The Glassworks

After the feint, the strike! This dungeon came out a little more vanilla than I expected it to, I think because the initial idea that I was excited about (Cenobites haunting a construction site) is actually just very close to any given demon-haunted elfgame ruin. So it goes!

This is the OST, I have been on another Mica Levi kick recently. 

The Waste Ground

These two structures are built in what Baronials would think of as the 'Modern' style - stone walls, but for industrial use, not fortification. The southern structure has two tall chimneys built into it. The structures are noticeably unfinished; there is no roofing on anything. Crude and probably-intended-to-be-temporary wooden shacks are built in clusters over the top of the stone shell. At night, the tallest of these, which is situated on the third level and has multiple rooms, is lit up as though with lanterns. 

The ground around the structures is totally bare of plant life for around fifty metres, as though salted or poisoned. If you touch it with bare skin, you feel irritation. If you have a large part of your bare skin, say your face or whole arm, pressed into contact with it for several seconds, you must save CON or take 1 caustic damage. 

When it rains, this whole area turns to mud. If you find yourself knocked prone into this mud, you must save CON or take 1 caustic damage every turn until you take a full turn to wipe the stuff away. Not having skin, or being fully sealed into armour or protective gear, will protect you.

The Foundations

All thick walls are mortared stone, 5ft thick. There is a lot of masonry being supported by the foundations. Thin walls are timber, on timber framing, unpainted and unsealed. All floors are earth, or stone beneath the stone walls. The sense is of a space under construction, not a finished building. 

There are no ceilings over most of the space. The enclosed timber rooms have crude timber roofing, and some sections are layered over by a second level of stone construction, and are covered by the flooring of this second level (these are noted in their room descriptions). The rest of the space is open to the elements. When it rains the floors turn to mud, as described in The Waste Ground, above. 

Timber walls can be dismantled and beaten down with blunt weapons, sledgehammers, crowbars, etc. They were not sturdily made in the first place, and the elements have degraded and rotted them. 

Columns are the same stone as the walls, and rest on stone foundations. 

Large doors are iron, and set into the stone walls with iron fixings. None have locks fitted. Small doors are ramshackle timber coverings, many of them not even hinged (you lift them into and out of place). There are several 'secret' areas; void spaces between wooden walls. There are no hidden entrances into these - the inhabitants of the space simply remove or tear down sections of wall to access them, and then rebuild them afterwards.  

While exploring the foundations, roll on the following encounter table once per half hour:

• 1-11: Nothing. The wind moves over the walls, tiny sounds carry, the rude structures around you are as still as corpses. 
• 12-15: Stealthy movements further in, a door opening in the next room, banging on hollow timber walls, footsteps running above you. Further rolls on this table are at +2. 
• 16-18: 2d6 Feral Cats, bug-eyed, mange-ridden, hissing and yowling. 
• 19-20: d4 Deadites, weeping, laughing, arguing in horrible gurgling voices, muttering obscenities, trying to remember each other's names. If all of them have been killed, treat this result as a 21+. 
• 21+: A Demon, wearing someone's body like an ill-fitting jacket, come down from the upper levels to investigate the commotion. Roll on the table to determine which. 

There are 12 Deadites in the location, and enough Feral Cats around that you can never kill enough to stop them appearing on the table. 

The Foundations. Click to make it bigger. 

Room Key - Foundations

1. Engines. Enclosed with a stone ceiling, and completely dark. Reeks strongly of decay, blood, and filth, stronger the closer you get to the wooden eastern wall. Along the northern wall are four wooden wheelbarrows, and 3 wooden pull carts, all useable. Along the southern, boxes of iron pulleys and hooks (rusty but serviceable), 300ft of rotted rope (unusable), a box full of folded sheets of waxed cloth. By the southern door is a large chest full of iron articulated limbs; replacements for mannequin bodies, rusted to immobility. 
2. Tools - Site. A wooden table, and iron racking fastened into the stone walls. On the racks hang 6 sledgehammers, 5 picks, and 8 shovels. On the table are 4 hammers, a bucket of 4-inch iron nails, six chisels, a wooden mallet, a crowbar, a hand saw, a crowbar, and a pair of long-handled wire cutters. Also a green-glass bottle of acid, and an expensive-looking drinking glass of good, clean drinking water. All tools show signs of use, and all are oiled and well maintained. 
3. Rest. Wooden benches and rough shelving. The benches are rotten like the walls, but still safe to sit on. Whatever was once stored on the shelving has putrified into mould and brown liquid. 
4. Sundries. Rusted iron hooks fastened into the walls, pulped paper in heaps on the wet floor. One hook holds the remains of a canvas bag, the rest are empty.
5. Pantry. Dry and well-maintained, compared to the other wooden rooms in the section. Sturdy timber shelving holds large sacks of wheat, beans, and flour, each requiring a combined STR of 24 to move. Higher up, clay jars of salt, vegetable oil, and tallow fat. There are 200 rations worth of food in here, and the whole is probably worth around 1000s if you can transport it. 
6. First Garden. 22 large ceramic pots are spaced along the walls of the space, which is open to the sky. Each contains a healthy and vibrant collection of leafy greens or tubers. If you know your ingredients you will see this immediately. There are also four smaller pots hanging from hooks secured to the wooden walls of 5. Pantry - these contain cooking herbs of various kinds. Harvesting the crop in her will yield 30 extremely tasty rations, and the herbs can additionally season up to 20 iron rations to make them perfectly palatable. If you encounter Deadites in this space, they will be tending to the plants, pruning, watering, etc. This is the only thing they can do without any difficulty, frustration, or hesitation.
7. Second Garden. Open to the sky. Elaborate wooden planters take up much of the central area; these are planted with tomatoes and strawberries, among other more common baronial crops. Any adventurer knows that this should be impossible - those are mountain crops. There are 4d6 ripe tomatoes, each worth 2s, and 6d6 ripe strawberries, each worth 3s. There are additionally, another 50 very high quality rations in tubers, cresses, and other crops. Along the southern edge of the space are sixteen pots containing thriving jasmine plants, which are in flower and smell wonderful. Several have been placed by the stone pillars, and have used them as climbers. The stone pillars would have held up a second level, which was never built - now each stands alone, twined with flowers.  
8. Dismemberment. The air in here is close, and smells of blood. A long wooden table along the northern wall, heavily bloodstained. A well-handled light cleaver and light paring knife sit on the surface, clean and recently sharpened. Iron buckets beneath the table, stained like the rest. 
9. Stitching, Preservation. Two large and sturdy wooden work benches, installed to the north of the three useless stone pillars. One has shears, thread, sinew, needles, and awls like a leatherworkers workshop, all useable gear for a specialist. The other has three empty iron tubs, 24 glass bottles full of various preservatives, a large glass bottle of white spirits, and a block of wax about a metre long, partially melted. The preservatives are valuable to a chemist, and could each be sold for 40s; they are 3 to a slot, but extremely fragile. They are also flammable. 
10. Fertiliser. Smells faintly of the latrine, but more strongly of damp and sawdust. Four large, ceramic dishes are filled with excrement, potash, and sawdust, and covered with waterproofed tarpaulin, weighted down with stones. 
11. Tools - Garden. Wooden surface against the western wall, which houses four pairs of secateurs, five trowels, 20ft of copper wire, an oil lantern, and three watering cans. A rake and hoe lean against the wall. All tools are well-kept and obviously recently used. 
12. Library. Unlike the garden areas, has a stone ceiling. Smells really bad, like blood and shit, and worse as you get towards the western wooden wall. The staircase is bare stone, and leads into the second level of the complex. It has no guard rails. There are four rotted wooden chairs scattered around, and two ancient bookcases, each holding 4d6 books, and draped in a waterproof sheet of tarpaulin. The books are mostly fiction, and all are of poor to middling quality. They have not been selected with any particular subject in mind, and quite a few are bloodstained or torn up. If you encounter Deadites in this room, they will be huddled around a single oil lantern, seated in the chairs, and holding their books up to their ruined eyes. If you let them read without disturbing them, they will smile, laugh, and discuss choice passages with one another until they notice your presence. 
13. Secret. A secret stash of money and valuables stripped from the corpses of travellers and other adventurers who got too curious about the glassworks. All of the following are loose, and dumped without ceremony: 2d6 gold coins, 100+10d60 silver pieces, 4d6 pieces of jewellery, each worth 100+2d100 silver, 4d6 pieces of fashionable clothing, torn and bloodied and stamped into the mud, and now worth nothing. 
14. Trap Space. A jumble of sharp metal, broken glass, razor wire, spikes, and putrid offal and waste. Slightly pressurised against the walls, to punish those searching for secrets. Smells nearly unbelievably foul. If you smash through the walls into this space without taking precautions, who will need to save DEX or take d6 slashing or piercing damage. If you fall in here, or are thrown in, you take d10 slashing or piercing damage, or d4 if you are wearing heavy armour. Anyone who takes any damage from the contents of this room must save CON or take an additional d6 poison damage. Whether or not they save, their wounds will become infected unless properly sterilised, and they are exposed to a random disease. 
15. Third Garden. This space, outside of the overhang area between the stone pillars, is open to the sky. Four very large wooden tubs each hold an apple tree, three others hold pear trees. The fruit is ripe and very sweet - 10 rations worth. In the open area beneath the overhang, iron chairs and an iron table have been set up. A large straw hat and a bottle of good whiskey worth 50s lie on the table. 
16. Charcoal Storage. Six massive sacks of charcoal pushed against the wall, each far too large to move by hand. This is an industrial quantity of material, worth around 2500s if shifted. The floor and walls are dirty black, and footsteps track both in and out of this room. 
17. Sand Storage. Twenty four large sacks of sand, each one mobile with a combined STR of 40. The sand is not local, and would have been expensive to import. To a glass-maker with the capacity to make use of it (rare in the Barony), this would be worth 3000s. A long wooden shelf run along the eastern wall. On it rests an unlit but fuelled lantern, and a strange knife, apparently made from a single piece of glass. Counts as a light weapon -1, which shatters inside its target on a critical hit. This deals d6 damage per turn the target moves or acts, until they spend a turn fishing it out (which also triggers the damage). On a critical miss, it instead shatters in your hand and deals d3 broken glass damage. 
18. Shrine. An iron table with a blasphemous timeline painted onto its surface in thick white paint (it appears to show all events of the past and future finding their temporal origin in the present, a curious and historically rare heresy). A small, lit ceramic oil lamp burns on the table, and 48 tally marks have been made on the wall above it, in the same thick white paint. The first tallies are old, and the last ones very fresh. Otherwise empty. 
19. Northern Furnace. The iron door open outwards, and have been barricaded with iron and wooden poles, such that neither they, nor the door to 20. Southern Furnace, can be opened. The doors have been painted with white paint, with what looks like a finger: DO NOT OPEN. DO NOT OPEN. WE ARE DEMONS AND WE SAY: DO NOT OPEN. Inside the furnace the floor and walls are covered in a contiguous mass of black, solidified glass. Its surface has been chipped and broken after it cooled, and walking on its surface without shoes (or being grappled on it without armour) deals d2 slashing damage, with a DEX save to negate. Rom the Strangler sits against the western wall, completely still.
20. Southern Furnace. The iron doors are blocked up just like those to the north - if you clear one, you also clear the other. The inside is packed with a thick layer of charcoal and sand, ready for firing. It would take a bit to catch, but once lit it would function as designed, and produce a large mass of glass, which would cool and harden over the next 24 hours. 
21. Scrap Metal. A continuation of the open space of 15. Third Garden, and similarly open to the air. Empty save for two huge steel bins full of broken and twisted scrap metal, and a small portable iron forge installed against the northern wall. If you fall inside the bins for some reason, or are thrown in, you take d10 slashing or piercing damage, or d4 if you are wearing heavy armour. The forge is unlit, but functional. The staircase is stone, and leads up to the covered area between the stone pillars. It has no guard rails. 
22. Record. Thousands of lines of diaristic writing, variously scratched and painted into the stone, eastern wall. There are many different hands, and much of the writing is concerned with remembering things, especially people's personalities and preferences, and the specifics of relationships with them. There is also plenty of material about missions and targets, and about the preciousness and beauty of sense data. Very weirdly, to a Baronial, there is emoji use (as in :( and :), not modern emojis). A lot of the stuff on the wall is very sad, and a lot of it is coldblooded, violent, and frightening. Someone studying it for a couple of minutes will discern 14 distinct hands. 

