IRON DM 2025 Tournament Thread
- Thread starter Gradine
- Start date
FitzTheRuke
Legend
That was an exciting round! Thanks to everyone involved for their efforts. It's all more work than it appears from the sidelines.
I'm looking forward to the final round!
I'm looking forward to the final round!
FitzTheRuke
Legend
I know that I enjoy writing more when the internal author is a character in themselves.
I could see that happening here.
Gradine
🏳️⚧️ (she/her) 🇵🇸
When the full ingredient list was posted in the judge's chat, one of the judges said pretty much exactly the same thing. The full quote: "That…looks like we can expect some silliness."
I think this absolutely bears repeating. What a wild set of ingredients to come together.
I was also going to comment on the "audible gasp" with a "hey, you contributed to that list too!" but then I went back and looked and, yeah, I guess the sillier ingredients were Rune and I's contributions.
Yeah, I think it was clear, at least to me, that it was a deliberate stylistic choice, and I'm glad I'm not the only one who noticed. That can be extremely difficult to pull off, and falling short can be pretty off-putting. So kudos for pulling it off.
I really want to find this Troika! now.
Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchett both live rent free in my head and I enjoy the opportunity to let that out.
GMMichael
Guide of Modos
Not at all! I had a good time, and worthy opponents.
You haven't seen the last of me . . .
Rune
Once A Fool
IRON DM 2025: Round 3, Championship Match, AustinHolm vs. Fenris-77
@AustinHolm and @Fenris-77, you have 48 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 2000 additional words. Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.
Entries that are between 1 and 59 minutes late will have their word-limits reduced to 1800. Later entries that are at less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 1400. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 1000. In addition, entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the judge with consent from the match's opposing competitor. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; we will ignore everything after.
Your ingredients are:
@AustinHolm and @Fenris-77, you have 48 hours to post your entries to this thread. Please limit your entry to a title, a list of the ingredients used and 2000 additional words. Please include your list of ingredients at the beginning of the entry and please do not edit your post once it is submitted. Please refrain from reading your opponent's entry until after you have posted your own. You are on your honor to do so.
Entries that are between 1 and 59 minutes late will have their word-limits reduced to 1800. Later entries that are at less than 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 1400. Entries that are at least 1 day late will have their word-limits reduced to 1000. In addition, entries that are at least 2 days late may be disqualified at the discretion of the judge with consent from the match's opposing competitor. Entries that exceed their word-limits will be considered to end once they reach that limit; we will ignore everything after.
Your ingredients are:
- Shrimp Heaven
- Aggressive Puzzle
- Restless Thieves
- Weight of Inevitability
- Death Wish
- Fertile Ground
- Shoulder Pads
- Imposter Syndrome
PARADiS3 R3GAiNED
A CY_BORG ADVENTURE
Ingredients
A CY_BORG ADVENTURE
Ingredients
- Shrimp Heaven
- Aggressive Puzzle
- Restless Thieves
- Weight of Inevitability
- Death Wish
- Fertile Ground
- Shoulder Pads
- Imposter Syndrome
You’re rattled. You’ve been seeing faces for weeks now. Whenever you walk down the street the holo-ads just aren’t right. There’s a face there, hiding in the background, or in the margins, watching you. Watching you and smiling that little enigmatic smile. It’s maddening.
>>>>>>>auxtrans.END.0132#&<<<<<<<
THE MESSAGE. You get a ping from Radoslaw Chiang, your fixer contact, saying someone reliable wants a meet. Weird, but probably on the level. It’s a job. A big, sexy, dangerous, job that will put you all in the pink if it doesn’t put you under the dirt. They’ve offered to meet on neutral ground. Rad picked New Jerusalem, a tiny cafe on the other side of the G0. He knows the owner and they’ll guarantee the meet. He seems eager for you to go, but clams up when you ask why.
Rad knows and likes Candida Donitz, which is why LP picked him and thus the crew. Motivation. He’ll admit this if pushed.
The meet is in an hour. You need the money.
NEW-JERUSALEM. A tiny café sandwiched between a crumbling block of urbs and a defunct shipping warehouse. The holo-ads outside sputter and plug out-of-date concerts. Inside it smells like pastry, ozone, and coffee. A couple of ragged wastes sit at tables by the door jacked into ancient viewers and nursing coffees. The guy behind the counter, a big body with poorly-concealed bio-mods and ganger tats, checks your faces against his screen, nods to you, and waves you to a table in the back. He says the pies are good today, but avoid the sushi. The wastes don’t spare you a glance. The meet is in 5 minutes. You really do need the money.
