Mists of Mosney 05

Party comes across Duty sentries lead by Sgt. Voodoo hiding from a sniper in the Clontarf railyard. They have taken a Freedom stalker by the name of Hunter prisoner, who was laying traps near the Duty base. There’s a Freedom sniper overwatching the position and they are waiting for dusk to move off. Hunter claims he was merely trapping mutants for food as the Freedom base is starving. He was also searching for a giant boar that is ripping the Freedom base apart at night. Duty accuse him of scoping out the Duty base. They have already burned his catch and are preparing to interrogate him back at base. The party decide to defuse the situation by offering to escort the wounded Hunter back to Freedom and let the Duty party move off. They succeed in convincing Sgt. Voodoo of their plan, and the sniper does not shoot when they emerge from cover with Hunter.

On the journey out to Marino Casino, Hunter is noted as a stalker who hunts and eats fleshes and boar mutants. and who could help the party learn survival skills. Thankfully no bandits or monsters are in the area as a heavy fog sets in. Hunter was sent out to catch an enormous boar that is ripping up the Freedom outposts, but he hasn’t found any leads.

The party meet the Freedom stalker Domino, who they met on the Dollymount strand before in the Skadovsk, telling tall tales about Freedom. The party reaches the Freedom base and it’s in bad repair. Domino vouches for the party and they are allowed to enter. People are low energy from hunger. Rumours are of a giant boar from the Botanic Gardens ripping up fences, knocking over outposts, scaring away all the deer. Civil war against Duty is going badly. There’s a smell of weed around the buildings, people looking red-eyed. In one of the corners of the base, there are gardens and plants and a terraced crater. A faction in Freedom are attempting to harness anomalies to grow new crops. MC Geist becomes suspicious of the Freedom fighters and wants to make sure they are not cannibals. He connives to try digging up a recent grave, but the Freedom stalkers are outraged. They surround MC Geist, preparing to lynch him. Only Hunter emerging from the hospital to intervene saves him.

Hunter walks them around the perimeter, says the walls are getting knocked down by something and their fences being torn up. The deer have all been scared away. This all happened about 3 months ago, when 2 of their best hunters, Kaz and Grigory when missing, The party follow the footprints a while to pick up the trail. But they notice the footprints aren’t fourlegged: wrong gait and spacing. This is a two-legged beast. And it’s radioactive, so much so that the party can follow the trail.

Hunter also has a personal request: find Kaz. He was a Freedom stalker who rejected technology more and more. Said he could walk through anomalies unscathed and artifacts fell into his pockets. But he came back to base less and less. He has been missing for 3 months when he ventured out to slay the giant boar.

They follow the trail to the overgrown Botanic Gardens, now known as the Dark Forest, but come across traps and brutally killed and eaten stalkers and animals. All with puncture wounds from large tusks. They waste bullets and bandages in the giant deadfall traps, tree trunks swinging down, pitfalls and sharpened spines whipping from the side and above. Clearly the giant boar in the area is intelligent enough to avoid these traps as they follow its footsteps. They get the feeling they are being shadowed as they get closer to the Dark Forest.

They approach a clearing in what was once a school basketball court but is now a lush jungle. They see a figure flitting through the trees, and the party are assaulted by wooden javelins. A powerful voice calls out a challenge to the intruders and calls them polluters of the garden who must die. They see a daubed mural to the theme of “the industrial revolution and the Zone as a consequence has been a disaster for the human race”. The human figure appears on a rooftop, massive: wielding a giant boar tusk. He is wearing a giant boar’s skull and has clad his feet in its hooves.

He has studded himself with “gravi” and “pin” family artifacts, giving him 2 armour. He is a hard target, with a -10 to hit with guns, -20 when he runs. He has set lots of primitive traps in the area, which between 1d6 and 3d6 damage. His giant tusk does 2d10 damage. His battle with the party is swift and brutal – MC Geist is taken out action twice and suffers a permanent brain injury. He seems very hard to damage, but the more perceptive in the party notice the artifacts are making him bleed heavily when he takes any damage. They are able to circle him and spread his aggression out between them.

When the monster appeared exhausted, Darragh Treacy spiked his helmet with a lucky concussion grenade and jumped away. The explosion decapitated the fighter and ended the encounter.