The Upper Levels

The Upper Levels are of the same stone and timber construction as the foundations. The long, thin 'corridors' that run around the outside of the two stone rooms are actually wooden gantry structures secured into the stone - they have no hand rails, and are slippery and not in good repair. Adventurers travelling carefully can traverse them without issue, but if you had to sprint across them in the rain or similar you would need to save DEX or fall. 

As with the foundations, the ceiling and roofs were never installed over the stone superstructure, but the wooden rooms are all fully enclosed with rough timber. As with below, the state of the timber is not good, and walls can be bashed down and pried apart fairly easily. 

The Deadites are not normally allowed onto the second level, although they will happily chase you up there in the heat of conflict. 

For every 15 mins spent exploring the Upper Levels, roll on the following encounter table. Unlike most other encounter tables, the one for the Upper Levels uses a d6. 

• 1-3: Nothing. The sky above you, the wind. 
• 4-5: You can hear them; you can almost smell them. Further rolls on this table are at +1. 
• 6: A Demon, staring at you from behind a corpse's face, fixed and unblinking. Roll to see which you encounter. 
• 7: 2 Demons, hunting together. Randomly determine which. 
• 8+: All remaining Demons in the module. 

The Upper Levels. Click to make it bigger. 

Room Key - Upper Levels

1. Glass Blowing/Books. Fully enclosed with a rough timber ceiling. Along the northern wall are iron bench tops with the necessaries for glass blowing, a small iron stove, powdered pigments in glass jars, and iron bins beneath the tabletop filled with chunks of raw glass. Resting on shelving fastened into the wall are blown-glass wares of various types, mostly glasses and bottles (4 slots worth in all, worth 100s, very fragile), but also a light glass knife (as in 17. Sand Storage), 8 glass darts (as light darts, but shatter inside the target on a crit), and 24 glass bullets (as normal bullets, but improve their damage dice one step against unarmoured or lightly armoured targets, and decrease it one step against heavily armoured targets). All glass wares are transparent, and stained in bright primary colours, either white, blue, red, green, yellow, or black. Along the southern wall are wooden bookshelves, with 37 volumes, each individually wrapped in waxed cloth to protect them from the damp of the room. 12 of these are treatises from gnostic academics, discussing the wars of the future, 25 of them appear to be original manuscripts on the same topic. All are written in the same hand. They are highly technical and unbelievably verbose, but contain original research of a very high standard. To a specialist from the capital academies each would be worth 200s easily - the church would pay the same to have them destroyed, and kill you for owning them if you refused. 
2. Blood/Spare. Towards the back of the room is a thin, three-foot-tall glass amphora on an iron stand. It is obviously bloodstained, but currently empty. Pushed against the western wall is a large iron trunk, which is bolted shut from the inside. If you can get it open you will discover a folded up and decapitated human corpse, with a large red-glass glass centipede head positioned where the human one should be. Close inspection will reveal that the verminhead is hollow, and secured to the corpse with a long glass spike thrust down the neck. If you smash this centipede head, the demon Once Was Forethought will no longer be able to cheat death using its spare body. 
3. Kitchen. A clean and well-kept kitchen space, enclosed and brightly lit with two lamps. Wide wooden surfaces against the walls, chopping boards, salt, red wine, and oil in glass jars, a tin basin full of clean water, a potbelly stove, a small pile of firewood by the door. Two light paring knives and one light meat tenderiser are laying on the surfaces. Fresh herbs hang in twine bundles from the ceiling - 2 inventory spaces, enough to flavour 20 iron rations. 
4. Chimneys/Mirrors. Open to the elements. Eight large, chipped, tarnished, and filthy mirrors stand against the walls. Entities won't want to be in this room, and will take 1 psychic damage per turn that they are forced to. The two chimneys jut up through the floor and into the empty air. If the southern furnace has been fired, the southern chimney will be hot enough to deal d6 damage to anyone pressed against it. The opening in the north wall has obviously been smashed open with hammers. 
5. Gantries. Wooden, rotting, slippery, with no railings. If you have to run on them and it's raining, save DEX or slip and fall. The stairs in the northwestern corner lead up the the third level, and the Homestead. 
6. Gold/Smut. This room is fully enclosed. The walls are covered in gold and brass objects of all sorts, attached with iron nails or on small, provisional wooden shelves: there are coins and jewellery, but also gold-leaf carved picture frames, brass candlesticks and other domestic objects. There are 116 gold coins, jewellery worth 850s (2 INV slots), and various sundries (14 INV) worth 90s all up. Against the southern wall are two watertight sea chests - neither is locked. Inside is a large collection of literary and pictorial erotica, most of it cheap and clearly produced in the capital, but some from further afield, and a very few from the White City. The whole collection would be worth 100s to a bookshop, or 300s to an aficionado, but there is nothing truly rare or valuable in the stash. 12 INV worth of books in both chests. The room is lit with two candles in oversized brass candlesticks, and the burnished surfaces of metal glow pleasantly. 
7. Bedroom. An oddly well-appointed bedroom, kept more watertight than the rest of the timber structures, and furnished in the style of the capital - threadbare rugs, soft furnishings on the walls, low wooden furniture, a large and comfortable looking bed. A single book from the smut collection lies open and pages-down on the pillow. 
8. Hot Growth. This room sits about about 40 degrees. it has been sealed with pitch, and houses a small, smouldering iron stove in one corner. If the exterior is rained on, it will visibly steam. Inside there are 8 large glass containers, filled with earth and extremely vigorous plant life. There is no light in the room, and the growth will feel unnatural to the PCs who discover it. Most of the containers are growing beautiful orchids, each worth 50s if you could get them to the capital unspoiled (as difficult to transport as any fresh flower). One of them has a Black Lotus, which can be used to make a very potent hallucinogen infamous for erasing memories and entire personalities, or an extremely potent poison. The flower of the Black Lotus is worth 200s fresh, and 80s dried. If you eat them the flower preparing it, you lose d3 WIS and CON, but gain d3 CHAR. 
9. Antechamber. The hole in the stone wall has obviously been smashed in with sledgehammers. This room is empty, cheerful, and dry. Three ragged but tasteful rugs on the floor. 
10. Meditation. A mostly bare room, with a sitting cushion in the centre of the floor and a lit candle placed in front of it. Next to the candle are two ground-glass lenses on wire stands. 
11. Bodies. Eight naked human corpses, stuffed with sawdust and preservatives, all with a second pair of arms sewn on beneath the armpits. They are have been carefully folded into foetal positions, and sit against the western wall in a row. 
12. Armoury. Weapons arranged on the walls with iron hooks: 2 muskets, 3 pistols, 6 spears, 12 medium swords of various makes, 6 light daggers and shortswords. Two complete sets of medium armour on stands. All of this equipment is well-maintained. On a small wooden table are seven strings of wire, twisted to incorporate rough chunks of glass along their lengths. 
13. Restraints. Loops of wire securely fastened to the northern stone wall. There are six sets of loops, and they can be loosened or tightened with a timber twisting bar. Each set has wire loops that clearly correspond to the neck, upper and lower arms, torso, and thighs of a human. The wall behind them is darkly stained. Currently empty. 
14. Storage. A storage room full of metal and carved wood sculptures covered in waterproof cloth. These are amateur works, and not worth much, even to a collector. There are also around forty large painting canvases, also wrapped up, leant against the wall. They are mostly studies for portraits, and few chaos scenes. The quality and confidence is generally higher than the sculptures, but these are still not worth anything. Finally, there are 18 medium-sized woven tapestries, wrapped in waterproofing - these are of very high quality, and each worth 200+d4(100) silver. Each is bulky and awkward - 8 INV. 
15. Gallery. This room is clean and brightly lit with two lanterns hanging from the ceiling. The walls have been whitewashed. Two large paintings on board have been hung for viewing. The first is a portrait of the Weaver, and has obviously been painted by someone who is in love with her. It is very beautiful. The other is a chaos scene, well realised and completely competent, but without the ease and confidence of the portrait. The portrait might sell for 20-30s to a sentimentalist. 

