Skip to main content

Rifts: Terror on the Dark Frontier: Sessions 23

Rifts: Terror on the Dark Frontier: Sessions 23

<< Previously 

 

    If it's traded in Comanche territory, it's traded at Fort Comanche.

    Shan and Marlow spend the day finding someone to repair Tanky McTankface & Stella, Tony's SAMAS armor.  Unfortunately, they find themselves in a shop which seems to be quite hostile.  Fortunately, Marlow gets her out of there before it's more than just talk.

    We've been tasked to find out who's been murdering people at the Northern Gun construction site. 

    Wesi Tsaatupi, who is effectively the Chief of Tribal Police, and so implicitly the region.  The tribal council had told us to keep her informed.

    Eric the Bartender at the Wild Stallion Saloon is a tall, perfect, Adonis-like ginger with a clean beard and a beaming smile.  He's wearing a vest with nothing underneath, and very loose leg wear.  He has four or five tattoos on his arms: a snake coiling up around his neck, a silver long sword in flames on his right arm.  Faith comes to the conclusion that he's probably Atlantean.

    He lets us know a few things about Wesi:  she probably won't even talk to us because we're not Comanche, she has awful coffee, and isn't capable of appreciating good coffee.  He suggests we come back around noon.

    Jordan and Layla drink with the dwarves, keeping them topped up.  One of them, whom Jordan has seen before on previous trips, is Trin, let his mug go two-thirds empty.   Jordan brings around the topic to if anyone had seen anything happen at the Northern Gun site.  Trin let them know that all five of the murders happened on nights when the site was empty, so nobody knows anything.  One of them was security.  He suggests Silus, the head of the Northern Gun construction site, might know more.

    It turns out that Silus is performing reviews, so some dwarves drive Jordan across town in their gas-powered wagon. Jordan's star power gets him past Silus' secretary as well.  Silus is starstruck by Jordan.  He offers coffee, asks why Jordan's investigating (mercenaries with an interest), and believes that the Comanche leadership is a bunch of black market crooks, but doesn't have any evidence to prove it.  They did everything by the book, and had the few animal bones and artifacts found checked out by tribal resources.  They used ground penetrating radar (GPR) to make sure nothing major was down there.  He doesn't care who gets things going as long as construction can resume.  He tells them he didn't hold back, but offers Jordan the corporate report on the topic.  He shares a keycard to the site.  He tells them it won't get them into his office, but if they need that, he'll take them there himself.  Also, don't mess with any stills or booze, it keeps his employees happy.

     Faith & Tony head to the Comanche Chronicle, the local newspaper of Fort Comanche.  It's only a few blocks from the Wild Stallion Saloon's pub.  It's a combination newspaper/blog/historical archive for the Fort.  It has public access terminals in the lobby.  

Without much trouble, they find information about murders at the NG construction site.  The tribal administrator, Old Owl, negotiated a big deal with Northern Gun to set up their site.  It was viewed as a big move to turn Fort Comanche into a regional trading hub.  The loudest opposition was Mukuuru, who was quite vocal.  The murders stopped the digging of the massive hole for the foundation.  Beyond that, we see articles about stories we've heard before, but from different perspectives, like increased occurrences and aggression of worm wraiths.  The Emporium story we'd previously heard hadn't mentioned the aggression.  There have also been a number of alien growths to the southeast, which are causing concern for the inhabitants of those areas.

    After reading a few years of papers, it becomes fairly apparent that there has been a general increase in violent activities that have news reports.  It might have started with "dog bits postman" stories over the last two to three months.  It's not just people, it's also other creatures.

    When Faith gets back to the Wild Stallion Saloon, he tells Faith that Tribal Chief of Police Tsaatupi's work anniversary is coming up, and her aide got her some good coffee and steak.  He just asked that we don't try to kill her.  Faith assures him that that wasn't even remotely in the cards.

     Shan, Layla, and Faith visit Chief Tsaatupi, tell them why they're here.  She acknowledges that she knows who Shan is, and that we're all dangerous, and that she will swing by the Wild Stallion Saloon tomorrow morning at 11:15, and then she's going to try to get some sleep.

Fin

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Item Durability

Item Quality Items come in three grades: Superior: masterwork items, four notches.  They usually cost ten times the normal cost of such items.  Most magic items are always made from masterwork base items.  They may provide a minor intrinsic non-magical bonus (+1 to hit for weapons, a reduction of 1 to armor item penalties, or a +2 on tool use checks). Standard: a typical item, three notches. Poor: a poor quality item, two notches.  They have a -1 penalty (-1 to damage for weapons, -1 AC for armor, or -2 on tool use checks for items). Notches Notches represent wear and tear equipment has taken.  They affect performance in the following ways: Weapons Odd notches (first, third, etc.) inflict a -1 penalty to damage. Even notches (second, fourth, etc.) inflict a cumulative -1 penalty to hit. Armor Odd notches inflict a -1 penalty to checks due to damage. Even  notches inflict a cumulative -1 penalty to AC. Items This requires some interpretation by the GM. In...
Post a Comment
Read more

RPG Blog Carnival: Beyond Vancian Magic

  Hello Friends! I'm thrilled to be hosting December's RPG Blog Carnival topic, Beyond Vancian Magic ! I'm not a hater, but I'll admit I prefer different systems being different, and clerical and magic user magic systems are basically the same.   I'm looking forward to seeing your interesting takes and contributions on evolving past that kind of magic system.  While I chose this topic about half a year ago, it's come up recently on r/osr, in the post Vancian Magic - What It Is How It Works and Where Did It Come From? Here are some ideas to get you started if you don't already have something in mind: Creating entirely new magic systems, or emulating those of other works, such as those by Brandon Sanderson or Jim Butcher. Spellcasting based on the undead turning table, as illustrated by ktrey of d4 Caltrops suggested using in Alternative Spell Casting . Expand on existing the existing "Vancian" system: Make spells truly Vancian, so that they a...
5 comments
Read more

On Names

  Note : There are a lot of external links in this post. None of them should be affiliate links If they are, please let me know . Note2 : This has been bouncing around in my brain informally for a while, but putting it to pixel was prompted by Rook’s post on names on Beneath Foreign Planets as part of the RPG Blog Carnival .  There’s a lot of great material that comes from these prompts. I encourage you, dear reader, to check that out. Note3 : Link to the GDoc version this post was originally composed in. On Names One of the holes new Game Masters fall into while playing D&D-esque games is names. I’ll start with random NPC names first, to get the subject out of the way:  Make a d20 or d100 list of names for each gender, and for families.  Either stick it on the fourth panel of your DM screen, or pre-roll five of each, and stick those lists on your fourth panel. If you need a list of real world names, use an onomastikon .   Onomastikon “What is an on...
2 comments
Read more