[HOE] The Great American Mall (part 2)

[Theo McGuckin <tsm@jlab.org>]

Spoilers
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Bet you thought I gave up, didn't you?

I've decided that trying to do the adventure based on such a large mall
would probably be too much for me. So I'm changing the format a little.
Instead I'm going to keep the encounters generic with suggestions for
what kind of shops/general locations to have in the area (Ex. "This would
work well in a food court area where the posse can get lots of light
cover.")

So...

Part 2: First Contact

	As the posse enters the mall be sure to play up how odd it must
seem. Judgement Day was in late sept. (right?) so the mall could very
easily have some christmas decorations up (they do it in my area).
Blinking lights, ceiling fans, large screen TVs displaying commercials.
DEFINITELY find a way to get some musaque playing in the background. If
you can't find any go to www.chicajo.com, click terminal access and then
download the music for the elevator section (it'll make sense when you go
there). This will give you a little 1 minute song that you can play over
and over to drive your posse nuts! I guarantee that the posse will be
shooting out speakers left and right within a 1/2 hour. If they do you
should reward them by turning the sound down a little each time.

Anyway...

	As the posse makes its way into the mall they find that this area
has been picked over fairly well. It looks like scavvies came through here
some time ago and cleaned this section out.
	Any posse members that make a Hard[9] cognition roll will notice
that although the stores are pretty trashed the area right up to the
entrance of the store has been cleaned and polished to a high shine.
	This is a good place to put some stores that you don't want your
posse to be able to salvage from. Like if the mall you were using as a
model for the adventure (the local mall so everyone knows what it looks
like) had gun store (yeah right, but you never know) you could have them
enter near the gunstore and have it picked clean.
	Let the posse look around some and try to scrounge if they want
(they'll need 13's here to pick up anything worth keeping). Then have them
make another cognition check with big ears, eagle eyes and keen edges all
counting towards the roll. The winner notices flashing lights reflecting
off all of the polished chrome and the faint echo of a beeping sound (like
what a big truck makes when it backs up).
	Give the posse plenty of time to get behind cover and ready
spells/weapons/whatever. Then tell them:
	"As you wait with anticipation you hear the sound of an electric
motor coming towards you from around the corner. The incessant beeping and
flashing lights reflecting everywhere start to give you a headache. Then
you finally see your adversaries. Two squat boxes about 3 feet tall by 2
feet wide and 3 feet deep round the corner coming towards you. A rotating
warning light sits a top each one and they are emblazoned with multiple
warning stickers labeling them as security and cleaning robots. Around
their bases numerous scrub brushes spin continuously polishing the floor.
They approaches you at a speed of about 2 mph."
	This is the light can that's trapped (I'll call her Sally-Seven)
first attempt at contact with the posse. She's wary of how they'll treat
her (she doesn't know they're heroes) so she wants to see how they react
to the cleaning bots as a first step. If they leave it alone or get closer
to check it out then she thinks they might be able to help her. But if
some trigger happy posse member blows it away for no reason, then Sally is
unsure how they will react to her.

The Cleaning Bots:
Size: 6 (mostly due to mass)
Armor: 1
Str: 3d12, Q: 4d8
Fightin/Taser: 3d8
Pace 12 (can roll at a very fast pace if it wants to)
Powers:
Taser: The bot is equipped with a taser (it was also used for security).
Anyone hit by the taser takes 1d6 wind, but the stun check is vs. TN 9
instead of 3 (normal TN for wind damage stun). The taser may only be used
in HtH, but can hit people on any side of the bot.
Undead: Although not undead in the strictest sense of the word the rules
apply.
Vulnerability (wheels): If one of the bot's wheels is maimed then its
pace is cut in 1/2. If two are maimed then the bot is immobilized.

	The cleaning bot approachs them doing its job of cleaning the
floors. Once it is fairly close (or if the posse tries to bolt from the
vicious scrub brush) it speeds up and attacks with its taser.

Bounty: 1 white chip each for defeating the bots.
	1 white chip for anyone that doesn't haul off and blow the bots 
		away before finding out what they are.
Rating: Give the posse a Rating as follows:
	(A)ggresive - if the posse attacked the bots with little to no
		investigation first
	(N)eutral - if the posse waited to be attacked before attacking
		the bots.
	(P)assive - if the posse retreated after being attacked or went
		out of their way to disable the bots rather than destroy 
		them.

Sally's rating system: Being hooked up to the security network of the mall
has de-humanized Sally somewhat and her AI has gained a lot of ground it
controlling her. Part of the result of this is that Sally has developed a
numeric, sliding scale to rate people coming into the mall. Once they've
reached a certain limit Sally deems them as either likely to help her (in
which case she makes contact) or too violent/aggresive to risk talking to
(in which case she attacks them with full force to kill them/drive them
from the mall).

Basically I'm picturing some type of sliding scale with each encounter's
rating being building up. If the posse got too many (A)'s then they would
be too violent and risky to contact, if they got too many (P)'s then they
would be too passive and unlikely to be willing to fight the heavy can to
get her out. Ideally the ratings will only determine how long until Sally
tries to contact them, not if she does. Suggestions here are more than
welcome.

Theo McGuckin - SysAdmin, JLab


	"I'm scared daddy, too scared to even wet myself!"
	"Just relax boy, it'll come."