Star Fall.

[The Artist Formerly]

Star fall is an adventure for the ASC period. It can begin any time in the early days of the Second Robotech War and the bulk of the game can take place anytime that the ASC still exists in some form or another. You may have to play around with the time line a bit, maybe extending the war between earth and the master's by 4 to 6 months to get a good fit and flow to the game, but that shouldn't pose too much of a problem.

Star Fall is about a rogue Triumvirate of Science masters who strike a bargin with a East German EBSIS officer running a back water post on the shores of the Caspian Sea. These three Science Masters are working with this EBSIS Major and his personel in the hopes of building their own power seperate from the rest of the major players. The outcome will be rather fluid depending on the PCs and their dispositions. Along the way, the PCs will encounter the standard fare of Soviet troops, a few hench men of the Masters and the odd Zentraedi as well. The villian's goal is to put together the resources required to build this grand new empire...

What you'll need: Robotech Book four, Armies of the Southern Cross, Robotech Adventures, Lancer's Rockers. If you don't have Rockers, the Freedom Fighter/Merc OCC from Invid Invasion should get you there. Invid Invasion won't hurt to have, and Strike Force would also fit in well. As always, the bigger your Palladium library, the more resources you'll have to draw on.

For those keeping track, I built this using the villian first method, starting with the three Science masters and working my way from there. I built my NPCs, then ran from there, allowing the personality traits I assigned to the differant characters to influence the set up of the story.

Player Character recomendations. A lot of this adventure will take place outside of Mecha, and often, outside of body armor. Characters will need to be built to reflect that. GMPs (From now on refered to as GiMPs), TC soldiers, and the REP are all well suited for this mission. There will be alot of action in and around the Caspian sea, so a Sea Squad character would not be out of place either. However, witht he availability of "other skills" and the MoS program of the Southern Cross, pretty much any ASC character will fit.

Most have skills! Player Characters must have these skills.
Radio Basic, Prowl, Swimming, Language: Russian (see RT New World Order for details, or any number of other Palldium core gaming books). Characters without those skills wouldn't get called up for this mission.

Atleast one character should have: As someone is going to have to try and make a grab for atleast one of the new Russian Battloids, one PC will need Pilot Mecha:EBSIS battloid, and Mecha Combat:EBSIS Battloid. Other skills the PC team will need, Demolitions, demolitions disposal, Computer Operations, Computer Programing, Read Sensory Instruments, and as many of the Espionage skills as they can cram into their PCs.

-Begin-
In the opening days of the Second Robotech War, the Masters will begin an attack against the TASC forces guarding earth. One of the RAC's will suffer some sort of internal explosion and plunge earthward. Both the Robotechmasters and the ASC units will be too busy with one another to assist, though both will try and track the crippled ship. Tragectory says it will crash somewhere in South Eastern Europe.

High above the Caspian Sea, at three A.M. local time, a firely white hot explosion will be seen, momentarily obscuring the crash from orbital view. As the lenses focusing on the crash will see after they readjust, bits of firey debris will be scattered wide across the surface of the sea. Both the ASC and the Masters will be too busy with one another to do much of any investigation beyond that. Besides, the RAC exploded, didn't it?

Three months later.
-ASC Secondary Headquaters, Scandinavia Quadrant-

The PCs are assembled in an out of the way breifing room in one of the sub levels of the base. After a short wait, a Lt. Col enters the room, he salutes then orders them at ease, before taking a seat and instructing the PCs to do the same. He cuts right to the chase.

