Bikini Monsters of the Atomic Planet: Adventure

Bikini Monsters
of the Atomic Planet

Adventure for Stellar Games'
It Came from the Late, Late Show

Written and Illustrated by Bradley K. McDevitt

Director's Overview

The brave members of the Space Patrol of the 26th century are sent to the planet Zeldar to investigate the disappearance of a survey team sent there several months before. Zeldar, it seems, was just discovered by the Space League, and had suffered the effects of an atomic war several years before.

When they get to Zeldar, the Actors are greeted by beautiful women in silver lame bikinis, and taken to the palace of Queen Altaria, who denies any knowledge of the previous team. But she has something she wants the Actors to do.

Zeldar, it seems, has no men, because they all died in the Atomic War, and Queen Altaria wants the Actors to stay to help rebuild the population. If the Actors resist, she will threaten them, but only carefully.

The palace is attacked by horrible mutants, which the Actors must fight off. Altaria points this out as a sign that the Actors have to stay to help protect them against further mutant attacks.

Skulking around the castle after the attack, the Actors find evidence that the first survey team was here, and that something awful happened to them. Confronting Altaria with this information, a fight breaks out and one of the guards' masks comes off, reveling the horrible, decayed face undemeath. All of Zeldar's women are affected this way, she explains but their children won't be. Their few remaining scientists have assured her of this.

So what if the members of the previous team mutated from radiation poisoning after being with them for only a little while? After this, if the Actors resist the Zeldarian Queen's advances, she has them all thrown in the dungeons to reconsider their position. At this point, if the players can't figure out a way to escape of their own, introduce the sympathetic Zeldarian girl to help them escape Altaria's grasp.

Escape or Foil Plans

At this point, the Actors will have to make up their minds whether to simply escape or to try to foil Queen Altaria's nefarious plans, but you as Director might want to stress that there is little they can do to stop her plans except flee, since her plans hinge on their cooperation or at least presence.

Make sure, though, that the flight back to the spaceship is fraught with peril as Altaria discovers their escape and unleashes her captive mutants to bring them back, dead or alive. the Actors will also have to fight their way past Altaria's cadre of spear-toting Amazons.

Setting

Bikini Monsters of the Atomic Planet takes place on the planet Zeldar, the fourth planet out circling Betelgeuse. Zeldar is a scarred wasteland after a devastating nuclear war, inhabited by the last few women left alive after the War and horrible, cannibalistic mutants who'd like to find out what a Space Patrolman tastes like.

Most of the movie takes place in or near the palace of Queen Altaria, the hereditary ruler of Zeldar. The castle is a huge affair, with vaulting ceilings, arabesque-shaped doorways and everything in vague pastel colors. Underneath the palace are Altaria's dungeons, where she keeps captured mutants. This area has low ceilings, square doorways, and nary a touch of pastel to be seen.

Cast

The Actors take the part of members of the Space Patrol, the combination exploration and police force of the 26th century. This movie may be played using the same roles as Bjorn on the Bayou from Late Show II. Whether the events in this movie happen before or after that movie is entirely up to your discretion: the two are designed to be independent of each other.

Captain: the role of the Captain of the spaceship should definitely go to the Actor with the highest FAME. The Captain should also be Expert Talent Coached in the Leadership talent.

Scientist: Not the mad scientist of many science-fiction movies, the ship's scientist is more of a jack-of-all trades. He may also serve as the ship's Doctor and dispense with certain liquid painkillers not approved of by the Space League when the Captain isn't watching. The role of the Scientist should go to whichever Actor has the highest Talents in various Sciences or the highest Brains.

Navigator: This role should go to whoever has highest Talent in Spaceships. If no one has this role, it should go to the Actor with the highest DEX. The Navigator always seems to be the cast member most adamant about trying out some of the Scientist's liquid painkillers.

Security Chief: This role should go to the Actor with the highest Talent in Rifle.

One player should also be in charge of keeping an eye on Einstein, the ship's mascot and shameless act of pandering towards the youngsters in the audience.

Besides these roles, which are filled out by the Actors, there are thirty Extras who round out the crew of the spaceship. These are here primarily to get killed by Mutants and anything else unfriendly the Actors encounter.

Props and Wardrobe

The SLSS Bellepherone: The biggest prop in Bikini Monsters of the Atomic Planet is, of course, the space saucer, the SLSS Bellepherone. It is a typically huge saucershaped ship replete with glowing lights and has no visible power source. It lands by putting down huge landing pods on the surface. In case of combat, it has a deluxe-size version of the Atomic Pistol discussed below (DP: 1000).

