Adventure without limit fills the universe of the Fading Suns, and the main rulebook can only give the briefest taste of the possibilities. "Pandemonium Unchained" follows the exploits of Tibitha Blewe, a penitent priest disenchanted with the Universal Church. She desperately needs someone who can help her, and the characters can jump into the following drama at any point. It details what happens to Tibitha while on Pandemonium, as well as what might happen if the characters decide to intervene.

Pandemonium, as described in the Fading Suns rulebook, is a planet in the throes of massive natural disasters. The great terra-forming machines which regulated so much of its actions have gone haywire, forcing the planet to find other ways to vent its heat and move its many tectonic plates. This means that only the capital, the Hub, remains safe, and anyone outside the Hub is in constant danger.

The Universal Church has established a great cathedral in the badlands outside the Hub, how, ever, as a sign that the Pancreator's might will protect its followers from harm. Tibitha recently arrived on Pandemonium to help with the cathedral's construction, but was not expecting what she found. The rest of this drama is for the gamemaster's eyes only, and the players should (but probably won't) stop reading now. Heck, we're all gamemasters at heart.

Getting the Characters Involved

While the characters can become part of this drama at any part, probably the easiest way is to start them off in the famous Pandemonium Bazaar.

Many of Pandemonium's citizens, desperate to get off planet, have sold all their possessions for a pittance, and wealthy bargain hunters flock to the Bazaar to take advantage of their misery. As the characters fight their way through the bustling streets, any with psychic abilities will feel something tug them toward Badaboo's Curios and Sundries. Arriving there, they will feel strangely attracted to a studded leather band. If none of the characters have psychic abilities, then one of them (whoever has the highest Tech rating) notices the band as they pass the shop.

Badaboo just put the band on display, having bought it from Tibitha Blewe late last night. He met her while visiting Beggar's Alley on the edges of the Hub while seeking some cheap evening companionship. Tibitha rejected his initial offers of money before offering to sell him the band. He had no way of detecting its psychic resonance, but immediately noticed that it was of definite Second Republic origin. He paid her one firebird for it, and now offers to sell it for 15.

Badaboo likes bargaining almost as much as he likes profit, and he will gladly lower the price to 10 firebirds (or whatever the characters can afford) with only the slightest prompting. As he bargains, he will talk willingly about acquiring the band, rubbing his protruding belly and stroking his bushy beard all the while. The only part he leaves out is his real reason for being out last night.

Whatever he says should hint to the char. acters that Tibitha might have access to more artifacts, which should interest the characters no end.

Of course, the gamemaster can also appeal to the characters' more noble aspects. One or more of them might know Tibitha, who would have left word for them to meet her in Beggar's Alley. They might be investigating the cathedral and hear that one of the priests ran away. They might even be working for the Church, trying to track down the source of a recent influx of possibly heretical Second Republic artifacts. However the gamemaster gets them involved, the characters should end up resolving to visit Beggar's Alley.

Beggar's Alley

It's hard to believe that the people living in Beggar's Alley are not the most pitiful ones on the planet, but they aren't. That dubious distinction goes to the poor souls who live outside the Hub their daily lives wracked with uncertainty and fear.

Still, those in Beggar's Alley are probably the most wretched in the Hub, as the characters will discover when they get there. While the Decados claim only 500,000 people have crammed into the city, probably twice that many live without documentation or official residence.

As soon as the characters show up in Beggar's Alley (really a phrase used to describe a maze of streets which once made up a warehouse distrist, all gently covered by the smoke and ashes from nearby factories), pleas for money bombard them from all side.

"Please sit, just a quarterbird for a victim of Arasot's syndrome," begs a one-legged woman with giant growths on her face."

"Ma'am, have some pity for my poor child," beseeches a man, holding up some shriveled abomination which might in fact be a baby.

Most of the beggars are legitimate, but characters who are guild members should quickly realize that they have been organized into their own guild. If they don't make this distinction, then questioning the beggars about Tibitha will not get them far.

