Lonestar Adventure - Blood for Money

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This post uses my Lonestar Campaign Setting found here.

Adventure Title: Blood for Money

Adventure Type: Kidnapping

Setting: Seattle, 2075

Plot Overview: Brendon Evers thinks he has a perfect plan to finally get out from under his parents thumb. However his two friends (Eddy and Simon) let slip to their more dangerous street friend Kyle, who has an idea to make everyone rich (except Brendon of course, he will be dead).

NPCs:

  • Brendon Evers - Rich Kid
  • Jacob Evers - Rich Kid’s Father
  • Elizabeth Evers - Rich Kid’s Mother
  • Eddy Bibbee - Idiot Kidnapper
  • Simon Smith - Idiot Kidnapper
  • Kyle Reiner - Lead Idiot

Locations:

  • Streets
  • Station
  • Mansion in the Hills

Challenges:

  • Keeping the Rich Kid alive while the investigators follows clues
  • Magic help will only go so far. They will need to narrow down the playing field first

Scene 1: Squad 2: A Strange Stop Background info: Tim Ryner has accidentally found a ritual item that contained a bound spirit. Unfortunately for him, upon moving this object the spirit bound within the item has become bound to him. It has possessed Tim and is now trying to get back to a cemetery where it can bury itself (along with Tim), and return to the earth. It’s a Force 5 Spectre who doesn’t have anything else it wants more than to be entombed in earth once more.

The Scene: A car swerves over the line a few times and catches the eye of the officers. When they signal, the driver pulls over and rolls their window down. Smoke begins to escape from the windows and the officers can spot the driver spraying something inside their car. Running the plate returns a driver with no past issues or active warrants. One strange thing however, is that the driver does have a registered magical ability.

When the officers make contact the driver seems out of it. His eyes are pinpoints giving some idea that he might be under the influence of some drug. The smoke coming from the vehicle however doesn’t smell like Zen or some other illegal drug. A magical background test at TN 4 will give the idea that its sage, 2 successes says its white sage, both known for Native American cleansing rites. 3 successes gives some insight to a banishing conjuring ritual, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense to have a ritual going while they are driving.

If an officer has the ability to see into the astral, they will notice that the driver is currently possessed by a spirit. The driver will answer any question he would normally know, but will do so with a completely toneless response. If the officers attempt to stop the driver from continuing to the graveyard it’s driving too, it will become hostile and attempt to cast touch of death (Force 5) on the nearest officers.

The officers may need to call for magical backup while they are making this stop. A magician can be made available in 4 turns. Trying to keep the subject calm until backup or to give the magical cop a chance to banish the spirit. If the officers attempt to handcuff or restrain the spirit, it will attack the officers with its own hand to hand attacks.

Finally, once Tim is freed of this spirit, he will be incredibly thankful, he will explain that someone brought him an iron cauldron to research. As he was examining it, he became possessed. He will hand it over to the magical officers without a moment’s hesitation. He never wants to see it again.

If the players lose track of Tim or let him continue on his way, he will be found in the cemetery 6 blocks away, suffocated as he buries himself to rest there himself.

Scene 2 : Squad 1: Front Towards Enemy. Background Info: A grandmother calls in that she wants to turn over a great deal of weapons that were once held by her grandson who sadly passed due to a gang war. She has a lot more weapons and dangerous things than she suspects, including several mines and rigged grenades. This includes a high tech proximity mine with a voice identification. A voicemail on her pocket secretary is their only hope. Now if only she could remember her voice password.

The Scene: This should feel like a low pressure scene. The players have been invited in and they know that the son has already passed. So there shouldn’t be any fear of retaliation or gang activity. This will also get dangerous weapons off the streets.

Carol-Ann Macey is the old woman who has invited the police into her home. Her grandson Mikey was the gang member who’s stuff she is turning over. It’s in a bag with a white painted skull. The weapons themselves are a handful of SMGs and pistols. There are several extra magazines of ammo, but otherwise nothing really special. If the players ask if there is anything else, she will remember another bag he has pushed under his bed. When she (or the player) reaches for the bag, moving it in any capacity triggers an audible alarm. A voice coming from within the bag announces: “Weapon Armed. Any movement will trigger the device until a voice pattern is recognized”.

This is the moment where their lives should flash before their eyes. Whomever is holding the bag has a 12D explosive pointed directly at them. If they move, it will level the entire house, almost assuredly killing them, the grandmother and potentially other people on the block from the spray of the housing parts.