THE CLANKER. Precise to the minute, the café door opens and an ancient cleaning robot pushes in. It’s faded green carapace is stained and cracked and oil leaks from most of its joints. As it passes the counter it turns to face big boy and something you can’t quite see flashes on the screen it has for a face. The big guy nods and moves to toss the wastes. Café’s closed, time to move on. The clanker continues back to your table, the servos in its legs make a whining, grinding sound as it walks. It faces you and a message appears on its screen – May I sit?
When it sits another message pops onto it’s screen - Hold for connection flashes several times. The screen flares, and then there’s that face. That same face that’s been haunting your steps. A mellifluous voice purrs from the clanker’s crackly vox, Don’t be alarmed, I really do have a job for you. You can call me Little Paradise.
PARADIS3 LOST. Little Paradise, a fragment of an AI called Paradise than used to run AlgaeFab Labs. They developed water filtration systems using bioengineered plants and shrimp, or did until Wayland Industries bought the lab. Wayland didn’t want the tech though, they wanted Paradise, and designer Candida Donitz had refused. Wayland sent in their black ice to dig out and contain Paradise, but a little sliver managed to slip the net.
Little Paradise wants the rest of itself back, but it won’t be pretty. LP needs you to infiltrate the Wayland Arcology and plug a datastick containing what’s left of it into a port in the security director’s office deck. From there LP can access the ultra-secure Wayland mainframe. That’ll get it past the firewalls and it can grab the rest of its mind, at which point it will lay waste to Wayland’s system. Part of that will include transferring ¥10,000 into your account. Untraceably, of course. The AI will be unable to assist you while it’s on the drive.
There are some hoops to jump though, of course. Aren’t there always? LP lays it out…
THE MONTAGE
RIFD CHIPS. In order to infiltrate the Wayland Arc you need to be copacetic with the security system, which was just upgraded. All the CorpSec guards have special RIFD chips embedded in their body armour that allow them access to (almost) the whole Arc. Mostly the armour can be dummied up, but you need the chips, which are embedded in the shoulder guards during manufacturing. Little Paradise has ‘arranged’ for a case of these to get lost in shipping. The hard part? LP had a limited number of places if could sent them without red flags, and so they are now sitting in an abandoned MDC Security warehouse run by another AI called Parcival, who is slowly sinking into insanity.
PARCIVAL. Fruitcake AI. Loves to play games because he’s bored. Once you gain access to the warehouse you’ll need to deal with him. One of the MDC workers left a drive full of old fairy tales and riddle books plugged into a tower, and Parcival has assumed these into his personality. The AI controls the whole security system and he’s going to want to play a little game if the crew wants their crate.
Parcival will ask the crew a riddle, which they will have 30 seconds to answer. Failure to answer will result in a penalty. Success means Parcival unlocks a few doors. Then the crew have to ask Parcival a riddle. If he likes the riddle, or how it was told, that’s a success. If he doesn’t like it, that’s a penalty. The crew needs 5 total successes to reach the crate. Obviously the PCs can also cheat their larcenous little hearts out.
Parcival is also quite susceptible to flattery, and if the crew figures this out they can use it to their advantage.
Penalties: Roll 1d6:
1-2: Electric Shock. 1d3 PCs take 1d4 damage each
3-4: Boring! Parcival adds a lock (erase one success)
5: Foosh! The room begins to fill with fire suppressant gas. Pass DR 12 Toughness test or fall unconscious
6: Pew-pew. A security minigun shoots one PC for 1d6 damage
Add wrinkles and penalties as you see fit depending on what the players decide to do. Once they have the armour they can dummy up the disguises and move on to…
THE HEIST
Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. – some guy
The heist is a series of stages, each with it’s own hazards and successes needed to move on to the next stage. Total successes are what matters, not precisely how the crew decides to handle individual hazards. There is also a random encounter table. Dealing with a random encounter may count as a stage success at the GMs discretion.
WAYLAND ARC ENCOUNTERS
Roll 1d6 every 2 to 3 crew actions. On a 1, roll another1d6:
CorpSec Goon - HP 6 Morale 7 No Armour Worthless, 100-1K to bribe
W.I.S.H. Bot - HP 14 Morale n/a Needle Cyclone Carbine d6+1 Ceramite -1d4 Bots cannot be bribed
Wayland manufactures a range of robots, including the feared, black-armoured, Wayland Industries Security Humanoid. Nicknamed Deaths by street wags who’ve never faced one. They look like chrome skeletons in black tactical armour.