Uniform: All members of the Space Patrol come equipped with a nifty silver and gray uniform trimmed with rose. If anyone asks, they are made from the miracle cloth of the 26th century, Plasticloth.

Atomic Pistols: All Space Patrolmen are also armed with a Space League Atomic Pistol (DP: 20). When fired, an Atomic Pistol's fluted barrel glows bright red and anything its beam strikes explodes in a shower of sparks. A high-pitched whining noise is also heard.

After that, props should be handed out according to the roles the various Actors have adopted for this movie:

Navigator: Logbook

Scientist: Geiger Counter, Hip Flask of Synthetic Whiskey

Security Chief: Space League Atomic Rifle (DP=40), Megaphone

Monsters:

Queen Altaria

Description: Queen Altaria really isn't a bad person, she is just getting awfully desperate to have some children before the entire Zeldarian race dies off because of their nuclear folly.

Characterization: Altaria is a woman of great strength, holding some last few flickers of hope alive for her race. She is reasonable on most other subjects, but is still very vain, and is bothered by the fact that she has the complexion of week-old hamburger.

Co-Stars

Zenobia

Description: Zenobia is the first Zeldarian the Actors will meet, a brunette in her early twenties. Unlike most of the Zeldariens, Zenobia is against forcing the Actors to give them children. She also will take a shine to one of the cast members, perhaps the one with the highest Looks other than the one Queen Altaria decides she likes. Of course, since she is a sympathetic character, she isn't as badly disfigured as the rest of the Zeldarian women.

Characterization: Zenobia is a sweetheart, and can melt the hearts of any male that comes her way without even realizing she's doing it.

Extras

Einstein: Einstein is a monkey, dressed in a scaled-down version of the Actors' uniforms. He is a sort of ship's mascot. Talents: none

Doc Ferguson: the last remaining member of the first survey team. The Actors will meet him while being held in Queen Altaria's dungeons. Talents: Nuclear Physics.

Crew of the SLSS Bellepherone: These do the duties that the Actors don't want to have to take care of during the movie, including dying. Talents: Pistol.

Zeidarian Girl-Monsters: These are outwardly beautiful women in skimpy silver lame bikinis, armed with spears and nets. But like Queen Altaria, they all wear masks to hide the horrible effects radiation has had on them (oddly, their bodies are completely unaffected). Talents: Spear

Zeldarian Mutants: These are all the Zeldarians who not only mutated, they went crazy from the radiation. Now they sneak around trying to drag off the Zeldarian women for purposes best left to the imagination. Like all good mutants, Zeldarian mutants have the complexion of cold oat meal. Their eyes glow, too. Talents: Stealth, Wrestling

Suggested Events

Planetfall

In the 26th century, you are all members of a brave elite: the Space Patrol. Entrusted to you is the responsibility of guarding the spaceways and contacting new races to join the Space League.

One such new race lies on the planet Zeldar, circling the red giant Betelgeuse. The Space League became aware that Zeldar was home to sentient life several months ago and dispatched a survey team to make first contact.

But there has been no word from the team since it landed, and the Space Authority fears the worst. It's your job to go to Zeldar and find out what happened, without letting whatever happened to them occur to you.

You are now in orbit around Zeldar, making your last approach. As your saucer enters the atmosphere, your Visi-Screen reveals a horrible sight: Zeldar is no paradise. The clouds you have just passed through are thick with soot, and all you can see all the way to the horizon is a barren, scorched wasteland, with smoke curling up slowly from bonfires that had once been cities.

Einstein, the ship's pet monkey, draws your attention to the long-range Geiger counter, which has started ticking frantically. Zeldar is very radioactive.

Far on the horizon, you can see a mountain with what looks like an intact castle built on its summit, surrounded by a delicate pink glow.

Take Me To Your Leader

Finding a landing spot is no problem: everything around the castle is burnt flat. As the Actors' saucer lands, they can see a procession of gorgeous women in silver lame bikinis coming down the mountain to meet them. All are armed with spears.

The leader of this little procession introduces herself as Zenobia, and requests that the Actors accompany her. (She speaks perfect English of course. Some 'first contact.') Faced with several spears and scantily-clad women, it is safe to assume that the Actors will comply.

The procession, with the Actors in tow, winds its way back up the mountain, but all is not completely well. As the party is passing through a narrow gulch, growls are heard and a few mutants attack.

