The referee may use this section to time and pace the Nekekami intruder's movements and actions. He will approach the wall at a point of the referee's choosing, but well away from the main gate. At a time determined by thereferee, all power to the estate will fail. The power failure will last for perhaps five seconds, during which time the estate's emergency back-up generators will switch on. The power loss will cause all of the perimeter alarms to sound in the House Security room, and there will be a momentary loss of picture on all TV monitors. The power loss will-naturally-cause considerable confusion among Horst's personal staff and may alert the characters that something is happening. A call by radio to city authorities at Port Moseby (the capital city, eighty kilometers away) will reveal that a power relay has failed--an apparent accident. Crews are working to trace and repair the fault now. During the few seconds that power is out, the Nekekami agent will climb the wall, using a grappling hook. He will not leave the rope on the wall but will hide it in nearby shrubs for use on his escape. This will take him less than one minute. The intruder will approach the west wing of the main house. How long this takes will depend on the numbers and locations of sentries on the grounds. Where possible, he will hide unseen in the shadows until sentries pass. If he is approached (within ten meters) by one of the dogs, he will eliminate both dog and sentry, either by breaking their necks with his hands or using a poison-tipped throwing blade or shuriken. On a 2D6 roll of 6 or less, the dog will bark or yelp briefly before being silenced. On a separate roll of 5 or less, a sentry attacked by the Nekekami will be able to yell, shoot, or raise a similar alarm before being overpowered. The intruder will hide the bodies of any sentries or dogs he eliminates if the situation permits. He will drag them to the cover of nearby bushes, where only a careful search will reveal them. The operation will take 3 minutes for each body. He will not attempt to hide the bodies if other guards are approaching. The intruder will use climbing claws to scale the west wing of the house to the second flooron the north wall. He will use his knife and an electronic lock breaker to open Horst's bedroom window without sounding an alarm. This operation will take ten minutes (nine minutes to trace and expose the window's circuits, and one to operate the codebreaker device). During this time, he will be visible against the second-story of the house but will be noticed only if the characters are purposefully looking at the house, searching for signs of a break-in. (Their natural tendency-and especially the tendency of the NPCs-will be to look out, into the surrounding dark.) Inside Horst's bedroom, he will overpower and drug Horst. The process will take ten minutes. If characters approach the room, he will leave Horst in bed--he will appear to be asleep--and hide. Once he has drugged Horst, he will question him about personnel stationed in the vault, and the operation of the secret elevator. This will take an additional ten minutes. Horst and the intruder will descend in the secret elevator to the vault. This will take less than one minute. Guards stationed in the outer vault area will hear the elevator coming, but unless they have worked out specific arrangements with Horst ahead of time (i.e., Horst promises during planning not to use the elevator without prior warning) they will not suspect anything unusual. Sentries in the outer vault area will be attacked with grenades, stun grenades, or a paralyzing gas (see: Special Weapons, below.) Which weapon is used will depend on the situation, and on the referee's choice. The Nekekami will force Horst's palm against the palm reader lock and open the vault. It will take 5 minutes for him to satisfy himself that the package he is seeking is not there. If reinforcements arrive, the Nekekami will hear them as they enter the wine cellar. He may hide himself and Horst inside the safe (there is a safety circuit inside, which the Nekekami will discover, which will allow him to open the safe from inside. Alternatively, he may return to Horst's room, taking Horst with him. Once in Horst's room, the Nekekami will question the drugged merchant further and learn where the package is really hidden--inside a hollowed-out book on a bookshelf in Horst's bedroom. The Nekekami will then kill Horst and escape, with the package, out the window through which he entered. The intruder's escape route will depend on the level of activity on the estate grounds. He may wait (possibly hiding up a tree, under some bushes, or breathing through a tube while lying in the lake close by the shore) until the search has died down. If he is spotted at any time, he may bolt straight for the wall, or he may attempt to shake his pursuers by running into the woods. Another possibility would be for him to make his way to the garage and steal the car or hovercraft. (Both types of vehicles use a starter switch and do not require anything like an ignition key. Both are electronically locked, however, and opening one will require