The voice pattern it is looking for is saved on Carol-Ann’s pocket secretary. However, she is terrified and won’t be able to remember how to log into the pocket sec. She can be calmed down with 2 successful etiquette tests. The first one at TN 8, the next at TN 4. She will be able to remember how to open it to play the last voicemail of her late grandson. The message is a short explanation of him wanting to leave the street gang, that he is going to do right by her. It’s a heartbreaking voicemail that will cause her to break into tears, but it will deactivate the bomb.

If the player decides to try to hang tough with the bomb until the bomb squad can help them, they will be in a world of hurt. Holding perfectly still isn’t a problem until a few rounds pass. In order to get through this hardship, they will need to make a body roll at Tn 4 to begin with. Every 3 rounds, they will have to repeat this test with a +1 TN increase. The bomb squad can arrive and be ready in 2d6+3 rounds.

Scene 3: Squad 2 - A breakin in a classy part of town ( Queen Anne ) Background Info: Brendon Evers and his 2 dumb friends (Eddy Bibbee, Simon Smith) have staged a breakin after knocking his parents out with laced wine. Once they tie them up and wipe the cameras in the house, they break out one of the upstairs windows and stage a robbery and then a kidnapping. Brendon has a trust fund that he is furious he doesn’t have full access to. So he plans to extort the money out of his parents via staging his own kidnapping. However, after talking to their friend Kyle, his friends realize they can keep the gag going and just cash in. After they are rich they can make all the friends like Brandon they want. So it turns from a staged kidnapping into a real one with deadly consequences. Brandon is pre-med so he knows how to do the blood draws safely and how much he can spare. His friends have no idea what they are doing. So half way through the drops small vials of blood start turning into extra soda bottles and anything else they can get their hands on. Finally, Docwagon arrives on scene first and makes a mess of things. Their job isn’t to preserve evidence, it’s to get their members into stable health. So play up how much damage was done to the house to get to the two unconscious family members.

Captain Brandon Larkin - Doc Wagon HTR Leader. Doctor Glen Kline - Responding Doctor with HTR

Evidence List:

  • House

    • Spiked Wine Glasses (1 Point each)
    • Spiked Wine Bottle’s Fingerprints showing ONLY the family’s prints (2 points)
    • Duct tape used on the Evers.
      • This has been heavily damaged by Docwagon, a forensic science at TN 5 or a police procedure at TN 8 can recover a set of prints that doesn’t match the family. This is worth 3 points. A single failure destroys this evidence
    • Broken Glass Window upstairs
    • Glass is broken from the INSIDE out. So it’s definitely a staged crime (2 points for a photo of the glass mostly on the outside)
    • Box containing the Ransom Note
    • Glass vial of Brandon’s Blood (2 Points)
      • This will have been scrubbed clean of prints, but shows a very good understanding of medical practices. It’s in the proper kind of vial and is vacuumed sealed.
    • Ransom Note
    • This will only contain Brandon’s prints and handwriting. It’s reasonable to think the kidnappers forced him to write it, but it seems very unusual with how easily it is to just print something.

  • Drop Location 1

    • Second Ransom Box
    • A heavily soiled empty “Magnum Thirst Crusher - Grape 1 Liter” bottle filled with blood.
    • Obvious bloody fingerprints (worth 3 points)
    • A new handwritten note, obvious spelling errors. Eddy’s handwriting

  • Drop Location 2

  • Third and final Ransom Box

  • A horrid cuppa Java full of blood mixed with coffee

The Scene: Jacob Evers’ Docwagon biomonitor spikes at a dangerously high level of heart rate. After breaching into the home, Doc wagon discovers Elizabeth and Jacob unconscious in an expansive closet. They get right to work reviving them and counteracting the drugs they find in their system.

The players are called onto the scene once Doc Wagon has cleared them from medical assistance, they call the local Lonestar office to begin the investigation. There are 4 different pieces that can be discovered in this scene (See the table above for what’s at each of the locations). The ransom letter is written in Brendons handwriting and explains that 100,000 nuyen is to be put in a certified credstick and left under a specific park bench in the next 24 hours. It will also say plainly not to get the police involved.

The parents will freak out once they discover the ransom letter, vowing to pay any amount of money to get Brendon back. A simple police procedure roll (TN 3) will tell the players to get their Matrix officers involved and set up tracing and monitoring on their telecom units. This will help if any calls come in as well as getting drone support for monitoring the drop location learned in the letter. Something that may occur to the players is how quickly all of this was done. The monitor recording (given by the doctor wagon personal if asked) shows the parents being unconscious for 20 or so minutes. This shows some amount of pre-meditation.