Zeldarian Mutants

This should be pretty easy for the Actors to clean up, but will prompt the normal round of questions as to what these oatmealfaced mutants are. To which Zenobia replies

"These are all that is left of many of out brave people after the war. There are very few of us left. . . unaffected."

If the Actors ask Zenobia why she paused before saying that "unaffected," she shakes her head and says that everything will be explained to them soon.

As the group approaches the castle, the pink glow around it becomes easier to see. If asked what it is, Zenobia explains that the glow is a force field to keep out the mutants. when they get closer, she touches a glowing disc set into a stone by the side of the road and a hole appears in the force field, just large enough to let the party through. After all have passed through, the hole closes, sealing the force field shut.

Audience With the Queen

Once inside the castle, you are taken to a huge room, whose ceiling arches high aboue you. On balconies looking down at you are hundreds more women like Zenobia and her little band. At the far end of the room, high on a throne, sits a woman even more beautiful than the rest. She is dressed in a gold lame bikini and a crown rests on top of her platinum curls. She rises to greet you as you are directed to stand in front of her throne. She speaks "I am Queen Altaria. Welcome, off-worlders, to the planet Zeldar."

After the formalities of meeting royalty, the Actors will eventually get to the point of asking about the previous team. Altaria denies having heard anything about them, but points out that if they landed elsewhere on the planet, the mutants could have gotten them.

Queen Altaria then invites the Actors to stay as long as they wish. She will also single out one male Actor (the one with the highest Looks) to pay special amounts of attention to.

After a few days of the Actors skulking around accomplishing nothing, Queen Altaria makes her move, inviting them to stay indefinitely enjoying the comforts of the castle. While more lecherous Actors might see interesting possibilities in the invitation, the rockjawed men of the Space Patrol are meant to be better than that (Yeah, right. Sailors are sailors, in the navy or in space, and this is shaping up to be one incredible port-of-call).

Mutant Attack

The next night, as the Actors sleep, they are awakened by screams of terror. Rushing out of their rooms, they see mutants swarming through the halls, attacking anyone in sght.

There are lots of mutants, but they seem strangely weak. There are three mutants for every Actor.

Zeldarian Mutants

SP: 6
FX Roll: 55
Damage: 8

After the attack, they are summoned to Altaria's personal quarters, where an attendent (in a white lame bikini) is dressing to her wounds. Altaria uses the attack as further proof that the Actors need to stay, to protect them from further mutant attacks.
Skulking Around the Castle

Altaria uses all her charms to keep the Actors a few days more, promising to get them real food to eat on the way back, rather than the artificial food the ship creates using a computer.
If the Actors are still trying to find out from Altaria, she keeps fending them off with claims of ignorance. If they try to find out something more, go to "The Secret Room."
If the Actors haven't tried to find out more about the disappearance of the first survey team by now, use the following ploy: Einstein getting away from his keeper and fleeing down a hallway.
If the Actors pursue (and if they don't, use one of my Audience Asides to tell them to follow the little simian plot device!), Einstein leads them down to a more deserted part of the castle and finally scampers into a darkened room, chattering in excitement.
Tbe Secret Room

When you switch on the lights in this room, it is obuious that it has been recently occupied. The dust has been disturbed here. The room is empty except for a plastic chest resting against the far wall. If Einstein had to lead them to this room, he is sitting on top of the chest and pointing down at it.
If the Actors open the chest, read the following:
Inside are tattered and discarded clothes. When you pick them up, they are silver and gray uniforms of the same sort that you wear, inscribed with the insignia of the SLSS Castillaine. The Castillaine was the ship the first survey team carried on.

If for some reason the Actors have lost their weapons, they will find the weapons from the crew of the Castillaine in the bottom of the chest. Strangely, none have been discharged. If the Scientist happens to use a Geiger counter on the garments, they will be revealed a highly radioactive.
Tfhe Truth Unmasked

