Your Favorite Encounters, Adventures, And Plots
Posted: Tue Jul 23, 2024 9:51 pm
Looking for inspiration for interesting random encounters and longer term plot or adventure ideas. What are your favorites (as a player or GM, either)?
Of all the Rifts campaigns I have run, this is one of my favorites:
Long before ever meeting the characters, when the Operator Hyperion was working as an apprentice in a salvage yard in the city of Char, a barbarian approached him with what he called salvage which was actually parts of some unfamiliar kind of EBA. It was only useful as scrap since it was badly damaged and was corroded from years of exposure to the swamps. Scrap is usually valued by the ton, so what the barbarian had wasn't really worth anything. The barbarian was crestfallen to learn this but Hyperion felt pity for him and offered him half (what was left) of a fifth of whiskey for it. The barbarian gleefully accepted and went on his way.
Hyperion noticed that the helmet of the armor had a built in camera and decided to see if it had any recorded images left on it. All he found was a few short seconds of a recording that showed a giant robot hand sticking out of the swamp water as though it were grasping for the sky. It only had three fingers instead of four which meant it was likely of an alien nature. Being a huge Robodome fan, he was very familiar with all North American and even some Triax robots and he did not recognize this as being a part of any of them. In fact, it was much larger than any robot he knew about. What intrigued him the most though was that if it's environmental systems were sealed, it might still be largely intact.
To a robot manufacturer such as Northern Gun or Titan Robotics, assuming the technology was on par with or better than their own, such a find would be worth millions of credits. His thoughts raced considering the possibilities and he could not sleep that night from thinking about it. The next morning, he went in search of the barbarian and found him, hung-over and sleeping in front of Roma's. When he was sobered up enough, the barbarian told him how he could find the giant hand. It then became Hyperion's mission to find and extract the giant robot.
However, he knew he would have to be patient. First he would have to finish his Operator's apprentice-ship. Then he would travel to Ishpeming and consult someone from their Technological Acquisitions Team to see if there was any interest in the robot, should he be able to get it to them.
This he did and although they couldn't give him a firm estimate based solely on a video of a robot hand, they could estimate based on its size and alien nature that it could be worth in the tens of millions.
More determined than ever, he decided to take out a loan in order to cover the expeditions costs. Unfortunately, loans through legitimate means weren't a possibility given his age, experience and the risk involved. Especially since he did not want to reveal his discovery to any more than was absolutely necessary.
So he took out a loan with the Black Market, bought a ATV truck, trailer and all the tools he would need to practice his craft on the go. Then he set out to travel to a place in Oklahoma in which he had already purchased some land with his earnings from his apprentice-ship. On the way there though, bandits struck and managed to get away with most of his remaining funds. Funds which he was going to hire armed guards with...and apparently should have done prior to leaving Ishpeming. Thankfully, they left the truck and his tools alone.
He finished his trip to Oklahoma and settled in. The land he had bought came with a junk yard where people had been stockpiling (what they thought was) useless junk for decades. He turned it into a salvage yard and garage and opened up shop. This served his immediate needs of having an income and he saved up what he could. It was apparent that he wouldn't have enough when his loan came due though and he was getting desperate when a customer brought in a skelebot. It's arms and legs had been blown off and even its head was in pieces but for some reason it's fail-safe explosive (which would normally obliterate the inner workings) had failed to detonate. The bots nuclear power supply was still intact and Hyperion (plus his brother Helios and a butter troll named Elvis, both of whom had signed on to help him) were able to salvage it. The customer was over joyed, considering it was worth 500,000 credits. After selling it, the customer cut him in on the deal.
This gave Hyperion an idea. The conflict with the Coalition and Tolkeen was over but he had heard that the Coalition had deployed hundreds of thousands of the skelebots over the course of the war. Supposedly, there were what had been dubbed 'Skelebot Graveyards' out there. If he could get his truck there and collect as many as possible, perhaps he could salvage a few more of the power supplies. Just one failed self destruct in a hundred meant there were dozens if not hundreds (though unlikely) of power supplies to be had! It would be dangerous though. He wouldn't make the mistake of leaving without armed support this time.
All of this happened before the players even sat at the table. Then, as luck would have it, four strangers (the PCs) appeared in the tiny town (named Sunrise) that he was located in. They consisted of a juicer, a gunfighter, an RPA pilot with a Delilah and a dragon hatchling. When one of the town's children went missing, they teamed up and rescued him from a Devil Unicorn. They were celebrated as heroes by the towns folk. These strangers, he thought, just might do.
He contrived an 'audition' of sorts. There were some ruins of a place once called 'Tulsa' about thirty miles away that had become infested with Grigleapers. He offered them free E-Clip recharges and armor repairs (but not replacements) and 500 credits per Grigleaper corpse that they could recover from the ruins. They agreed and set out.
The infestation was almost more than they could handle. No matter how many they killed, more soon replaced them. Eventually, they were able to get a break in the action long enough to cut off some heads and get out, which they did. Once again, they were welcomed in the town as heroes and Hyperion paid them their reward but then offered them an even better deal. He explained his plan to go to the Tolkeen battlegrounds to recover Skelebots and offered them free E-Clip recharges, armor repairs and a ten percent cut, apiece, of the profits. Another ten percent would go to his employees (Helios and Elvis) and the remainder would go to himself since he was footing the bill and it was his idea in the first place. They agreed.
