1001 Exalted 2e Encounters

And now I need some adventure help.  Because the game I plan to run is going to be freeform, I might need a diversionary game to keep them occupied until I can plan ahead and give them what they want.  I read somewhere that if the ST doesn't know what else to do, just have somebody burst through the door.  Building on that, I thought it would be cool if we used some of the published NPCs in this way.


"The door bursts open.  Standing there is (published NPC).  S/he has found the PCs because (short adventure synopsis)."
 
alohahaha said:
Xeno
In the Wyld, no one can hear you scream...


The PCs, who are agents of the Guild, have just finished a grand adventure in the West and are now prepared to set sail for home.  Unfortunately, because of the reputation they had gotten because of their adventure, not many captains are willing to have them on their ship.


There is one man who is willing to have them.  He is the God-Blooded Yane Skevit, an experienced Guildsman and captain of a freighter ship who maximizes his profit by manning it with a skeleton crew and making up for the rest with his Charms.  His crew consists of Enak Hojn, a Heroic Mortal who knows more about the sailing than even the captain and executive officer of the ship, Unrelenting Riptide, a God-Blooded who serves as the ship's master-of-arms, Star-eyed Lamb, a Heroic Mortal navigator, Yefit Tokoko, a beastman Chief Engineer, Brett, a Heroic Mortal apprentice to Yefit, and Ash and Snow, a Terrestrial Half-Caste sorcerer and surgeon.  Capt. Yane accepts payment to transport them across the Inner Sea.


They set sail and all seems well for a few days until a furious storm suddenly rises that lasts for a week.  The ship becomes tossed and turned around so much that Star-eyed Lamb isn't sure of where their location at the end of it.  The ferocity of the storm caused them to be thrown off course and towards a Wyld zone in the Endless Ocean.  Much to their dismay, their supplies have also been tainted and spoiled during the storm.  In order to survive, they'll have to find an island and restock on supplies.


Luckily, they do find an island and they steer towards it.  The crew and the PCs split up to search the island for supplies to repair the ship and to restock on food and water.  As they explore the island, one odd thing that they may notice (Perception + Survival roll) is that there's no sounds of any fauna.


One of the groups consists of Yane, Enak and Ash.  As they explore the island, they come across a deep shaft in the ground and decide to explore it.  They shuffle down the hole and it eventually leads them to a giant underground complex with runes written in the Old Realm.  These are relatively simple signs that direct people through the complex.  As the exploration continues, it seems to be some kind of hidden sorcerous laboratory manse from the First Age.  Yane and Enak decide to continue exploring the place thinking that there may be precious artifacts more valuable than the cargo they currently hold.


Unfortunately, they're quite right.


They stumble across a gigantic stadium, the floor of which is covered with cocoon-like objects.  Enak, curious, gets quite close to one as Yane peers up at the tall ceiling of the place.  The captain never sees Enak become enthralled with curiosity as the cocoon unfurls and a skitterling emerges forth, giving only enough time for Enak to see it before it jumps at Enak's face and latches itself to him, its tail wrapping tightly around the man's throat.


Enak now unconcious, Yane and any PCs who came with the pair must carry the man back up to the shaft as the other cocoons start to open up behind them.  They are successful in getting to the surface and calls out to the rest of the crew to get on the ship because they're leaving.  While they were exploring, the others have restocked a lot of food if they ration it but they haven't completely replenished their coffers.  Those fixing the ship haven't had the time to make enough progress.  Yane doesn't care.  He's leaving now.


The crew and the PCs get on the ship and they set sail, the high winds of a coming storm spur them away from the island.  Ash proceeds to examine the thing on Enak's face.  Using his medical and occult knowledge, he concludes that the creature is a parasite that is connected to Enak not just physically but mystically as well since Ash is able to discern a flow of Essence between the two.  Because of this mystical connection between them, Ash does not recommend that they harm the creature since it could lead to Enak's death.  Yane, who has been a long time friend of Enak's, outright refuses any suggestion of killing the parasite.  Ash also refuses to let it be harmed as well, citing his academic curiosity for this unknown creature.


