Junction Point

Space role playing

Junction Point for Looking Glass





Briefing: “We have been making incredible progress in understanding the genetic structure of the Hauranid under the direction of Dr. Lycombs, a microbiology genius. Lycombs has fallen under the influence of the Guardians of the True Path, a cult that worships the Hauranid as divine beings. The cult is located inside an abandoned asteroid mining colony, where the members have set up a hive of sorts, attempting to emulate their sacred leaders. The militant cult is led by Merril Rumby, and has a captive hauranid kept in suspended animation. He has the doctor working on a method for combining the genetic material from the hauranid with humans, to create a hybrid species that is ‘closer to God’. We’ll pay for the following services…”

Primary goal: Return Dr. Lycombs to Corporation X for deprogramming.

Secondary goal 1: Return or destroy any research materials Lycombs has compiled.

Secondary goal 2: Eliminate Rumby

NPCs

Doctor Lycombs is a brilliant researcher, but has gone mad due to the brainwashing techniques used on him by Rumby. He is a short, pudgy white-haired guy who speaks with a French accent, and wears a polyester suit beneath a stained and rumpled lab coat. He constantly rubs his eyes and nose. The doctor has no fear, and will follow directions to the letter, regardless of who gives them.

Merril Rumby is a gaunt, dark haired man with a van dyke and piercing gaze. He wears golden earrings, a crimson tunic and black pants. He speaks with a loud, clear voice, and constantly says things that assure you he is insane. He is using his flock for test subjects until the genetic conversion process can be perfected, when he will join the “holy race” himself. If things get out of his control, he will order his followers to cover his retreat and make his way to the skiff and leave.

Paulie McMillian is an anomaly among the followers. He has broken out of his programming, but continues to go along with the others until he gets a chance to escape. He is willing to give the player key bits of information in hopes that the player can help him escape. Paulie will not follow the player, for fear of being branded a traitor, but at the first sign of commotion he will make his way to the skiff and try to board it with anyone who has the keys.

CREATURES

Cult Followers: Typical followers are in various stages of deformation brought on by the toxins in the mines, genetic experiments, or they might have just been pure ugly before they joined the cult. Typical examples of disfigurement are mandibles protruding through the cheeks, insectivoid multifaceted eyes, elongated clawed hands and feet, open wounds and warty, blotched skin. All members are adult human males, and they are dressed in something similar to 20th century camouflage BDUs.

MAP DESCRIPTION & GENERAL NOTES

The only manmade external features of the asteroid are the ore loading/unloading bays and a hydroponics dome, each on opposite sides. All areas of the asteroid are zero gravity, all gravity generators were removed when the mine was shut down. Most cult members use belts with micro jets to control movement. In the ore loading/unloading bay is a planetary skiff used by Rumby for transportation. He has disabled it and keeps the keys in his sanctuary.

The asteroid is riddled with tunnels, all cut by powerful earth moving machines, and now poorly lit and strewn with rubble. The tunnels follow no logical pattern, since they traced veins of ore, and sometimes they loop around or dead end. There are many airlocks situated throughout the old mine, but most are not security controlled, so the player has little trouble with them. In a few key places, Rumby has trapped the airlocks, so that it’s readouts are reversed, (it will tell someone about to enter that the other side is pressurized when it is actually vacuum) The best way to detect this trap is that the panels surrounding the readout have been crudely pried loose and then replaced.

At some points throughout the mine, chambers have been carved into the stone and filled with radioactive/toxic waste, by products of the operation here. It will be possible to traverse one such area to gain access to a secret entrance into the compound area. There are also storage chambers that still contain useful tools or materials, Scattered out in the mines passages, there are cult members on security patrol. Some are armed with modern weapons, but many use the tools left over here as weapons. As an added bonus, most of the sentries have been undergoing gene therapy to become more hauranid-like, and will be insane, disfigured, and homicidal. Imagine one of those guys charging you brandishing an industrial lightning drill! Many of them have developed the skill of bouncing from wall to wall in the zero gravity, and do not use any other form of propulsion.