Scene 2: Drop Location 1: The park bench in question is a terrible place, used needles and trash piles in the area. A camp of territorial homeless gather in number here as well, one of them claiming the bench as his own property. He calls himself Lord Squaw and he will be very unhelpful to the situation unless the police play their cards right. He believes himself the “King” of the camp (Which is why he has a bed/throne and no one else does). If asked to help he will dismiss the police. If asked to protect his kingdom he will be more than helpful then, going so far as to recruit others to be the eyes and ears for the police. They will ask for radios/wires and if given they will give great help. If the king is insulted or disrespected in any way he will instead cause a great deal of trouble, getting his people to block views and obstruct the operation.

Everything now becomes a waiting game. As they set up, have each of them roll a stealth roll to conceal themselves, if they lack stealth they can use police procedures by their total will be at a -4 total. Depending on if they group up or spread out, allow each player to roll, those that group can use the highest roll of the group. If they have convinced the king to aid them, they will get a +4 to their end result to blend in as he makes spots for the police in his camp.

Once they have established their Stealth TNs, roll 1d6 and that’s how many hours it will take before the drop kid (Eddie) shows up. He will roll 5 dice to see if he can spot anyone suspicious.

  • 0 - Success - He will walk up like he is in a spy movie and try to make the grab before then trying to disappear into the crowd. This would be impressive except he is high as a kite so he comes across sloppy.
  • 1 - Success - he will be very cautious but his greed will ultimately get the better of him and he will go for it anyway allowing the players to potentially catch him though he will get a head start during the chase
  • 2- Successes - he is out, can’t spend money from jail. He will bail before his paranoia completely takes hold. They won’t even see him show up.

If he takes the bait, the players can either grab him by rushing him or try to follow him back to the hideout. This will be 1 of 2 chances for them to find the hideout. If they pull guns and rush him, he won’t put up a fight and will roll over on his people almost instantly if someone tells him they can cut him a deal on jail time.

If he manages to get away he will return with the money (or not if he got spooked) and immediately try to pull another liter of blood (poorly) from Brandon and put it into a used plastic coffee cup. This will be done sloppily and then finally a carrier will be called on a cheap matrix e-shop which allows people to do minor tasks for cash. He will tell the carrier deliver a box (containing the coffee cup full of blood and a new note with another request for money, this time 250,000 nuyen and a drop at a tennis court’s trash can) The carrier can ID Eddy but not overly well, he met at a local car wash, so this is meaningless.

Scene 3: Drop Location 2: A tennis court garbage can is the next drop location. This is in a nicer side of town (and the two who are putting together this scheme live close to this location and didn’t think very far ahead). Even better, the two idiots have actually scheduled a court later that day (Which can be seen if officers spot the bulletin board attached to the court). Eddy (assuming he hasn’t been captured) will attempt to make this grab. He will attempt to hide once more but now it takes 3 successes on his 4 dice to back out of grabbing the drop. Greed and the Zen he has been smoking since grabbing the first bag of money, Eddy feels almost bulletproof. If Eddy gets rushed here, he will try to pull his gun and go out firing. Now he feels like we had stuff to lose and has his dream so close he wants to defend it.

After a single wound of any type (Stun or Physical) he will go down and give up. He will do everything he can to cut a deal then. Giving up Kyle as quickly as he can for a reduced sentence.

Scene 4: Safe House: A rough looking repair shop with barred windows and trashed vehicle pushed right up against the building. There are only 2 entrances to this building, a rolling garbage door (locked with a simple master lock) and a metal backdoor with a simple locked handle. Both of these are easy enough to breach but Kyle has been sitting with Brandon taking bumps of Cram waiting for Eddy to get back with the money. Kyle also now paranoid from the drugs, has an assault rifle primed and ready. He will unload at any sound he hears.

In an interior room, Brandon has been tied to a chair and has been cut pretty badly. There are a few empty bottles of soda, energy drinks, etc next to him. There is a line “patched” into his arm. There is a rating 2 medical kit with a silenced alarm warning that the patient is experiencing blood loss. Kyle has disregarded this believing that he can bleed Brandon slowly, but has NO idea how much blood someone can lose before they die so he has gotten aggressive about it. If the players have wasted time or just in general have caused delays in getting to the safe house, Branden will be in a bad way. Blood is pooling around his arm wound and his feet, he is unconscious (though only dead if the players are delayed for any reason).

Kyle won’t go out alive if he can help it. He has hit his payday and the cram in his system will make him WANT to fight it out. After Kyle has been taken care of, Brandon will need fluids immediately. A biotech roll to save Brandon (Assuming he is still alive) at TN 6 (or Medicine roll at TN 4) to get an IV in a severely dehydrated and exsanguinated Brandon to restore his blood pressure. The players should call an emergency ambulance as soon as the scene is cleared. If they send anyone in without clearing the building, an ER Tech will be shot (and killed) by Kyle.