Deeper in the clearing, they find a truly enormous ribcage being used as a shelter. Its tusks and bones used for weapons. There is a burial mound there, and the party find the stalker suit and PDA of the legendary Freedom stalker Theo Kaczynski, known by the name KAZ in the zone. There is a book of fevered philosophical writings, and a journal of his descent into madness as he hunted the giant boar, eventually taking its life. But Kaz felt a duty to protect the forest from encroaching humanity, even his fellow Freedom stalkers. Mystery solved, the party returned home with some freshly caught boars for the Freedom stalker, and the artifacts recovered from Kaz’s body.

Jellyfish: Adds a +10 to your dodge when somone shoots at you. Will push you up a radiation bracket in 5 minutes of unprotected wear. A single pin is enough to counteract the radiation.

Formed in gravi anomalies, it’s known to redirect the path of moving objects, including bullets.

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Mists of Mosney Session 04

The Skillboys set out to Howth to do some jobs for the EU scientists in the Ecologist faction. They will need protective suits for the anomalies and poison gas in the Port Tunnel, and the party figures the Ecologists have the technology.

They began on Bull Island, hoping to make their way across the bay at low tide. Anywhere past Bayside/Clare Hall to the North is the brain scorcher field, generated by a radar at Dublin Airport. A few hours of exposure are enough to turn a human mad. So going across Bull Island was their best option.

The party encountered 3 of these ‘zombie’ stalkers in the dunes, near enough to the golf club. There were two rookie stalkers in leather jackets, and one military stalker with an AK-74. The zombie stalkers were walking around jerkily, warming themselves at fire pit. They seemed oblivious to most things around them. The party decided not to approach them after the Webber hailed them without a response. A group of mutated pigs known as “fleshes” appeared nearby from the marshes, and the Skillboys moved off in the direction of the ship graveyard on the shore. The fleshes noticed the zombies and moved to attack them. The party heard gunshots and decided to double back to see the fight. The zombified stalkers could still use their guns and saw off the fleshes easily. The zombified stalkers began feasting on the dead mutants. At this junction, the party decided to kill the zombified stalkers, partly for loot and partly to put these mad stalkers to rest.

3 hung back with guns, and MC Geist charged in to try hack off the soldier zombie’s head. The Skillboys suffered minor wounds in the fight, but took down the zombies. The two rookie stalkers seem to have gone mad somewhere in Kinsealy, before eventually drifting down south. The military zombie had been assigned to guard Howth, or at least that’s what his movements on the PDA said. Howth was supposed to be free of the brain scorcher’s influence. The bodies were “alive”, but their faces seem slack. They seemed insensible to pain, and don’t react to damage. If they hear gunshots, they react aggressively. They talk to themselves, as if driven mad by a desire to leave the Zone or get rich from artefacts.

The Skillboys reached the Bull Island ship graveyard – the rotting hulks from the Dublin port evacuation now shelter free stalkers and a trader by the name of Beard. The largest ship is a tanker named Skadovsk. Here stalkers pick up food, fuel and ammo, and trade stories for booze. The Skadovsk is seen as a neutral place between factions. The area links to Howth at low tide on the easterly point.

· There’s a rumour about Mosney, you know, the old holiday camp that’s at the heart of the radiation. There’s an artefact there, a giant crystal, that grants your wildest wishes to anyone who approaches it and is found worthy. No one’s made it back yet.

· Howth head is cursed and undefended. People saw a helicopter go down there about 2 weeks ago.

· A Freedom stalker named Domino tells a story about controller trying to teach a blind dog puppy to do tricks. The zombified stalker over his shoulder says it’ll never work, and the controller says “shut up, it took you two days to go from shooting at me to bringing me my slippers”

· A half-mad stalker by the name of Noah is building an ark on the beach he says will shelter the worthy from a coming flood. He has tamed a pseudodog and was supposedly a legendary stalker in the past.

· The Freedom stalker tells of the Marino Casino base where Freedom is investigating anomalies to benefit mankind. Rumours include a place called the Oasis, where all wounds can be healed. They are currently growing cannabis neaby a burner anomaly as a proof of concept. Getting high is also supposedly psi-protective.

The party don’t buy anything and move on up the beach.

