Alien Apocalypse: Threats

Originally published August 4, 2014

A short while back I was asked to run a short game for a local gaming group. They were interested something more indie and so I ran an Apocalypse World game for them. In the spirit of many of my other posts, I thought I'd share some of that material. Last week we looked at Love Letters. This week we look at items and threats.

In session 1, the Brainer, Dog and Faceless discovered a cave filled with alien dead in the badlands. The dog had been using ears up, nose down to find a ranged weapon for his master the Faceless. She got a complication: "it's not what you expected".

They found:

Alien Gravity Pulse Beam: 3-harm ap close hitech messy. When firing this without a third (alien) hand, roll as if acting under fire.

Shortly into play, the Faceless bought an alien hand from a man named Doghead and had it attached to the gun. It will go bad eventually but for now it works fine for a month.

Also in the cave they found a mysterious orb that the Brainer claimed:

Mysterious Orb: cumbersome hitech. When exposing yourself to the orb roll +weird. On a hit ask a question about the past. The MC will answer it. Then roll Ψ-harm at +1. On a 10+ roll Ψ-harm at +0 instead. On a miss just roll Ψ-harm at +1.

In a longer game, the Mysterious Orb would have been the key to understanding the psychic maelstrom. Oh well.

Fronts

I found two fronts forming in my game in addition to the Home Front. One was quite a bit slower than the other so was less explored. Sadly I think that was the more interesting one.

Home Front

Children of H

Kind: Brutes – Hunting Pack
Impulse: to victimize anyone vulnerable
Cast:

• H – hidden mutant and holder, H hides behind his beaded curtains in a refitted water tower surrounded by his child army. He wants to increase Oasis's population but especially wants to add more minds to the collective.
• Bill – a knife wielding 10-year-old boy, he was last scene headed to Sutton.
• Pellet – a bucktoothed and braided haired little girl who leads the deadly gang of children who enforce the rules of Oasis.

H's kids can form a small gang (2-harm 0-armor savage) instantly anywhere in Oasis.

Custom Moves:

Of One Mind: treat the gang as one entity for the purposes of Read a Person or Brainer moves. They are in constant mental communication. Using psychic moves on the children counts as acting under fire (the fire being their numerous minds).

A Dry Oasis

Expresses: Hunger (for more)
Dark Future: The town of Oasis on the Salton Sea tears itself apart as people feud over resources.
Stakes:

• Will Oasis fail, leaving the region devoid of a major holding?
• Will Quick Ricky push out H, the local hardholder?
• Will Mice, H's right hand man, survive?
• Will Grome blackmail everyone and take over the market?

A Free Market

Kind: Landscape – Breeding Pit
Impulse: generate badness
Cast:

• Norvill – straight dealing merchant and Sahsa's contact for deliveries, he murdered his old partner before moving here with his wife Kettle (who was his partner's sister). He wants to save his own skin.
• Kettle – Norvill's wife and sister to his late (murdered) ex-partner. she doesn't know about her brother's fate yet...
• Chin – a lazy street doc, this Oriental man specializes in cyber-acupuncture.
• Grome – an ambitious merchant dealing mainly in transport: cars, gas, repairs, so forth. He wants to get rich.

Custom Moves:

Something Extra: when shopping in the market roll+Sharp. On a hit choose 1:

• You are offered a one time gig (2-barter/embattled)
• You can get something better if you come back tonight
• You can get an extra item worth 1-barter in the bargain, possibly with strings attached

On a 10+ gain +1 forward.
On a miss whatever you bought is bad: defective, stolen, or not what it seems.

Countdown: 3:00 – Norvill is blackmailed into closing his shop or feeding profits to Grome. 6:00 – Grome asks Humble the Brainer for help learning Chin's secrets. 9:00 – Grome lowers his prices to drive other merchants to leave or work for him. 10:00 – Norvill confronts Grome. 11:00 – the market closes early. 12:00 – the other merchants turn on Grome.

Quick Ricky's Gang

Kind: Warlord – Pack Alpha
Impulse: to hunt and dominate
Cast:

• Quick Ricky – a slick drug dealing leader of a biker gang, Ricky has been trying to press Sasha the Operator into selling Angel Kitty for him. Since then he has gotten Run Wild the Maestro'D to be his distributer. He is looking to make money. He also his eye out for a good guard or guard dog.
• Gnarley – one of the gang members sent after Sasha, he narrowly survived being run over by her truck and stabbed to death by H's children. He bitterly awaits his revenge.
• Cycle Gang – this band of nomads were pressed into service by quick Ricky as some disposable muscle and sent after the operator. They died at the hands of the Faceless. (small gang 2-harm savage 1-armor)

Ricky's gang when needed functions as a medium gang 2-harm 1-armor.

A Busted Pump

Kind: Affliction – Sacrifice
Impulse: leave people bereft
Cast: the dusty citizens of Oasis who now have to haul salty water from the Sea a few miles away.

Countdown: 3:00 – people begin hoarding water. 6:00 – H institutes rationing. 9:00 – A fight breaks out in the water ration queue. 10:00 – people leave town. 11:00 - a mob forms demanding water. 12:00 – riots.

Brock & Gang

Kind: Brutes – Enforcers
Impulse: to victimize anyone who stands out
Cast:

• Brock - a thuggish man who runs a small biker gang, Brock always wants more. He thinks he can run Gatsby's without Run Wild the Maestro'D. He eventually got a better offer from Grome and back his play for the establishment. After Run Wild tossed Grome's severed head at him, he decided it was time to leave.
• Brock's gang - technically Run Wild's gang, they nominally belong to Brock and serve as security at Gatsby's. (small gang 2-harm 1-armor)

Alien Legacy

Expresses: Ambition (to replicate the horrors of the war for fun and profit)
Dark Future: Doghead finds the lost government lab and uses the technology to allow the aliens to destroy nearby settlements.
Cast: Sargent O'Neil - an elderly soldier guarding the lost lab, he is dedicated to his mission but craves human contact. He is heavily armed (3-harm (ap) autofire) and armored (2-armor).
Stakes:

• Will Doghead find the supply depot?
• Will the squatters be murdered?
• Will the maelstrom be weaponized?

Doghead

Kind: Grotesque – Mindfucker
Impulse: Craves mastery

Cast:

• Doghead – a leather duster wearing odd job doer, Doghead seems to be running five jobs at once. Secretly he is in league with the aliens. He has some hold on them, enough to convince one to sacrifice its hand.

Custom Moves:

How does he know?: if you let Doghead stare at you for a minute, he knows what you are thinking.

Like Them: can turn Brainer moves around on those who use them on a miss.

Wreckage

Kind: Landscape – Mirage
Impulse: entice and betray people

Cast:

• Mutant Chipmunks - inspired by a player comment, these dog-sized rodents feed with fang like incisors and are prone to latching on. (2-harm hand 0-armor 2-health)
• Degenerate aliens - bug like with multiple arms and compound eyes, these survivors of the war keep to the wreckage o their fallen ships. Armed with claws and covered in bullet resistant chitin they are hard to kill. (3-harm hand 1-armor)

Custom Moves:

They don't die like people: when you kill an alien with less than 4-harm, it's not there when you look back.

Squatters

Kind: Brutes – Family
Impulse: close ranks, protect your own

Cast:

• The Squatters - rejects from the alien experiments, these people are part human part alien and cruelly deformed.

Custom Moves:

Less than human: when interacting with the squatters roll +cool. On a hit their freaky mutations and mental weirdness doesn't get to you. On a 10+ gain +1 forward when negotiating with them. On a miss take -1 forward with them due to signs of your revulsion or disturbing curiosity.