"My name is Lt. Col Chase, and you have all been assigned to my special operations group. What we are about to discuss is of the utmost importance to not only the Southern Cross, but quiet possibly the world. Three months ago during a probing attack by the aliens, one of their RAC ships suffered some sort of malfunction.*A video image appears on the screen behind the Lt.Col. of a RAC taking part in an attack against earth forces before suddenly spinning out of control and tumbling towards earth* Whatever the problem was, the ship lost control, and fell towards Earth, coming down in the north end of the Caspian sea before exploding just before impact with the water. *The image on the screen plays out as the lt.Col describes it.*

"At the time, command thought little of it, it's clear to see that alot of the Alien's hardware is old and they are starting to show their age. However, a week ago, one of our agents working at a base on the north edge of the Caspian got a report out claiming that their had been survivors from the crash and that they were working with the Goddammed Commies. Building some kind of new Mecha. Got us this picture. *A grainy black and white phot of something vaguely humaniod shaped, standing in a Soviet mecha hanger. The picture was taken from a long way off, and clearly has been digitally inhanced. The Image does not conform to any of the outlines of known EBSIS Mecha, or any earth mecha at all for that matter* "This picture was the last bit of data that our operative was able to get us. The operative hasn't reported since and is going on 36 hours over due.

Now, intel suggests that this beast is some where between 27 and 30 feet tall, and may weigh in at around fourteen tons. We have no idea on it's weapons load out.

We intend to insert you as a team to achive three objectives.
1)Confirm the existance of this Mecha, and gather any available data on it's combat abilities, movement profile and other such warfare information.

2)Confirm or deny that the Aliens and Soviets have some sort of working alliance. If they are in cohoots with the Aliens, we need sufficent proof to take to the UEG governing council to back such accusations.

3) Determine the level of defenses in and around the Soviet Base incase a combat team's full intervention is required to obtain any alien POWs who came down on earth.

[The Artist Formerly]

Some Resource Info on the Caspian Sea and the area.

http://medlem.spray.se/davidgorgan/Caspiansea.html

http://www.worldlakes.org/lakedetails.asp?lakeid=8762

http://www.regions.trj.ru/astrakhan/

Though Astrakhan and Atyrau are both vapor, via rain of death, I kind of think of the EBSIS base as setting in some kind of commanding position somewhere between the two. I'm being vauge on purpose to give GMs more flexibility in how, why and how big.

[Marcantony]

Interesting. Personally I would prefer not to have to draw on too many books, but thats just laziness on my part.

[The Artist Formerly]

Give the players a few moments to ask questions or discuss the operation amongst themselves, but not too long. Time is a factor, and one will want to convey that sense to players themselves.

For special equipment the PCs should have access to pretty much any relivant item the can carry. Now is not the time to skimp on resources. That said, the ASC Command does not want the PCs packing in stuff that clearly idenfifies them as Southern Cross. Their body armor will be replaced with EBSIS field plate armor (stats are identical to the Southern Cross style, except it is not laser resistant). Most of the rest of the PC's equipment will be Merchant Republic or Soviet knock offs of Southern Cross equipment. Their weapons will be replaced with Koskov-47s (same as the Fal-2, Soviet variant) or NM-30s (Standard Soviet Pulse rifle). Same follows for slug throwers. For a little fun a enterprising GM might use other Palladium Sources such as N&SS, Heroes Unlimited or Palladium's book of Contemporary weapons to give a old Soviet Bloc feel to this process. Remember, Berretta got smoked by the Zents, and Glock (if it survived) would be in Russian hands.

Every Chracter should have:
EBSIS Field Plate: (50 MDC, not laser resistant)
Koskov-47 OR NM-30 (the Koskov is a better weapon and more previlant).
Five charged E-clips.
50ft of Nylon cord
EBSIS version of the Standard Survival kit.
The ever popular Radio Watch.
800 EBSIS Credits.

Beyond that, it's up to the GM's tastes, individual Character's starting equipment (swapped out for Russian stuff, but not taken away) and equipment requests.

Don't let the players linger too long here nor over ananlyze the problem. For ASC Command, the idea of the EBSIS and Robotech Masters working together is of utmost concern.

"One more thing, everyone pass their dog tags forward."