On the way, they see a shopping trolley fitted with skis and bike wheels beside a lone ship. They approach, and knock. This is the home of the crazed stalker Noah. He tells them a flood is coming to wash away all the filth. It will come in the form of a giant wave or particle followed by a hoard of mutants. He received a vision from a burning bush on Howth Head, that was not consumed by flames. While terribly wounded, he approached the bush and was teleported into the belly of this ship. It was here he received his visions, and they commanded him to shelter all worthy, including 2 of every animal. Thankfully, most of the animals in the Zone are dead, so the ship doesn’t need to be large. He was able to tame his pseudodog by removing a Thorn artefact from its paw. The party figure out it is pregnant. Before the party goes, he gives them a crude, handprinted pamphlet of the world being annihilated by a flood, and words to the effect of the lion lying down with the lamb. He said to drop by again, and that the teleportation anomaly functioned only once a day. It also had the risk of horribly mangling users, or trapping them until they died of thirst.

The Skillboys make it to Howth Head having used up their rations for the day. They are walking through the heather which burns and yet isn’t consumed. The Webber decides to search for artefacts, taking his Droplet artefact to give him +2 Armour against thermal damage. This gives him a total of 3AP against the bursts of flame. 2 snorks attack the party while they are separated. Darragh “Trapper” Treacy spots them coming through the bushes and lays a conibear trap to protect their front. MC Geist attempted to strap a knife to his shoe with his shoelaces.

The Webber finds his artifacts and the party fight off the Snorks. The snorks leapt on one player, stabbing him with its long claws, but they threw one it the trap after it was repulsed. The other was surrounded by the party and beaten down until it was stunned. At this point, the Snorkler grappled the beast and tried to remind it of its humanity, shoving the pamphlet Noah gave them in its face. From behind the gas mask, there was a flicker of recognition. The party then dogpiled the snork, and bound it, figuring the scientists would love a live sample.

At the top of Howth Head is the Ecologist bunker. All that remains are two EU-aligned scientists: Sakhorov and VonBrueger, who says a nearby anomaly is turning people outside mad. They were due to be reinforced 2 weeks ago after their EU military guards were turned insane by the nearby psi-anomaly, but the helicopter crashed and burned near the quarry. They have been without comms to the outside world since. The Ecologists were overwhelmed with the live sample – research into the tendons and claws, and the long snout that filled the gas mask tube would be enough for several PhDs. They offered the players a reward of a prototype hazard suit, the Mk8 SSP suit if they would help them recover the radio antenna in the quarry. As it was late in the day, the party rested and ate well on the military rations. VonBrueger was the only one qualified to restore the radio, so Sakharov volunteered him for the mission.

The Skillboys made their way to the quarry, and picked up out 16 pings on their PDA, indicating nearby stalkers. The crashsite of the helicopter was ahead, and they found no survivors. The party recovered the black box from the helicopter, and MC Geist recovered some fireproof shoelaces from the dead soldiers. They began to suffer splitting headaches the longer they stayed in the psifield, and as the headaches peaked, two zombified military left the quarry. While the party were able to gun them down without incident, the zombies’ heavy armour and automatic weapons made killing another 14 a scary prospect. VonBrueger was worse then useless: he accidentally ejected the magazine of his M4 then muzzle swept the whole party in the fight.

They decided to act quickly and rig some concussion grenades to blow up loose rock on the quarry to crush the zombies below. They spread out to maximise their firepower and blew up their trap. The rockfall killed or crippled the tightly packed bodies below. The Webber and VonBrueger tried to get the radio antenna back up. But from behind the Skillboys, there was a roar. A mutant emerged from a cave. It was the controller who had zombified the squad and threatened the Ecologist bunker! The players began to suffer all kinds of visions: the Trapper looked behind the blasted rock of the quarry and saw rich, creamy butter, and couldn’t stop himself eating it. MC Geist, who had stayed behind to loot the helicopter rotors with his axe, heard the pilot calling him on board, for they were taking him back to his homeland. The Webber fell into a wonderland of artifacts, but only the Snorkler could resist the illusions. He began shooting at the mutant, breaking the spell.

The controller ceased spinning illusions and began to attack the party’s minds directly at anyone in line of sight, forcing VonBruegel to shoot at the Skillboys from behind. The Webber wasted no time in pinning the scientist to the ground, but the group was now dangerously spread out, and the controller would surely pick them off one by one. Seeing this, the Snorkler bravely charged the controller and attempted to grapple it. The Controller headbutted him, and began boiling his brain until he lost consciousness and went into shock. He saw a few visions from the controller: being in a tank while scientists poked and prodded him, and felt the burning hated in the words “human, once, like you. But no longer.” The Snokerler’s brave sacrifice allowed the Skillboys to rally, and rain blow after blow on the mutant. With the mutant vanquished, Howth Head was safe for now. The party managed to stabilise the Snorkeler, and with the advanced equipment of the Ecologist bunker, revive him. The permanent effects of the psychic damage left the Snorkler with a bad case of the shakes, reducing his agility permanently.