If they cause enough fuss, then a number of the beggars will shrug off their disabilities and insist (with force, if necessary) that the characters visit Cahyle, beggar king and League- sanctioned president of Pandemonium's mendicant's guild. The characters will need his assistance to make any headway with their inquiry.

He makes his office in an abandoned warehouse, where he keeps files on all the Hub's licensed beggars. If the characters can line up his help with a substantial donation (25+ firebirds), a reputable offer of future aid, or if they were just plain polite to the members of his guild, then he will have his people try to track down Tibitha.

They will return within an hour, bringing with them Don Maurice Alienar, who claims to be the last noble of the lost Chevalier noble house. A licensed beggar, he was seen talking to Tibitha last night.

It will take characters a deal of cajoling and to get him to talk honestly (or even make sense). After all, he is the last scion of house Chevalier, as he will constantly remind the characters. If the characters finally get him to talk, perhaps by accumulating 12 victory points on Extrovert + Etiquette roles or appealing to him as equals if they are nobles, he will tell them that Tibitha was not a licensed beggar.

Since she had greedily chosen to sleep on his piece of pavement, he had told a local member of the Muster that she was not under the beggar guild's protection. Ten minutes later, several Chainers showed up, knocked Tibitha out and carted her away. He neither knows nor cares where they took her.

If the characters have become friends with Cahyle, he will tell them that he has heard of a slaver warehouse in the Badlands just outside the Hub. He cannot tell them exactly where it is, but this should get them started.

Pandemonium in Chains

The players can find out where the Muster warehouse is in a number of ways. If they have guild ties, they can pursue these. If they are nobles, they can ask other nobles where they buy help for the mansion. They can offer to sell one of their own characters to the Muster and then fol. low him. In any case, they will have to be careful. The Church has labeled slavery a grave sin, and anyone suspected of trafficking in slaves may well have to face the Inquisition.

Still, the characters should eventually find out where the Muster keeps its slaves. Much of what lies outside the Hub has been destroyed by either natural or man-made disasters, but some buildings still stand. The Muster has converted one of these (a former slaughterhouse which processed tons of meat each month) into pens for its slaves. Special landers visit the planet once a month, making official landings at the spaceport, paying the required bribes, and then flying to the warehouse at night to pick up and drop off cargo before returning to space.

The Muster took Tibitha to these slave pens, where she now waits, chained to 15 other slaves. Most of them are unfortunates from the badlands who the Chainers caught as they made their way to the Hub. The pens house a total of 90 slaves right now, and the next lander is not due for two weeks.

When characters arrive at the slave pens, they should not have too much difficulty arranging a meeting with Manager Jessup Lukesta, the jovial head of slaver operations on Pandemonium. If they want to buy a slave, he will be more than happy to arrange the sale, offering the characters wine, food and other pleasures.

He will take them to the slave pens, where his attitude immediately changes. His friendly demeanor disappears, and he begins beating the slaves to get them out of his way as he leads the characters to Tibitha. He will remain friendly and deferential to the characters, but brutal to the slaves. He will show Tibitha to the characters, but will not let them speak to her.

Then he will lead them back to his office and once more become the soul of gentility. The only problem with the sale, he tells the characters, is that the Muster never sells a slave on the same planet she was captured. No matter how much the characters offer, he refuses to break this rule. The only way to make him change his mind is to bring pressure to beat or guarantee that they will immediately take her off planet.

Attacking him should not work too well - the slave pens are guarded by a dozen high quality Muster mercenaries, and others come here regularly with their prizes.

On the other hand, threatening Church or noble intervention will turn his blood cold. Players may think of other threats to earn his compliance, but eventually they should get him to agree to a sale (at least 20 firebirds, though he will try to start the bidding at 50). This is when Canon Ague Menophlox bursts in.

Canon Aque Menophlox

This drama is not just about freeing Tibitha from slavery. Other forces also want to get their hands on the penitent priest. Foremost among them are the leaders of the Cathedral. They want Tibitha back. Maybe they are afraid that she will reveal too much, or else they fear for her soul, but in any case they have sent out Canon Ague, one of their most trusted followers.

