First 3 month Campaign done - a log and retrospective

So, as by the title, this thread will be a retrospective log for me (and of course, you, dear reader) about the first Campaign Arc of our first Campaign for the Infinity RPG.

Besides helping me to remember what happened when we continue (probably during the winter times), I´ll hope it´s a fun read for anyone interesting in Chaos, Side-tracking and Peaches.

I´ll Update this as time allows, as its quite a lot of stuff to transcript from my handwritten notes :D
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First a little Background on the group:

We are 6 players, 5 of which play Infinity since 2010/2011 and one good friend of mine who usually only joins us for board game night and has no idea what infinity is but recently watched altered Carbon on Netflix (yeah I know, reset the clock) and starts to dig the whole Cyberpunk thing pretty hard.

Besides some small D&D adventures during our youth (we are all in our thirties) none of us had any real experience with TTRPGs, but as big fans of Infinity we all took part in the KS (I´m in the Core book yay :D) and where eager to finally get some playing done.

Since I am the one of the group who is usually in charge of reading the rules for any game whatsoever and due to my job have the most time at hand for planning stuff, naturally we held a vote who had to be the GM and rules monkey. Yeah, guess who won.

So after we did a short introduction round with the Circular File starter Scenario, I had the great job to think about an interesting Campaign that would span 3 month (or more since we always vote for what to play during the next quarter)

So at least 3 month by maybe 6 or 9, open ended and connected but with distinct arcs that can come to a satisfying end on their own.

So let’s stop the rambling and get some meat into this thread:
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SPOILER WARNING – If any of my players reads this thread, stop here now!
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The Campaign was mainly inspired by the Pneumarch of the Ur Hegemony HVT model (one of my favourites in the whole line) and the nice little gadget it holds.

The whole assumption of the campaign is, that a little sphere, similar to the one the model has, is basically a portable super Computer and home to a strange Ur-AI.
This AI, due to its high technological level (its Ur-Tech after all) and Alien behaviour is capable of tearing through any human made Firewall and network security as if they are made of spider webs killing any interfering hacker in the process.
It’s basically a tsunami meeting a wooden Dam.

The AI itself is not really evil or malicious or dangerous on purpose, it’s just that it has been isolated in the depth of the Paradiso jungle for a very long time and getting access to any network/technology whatsoever makes it curious.
That those Networks get rewritten and their functionality altered or halted is just a side effect of the AI trying to understand and learn… mostly by dissection.
What happens if this AI ever gets access to Maya, Arachne or ALEPH… well, a System wide Blackout of basically everything connected would just be the beginning.

So when an unsuspecting Scientist and his team found the Sphere, as part of a Magna Obra payed endavour to recover Combined Army / Ur Tech on Paradiso, things got rolling.

Dr. Sanchez, head of the science Team, took the Sphere back to Research Station Gamma (Gamma is part of a bigger network of Stations in the Jungle east of Runenberg), eager to uncover its secrets.
Unfortunately Runenberg is very close to the frontline of the second offensive of the Combined Army, and when the fights where over, most of the stations where under CA control... well isn´t that just great news for humanity.

Meanwhile O-12 Officer, Raoul Ortega, who is in charge of the Search & Rescue operations surrounding civilians near Runenberg, gets contacted by an old friend from his time in the Army, Henry Davrol (more of him and the why later).
He convinces Ortega to use his influence inside O-12 to bring together a team of specialist / deniable assets to make a very special recover mission – finding Sanchez, the Sphere and all the documents/information stored inside Station Gamma, of course without any trace that it ever happened.
In exchange Ortega gets a ticket off Paradiso and a comfy CxO job at his Friends Company, SecTec, on Neoterra.
Ortega, looking at a big pay out for an easy job, sets up a team and orders them to Paradiso.

The PC will first time meet on a private shuttle, after getting of the orbital, that brings them down to the Base near the frontline where they will get the complete briefing on the situation, because right now, all they know is, O-12 needs them for a S&R operation in enemy territory.



So let’s bring in the Player Characters:

Alex Kruger, nickname Yuma
USAriadna Dogwarrior, bar Brawler and Bodyguard in his first live, now taking on high risk/ high pay jobs to get his Sister back home who has fallen in with the wrong crowd of mercenaries
Short tempered, great tracker with a hang to make inappropriate jokes and a fable for ripping of peoples arms, he´s the muscle of the group, with a heart of gold to his friends

Franko Hittem
Born on Neoterra spend most of his life on expeditions in the Human edge with his parents, who were working on practical application of human/machine interconnectivity.
As part of this work he received an experimental type of Eye implant that unfortunately came with the bonus of being wanted by different factions, including ALEPH itself for further research.
As being a theoretical worker first, he´s the Doc and Technician of the group with a hand for repairing both humans and machines, but not so much of a fighter.