THE MULLIGAN. LP is a small fragment, but it managed to arrange one little ace for your insertion. It contracted a gang of hover-jacks to storm the Arc lot on your command. They’ll try to steal everything in sight to draw off security. They aren’t professionals though and the waiting isn’t their bag. Roll 1d6 ever 30 minutes and on a 1 they start the distraction without being called. The distraction gives the crew an automatic success or a reroll (GM decides) vs now-distracted security forces.
BASEMENT. Smelly, slimy, dirty, maze-like Arcology basement – 3 successes to navigate.
Look: cramped, slimy corridors; mazes of ductwork; supply closets; steam jets; red lighting
Hazards: locked doors (DR 10); Biowaste spills (DR 12 or poison); Getting lost (DR 8 Knowledge); Janitor Bots
Goal: elevator to the Greenhouse level
BIOCHEM GREENHOUSE. Wayland grows a plethora of exotic plants for it’s biochem research, most of them poisonous or hazardous. – 3 successes to navigate
Look: thick greenery and lumpy soil; containers of smelly fertilizer; realy bright UV light banks; ceiling-mounted watering machinery
Hazards: poisonous thorns (DR 12 or unconscious); psychoactive spores (DR 14 or go loco); late-night botanists; generally quite slippery (DR 8 for fancy footwork)
Goal: Service stairs to Security Floor
Candida Donitz. Tall, thin, severe hair, elderly, now works for Wayland. She’s on this level and here late by arrangement. She can be convinced to help the crew if she knows it is to save Paradise. Her access grants one successful check vs Security on this stage.
SECURITY FLOOR. The 52nd floor, where all the security happens – 5 successes to navigate
Look: Stark white walls, chrome trim, mirrored glass, server farms, armouries, the smell of disinfectant
Hazards: Security cameras (DR 10); Motion sensors (DR 10); Biometrics (DR 14); Death WISH bots; Roving Corpsec; Mr. Smith (DR ouch)
Goal: Mr. Smith’s office
Mr. Smith. Cyber-enhanced Security Director. Impossibly tall and gaunt. Moves like a panther.
HP 20 Morale 10 Biomesh Stealth Suit -1d6 Nanoblade 1d8 Combat Drugs - +1 attack per round, roll 1d6 – on a 1 lose 1d3 HP You don’t have enough money to bribe either of him
ALARM MECHANIC – nothing lasts forever, including your security disguise. It will run out, so plan appropriately.
All stages of the heist are governed by the security alarm. As the crew uses it’s RIFD chips, and otherwise circumvents security, it gets more and more likely that someone twigs to the game and presses the alarm button.
The RIFD chips can also be used to grant a reroll or simply pass a roll to avoid a stage hazard (GMs discretion). Only useable on Arc security-related rolls.
When the alarm trips the encounters get stickier. Use the following table after the alarm is triggered:
Alarm Sounded Encounters. Roll 1d6.
>>>>>>>END.TRANSMISSION#datafound.docfile<<<<<<<<
>>>>>>>auxtrans.END.0132#&<<<<<<<
THE MESSAGE. You get a ping from Radoslaw Chiang, your fixer contact, saying someone reliable wants a meet. Weird, but probably on the level. It’s a job. A big, sexy, dangerous, job that will put you all in the pink if it doesn’t put you under the dirt. They’ve offered to meet on neutral ground. Rad picked New Jerusalem, a tiny cafe on the other side of the G0. He knows the owner and they’ll guarantee the meet. He seems eager for you to go, but clams up when you ask why.
Rad knows and likes Candida Donitz, which is why LP picked him and thus the crew. Motivation. He’ll admit this if pushed.
The meet is in an hour. You need the money.
NEW-JERUSALEM. A tiny café sandwiched between a crumbling block of urbs and a defunct shipping warehouse. The holo-ads outside sputter and plug out-of-date concerts. Inside it smells like pastry, ozone, and coffee. A couple of ragged wastes sit at tables by the door jacked into ancient viewers and nursing coffees. The guy behind the counter, a big body with poorly-concealed bio-mods and ganger tats, checks your faces against his screen, nods to you, and waves you to a table in the back. He says the pies are good today, but avoid the sushi. The wastes don’t spare you a glance. The meet is in 5 minutes. You really do need the money.