The rest of the crew abide by Yane's words; should any of the PCs try to insist that they do something, the entire crew will stubbornly reject it and will guard Enak from them.  If any of the PCs try to fight them, Yane, Riptide, Yefit and Ash are experienced enough to be able to win a battle against them.  After they win the battle, the crew ties them up and guards them, harassing them and forcing them to drink a special tea that keeps them from resting to regain any spent Essence.  They are kept like this until the situation becomes one where it's in the crew's best interest to work with them.


Otherwise, they just have to wait out the storm of wind, wave and Wyld that's surging outside.  After about a day the creature just falls off of Enak, it's body dessicated and shriveled.  Ash then gives him a check out and determines that he's physically fine.  All of the crew breath a heavy sigh of relief and Yane says that they'll have a little feast that night.


The food they scrounge from the island is cooked up and is delicious.  Songs are song and rum is poured.  The crew gets to really know the PCs and a feeling of cameradie instantly bonds the two groups.


The merriment quickly comes to an end.


Enak starts clearing his throat as everybody chats with each other.  He then coughs.  And coughs again.  He coughs and can't seem to stop.  He stands up, hacking.  The crew, alarmed, stands up and grabs him and he starts to go into convulsions, making him lay on the table.  He screams out in pain as his chest bursts with blood and entrails spurting all over the crew and the PCs.


From Enak's still hot corpse a small but frightful creature lifts itself up and they can allow stare in horror at lets out a shrill scream to announce its presence on Creation.


And before anyone can act it immediately jumps to the floor and scuttles to safety.  Despite all the horrors known to be out there, the crew is quite unnerved, especially after the horrible death of one of their own.  Yane then divides up the crew and the PCs to catch the creature.  Ash suggests that the creature try to be taken alive to be studied.  Yefit cites the law of the jungle and wants to stalk the creature before it can do what it did to Enak to him.  The two of them argue, both making good points.  The PCs can posit their opinions in this social combat as well.  Whoever makes the most convincing argument Captain Yane will agree with between capturing the creature and killing it.


Those on the ship are split up into pairs, with a crew member paired up with a PC.  As they search the ship something happens so that the crew members split up or the creature separates them and captures the crew members, although they think the creature kills them.


Should the PCs search the crew's quarters, they discover something very chilling in Ash's room.  There are a set of papers that are coded (Wits + Linguistics, diff 4 to decode).  These papers describe how Ash is actually a member of an underguild and he was commanded by them to use his sorcery to summon a storm to maroon the ship in an area where strange creatures were once reported to be long ago.  Ash did so and has written down what he has surmised what the underground compound was.


Apparently, it was a First Age magical labortory where dark and cruel experiments were carried out.  The Solar sorcerers of the First Age manage to use the chaos of the bordermarches to alter demons and breed true a new race of terrifying creatures that are both Wyld and Infernal.  These creatures, named "xenos" by the Solars, are created when the facehugger impregnates a creature and, through an ability given to it by the Wyld, warps the creature's Essence and body to allow the "birth" of the xeno.  In this way, the xenos could be a terrible weapon against the enemies of the Solars, decimating legions that could be used to give birth to even more xenos.  Fortunately, the Usurpation happened before this project could be put into effect and the Solars locked themselves in the complex but eventually died.  The Guild had managed to find ancient records of this project and sent Ash to connive of a way to find the complex and bring one of these xenos back so they can sell these living weapons to the highest bidder.


Now the PCs must make sure this creature never gets back to Creation and must destroy it as best they can.  To make sure it is killed, they can secure all escape routes and use the cargo of firedust and alchemical components for alchemical fire weapons to burn it while they escape on a life raft.  To make sure it can't escape, they'll have to draw it into the bowels of the ship to make sure it stays in the heart of the blaze.  As they hunt after the xeno, they find the other crew members wounded and grafted to the hull of the ship by a cocoon.  The xeno has captured them to be used as hosts to make other xenos.  The crew members, weak and in pain, whisper to the PCs to kill them.


The PCs should then continue trying to lock the xeno in the heart of the ship and set off the explosives while having enough time to escape in the life raft.  Should they do so, the PCs must still sail through the Wyld storm around them and make it back to Creation in one peace.  They should be able to get there.  Eventually.
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You sir, should be crowned King.
 
It has been a good time for creation


The Autothonian invasion was beaten back, the Anathema war is over and the realm is growing stronger.


