Gently Rotting

4 The Caldera

13 min read

The Vengeance Control Loophole salvage crew is after a big payout, they’d like to grab some high-end gear to outfit themselves before they head up to The Argent Republic station in the planet above.

To that end, Hal has gotten wind of what appears to be some kind of industrial accident occurring at an Adamant Arch Planetary research station nearby.

No doubt the AdArch mercs will be moving in at the same time, and we should expect other large corporate interests to converge, but this is a prime opportunity to get in and steal some valuables from one of the big players without them being able to strike back.

Mission Report

Schmidt’s Cleaning

Before departure, everyone suits up in hazard gear from the crawler’s quartermaster. Good job we’re TL 3 now, or this would be a tough area to explore. The crawler is directed to let them off at the south of the caldera, nearest the obvious easiest path in to the crater at the caldera pass.

Just out from the hangar bay, the crew takes a quick sample of the water runoff in the area, and sends it back to the crawler for processing. After a moment we get confirmation that, yep, try not to breathe in the fumes, and definitely don’t go swimming. Specifics of what’s in here will take a bit more time.

Moving off up to the pass, the crew spots a glint from what is almost certainly a scope hidden up in the rocks, watching the pass below. They open comms to whoever is up on the slope, who turn out to be part of the AAP cleanup and reclamation effort. Luckily Wet Steve has prepared a cover story: the crew are a contracted mercernary outfit called “Schmidt’s Cleaning” (tagline, “We Clean Schmidt Up!”).

The legitimate Adamant Arch mercernaries ask them to wait a moment, while they radio this back to their boss (Jori Ungle). This was always going to work, because Steve’s ability gives him a passable cover. However, my “does a random encounter happen” dice had come back with a big thumbs up, so having rolled the specific encounter up in the background, I needed a plausible moment to introduce it.

Enter Anastasia.

Railrifles at Dawn

A vicious crack sounds out from the other side of the caldera pass, followed a fraction of a moment later by a horrific screeching explosion of metal as a railrifle round from an unknown assailant thwacks into one of the Hussars of the AdArch team.

Athena & Steve spring swiftly into action, trying to extort money out of the beleagured defenders (“You need to pay for the platinum package if you want our help.”), as a battle begins.

Arrayed up on the slope, opposite the Adamant Arch crew is Scion Anastasia and her retinue. The pearly pink, jet-type mech is irresistable. Who is this person, and why have they brought the Chapell Roan Special mech to a wrecked crater? The face of a severe looking young white woman with harsh eyes and straight black hair appears over the comms,

“Leave, dogs, and I’ll let you keep your lives.”

The entire vengeance control crew is instantly smitten. In the anime, everyone is drawn chibi-style with heart eyes, and Anastasia gets the blue lines of disgust over the top of her face.

Laz0rbrn activates egg’s mayhem to find out.1 Breaking through the firewall activated by one of the Solos, they learn that:

  • This is Scion Anastasia, of the XIIth house of Regalia Luxe
  • Her mission here is to reclaim anything of value from the adamant arch laboratory
  • The mech names of the entire Regalia Crew:
    • PRIVATE PARTY (that’s Anastasia’s)
    • WILL BE DONE
    • IN DEFIANCE
    • GRAVESTONE
    • PLINTH
    • NURSE
    I’m really glad they asked this, the Private Party is a great name, the whole crew here is rocking some pretty ace mech names (except NURSE, which is a bit uninspired).

I said it’s a PRIVATE PARTY

And with that, battle begins in earnest, with the salvage crew now being fired on by the Regalia Infiltration team.

The GRAVESTONE & PLINTH units are unholy terrors, they’re up in a prime position in the rocks, and well defended by the two brawler units and the PRIVATE PARTY. The setup here is rough for the crew, the terrain is not in their favour at all as they’re fighting uphill.

The NURSE’s drone helper is taken over by Laz0rbrn, but unfortunately that still leaves the NURSE itself free to unleash tesla hell2.

Gert moves up the slope in the Slagathorus, which is an absolute iron-clad tank. Her net-launcher and Grav Disruptor are deployed to keep the two brawlers at bay, while Steve and Jack bring the weapons of Mr Nips & the Czar down on the IN DEFIANCE and crush it.

Athena is having a terrible time down-slope, as both her and Hank (her turret)‘s rotary machine guns roll critical fails when firing, causing them both to become damaged.3

Under a continued hail of railrifle fire, Athena patches up the Czar in the nick of time, and the crew manages to take down the rest of the Regalia squad, save from the PRIVATE PARTY. That mech can move twice as the others, and just barely avoids a launched net from Gert’s Slagathorus.

The battle concludes, with the retainers of Anastasia having ejected from their battle-scarred mechs, and Anastasia herself jetting away from the battlefield, soon a flash of pink in the distance.

The crew assesses the damage, and conclude that further advances into the caldera would be foolish and dangerous4. So, they round up the captured Regalia Luxe members, and head back to the crawler. Not too much scrap recovered directly from this mission, apart from the salvage from the Regalia mechs, so the crew decide to get in touch with Jori and turn the mercenary cover story into cold fact, and proposing to take a job with AdArch to track down the escaped Anastasia.