Konstantin Korelov
Son of an Tunguska hacker Mother and a rich Jewish Father whose Family fortune helped finance the Black Hand.
He himself now works for and in the Data Crypts and is a borderline prodigy hacker.
His connections to the Intelligence service and the underworld often come as both a blessing and a course as they bring conflicting goals for him.
Hacker, Thief and “face” of the group, with a big mouth and an even bigger ego.

Kazimir Smirnoff, nickname Scharka,
Kazak Spetsnaz with a deep, xenophobe hatred for Dogwarrios and a talent to upset authorities wherever he goes.
After a deadly "accident" during some Dogblood-Rights Protest he was quietly sent off to work on the most dangerous undercover black ops in hope that he dies while fulfilling his duty.
Till now he lives, and the list of people who want him dead grows with every operation he completes (there seems to be a leak in the Intel Command, but surely that can´t be, right?)
A natural born killer with the military training of a spetsnaz, if you want something dead, he´ll kill it.

 

Thanks, I´m in a bit of a slough right now due to all the people at work being sick or on holidays at the same time, but nonetheless, onwards we go:
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Session 1 - Flying for Dummies;

As written above, the PC meet each other on the way down to Paradiso in a private shuttle.
At this point the mostly ignore each other except for Scharka and Konstantine who directly hit it off with a “I´m the greatest around here”- contest.
While they get into some banter the rest of the group silently stares out of the windows while the shuttle descents down to the surface.
I gave them some extra time to get the RP started, but none of them seemed too interested in the rest of the group, well you can´t force things, so I was just moving things along, hoping they would feel more comfortable with time.

Anyways, once the shuttle touched down on Paradiso, inside a small military compound that serves as a forward base, the PC where hit with the full Paradiso feel; it is warm, wet, noisy and green all around them, with the added chaotic buzz from the outpost.

The group is received by Darumar Huss, a big guy in the armour of Section Spatha, the O-12 military arm.
He explains to them that Officer Ortega unfortunately decided to catch an Artillery Shell with his chest a few days back and that he got the promotion to be in charge of them now.
He guides the group through the compound to his small, cramped office where he sits them down and gives them the briefing (supported by a holographic map, just because it’s cool!)

He shows them research base gamma and explains to them that, even though, the base was evacuated, Dr. Sanchez and his team stayed behind to finish some top secret project he doesn´t know anything about.
In the end he just took over from Ortega recently and has basically only the bare minimum of information available.
Unfortunately Sanchez and his team miscalculated how fast the Combined Army would take the land and are now stuck in enemy territory.
The deployed security guard of gamma has stopped responding 2 days back, so there seems to be a problem (no shit!).
Worst case scenario this is now a cube recovery mission.

After the players get some basic military gear to stock up and ask some questions about Gamma, Sanchez and the project, they set out to a small military transport shuttle that will fly them, as close as possible, to Gamma Base.

Once on board, most of the PC sit down, strap in and wait for the next thing to happen.
After short flight (that’s me taking a break to get a beer and prepare the next event), the PC are by now in the middle of a RP banter.
Unfortunately for them, the Pilot informs them over comms that they are under fire from the Jungle.

While in the middle of saying that, he starts an evasive maneuver.
Half of the PC don´t mind, they are sitting down, strapped to the seat.
The other half gets thrown around and only some good rolls on their acrobatics allows them to not fully crash into each other or the walls, so in the end nobody gets bruised too bad.
That, of course, will change immediately, as the first missile hits the broad side of the Transporter, blowing it clean open, sending fire and shrapnel inside.
Those too close to the impact point can dodge or get hit, but unfortunately, the dice are against the players now, so the first blood is drawn on Yuma, who has to muster all his discipline to not Hulk out in the cramped transporter.

While the PCs gather their senses, a second explosion hits the Transporter and the franticly shouting pilot goes silent.
Simultaneously the ship starts to dive.

So the PC spring into action, Yuma, together with Franko work on opening the door to the cockpit to check on the Pilot and stop the shuttle from going down.
While Franko uses his understanding of tech, working on the console to bypass the lock, Yuma just straight up rips the door open... so much for mind over muscle.
Meanwhile Konstantin is searching the cabin for a first aid kit or anything useful to help the, probably, badly hurt pilot, Scharka takes a look out of the blown open transporter side, spotting another missile going their way.

While he tries to shoot it out of the air, he shouts for Konstantin to support him, just in the second as Franko and Yuma discover that the cockpit is empty aside some instruments and a AI console stuttering its life out before falling dark.
Konstantin, together with Franko, now both head into the cockpit and try to bring the AI back up / switch the system to manual flight control.
Scharka still trying to hit the closing missile is now supported by Yuma, who is not a great shot, but at least he makes a good, stable “tripod” for Scharka to rest his Combi Rifle on.