The FaFL leads the crimson legion on an attack against creation but is betrayed and defeated when the Mask of winters and the Lover clad in the Raiment of Tears break their plans to aid him


The FaFL gets thrown into the well


Meanwhile Autothonia suffers from the contagion and dies...


----


Scene: Halfway down the well, FaFL falling


"Welcome, Forsaken one."


"Who... said that?"


"I am Autochthon."


"Show yourself."


"I have summoned you here for a purpose."


"Nobody summons the Forsaken Lion!"


"Then it pleases me, to be the first."


"State your Business."


"This is my command. You are to destroy the Solar Crown of Thunder. It is the one thing, the ONLY thing, that can stand in my way."


"You have nothing to fear, I have already crushed FireOrchid with my bare hands."


"You exxagerate."


"The point is,She's Dead, and the Crown died with her."


"No, the point is, you are a fool, the Crown of thunders has not been destroyed, it has been passed to a new Zenith, Panther. Destroy it for me."


"Why should I? What's in it for me?"


"Your bargaining posture is highly dubious, but very well. I shall provide you with a new body, and new troops to command."


"And?"


"And NOTHING! You belong to me."


"I belong to Nobody."


"Perhaps I misjudged you, proceed, on your way to oblivion."


"No no, I accept your terms, I ACCEPT!!"


"Excellent."
 
alohahaha--Remind me sometime to put up in the Wyld the treatment that I did for Mechwarrior--the RPG, not the tabletop miniature game--for Aliens...


So much nastiness, and only a few players actually remembered the name of the planet was Acheron...but those that didn't did remember Wierzbowski and Vasquez...
 
I remeber it was Acheron, LV-426 as well I think. The name of the Marine ship was the Sulaco. The 'Company' was Weyland-Yutani, blah, blah, I could go for hours.
 
In response to the growing threat of the Deathlords, a Dragon king living in Yu Shan has created an incredible invention- an enormous "Ghost Crystal" in which the lingering spirits of dead humans can be trapped. Over several months, the ghosts within are treated with the light of the Unconquered Sun, as focused by the device's orichalcum fittings, crafting an illusory world based on the ghost's Passions, leading gently to eventual resolution of their urges and bringing them the peace required to pass into Lethe.


The problem, of course, is getting them into the crystal in the first place. Smaller crystals can contain ghosts until they can be returned to Yu Shan, but they must be weakened enough to be captured first. That's where you and your fellows come in.


You ain't 'fraid of no ghost.
 
Dr. Strangelove, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Dragons


A massive arms race between the Realm and Lookshy has come to a head! A lone redoubt commander, over looking a small force of five Thousand Forged dragons has launched without authorization and sealed his redoubt up tight!


Now, the General Staff of Lookshy is in communique with the Realm and trying to stop the Dragons and send them the correct command codes to call them home, they've been locked out under their secret attack plan. Realm delegates are allowed into Lookshy Manse with the war council, announcing they had created a Doomsday weapon, that is Lookshy would ever use TFDs on them, they Imperial Defense Grid would obliterate Lookshy and the Threshold! With the help of the mysterious and disabled sorecerer, Dr. Strangelove.


No one else but the War Council know of the Doomsday Device, meanwhile, Lookshy troops attack the redoubt to get the command codes for the Dragons, taking terrible losses, only to find the commander had killed himself.


The War Council quickly devised a plan to get as many people into the Lookshy caverns as possible to preserve their way of life. When, Dr. Strangelove stood and screamed,


"Mein Furher! I can WALK!"


And an ominous light glowed from Imperial City...
 
No promises as of yet. But I may run this at Ubercon. And it will be epic or shit. You betcha.
 
The guild has "misplaced" one of their immortal heroin shitting dinosaurs.  Acting on a favor to some old contacts, the group has tracked the beast down - the lair of a powerful rogue god who seeks to use the Dino's immortality as a sumptuous banquet for some time to come.
 
Slavers abscond with one of the PC's Followers.  


Chase scene ensues, only to be thwarted by a devilishly handsome young man with Blood Apes in tow.


Introducing your new Demon-Blood adversary.  Who escapes while the PCs handle the Blood Apes, and take the Follower off to be sold to the Lintha.


The whole thing is just an excuse to get the PCs to chase after the Lintha, and get them involved with the pirates.


