d20 The Game Mechanics Flight 23.pdf

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flight 23
by jd wiker
credits
Layout and Typese� ing: Marc Schmalz
Front Cover Design: Marc Schmalz
Cover Artist: Clarence Harrison
Cartography: Sterling Hershey
Playtesting: Jeff Harris, Marc Schmalz, Melissa Donovan, Andy Smith, Mat Smith, JD Wiker, and Stan!
Editing: Rich Redman
Proofreading: Vincent Szopa
Art Direction: Stan!
Character Sheet Design: Charles Ryan
contents
Preparation ..............................................................2
Background .............................................................2
The Flight to Dulles ................................................9
The Villains’ Tactics ..............................................15
Developments .......................................................20
Handout #1: Dr. John Dee ...................................22
Monster Cards ......................................................27
Requires the use of the d20 Modern™ Roleplaying Game and Urban Arcana Campaign Setting , published by Wizards of the Coast, Inc.
™
™
T HE G AME M ECHANICS , I NC
P.O. Box 1125, Renton WA 98057
www.thegamemechanics.com
‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and are used according to the terms of the d20
System License version 4.0. A copy of this License can be found at www.wizards.com/d20.
d20 Modern™ is a trademark of Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and is used with permission. Wizards of the Coast® is a registered trademark of
Wizards of the Coast, Inc., a subsidiary of Hasbro, Inc., and is used with permission.
Flight 23 ©2005 The Game Mechanics, Inc. All rights reserved.
For information on the designation of Open Game Content and Product Identity in this publication, refer to the Appendix.
T HE G AME M ECHANICS and The Game Mechanics logo are trademarks of The Game Mechanics, Inc. All rights reserved.
This material is protected under the copyright laws of the United States of America. Any reproduction or unauthorized use of the material or artwork contained herein is
prohibited without the express written permission of The Game Mechanics, Inc.
This product is a work of fi ction. Any similarity to actual people, organizations, places, or events is purely coincidental.
Made in the U.S.A.
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introduction
Flight 23 is a modern d20 adventure in which
the heroes continue their investigations of the
evil megacorporation Ogdoad Research. While
following up a lead uncovered during their initial
encounter with Ogdoad’s operations in Los Angeles
(covered in Slave Drivers , the first adventure in
this minicampaign), the heroes discover that the
architect of Ogdoad’s latest scheme is fleeing the
country. Giving chase, they find themselves aboard
the same international flight as their quarry. This
realization touches off a tense confrontation 30,000
feet above the Atlantic Ocean.
Preparation
You, the Gamemaster (GM), need a copy of the
d20 MODERN Roleplaying Game core rulebook
(referred to hereafter as the core rulebook) to
run this adventure. A copy of the Urban Arcana
Campaign Setting is also useful, though not vital.
If you are playing this as an RPGA event,
you need a copy of The Bronze Head campaign
standards as well.
To get started, print out this adventure and read
it through. Any text in shaded boxes should be read
aloud or paraphrased for the players.
Flight 23 assumes that heroes are familiar with
the basic ideas of the campaign model used in your
game (for more on alternate campaign models, see
below). They know that monsters and magic exist
in a world otherwise as familiar as the one outside
your window, and that most people can’t see it.
Make sure that your players understand that before
beginning the adventure.
no forwarding address, and no one to affirm their
status as government agents. The disavowed then
have plenty of time in prison to reconsider their
rash actions.
Background
“Ogdoad Research has enjoyed another year of
rising profits, thanks in no small part to the success
of the Brindisi network project. Furthermore, the
success of the project has prompted a relocation
of the Temple Networking Solutions staff to larger
quarters, in our Munich facility.”
—Ogdoad Research
Annual Stockholders’ Meeting Program
Ogdoad Research is a scientific think-tank heavily
invested in researching the validity of folk remedies
and the lucrative truth behind other folklore.
Ogdoad searches for better medicines, renewable
natural resources, more efficient energy sources,
and alternate technologies.
Behind the scenes, the initiated believe that
a coming global disaster will return civilization
to the Dark Ages. Mankind has survived such
disasters before through the use of “alternative
technologies,” now known as magic, and point to
the rise in inexplicable phenomena as the sign
that such a disaster is coming again. The lower
echelons of initiated employees (who wear gold
signet rings) believe that Ogdoad is trying to save
humanity from that disaster. The inner circle (and
the board of directors) know that Ogdoad is trying
to manipulate events so that it will rule the hellish
aftermath of a Biblical apocalypse. For more on
Ogdoad Research, see Leads, below, and The
Bronze Head campaign standards document.
In the course of the adventure, heroes will likely
discover that Ogdoad owns a number of profitable
companies that are completely unrelated to its
research, such as Metropolitan Taxi Cab and
Limousine Service, but that some businesses that
appear unrelated are actually deeply involved,
such as Temple Networking Solutions. Ogdoad
Research makes a profit off of one type of
business, and channels that profit into the other.