The next day they set out and began their journey. The first leg was to MercTown where Hyperion wanted to make arrangements ahead of time for buyers of the power supplies. They spent a couple days there, Hyperion made his arrangements and the PCs had an encounter with some thugs. Then they set out again. They had multiple encounters on the way, some with bandits and some with monsters. They had to stop and build small wooden bridges for the truck and trailer to cross ravines and rivers a couple of times plus there were other hazards to be overcome.
Finally, they arrived at the battlegrounds and got to work doing salvage. They specifically sought out Skelebot Graveyards, of which they only found a couple. However, they were able to find other items to salvage that more than made up for this. It wasn't just a matter of getting in, getting the stuff and getting out though. There were Retribution Squads (who considered them grave looters), rogue Iron Juggernaughts, bands of Brodkil, a Neuron Beast, bandits/claim jumpers plus the ever looming threat of Coalition patrols. Two of which they had to fight. Luckily, the abundance of ley lines and nexuses in the area interfered with radio communications and the CS forces were unable to call out for help.
Eventually, the truck and trailer were loaded down with salvage. Not the least of which was a dozen power supplies! They returned to MercTown but not without some more encounters with bandits and monsters. When they got there, some of Hyperion's buyers backed out and he had to spend a few days shopping them around. The PCs used the time to set up shop in the Bazaar to sell some of the other things they had managed to salvage. While they were there, a demon army attacked the city and the PCs managed to get a number of children and their teacher (who had all been on a class trip to see the Bazaar) to safety and then reunite with Hyperion. The demons soon discovered that attacking a town full of mercs is a bad idea and were driven off.
A few days later, everything was sold and Hyperion gave them their split. But he told them to come back with him to Sunrise if they wanted a shot at 'real' money. Intrigued, they went with him. It was a good thing too because the Black Market had arranged an ambush. They surrounded the PCs and Hyperion and offered to let them live in exchange for all his salvage, all they money he could scrounge up (they called it 'interest'.) and all their weaponry and armor.
Hyperion pulled out a credit card and said that all the money he owed was on that card and then he pointed out that should an altercation occur, the gunfighter, juicer, RPA pilot and dragon hatchling would all be gunning for the leader. The goons would likely win any fight, but the leader would die regardless. The leader opted for the money and his life and left.
That night, back at the salvage yard, they celebrated with drinks and good food and when it looked like the party was about to wind down, Hyperion hooked up that old helmet to a projector and played the image of the giant robot hand for them. Something he had done countless times by himself or with his brother. He told them about how he had acquired the helmet, his meeting with Northern Gun and offered them the same deal he gave them with the Tolkeen trip, Ten Percent apiece plus free repairs and recharges. He even explained his back up plan should the robot be a bust. Which was to turn the truck's trailer into a refrigerated car and ship dinosaur meat back to MercTown. Which would only net them thirty-ish thousand credits but would at least pay for the trip. They agreed.
More encounters with bandits and monsters ensued. They stopped by Char where he was reunited with the 'Old Goat', his former boss while he was serving his apprentice-ship. They had another encounter with a gang, then dodge and fought dinosaurs, barbarians and carnivorous plants before finally getting to the hand. There, his brother climbed into the palm of it, sat down and used his psychic powers (he was a Psi-Tech) to bond with the machine which he discovered was not only in good condition but was still 'on'. Its environmental systems were still fully sealed!
Fortunately, it was only laying on its back with its hand extending up out of the water because it turned out to be seventy feet tall. Helios mentally possessed it and got it moving with little problem. He had it first sit up and tons of muck and water were sloughed off of it. This got the attention of a Spinosaurus that considered the area its territory and it moved to attack. The characters fought it off though without casualties.
Helios got the life support operating again and then opened the access hatch. Inside they found half a dozen mummified alien corpses. The helmet Hyperion had recovered was the same kind they all had. Later on, they were able to determine that the aliens had been accidentally rifted to the dinosaur swamp about a decade beforehand. They wandered around the swamps looking for any sign of civilized life and only found Char (via an arial recon). They determined from that that this was a primitive jungle world and lamented that they had no way to get back to their home-world. Eventually, they ran out of food and opened their hatch to retrieve some fruit they found growing there. Even though they were only out of the robot for a few moments, that was enough let in a pathogen (disease, viruses, fungal spores, take your pick) that eventually killed them all.
They abandoned the hover bikes they had brought with them, climbed into the robot and flew (it could reach Mach 1 in an atmosphere) it to Char where they disembarked and had another party. More gangs, this time several banded together, attacked and tried to steal the robot but they fought it off. The RPA pilot joyously used the robots weapons to fight them off but during so she discovered an alarming fact. One of the robots weapons was a fully armed nuclear IBCM(much smaller than real IBCMs due to advanced technology) and they quickly realized that they had to get rid of it somehow. They surmised that Northern Gun (and they assumed Titan Robotics) wouldn't touch the robot as long as that was part of it and that the Coalition would stop at nothing to destroy at least the missile(since it was alien tech, they wouldn't cry over losing the robot as well...if need be) just to ensure that it wasn't used against them.
They decided on 'donating' the missile to Reid's Rangers but wound up having to go with the missile into a Vampire Intelligence lair to set it off since Hyperion and Helios were the only ones familiar with the alien tech. The dragon brought a teleportation scroll with him and everybody but the juicer was able to get away. The juicer stayed behind to guard it while it finished its countdown. He would have died but an inter-dimensional traveler who had been watching all of the situation with the Vampire Intelligence offered him a reprieve. He admired the commitment the juicer had to the cause and offered to take him to his home planet (my fantasy world and i.e. Pathfinder) as a reward where he got off the juice and became a bard. Lol.
The Robot, btw, was an alien version of the Battleram Attack Robot from Phase World.
