Need to set up a Rebel cell? A bounty syndicate? A mercenary group? A pirate gang? A private army? A black-market arms deal? This adventure will definetly do just that. It can be dropped into just about any campaign with only slight tweaking. Hope you enjoy it!
THE ABANDONED ASTEROID - by Joe Clements, Copyright 1998
Episode 1
The players come out of hyperspace, and find themselves way too close to an Imperial picket. Assuming that the players are Rebels returning to a checkpoint, the Star Destroyer launches TIE fighters at our heros. The TIEs swarm the players, and their only hope to survive lies in the asteriod field behind them.
The asteriod field is very dense and difficult to navigate (Difficult to Very Difficult terrain.) Through spinning, rolling, diving, lurching, mind-bending turns, twists, loops, a canyon chase, a suicide dive through one of the really big asteriods, and whatever TIEs the gunners can pick off, the playing field should be narrowed to one or two really good pilots. Suddenly, these two (or one) are vaporized by a brilliant green blast.
An Easy Perception or sensors check shows that the blast came from one of the big asteriods around the ship. Now, the turbolaser targets the players ship and opens fire! (starship gunnery 4D, damage 5D, starfighter-scale)
They may wish to destroy the gun-emplacement (body: 4D, starfighter), or simply evade fire long enough to get away. Alternately, they may wish to land on the aseriod, or perhaps try to destroy the asteriod itself (not likely, body: 7D capital-scale). At any rate, once this encounter is over, the players have two options: invesitgate or leave.
Investigate:
If the players want to know what’s going on, have them make sensors rolls, and have them describe what they’re scanning for. If they scan a battle-damaged portion of the asteriod, they can notice some odd power emissions coming from within. If they think to scan the compostion of the asteriod, they’ll find that it’s made of tharium and duranium composites, and the scanners won’t penetrate it. Not interesting in and of itself, except that the rest of the asteriods in the field are regular old rock. Hmmmm...
Cruising around the asteriod will reveal an immense space door on the far side. It is hidden down in a folded-over crevice, making it difficult to detect untill they’re right on top of it. The crevice is wide enough to admitt light freighters and starfighters, but not bigger ships like bulk freighters or capital ships. A passive sensor sweep reveals nothing, but a focused scan on the doors will lock a tractor beam on the ship (7D) and drag it inside.
If the players landed on the rock, the stumble upon a person-sized maintenence hatch in a similar hidden crevice. Dentonite will blow it (hatch is walker-scale 3D, but watch out for the explosive decompression when the integrity is compromised!), or a Moderate computer programming/repair roll will pop it. The tunnel, and all of it’s dank, dark, and spookiness, lead to the same place as do the space doors.
Leave
If the players decide that this place is bad news, and don’t want to have anymore dealings with mysterious turbolasers in asteriods, have their proximity sensors warn them of approaching TIE patrols sweeping the asteriod field for them. If this isn’t enough to coax them into the big, scary rock, just have Fiver lock the tractorbeam on them and drag them in. Maybe he thought they were a long lost Rebel convoy or something (dont’ forget, he’s deranged). He’ll figure out otherwise when they’re inside, but hey, if they don’t get in that asteriod, the adventure is pretty much screwed.
Episode 2:
The players are dragged inot an immense cavern that is pitch-dark. Sensor scans show that the room is a vacuum, and that the gravity outside is barely enough to keep the ship on the ground. If they disembark, they will have to wear space suits and make climbing/jumping and swimming rolls to manuever about. Since the room is dark, all darkness penalties apply, and since the only heat differentials are the other players and the ship, characters with this type of night-vision will only be able to detect these things. Sensor suites in different personal armors would be pretty handy right now, but the GM could always nullify those with some background ambient radiation or something. (Still, you’d never believe how many objects a character will smack into before it finally occurs to him/her to TURN ON A GLOWROD!!!)
Read aloud:
As you look around the area, you can tell that the room you are in is big. There are loosley defined shapes all around you, and your glowrods graze across big brown cloth tarps covering...something. You can’t tell what. One of your lights catches a stack of crates in the corner. You notice that the walls, and for that matter, the floor and ceiling too, are all made of heavy-grade durasteel, like the kind found in hangars and spacedocks. The place looks old and deserted, and every surface you touch is layered in dust. Maybe the first order of buisness should be some light...
Now if you want to, you can modify the adventure script I used for your own characters. You certainly don’t have to use one, but I’ve observed that in some situations, it really helps move the adventure along, and keeps the players from screwing around. I don’t use them all the time (in fact, only use them sparingly, as they get to be cliche), but if you’re going to use one, think about the way your characters (and their players) talk, think, and act, and don’t write something out of character. Don’t look at a script as forcing the hand of the characters; I see at as a colorful way of providing information without my players looking at me and asking: “What do I see?”
ASH: Kanowa, Scorp, either of you see a terminal or anything?
KANOWA: That’s what I was looking for. This might be it over here...OW!(trips) Whoever they were, they left in a hurry.
SCORPION: Why makes you say that?
KANOWA: Didn’t take time to put the tools away...(continues searching)
ASH: Scorp? You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?
SCORPION: Yah. Somethin’...I can’t put my finger on it.