Once equiped and their idenities concealed, the PCs are shuttled from the Scandinavia HQ to a refitted old British Destroyer in the Mediterainan Sea. The PCs will change choppers, now boarding a Gobal Civil war era Transport helicopter bearing Islamic African Republic markings (see Robotech book Seven New World Order, page 21 for details). The helicopter will take them through the wastelands of the old Turkey/Syria boarder before dropping them off near the sea side town of Baku in what used to be Azerbaijan (not far off from the Baki crater). From there, a contact will guide them to a ship that will carry them north to a fishing village set up in the protective shadow of the EBSIS base.

Simple right?

When the PC's board the helio, point out to them how they can see where extra fuel tanks have been added and an effort to lighten the craft has been made. It's a long way to their desitination.

Four hours into the helicopter flight, the PCs will hear a loud bang as the Chopper shudders and begins to twist and jump under them. Before they have a chance to do much of anything, the Helicopter hits the ground. It was flying low to avoid radar. The broken craft slides along the ground for what feels like forever then in a seatbelt testing moment, it just stops. Each PC takes 3d6 points of damage from the shake, rattle and roll of the crash. They may roll a fall/roll with punch check against difficulty 12 for half damage. Characters wearing body armor gain a +5 to their check. Body armor is great, but it doesn't prevent your internal organs from slapping into your bones.

When they get out, the PCs will find what cause that sudden stop at the end of the slide. A large rock. It also killed the pilot and copilot. The chopper is leaking fuel, but you don't have to point this out to the PCs right way...

Any character with weapon systems or similar skill (use your judgement when the PCs ask) on a successful check can determine that the Helicopter was brought down by a Rocket Propeled Grenade. Who fired it? We're getting there.

Azerbaijan was a semi-arrid stepp land before the Zentraedi rain of Death, the RoD just made it worse, pushing the place into a full blown rocky desert. Survivavl here is as tough as it gets. You bake when the sun is up and you freeze at night. Very little water means very little plant life which means very few animals. Of course characters with the Wilderness Survival skill can find enough of what they need to stay functional, but just gathering those basic resources would eat up alot of one's day.

Seven minutes after the PCs get mobile from the wreck, a group of bandits show up. As you may have guessed, it was their RPG that brought down the chopper and they've come to claim their prize. Now they don't have much in the way of MDC equipment and should pose little threat to the PCs, but if they catch the PC's off guard, they will do their best to take advantage of it.

The bandit group consist of five men. Three ride in what looks like a World War II era American jeep with 12.7mm (AKA the .50 cal) Machine gun in the rear, they have MDC rounds for it. 1d4 MD per 10 round burst, accurate out to about 800 feet (though it's dangerous for well over a mile) they have 130 rounds for it. The other two both ride off road Motorcycles of Soviet Design (though both are 15 years old or so). All of them have a Kalshnikov and two clips (30 rounds per clip) of extra ammo. In the back of the Jeep there is an RPG-7, but no more grenades. Two five gallon fuel cans are strapped to the back of the Jeep, one is empty. Aside from some questionable personal possesion, they also have enough food for ten meals and three gallons of relitively clean drinking water.

If the bandits come to the wreckage and find what appears to be a squad of Soviet soldiers arming up and burying their dead or destroying the chopper, they are going to run away so fast they will make Speedy Gonzalez look like Regular Gonzalez. Anything less then that and the Bandits well may trying and shake the PCs down for a little something something.

Should a firefight break out, remember all that fuel in the chopper? Heh. PCs taking cover there will find themselves in trouble Any missed shot dirrected at a character in or near the chopper has a flat 15% chance of starting a fire. Tripple that check should a MDC energy weapon be used. Any explosive weapon that goes off near the chopper will touch off the fuel automaticly. The explosion will deal 3d6x10 SDC to the chopper and areas directly adjacent to it and half that to a twenty foot radius. All standard modifiers apply. It's an explosion so standard rules for damaging MDC structures (like PC body armor) apply.