Department-7 in This Adventure
If you are using one of the standard campaign
models, use the role of Department-7 set out in that
model. Here is a summary of Department-7 in The
Bronze Head campaign model.
In The Bronze Head campaign model,
Department-7 is a shadowy government
organization that hides its activities behind those
of agencies like the US Fish & Wildlife Service,
the FBI, the DEA, the CIA, the Department of
Energy (DOE), the National Institute of Health
(NIH), the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and
the Department of Homeland Security. It actively
recruits individuals with both useful skill sets and
the ability to see past Shadow.
Department-7 assignments require restraint,
subtlety, and stealth. Heroes do not have cards
identifying them as government agents with
the right to carry firearms and to use deadly
force. Those who engage in public displays of
combat prowess will find the office closed with
Project Brindisi
Ogdoad’s goals revolve around surviving the
apocalypse they believe is approaching and, by
preparing in advance, ruling what is left of the
earth afterward. Their source for this information
is an ancient talking head made of bronze, which
Ogdoad Research believes is the receptacle for an
elemental spirit. In reality, a fiend that calls itself
“Baphomet” inhabits the artifact, and it has been
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using its “disguise” to manipulate the powerful
research firm into thinning the veil between our
world and the realm of fiends. When the time is
right, a flood of fiends will pour through the veil,
bringing about the apocalypse the head claims to
be trying to avert. Baphomet’s goal is to amass
infernal power and prestige for itself, by creating a
literal Hell on Earth.
When Ogdoad Research’s board of directors
first began communicating with the head, they
reasoned that if one head were so useful, then
several would be even better. They located a
computer engineer named Sebastian Isaacson,
recruited him into their outer circle, and instructed
him to oversee Project Brindisi: the plan to develop
a modernized, electronic version of the bronze
head. After two years of work, Dr. Isaacson
reported to the board that he had completed the
computer architecture, but, without an equally
advanced operating system, the computerized
head was no more capable of averting the
apocalypse than an iMac. The board of directors
consulted their own bronze head, and Baphomet
advised them to use the alchemical formulae in the
Voynich Manuscript, a medieval text written in an
indecipherable code, as the operating system.
Unfortunately, the Beinecke Library at Yale,
where the Voynich Manuscript resides, refused
to sell the book. So Dr. Isaacson arranged to
bribe, and later blackmail, a Yale professor, Barry
Saunier, into scanning pages from the book and
sending them to him. Isaacson then designed a
computer language that utilized the mysterious
symbols from the Voynich Manuscript, and he has
been working on translating the code for just over
a year. Though the operating system is incomplete,
Isaacson’s bronze head computer has achieved
a rudimentary form of sentience, and is capable
of limited communication, consisting mainly of
gibberish and seemingly nonsensical riddles.
Baphomet, of course, knows that for the doctor’s
bronze head to truly function like the original,
it must be powered by a fiend. This is why it
suggested using the Voynich Manuscript, which
Baphomet knows is actually a complex formula for
the summoning and binding of fiends. Baphomet
reasons that the more fiends on Earth who are
working toward thinning the veil between the
worlds, the sooner the apocalypse can begin.
Synopsis
While the heroes stumble upon the unlisted
telephone number of a covert Ogdoad Research
computer laboratory—Temple Networking
Solutions—Ogdoad personnel move quickly to
clean out the lab. But though they remove all
evidence of their work at the TNS lab, a paper
trail remains. While the heroes are searching the
empty offices, a courier arrives with photocopied
documents. These documents
imply that the lab was using
a 13th-century manuscript as
a blueprint for some kind of
computer.
Following up on the leads
provided by the courier, a
typical man-in-black, the
heroes uncover the name of
the chief researcher at TNS,
a Dr. Sebastian Isaacson.
Isaacson, the heroes learn,
is a computer engineer from
Bonn, Germany, and a widely-
known expert on the mysterious
“Voynich Manuscript”—a book
that contains an apparently
unbreakable code. Further, Dr.
Isaacson has a residence in Los
Angeles, but has just left the
country for an extended stay in
Munich, Germany.
Rushing to catch up with Dr.
Isaacson, they find themselves
coincidentally aboard the same international flight.
When one of the doctor’s Ogdoad bodyguards
overhears the heroes talking about the doctor,
he realizes that Isaacson has been followed, and
he and his associates take steps to eliminate the
heroes’ threat—including ejecting them from the
plane, 30,000 feet over the Atlantic Ocean.
Links to Other Adventures
Flight 23 functions as a stand-
alone adventure, however
those people who have played
through Come for the Reaping
and Slave Drivers (also from The
Game Mechanics) will almost
certainly realize that Ogdoad
Research appears in both of those
adventures, and that the staff at
Temple Networking Solutions was
participating, at some level, in the
experiments both at the Aguas
Mansion ( Come for the Reaping )
and the Metro Cab dispatch yard
( Slave Drivers ). Despite those
“Easter eggs,” Flight 23 is playable
on its own, as well.
