At this year's UK Games Expo I ran the Lost Sodkan Mine adventure thats currently in the works, though featured a number of tweaks since I last ran it.
In the run-up to UKGE it was fully booked with all six places filled, even met a few of the players beforehand. However on the night only three of the players turned up, no idea what happened to the other players even though I did meet one of them whilst trading on the Friday. Regardless we soon settled on characters (I'd completely stat up a few characters), ending up with.
Talon - Marksman
Kate - Mechanic
Stella - Sneak
With no pilot we went with the group being a ground based outfit with a Mule Tracked Cargo Carrier, but no other real change. After a quick rundown of the setting we started with the party being deputized by the Royal Alyeskan Air Police, a number of remote settlements had been attacked by 'heavily armoured men' whom seemingly had no form of transport. The last settlement to report being under attack was the remote mining outpost of Prospector's Reach who radioed a distress call a couple of days previously but hasn't been heard from since.
After asking a few questions the party set off in the Mule, taking a few hours to cross the snowfields before spotting a column of smoke on the horizon in the direction of their destination. They found a low ridge to observe the town from, noticing signs of battle and an explosion in the area of the mine. Leaving Kate with the Mule, Stella sneaked into town to do some recon whilst Talon found a vantage point and settled down with his rifle. Quick search later Stella found where the surviving miners had holed up, fetching Kate to speak with the miners who confirmed that the mysterious raiders had indeed attacked them. The raiders were only interested in machinery and mechanical parts, at least until some of the miners attacked them at which point the raiders defended themselves. The miners lured the raiders into a trap that involved blowing up their store of explosives which explained the damage.
Promising to get some help the party searched round the town finding pieces of the raiders scattered around by the explosion and tracks leading to the north. Talon checked out the tracks whilst the others investigated the raider parts, some distance out of town Talon noticed tracks leading off from the main group and opted to follow them. Eventually he spotted one of the raiders, though seemingly staggering along, and took aim with his rifle. It took a few shoots before the raider was finally felled, Kate and Stella arrived just in time to see Talon land his telling blow on the raider. Kate then checked out the raider, finding that it was actually an automaton rather than a person. Further investigation they found that the power source appeared to be a strange crystal in the heart of the automaton's torso, plus some Sodkan writing.
With the mystery deepening the party retraced the main group of tracks and followed them northwards eventually hitting the coast and the frozen sea beyond. They did manage to spy an island a few miles offshore, but opted to leave the Mule and proceed on foot as they were uncertain about the ice. As they got closer to the island they were able to make out some sort of settlement or work camp, though there was an air of abandonment around it. Exploring the island they found signs of a skirmish, a transport plane that had been recently and partially dismantled as well as a building that had been fortified and was currently occupied. Stella went for a closer look and found that the building contained Sodkan soldiers and an officer who was in a foul mood, though the party elected to leave them alone for the time being.
Further exploration revealed the automaton tracks leading into a mine where there was more signs of combat, but the mine entrance was empty and the tracks led to a lift. With no other route to take the party took the lift down to the lower level of the mine, arriving in a large cavern with a number of tunnels that branched off. Taking the largest tunnel which had signs of recent work, the party had to duck into a side tunnel as a pair of automatons came marching by. Advancing further onwards they found another much larger cavern with large machines and production lines building even more automatons...lots more automatons.
Deciding that they'd completed their mission they elected to make a tactical withdrawal but found the two automatons from earlier unloading stuff from the lift, so the party made a distraction down a tunnel with some dynamite and made for the lift when the automatons went to investigate. Back topside the party set up more explosives to destroy the lift and mine entrance, though they were disturbed by the Sodkan soldiers. The party ended up hastily departing the island as the mine entrance was blown sky high and the Sodkans took potshots at them, though Talon's return fire proved effective.
Arriving back at Prospector's Reach they were able to contact the Air Police who duly sent out help and the party's reward, thus the adventure came to an end.
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