The Homestead

Unlike the rest of the Glassworks, the Homestead is sturdily built from new timber. The interior is dry, clean, and inviting. There are glass windows in all rooms, which gives it excellent natural light. 

There are no wandering encounters in the Homestead. 

The Homestead. Click to make it bigger. 

Room Key - The Homestead

1. Kitchen/Dining. A large, bright, and spacious room. Smells of good cooking. An iron stove, a wood pile, a large table, six chairs. The table is covered in sketches on cheap paper. The Weaver and the Painter are seated, talking together about nothing much, just to pass the time in one another's company.
2. Studio. Comfortable soft furnishings. The northern side is dedicated to paintings, and has pigments, brushes, and half-finished boards scattered around. The southern side features a spinning wheel and a distaff, and is where the Weaver will make her tapestries and tell your fortune, should you ask her to. 
3. Bedroom. Simple, clean, comfortable. Good light. A large bed, and walls decorated with the Painter's work. A light smallsword hangs on the wall, but neither the Weaver nor Artist really know how to use it. 
4. Bathing. An empty iron tub, a basin full of fresh water, a small iron brazier, currently empty. A shaving razor and a small shard of mirror on an iron stand. 

Bestiary

Feral Cats

Packs of feral cats roam the foundations, predators and carrion-eaters, sustained by the steady supply of corpses left by the more permanent inhabitants. Sleek, silent, intelligent, and very dangerous in large packs, even to seasoned adventurers. Each is about the size of an Alsatian. 

HD1, claws (as dual-wielded light slashing), unarmoured, speed: twice human, disposition: territorial, skittish, prey-stalking, opportunistic. On a positive reaction roll, a group of Feral Cats will simply run past you at top speed, hissing and spitting, like a horrible feline carpet. 

Feral Cats move completely silently, see in the dark, and don't take fall damage. Their attacks deal +1 damage against targets with less than half of their HP remaining, and they attack these targets preferentially. 

A Feral Cat that rolls max HP is an Abomination, and can speak with the voice of a human child. It doesn't understand what it's saying, but knows which stock phrases will get adventurers to investigate or let their guard down, mostly stuff like 'Please help me,' or 'I'm so scared...' Abominations can also see invisible things. 

Deadites

Demons whose minds have regressed into near-total incoherence. Each has made their way individually to the Glassworks following rumours of safety for their kind. Now they murder travellers for bodies and supplies, under instruction from the stronger-willed demons who live above. The Deadites use hand-me-down corpse-puppets in various stages of decomposition, significantly held together with wire. They are enthusiastic but unreliable workers and guards, given to bouts of depression, confusion, fear, and rage. 

HD2+1, armed as weapon: 1/3 unarmed, 1/3 improvised (mostly gardening tools, secateurs, rakes, watering cans, etc.), 1/3 light (knives, clubs, shards of glass, etc.). Unarmoured, movement: as human whose tendons are fucked, disposition: someone who does no longer trusts their own mind, and who has been socialised into violently killing people who contradict or frighten them. Their voices are from the throats of corpses, horrible, gurgling, insane. 

Deadites with 9 or more HP are puppeting fresh corpses; they roll all damage and grappling checks at +1, and take -1 damage from physical attacks.

Deadites with 4 or less HP are nearly completely decomposed. They can't talk, roll all damage at -1, and take +1 damage from physical attacks. 

Deadites who roll full hp look unnervingly human and alive, if slightly pale, and can talk in a normal voice. Their puppets were probably killed less than 48 hours ago. 

Their possessing minds are too far gone to really persist after the destruction of the body, but when they die, the one who struck the killing blow must test CHAR. On a failure, they suffer -1 to all mental stats for one hour, as the dregs of its consciousness scream incoherently into their ear as they dissipate. You don't have to test if you killed the Deadite using psychic damage. 

If any of the Deadites see you carrying any of the produce from the Gardens, they will assume that you are thieves and attack on sight. They are less covetous of dry goods and valuables. 

Dramatis Personae

The Demons

Powerful and intelligent future minds, whose various missions have been completed (or forgotten), and who have banded together in the Glassworks for mutual security. They command the Deadites, and fear losing their minds and becoming like them. All of them are fiercely protective of the Homestead on the third level. Unlike most demons, they are not aggressive on sight and actually enjoy company. They won't let you leave, and will probably torture, rob, and kill you, but see no point in rushing this unnecessarily. 

All demons will survive the destruction of their puppet bodies, but it will take them at least two days to gather the strength to possess a new corpse. If slain by psychic damage, they are destroyed permanently. 

When you need a specific demon, roll on the following table:

1. Disgust Which Is Fear
   
   Disgust Which Is Fear looks like a handsome, naked, smiling man with an extra pair of arms stitched onto his body beneath the normal pair. It has wrapped and draped its host entirely in strings of wire and glass, shaped and worked to resemble expensive jewellery. 
   
   HD4, hideous strength (technically unarmed, but attacks four times as with a light weapon), unarmoured but takes -1 from all physical damage, speed: as human, disposition: cruel and notably narcissistic. It automatically crits prone targets with its attacks. The demon most likely to kill you on sight, for no reason at all.
   
   Disgust Which Is Fear wears hundreds of pieces of worked glass and wire. These are worthless and have a resale value around 30s as odd costume jewellery, but aesthetes and artists have a 50/50 chance of either valuing them around 5000s, or doing anything in their power to have them destroyed. 
   
   Disgust Which Is Fear never stops smiling and never blinks. It delights in throwing victims into the large bins in 21. Scrap Metal, and stamping them to death there. 
   
   
   
2. Once Was Forethought
   
   A rotting woman's corpse with a black-glass wasp's head where the human one should be. The glass head is roughly the size of a human's, and has a spike at its base that has been driven into the neck of the puppet body. Its compound eyes constantly weep fresh water. Once Was Forethought has no mouth and cannot speak, but it can write, and carries a quill and ink for the purpose. It has dressed its rotting puppet body in finely-made but soiled robes, out of half-remembered modesty. It holds a long, heavy sword, of the same black glass as its head. 
   
   HD2, heavy glass sword, which shatters inside the target on a crit, as the glass knife in 17. Sand Storage, turning into a medium glass sword. If it shatters again, it is a light glass sword. After it shatters for the final time, One Was Forethought will be unarmed. Unarmoured, takes -1 damage from physical attacks, speed: as human, disposition: curious, bookish, calculating, but also a lover of filth, rot, and degradation. Has a special hatred for visibly religious characters, and will probably attack them on sight. 
   