two minutes and the lockbreaker device.) Still another possibility would be for him to attack an NPC guard, take his uniform, and mingle with the defenders until he could make good his escape. GENERAL NOTES ON CONTROLLING THE INTRUDER The Nekekami intruder is very good at what he does--but not superhuman. The referee should strive to create a sense of mystery about the intruder and his actions, however. A sentry and his dog are found dead, and another sentry a few meters away heard and saw nothing. Another sentry thinks he sees something moving in the shadows, but when he reaches the spot finds nothing. A character surprises a man dressed in black inside the house. There is a flash of light, and by the time the character's eyes clear, the intruder has vanished, seemingly into thin air. The intruder seems to possess a sixth sense in discovering alarms, tripwires, or traps, and to be able to anticipate guards'movements. The referee should not have the Nekekami perform impossible feats, however, and should be able to explain each of the man's actions logically. The point of this scenario is to surprise the characters with an intruder who seems to possess extraordinary skills. If they have planned their own movements well, however, or set a clever trap, or react logically and without panic to reports of sentries found dead or alarm systems neutralized, they should be able to stop the intruder before he escapes with the package. SPOTTING THE INTRUDER The Nekekami's ability to move undetected (stealth) is a skill based on his dexterity. Each time there is a chance he might be spotted by a sentry or other character, the referee should roll against his Base Saving Roll target-which is quite low (4). The referee can heighten tension and mystery of the situation, however, by informing the players that the sentry thought he saw something-but when he checked, there was nothing. TRAPS The Nekekami may, at the referee's discretion, plant traps as he crosses the estate grounds. It will take him two minutes to set each trap. The referee should secretly record where these traps are, and what they consist of. The nature of the traps is left to the referee's discretion. They could be as relatively harmless as a wire stretched between two trees at ankle height in order to trip a careless pursuer--or could involve caltrop mines, antipersonnel mines, or implanted explosives. Any character other than the Nekekami entering a booby trapped area must make a basic Saving Throw of 6 or higher to avoid triggering the trap. WEAPONS AND EQUIPMENT The Nekekami is wearing a black nightsuit which affords him 15 points of armor protection. In addition, he is carrying the following: One short dagger Three throwing knives tipped with a fast-acting nerve poison One silenced automatic pistol with three magazines Climbing claws Twenty meters of climbing rope with a light grapnel One electronic lockbreaker Ten caltrop mines Three lengths of fine, strong tripwire for making booby traps A glass vial containing trisodium phenylpentathyarnine Two gas grenades Three flashbombs The nerve poison on the throwing knives kills its victim instantly if it strikes him in the head or torso, and within seconds if it hits an arm or a leg. Caltrop mines are described in the text of The Nekekami in this issue. They cause 2D6 points of damage to one leg when stepped on. If the character falls on one (make a saving roll of 8+ to avoid), it will do 2D6 + 3 points of damage to his torso. The drug--known as T-PPT--when inhaled, induces a near trance-like state which leaves the victim highly suggestible. Like a near relative, sodium pentathol, TPPT acts as a kind of truth serum. The victim answers all questions put to him, though his answers may be foggy and somewhat incoherent, requiring patience to make sense of them. The effects last for about two hours. The gas grenades emit a cloud of anesthetic gas which causes those who breathe it to fall unconscious. Effects last about three hours. Flashbombs are egg-sized capsules which explode with a searing, blinding light when crumpled. They will dazzle any character looking at them for one combat round, giving the user time to attack or escape. RESOLVING THE SCENARIO There are several factors which might be resolved in one of two ways. How these factors are resolved will determine whether the mission in Horst's employ was a success or a failure. These factors are listed below: THE THEFT OF THE PACKAGE Stealing the package is the Nekekami's primary mission. If he is able to steal it and escape over the wall, the characters' mission must be considered a failure. If the characters are able to prevent the theft, or to recover the package by killing or capturing the intruder, they will have succeeded in their mission. If Horst is alive, they will be well rewarded for their success. If he was killed, the characters might not be paid... but they will have the package, which might lead to further adventures. (see: The Identity of the Package, below.) HORST'S SURVIVAL The Nekekami's secondary objective was to murder Horst, after using him to get to the package. The intruder's employers want Horst dead. Since