Friday, 4 March 2016

You Meet in an Augmentarium

You Meet in a Tavern isn't lame because it's overplayed. It's a crappy place to throw the group into together. It does nothing to spur the group onto adventure, there's lots of shiny distractions that might split the party, and it's the place you spend treasure, rather than seek it. 

I tend to just throw groups straight into the dungeon entrance.

But if you want to start somewhere quieter in Bastion, where you can get straight to meeting people and finding hooks, then roll d20 for the location and what's happening.


1-3: The Augmentarium
A maze of wrought-iron hedges, occasionally opening up to caged enclosures for grossly modified creatures. The gift shop has a wide variety of literature and stationery. 
1: The eight Piston Monkeys (8hp, Metal Bits (Armour 1), d8 Pneumatic Bite) have gotten out yet again, on the day the local orphanage are visiting. It's a bloody mess. 
2: Some Nature-Purists (3hp, d6 pistol, bush-clothes) have smuggled guns into the Augmentarium and are slaughtering the animals in their cages to put them out of their misery. 
3: The site is closed off to the general public, but you've gotten in to view the switching-on of the Meat-Titan (13hp, Meaty Hide (Armour 2), d8 stampede), a sort of elephant flesh-golem. Of course it goes on a rampage once its switched on, and security is very loose. 


4-6: A Smash-a-Richy Rally
Occasionally this pressure-group gather a mob to go rampaging into wealthy living areas. Lots of firebombs, sledgehammers, and bad poetry. 
4: This mob have gotten very literal, and are amassing people called Richard, or anything similar, to be slaughtered in the middle of a square. 
5: The mob has split into two halves, each claiming the other half are secret Richies. 
6: The mob has broken into a wealthy retirement home, and the residents are holding them off with some degree of success, like a geriatric Home Alone. 


7-9: A Sanctioned Looting
Sometimes it's easier to fill out the paperwork, claim your rebate from the council, and let the desperate descend on your bankrupted business or derelict home. Here it's an old museum full of antiquities that nobody cares about. 
7: One group of looters are badly disguised as ghosts in an attempt to scare the other looters away and clean up for themselves. 
8: Some joker started a fire, and it's spreading quickly. 
9: The previous owner isn't quite ready to let go, and has hired a mercenary brigade to shoot anyone exiting the property with items that he still wants for himself. 

10-12: A Fire-Giant Display
You get a big idiot (preferably from the Deep Country) and wrap him up in a mostly fireproof suit. Pop him up on stilts, cover him in straw and fireworks, and invite a load of viewers with torches. The Giant survives practically every time so it's not as inhumane as it sounds. Normally in a big open field, but here it's the courtyard of a university. 
10: The fire giant is out of control, and got into the university library!
11: The giant got wet in the rain and won't light. There's a Gilder reward for the first person to get him alight. 
12: The twist this time is that two fire giants will fight. However, they've teamed up to take on the fleeing crowds!


13-15: The Queuing Office
People spend so much time in here that they have little snack and drinks carts selling at inflated prices. This one has turned into a de-facto pub because of its fantastic selection of white spirits.  
13: The drinks cart has run out of Pear Liqueur, the secret ingredient to the house cocktail! There'll be riots unless somebody can get some more. 
14: The office is under new management, so no more drinks! Only bread and water. There's an ill feeling all round. 
15: The fish-balls used some fancy coloured thing the monger was selling off cheap, and now everybody is throwing up everywhere. 

16-18: The News Yard
Runners gather here and await news bulletins, brought in by prestigious gold-capped runners, before reporting back to their bosses. As hip-flasks get passed around it turns into a bit of a piss up, and the news becomes less reliable. 
16: The runners are on strike! Mass panic as nobody knows the latest news. 
17: A hoax is spreading that weirdos from the underground are launching a full-scale assault on the city!
18: A legitimate news story is spreading that weirdos from the underground are launching a full-scale assault on the city!


19-20: An Exhumauction
Some graveyards work on a contract that states once everyone who remembers you is dead, they can dig you up to make room for fresh bodies. Here sealed coffins of various ages are auctioned off to legitimized grave robbers. Sometimes the coffins have a priceless heirloom, but usually just bones. 
19: Two buyers tied for an ornately decorated casket, so are tearing into it and splitting the treasures within. They both harbor deep jealousy at the other for having to split, so would do anything to scam them out of their share. 
20: It's a mass-coffin auction! Easily over a hundred cult members buried together in this thing. Who knows what's inside? Nobody wants to bid out of superstition.

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