   The glass wasp head is hollow, and can 'drink' the blood of restrained or freshly killed enemies by inserting needle-like mouth parts. Each turn that it spends doing this gives Once Was Forethought a single point of temporary HP, to a maximum of 20. When you encounter it for the first time, it is already 1/4 full and Once Was Forethought has 5 temp HP. All bludgeoning melee weapons and firearms count as vorpal against this demon. Smash the blood head!
   
   If it dies, Once Was Forethought immediately 'wakes up' in the spare body stashed in 2. Blood/Spare. If both of these glass heads are destroyed, Once Was Forethought is killed permanently. 
   
   Once Was Forethought studies the future and the history of the timeline, and considers itself a learned gnostic. It maintains correspondence with human scholars, and even publishes on the topic. It may spare your life in exchange for books or perspectives on the topic that it has not yet come across. 
   
   
   
3. Desolation
   
   A fat, nude corpse, with iron teeth and iron hands, elaborately made-up with cosmetics and perfumes. Desolation's puppet corpse always smells exactly like the person that you most desire.
   
   HD4, bite (as medium piercing, crit range 19-20), pummel (as medium bludgeoning x 2), unarmoured, but takes -1 damage from all physical attacks, bewitching scent (-1 to hit Desolation in melee), speed: as human, disposition: really likes talking to people, and will try to keep a conversation going in any way that it can. Pitiable in this, but confident and calm when talking about things that they enjoy: mostly cooking, gardening, and their friends in the homestead. Palpably doing its best to keep things together mentally, but fraying badly. Terrified of madness, and of showing weakness to the other demons. 
   
   Desolation is a supernaturally gifted chef, and tends the foundation gardens with the help of the Deadites. Eating one of its meals, provided that it has both the time and ingredients it needs to work, will give you d3 temporary HP. 
   
   
   
4. Mire of Hatred
   
   Mire of Hatred puppets an enormous White Ape corpse, cut up and mangled, with the top half of its head cut off and replaced with a tall crown made from wax. The puppet corpse's jaws and throat are still intact, and a small spider lives in its esophagus, through whose eyes Mire of Hatred can see. To look at you, the demon must open up the jaws of the ape puppet so that the spider can see out. 
   
   HD4, Claws that Catch (as medium +1 weapons, dual-wielded), armour: as leather and takes -1 from all physical attacks, speed: as human, disposition: impatient, good-humoured, physical, brusque, funny. Loves gold, beautiful things, and the taste of blood. Might spare your life in exchange for high quality erotica or pornography, but forgets promises easily. 
   
   If you find yourself in a grapple with Mire of Hatred, the spider in its throat will crawl out attempt to bite you as you struggle. Each turn, save CON. If you fail, you are stunned for 1 turn, and lose 1 CON and 1 INT permanently. If you kill the spider, which has 0 hp and cannot usually be independently targeted, Mire of Hatred will be permanently blinded, immediately panic, and start trying to kill everything around it, friend or foe.

Disgust Which Is Fear and Mire Of Hatred violently despise one another, and will avoid contact where possible. Once Was Forethought doesn't think much about the other demons at all. Desolation fears the others greatly, and might be induced to act rashly against them if pushed. 

Rom the Strangler

Rom the Strangler is a very ancient and utterly reviled demon, even by others of its kind. It looks like a featureless iron mannequin-body, with its metal hands stained a strange, glistening red - not like blood, closer to high-gloss car paint. Rom is accompanied by a feeling of nearly indescribable heavy foulness and despair.

HD4, iron fist x2 (as heavy bludgeoning weapons), armour: as plate, iron body (takes 1 damage per physical attack), movement: frighteningly fast, twice human speed, completely silent, disposition: nightmare abuser, driven to batter and humiliate its victims before it kills them. 

Rom's attacks drain 1 CHAR every time they hit - save CHAR to resist this. If both Rom's attacks hit the same target in a single turn, they are now being strangled. Both Rom and the target are unable to move for the duration, and the target must save STR at disadvantage each turn, or take d10 damage, and permanently lose d4 from all mental stats. If they successfully save STR, they break free and end the strangle, otherwise both are locked in place until one of them is killed. Melee attacks against Rom while it is strangling someone hit automatically. 

All damage dealt by Rom is also dealt as fear damage. 

If Rom's puppet body is slain, its mind will remain faintly visible as something like a heat haze in the air above it. To someone with Artist or Academic templates, or someone who can see invisible things, it it visible as a human-shaped white nothingness, a hole in the universe. Seeing it this way, or being within 10ft of it whether or not you can see it, deals d6 psychic damage per combat turn. This mind-form will fade over 48 hours, and will then recohere somewhere else in the world. It will recohere even if you kill it with psychic damage - no one has figured out how to kill Rom for good yet. 

Rom never has anything to say. 

The Painter

A young man who was born in the capital. The husband of the Weaver. His name is Parvel, and he loves his wife, and gets along well with the demons, who keep him in food and paint. In return he offers them a strange kind of friendship; he talks about painting, about human emotions, about the capital. No longer ambitious, having found his happiness. Loves to cook. Aware of how the demons operate, but has convinced himself that most people wish him and his wife harm, and so has made peace with it. Stats as commoner. 

The Weaver

A clever and funny young woman, with bright eyes and long red hair. Loves her husband, and sees the future. In the Barony, predication and statistical modelling are noble, even religious sciences - they are said to be the method by which God manages its timeline. Genuine prophecy is an obscenity. The Weaver, whose name is Galen, was nearly killed by the church when it was discovered that she had visions of the future, and fled the capital with Parvel nearly five years ago. They found the demons haunting the glassworks, and struck up an unlikely kinship. All of the demons know about her gift, and all are terrified of it - they like her a lot though, she is very personable. She keeps Parvel grounded, and he helps her with her cyclical depressions. Stats as commoner. 

If you ask her to, and she likes you, Galen might tell you your future. All adventurers know that prophecy is extremely dangerous, even functionally a type of curse. Make sure that your player knows that if their characters decide to have a prophecy told, they will probably die. 

The Distaff and the Spinning Wheel

If Galen agrees to tell your prophecy, it will involve her weaving you a tapestry. This will take her two months, and she will ask for 800s for the service. She will also shave your head, and take some blood, to weave and dye into the finished object. 

Your PC can ask a single question of Galen when she begins her work, of the type you would ask an oracle. Will I find love? Should I invade Carthage now, or wait until Spring? Will I find a great treasure? etc. 

Once the tapestry is finished, Galen will interpret it. She will usually answer your question in a positive or affirming way - you will find love, a great treasure, you should invade Carthage, etc. This is not certain - sometimes Galen will be unable to see anything, in which case she will apologise and refund your money. 

If she does give you a positive response, she will also give you a warning, also of the type an oracle would give: beware water, beware fire, beware dogs, beware your deadbeat sons, etc. 

The DM will then do everything in their (substantial! Godlike!) power to make both of these things come true. The usual assumptions of the game can be bent and subverted to enable both. The DM will be cheating to give you something that you want, and then cheating to try to kill your character. 

All adventurers know not to fuck with oracles.

A Failed Dungeon - Space Patrol Officer!

This was going to be an entry into the great and storied Dungeon Duel I have going on with Loch. I realised half way through writing it that I didn't like it, mostly because I didn't want to write up a dungeon that was basically Guantanamo Bay. 

I think that there is something in that if you're doing it with serious intention, but with the extreme darkness of the current moment it was not something I could open myself up to in good faith. I've included half a dungeon, some tables, and a few bestiary entries here, because someone may enjoy them, even in this fragmented state.

The Duel continues of course.  

-

More high level content for the Barony! Courtesy of Loch's prompt The Distaff and the Spinning Wheel, with which I have taken enormous liberties. OST for this one is the collected works of System of a Down, trending more towards Toxicity and the self titled album, and less towards Hypnotize/Mesmerize. 

Note: this is quite different in tone to other Barony content. I am generally against canon as a rule, but I probably wouldn't run this for a group who were happy with and invested in the scope and stakes of a 'normal' Barony game. YMMV, in this and all things. 

PART ONE: RED PATROL SHIP

The Red Patrol Ship lies smashed and fire-scarred in the vibrant uncoloured sands of the Blazing World. The deep track of its flaming descent and 'landing' are clearly visible. The Dreamlands are abuzz - nothing should fall from the skies in the Blazing World. There is nothing there. This should not happen. 

You and your companions have heard the rumours, have heard of the fear and confusion of the Prince. He has issued a decree: none are to approach the vessel until he says otherwise. 

Like anywhere in the Dreamlands, if you can keep it in your mind it is simple enough to get there.  

The Approach

The Ship is about twenty minutes walk into the desert of the Blazing World from the nearest outcrop of dream architecture. The tracks of armoured soldiers leading out into the wastes are still clearly visible - someone who knows what they're doing might estimate 30-40 people marching in ranks and files. 

When you arrive you will see the Red Patrol Ship: a large arrow-shaped capsule made from wood, iron, and glass, with fins, nozzles, piping, and other machinery crawling over its surface, all of it far too advanced for this setting. To a Baronial PC it looks a bit like a boat, or maybe a White City balloon if they've seen one of those. But it is also clearly alien, even here in the land of dream. 

