"Survival Course", © 1994, 2000-2005 by
Paul Lucas,
originally appeared in _Challenge_ #74 (pages 52-55).
Text-entry & HTML by: Steve C.
The player characters are invited along on a two-week survival course taught by an old friend of theirs, Pierre LaSalle. Among the others in the course is Gregore Charlois, a high-ranking bureaucrat in the French government. He is the target for assassination by a group of French nationals who oppose the current Imperial government. This group has hired Morris Kirkland, an assassin who specializes in using advanced robots in his hits. Morris goes along on the outing. Several days into the course, the party is attacked by a horde of robot assassins under Kirkland's direction. Armed only with bows and knives, the party finds itself trapped in an alien jungle with only limited options.
This scenario is designed for up to four adventurers. A copy of Beanstalk is recommended for play, as the adventure takes place on the British continent of Beta Canum Venaticorum-4.
Pierre La Salle, Survival Instructor: Pierre is a Veteran Frontier NPC. He is a native of Beta Canum, and in recent years has returned from abroad to settle down. He possesses extensive knowledge of the wildlife of all three settled continents.
NPC Motivation: Middle Spade and Queen Clubs: He takes personal responsibility for the safety of the group, and is a stern teacher who hates to be contradicted.
Gregore Charlois, French Bureaucrat: Gregore is an Experienced Core NPC. He has worked in the French government for three decades through a variety of administrations and governments.
NPC Motivation: Minor Joker and High Spades: Gregore is undergoing a mid-life crisis. He feels he has to prove his manliness in the most dramatic ways possible. This survival course is just the latest in a number of similar programs he's joined to this end. He often uses his position to bully others into getting his way.
Morris Kirkland, Assassin: Morris is an Experienced Core NPC. Though only 30, he has made quite a reputation for himself in the underworld by using his technical expertise to facilitate kills. He almost always works through custom-designed robots.
NPC Motivation: King Clubs and Queen Spades: Morris loves violence, and perpetrates it as often as possible just to see something wrecked. However, he becomes obsessive if thwarted, and will pursue botched kills to the exclusion of all else.
Others: It will be up to the referee to fill out the half-dozen or so others who will go with the party into the jungle. Suggestions for characters include real or would-be mercenaries, sportsmen, survivalists, and curious college students.
When the party is between jobs on Beta Canum, one of the PCs will meet Pierre, an old friend from yesteryear. Pierre asks the PC on a night of drinking and reminiscing, during which he will invite the PC and his friends along on a survival course he's teaching on the British continent. He offers to pay for expenses, for "old times' sake," and promises they will have fun and learn something in the bargain. If the party balks at the invitation, Pierre will casually mention that some notables from the French government are also going along, and it would be a good place to make some potentially useful contacts.
If the PCs accept Pierre's invitation, they are to meet him one week later in Foliage, a small coastal town on the edge of the rain forest that makes up much of the southern British continent. From here, it is explained, the group will be lifted via cargo zepp to a point 50 kilometers into the jungle and left off. From there, the survivalists will have to hike back to Foliage over the course of the second week.
The group will spend three days in the town, preparing for the sojourn. Everyone will be issued a basic medkit and a 200-kilometer range communicator. They are also given crash courses in first aid, poison treatment, hygiene, group discipline and equipment handling.
It is also explained - and highly emphasized - that no advanced technology, aside from medkits and communicators, will be allowed in the jungle. Part of the reason for taking the course is to test one's mettle against nature, and Pierre fervently believes that is impossible when one can simply obliterate all obstacles with automatic weapons fire and the like. Allowed arms include compound bows, crossbows, machetes, knives and axes. Nonrigid armors are allowed but not recommended; such heavy garments in the hot jungle can quickly lead to dehydration and heat exhastion. Any character who does not comply will be dropped from the course.
Some characters will no doubt attempt to sneak some modern ordnance into the jungle anyway. Small handguns and objects of like size will be a Routine task to sneak past Pierre; normal pistols and singular grenades will be a Difficult task. Anything larger or in quantity will be Impossible. Any discovered contraband technology will be confiscated by Pierre for the duration of the time in the jungle.
Other equipment issued to each person will be as follows: backpack, sleeping bag, tent, rain poncho, thermally insulated blanket, knife, compass, two canteens, 30 iodine tablets, flashlight, 50 all-weather matches, mess kit and 25 man-days of rations. Other equipment, such as fishing line, rope, duct tape and so on, is up to the discretion of the individual participant.
