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
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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'.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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. - 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. - 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:
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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:
- Magician
- High Priestess
- Empress
- Emperor (Rainer is Emperor, so a new Emperor will start at Emperor 2)
- Hierophant
- Lover
- 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)
- Strength
- Hermit
- Wheel (particularly auspicious, Rainer will cheer if you roll this)
- Justice
- Hangman
- Death
- Temperance
- Devil
- Tower
- Star
- Moon
- Sun
- 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.
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.