You will also see that it has been invested by a contingent of orcs, sent by the Prince to secure the site and ascertain the intentions of anything aboard. You are in a desert without cover - it would be very difficult to approach the site without being seen. They are led by Captain Victarion, who will shout a warning from a distance of 100ft or so.

"Stand where you are! This is restricted area, and you trespass against the will of the Prince. If you approach further I will not hesitate to order the use of lethal force."

Captain Victarion commands 32 Uruk Housecarls; 11 have already been killed, 6 are with him at the perimeter, and the remaining 15 are still engaged with whatever is inside the ship. See the Dramatis Personae and Bestiary sections for their stats. 

If you can somehow convince Victarion that the Prince wants you here, he and his men will enter the Red Patrol Ship with you as allies. 

If you kill Victarion and his men, and it becomes known that you've done so, you will become wanted fugitives in the Dreamlands. 

The Red Patrol Ship

The crash landed ship has been breached and entered by Uruk troops through something that looks like an airlock, in room 4. Everything inside the ship is built at about twice human scale. There are no wandering encounters in the Red Patrol Ship, all inhabitants are keyed. 

All walls and doors are steel, and doors are twice human scale. Interiors look like the Nostromo. None are locked, but all of them require a combined STR of 20 to open, and this takes twenty seconds or so. The doors between 4/3, 3/5, and 5/6 are already open. 

SPO Rainer disengages a kill switch on the Patrol Ship daily (it's in the bridge built into the Great Wheel, but she will never tell you this) - if two days go by without her doing this, the Red Patrol Ship will self destruct, vaporising itself and everything within five miles or so in a nuclear explosion.

Note that a nuclear explosion in the Dreamlands will be the single worst thing that has ever happened there - a nightmare of a potency hitherto unimaginable. If this happens, and the Prince learns that you were in any way connected, he will stop at nothing to bring you before him so that you can explain what happened. 'Stop at nothing' includes invading your dreams forever after, and also the dreams of people you care about. 

The Red Patrol Ship. Click to make it bigger. 

Rooms

1. Back Rays. Sixteen large steel cylinders, angled horizontally to point west, 'out' of the room. All but one of them have their ends violently blown off. The fuel and thrust mechanism of the Red Patrol Ship. If you somehow cut through the 2cm thick steel skin of the final container without giving SPO Rainer time to repair the wrecked Patrol Ship, it will attempt to ride the released backrays back to its home coordinates and burn to atoms in the process, killing everything aboard. 
   
   
2. Instruments. A series of complicated dials, levers, flashing lights, etc, which allow for the calibration of the backrays and the steering of the ship. These will also set the coordinates of the sending equipment in 10. War Room, cycle the life support in the ship, lock the doors, and allow other similar procedures. Only Rainer can use the equipment here. 
   
   
3. Engineering. Steel racking loaded with baroque spare parts, strapped down to stop it from moving when the ship is in motion. Nothing in here will make any sense to the PCs, but you can find miscellaneous tools (chisels, screwdrivers, wrenches etc.) whose high quality steel makes them serviceable medium and heavy weapons - d8 of each if searched for. There are also three double-size jerrycans full of petroleum, each containing 8 slots worth.
   
   
4. Airlock/Massacre. The opening through which the Uruk Housecarls made their entrance. A bare steel room, with benches around the walls, absolutely covered in blood and the corpses of the Housecarls. There is also a giant's body slumped against the wall, hacked and mangled, and also apparently burned black in some sort of explosion. An inspection will show 11 orc corpses, torn to pieces as though by power tools. The giant body is what's left of SPO Bastien, 'Chariot'.
   
   
5. Quarters. Two steel bunks built for giants, a steel table of the same scale in the centre of the room, brightly coloured printed posters taped up on the walls. The quality and brightness of the printing of these is unlike anything the PCs have ever seen, and a White City character will understand immediately that they are dealing with a higher civilisation of some kind, both culturally and technologically, which will prompt a CHAR check and deal 1 CHAR damage on a failure. 
   
   
6. Storage. Giant-sized black rubber and leather garments hung from the walls on specialised hangers, banks of boxy steel machinery of unclear purpose, steel shleving that takes up the majority of the central floor space, which if searched contains (among many other useless sundries) d20+10 firestarters (waxy white cakes, 10 to a slot, will burn for an hour once lit, even underwater), 300ft of unbreakable rope, and 6 sheets of tough, waterproof tarpaulin. There are two Bugbear Operators in this room, hidden behind the shelving; they heard you enter and are waiting to ambush you. 
   
   
7. Armoury. Steel room with 2+d4 Exotic Weapons mounted inside a locked steel cabinet. See the table below. The doors of the cabinet have glass windows, so you can see the goods inside. SPO Rainer holds the key, but this is also just a normal locked steel cabinet and can be busted open in all the usual ways. 
   
   
8. Staging. Similar to 4. Airlock, a bare steel room with steel bench seating around the circumference. Another airlock-style door, this one locked. Otherwise bare. 
   
   
9. Mess/Rearguard. Steel table and chairs in the centre of the room. The table has a gas burner on it, which can be switched on with a switch to its side, and which is basically a large hotpot burner. You could hold someone in the flames for d8 fire damage per turn, and this would additionally set them alight. There are also steel cupboards built into the walls a search will reveal 200+d100 rations pills (as iron rations, 50 to a slot) and 4 packets of instant recaf (mix with boiling water for a dose of stimulants, one packet takes a slot, and is good for 20 doses of stimulants). Also lots of oversized cutlery, and a vibroknife, which looks like a steel kitchen knife the size of a longsword: as medium +2, and shrieks and sprays fluid everywhere as it cuts. Wielders without Fighter templates hit themselves on a critical failure as the terrible whining blade leaps off bone, or slips in bloody fingers. The battery will last another d4 months, after which it loses any special properties and is a simple medium weapon.
   
   There are four Uruk Housecarls in this room, defending the rear of the main group. They will attack on sight, and one will attempt to go for help from their companions in 10. War Room if it starts looking like they won't win the fight. 
   
   
10. War Room/Standoff. A long steel table surface stretches the whole length of this room. It has a surface that illuminate bright white, and this surface is scrawled with thousands of diagrams: trajectories, calculations for local gravity or fuel expenditure, force projections, and a thousand other necessaries for soldiers on a long campaign. None of it makes any sense at all without context. Along the walls are installed 12 large steel sarcophagi, each with complicated machinery surrounding it - these are the Projector Units, and only SPO Rainer can make use of them. See Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It below. Two of the Projector Units are sealed closed - if you can somehow cut through the steel and open them prematurely, strange, elongated insect corpses, each about 12 foot long, will slither out in a torrent of transparent nutrient slime and sprawl horribly on the floor. 
    
    Gathered around the door to the east are the remaining 11 Uruk Housecarls. They have been trying without success to force entry to 11. Shrine/Bridge. 
    
    
11. Shrine/Bridge. A large room with glass walls, currently shielded by external steel blast shields. Dominating the area around the eastern wall is an enormous steel wheel on a stand, like a fairground wheel of fortune. It is divided into 20 numbered sections, and there are about 150 well-used wax candles melted to the floor in front of it. Against the walls are terminals that allow someone who knows what they're doing to remotely control the mechanisms in 2. Instruments. Slumped against the northern wall, bristling with crossbow bolts and in a pool of her own blood, is SPO Rainer. Her statblock and appearance are given in in the Dramatis Personae section. If you have killed the Uruk Housecarls in 10. War Room, she will assume that you are friendly, and thank you for your service. Then she will offer you Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It. See below for details. If you take on the mission, she will stay behind to repair the ship. Once repaired she will wait for your return, and if you are gone for three days she will use the final canister of backrays to return to her home coordinates, never to be seen again. If you refuse her mission, she will ask you to leave before using the War Room to attempt it herself, which will cause her to die in the attempt. If you attack her she will try to kill you. 

Bestiary

Uruk Housecarl

Housecarls are elite orc spies and enforcers, loyal to the Prince of Dreaming. They make sure that things in the Dreamlands go the way the Prince wants them to. They are quite unlike most orcs, dapper and cold-blooded, although they are still very violent and very frightening. 

Uruk Housecarls have HD1+1, hold medium blackened sabres and crossbows, and are dressed in dark, two-piece suits, fedoras, and armoured vests (as light armour, like G-men in the 50s). The Housecarls in this module are unbreakable while Victarion lives. 

Bugbear Operator

Like the Housecarls, Bugbear Operators are professional wetwork specialists - they are what happens when you give a monster serial killer a gun, a remit, and broad authority to enforce state terror. 

They wear the same suits and hats as the Uruk Housecarls (armour: as chain, bugbears are tougher than orcs), and carry medium bowie knives and silenced pistols. They have HD2+1, attack twice with their knives, and deal fear damage equal to all other damage. Anyone who panics while in combat with the Operators will be attacked preferentially, and all attacks that hit a target who has panicked damage as crits. 

There are two in this adventure, and they hunt and murder together. If you kill one, the other will test morale and loses all special rules pertaining to fear damage and panicking. 

