Bad Santa: An Adventure Concept for your Mutant Future or Post Apocalyptic Game
So I *might* be running a game session tonight, I'm kind of the back up guy. We will have possibly three GM's present, and I'm probably 3rd in line. But as one looks like will be a no show and the other is new, I figure I better have at least a concept of an adventure setup. So for a quick and dirty set of ideas I used the Beast & Barbarians Golden Edition adventure idea generator to generate some broad concepts for an adventure, and then applied them to a Mutant Future setting. I also wanted to have the adventure Christmas/Holiday themed. So here goes.
Back Story
The party is friends with a mutant settlement that relies on a semi-working robotical farm for food. Some kind of robotical unit snuck into the village and stole the nuclear power cell from one of the main CPU that controls the farm. A scout from the village tracked the bot's path into the ruins of the "forbidden zone", a semi-radioactive and very dangerous remnant of an ancient city. The character's are asked to go into the forbidden zone to retrieve the power cell, else the villagers face starvation. As a reward the major will grant the party citizenship status, which will entitle the party to all the food they can eat and/or carry whenever they visit and/or for as long as they plan to stay.The Conflict
What the party will face is a sentient military AI that survived the apocalypse (though damaged). It's primary function is to manage people during a time of civil emergency. Most of the robotical units under this AI's control have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair. The AI embedded itself in one last remaining functional digger/utility bot under it's control, and wandered the remnants of the city. If found a semi-functioning theme park known as "Santa's Village". The AI then infected the theme park which was equipped to manufacture a variety of toys for children. The AI has sense retasked this manufacturing to begin producing emergency management bots and weapons...but with a twist. Many of the AI's memory banks were taken offline during the apocalypse, so it is kind of figuring things out as it goes along, by meshing many of the designs for the robotic units present at the Christmas theme park with fragments left in it's data banks. Also some of the robotic units have either resisted reprogramming so far or the AI hasn't gotten around to reprogramming them all yet. Instead many of the robotic units have been enslaved. They might be willing to help the party if allowed to continue with their original function, making toys for tots. Santa's Village's main power cell that controls all the bot networking was about to go down so the AI sent out the reindeer to scout for an acceptable replacement. "Rudolf" (see below) with help of a smaller repair bot stole the village's power cell as a replacement for the one going bad in Santa's Village.Potential Adversaries
- Robotic reindeer - Fast running, can "hover fly", tough but with only a bite/claw weapons
- Rudolf - Slightly tougher reindeer with beam weapon in nose
- Cyborg Cave Yeti - Huge yeti bot with chain saw and micro missile launcher
- Elf Bot - Small humanoid bots that are currently producing weapons and robotic parts, some may help party (1 in 6)
- Norwall UAV's - Small swimming robots that will attempt to spear with a drilling horn anyone who attempts to swim across the mote to Santa's house. If "fed" candy due to programming they may ignore party
- German WWI Soldier Bots - About as close the soldier/police bots the AI could come up with in the theme park's computers. Original plans were based off a 20th century clay-mation movie. Armed with hand weapons (lasers, plasma, bolt throwers...though these weapons have a toy feel, often strange colors and sized for children).
- Nano-Snowmen - Like T1000 terminators, in the snow they can morph back into the snow and reform. Primary attack is grapple and attempt to hold characters in snow. Damage causes them to morph back into snow for awhile, reforming when regenerated (regenerate quickly). Only damage that isn't healed is done when their hats have formed (where small bot that controls nanobots resides).
- The Grinch and his Bot Dog - Evil AI bot (not the main one) that wants to thwart Christmas. May help players.
- The Elf Boss - not reprogrammed, will help party and explain what is going on if they help get rid of evil AI.
- Misses Claus - Will lead party into huge eating area. 1-3 rotting food, 4-6 excellent meal, 6 great food but Misses Claus will force party to stay and eat until they explode.
- Evil Santa - The primary bot the antagonist AI now resides in. Modified with a moderate force field and two plasma blasters.
- Santa's Helpers (optional) - Beautiful robots, will attempt to flirt with party and lead them into areas where the party member's organs can be harvested.
- Christmas Tree Sentry Bots - Stationary "Christmas tree" looking sentry bots that spin and fling explosive ordinance at those who do not have clearance to enter protected areas.
- Toy Soldiers - Large humanoid bots that have been reprogrammed and armed. Because originally designed as mostly stationary bots in Santa's Village, they slow and not very agile. On a D6 1-4 they are slow and shoot their hand rifle laser musket inaccurately, on a 5-6 the toy soldier is an upgraded model, with tracks instead of legs and improved (no penalty) systems.
- Toy Bombs - The re-tasked manufacturing in Santa's Village still packages parts and components in gift boxes. These are scattered around Santa's Village, sometimes under Christmas Tree Sentries who guard the parts. On a D6 1-4 the box contains robot or mechanical parts, on a 5 something useful to the players, on a 6 the box is rigged to self destruct (save/avoid for half damage from the explosion).
- Stuffed Animal Bot Mobs - There are numerous animal like bots scattered across Santa's Village. Some will ignore the party, some will approach and want to "play". Others have been modified by the AI and will attack, usually in swarms.
End Game
Players enter the village, face adversaries, meet the head elf who fills them in on what is going on, swim the mote to Santa's house, faces evil Santa and destroys him (or remove the AI from the Santabot). The evil AI will remote into the digger bot and disappear into the earth, possibly to face the players again some other day. The players can then retrieve the power cell which will put the theme park into sleep mode. In future adventures the characters will have the option to retrieve another power cell and reboot the village, which has many useful robotic units and manufacturing capabilities that can be reprogrammed and re-purposed.
P.S. If you would like for me to stat the adversaries up, maybe create a rough map and/or outline of Santa's Village, and put it all into a pdf for download sound off in the comments and I will get to it. Thanks.
Comments