If the Actors confront Aitaria with this evidence of her duplicity, she admits that she lied and explains:
"All our men are dead, killed in the War, and we are a dying race. When your survey team arrioes, it seemed like a sign of deliverance. Perhaps we could have children, untainted by the radioactivity that poisons our world. But they died before anything could happen. Now you must take their place. "
If the Actors resist, Altaria motions her troops forward to ensure the Actors' compliance, at spear point if necessary. Let the Actors have room to resist, because:
As you grapple with the guard, something happens to her face. It rips, then falls away, revealing her true face, which is hideously scarred and black with radiation.
At this point, have all the Actors who can see the unmasking make FAME rolls. Those who fail must make roils on the Fear Table, the sight is so horrifying.
Altaria speaks: "So now you know our secret. That's right. We are all like this. None escaped the War without some effects." She reaches up and takes off her own mask, revealing a face even more hideously scarred than the rest. "Even I was affected. Those of us inside the force fleld weren't as harmed as those outside, who have become mutants, but we are all this way now."
She continues: "You see why we are so desperate. Will you help us, in spite of our . . . appearances?" She goes on to explain that while they are all hideously scarred from the radiation, her scientists have assured her the next generation will be all right, ensuring the survival of the Zeldarian race.
The answer, of course, is no, unless the players are extremely perverse.
Queen Altaria nods sadly. "I feared that would be your answer. Perhaps a while in our dungeons will change your minds. "
The First Survey Team

Once locked in their cells, the Actors find they have a cellmate, Doc Ferguson, the last surviving member of the first survey team. Doc is in pretty bad shape, as he is crying of radiation poisoning. Play up his coughing and wheezing; if the Scientist still has any of his "liquid painkiller" handy, now would be a time to hand some to Doc.
They fooled us with their masks, but we (cough) found we were all dying from the (wheeze) radiation from them within a few weeks. I figure I'm not too long for this life, either (cough, cough). As he finishes speaking, Doc's eyes flutter shut and do not re-open.
If anyone bothers to check his pulse, he's gone. No surprise there.
The Great Escape

While ensconced in the dungeons, the Actors find what's left of the previous team, horribly mutated and dying from contact with the Zeldarian women. If they can't find a way out (and are unwilling to simply do a "film break") Zenobia slips down to free them, explaining that not all of the Zeldarians are as cruel as Altaria.
If the Actors can Escape on Their Own

No sooner haue you escaped from your cells than you hear a soft voice calling your names. Zenobia steps out of the shadows, smiling in relief. "I came down here to help you, but I see you've gotten out already. Please, don't be afraid. I am a friend. But you must escape," she whispers as she leads you to the exit, "because Altaria plans to use one of the last weapons from the War, a Disintegration Beam, on your saucer to prevent you from being able to leave. But those weapons haven't been used for years. I'm afraid what will happen if she tries to use it. n
Getting to the Saucer

It looks like you're going to make your getaway safely when you hear a shout from behind you. "The prisoners are escaping! Get them! Free the Mutants!"
Zenobia cries that it is not far to a secret escape tunnel, but you must hurry. As if emphasize her point, a spear comes hurtling over your heads, to land with a "thunk" just ahead of you. You can hear other spears landing, but none have found a target, yet.
If any of the Actors turn to look, tell them they see a mutant, the largest they've seen yet, coming stomping up the hallway after them. Altaria wants them back, preferably alive, but if that isn't possible, she obviously isn't going to lose any sleep over it.
If they try to fight it:
Big Zeldarian Mutant
SP: 100
Combat FX: Crush
Other FX: Armor (10)
FX Roll: 50
Damage: 30

There are also numerous spear-toting Zeldarian women, none wearing their masks now, right on his heels. Altaria is not with them, though.
Once they arrive at the saucer, Zenobia begs the Actors to take her with them, since to defy Altaria the way she has is a death penalty.
As your saucer lifts off, a crimson beam of energy strikes the ground right where you had rested only moments before. A second later, the castle explodes, showering debris everywhere. Zenobia turns from the Visi-screen with a sob.
A Last Surprise

Whichever Actor has become attached to Zenobia will eventually have ask the fateful question, since she hasn't taken off her mask yet, even once the saucer is in orbit.
Zenobia nods, and takes off her mask, reveal . . . that her face is unscarred. Exit swelling music as Zenobia and her beau embrace.
The End?

The camera travels back to the ruins the castle, which have stopped smoking. The debris is Altaria's mask, slightly scorched around the edges. A feminine hand reaches from off-screen, picks it up and puts it on. Fade to Black.
Cast Party

As well as standard rewards for super play, you may consider giving bonus FAME points for the following.

One FAME point to whomever thought of the successful escape plan
One FAME point to whichever Actor was the focus of Altaria's attentions
One FAME point to whichever Actor was fighting the guard when her mask fell off
One FAME point to whomever fought and killed the most Mutants during the melee
One FAME point to whomever a acted out the role of the Captain
One FAME point to whomever Zenobia took a shine to
Two FAME points to whomever didn't groan out loud at this turkey.

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© Copyright 1995 by Alderac Entertainment Group
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