Outcomes

  • Some salvage from the battle.
  • Captured the 5 retainers of Anastasia, and brought back to the crawler.
  • Taking a job with AdArch to track down where Anastasia has got to.

Adventure Setup

I tend not to completely finish prepping a location before we start running it, because typically after the first game in one specific region map it starts becoming clearer where the party is drawn too and what they want to do. Seen as we ended up not actually using this area very much at all, this whole setup section is pretty light-touch.

This is a poison swamp, very Dark Souls of me.

Main feature

The caldera basin, this was an Arch-Novel research facility, which recently suffered some kind of serious disaster, and is now a smoking toxic ruin.

The Caldera facility was engaged in bio-titan manufacture/research, and produced the IONA construct. After the explosion, IONA is now loose, and the deeply hazardous materials used in its creation have spread into the surrounding area, mixed with the water from a lake that originally sat in the Caldera basin.

The toxic runoff is hazardous to breathe, and without preventative measures will cause an injury to be sustained every hour.

Threats

  • Brute - IONA IV
  • Tyrant - Regalia Infiltration Clade
  • Tyrant - Adamant Arch Reclamation Outfit
  • Environmental - Toxic runoff from the Caldera explosion

Groups

  • AdArch Reclamation Teams
  • Regalia Infiltration Operatives
  • IONA IV
  • Settlers at Outreach & Lampoon Town.

Weather

Roll
20Clear skies
11-19High Wind
6-10Howling Wind
2-5Storm Winds - Ballistic and Missile weapons rolling with penalty dice^[See Rules Hacks].
1Tornadoes - Ballistic and Missile weapons rolling with penalty dice, tornadoes5.

Random Encounters

Roll
20IONA IV
16-19Jori Ungle & Retinue picking through wreckage
11-15AdArch Reclamation Team (chosen randomly from A or B)
6-10Infiltration Team (chosen randomly from A or B)
2-5Anastasia’s Circle stalking the party.
1Any Regalia Clade Hunting any AdArch Team, all chosen randomly.

Locations

I didn’t draw the connecting lines on this one, because for the most part it all connects pretty much as you’d expect it to.

The crew had a choice of where to bring the crawler around, could have been anywhere on the outskirts (i.e. 5, 6, 7, or 8).

1 - Outreach

Tiny high-altitude wastelander village, torn to shreds by explosion from the facility 2 weeks ago, surviving village still picking themselves back together.

2 - Mountain pass

High peaks, whistling wind. 1-in-3 chance of meeting IONA IV outrider dismantling wasteland creature of some description, 1-in-3 chance of creatures un-dismantled but agitated.

3 - West Caldera Slope

Triple travel time over unpathed scree slopes.

Nothing else of note.

4 - East Caldera Slope

Triple travel time over unpathed scree slopes.

AdArch temporary forward operating post being setup here by a Reclamation Team B.

5 - Lampoon Town

Junker town, doing badly after the explosion. Hastily rebuilt on stilts, with help from Union Crawler Navel Terror, which has since had to move on.

6 - South Runoff

Outer fields of toxic runoff from the facility explosion. Dotted with islands, scrabby dying trees, craggy landscape.

7 - Goods Receiving

Main shipment in for the AdArch facility, including airstrip. Now covered in toxic sludge. 1-in-2 chance of Regalia being here, if not they are in the tunnels from here to the inner caldera. D3 for which team it is either here or in the tunnels.

8 - North Runoff

Wide toxic wasteland, was a battlesite, dotted with salvageable mechs.

Area salvage: TL3 // Supply 6

9 - Inner Caldera

Ruined AdArch high tech manufacturing facility, lying in the toxic wasteland. Jori Ungle and Crew already picking through the wreckage. Battle, or extended salvaging here will attract as a D3:

  1. IONA IV
  2. D3 IONA IV Outriders
  3. Regalia Infiltration Team (and then D3 for specific team)

Area salvage: TL4 // Supply 4

10 - Exposed Facility Exterior

Entrance to the Caldera internal facility.

I intended to flesh this out with a detailed area map, but we never got there so I didn’t.

11 - Caldera Pass

Pass into the caldera, watched by AdArch Reclamation Team A.

12 - North Caldera Slope

Triple travel time, nothing else of note.

Groups

Regalia Luxe

Anastasia’s Circle

This is now the final version of Anastasia’s squad. I jumped up their power level pretty significantly after watching the players tear AGLA and his retinue to pieces without breaking a sweat.

We’re really amping the anime vibes up with this crew, heavily inspired by the Zoldyck family butlers from Hunter x Hunter. See more details at her).