The parties received an advanced Mk8 SSP suit, which grants 6AP against anomaly damage, and complete immunity from gases while it is intact. However, the suit has zero protective qualities against bullets, claws and explosions.

Stalker Overhead Maps 02

Bull Island ship graveyard – the rotting hulks from the Dublin port evacuation now shelter free stalkers and a trader by the name of Beard. Some zombies from the Brain Scorcher to the North have been spotted on the beach. A half-mad stalker by the name of Noah is building an ark he says will shelter the worthy from a coming flood. Links to Howth at low tide on the easterly point.

Howth Head: The EU-sponsored scientists called the Ecologists were guarded by a platoon of EU military. But a helicopter crash and mutant attacks have left the two scientists Sakharov and VonBruegher alone and under siege.  They are totally lacking communications with the outside world, and a nearby psy-field is making mutants highly aggressive.

 

This the North Dublin faction map as it stands.

The Virgin baby killer v the Chad child savior

Today Ireland votes to retain or repeal the 8th Amendment on the equal right to life of the mother and the unborn. Some of you may appreciate a quick run-down on this long and contentious campaign:

 

The repeal voter is flabby and feminized, forced to hide his soy-riddled body in a baggy black jumper, baying for the blood of the only thing weaker than him.

typical repeal voter

 

By contrast, the retain voter is virile, masculine and wears either a 3 piece suit, a jumpsuit or nothing over his chiseled physique. He understands the duty of the strong is to protect the weak.

Note the small penis that indicates an Apollonian alpha male: cool headed and logical. Virility is in the balls. As it the duty. The hedonism and barbarity is in the shaft.

 

Rich Piana knew this, but chose to disregard the ancient wisdom of the dick to ball ratio:

Now he’s in a 6 foot wide, lead lined coffin designated as a Superfund cleanup site.

 

The entire world is the struggle between the Apollonian and the Priapic in man.

Or between the Platonic and the Socratic.

Or between the Socratic and the Socratic.

 

Priest and Beast

Part one here

 

‘From the temptations of the Flesh, Silica cleanse us

From the ravages of the Destroyer, Anima shield us

From this rotting cage of biomatter, Machine God set us free.’

-Catechism of the Machine Church.

For he bringeth down them that dwell on high; the lofty city, he layeth it low; he layeth it low, even to the ground; he bringeth it even to the dust.

-Liber Arcadia.

_

Archimandrite Quine began to snip away the flesh of his dead servant. He worked quickly, neatly as the suns of Wodenheim set and the desert winds blew. He blessed each implant and bionic part as he removed it and laid them carefully in a lead-lined box. He removed the small glowing chunks of wyrdstone that powered them and slipped them in a pouch inside his robes. One of his many mechanical arms swung a censer of sacred incense over the operation to stop the oxidation of the monk’s blood and the fouling of the remaining holy systems still within the body. Quine had hoped to save these parts for the next recipient, but a giant monster had pulverised the control system of the implants and eaten some of the corpse. Without the proper sacraments, these parts would rust and fail in the blighted desert. The bionics were useless without a control system, and he had no hope of finding another in the desert, but Quine continued with his work out of reverence for the sacred steel and silicon. His remaining brothers secured the site against interlopers while chanting their evening prayers.

“Your second-such salvage operation, Quine,” the technosatyr said from behind him.

“Be gone beast. You shall scavenge nothing from my fallen monks,” Quine replied. He had to tolerate the presence of the technosatyr, as he was their guide to the dead city where the meteorite had fallen. He had to preserve the site for the Machine Church and await the prophesised blessing of the Shepard.

The beast tittered, and there was a grinding creak as it flexed a new and powerful hydraulic claw. Quine tried not to look directly at the fusion of beast, man and machine. He knew the technosatyrs modified themselves as they pleased, without caring for the rules of the Shepard. This one wore a horned skull over its mechanical face. Quine was increasingly disgusted by the monster, since it grew stronger as they travelled. Where was it finding all this treasure?