the characters' primary concern is the safety of the package, they cannot be said to have failed if their employer is killed. However, with their employer dead, they will be forced to go to the officers managing Horst's company, Horst Metals Enterprises, in order to be paid. Even if their agreement with Horst is in writing, company officials will be unwilling to honor it since there was no time to have corporate lawyers go over the contract and approve it. The characters could press their claim through the planetary courts, but it will take years to resolve and cost a great deal of money in lawyers' fees and court costs to accomplish. If Horst dies, the characters will not get paid--at least, not soon. THE INTRUDER'S DEATH/CAPTURE The intruder is a Nekekami, a man who will kill himself if his capture becomes inevitable. He will use every trick at his disposal to escape-but if escape is impossible, he will commit suicide. If the characters are able to capture the man despite this, they will have achieved a major coup for the intelligence services of the Lyran Commonwealth. Horst (or one of Horst's officials, if Horst is dead) will recognize the man as Nekekami and call in a high-ranking House Steiner intelligence agent. (Port Moseby is an obvious center for Steiner intelligence activities.) The intruder's death or capture will impress this agent. If the Nekekami is killed (not forced to commit suicide, but killed in combat), each character involved in the operation will gain an additional 10 Experience Points. If the Nekekami is captured, each character will gain 50 additional Experience Points. In addition, the intelligence officer will become a valuable contact for the character group, one who may call upon them at some future time when he is in need of a band of mercenaries as skilled-or lucky-as they. THE IDENTITY OF THE PACKAGE Horst is more than a smuggler. He hates the Draconis Combine with a passion that any who know this ruthless, cynical man would find surprising indeed. Driven by the need to avenge the deaths of two sons, a brother, a sister, and their families (all victims of a Kurita raid, or the epidemic which struck in the raid's aftermath) he has used his mercantile contacts to establish an extensive espionage ring within the Draco Combine. The ISF has become aware of Horst's activities but for sometime has been unable to catch him in a crime flagrant enough to justify his elimination. They have finally found all the justification they need. On Port Moseby, one of Horst's local contacts received a small black book from a House Kurita traitor. Both traitor and contact were murdered by ISF agents on the planet, but not before the book was mailed to Horst himself, Horst has examined the book and learned that it is a list of ISF senior intelligence agents currently operating in Davion territory along the border with the Draconis Combine, together with identifiers, code words, and call signs. With the information in that book, the Federated Suns' intelligence services could win a major victory in their long and losing struggle against the notorious ISF. If Horst survives and the package is saved, Horst will never reveal its contents to the characters. After all, they have no "need to know". The package will be placed aboard a Horst Metals Enterprises ship and transported to New Avalon. If, however, Horst dies, it is possible that the characters will find themselves in possession of the book. They will not know what it is--it contains only column upon column of names and numbers in what are obviously some sort of a code--but they will know it is important. Sooner or later--especially if they begin making inquiries to try to find out what the book is--ISF agents on port Moseby will learn (or guess) that they have it now, and the characters will find themselves squarely in the center of a major Kurita intelligence operation, one aimed at them. In fact, it is entirely possible that the ISF will hire more Nekekami to get the book back-at any price. A FINAL TWIST At the referee's discretion, a final twist may be added to this scenario. Sendic Henning, Horst's right-hand man, is in fact a Kurita agent, and is the man responsible for summoning the Nekekami to Horstwald. As an inside man, he could arrange to move sentries at critical times, unlock doors or windows, or even disable and drug Horst before the Nekekami arrives. If the referee chooses this option, he could completely cripple any plans the player characters have made. In the interest of fair and balanced play, it is suggested that the referee allow the player characters to catch Henning doing something suspicious (such as unlocking a window which is supposed to be kept locked, or breaking a glass capsule under Horst's nose?) in order to alert them to the danger. More NightShadow: A MechWarrior Scenario Simulator Information Background Maps Time and Plan Running the Adventure The Intruder: Step by Step Character Stats Back to BattleTechnology 2 Table of Contents Back to BattleTechnology List of Issues Back to MagWeb Magazine List © Copyright 1987 by Pacific Rim Publishing. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com