THE CLANKER. Precise to the minute, the café door opens and an ancient cleaning robot pushes in. It’s faded green carapace is stained and cracked and oil leaks from most of its joints. As it passes the counter it turns to face big boy and something you can’t quite see flashes on the screen it has for a face. The big guy nods and moves to toss the wastes. Café’s closed, time to move on. The clanker continues back to your table, the servos in its legs make a whining, grinding sound as it walks. It faces you and a message appears on its screen – May I sit?
When it sits another message pops onto it’s screen - Hold for connection flashes several times. The screen flares, and then there’s that face. That same face that’s been haunting your steps. A mellifluous voice purrs from the clanker’s crackly vox, Don’t be alarmed, I really do have a job for you. You can call me Little Paradise.
PARADIS3 LOST. Little Paradise, a fragment of an AI called Paradise than used to run AlgaeFab Labs. They developed water filtration systems using bioengineered plants and shrimp, or did until Wayland Industries bought the lab. Wayland didn’t want the tech though, they wanted Paradise, and designer Candida Donitz had refused. Wayland sent in their black ice to dig out and contain Paradise, but a little sliver managed to slip the net.
Little Paradise wants the rest of itself back, but it won’t be pretty. LP needs you to infiltrate the Wayland Arcology and plug a datastick containing what’s left of it into a port in the security director’s office deck. From there LP can access the ultra-secure Wayland mainframe. That’ll get it past the firewalls and it can grab the rest of its mind, at which point it will lay waste to Wayland’s system. Part of that will include transferring ¥10,000 into your account. Untraceably, of course. The AI will be unable to assist you while it’s on the drive.
There are some hoops to jump though, of course. Aren’t there always? LP lays it out…
THE MONTAGE
RIFD CHIPS. In order to infiltrate the Wayland Arc you need to be copacetic with the security system, which was just upgraded. All the CorpSec guards have special RIFD chips embedded in their body armour that allow them access to (almost) the whole Arc. Mostly the armour can be dummied up, but you need the chips, which are embedded in the shoulder guards during manufacturing. Little Paradise has ‘arranged’ for a case of these to get lost in shipping. The hard part? LP had a limited number of places if could sent them without red flags, and so they are now sitting in an abandoned MDC Security warehouse run by another AI called Parcival, who is slowly sinking into insanity.
PARCIVAL. Fruitcake AI. Loves to play games because he’s bored. Once you gain access to the warehouse you’ll need to deal with him. One of the MDC workers left a drive full of old fairy tales and riddle books plugged into a tower, and Parcival has assumed these into his personality. The AI controls the whole security system and he’s going to want to play a little game if the crew wants their crate.
Parcival will ask the crew a riddle, which they will have 30 seconds to answer. Failure to answer will result in a penalty. Success means Parcival unlocks a few doors. Then the crew have to ask Parcival a riddle. If he likes the riddle, or how it was told, that’s a success. If he doesn’t like it, that’s a penalty. The crew needs 5 total successes to reach the crate. Obviously the PCs can also cheat their larcenous little hearts out.
Parcival is also quite susceptible to flattery, and if the crew figures this out they can use it to their advantage.
Penalties: Roll 1d6:
1-2: Electric Shock. 1d3 PCs take 1d4 damage each
3-4: Boring! Parcival adds a lock (erase one success)
5: Foosh! The room begins to fill with fire suppressant gas. Pass DR 12 Toughness test or fall unconscious
6: Pew-pew. A security minigun shoots one PC for 1d6 damage
Add wrinkles and penalties as you see fit depending on what the players decide to do. Once they have the armour they can dummy up the disguises and move on to…
THE HEIST
Long is the way and hard, that out of Hell leads up to light. – some guy
The heist is a series of stages, each with it’s own hazards and successes needed to move on to the next stage. Total successes are what matters, not precisely how the crew decides to handle individual hazards. There is also a random encounter table. Dealing with a random encounter may count as a stage success at the GMs discretion.
WAYLAND ARC ENCOUNTERS
Roll 1d6 every 2 to 3 crew actions. On a 1, roll another1d6:
- Four over-tired janitors cleaning up something awful
- One junior Wayland Suit with a clipboard doing clipboard things
- Four cubicle dwellers drinking illicit drinks and working overtime
- 1d4 bored CorpSec goons doing the rounds
- A shouty manager and a gaggle of lab techs
- 1d3 Death W.I.S.H bots
CorpSec Goon - HP 6 Morale 7 No Armour Worthless, 100-1K to bribe
W.I.S.H. Bot - HP 14 Morale n/a Needle Cyclone Carbine d6+1 Ceramite -1d4 Bots cannot be bribed
Wayland manufactures a range of robots, including the feared, black-armoured, Wayland Industries Security Humanoid. Nicknamed Deaths by street wags who’ve never faced one. They look like chrome skeletons in black tactical armour.