If the Helio explodes any PC equipment that hadn't been salvaged is toast. If any of the bandits escape (like if they saw a squad of Russians climbing out of IAR chopper before the Bandits bravely ran away), rumors of what happened out in the desert will be circulating in Baku. The rumors will get a Soviet patrol out to the area roughly 12 hours after the crash. A Soviet Patrol will find the crash site in 36 hours or so otherwise, unless the PCs take the time to disguise or conceal the crash. Should the Soviet garrison at Baku find the crash site, they will know something is up and will elivate their alert level and attentiveness. Radio calls to satalites or something of the like will also tip the Soviets as well as give them a target to zero in on (although short range radio traffic will be totally ignored).

In any and all cases by the time the PCs are ready to move on for Baku, some sixty miles to the North East, they're already over due for their meeting with their contact.

[Jefffar]

Taffy - Need EBSIS resources?

[The Artist Formerly]

Taffy - Need EBSIS resources?

I would love access to you EBSIS stuff! Plus it would save on the number of books one needs to run this game, and therefore addresses Marcantony's statement as well.

[The Artist Formerly]

Wow, 94 views on five posts, this is seeing some spin up.

Anyway, Azerbaijan climante and terrain background information.

http://www.paulnoll.com/Locations/visit ... aijan.html

Climate and Terrain: Climate: Dry, semiarid steppe. Terrain: Large, flat Kur-Araz Ovaligi (Kura-Araks Lowland) (much of it below sea level) with Great Caucasus Mountains to the north, Qarabag Yaylasi (Karabakh Upland) in west; Baku lies on Abseron Yasaqligi (Apsheron Peninsula) that juts into Caspian Sea. Natural resources: Petroleum, natural gas, iron ore, nonferrous metals, alumina.

Like everything else in the area, Azerbaijan got pounded by the Zentraedi Rain of Death, which devistated most of the native population. little remained beyond nomads the fragments of the communities that once existed there. However, early in the formation of the EBSIS, the value of the Capsian Sea providing access to the oil and gas fields of the middle east was readily apparent. The Caucasus mountains made the direct land route less favorable then simply investing to develop the community.

Soviet investment hasn't been terribly significant, and never reached the levels called for in the planing stage. However the EBSIS did build a fairly useful if small port, a tiny garrison force and provided for a small hospital to be built, all at the town of Baku. Two of the old mines have been reopened, but they lie inland and to the North West. A simple rail line runs back and forth between the mines and Baku.

Baku is a port town of about 1100 people, made up of equal parts fisherman, mining related workers, merchant traders and the support personel for the town's various. There is some agriculture in the areas immedately outside the town, but it is insufficent to feed the populace by itself. Fish play a large part in the average person's diet, thanks to aggressive Fish repopulation programs undertaken by EBSIS.

[The Artist Formerly]

To Baku and beyond!

The sun is slowly sinking to the west of the PCs as they take care of any last minute salvage or burials. It will get cold. Any character not properly outfitted for this kind of enviroment (because their equipment was in the chopper when it explodes... ) will run the risk of exposure. There are alot of rules from other Palladium games that cover this, use those if you feel comfortable, but back in the day my group came up with this 1 point of Hit point or SDC damage per hour of exposure. It won't kill you right away, but given time, it will kill you. Character with the Wilderness survival skill and atleast some passing equipment to work with are immune to this effct. So are characters in MDC, cilmate controlled, all weather body armor.

Anyone with either the Navigation skill or the Land Navigation skill should have little trouble pin pointing Baku (with a successful skill check of course). If the PCs have a ride (like a captured bandit Jeep), then travel there should be a breeze. If they don't, then healthy military characters should be able to cover the sixty some miles on foot in about 10 or so hours (maybe a little more, maybe a little less).

FYI, average walking speed for a healthy man is generally concidered 1 mile ever 20 minutes. Such well trained military character should be able cut that time down by a bit. History is full of battles where soldiers moved farther in less time and then fought a battle at the end of that march. A good rule of thumb for these kinds of things is the higher the average PE score of the group (add all PE scores together, divide by the number of characters), the quicker they'll be able to reach their objective.

