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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Water Bob" data-source="post: 6131549" data-attributes="member: 92305">4. Alien Adventure IdeaAfter a harrowing night in the woods (whether the PCs camp or push forward until dawn), the PCs will exit the forest onto a plain and come to a makeshift town. Instead of a pre-fab installation, they see a tall, wooden barricade made from tree trunks. The place is all a mixture of higher tech parts and whatever the colonists can scavenge and convert from the planet.Note the various scratches and burn marks, patched holes and wretched shape of the barricade.What the hell happened here?Inside are the survivors (all of them more fodder for the GM to destroy with the aliens). They're a scared, weary bunch. "Are you the Marines?"They sent out a distress call nine months ago. No one has come yet. The PC ship is the first to respond. And, we see how well that's gone.There are few survivors among these colonists. They'll tell a story of how a cargo trader crashed on the world, bringing the alien with it. They know that there's several of them out there. Sometimes, the aliens band together and test the barricade. It's getting close to a breach. Food is low. All supplies are low. They're completely out of ammo. All they have now is spears that they've made. Bow and arrows. Bolas. Slings and rocks. All mostly ineffective against the alien. They've managed to create a type of chain mail armor--it's a little protection, but not much. And, they've got one grenade left amongst them.The colonists themselves are harried. They're haggard. Mostly men. All of stories of how their wives, children, friends and families have been taken by the aliens over the last nine months. You can see it in their faces. Some are maimed. There are only one or two children left. One, in particular, has have his face dissolved by acid.At this point, the adventure is driven by the players' actions. Here's a couple of ideas for events that can take place.Event: An expedition to the downed merchant trader vessel. It burned. There's not much left, and the colonists have already taken some parts from it for their barricade and other things. But, if a player gets a good idea about building a piece of tech that will help them against the aliens, the GM could allow the players to find the parts that they need from this wreck--at the price of attack from the aliens or some other hostile animal on the world.Event: "...or some other hostile animal on the world." To spice things up, use the CT Animal rules to create something other than the alien for the PCs to encounter. This could hinder their progress as well as an alien.Event: There is a door in the compound that the colonists guard and keep locked. If asked, the colonists are vague about it unless the PCs make an issue of it, then the PCs are told that they are guests here. And, if they can't follow the rules, then they are not welcome here and can try their luck outside the barricade.Event: The colonists seem to be tight lipped about their predicament. This can easily be chalked up to battle fatigue, stress, and shock. But, on one of the nights in the colonist enclosure, one of the PCs will notice that several of the colonists sneak out of the compound at night, using torches, and go into the wood.If a PC follows them, they will see that they carry something small, like a large loaf of bread, wrapped in a towel or blanket.If the PC keeps following them and is not caught, that PC will see the colonists put the blanket item on the standing stone, then all of those colonists will run like hell away from the clearing, back to the compound.If, after the colonists leave, the PC investigates what was left, unwrapping the blanket on the stone reveals...a baby. A human baby. This baby does not cry and barely moves, as if it were drugged.If the PC remains in the area for long (and definitely if the PC takes the baby), an alien will appear from the woods. The PC will have to battle the alien alone. Or, if the PC remains hidden, he may see the alien go to the standing stone, rip something out of the blanket, and see that it is a human baby that it takes with it as it runs off back into the woods--and the PC will not be able to follow this fast moving creature without being caught by the alien.Event: If the baby sacrifice is discovered, the colonists will come clean. The PCs will be taken to the locked door mentioned above. Inside are several vats with babies in them. These babies are grown here--something the colonists crated to help keep the aliens at bay. The babies are just skin and genetic make-up. They don't live for more than 4 hours--which is why babies are used and not larger items. The babies move, breathe, but make little noise (and move slowly, as if drugged). The colonists have found that the babies seem to satiate the aliens for a time. Sacrifices must be made once or twice a week.Event: The PCs ship carried a group of passengers. Only one has survived to reach the colonist enclave. Unknown to everybody, these passengers are missionaries--priests--bound for the outer colonies (or returning home--whichever best fits with the GM's story). One of these has survived--a female. As a great twist and reveal, it would be interesting for the GM to reveal that one of the NPCs from the PCs ship is actually a priest.Imagine how this priest will act when it comes out in the open that the colonists have geneered babies to sacrifice to the demons in the woods.Played right, THIS will be a real breath-taker in your game.Event: I thought this would be neat. What if, at some point during the story--probably close to the end of the adventure--that the surviving priest is actually a......wait for it......replicant?Wow. Think of the moral implications! A man's construct teaching the word of God!Deep story.Note: The GM should use the priest character as an input into the PC's decisions. The high road is not always the easiest road, and won't be in this adventure. If the PCs won't, the Priest will not allow any of the babies to be sacrificed--even if they are geneered constructs.Event: When the babies stop showing up on the altar, the aliens will attack the compound en masse. Make this a hell of a fight--one that the PCs and Colonists all but loose. The barricade is breached, and the aliens rip those inside to shreads. Remember, the PC are fighting with spears and arrows at this point--they may have saved a few rounds of ammo and the single grenade. Event: The survivors of the colonist camp obliteration will eventually find each other in the woods. And, it will be clear that they've got to figure a plan to defeat the aliens, or everybody is going to die.At this point, the GM should have wittled down most of the NPCs, leaving just the main characters--and maybe one or two NPCs just for effect.Make the priest a hero--sacrificing herself for a PC, if need be. That'd be a great way to "save" a PC about to be killed--and have the shocking discovery that the priest is really an artifical human! White milk-like substance goes EVERYWHERE!The PCs fight in the makeshift chain mail with whatever weapons they've managed to acquire--spears and such.Maybe if all of the aliens could be lured into the PC ship, the grenade could be used, next to some combustable item on the ship, to blow the ship, and everything in it--hopefully all of the aliens--to smithereens.Or, maybe the GM has whittled the aliens down to just one or a few, and the players figure a way to capture it. In the story I mention in #1 above, the colonists used a net to throw over the alien, then they all circled it and jabbed at it with their spears. Still, the alien ripped out of the net and chased them, when it fell into a pit with spike. This didn't quite kill it, and the alien was starting to wiggle off the spikes, when one of the characters in that story jumped into the pit with the thing and shoved the one grenade into its mouth--blowing up the alien and the hero at the same time.Let any good creative idea work. The players have been the underdogs through this entire adventure. They've lost their ship and a butt load of NPCs. Let them be heroes and win the day at the end. You'll have a memorable adventure that way.CLOSING EVENT: Once it's all done--once the PCs have overcome the aliens, they're stuck on the planet, no way to get home. Yet...there are lights in the sky. It's a ship!As it lands, the ramp comes down, and the Colonial Marines appear. They've finally arrived in response to the distress signal!Finito.</blockquote>

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