Dramatis Personae

Captain Victarion

A patriotic and efficient Uruk special forces officer. Loved by his men, incorruptible, a professional killer.

HD3+1, medium blackened sabre, a silenced pistol, and the same inconspicuous getup as his men (as light armour). Victarion attacks twice in melee, and will never willingly abandon his post - his loyalty to the Prince of Dreaming is absolute. 

SPO Rainer, 'Emperor'

A human-looking woman, ten feet tall, and also built like a brick shed, extremely stocky and broad; proportions of a fantasy dwarf. Muscle and body fat ratio of a powerlifter, she takes up a huge amount of physical space. 

She has vantablack skin and hair, and her eyes and large, smiling teeth are very white in her face. Her hair is thick, and gathered behind her head so that it spreads out behind her face like a halo. She is wearing a sort of black (normal black, so it stands out like grey against her skin) leather, rubber, and kevlar one-piece flight suit, which has steel fastening points and loops for equipment all over it, as well as tabs for fastening and tightening, pockets, and webbing, etc. The sleeves of the suit are tied off above her elbows. She has some sort of red glass optic device over one eye, and a silver badge, like a star, pinned above her heart. 

SPO Rainer is one half of the crew of the ship; her spear counterpart, SPO Bastien, has already been killed by the Uruk boarders. The Red Scout Ship has been forced to crash land in the Dreamlands by Void Ghosts, the terrible emanations of the soul of the Universal Enemy. She does not want to be here, and has a mission to get back to. She is angry about Bastien's death (angry like a cop whose partner just got shot by punks), and wants to kill the Uruks before she leaves. She has no knowledge of the Barony or the Dreamlands, and if you ask her questions about God, Chaos, The Future, or anything of this nature she will smile and apologise; she doesn't keep up with local superstitions. 

Rainer has 12 crossbow quarrels sticking out of her, mostly in her shoulders and chest, and is currently slumped by a complicated series of controls in the barricaded bridge area. 

HD10, but wounded (roll half usual HP), uses the Patrol Officer Superlative Style in combat (see below), armour: as leather, speed: unbelievably quick, can run at five times human speed, and can move so fast locally that it looks like a type of flash step teleportation - once per combat turn can teleport 20ft and gets a +4 on her next attack if she uses this to step behind you, disposition: space cop, something like a border marshal in a story that reveres them, dedicated to her mission, which is of galactic importance. Also: very proud, good sense of humour, loves telling lesser fighters what they're doing wrong mid-fight. Doesn't consider armed combat 'real' fighting.

Patrol Officer Superlative Style: SPO Rainer can choose to make 4 unarmed attacks per turn as medium weapons (closed fist style), or 2 unarmed attacks per turn as vorpal heavy weapons (spear hands chopping style). She can parry twice per turn with the flat of her palms (roll to-hit against the attack, and ignore it if your roll is higher than that of your opponent), and if she uses this to parry ranged attacks she can choose whether she catches the projectile or swats it away. 

Once a turn, in place of one of her attacks, SPO Rainer can point her finger at an enemy she can see and fire a thin white beam at them. If it hits, the target catches fire. She can also spend an entire turn doing nothing but charging this attack up - for each full turn that she does this before firing, the target takes d10 radiation damage in addition to catching alight. This attack screams like a high voltage power line. 

At will, she can change her vantablack skin vantawhite or perfectly reflective; the change takes about ten seconds. Vantablack renders her immune to psychic damage, vantawhite renders her immune to fire and acid and gives her armour: as chain, and reflective makes her immune to radiation damage and gaze attacks, and does all the normal mirror shield stuff. She can hold her breath for up to ten hours, and can survive in the vacuum of space for as long as she can hold her breath. 

Her Red Lens allows her to see the stat blocks of her opponents - she will know your HD, hp remaining, attacks etc., although it gives her no information about your equipment, including magic items. If you look through it it will work just as well for you. The Red Lens is too big for a human to comfortably wear over one eye like she does, but with some adjustment you might be able to incorporate it into a helmet or faceplate. 

SPO Rainer loves martial artists and will never kill them on purpose, unless given a very good reason to. Against other martial artists, all of her attacks count as non-lethal damage, and any vorpal effect instead ends the fight with a nerve strike that instantly knocks her opponent unconscious. 

If SPO Rainer is slain, her warrior's spirit goes critical and starts to burn a hole in her chest: her entire body starts smoking, her hair catches fire, and she immediately gets a full round of attacks on anyone in melee range. Everyone within 20ft takes d10 radiation damage.

 

Exotic Weapons

These are mostly large, boxy rifles, built for combatants scaled to the SPOs. For a PC, each take up 4 slots on inventory. They come with 20 rounds of ammunition, can be fired every round, and can never be reloaded. Roll to see which you get:

1. Impact Hammer. A monstrous melee weapon, something like an industrial pneumatic piston built onto a rifle frame. Deals 2d10 bludgeoning damage, and can be charged up over the course of a round (you can move while charging, but cannot make attacks or perform other actions) to increase this damage to 3d12. If you use this charged attack, both you and the target are knocked 20ft directly away from one another - this can be horizontally, into the air, or down into the ground, depending on your relative positions. You d6 impact take damage if you hit a solid surface as a result on this. Good for 20 attacks, useless once these have expended. 
2. Enforcer. A pistol instead of a rifle, and as such only takes up 2 slots. Puny human that you are, you still need to fire it in both hands. As a pistol +1, but can be fired three times as a single attack action if you take -2 to-hit on all three. 
3. Bio Rifle. A strange, short-barrelled weapon that fires sticky green goo at short range. Range of 20ft, each shot deals d10 poison damage, with a CON save for half. The gun can be charged, with each turn spent charging consuming another piece of ammunition, and adding d10 damage to the next shot. Shots can be fired at the walls, ceiling, and floor, where they will stick in place and 'detonate' their damage if anyone (friend or foe) moves within 5ft of them. 
4. Shock Rifle. A sleek, black weapon that fires lavender beams of light, which react explosively on contact with solid matter. As a musket that deals radiation damage, with a +2 to-hit, and effective range = visual range. Its regular shots deal 2d8 damage, and it can also be used to launch 'balls' of the same lavender energy at shorter range. These attacks have a range of 20ft and a -1 to hit, but deal damage to the target and everything within 5ft of them. People who can attack twice in one turn can attempt a 'shock combo', which involves shooting one of the slower moving balls of energy with the beam. Resolve this as a single attack that consumes 2 shots of ammunition, with a range of 20ft, and a -4 to-hit. If you land it, the attack deals 2d12 damage to the target, and everything within 20 ft of them. 
5. Plasma Gun. A boxy, industrial looking projector unit that fires a stream of sickly green energy projectiles. As a musket +1, that deals radiation damage and fires three time per attack action. It can also be used to emit a cutting beam of green light at short range: treat this like a melee attack that consumes 2 ammunition each time you use it, and that deals 2d10 radiation damage on a hit. This is a bit like a blowtorch: you could also use it to cut a lock, bolt, steel bar, etc. 
6. Ripper. Against all logic, fires rotating circular saw blades that have been treated to bounce off walls. Range as short bow, blades deal 2d10 vorpal slashing damage. The gun can be used to bounce its projectiles around corners, or to fill rooms with ricochets, as dictated by common sense. When used to bounce around a corner at someone you know the position of, your shot is at -2 to-hit, and the target may save DEX to avoid the vorpal effect if it triggers. If you blindfire into a room that you know is occupied, hoping to catch the occupant with a stray ricochet, you hit on a 19 or 20 (unless your natural to-hit would be worse), and the vorpal effect only triggers if you roll a second natural 20 after you hit. 
7. Minigun. Contains way more than 20 rounds of ammunition, but assume that you have enough for 20 attacks, each using tens of rounds. As a musket that cannot be fired while moving. Each attack deals 3d10 if it hits, and 1d6 if it misses, and any cover between the firer and the target is significantly torn up. If you attack twice or more in a round with this weapon, you must save STR: if you fail, your second attack misses automatically and you are knocked prone. 
8. Flak Cannon. A horrifying gun, bright yellow, that fires white hot chunks of metal, either in a spread pattern, or as a short-arcing grenade. The spread pattern shot deals 4d8 white-hot metal damage to all targets in a 15ft cone (roll to hit each separately), and pushes anyone hit backwards 10ft. Past 15ft, this is blunderbuss that deals 2d8 white-hot metal damage regardless of armour. When fired as a grenade, the shot is made at -2 to-hit, arcs as the DM dictates would be possible, and then deals 2d8 white-hot metal damage to everyone within 15ft of the detonation point. Every time you fire this weapon, you must save STR or be knocked prone by the recoil. 
9. Rocket Launcher. Fires a slow-moving rocket, resolved as a musket shot. If it hits, it deals 2d10 explosion damage to the target, and d10 to everything within 20ft. If it misses, the target and everyone within 20ft instead take d6 splash damage, with a DEX save to negate. The Rocket Launcher can spend a turn 'loading' a rocket, up to a maximum of 6. When you fire the Rocket Launcher, all damage numbers are multiplied by the number of rockets 'loaded' this way - you still only roll to-hit once. If you have six rockets 'loaded', you must fire them on your next turn. If you critically miss with the rocket launcher, you hit yourself, with as many rockets as you have loaded. 
10. Sniper Rifle. Cannot be fired in the same turn that you move. As a vorpal musket. If you spend a full turn aiming with the optic, you gain a 10x range profile (this doesn't stack), and a +1 to-hit on the shot per turn spent aiming. 