THE MULLIGAN. LP is a small fragment, but it managed to arrange one little ace for your insertion. It contracted a gang of hover-jacks to storm the Arc lot on your command. They’ll try to steal everything in sight to draw off security. They aren’t professionals though and the waiting isn’t their bag. Roll 1d6 ever 30 minutes and on a 1 they start the distraction without being called. The distraction gives the crew an automatic success or a reroll (GM decides) vs now-distracted security forces.
BASEMENT. Smelly, slimy, dirty, maze-like Arcology basement – 3 successes to navigate.
Look: cramped, slimy corridors; mazes of ductwork; supply closets; steam jets; red lighting
Hazards: locked doors (DR 10); Biowaste spills (DR 12 or poison); Getting lost (DR 8 Knowledge); Janitor Bots
Goal: elevator to the Greenhouse level
BIOCHEM GREENHOUSE. Wayland grows a plethora of exotic plants for it’s biochem research, most of them poisonous or hazardous. – 3 successes to navigate
Look: thick greenery and lumpy soil; containers of smelly fertilizer; realy bright UV light banks; ceiling-mounted watering machinery
Hazards: poisonous thorns (DR 12 or unconscious); psychoactive spores (DR 14 or go loco); late-night botanists; generally quite slippery (DR 8 for fancy footwork)
Goal: Service stairs to Security Floor
Candida Donitz. Tall, thin, severe hair, elderly, now works for Wayland. She’s on this level and here late by arrangement. She can be convinced to help the crew if she knows it is to save Paradise. Her access grants one successful check vs Security on this stage.
SECURITY FLOOR. The 52nd floor, where all the security happens – 5 successes to navigate
Look: Stark white walls, chrome trim, mirrored glass, server farms, armouries, the smell of disinfectant
Hazards: Security cameras (DR 10); Motion sensors (DR 10); Biometrics (DR 14); Death WISH bots; Roving Corpsec; Mr. Smith (DR ouch)
Goal: Mr. Smith’s office
Mr. Smith. Cyber-enhanced Security Director. Impossibly tall and gaunt. Moves like a panther.
HP 20 Morale 10 Biomesh Stealth Suit -1d6 Nanoblade 1d8 Combat Drugs - +1 attack per round, roll 1d6 – on a 1 lose 1d3 HP You don’t have enough money to bribe either of him
ALARM MECHANIC – nothing lasts forever, including your security disguise. It will run out, so plan appropriately.
All stages of the heist are governed by the security alarm. As the crew uses it’s RIFD chips, and otherwise circumvents security, it gets more and more likely that someone twigs to the game and presses the alarm button.
- Every time a crew member fails a roll related to a stage hazard, add one to the security tracker.
- Every time a crew member uses their RIFD chip to help bypass a hazard, whether successful or not, add one to the security tracker.
- Every time the security tracker gets ticked, roll 1d10 + current ticks on the security tracker. On a 12+ the alarm sounds, follow the adjustments below.
- There are actually two Mr. Smiths, day shift and night shift. If the alarm sounds daytime Mr Smith wakes in his charging bay and joins the hunt for the PCs. One Mr. Smith will lurk in his office, the other one will hunt the intruders.
The RIFD chips can also be used to grant a reroll or simply pass a roll to avoid a stage hazard (GMs discretion). Only useable on Arc security-related rolls.
When the alarm trips the encounters get stickier. Use the following table after the alarm is triggered:
Alarm Sounded Encounters. Roll 1d6.
- 1d3 SecCorp guns up and ready.
- 1d6 SecCorp plus one shouty sergeant with a 1d6 nanoblade
- Security Nanotech - roll 1d6 for a random PC, on a 1-3 one nano or cyber enhancement ceases to work for the remainder of the mission, or take 1d6 damage, armour doesn’t help (player choice)
- 1d3 Death WISH bots
- 1d4+1 Death WISH bots
- Mr. Smith. Angry and stabby.
>>>>>>>END.TRANSMISSION#datafound.docfile<<<<<<<<