“The desert has a rich bounty… if you know where to look,” the technosatyr said. “But perhaps- “

“I will not divert from the grand schema laid down by the Shepard’s book, beast. To do so invites the anti-pattern: corruption of form and mind from unsanctioned modification. And that means death – spiritual death,” Quine replied.

“Your orthodoxy is your downfall, priest. Too keen to show your power in battle, too keen to run headfirst into ambushes and feigned retreats. You have spent too long in your monastery. You need to change, to adapt. Otherwise you will find your pilgrimage a short one, ending in real, physical death. And we shall never reach the green glow prophesied by the Shepard,” the technosatyr said.

“I will not take maintenance advice from a mutant and heretic such as you! Be gone! Cavort in the sands and install what you please!” Quine shouted. The beast sneered, and slunk out of the ring of monks defending their master while he worked. Quine tried to return to the operation, but his hand still made of flesh was shaking.  He had lost two of his most trusted hieromonks in their first two skirmishes with the bandits and monsters of the deserts. While the surviving brothers trusted him absolutely thanks to their faith implants, Quine was not sure in himself. He had been too eager to show the might of the Shepard’s word after such a long period of confinement on Mount Asus. While they had slain many foes, their victory had cost them dearly in blood and oil. The path towards the dead city where the green meteorite crashed was growing fainter as they journeyed on. Quine felt his task becoming heavier and heavier – a task only he could bear.

He opened the Liber Arcadia for sustenance, the book written by the founder of the Machine Church on the planet and the foundation of the Mount Asus monastery. Every faction and every Conclave on the planet cleaved to its word and every power-hungry zealot had a spin on it. Quine had grown tired of the infighting in the city and journeyed to Mount Asus nearly a century ago. Since then, he had produced nothing but prayer, taken nothing but a strict diet of machine oil and steadily followed the Via Mechanica until all that remained of his weak flesh was his right hand and his brain. But this path of pilgrimage to the source of the green glow seemed so narrow and beset at all sides with danger. Quine began to read and pray for guidance.

“I seek an inheritance uncorruptible, undefiled, and that fadeth not away…” His prayers were interrupted by a yelp and a crash from outside the circle of monks. He snapped his vision to the source of the disturbance: a puff of dust in the direction the technosatyr went. Quine covered the operation for now and hurried to assess the situation.

In the flinty dunes, Quine saw a new and gaping hole in the ground. At the bottom of the deep shaft, the technosatyr lay in a twitching heap as its systems rebooted after the fall. Quine recited the Rite of Maglev Transcendence and stepped over the rim. He began to fall at the speed of a feather, able to counteract the pull of gravity with powerful electromagnetic fields generated by his implants. As he descended into the cave, there was a metallic rattling as small bits of rusted scrap danced in the wash of his energy. It seemed this was not a natural cave of stone, but one of steel. He flicked on his lamps and the light was reflected in a panel of control screens tilted at a crazed angle. This room looked to be man-made, with storage tanks either side. Perhaps it was an ancient factory, lost to the shifting sands? There was a legend inscribed over the bank of panels, superimposed over the cog and skull symbol of the Machine Church. Quine heard the technosatyr panting behind him as it staggered over. It jabbed a pale and clawed finger at the terminals.

“Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you,” the technosatyr said, pointing to the words.  “This has always been the motto of our Conclave, even before the others cast us out for our crimes. We never betrayed the Shepard’s command to hold fast against the Children of Green. In return for our faith, he prepares a table for us even in the presence of our enemies,” the technosatyr said.

As if on command, one of the terminals flickered into life.

+++MACHINE ADEPT DETECTED+++

+++LOADING INVENTORY SUBSYSTEM OF EXPLORATOR SHIP ‘PANDORA’S GIFT’… LOADED+

+WARNING – IMMENENT PLANETARY COLLISION: ADVISE ALL PERSONELL TO EVACUATE+

+MAJOR DAMAGE DETECTED – BRIDGE CONTROL LOST, ASTRONAVIGATION LOST, ENGINES LOST, NETWORK MODULE LOST+

+STORAGE TANKS 54% FULL. RELEASE CLAMPS FUNCTIONING+

+4,204,800,000 MINUTES SINCE LAST REPORT FROM BRIDGE CONTROL+

+WHAT IS YOUR COMMAND?+++

Quine had never seen anything like this before. It had lain untouched for thousands of years, as if waiting for him. He fell to his knees and began to pray before this manifestation of the holy machine. But the technosatyr merely made the sign of the cog and shunted his tangle of cable into the interface and raked his fingers along the keyboard. There was a hiss as one of the storage pods began to open in the room, spilling out a jelly-like grease.