The Great Wheel

The Great Wheel, whose eternal logic rules all things. The wheel is a religious artefact for the Space Patrol Officers, who enforce its decrees as interpreted by Home Base, a billion lightyears from here. The ordered turning of the Great Wheel is under relentless attack by the Universal Enemy and its terrible Void Ghosts - whether these attacks are also a part of the Wheel's turning, or if they represent a perversion of its order, is a religious question that most Space Patrol Officers do not care about. Leave the politics to Home Base; there are VGs in the sector, and they need a lesson in applied saturation warfare. 

This particular Great Wheel will allow you to be deputised into the ranks of its paragons, something that SPO Rainer will ask you to do if you accept her mission. She will tell you: The Great Wheel will provide you with both great strength and resolve, but also with a terrible Warrior's Spirit. You do not need to accept deputisation to accept her mission.

If you choose to be deputised, you are permitted a single roll on the wheel. Roll a d20. You now deal critical hits on the number you rolled, as well as on a natural 20. If you rolled a 1, this means that you can no longer fumble. If you rolled a 20 (or another number that you crit on, if you already have an expanded crit range), your natural crits are now vorpal, no matter what weapon you are using. You also have this number burned into your heart with solar radiation - if you cut Rainer or Bastien open, their hearts would bear this brand. For someone SPO Rainer's size this is no big deal, but when it happens to you, you will take d6 damage and lose a point of CON and max hp. From now on, your can choose to activate your Warrior's Heart. This sets you on fire, which does damage as normal and which cannot be extinguished until you calm down (all your enemies in this combat are dead), and gives you an extra attack, a temporary +4 to STR and CON, and immunity to fear. It's also extremely frightening to people who haven't seen it before. Finally, you receive an SPO Callsign, which Rainer will use from now on! Consult the table below, with multiples numbered past the first:

1. Magician
2. High Priestess 
3. Empress
   
4. Emperor (Rainer is Emperor, so a new Emperor will start at Emperor 2)
5. Hierophant
6. Lover
7. Chariot (Bastien was Chariot, but has been slain. A new Chariot will be without numerical designation, and Rainer will tell you that you have a lot to live up to)
8. Strength
9. Hermit
10. Wheel (particularly auspicious, Rainer will cheer if you roll this)
11. Justice
12. Hangman
13. Death
14. Temperance
15. Devil
16. Tower
17. Star
18. Moon
19. Sun
20. Judge

Your Mission, Should You Choose to Accept It

What Rainer and Bastien were supposed to be doing before the Void Ghosts trashed their ship and forced a crash landing. 

She tells you that a Fool has been recently discovered, but that they were snatched by the Universal Enemy before the SPO Corps could get to them. They are currently being held in a Void Ghost Black Site in this solar system. She will send you physically to the site using the Projector Units in the War Room - your mission will be to infiltrate the Black Site, find the Fool, get them out of range of the Black Site suppressor engines, and activate Return Beacons that will bring you back to the ship. She can't force you to do it, but she will tell you that you are her last hope. A Fool who has been turned by the Universal Enemy is a terrible thing. 

If you agree, she will provide you with the keys to the Armoury, bulky communications headsets that let you speak to one another and to her across any distance (these are large enough that they preclude the wearing of a helmet), and Return Beacons: enough for your party, and an additional one for the Fool. A Return Beacon is a small handheld device, like a plastic cigarette lighter. You undo the catch, flip open the lid, and depress the button. The instant you do this you wake up inside one of the Projector Units in the War Room. 

She will also tell you that she has two 'payloads' abroad the Red Patrol Ship that she will be able to send to aid you during your infiltration: bioweapons, lying in stasis in their Projector Units. She can also send herself to you to aid directly, but if she does this and then dies the Patrol Ship will self destruct as described above - she will only Project herself as a last resort. 

To be sent to the Black Site, you must each climb into a Projector Unit. It is built for a body nearly twice your size, and functions by auto-injecting sedatives into the neck. This will do d3 points of neck puncture damage to you when it happens, because you are a frail human. 

Rainer will key in the coordinates, wish you all good hunting, and push the button: everything around you will vanish in a thunderclap, and you will wake up under an alien sun, on a barren and desolate plain. 

PART TWO: VOID GHOST BLACK SITE

The air around you is hazy, stained red. The sun is tiny and crimson. Shadows are long and strange, a blue so dark that it's black. Around you is a wasteland. You are standing at the top of a ridge; further along is what looks like a forest of alien trees. Beyond that, its building plan clearly visible from your vantage, is a fenced and gated settlement of some kind, lit up like a dolls' house with something like stadium lighting. In all other directions, an endless, charred desert of broken and twisted rock. 

Bestiary

Breath Men

Foot troops of the Void Ghosts, the guards and security forces of the Black Site. Tall, thin humans, armed and armoured in pale ceramic. Their breath has been stolen from them, which makes them good soldiers in a vacuum, and also quite hard to kill by traditional means. The communicate with one another using sign language. If you strip away their armour you will see the surgery scars from where their lungs were pulled out in the processing barracks of the Universal Enemy. Pitiable but dangerous enemies. 

Breath Man

HD1, 50/50 armed with muskets and attached glaive-bayonet (as heavy spear), or medium fighting knives, three light darts (can't be used in melee), and bucklers, armoured in ceramic armour (protects as chain but as light as leather. Max damage or crits from bludgeoning weapons and firearms shatter it), movement: as human, disposition: disciplined soldiers with dead eyes and no hope. 

Every time you kill a Breath Man, flip a coin. On a heads, they stand back up the next turn with 1hp remaining. They can do this more than once, unless you take the time to properly dismember or coup de grace them. Destroying the brain or severing the spinal column will always put them down for good. 

Breath Men do not breathe, and can operate just fine underwater, in space, etc. 

Breath Men who roll maximum HP are Sergeants, armed with pistols, medium fighting knives, and lashes (light weapon, attacks at 10ft, can attempt to disarm instead of dealing damage - if it hits, the target can test STR to negate), and armoured in heavy ceramic plate (protects as plate but as light as chain. Max damage or crits from bludgeoning weapons and firearms shatter it). 

Sergeants also carry bulky ceramic noisemakers on their backs, which sound an ultrasonic frequency that humans can't hear. They will activate these in combat to raise the alarm - they have to pull a rip cord by their shoulder, like starting a lawnmower, which takes a turn to do, in place of attacking. For each turn that noisemakers are sounding, roll a d10. On a 10, the Beacon Combat Group arrive on the scene, crashing down from orbit on beams of white light. 

Technicians

Technicians are the officer class at the Black Site - they are in charge of the shifts and patrols of the Breath Men, and often lead them into battle. Each Technician designs and wears their own unique and extremely elaborate dress uniform in bright primary colours, with epaulets, half-capes, peaked caps, rank flashes, etc. that are unintelligible to anyone else. 

The Technicians are also professional torturers. The Black Site has been set up to 'reprogramme' its inmates; a euphemism for personality destruction via extensive, months-long torture. Only once this has been achieved are inmates killed, and interred in mass graves using earth movers and other heavy equipment. 

Technicians have their lungs removed like the Breath Men, but also their stomachs, hearts, genitalia, and tongues. Their internals are largely composed of super-high-pressure fluid channels, that move their bodies around a bit like industrial hydraulics. They communicate using the same sign language as their troops, and hate the Tourists almost as much as they hate the inmates. 

Technician

HD3+1, a medium +1 ceremonial weapon (varies, often a sabre or an officer's smallsword), a pistol +1, a steel cuirass, gorget, and gauntlets (AC 14), movement: as badly-made human marionette, disposition: officers of the Imperial Core, indulging all of their worst excesses out in the colonies. 

Technicians feel no pain, and take -1 from all physical damage. They are torture specialists, and always succeed in any check related to inflicting pain or keeping someone alive. Checks to resist torture at their hands, should this ever come up, are made at disadvantage. 

All Technicians carry noisemakers, and can summon the Beacon Combat Group like Breath Men Sergeants. The noisemakers carried by Technicians are more advanced than the backpack models given to NCOs, and look like ceramic choker-necklaces. These models are activated as a free action.  

Like the Breath Men, they have a 50/50 chance of standing up again with a single point of HP when killed. Also like the Breath Men, they do not breathe. 