After some coordinated working between Konstantin and Franko the flight control is back to life and set free from the AI control, so that Yuma, the Pilot of the group abandons Sharka and pushes himself into the, already, cramped cockpit.
In the meantime, Scharka, through use of an Infinity Point, manages to finally hit the missile which explodes just far enough away to not affect the shuttle.

While everyone is happy that they got control back over the shuttle and disaster seems to be avoided, another 3 missiles break out of the green jungle.

That’s the point where they decide that a controlled crash-landing is better that getting hit mid-flight, so Yuma drives the shuttle downwards and into the trees while the rest of the group braces for impact.

 

Damn that took some time to get back to this, but at last, here we go:

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Session 2 - Welcome to the Jungle!

Night has fallen over Paradiso (the PC shuttle started in the later evening hours).
Between the still smouldering parts of what used to be the shuttle, Yuma is the first of the group to wake up, thanks to his Dog Warrior constitution.
He checkes himself for injuries (minor damage to body and mind) and his surroundings to get a better understanding...

Then the memories hit him;
while trying to get the shuttle down he unfortunately got tangled up in Paradisos Jungle (some bad Pilot rolls on the way down), leading to the shuttle breaking in half at the allready weak middle section.

The front part, including him, Franko and Konstantin, is scattered in a freshly created aisle in the middle of nowhere.
He starts to dig through the remains where he finds Konstantin, who himself is conscious, who is huddled over Franko who hasn´t made it back to bein awake yet.

Both look badly bruised (not much luck on the damage rolls), and short of a better medical training, ideas and common sense he is slapping and shaking Franko to bring him back.

A few hundred meters away, Scharka also regains his consciousness and finds himself in a similar situation than the rest of the group.
He tries to establish communication and engage his comlogs navigation software.
He manages to get a short glimpse of his and their position before a strong interfering signal renders his comlog useless.
Fearing enemies close to him, he frantically starts to dig through the rubble, looking for anything salvageable that might help him in the sure to come fight.
While doing so, he finds a storage compartment underneath the passenger area, which only contains an unconscious person.
Going by the armour and equipment it´s a Pan-O Soldier, bearing no other insignia to identify him by besides a modern blue/green armour.
That guy will from now on be John Doe.

(Another player wanted to join, made a character but couldn´t join the first few sessions so I had to smuggle him into the remote location the story is happening without the others knowing he was there.)

Scharka, still cautious about whoever is transmitting the signal, takes John over his shoulder and makes way into the direction his comlog showed the rest of the group to be.

Once reunited the group started to look through the rubble looking for useful stuff (mainly parts and some serum from the first aid kit), fixing the flight computer to get a sense of direction and distance to Station Gamma and started building a stretcher for John.

During all that I had them made Observation checks regularly to give them a feeling of being watched and the dangerous jungle surrounding them.
Yuma, being a dog warrior, was able to score some momentum on one of his smell tests, enabling him to smell a strange, no, alien, smell between the smouldering wreck and the damp jungle.
He had just enough time to scream a warning to his comrades before a wave of hungries broke through the thicket attacking everyone in sight and range.

While some fast shots put down the first few, a second wave used the distraction to move in from the other side and catch the group unaware.
In the ensuing Brawl, Yuma hulked out and started ripping hungries apart, while Konstantin and Scharka worked together to take some more down with coordinated Attacks.

Franko, now being awake, but with a hurting face from all the slapping he received dropped back to John and used his Rifle to try to pick off some of the hungries who were further away.
Unfortunately the darkness and flickering light of the burning wreckage made him miss all his shots, but at least he provided some distraction the others used to exploit for more carnage.

Before the last of the hungries bit the dust the “pack leaders” joined the fight in form of 3 Daturazi storming in from 3 directions.

One threw himself at Yuma who was standing in, what used to be, a bunch of hungries.
In the following CC Yuma took some damage (axe to the chest – outch!) but managed to kill of the attacker after pushing him to the floor and viciously stabbing him with his cleaver;

Konstantin managed to grab his attacker just long enough for Scharka to jump on his back and repeatedly stab the Daturazi with a Teseum Knife (anyone remember the prisoner from the Predators Movie with Adrian Brody? Stans? Like that.)
Even Yuma had to stop to watch the Rage and Brutality.

Franko, still guarding John tried to shoot his Daturazi (again unsuccessful thanks to the darkness) and was only saved by said Daturazi tripping over a root.
While struggling to stand up, Franko had time to aim and put half a Clip between his eyes.
Quite an unworthy death, but effective nonetheless.

Surviving their first fights with only some moderate damage, Franko did a quick patch up and the group, with John being carried, made way towards Gamma.