If you ran Come for the
Reaping and Slave Drivers and
you are using the same heroes in
Flight 23 , then you should set the
beginning of this adventure in Los
Angeles , immediately after the
events of Slave Drivers .
Character Hooks
Heroes working for Department-7 receive the
assignment to follow up on the phone number
found in Annet Antczak’s rooms during the events
of Slave Drivers . If the heroes don’t work for
Department-7, and aren’t particularly motivated to
investigate a mystery involving a strange voice on
the telephone, try some of these hooks:
• The heroes are amateur detectives hired to
investigate a completely different case, when
they come across the telephone number
(leading them to believe it’s involved in their
own case).
• The heroes are police or other law
enforcement assigned to follow up on a
series of disappearances involving a cab
company. Their investigation leads them to
another facility owned by Ogdoad Research,
the same corporation that owns the cab
company.
• The heroes work for an insurance company
that employs them for their special
perceptions, even though the company
doesn’t understand or believe in Shadow.
The heroes get all the strange cases.
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They are investigating an auto accident to
determine whether a claim should be paid.
(The insurance company represents the
family of the passenger who died in the
accident.) The dossier on several of the
cab company’s employees lists the Ogdoad
Research computer lab as their last place of
employment.
• One of the heroes is mistakenly receiving
mail meant for a Richard Blackwood, whose
address (at the computer lab) is on the north
end of the hero’s street. (The hero’s address
is on the south end of the street, and postal
carriers frequently confuse the addresses.)
The hero becomes involved when he goes to
drop off Blackwood’s mail.
your best bet is to cut any references to fiends or
FX items and add a few layers of conspiracy, first
pointing to one group (perhaps the Enlightenment
or a rogue cell of Department-7) and then to
another (perhaps the Mindwreckers). Ultimately,
illithids or puppeteers could be behind Ogdoad
Research’s apocalypse preparations.
No FX: If your campaign has no FX, then
Ogdoad Research is developing biological
weapons in a bid to take over the world and reform
it along lines they consider more rational and
scientific. They intend to start with small, Third
World nations that lack the resources to combat
biological warfare, and expand from that base. In
this adventure, they use various small companies’
profits as revenue to finance their plans. Temple
Networking Solutions is using Dr. Isaacson’s
radical new computer design to decode references
in the Voynich Manuscript to a plague, in order to
synthesize a targeted viral agent that can be used
against specific ethnic groups that Ogdoad finds
“unworthy.”
Shadow Chasers: Very few changes are
necessary to fit this adventure into a Shadow
Chasers campaign. Fiends exist in that campaign
model as well, and ordinary people are unable to
perceive the horrors around them except in their
final, terrified moments. Change the forces behind
the events to Shadow denizens, preferably some
sort of fiends.
Urban Arcana: This is an even easier fit than
Shadow Chasers . Simply add some organizations
found in the Urban Arcana Campaign Setting and
add a few bits of flavor (like visits to a Prancing
Pony restaurant), and you’re all set.
Scaling the Adventure
Flight 23 is intended for four to six 3rd-level heroes.
The encounters in the game are scaled to reflect
the danger inherent in modern-era combats.
The average level of the combatant non-player
characters should be just slightly higher than the
average level of the heroes. Don’t simply add
opponents. The additional foes will have just as
much trouble successfully fighting your heroes as
those already provided.
Other Campaign Models
Flight 23 uses The Bronze Head campaign
model. Adapting it to any of the campaign models
presented in Chapter Nine: Campaign Models
of the core rulebook is possible. Here are some
recommendations:
Agents of PSI: Because magic and fiends do
not exist in the Agents of PSI campaign model,
beginning th e adventure
Flight 23 begins with a telephone call to an unlisted
number, belonging to a computer engineering firm
called Temple Networking Solutions. If the heroes
are picking up where Slave Drivers left off, read
the following aloud to the players (otherwise, you
can skip to the section entitled Temple Networking
Solutions):
But before you hang up, the noise sud-
denly stops, replaced with a voice that
sounds as though it is being filtered
through an electronic harmonizer.
“Code in,” the voice says tonelessly.
Because the voice on the other end of the line
expects a response in binary code (“one-zero-zero-
zero-one-one-zero”), the heroes aren’t very likely to
guess the proper reply.
If they say nothing for more than five seconds,
the voice repeats the request in the same electronic
monotone. If another five seconds pass with no
response from the heroes, or if at any point the
heroes give the incorrect code, there is another
burst of modem static and the line goes dead.
Dialing the number you found in the
room above the Metropolitan Cab
Company dispatch yard, you hear a
number of clicks on the line just before
it releases a burst of modem noise.
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