The Tourists

Time-displaced killers from the worst place in the universe, dredged up by the Universal Enemy and deployed here as an elite unit of killers and assault specialists. Their loyalties have been bought with gold, and with the promise of power over other people like them. They treat everyone they come into contact with, including their nominal allies, with open revulsion: they call them 'the locals', and mock, belittle, and bully them - they are just as adept at torture as the Technicians, and often request this work for themselves. They look like human soldiers, slightly too large, dressed in combat fatigues and holding assault rifles, with faces that are somehow always in lost in the shadows beneath their helmets. They are distorted and jerky in their movements, like bad resolution images. They are very deadly, but also oddly narcissistic in combat - they think of themselves as the protagonists of the firefights and clashes that they engage in, and will expect you to feel sorry for them if they are wounded, have friends killed, or develop PTSD. Their shadows are long and sharp, horrible, twisting, writhing things.

Tourist

HD2, armed with Assault Rifles (2d8 piercing, range profile x2 musket, can be fired twice a turn by a Tourist), light combat knives, and one Frag Grenade each (thrown, 3d8 slashing to everything within 30ft, DEX save for half, interposed cover negates entirely), armoured in: hard-shell body armour (protects as plate, as light as chain), night vision lenses (darkvision), movement as human, disposition: sadistic and gung-ho regarding their prowess, but ultimately cowardly, with an overdeveloped victim complex and a pathological need to avoid responsibility for their actions. 

Tourists are comically easy to bribe, but only with gold and obviously valuable jewellery: they won't accept 'local' cash, which they consider worthless. They will actually turn on and kill one another for bribes, and will blame you for their actions in the aftermath. 

Tourists are truly horrible things, which deal fear damage equal to all other damage. If you ever start your turn caught inside their shadow, you must test CHAR or take d4 slashing and d10 fear damage. 

When they die, whatever profane process brought them here quickly begins to break down. Their bodies and equipment rust and decompose to rust-brown blood, shit, and useless, crumbling plastic over a period of around five minutes. Any gold or valuables that they had on their person will have to be retrieved from the stinking pile, and will be visibly tarnished with red-brown stains forever after (worth half their value). 

Beacon Combat Group

High above the Black Site hangs a satellite in geostationary low orbit, which monitors activity on the ground and in the local airspace using various long range sensors and recording devices. In particular, it listens for the ultra-high frequency noisemakers carried by the Breath Men NCOs. When it detects one sounding, it locks onto the location and deploys its special interdiction force - the Beacon Combat Group. 

The Beacon Combat Group were guardian nobles in another time, another place, another culture. The Universal Enemy found them, killed the people that they protected, and offered them the choice between service or processing through the torture complex. There are five of them, and they ride though the sky on beams of cold white light, projected from the ancient emitters built into their satellite base. 

The Beacon Combat Group are 10-foot-tall nude humans of heroic proportions, with blood red skin and brightly shining white cloaks, which fly behind them as they ride through the sky. Their faces are proud, wild, and fierce, even after centuries of debasement in service of the Universal Enemy. They carry long and terrible spears, and have also been equipped with sized-up compact handguns, which they wear in MOLLE chest holsters. In combat they 'jump' from point to point on beams of light, and are practised at attacking with their spears as they pass by their enemies at ultraspeed. 

Beacon Warrior

HD5, gigantic +1 spear, Dire M1911 Service Weapon (2d8 piercing, fires twice per turn, 15 round clip, range as shortbow. They don't like them and roll to hit at -2), ultra-dense skin and Emitter Gauntlet (AC 14), movement: as human except when 'jumping', see below, disposition: warrior elites, don't run from combat, relish fights against strong opponents, suspect very deep down that they deserve death. 

Beacon Warriors attack twice with their spears, but only once when 'jumping' past opponents.

Jump Warfare: at the start of its turn, a Beacon Warrior can designate any point that it can see, point to it with their Emitter Gauntlet, and 'jump' to that point on a torrent of cold white light. This teleports the Beacon Warrior to the new point. In addition, trace a straight line between the origin and the terminus of the jump - anyone along that line can be attacked once by the Beacon Warrior with their spear. Beacon Warriors cannot jump while grappled, and fear this - they will always attempt to break grapples and jump to a safe distance by preference. 

Emitter Gauntlets are scaled-down technological equipment of the same type installed on the satellite base. If you critically hit a Beacon Warrior, you can choose between dealing normal critical damage, or destroying the Emitter Gauntlet. They can also be destroyed with acid and similar, like any mundane equipment. 

The first time that they jump down from the satellite, all five will land simultaneously, doing the superhero three-point-landing thing. Anyone within 10ft of any of the five landing zones must save STR or be knocked prone.

A Beacon Warrior who is blinded cannot jump, and will immediately panic, draw their pistol, and start blind firing at anything they hear moving. 

Rainer has fought them before, and knows both their behavioural weaknesses, and how dangerous they are if given free rein make tactical use of their abilities. 

Beacon Warriors burn their dead on the field, and also the bodies of those that they slay. They will demand gasoline from the Black Site for this purpose, and will not tolerate refusal or argument from the regulars. They will not allow you to be taken captive by the other troops of the Black Site, and will instead execute captives as a show of respect.

SPO Slaughterforms

The Slaughterforms are vat-grown bioweapons, deployed via Projector Unit when SPOs need heavy support during field operations. They are long, thin, barbed, whipping, tearing things, armoured in heavy slabs of carapace, and they burn with terrible, invisible nuclear fire. They are biological furnaces, lab engineered to live for around sixty seconds, and to hack and maim their way through everything around them before they expire. 

The body plan is something like a very large mantis, about 12 feet long. There are six limbs that terminate in scything hook blades, and that each of these also incorporates a nest of 'fronds' growing along its length: long, thread-fine, transparent poisoned lashes, which wrap around prey that get close and paralyse them with powerful neurotoxins. The 'head' is made up of eye-clusters that see in different spectrums, and two long fine antenna that sense vibrations in the air - there is no mouth. 

Slaughterforms live rich and complex lives during their brief existence. Because they almost never have a chance to relate to other beings in a complex way, their entire experience of the world happens in relation to their own visual, olfactory, proprioceptive, and introspective experiences. They develop complicated relations with each sense and sense organ, and even systems of categorisation, hierarchy, and pattern-building within these webs of relation. Each has a completely unique vision of the world, and of their life within it. Very often, Slaughterforms die without understanding that other minds exist at all. Many are driven by an extremely powerful reproductive urge to create another mind, which will inherit anew the great beauty of the universe.  

The violence that they inflict is, in fact, sexually motivated. Slaughterforms reproduce by achieving sexual maturity with themselves, something that can only happen in the most delirious heights of emotional stimulation - something like falling in love, but entirely self-directed. If they become fertile, their biomatter will congeal after the explosive degradation that signals their natural death, a bit like a blood clot, and attempt to recohere into an egg. This would usually take around a week to mature and hatch, but SPO Slaughterforms have all been grown from artificial cells and genetically neutered, and any eggs produced this way will be sterile and dead. 

Slaughterform

HD8, 4x heavy rending limbs if standing upright, 6x heavy rending limbs in a grapple, Neurotoxic Fronds, Nuclear Fire, armour: as plate, speed: 5 times human, disposition: focused and motivated killing machine. 

Slaughterforms can sense invisible beings within 50ft (though they cannot see them), and also posses infravision. 

Neurotoxic Fronds: anyone who begins their turn in melee combat with a Slaughterform must test CON or be paralysed for the turn. Heavy armour or fully enclosed hazmat gear negates this. 

Nuclear Fire: the body of a Slaughterform cooks and smokes with invisible, poisonous fire, and they are shrouded in a permanent heat haze. Anything in melee range of a Slaughterform takes d3 radiation damage per turn, as their skin starts to blacken and slough away. If it ever reaches sexual maturity (see below), this biological furnace will go into overdrive: the d3 radiation damage is now taken by anyone within 15ft, and those in melee range additionally catch fire (normal fire, not invisible) with no save. 

Beginnings and Endings: a Slaughterform lives for 60 seconds, ten combat rounds, and then it dies. If, during this time, it scores a critical hit in melee, it tests CHAR: on a success, it reaches sexual maturity, and will consider its life successful. Its universe has been saved by the promise of rebirth into a second complex mind. 

Slaughterforms are genetically patterned with inhibitions against attacking SPOs in the field, and will never do so. Your PCs are not SPOs, even if they have been deputised, and Rainer will have forgotten this (because she is used to deploying these weapons, and it's never been an issue for her) unless you specifically ask her about the safety of the bioweapons when she tells you about them. 

If you use your headpiece to ask Rainer for bioweapon support, one of the two Slaughterforms on board the Red Patrol Ship will be projected into the combat at the start of your next turn. Rainer can see you from the ship, using a mixture of advanced optical technology and astral projection, and will do her best to drop it into the middle of the largest concentration of enemies. When it arrives, it is with a white flash, and a loud CRACK of displaced air. 

If your PCs have ever seen a Firefly, they will immediately recognise the similarities. If any of your PCs are Fireflies, they will instead be overcome by a feeling something like that of a modern human seeing Achilles or Ajax fighting for real, spearing brains and throats, disembowelling people, unkillable, unstoppable; a mix of awe, revulsion, fear, and the sinking sense of a fall from a more pure and terrible state of being.