You can throw a random encounter here if you wish, but it's kind of pointless. Few people this far out in the wastelands are going to have MDC weapons and armor, which makes all such battles totally pointless (25XP/# of PCs, tops). However, if you want to break this up, if the bandits didn't jump the PCs back at the crash site, you can give the PCs another chance to aquire a ride by letting them find the bandit's campsite.

Should the PCs end up with prisoners from either encounter of these bandits, the bandits (who speak broken Russian) were just trying to catch themselves some salvage and saw a non-EBSIS helicopter, probably smuggling contraban. They wanted that contraban for their own fun and profit.

Any bandits escaping provokes the Rumors issue as above.

Baku!
Baku is a small port town of about 1100 people. About 60% of the homes and buildings have electricity and about 30% have running water. Buildings are a hodgepodge of old, pre-Gobal civilwar stuff, post Rain of Death scanvanged stuff (chunks of brick, concreate, sheet metal siding and wood all mixed into a single building) and an occassional new building, mostly serving EBSIS related purposes. The streets are hard packed dirt. Some of the streets are wide, and would allow four lanes of traffic, others are so narrow that getting a single small car down them would be a real challange. The town is surronded by an outter wall varies from six to 12 feet high. The wall has multipul breaks in it allowing access in and out of the city and is in disrepair. For the most part the wall is of questionable defensive value and looks like it predates most of the EBSIS buildings in town.

The PC's contact in town was supposed to be man known as Dr. Asimir. The should have met with him some eight hours ago. He was going to guide them to a ship that would have carried them on to the port town of Elistia, on the north end of the Caspian sea and only 45 miles from their objective, EBSIS out post base CS-417.

The PCs basiclly have two choices. They can try and find the Doctor and see what can be done, or they can try and secure passage for themselves. Because of this, I'm going to present information in stat blocks, and let GMs decide how these things work out.

Enterance issues.

Given the multinational aspects of the Caspian Sea, and the location of Azerbaijan in relation to Africa, the middle east, Asia and Europe, people of any skin color, even blue skinned Zentraedi, wouldn't stand out here. However there are two things the PCs might do that will attract unwanted attention. A successful Intelligence skill check will allow the PCs to avoid them both.

1) Wearing EBSIS Field Plate into town (or any other kind of body armor for that matter). None of the the town locals will question them or even challange the PCs, often giving them defferance and undue respect. But it will attract the local garrison who will send a squad out to find out what's going on and why the PCs haven't reported in. If at any time the EBSIS soldiers think that the PCs are either deserters or not members of the Soviet army, they will try and take them into custody, stripping them of all their equipment and tossing them into jail as either Deserters or filthy bandits. If some kind of a fight breaks out, the PCs will also be on the hook for any damage, injuries or deaths. Once the PCs are exposed as "not EBSIS" the locals will either flat out not do business with them or charge them ten times the going rate (hey a buck is a buck) and then maybe betray them to the EBSIS for even more cash (hey a buck is a buck). Characters wearing Non-EBSIS armor (I don't know where they might have gotten it from, but no adventure module survives contact with the Player Characters) will simply be shaken down by the local garrison for a three thousand credit bribe and/or have their weapons and armor confiscated(You've been smoking pot! I'm confiscating your dope... these dorritos too!) and then sent on their way. Unless they cause trouble. Then it's off to jail for them.

There is one advantage here. Prisoners guilty of Drunk and Disorderly, brawling, petty theft, trying to stow away on a ship or even taking a swing at a Soviet Soldier will be held in jail here in town, proabably assigned some hard manual labor and then let go (with the loss of most of their possessions and all of their money). Anything more serious, and they'll get shipped directly to CS-417 before being reassigned to a work detail stripping a downed Thural Salvan that crashed outside Oktyabr'sk. It doesn't matter what their sentence was, no one ever lives to see the end. Escape from the jail in Baku should be child's play for ASC character. Or they can bribe their way out should the have managed to hang on to the proper resources (the jailer isn't picky and he can't get demoted any farther anyway...) he'll even trade for physical pleasures provided the offerer is reasonably attractive...(you guys are lucky the smart guard is on vaction this week!).