The compound area has been established in the old administrative and operations sector. (near the hydroponics dome) and is comprised of a sleeping chamber, feeding chamber, indoctrination bay, temple, and Rumby’s sanctuary. In the sleeping chamber, cult members sleep by entangling themselves in a web of nets (facing in all directions in the zero gravity) The feeding chamber is where cannibalistic rituals are practiced, and victims are entangled in nets just as they are in the sleeping area. Life support tubes and wires are attached to the victims, keeping them alive as long as possible while “food” is surgically removed from them and served. In the indoctrination bay, looping audio messages play constantly, combined with pulsing and flashing lights that induce a receptive state on the new recruits staying here.

The temple is more like an operating theater, and worshipers here look down through a thick plate of glass into the genetics lab below. In the center of the lab is the cryogenically frozen body of the hauranid messiah that the cult is built around. The lab and Rumby’s sanctuary are sealed off from the rest of the compound, and only he has the passkey to enter the airlock. He does not know about the back entrance that leads form the waste chambers to the lab.

Rumby’s sanctuary is comprised of his living quarters, genetics lab, hydroponics garden (under the dome) and a cell for Dr. Lycombs. Rumby’s quarters are furnished with items that were left behind when the mine was abandoned, but all the furniture is nailed down to simulate a normal gravity environment. There is a passage leading to a well tended garden on the surface, (Rumby is a vegetarian, and does not join the cult members in their cannibalistic feasts) There is no airlock between the dome and his quarters, so shattering the dome has traumatic consequences throughout the sanctuary. Lycombs’ cell is spartan and cold, and the doctor drifts around the room pecking on the keyboard of his mega-powerful laptop. (it contains all of the research he has done since arriving here) When he is not here he is in the lab conducting genetic experiments on volunteers. The lab is loaded with powerful computers and specialized scientific equipment. There is also a cryogenic sleeping tube containing the hauranid, and controls to manipulate the frozen inhabitant of the tube.

WALKTHROUGH

Problem 1: The passages throughout the colony are zero-g.

Possible solutions: Cult members use micro jets to “fly” through the complex. The player can take the micro jets from a member and use them. He can use flight skills here.

Problem 2: Mine was plutonium-like substance. Radiation may damage health or certain technology.

Possible solutions: Care must be taken to avoid radiation areas. A radiation resistance nano helps.

Problem 3: Player wants to get rid of the colony in a spectacular way.

Possible solutions: Seismic charges, found in an old mining equipment storeroom, can be used to blow open airlocks, clear rubble from passages, bust open the dome, or even break up the unstable asteroid if placed strategically in the tunnels throughout the mine. (an old portable computer with emails sent to the former mine superintendent gives clues that this is possible, computer skills make the chance of recovering this data much higher)

Problem 4: Collapsed tunnels bar the players way.

Possible solutions: Use old mining equipment to break through barriers.

Problem 5: Eliminate Rumby

Possible solutions: You find a genetic accelerator gun in the lab that will shoot out a cool ray and cause humans to become genetic human/hauranid hybrids (read: deformed) in a painful, traumatic transformation. It is currently programmed with Rumby’s DNA, and will only work on him.

Problem 6: Cult members are making it difficult to complete objectives.

Possible solutions: Hive members have networked control chips implanted in their brains used to simulate the hive-mind. A controller for the chips can be found in Rumby’s sanctuary, and it can be used to prompt the members of the hive to certain actions. (alert, sleep, congregate, repair…)

Problem 7: Find frozen hauranid

Possible solutions: Kill Hauranid captive by screwing with hibernation controls.

Revive Hauranid captive by screwing with hibernation controls. Conscious Hauranid calls for a rescue.

Problem 8: Secure escape vehicle.

Possible solutions: If you find the keys to the planetary skiff in the sanctuary, you can escape using the vehicle in the ore loading/unloading bay instead of signaling for pickup.

CONCLUSION/EXIT

Possible exit points from the hive are at the ore loading platform or the hydroponics dome (it must be broken open, there are no doors) Perhaps it is possible that if you are wearing a space suit, and if you succeed in breaking up the asteroid, and if you survive the breakup, you may then find yourself floating in open space, where you can activate your extraction beacon and be rescued.

Contact me at Naga@io.com