Brief
The following broadcast transmits through the station’s radios.
“This is an emergency announcement by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Martial Law is in effect, your area is under lock-down.
Electricity will be shut off in thirty minutes.
You are ordered to stay indoors until a FEMA representative arrives.Do not let anyone inside.
Do not talk to anyone outside.
Avoid conversations about the near future.
Avoid prolonged conversations.
Avoid the color blue or any shade of blue.(Blue items can be burnt/discarded out of the front of your building.)
This is not a test”
Just then the station’s phone rings and you can hear yelling from the cells.
“Hello? This is Jake over at the radio station… (grunting sounds)
Did you hear that broadca.. (howl of pain)
Is this real? What the fuck is goin.. (vomiting noises)
What the fuck is this?”
You are a police officer, medical professional, lawyer, criminal, scientist/scholar with important information or military consultant. It is 6 am in Olympia Washington and the town sirens start going off just as your cellphone reads “no signal”.
Executive Summary
A disgruntled scientist released a parasitic agent into Olympia’s water supply three days ago. It spread fast. Now the town itself has been exposed and the National Guard has surrounded the town with orders to shoot people trying to flee. The parasitic agent is hostile and can/will cause escalating physical phenomena, even death if ignored. It can be distracted by concentrated activities as well as primal physical actions. The parasite rests at the base of the brainstem and is growing.
Players will be made aware of their condition and that a potential cure is across town in the R/D facility that caused the spread. The National Guard will only evacuate the players if they obtain the only known samples of the parasite and a potential cure.
Threats
Players have to fend of psychotic citizens, mobs of desperate people, and avoid National Guard patrols.
One scientist in the research facility will attempt to sabotage the cure and specimen samples. As a last ditch effort they will attempt to down the National Guard helicopter with creative use of a propane tank and science.
Parasitic Effects
The handler can implement and not implement these effects for narrative momentum reasons. Yet, the parasite should be hostile and present but it is not the only/greatest threat in Olympia.
Conversations about the future
The parasite is hostile to concepts of the future and will release neurotoxins into the bloodstream in response to the duration of the conversation or the distance from the present.
| Duration of Conversation | or Distance from the present | Effect |
|---|---|---|
| 15-30 seconds | 4 hours-1 day | -1WP, CON check, F: faint, FU: -1 HP |
| 60-90 seconds | 36 hours- 3 days | -1WP, CON check, F:Catatonia 10min, FU: -1d2HP |
| 2-5 minutes | 4 days+ | -1d4WP, CON check, F: Catatonia 1 hour, FU 2HP |
Prolonged Conversations
The parasite prefers simple concepts and short exchanges of ideas. Any conversation longer than one sentence makes the parasite hostile and it will respond in escalating fashion first by mild distracting hallucinations then will activate any underlying psychosis (SAN check for characters with a psychosis, upon failure the character acts out that psychosis) and finally a numbing of the mouth, throat, tongue and eyelids (-20 to social and perceptive skills/stats).
Chromophobia
The parasite cannot see the color blue and removes this information from the infected’s perceptions. (FEMA made a mistake regarding this symptom which may have consequences later.)
Task Orientation
The parasite finds short tasks soothing and will “reward” its host with an dopamine reuptake inhibitor. This makes the host feel euphoric when accomplishing minute tasks when strung together. Conversely the parasite returns to a dormant state when engaged in longer tasks requiring abstract reasoning (both are conditions of this effect) and floods the bloodstream with an unknown variant of serotonin. This particular organic chemical can provide the host with a clarifying vision in the form of an insight (SAN Check: pass: no effect, failure: insane insight +1Unnatural and Handler can give a simple hint, fumble: +1d3 Unnatural, -1d3SAN, handler gives two hints, one does not pertain to this particular reality.)
Threat Environment
Olympia, the capital of Washington state, is at the southern end of Puget Sound. The sprawling Washington State Capitol Campus, beside Capitol Lake, includes the stately Legislative Building and the 1909 Governor’s Mansion. On the downtown waterfront, Percival Landing Park has a boardwalk and public art.
It has a population of 52,000 residents, all of them are infected.
182 or 0.35% of adult residents are dead or dying due to infection or other causes
416 or 0.8% of adult residents have become aggressive and paranoid (not due to infection)
1934 or 0.37% of adult residents have been shot or killed by National Guard attempting to flee
2496 or 4.8 % of adult residents were in a hospital or hospital setting and are seeking treatment
3120 or 6% of adult residents are attempting to flee the city and are stuck in traffic
5200 or 10% of adult residents have become psychotically violent (due to infection)
6240 or 12% of adult residents are at work and will stay there until 9am
2080 or 40% of adult residents are at home and asleep, unaware of the infection or lock-down
13312 or 25.6% are children are on their way to school.
From 6am to 7am, residents will call (landlines) emergency and medical services.
From 7am to 8am, residents will returning home will encounter violent residents and seek shelter
From 8am to 9am, occupants will have barricaded the buildings they are in.
From 9am to 1030am, large parts of city are on fire making most travel by vehicle impossible.
*National Guard helicopters will patrol the airspace until 930am when they begin firing on those violating the lockdown order. They will be unable to differentiate the players (friendlies) from the hostile citizenry.
Argosy Center for Research
Located on Warren Point, the Argosy Center for Research is in full lock down. Metal drop down barricades cover all entry points. It has two surface stories and two stories underground. The lowest level is where the scientists continue their frenetic work. The staff at the center is 23 scientists, research assistants and or custodial staff with 7 armed security guards monitoring security cameras and occupying positions on the roof. The security staff is out of ammunition but hopes that their presence will act as a deterrence.
Once inside the facility, players will find it relatively easy to navigate the building and find access to the lower level where the “cure” is held. Yet once inside the facility, other residents will flock to enter and find the cure for themselves. (1d10 residents will reach the facility every 3 rounds the facility is visibly open.) There is enough cure for the entire group plus 6 more but if all of the cure is used it will take days to sequence more. The scientists are packaging the samples and “cure” up and need assistance to meet the evacuation timeline. (Medicine, Pharmacy or Science skills needed)
Running This Scenario
This scenario is meant to be a series of races against time. Once the players have had a chance to interact with each other for a few minutes, two wounded national guardsman should beg for entry to the police station. There, they will inform the players of their mission (retrieve specimen and cure) and radio back to the forward operating base the national guard has set up. The military leadership offers the players a deal, get what they need and they will exfil the players.
The earlier the players get to the next “checkpoint” the more advantages they have. The parasite’s effects can be immediate or develop slowly but the players should find information (either through the scientist/scholar player).
This scenario should reward decisive action even if it is ineffective and Handlers are encouraged to use a 3 minute timer to maintain a frenetic pace. Players need to be forced to make snap decisions with regards to what they want to accomplish, how they want to accomplish it and what to do when someone gets in their way. Most opposition will not “fight to the death” but run away and return in greater numbers. Creative responses to entering the facility should be rewarded, brute force should be punished by a mob of equally desperate residents.
Once inside the facility the race against time to get to the facility should turn to a game of survival. Not every resident is homicidal but enough of them are driven mad with worry for their loved ones and selves.
Win Conditions
- Players acquire the specimen/sample and are exfiltrated.
- Players take the cure for themselves and hunker down.
- Players convince the angry mobs of residents that the cure is in the water supply.
Credits
This was an entry to the 2020 shotgun scenario contest. Written by Joe