  • Scion Anastasia//SAPPHIRE (she/her) - Modified Contour Drop Bear//PRIVATE PARTY Severe features, bloodthirsty cold blue eyes, long black hair. Sleek mech with sharp angles, pearly pink paint. 
  • Handmaiden Juliana//GRANITE (she/her) - Sakura Solo//GRAVESTONE Black suit, brown hair, bangs over her eyes, gloomy. Mech is slate grey, flat slab like Solo, with a big rail rifle down spine.
  • Handmaiden Mabel//MARBLE (she/her) - Sakura Solo//PLINTH Black suit, brown hair, bangs over her eyes, very sunny. Mech is slate grey, flat slab like Solo, big rail rifle down spine.
  • Butler Julius//STOIC - Modified Brawler//IN DEFIANCE Black suit, close cropped hair, bright face. His mech is army green, heavy bulbous mech, huge shield, dual shotgun/harpoon cannon on other arm.
  • Butler Marco//HOWITZER - Modified Brawler//WILL BE DONE Black suit, long ponytail, lined face. WILL BE DONE is wine red, heavy blocky mech, wielding pair of axes.
  • Nurse Ferro//TONIC - Modified Little Sestra//NURSE Soft round face, short curly brown hair, wearing nurse outfit. Mech is painted hospital light green.

Infiltration Team A

Specific names of operators to be decided as needed.

  • Opus Gopher x2
  • Stefanus Mantis
  • Beam Forge x2

Infiltration Team B

  • AMS Spectrum
  • Sifter Terra
  • Drontek Little Sestra
  • Sakura Solo (Minigun instead of Railrifle) x2

Adamant Arch Mercernaries

Jori Ungle & Retinue

Jori works directly for Adamant Arch Planetary, specifically APL. The others here are contracted mercs.

  • Jori Ungle//HEAVYWEIGHT (he/him) - Custom Colossus//BIG BEAR Heavyset man with grey mutton chops, military looking gear and a red beret, the Big Bear is an imposing deep blue Colossus Pattern.
  • Madge//MARTYR (she/her) - Brawler Gladiator//WARDOG Short, compact woman with a harsh bob
  • Joy//LURID (she/they) - Needler Photon//FLUTTER Tall white woman, long blonde hair, colourful dress
  • Brigsy//GRENADIER (he/him) - Bastion Atlas//DOBERMAN Short black man, bald, heavy coat.
  • Felix//BLACKBEARD (he/him) - Blackbeard Kraken//HEART OF THE SEA Stooping man, big beard and hair, wide-brimmed hat
  • Kilko//DOLL (she/her) - Incipient Little Sestra//DUALITY Blank eyed woman, plain functional outfit

AdArch Reclamation Team A

  • Brawler Rifleman
  • Ironmonger Magpie x2
  • Maggie Magpie
  • Tank x3

AdArch Reclamation Team B

  • Contour Hussar x2
  • Armoured Box Wheel x2
  • Armoured Missile Squad x4

IONA

I added these “Hacking Inimical” abilities, because the core book implies that the bio-titans are partially machined, but doesn’t really land specifically (AFAICT) on whether a bio-titan can be hacked or not. I decided to add this to limit hacking’s effectiveness (they’re not the same as a mech or a drone), but allow our hacker to actually engage in combat with them.

Hacking is still incredibly strong against single powerful foes, so I think the limit proscribed here is fair.

The IONA IV autonomous weapon was developed in the caldera.

IONA IV Outriders

Giant Burrowing Worms, two spade-like digging front feet, huge mouth.

  • 35 SP Each
  • 1 Titanic Action Each per round, can be spent to move or make 1 bite attack.
  • Burrower
  • Giant Bite - 7SP // Melee
  • Acid Spit - 5SP // Range: Medium // Explosive (2) // Burn (2) // Poison // Any creature hit by this attack more than once in a round becomes vulnerable.
  • Hacking Inimical - Hacks can only last 1 turn, and can only affect this Bio-titan once before the ANTI-BODY ancillary programming organelle kicks in.

IONA IV

Gargantuan Burrowing Worm, enormous array of spade-like digging feet at front end of body, huge mouth.

  • 100 SP
  • 3 Titanic Actions per round, can be spent to move or make 1 bite attack. Can spend 2 to use Acid Hail
  • Burrower
  • Gargantuan Bite - 10SP // Melee
  • Acid Hail - 7SP // Range: Medium // Multi-attack 3 // Explosive (3) // Burn (3) // Poison // Any creature hit by this attack more than once in a round becomes vulnerable.
  • Hacking Inimical - Hacks can only last 1 turn, and can only affect this Bio-titan once before the ANTI-BODY ancillary programming organelle kicks in.

Footnotes

  1. I do remind Laz0rbrn’s player before they take this action that this is something that the Regalia team will know they did, and not look kindly on! This is really the pivot point of the session, I loved the players making the decision to hack in here out of sheer curiosity, but there was no going back from this now. ↩

  2. I can’t stop giving enemy mechs tesla coils, they’re so fun. ↩

  3. Damaged might be too harsh for a natural 1 to shoot, especially if there’s no way to re-roll now, I’ll try and make sure I don’t do this every time. ↩

  4. They’re probably absolutely right, IONA is not to be messed with. ↩

  5. What does this mean? I didn’t specifically decide but I would have found something I’m sure. ↩

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