Cue the devilishly handsome young man again, this time, with a tale that he was cheated, and would like to help the PCs bloody the Lintha's noses.  All this is just an excuse to get close the PCs, to begin the process of corrupting them for his dread Masters.  


The trick is to never let the silver tongued devil lie.  He always tells them the truth, albeit shaded, sometimes without some key information, but he never lies to them.


At least not until the moment when it's time to hand the PCs over to his Master...
 
An artifact of considerable power and immutable construction (wyld immunity) was lost to the wyld during the usurpation.  Due to the fate on the item and its strange, magical interactions with the wyld around it, the item plays out the events just prior to it's "destruction" and in order to retrieve said item, the players must travel into the wyld, relive and unravel a series of events that will either leave them in possession of the artifact, or victim of those events that happened so very long ago.


---


An artifact (preferably a weapon) of the PC's is broken in battle and beyond their ability to repair.  Seeking one who can, they make their way to the edge of creation where they meet a strange fae-blood who is skilled in handling the energies of magical weapons.  The catch is that one or all of them must travel into the wyld with him, as he pits them in battle against various wyld-monstrosities as he feeds on their various emotions in the heat of combat.


---


Facing a powerful god embodying fear and the unknown, the characters reveal that the god's only weakness is it's name.  Sadly, as the god embodies that which is unknowable, it's name is likewise obscured from all but the scrutiny of the greatest gods... However, it's interactions with the wyld nearby have left an indelible imprint of its identity.  The group must travel into the bordermarchers where one character must perform a vision quest in order to divine the name of this unknowable god... a name whose simple utterance can drive those who hear it mad and that which may only be spoken once by the character before such knowledge slips away again forever.  If successful the group must once again encounter this god and the quester must choose wisely on when best to unleash the full potency of this creature's name, both to preserve the minds of his companions as well as to cause the most opportune weakness.
 
Request! To King alohahaha, perhaps you could do Last Samurai or perhaps Terminator (;P) as Exalted plotlines?!
 
An opening or an intro... perhaps...


***


It has been several milienia since the end of the primordial war, where you and your kindred slew and imprisoned Those Who Came Before at the behest of your patron, The Unconquered Sun; Sol Invictis.


With the mandate of heaven, your kind have ruled over Creation since. A prince amongst prince, a lord amongst lords, one of the five hundred potent Exalted.


The rulership over Creation in the early days were exciting and fun, when there were still enemy Primordial spawn that refused to surrender and the fae were bold. The horizons boundless with possibilities. That excitement has slowly worn off over the seven thousand years of perfection as enemies after enemies fell, and advances after advances were made in all aspects of life.


And yet...


And yet....


With no true challenges, a certain ennui had slowly settled on your hearts... a malaise that was born of boredom...


In the past few decades, a number of solars have fallen and were reincarnated, allowing old age to retire them, while others chose to go out in a blaze of glory.


You are one of the many elite solars who have been reborn.


Given the training that would kill mere mortals, your bodies are strengthened, while the ways of commanding essence were handed to you by those who took it upon themselves to train those who have been reborn.


Memories of the past plague your dreams. But hidden amongst these dreams... lurk something else.


Dreams, perhaps nightmares... of different kinds of exalted; friends, allies, followers, enemies and killers. Occasionally those dreams slip into your waking moments. Now and then, here and there... you catch glimpses in the edges of your vision... images gliding across mirrors momentarily.


The wisest of savants and twilights have examined you... and you have been given a clean bill of health... there is nothing wrong, that the best of their abilities can detect.


***


And something else... a game start... ^_^


***


The air was heavy with dust as the four solars' shelter withstood heavy fire from the implosion bows and lightning balistae wielded by the treacherous rebels.


"My Lord, the manse structure can't take much more of this punishment! The outer shell is giving way..." One of the few faithful and loyal ***** exalts shouted.


"The west entrance have been capture and Gunzosha units have been neutralized," the communication device cried out over the sounds of essence weaponary going off before dying down once more.


The accumulation of essence was the only warning as the doors to the commander center shattered, despite their jade construction, the elemental auras of the traitors flaring beyond.


With that, you can feel yourself being shaken awake. "General, we're approaching the drop point at the city of Zarlath."