The second way of attracting attention is to drive into town in a captured bandit jeep and or mortorcycle. Those clowns weren't particularly loved or well reguarded here but they were known. Nor is the local black market of the kind of power and devotion to it's members that they could or would seek to claim some horrible vengence on those who would kill their members. No one will say anything or alert the garrison (yeah! Those bandits there killed some other drug runners/bandits!). However these guys were local guys and the PCs may likely become the target of increased trouble from the town's underworld. Such as it is.

A case of food posioning, attacks by pickpockets, getting rolled by a prositute and her pimp while having a private moment, an unfriendly merchant or ship's captin, those kinds of things. Nothing terrible or debilitating, just annoying.

Average cop: No body armor, 22 HP, 25 SDC, 2 attacks per melee. +1 to parry and dodge. 9mm pistol 2d6 SDC per round, 13 rounds per clip, two clips of extra ammo. Hand cuffs, billy club or night stick 2d4 SDC, radio, 2d6x10 credits.

Cop expecting trouble: As above, but with riot jacket (AR:10, 60 SDC) and an AK-47, 4d6 SDC per round, 30 round clip and two extra clips of ammo.

Average soldier. 25 HP, 40 SDC 2 attacks per melee, +2 to parry, dodge and fall/roll with punch. EBSIS plate armor (50 MDC), AK-47 4d6 SDC per round, 30 round clip, two extra clips, night stick 2d4 SDC, handcuffs, radio 9mm pistol 2d6 SDC per round 13 rounds per clip, one extra clip of ammo, and 1d4x100 credits (been a good year for bribes).

Soldiers expecting trouble (or on guard around the base area): As above except, replace the AK-47 with a Koskov-47 2d6 MDC per round 40 rounds per clip, three extra clips.

The town is broken into four major point of intrest.

1) The market area. This lines the main street into town. Everything from hand woven cloth to a large array of foods to firearms and motorcycles can be purchashed. Most of the market area is a large open air bazaar arrangement, but their are several shops, especially for the places dealing with weapons, technology of any kind or the more valuabel items. All trade is in either EBSIS credits or barter. Shop keepers tend to be sharp eyed for issues of theft and will try to haggle every last red cent from potential clients. Mixed in to the market area are a few resturants and cantennas as well as an (obvious) opium den. Alcohol is readily available, dispite it's questionable quality and dispite the disapproval of the Muslem part of the population.

Most of the shops are open by sun up, and are closed just before sun set, though some will be closed during call to prayer. The streetwise skill should let characters find most of what they need and get a reasonable price for it (on a successful check of course).

The town's police force consiting of 57 officers will have ten or twelve men here on duty during the day time operation. Usually two to six members of the EBSIS garrison will also be on "patrol" here (or pounding down some Vodka in one of the near by watering holes).

2) The port. Taking up most of the south east part of the town, the port area is surround by an eight foot chain link fence with another two foot razor wire topper above that. It's the best patrolled part of town with both private security (generally around a given peir, boat, warehouse or spesific local of the like), and EBSIS foot patrols (four two man teams can be found walking around here at any one time, six teams will be on duty if the alert level was rasied for some reason). There is always some loud activity going on there, 24/7. Plenty of lights keep the place well illuminated at night. Each of the six peirs has rail cart access allowing hand carts to be rolled back and forth from ships to various warhouses. Beyond the ships themselves, there is little of intrest for the PCs here (unless they are really into mining for some odd reason...?).

There are a few dock side bars here and there, along with a shop or two specializing in the needs of sailors (I'm sure you can figure that one out). In the center of the port stands a newer building, built by the EBSIS, the harbor master. Four local police are always here during operation and two cops will be on patrol when it's closed. The three story building handles all fees, taxes, travel plans and acts as the radio station for squacking at and guiding ships in. They also relay weather information and all points bulletins to any near by boating traffic.

Hiring a boat, stowing away or stealing a ship...