During the several days at Foliage, the PCs will have the chance to mingle with the other participants. Pierre will be a friendly but stern taskmaster; Charlois acts gruff and gung-ho, but is really nervous and unsure; Kirkland will be obnoxious and snide, and will always seem to be smirking at some private joke.
The survivalists are lifted to their drop sight 50 kilometers deep into the jungle. They are left off at a well-used camp site where the group members will spend the first week acclimating to their new environment.
The Beta Canum rain forest is somewhat more friendly toward humans than a similar environment on Earth. Because of the incompatible biochemistries, there is no danger of malaria, dysentery or other infections that are all too common hazards in Terran jungles. Even most organic poisons developed as defenses by various Beta Canum life forms have only limited effects on humans in moderation. Even so, there are still many dangerous indigenous creatures to be aware of (see Beanstalk, pages 46-48, for full descriptions of some of these), and there is the constant obstacle of the nuisance insects, treacherous terrain, oppressive heat and sweltering humidity.
Pierre will lead short sorties into the jungle over the next few days, to give everyone a chance to get used to moving in the rain forest. Kirkland will refuse most of the sojourns, spending a great deal of time alone in his tent. He is busy covertly assembling his master remote unit which he had to sneak in with him in component parts. The rebels who hired him already air-dropped his special "packages" in the nearby jungle several days before.
On the third day in the camp, while everyone else is out with Pierre on a fauna identification outing, Kirkland completes his remote and activates all 36 cyberspider units in the surrounding bush. He orders the robots in the direction of the survivalist group. If for some reason or another a character has stayed behind, Kirkland will now attempt to kill him with his concealed Traylor Model 57 handgun. If a PC has stayed behind, assume Kirkland kills (or thinks he kills) him. Either way, he leaves camp immediately afterward, heading north. He is to be picked up 10 kilometers further in the jungle 24 hours after the activation signal is sent. The robots are programmed to ignore Kirkland's personal IR signature. The remote unit he is using requires special codes for operation known only to Kirkland.
About an hour after remote activation, the first cyberspiders will reach Pierre's group. Having been air-dropped over an unexpectedly wide range by an incompetent pilot, the widely scattered units will not be able to attack en masse as Kirkland had hoped. Rather, they will attack sporadically in small groups over the next several hours.
The first attack of 1D10 robots will take the group by surprise, dropping out of the trees and jumping from out of the bush. The automatons will attack anything that fits a hunan's distinctive infrared silhouette and olfactory signature. Make sure several incidental NPCs die horribly in this first engagement, to strike home the danger the party is now in. A second wave of 1D6 cyberspiders will strike the group 30 minutes later. See the section on cyberspiders elsewhere in this adventure on how to handle these units during combat.
After the first two attacks, the party should be shaken if not in complete disarray. In all likelihood, several NPCs and/or PCs will be dead or wounded. If they attempt to radio for help, they will find that their com units are being jammed, and they will be ineffective beyond 10 meters range.
One of the first actions that the party members will likely take is to make their way back to base camp in order to pick up equipment, supplies and/or persons left there. Most likely, Kirkland and his equipment will be gone, and any character left behind will be dead or seriously wounded.
Some of the courses of action available to the party from this point are listed below:
Make a Stand: The party decides to dig in and fight off the attacks by the cyberspiders. The campsite is a broad open field about 30 meters across and should give them a clear field of fire. They should also attempt to erect some form of defenses, such as shallow trenches, stake rows or pit traps. PCs who deduce that the robots are using infrared sensors might think of using the thermally insulated blankets to hide their IR signal. This won't fool a unit's olfactory sensors, but it might confuse it for several critical rounds. The robots will attack the base camp in swarms of 1D10 units at intervals of 1D6 hours until all units are destroyed or until their batteries wear down 72 hours after activation.
Flight to Foliage: The party decides that remaining in the alien jungle with an army of murderous robots is suicide, and attempts to get out with all possible speed. If the PCs opt for this strategy, they will be able to make about one kilometer per hour in the dense growth of the rain forest. Unlike the robots, however, the humans will have to stop and rest every couple of hours, leaving them vulnerable to attack from the cyberspiders who will be one step behind them the entire way. Once they reach the village, they should be able to find shelter and call for assistance.
