Same with Death Station, but I may have to settle for this one. Murder on Arcturus Station is too involved, we'd never get it done in one session.

Anyone have any other suggestions? Remember, I need it to be short, easily completed in three hours tops. Anything that I can make appear to be somewhat Firefly-like gets bonus points, because we have several fans of the show in the group. If it's on Drivethru or one of Marc's CT CD's, bonus points. Thanks in advance.
 
I don't know what resources you have access to, but you might consider these published adventures. There may be more, but these are the ones that immediately come to mind:

JTAS #5, Amber Zone - The Werewolf Disease
The PCs are hired by a local government/company rep to capture alive a lab technician infected by an experimental virus. The technician became ill, and broke out of the lab in a rage, after subduing a security guard and taking weapons and armor. The patron will supply non-lethal weapons (gas grenades, tranq rounds, etc.) Unbeknowst to the PCs, the technician has super strength and intelligence (UPP modified to FFFCCA), heightened metabolism (treat as on Slow Drug), and heightened senses (very difficult to surprise). The tech is paranoid, wild, and sees everythin as a threat. The area surrounding the lab is mountainous/forest the tech is agoraphobic and avoids open spaces. You can play up the horror angle by describing the savagery of the attack on the guard, describing the dead animals found while tracking the tech through a dark forest (probably at night), and possibly finding the tech in his lair, possibly a cave. Not a lot of meat on these bones, but depending on your play style might last a few hours.

JTAS #16, Amber Zone - Day of the Glow
After a successful trade deal, the PCs spend an evening on the town and stay in the best hotel in the city. Upon awakening, they find the hotel is completely deserted and hear government announcements on the radio about many deaths and martial law being imposed during the emergency. The radio and power go out before completing the warning. As the PCs make their way out of the hotel floor by floor (elevators are out), they run into victims of a sudden plague outbreak, the symptoms of which are very similar vampirism: exposure to sunlight is painful, lengthened teeth (shrinking gums), dementia, and cannibalism/drinking blood. The PCs may decide to make their way to the spaceport to escape, hide and wait out the epidemic, find the vaccine that is available, join those providing aid using their various skills (medical, weapons, driving, etc.) The JTAS article outlines how to play this out on a week by week basis and provides lots of good adventuring ideas. Think "I Am Legend" meets "World War Z". You can make gameplay last as long or as short as you like by having the government come up with a cure.

The Traveller's Digest #19, The Possession Ball
Your basic haunted house story. The PCs are hired to retrieve a box from the patron's ancestor's estate/home before he sells it. The patron is very old and cannot join the PCs. The house has been abandoned for centuries, is on a remote island, damaged, without power, and dangerous to explore. The house has secret doors and a hidden underground complex. While exploring, the PCs face the dangers of wandering around the decrepit house, and hear disembodied "ghost" voices, incoherent ramblings, laughing, crying, etc. Items move about the house of their own accord, and the ghost may attack the PCs. The PCs eventually are able to communicate with the ghost and find a crystal ball in which it is trapped. The ghost exchanges the location of the box in exchange for the PCs freeing it from the ball. The box contains powerful psi drugs and a notebook of psi drug formulas. The drugs are ancient and probably ineffective, but the formulas are extremely valuable.

Spoiler warning: The estate was once a psionic research facility experimenting with transfering a psion's thought-force into inanimate objects, in this case a crystal ball. The disembodied voices are that of a psion trapped in the crystal ball hundreds of years earlier. The patron takes the box and the crystal ball and tries to weasel out of paying the PCs.
 
I have had more mileage from the Death Station adventure than any other rpg product I own.
You can change anything you want to tailor it to the group and scenario type you have in mind.

1. who hires you, or is it a random encounter in space? Corporation has lost contact with its jump space research ship.

2. what are the roles of the PCs in the investigation? Crew, boarding team, scientists?

3. where is the lab ship, how much a journey to get there? Outer system or an empty hex so a long way from help

4. exterior info - the smallcraft is missing, rumours persist it was being used for smallcraft jump research

5. gaining entry

6. the dungeon crawl and the true threat.

At every stage play on their fears and paranoia, and don't be afraid to change the nature of the threat if one of the players comes up with a great idea.
 
Return to Bowman Teaser

Return to Bowman


In the year 1108, the height of the Fifth Frontier War, jump rumblings 48 hours too early were herald to an unforeseen Jump Space Breakout mishap that has stranded the Travellers in Bowman (Spinward Marches 1132).


“General Quarters!”


“Hold onto something!”


Now the Travellers must endure overwhelming odds both external and internal to survive…


“Remember, at LSP everyone pulls their weight.”


“I don’t care what you boy scouts think. You are not Red-Zoning Bowman.”


…discover the truth…


“What was IISS doing here anyway?”


“I don’t believe it. It’s pre-Imperium, pre-Maghiz, prehistory.”


…and escape Bowman before it is too late.


“I’m afraid this entire system will have to be Interdicted, effective immediately.”


Return to Bowman is a sci-fi horror survival story where the Travellers are put through a gauntlet of challenges to survive a catastrophic tale that could spell their doom if they do not escape the world system.
 
Yes Mike, as I said I may end up using Death Station as a starting point. It's just that we did a lot of station-crawling in another campaign, so I was looking for something different.

Pakkrat, is that something you're writing up? Or something that's available out there somewhere?
 
Then there were some articles in Challenge Magazine - these aren't the only ones, but it's a good start.

issue 54, To Sleep Perchance To Scream - something wiped out the isolated research station you're contracted to make the supply run to, but what? And is it back? (well, yes, that is the adventure.)

issue 58, Demon Dark - You find an old ship with a dead crew and something may still be aboard.

issue 65, Deadly Artifact - You find an old ship with a dead crew and... ...something may still be aboard... but it's a different 'something' than the one in issue 58, honest! Just don't run both the same evening, no one will know.

They're all at drivethru rpg, all three of those issues were about three bucks a pop. They're all for MegaTraveller, but converting is easy enough.
 
I really appreciate all the suggestions, and I'll look them over, thanks. Lots of these are stations though, with a "monster" running loose. I was hoping for something a little different this time. I don't know about doing the psionics one either, but if nothing else comes across my monitor then I'll probably come up with something. The horror may come from the set-up, actually, because I have something unrelated that I might hack...
 
I really appreciate all the suggestions, and I'll look them over, thanks. Lots of these are stations though, with a "monster" running loose. I was hoping for something a little different this time.

There was one in the early Traveller Chronicle for TNE called Zhodani Brain. It was bloody and had a real 50's horror movie vibe to it (mad scientist type story).
 
See also (if you have access to it) HPPE scenario and explanations in challenge 46. It may give you some good ideas for a halloween session...
 
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