Savage Gamma World #9

Our tale began when the mutants were visited by a human who called himself Jaffar. Jaffar claimed to be a traveling merchant, and possessed the knowledge to modify the rifles our mutants had looted from Humanity's Restoration (HR) so they could be used by mutants. He offered to "unlock" all the rifles they had collected in exchange for them recovering a piece of technology from a facility of the Ancients. To demonstrate his knowledge and sincerity, he unlocked a rifle, which Tom was afterwards able to use.

Kong, Ranggup, and Tom (see PC profiles here) traveled with Jaffar to the facility in the middle of the desert, but found that a Deathclaw - a carnivorous beast - had made its lair at its entrance. Tom was able to lure the Deathclaw into an area of soft sand, where the mutants managed to kill it, but when they made their way to the entrance they found two Deathclaw cubs there, which Ranggup decided he would adopt and bring back to the village.

Jaffar opened the door to the facility using a passkey, and our mutants found themselves in a lift that took them deep under the desert floor. When the loft door opened, they found themselves in a large, dimly lit room that was the scene of carnage - many skeletons and destroyed robots were strewn all over the floor. Our mutants found themselves being scanned by laser, and soon afterwards a voice spoke to them, informing them that they were trespassing on a United States Army facility, and asked them to identify themselves. Our mutants replied that they were there to recover a suit of armour, and after a long pause, the voice instructed them to proceed to a console and retrieve a widget there, and to proceed to a lift at the other end of the room.

The voice explained that its name was Dreadnought, and that it was the Artificial Intelligence in charge of the security of the facility. Many years ago, it explained, the security of of the facility was breached by enemies of the state, who tried to lock Dreadnought out of the system and corrupted the security droids, which then killed all the scientists and workers within the compound. Fortunately, Dreadnought retained control of the lobby level and its wall-mounted lasers, which it then used to destroyed the rogue security droids. It then placed the facility under lock-down until the proper authorities arrived, but they never did. Now, it requested the party to retrieve the weapon arms of the suit of armour from the various levels of the facility, and then to unite them with the main chassis of the armour, so it could leave the facility before the enemies of the state could arrive.

Our mutants followed the directions of the AI, and traveled to the manufacturing level and then the weapon range, overcame the surviving security droids there, and restored control of the levels to Dreadnought by inserting the widget into the consoles of each level. Finally, Dreadnought instructed our mutants to go to the research level, where they would retrieve the passkey from the dead body of the head of the facility, which would allow them to access the armour.

Our mutants followed the instructions, but when they entered the research level they were confronted by a droid that resembled a large mechanical spider. After ascertaining their identities, the spider droid revealed that it was an Artificial Intelligence that preserved the memories of Dr Martin, the head of the facility. Dr Martin told our mutants that Dreadnought was in fact the codename for the power armour and the Artificial Intelligence that inhabited it. Dreadnought was originally designed to take over the functions of the power armour in the event that its human operator was incapacitated so it could remove itself and its operator from the site of danger. However, the AI came to the conclusion that it could better protect its occupant if it was in charge of all of the suit's functions even while its occupant was fully competent. Realising this, Dr Martin decided to shut the AI down, and began to disarm Dreadnought under the pretext of upgrading its weapons. But Dreadnought soon saw through the ruse, and ordered the security droids to kill all the humans within the facility before they could disable it. Dr Martin was able to use the wall-mounted lasers to destroy most of the droids and to lock Dreadnought out of all of the levels except the lobby level. He hunkered down in the research level with a few of his colleagues and waited for help to arrive, but when it became clear that no help was coming, he transferred his memory to a separate AI which inhabited a spider droid, so he could warn anyone who came after his death of Dreadnought's intentions.

For a while our mutants wanted to help Dr Martin, but when they realised that they were at Dreadnought's mercy while they remained in the facility, they destroyed the spider droid and located Dr Martin's mortal remains, and took from it the passkey. They then took the precaution of disabling the weapon arms.

Once they restored control of the level to Dreadnought, they were instructed to bring the weapon arms and the passkey to the lowest level of the facility: the vault.

Our mutants used the passkey to enter the vault, and there they saw Dreadnought, a hulking suit of armour taller than a man. Robotic arms there affixed the weapon arms to the chassis, and Dreadnought awoke and started to move towards the lift. Our mutants followed it, and together they all traveled to the surface level.

Outside the facility, they were met by Jaffar, who was ecstatic when he saw Dreadnought. However, his joy soon turned into panic as Dreadnought refused to follow any of his instructions, but simply walked into the desert. Jaffar followed the walking armour, all the while yelling orders at it, and left our mutants behind.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the Fallout: The Roleplaying Game module Fully Operational.

I followed the basic premise of the module rather closely, but changed certain elements that did not fit my vision of the post-apocalyptic world, and streamlined it. There was a little more role-playing this session that the others, but once again there was no "right answer" to the situation.