ASH: Right. Just feels wrong...
SCORPION: Like death...
ASH: I’ve got a bad feeling about this.
On an Easy computer programming/repair roll, the players learns from the terminal they eventually find that the main power grid is offline, and rerouting power is possible. This requires an additonal Moderate computer roll. Once power is restored, the terminal comes to life. From here, lights and gravity can be restored. Lights are Easy, but gravity is a Moderate roll...
KANOWA: I think I got it...right...
ASH & SCORPION (together): NO! WAIT--!
KANOWA: There!
Read aloud:
The lights come on, and suddnely the entire room is bathed in flickering white light. You are standing on the far wall of what appears to be soe kind of hangar or lauch bay. You se your ship sitting in the middle of the bay. To your right, the wall is full of spare parts, shelves, tools, and manu=als. You see a plate of food, perfectly preserved by the vacuum of space. Whoever left did so in a hurry; they didn’t even stop to finish luch.
To your left, you see more clearly the large objects with brown cloth tarps obscuring them. You move to pull one off, revealing a Y-wing starfighter. Three more Y-wings are in line behind it, leading to the giant space door behind your ship. A circular door on the right wall says “REACTOR ROOM - AUTHOURIZED PERSONNEL ONLY” across its front. Next to the terminal is a similar hatch, but it is unmarked.
When gravity is restored (and this is more fun to do if you do it while some characters are still floating around!), all players need to make Strength rolls to resist falling damage. Characters near the ground take 2D stun damage. Characters further up take 3D damage. Falling from ceiling level exacts 5D damage (offer to reduce the damage by -1D if the player can yell something really funny while falling!)
Life support can be restored, but the computer will require an access code first. This requires a Moderate encryption or Technical roll to bypass. Once this is done, the computer tells the player that atmosphere cannot be restored due to a problem in the reactor room. A door on the farside of the chamber is marked “REACTOR ROOM - AUTHOURIZED PERSONNEL ONLY,” and it is mag-locked, requiring a Moderate security roll to open. This is not the only problem: the massive door is also jammed with age. All characters may have to combine Strength or lifting rolls to open it, but a smart player might look for a lever, or get a power prybar to use for leverage. The door has a strength of 7D, an requires at least three rounds to open fully, or two rounds to open wide enough for one person to squeeze through. All straining characters must make stamina rolls to keep up the exertion after two rounds. Failing the roll results in Strength and Dexterity rolls being reduced by -1D for the rest of the encounter.
The reactor room contains the reactor, and it is still hot and radioactive from being on standby for so many years (this is the source of the odd power emissions the players detected in the first episode.) On a Difficult Perception check, have the character notice an odd hatch in the ceiling (this is where the ASP will attack from.) Characters inside must make Moderate stamina rolls every five minutes (game time) to avoid passing out. Armored space suits add +1D to the wearers stamina, but other than that, they’re on their own.
Reactivation of the reactor rquires a Very Difficult Technical roll, but characters can combine on this one. The base difficulty is reduced to Difficult if the players thought to pull up a schematic of the reactor from the main computer.
Read aloud:
As the reactor thrums to life, the room begins to heat up. Power is returning to the core, and you can almost feel waves of radiation and heat through your suit. Sudenly, you hear a loud THUMP! You spin around, and the hatch you came in through slams shut. The hairs on the back of your neck stand on end, and instinctively you dive for cover as a blaster bolt whizzes just centimeters from your head and spangs off the wall. You peer out from behind the reactor, and you see a droid scanning the room for you! What now?
The character must roll his droid repair skill to know that the droid design is an ASP-7, a fifth-degree labor unit used for menial labor. This one, however, is armed with a blaster rifle and is trying to kill the character.
Outside, the players may attempt to re-open the door and rescue the character trapped in the reactor chamber, but first they will have to deal three more Killer ASPs attacking them.
The character in the chamber must make stamina rolls every other round for the first five combat rounds, and after that, he must make a new stamina roll every round while inside.
If any spacesuits are damaged (suits are compromised after being heavily damaged, or lightly damaged three times), the character will die from decompression in 1D rounds unless the situation is resolved (remember that atmosphere hasn’t been restored yet!)
As for the character trapped in the chamber, he suffers under the afformentioned penalties, as well as failed stamina checks. After the third failed check, the character passes out into an incapacitated state and begins to die from radiation exposure (see below table):
Strength vs. Radiation
Character beats Radiation. Character is unconscious, but does not have to roll again for 5 rounds.
Radiation beats character by 1-5. Character is unconscious, and suffering from radiation poisoning. Untill healed, all die condes are -1D.
Radiation beats character by 6-10. Character is unconscious, and suffering form radiation poisoning. Untill healed, all die codes are -2D. It takes twice as long to heal as normal.
Radiation beats character by 11+. Character will not wake up without full medical treatment and bacta immersion. Without relatively immdiate treatment, the character will die in 4D minutes.
The reactor is still powering up so the radiation it is putting out isn’t nearly as lethal as it would be at full power. Roll the radiation damage at 5D.
Good so far? To keep reading, click here.
Back to Adventures Page
Email: jazzbone@feist.com