First the PCs will have to figure out which boats are headed for the right place. The Caspian Sea is a big body of water. Checking at the harbor master's office might be one way to do it, but that will either require breaking and entering or some clever fast talking to gain ahold of that info that way. Asking around at a dock side bar should work just as well. Of course if you steal one, you don't have to worry about finding out where it was headed.

Booking passage (and we'd like to avoid any imperial ... entanglements) should be fairly easy for the PCs with the streetwise provided they haven't killed a cop or soldier or started some major attention getting brawl. 200 credits a head plus 30% of the total cost for silence. Most trips this way will take a day to a day and a half to reach Elistia.

Stowing away is another matter. The strike team will have to slip on board the ship with all their equipment and without anyone noticing. An Iron ore transport that's currently in the port is a good bet for this large boat, small crew, lots of places to hide. That trip will take two days to reach Elistia (it's a slow, heavily loaded ship).

Stealing a ship is a possibility, atleast one character will need Pilot:Boat/of the proper varity to make this work. Of course, the bigger the boat, the harder it will be to control, requiring more trained people to help run it. Of course, a stolen ship will attract attention and not only will the Baku harbor patrol be on the look out, but so will the harbor patrols of all of the near by ports, including the sea dock at CS-417.

One last note, there are military transports coming into and going out of the port from time to time, infact one is in port right now, and is due to leave in just *** hours/days. Sneaking on board such a vessel would be pretty difficult, and either taking it or staying hidden would even tougher. But hey, these are the best the ASC has to offer, right?

3) The garrison. This area includeds not only the EBSIS garrison, but also the police station, the hospital and the city government buildings. The garrison is the source of the town's power, via a large deisel generator. The base area is made up of two bunk houses (each with 40 beds divided into rooms of four). A dining, recreation and shower area connects the two bunk houses to the admin buildings and garages. Officer housing is above the administration building. 8 EBSIS tanks (LCT-Tornados) and 20 battle blitz bikes fill out the motor pool, along with a number of light (sdc) personel carriers and jeeps. All of these vehicles are stocked, fueled and armed where appropreate, but that's about the best that one can say for them. A shortage of parts and properly trained personel keep these machines on the edge of breakdown.

The base itself is walled off behind a ten foot high ferrocreat wall (18 MDC per 10 foot section of wall). The wall has three gates, one to the south east, exiting into the port section, another to the west, leading dirrectly onto the market street, the final gate leads to the north west and it doesn't go anywhere (just the outer edge of town) and hasn't been used in years (the locks and gears are rusty). Two guard watch each of the first two gates. Each of the corners of the outter wall have a manned watch tower with a single armed guard and movable spot light. During the night most of the court yard can be lit up leaving few places to hide. There are two patrols of two guards who sweep the inner court yard moving in a counter clockwise patterned. There is minimal electronic security inside the base. There is a helicopter pad big enough to handle two Sea Sergent class choppers on the far east end of the base.

The base has a supply of MDC body armor (currently 73 fully operation suits) a supply of MDC weapons for the troops (mechanics and administratiors don't need laser guns, but everyone else does) and E-clips for all. 36 1d4 MD grenades can be found in the armory along with a large supply of SDC arms (AKs and the like).

Baku's garrison is modest by most standards and the soldiers here are lack luster to say the least. Only the most inept and obvious of PC actions will get noticed (see the above notes). This isn't a good assignment and the soldiers here are not good soldiers.

There are a dozen government buildings scattered along the streets immedately around base. The only notable one is the Police Headquaters which also has the prison below it. There is a small armory on the first floor, containing SDC body armor (mostly hand me down Soviet stuff from the Gobal Cival War like the Riot Jacket, AR:10, 60 SDC, 12 pounds) which is rarely worn. The armory also has a modest selection of small arms, pistols and AKs mostly. The prision (which serves both the local Police and the garrison is underneath the station, 12 four person cells, with usually 10 to 12 prisoners in here at a time. The prison area is mostly sound proof with only the loudest of cries making out, and even those are ignored. No running water or electricty down here, everthing is run by candle light and a bucket in the corner.