The brilliant light shining in from the adamant ports shone into the command module of the Kireeki-class skytreme and over the tiger warrior officer in his gunzosha armor as he woke up his resting Exalted generals.
 
Request! To King alohahaha' date=' perhaps you could do Last Samurai or perhaps Terminator (;P) as Exalted plotlines?![/quote']
Hmmm...  Well, here's a quick Terminator adaptation, but it's more like the OMAC -


The war with the Alchemicals has taken a frighteningly twisted turn.  They have used their powerful weapons against Creation but the Exalted have rallied together to defend it from the Locust Crusade.  This has caused a severe stalemate in the Locust War.


An incredibly cruel and cunning Alchemical has created a way to break the draw.


He has created Terminators, slaves who have been subjucted to cruel processes that hollows them out so that war gear can be hidden within their guts.  In this way, the Alchemicals plan to slowly let them migrate within their enemy cities so that, when given the signal, can surprise the city and conquer it from within.


This also has the secondary cause of making the cities of the South paranoid of each other, as anyone could be one of these Terminators.  They don't know who to trust.  They don't know who's an enemy.  This gives an added benefit to the Alchemicals of making a severe blow to their morale.


Terminators are very powerful beings, on par and possibly even more powerful than similar automata, such as those that guard Denandsor.  They also have innate abilities similar to mortals wearing power armor.  The most dangerous thing about them, though, is the fact that they look like any ordinary mortal, any man, any woman, any boy or girl...


And there's rumor that a squad of these Terminators is gunning after a major leader of the defenders against the Alchemicals.  The PCs will have to be on their guard at all times to keep their ward safe while he travels throughout the River Province trying to gather support for their cause.  The Terminator is relentless, though, and not easily swayed from their purpose, which is only one thing:


To kill that one man.


Heaven help those who get in its way.
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The war is going Badly


The reborn Solars have defeated the realm and have laid siege to the Yu Shan fortresses of the Sidereals.


however Kejak has a plan to fix this problem.


He tears a special hole in the loom of fate, connecting some theads to some very old weave.... creating a portal backwards in time.


He uses Craft Genesis to make a Bio Machine that looks human and sends it through the loom with innate destiny interdiction and a mission


Kill the newborn solar circle that would become the ones to reform the deliberative...


a fang of troops smashes their way into the loom room after it goes and a battle claims Kejak's life.


but only One member survives, this god blood realizes that only living matter can enter the portal so he leaps through after setting a bomb to destroy the apperatus that holds it open.


He must warn the circle
 
The war is going Badly
The reborn Solars have defeated the realm and have laid siege to the Yu Shan fortresses of the Sidereals.


however Kejak has a plan to fix this problem.


He tears a special hole in the loom of fate, connecting some theads to some very old weave.... creating a portal backwards in time.


He uses Craft Genesis to make a Bio Machine that looks human and sends it through the loom with innate destiny interdiction and a mission


Kill the newborn solar circle that would become the ones to reform the deliberative...


a fang of troops smashes their way into the loom room after it goes and a battle claims Kejak's life.


but only One member survives, this god blood realizes that only living matter can enter the portal so he leaps through after setting a bomb to destroy the apperatus that holds it open.


He must warn the circle
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Oh come on.  Kejak isn't that bad.  Actually, what I would do is say that the Alchemicals have overwhelmed Creation but have yet to take Yu-Shan.  There are a core group of Exalted who are keeping the resistance alive but are constantly pitted against the Terminators, who are man on the outside and machine on the inside.  During one Calibration, the Alchemicals managed to break through one of the gates and into Yu-Shan, battling all the way to the Loom of Fate.  From there, they plan to send a group of Terminators back in time before the leaders of the resistance Exalted.  Kejak is able to send a group back to that time to keep those mortals safe until they Exalt.  Ironically enough, these mortals Exalt trying to defend themselves against the Terminators.  The PCs can play as either the Heroic Mortals or the Exalted protectors sent back.
 
Twilight Arianna?
Yes?


*busts down library door, opens up with Phased Plasma Cannon in the 40 Megawatt range*
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Hahahahahahahahahahaha.  HELL YEAH!  That's funny as hell.  It almost scares me how much it sounds like Iteration X, though.
 
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