A talented hunter who often stalks the badlands to bring back fresh meat for the Cathedral, he tracked Tibitha through the wilds and into the city. He will track her to the Muster shortly after the characters do. Once there he may start a bidding war for her, but he is backed by the full authority of the Church. The characters cannot outbid him. The trouble is, he does not have the cash on him and Manager Lukesta wants money up front.

Ague will convince Lukesta to delay the auction for an hour while he hurries to get more money. By now the character should realize that they cannot raise more money than he can. Their best bet is to prevent him from coming back within that hour. Lukesta is such a stickler for rules that he will sell Tibitha to the characters if Ague is even one minute late.

Characters can ambush Ague in the badlands, hold him up in the city, keep him from meeting with Church officials to get cash or try anything else their devious minds can think of. Whatever they do to him, they should not kill him, as this is certain to upset the Church.

Tiblitha's Story

Tibitha grew up on Madoc, surrounded by some of the finest technology in the Known Worlds, but found the Pancreator at the end of the Emperor Wars. She has devoted herself to the Church, and after several years spent in seclusion, was assigned to the Pandemonium cathedral. The entire structure is being built and maintained by penitent priests, and Tibitha. found herself working in the building's upper reaches. Other, more senior priests worked in its depths, and Tibitha began to hear strange stories of what they were doing there.

A week ago, while trying to find some missing tools, Tibitha went down to the lower store rooms.

One door, usually kept locked, was ajar, and Tibitha looked here. Here she found mounds of heretical technology - Second Republic artifacts whose very existence would put their possessor's soul at risk. Horrified, she concluded that something must be very wrong in the Cathedral. For proof she took the nearest item at hand, a psychic tracking collar, and stealthily made her way toward the hub.

She has been unable to contact any Church leaders not connected to the Cathedral, however, and needed money to get a message off planet. She finally sold the band and had the money, but then the Muster got her. In exchange for being rescued, she will give the characters her undying gratitude, information on where the high tech goodies are stashed, and a request that they help her tell other Church leaders what is happening. How much other Church leaders might care is up to the gamemaster.

Other Complications

Gamemasters should feel free to add whatever other bits of nastiness they want to this drama. Both Graaf, Pandemonium's crime lord, and Count Enis Sharn, Pandemonium's noble lord, would be interested in exact proof of what the Cathedral is up to and may have their own people on the case.

The League would most assuredly want access to this stuff, plus it might be a way to embarrass the Church. Whatever, the case, it should give characters the opportunity for plenty of future dramas.

Characters

Gamemasters should use the Traits of the Hazat soldiers in the Precious Cargo drama in the main rulebook for combatamb like the Muster slavers, though he might want to give some of them stunners instead of more lethal weapons. The traits for the Scraver investigators work for most of the other characters.

Canon Ague

Rank/Class: Canon
Quote: "The Bishop isn't going to like this."

Description: A tall, slender man with a long mustache and dark, sunken eyes. He wears plain brown clothing and talks simply and succinctly.

Body: Strength 6, Dexterity 8, Endurance 7

Mind: Wits 7, Perception 7, Tech 5

Spirit: Extrovert 2, Introvert 4, Passion 2, Calm 5, Faith 5, Ego 2, Human 4, Alien 1

Natural skills: Charm 5, Dodge 7, Fight 6, Impress 6, Melee 6, Observe 8, Shoot 8, Sneak 7 Vigor 7

Learned skills: Beast Lore 5, Etiquette 2 Inquiry 6, Remedy 4, Ride 5, Search 5, Socia (Debate) 3, Stoic Body 4, Stoic Mind 3 Streetwise 3, Survival 8, Tracking 7

Wyrd: 5

Weapon: Assault rifle, rapier

Martial Arts: Martial Fist, Martial Kick Martial Hold, Block

Fencing: Parry, Thrust, Slash

Armor: Standard shield, leather jerkin

Vitality: -10/-8/-6/-4/-2/ 0/0/0/0/0/0/0