“Stop beast, you profane this most holy place with your tampering!” Quine said as he grabbed the technosatyr by the horns and pulled it away. The technosatyr shoved back, and Quine fell to the ground. The technosatyr hung over Quine, making the difference in their strength clear. Behind the horned skull, he saw glittering optics and whirring dials. He felt fear – what if the technosatyr had lured him here to strip him of his machinery? But the technosatyr stalked away to the pod.

“Less of your sermons, priest. I know what you need to salvage your pilgrims.” The technosatyr picked up a handful of parts, cables and connections, then dumped a control chip onto Quine’s chest. Quine groped for it, and the silicon felt warm in the flesh of his hand. He had never seen this design before, but it was beautiful. There was some residual preserving grease, but a quick test with a burst of electricity showed the ancient chip was working. Quine shook his head.

“I… can’t. It’s unsanctioned. I have no idea what this might do to my monks. I can’t tell whether it would warp them beyond recognition or turn them insane,” Quine said. The technosatyr hunched down in front of Quine. It locked eyes with Quine for a long time.

“Install it in me. Along with these,” it said, splaying out strength boosting circuits, pain-shunts and combat-skill nodules.  “No one outside this room needs to know,” it finished.

Quine weighed up his options. The beast would likely install them anyway. It would be better if he could oversee it and observe the results before risking the others. As much as the technosatyr disgusted him, his natural curiosity was getting the better of him. There was a shout from above that made Quine start.

“Archimandrite – are you down there?” Brother Phystor called down.

“Yes brother, yes… Nothing to concern yourself with. The technosatyr has damaged himself in a fall and I am repairing him,” Quine lied, adjusting his faith implant master unit to maximum power. “Maintain your watch and do not disturb us.” The monk shouted his assent and joined the watch once more. He was thankful for his servant’s obedience.

“Are you ready, priest?” The technosatyr stripped off the armoured panels and loincloth to reveal old scar tissue and cancerous looking growths around existing upgrades. He kneeled before the priest and stretched his arms out as if crucified.

Quine’s hand was shaking again.

Mists of Mosney Session 3

The party got word from Avalanche that one of his boys was captured. Nimble had found a route to Mosney and was on his way back when the Monk’s Bandits ambushed him and took him prisoner. Avalanche asks the party to rescue Nimble before the Bandits murder him or get his info.

The reward is a path through the mists, to the promised land of Mosney. Every stalker dreams of making it past the Brain Scorcher radar in Dublin Airport, but no one has made it yet. This could be the start of something big… Between missions, they tooled up with grenades, conibear traps with 300lb of force, one set of night vision goggles and they trained their fighting skill for an additional +5.

The party began by scoping out sites for a more permanent base. Their first site was on the fringes of Bandit territory: the Pumping station opposite Clontarf village and right beside the sea. There was a poisonous mist creeping in from the sea as the party snuck in, finding a firepit, an empty stash and lots of empty Bavaria cans. Visibility was poor. The tag on the wall marked it as the Monk’s territory. The party set to fortifying it against an attack, but out of the fog came 7 bandits who were seeking shelter. The party hightailed it out, figuring they were outnumbered. Disaster struck: Darragh Treacy tripped on the stairs and his new steel-jawed traps jangled against the railings. This alerted the Bandits. MC Geist blew his whistle to draw attention and took a few pellets of buckshot in return which bruised him beneath his new ceramic plates. A few stray pistol rounds clipped Aódhán and Geist until Darragh was able to get out. The party decided to retreat, but MC Geist stayed put to watch the bandits while the others regrouped at the rally point 800m away.

The toxic fog rolled away, replaced by rain. MC (Most Caliphate) Geist began to creep forward to try infiltrate the bandit’s hideout. At great risk to himself, he snuck close and played dead. When a suspicious bandit on watch attempted to loot his body, Geist stabbed him in the dick and muffled his screams. Geist then planted his plastic explosives on the stairs. He was unsure how to detonate it however, and mashed the buttons until a timer read 6 seconds. He ran in panic, and the rest of the party heard thunder rolling across the bay as the explosives went off. He looked back into the rain to see the front of the building blown off, and the bandits inside likely dead or seriously injured. With the party now wet and injured, they set off back to St. Paul’s school to the free stalker camp to rest and gather info.