The night time jailor is a kid of 16, who was recently assigned here as a punishment for reporting another officer who took a bribe. He's well meaning but naive and a easy mark for a fast talking PC. He won't knowingly open the jail cell for any reason, nor can he be convinced to let the PCs out early. But any relitively belivable form of trickery will work. The day time jailor is a mean cuss who is too lazy, too fat and too incompetant (even Vice City PD would reject this guy) for most other duties. But his brother is assistant chief. He won't pay attention to anything the PCs do, not injury, not sickness, not fighting, not anything at all. When it comes, there is a good chance he either won't pass out their meal, spit in their meal, or eat it himself (not that missing this particular meal is such a bad thing(blech!). Unless of course one of the PCs is a female. Then that character will be center of his attention. He can be bribed to let the PCs out provided their crimes don't include murder or assault with MDC weapons. Any meaningful bribe will work and sexual favors are definately something he'd try and get bribed with.

Night time guard: 22HP, 25 SDC, 2 attacks per melee +1 to parry and dodge. Night stick 2d4 SDC.
Day time guard: 14 HP, 8 SDC 1 attack per melee, -2 to dodge. Special attack Overbear. This 360 pound man guard can simply fall on a target engaged in melee combat for 1d4+8 points of damage. Wiggling free of the guard requires two succesful parries against the guard's attack roll and the smell alone is likely to tramatize the Player Character (that's his new body spray, ode to Kromelizard).

The stair well from the jail cells has fire exit on the first floor landing. One would think that would be a bad idea on a prison, wouldn't they?

4)The last section of town is the rail yard area. Not much to speak of, to boarders the port area (which is to the south). The trains here are pre-gobal civil war, and are prone to breaking down. One of them is almost always in the yard undergoing repairs. The yard also features several spots for loading and unloading train cars into storage containers which are then easily loaded onto ships. The train yard only services the mine area, so aside from giving the PCs an easier way into the port there really is little of intrest here. A couple of town police will be on guard here but the rail workers handle most of their own troubles anyway...

[The Artist Formerly]

On the trail of Dr. Asimir.

If the PCs go looking for their contact, it will take two successful streewise checks and 6d6 credits to track him down. He isn't a real doctor, but a player in the local underground. He operates out of a slightly upscale dock side tavern that caters to saliors, fishermen and the shipping business in general. He'll be very gunshy about dealing with the PCs, feeling that this may be a trap set up by the EBSIS or the local authorities. But with some convincing he will do business with the characters.

First of all, the PC's have missed the ship that the ASC arranged to provide passage on. That money is already gone to the captin and crew of the ship in question, no way to recover it. However, if the PCs want to arrange something else, he can help. He can have them on a ship bound for Elistia in under three hours, but it will cost them 1000 Credits or something of value in trade, like two charged E-clips. Taking the Doctor up on this deal will keep the PCs totally undetected by the Soviets, unless they do something really stupid and obvious to attract attention. This price also includes a set of fake ids for the PCs to use once they get to Elistia. These aren't great IDs but they and a few credits will pass casual inspection. He'll present these as if they were a real bonus and a special favor that he's doing for the PCs, but in reality, the ASC already paid for them.

Should things go south for any reason, the good doctor has already paid sufficent bribes to keep himself out of trouble. And he is the only real black market player in town (a member of the Russian Mafia) even the EBSIS garrison commander would think twice before tossing the doctor into jail). Only the absolutely worst circumstances would get him tossed and even then he would likely be "killed" resisting arrest and his twin brother would take up residence here in town, doing his brother's old job.

[The Artist Formerly]

Bear with me, I'm conspiring with Jefffar.

[The Artist Formerly]

My powersource died on my newer computer. It's off to the shop to be repaired, and with it, all of my notes and story work for this thread, along with all the wicked keen stuff Jefffar sent me. Bear with me.

[Jefffar]

Was that a hint?