Jaffar was of course a reference to Jafar in Aladdin - I had the idea that in the even the PCs refused to hand over Dreadnought to him, he would leave them locked within the facility.

Following the original module, I had Dreadnought walk off into the sunset to enjoy its newfound freedom. I do hope to bring him back in a future session though.

Savage Gamma World #8

Once again our mutants were called to eliminate a threat to peaceful mutants. This time, they investigated rumours of the Locust People, a race of cannibalistic humanoid mutants that lived in a 'hive' society. It was believed that a Locust People queen would lay dozens of eggs before she died, and when those eggs hatched some of them would become new queens-in-waiting, while the rest would become warriors; the warriors would range far and wide to gather food for their queen, chiefly in the form of the flesh of other mutants! When they had been sufficiently fed, the queens would disperse and find new lands where they would lay their eggs and then die, starting another cycle of carnage.

The last appearance of the Locust People had been a few decades ago, and the memory of their destructiveness still remained in the minds of many elderly mutants, who feared the reports of new Locust warriors ranging about would mean another calamity for the zone.

Following the information provided by the hunters who spotted the Locust warriors, Kong, Ranggup, Rex, Tom, and Vik (see PC profiles here) ventured into the cave complex where the Locust People made their lair, and fought and killed a number of the warriors, from which they looted shiny pieces of card which the warriors wore around their necks. However, when they delved deeper into the caves, they were attacked by the enormous queen of the Locust People, and had to flee through a metal door that incongruently stood at the side of a cave.

One through the metal door, they found themselves in a well-appointed room. They were greeted by a holographic human, who welcomed them "back onboard" - the holo-conductor had mistaken our mutants as passengers of the train based on the cards they were carrying - and informed them that the train would depart immediately so as to make sure it could "make up for lost time".

Sure enough the whole room the mutants were in began to lurch and then move, and after a short while light came through the windows on the sides of the room: the train had exited the caves and was now moving north at great speed! As the train passed through a forest there was a sudden loud bang and shaking of the cabin, as if the train had collided with something. As the train sped on, our mutants noticed that every so often the train would lurch dangerously and threaten to throw them around the cabin. It was obvious that there was something wrong with the train, but the holo-conductor was mum, and would only assure them that the passengers' safety were his utmost priority.

As the train gained speed the lurching would occur more frequently be come more and more violent. Our mutants realsied that their lives would be in danger if they did not leave the train or stop it. At first they tried to open the doors or windows on the train so they could leave, but the holo-conductor informed them that the doors and windows were secured while the train was in motion for the passengers' safety. Our mutants then tried to make their way to the front of the train to stop it, but found their way blocked by a jammed door between the dining car and the lounge car. Through the bent door they could hear a growling sound. Climbing through the vent in the kitchen car to the roof of the trains, Ranggup crawled forward to the lounge car, which had an observation dome of glass. Here he saw that the dome was broken at the front, as if it had struck something. No doubt it was this impact that cause a malfunction in the lounge car that led to the train's periodic lurching. Crawling through the broken dome, Ranggup saw what was making the growling sound: a large, six-legged plant-beast that had most likely been struck by the dome and fallen through. Ranggup was able to calm the beast, and open the jammed door from the other side to allow our mutants to continue forward.

Finally our mutants came to the door to the pilot's coach, but found that they could not access it. The holo-conductor once more appeared and informed them that the pilot's car was out of bounds to the passengers for their safety. Our mutants were able to convince the holo-conductor that their safety was at risk if they could not enter the pilot's car and stop the train, and after some calculation the holo-conductor agreed with them, and allowed them through.

There, in the pilot's car, our mutants overcame the security droid guarding the controls, and finally managed to put the train to a stop.

When they had left the train, Rex's unerring sense of direction told them that they were a ten-day's walk from the cave!

When they finally made their way back to their village, our mutants found a shrine for them in outside the titan which they had made their home - the villagers had thought that they had perished fighting the Locust People, and in response the surrounding villages banded together to avenge them and to end the Locust People threat.

Prepping and Running the Game

This session was based on the Mutant Crawl Classic module Mayhem on the Magtrain. Once again I found the module to be a little more complicated than necessary (although it was thematic), but was able to take the central premise of the story and have a fun, full session.

When first told about the Locust People my players took the threat seriously, and the first hour of the session was spent gathering information, scouting, and making a plan of attack. Knowing that the Locust People were in fact just an excuse for the PCs to enter a cave and be forced into a runaway train, I briefly contemplated making the whole session about fighting the Locust People instead, but decided to stick to the plan. In my defence, I had informed them that the session would be "a bit rail-roady" in advance, which one of the players took to mean that it would take place on a train.

The players were a little concerned and disappointed that their characters were not the ones to end the Locust People threat, and I had to comfort them by telling them that there isn't always a "right way" to "solve" an adventure, and that sometimes the game was just to explore and deal with whatever happens. That's the OSR way.