On the way, they came across the ruins of the CRC building and saw several pings on their PDAs of nearby stalkers. A man named Wolfgang warned them of the rat swarms in the area, and to avoid the burner anomalies which had turned the car parks into an inferno. He also asked for assistance as his group of mercenaries had dwindled from 15 to just 5 thanks to anomalies, bandits and Zone mutants. The party, while initially wary, though they could recruit the Mercs to help rescue Nimble. They triggered 3 large swarms of rats while moving through the ruins, but were able to get to the door of the shelter where Wolfgang met them. They offered them some dogfood from MC Geist’s stash and had a rest. Then they began to formulate a plan to fill the corridor with CO2 from the fire extinguishers, which Darragh knew ought to scare the rats off. Then MC Geist would lure the rats into the burner anomaly field, and the party would mop up the rest.

The plan went flawlessly, but MC Geist tried to hurl a grenade at the Mercs in the shelter. Thankfully this exploded harmlessly short. But something was up with MC Geist – he began talking of epiphanies from god above and to not trust the Mercs as they were aligned with the EU. The Mercs replied they only served their buyer, who asked them to retrieve documents and a device from under St. Pauls.

They got a tip off that the bandits held prisoners in St. Anne’s park in the ruins of the GAA club. Spudgun and Wolfgang’s Mercs closed in on the building, taking positions that would let them approach safely while bringing as much firepower as possible to bear. They popped the sentries posted at the entrance, and closed in to rescue Nimble. From inside, they heard shouts and threats from the bandits. An American voice said the bandits were in over their head, and broke away from he building. Darragh saw a flash of a EU army uniform. At this MC Geist asked his accompanying Bulgarian Merc if he was a religious man. And the Merc replied in a firefight, you pick a god and pray. This sent Most Caliphate Geist into a religious rage and he attempted to slash the Merc with his axe. He missed thankfully, and the merc shot him and began backing up, telling him to drop the axe. Wolfgang ordered his men to drop Geist if her took another step. The Mercs moved to flank Geist, while maintaining overwatch on the last room containing Nimble.

Geist made a break for it, and the Mercs got spooked again. They drilled him with two shots center mass, one hitting him low in the kidneys and taking him out of action. The party had just moments to clear the building and stablise Geist. Darragh and Aódhán simultaneously killed two bandits guarding Nimble, Aódhán with a shot from behind and Darragh through the crumbling walls with a .308 from his rifle. He saw blood running down the two Addidas stripes of his target and knew he got his man.

The party managed to stabilize Geist just as he was on the cusp of death. Nimble himself was in a bad state: much of his teeth smashed out, his fingers broken and his eyes swollen shut. Nevertheless, they had succeeded in their mission, and returned to the free stalker camp in St. Pauls. They brought two prisoners from the raid, and set them free on the condition they left the Zone forever. In return, they received several new rumors about the Bandits and the Clontarf area.

 

Nimble’s info:

A way to the North, to Mosney –  through the Port Tunnel. Any one traveling that way will need certain items:

Psi-protection to get past the Brain Scorcher at the airport once they escape the tunnel. There are probably labs in the fallen town of Maynooth that could supply either drugs or a replica of the headgear they picked up in St.Pauls. But it would mean fighting whatever caused the town to fall.

Closed cycle breathing on your suit – a gasmask will not be enough to survive the carbon monoxide in the tunnel. Some kind of positive pressure suit will greatly help. The Ecologists in Howth have the best equipment for the purpose.

Some way of sneaking past the SAFE EU special forces or of avoiding the machineguns of the outposts overwatching the M50.

Tunnel schematics – much of them are been sealed off by rubble, crashes and welded shut once mutants made lairs there. But there is always a way around. There could be pockets of clean air – but only a proper site analysis could determine this.

Several days worth of food and a way to transport all this gear without being encumbered. There will need to be a new basecamp set up and a new chain of logistics to supply stalkers heading for Mosney.

Stalker isometric maps

I printed these on A3 or A4 sheets with no border and stretched them to fit the page. Lots of space for the 1cm tokens I use. As far as I know, these were taken from in game, at a high angle, and with a filter applied.  They have proved excellent game maps and have fired the imaginations of my players. While the game is set in Ireland, they could reasonably be anywhere temperate and green.

There is a full album here, well done to the original stalker who made them: https://www.flickr.com/photos/161164965@N07/sets/72157690025508254/