Pursue Kirkland: Reckless or vengeful PCs may decide to go after Kirkland despite the danger from the cyberspiders. The assassin will have a lead on them, but he is no woodsman, and the party should be ablt to catch up to him within half a day. Kirkland will fight desperately if cornered, calling the robots to him to attack the party en masse. If things go against him, he will drop the radio jamming and call for his terrorist employers to bail him out. Twenty minutes later, an unmarked X-wing close support gunship (Adventurer's Guide, page 59) will show up. The helicopter will first target Kirkland to ensure his silence, then the PCs. The assassin, knowing he's been double-crossed, will throw in with the PCs if he survives the first assault. Though the group has nothing that could possibly be effective against the gunship, the dense jungle growth should readily cover their escape. Kirkland's demise will not stop the cyberspider attacks.
The Scotty Special: Electronically inclined PCs may opt to rig up a device that will override the robots' commands via radio. Cobbling the device together from the group's communicators, medical scanners (included in the medkits), and perhaps some wrecked robots, the task for constructing it in such extreme conditions is Formidable and has a time increment of two hours. Once it is built, the task to unscramble the command codes is Difficult if a portacomp is handy, Impossible if one is not.
If Charlois has somehow managed to survive the ordeal, he will be grateful to the PCs for their help, saying that he owes them a big favor. This may be called upon immediately or at some future date, and can take the form of money, work or connections. Also, because of their experience, allow each PC to gain a level of 0 in Jungle Survival skill in addition to any other experience points earned in this scenario.
If Kirkland managed to escape, the referee may continue this adventure by having the party try to track him down before he leaves the planet. If Kirkland has thrown in with the PCs and lives long enough to confess, the party will learn of the conspiracy against the French government. What they do with this knowledge is up to them.
Cyberspiders originally appeared in the article, "New Cyber Equipment" by Michael LaBossiere, in Challenge 43. What appears below is an updated and modified version.
A cyberspider is a small robotic unit controlled by a partially organic central processor. Each four-legged unit has a main dome-like body measuring 10 centimeters in radius and four centimeters high. The central housing contains all of the unit's main components, including its main weapon, a poison injector needle. This needle has enough force to penetrate normal clothing but little else. The poison inflicts a DPV of 0.5 for four rounds after it is injected. The spider has enough poison for four injections. Kirkland has replaced the polymer "web" spinners in the unit's legs with powerful actuators that allow the robot to jump up to three meters. He has also installed leg barbs to assist it in climbing the jungle fauna. In this way, the automaton can leap from the tree to tree in the jungle for locomotion.
The cyberspiders' thermal sensors are limited to a range of 10 meters. Their olfactory sensors are about half as sensitive as an average dog's, being able to pick up any significant spoor within 10 meters of the unit. It can follow a scent trail less than 12 hours old.
Each spider has a Life Level of 3 and an armor value of 0.2. It possesses no significant signature. Because of its size and dexterity, it is Difficult to hit and has an Initiative of 8. Each spider costs about Lv 400 to make, plus Lv 25 for each poison dose.
Cyberspiders are very single-minded creatures in combat. Once a target has been acquired, they will pursue and attack it relentlessly. A unit will typically inject all of its poison into one particular subject, ensuring a kill. It will use the ample growth of the jungle to their advantage, striking from out of cover whenever possible.
During this adventure, the PCs will be forced to rely on these archaic weapons. A character with Combat Rifleman skill can use crossbows at half the level of that skill. Bows require their own special skill category.
Rockwell Sherwood-III Compound Bow: Type: 60-pound draw sporting compound bow Country: Great Britain Weight: 2 kg Length: 1.1 m (Bulk=2) Action: single-shot Ammunition: 900mm x 10mm hunting arrow Ammo Velocity: 200 mps Ammo Weight: 0.15 kg per shaft ROF: 1 Aimed Fire Range: 100 meters DP Value: 0.8 Price: Lv 100 (Lv 1 per arrow).
Rockwell MARC-7 Crossbow: Type: 100 pound draw light sporting crossbow Country: Great Britain Weight: 2.5 kg Length: 75 cm (Bulk=2) Action: single-shot Ammunition: 600mm x 10mm hunting bolt Ammo Velocity: 300 mps Ammo Weight: 0.1 kg per bolt ROF: 1 Aimed Fire Range: 150 meters DP Value: 1 Price: Lv 90 (Lv 1 per bolt).