Post by Catsmate on Feb 28, 2022 11:04:14 GMT
Adapting 'The Phantom Jungle' to AITAS
This started last night when I noticed there was a new scenario posted at the excellent thalcos's One Shot Adventures site. This one, 'The Phantom Jungle', is a Pulp era scenario set in the South American jungle1.
I was struck by it2, and how it could be adapted to AITAS.
SPOILERS FOR THE SCENARIO BELOW.
The adventure starts with the PCs slightly drunk, celebrating, on a river yacht, moves quickly into a robbery (with dynamite) and continues on to include a mysterious assassin with a jet-pack, a doctor who's figured out a cure for leprosy, an insurgency3, an albino jaguar. Then the meat of the plot is served in the form of a secret group of Confederate exiles who established a base in the jungle, after leaving their falling nation in 1865 on an ironclad warship4, and now plot to create a new empire in the jungle, aided by the spirits of their leaders.
Heady stuff that'd work well in a Doc Savage book5.
Now let's move it to a more AITAS-like framework, not that it couldn't be used more-or-less 'off the shelf'.
Halstead Adams was a true son of America6, loyal to the great state of Virginia6 and so, like many others, after its secession from the United States he planned to put his ingenuity and brilliance at the disposal of the new country. Unfortunately the government of Jefferson Davis just wasn’t interested in his ideas.
And he couldn’t tell them the whole truth; if he’d claimed to have travelled in time they’d have thought him mad, ignored his entreaties at best, had him confined in a madhouse at worse.
But it was true; for a couple of utterly fascinating months during his college days he’d seen the amazing sights of past and future, alien planets, strange creatures and awesome technology. His mentor had been a brilliant woman, but they’d parted company over his opinions and actions, and she unceremoniously dumped him back home, the day after they’d left.
Unknown to her he’d brought a few souvenirs home, and spent the next years figuring out the technology of the future.
Which was tricky; given that, while he had (electronic) books to study, he was attempting to leapfrog decades, even centuries, of development. One thing he lacked was a good history book (luckily for causality and the Web of Time) so the outbreak of the Civil War took him by surprise.
Towards the end of the war he demonstrated a flying machine, built from local materials but using a few 'souvenir' counter-gravity modules for lift, and persuaded the crew of a trio of Confederate ships (one ironclad warship and two steam and sail transports) to join him in South American exile. He added his experimental submarine as well as the airship to the small fleet, so, along with a few score volunteers and family members, they set off to create a new future.
Comments?
1. Thought not the usual Brazilian jungle.
2. I went "hmmmm", one of my SOs said to the other "he's thinking again" and she said she'd get a cold cloth..........
3. It's South America in the thirties, civil war is de rigueur.
4. Let's handwave the practicalities of the 3 know riverboat evading the USN blockade and making it down there.
5. And makes more sense than many of the Doc Savage stories.
6. Proud of his distant connections to both John and Sam.
This started last night when I noticed there was a new scenario posted at the excellent thalcos's One Shot Adventures site. This one, 'The Phantom Jungle', is a Pulp era scenario set in the South American jungle1.
I was struck by it2, and how it could be adapted to AITAS.
SPOILERS FOR THE SCENARIO BELOW.
The adventure starts with the PCs slightly drunk, celebrating, on a river yacht, moves quickly into a robbery (with dynamite) and continues on to include a mysterious assassin with a jet-pack, a doctor who's figured out a cure for leprosy, an insurgency3, an albino jaguar. Then the meat of the plot is served in the form of a secret group of Confederate exiles who established a base in the jungle, after leaving their falling nation in 1865 on an ironclad warship4, and now plot to create a new empire in the jungle, aided by the spirits of their leaders.
Heady stuff that'd work well in a Doc Savage book5.
Now let's move it to a more AITAS-like framework, not that it couldn't be used more-or-less 'off the shelf'.
Halstead Adams was a true son of America6, loyal to the great state of Virginia6 and so, like many others, after its secession from the United States he planned to put his ingenuity and brilliance at the disposal of the new country. Unfortunately the government of Jefferson Davis just wasn’t interested in his ideas.
And he couldn’t tell them the whole truth; if he’d claimed to have travelled in time they’d have thought him mad, ignored his entreaties at best, had him confined in a madhouse at worse.
But it was true; for a couple of utterly fascinating months during his college days he’d seen the amazing sights of past and future, alien planets, strange creatures and awesome technology. His mentor had been a brilliant woman, but they’d parted company over his opinions and actions, and she unceremoniously dumped him back home, the day after they’d left.
Unknown to her he’d brought a few souvenirs home, and spent the next years figuring out the technology of the future.
Which was tricky; given that, while he had (electronic) books to study, he was attempting to leapfrog decades, even centuries, of development. One thing he lacked was a good history book (luckily for causality and the Web of Time) so the outbreak of the Civil War took him by surprise.
Towards the end of the war he demonstrated a flying machine, built from local materials but using a few 'souvenir' counter-gravity modules for lift, and persuaded the crew of a trio of Confederate ships (one ironclad warship and two steam and sail transports) to join him in South American exile. He added his experimental submarine as well as the airship to the small fleet, so, along with a few score volunteers and family members, they set off to create a new future.
Comments?
1. Thought not the usual Brazilian jungle.
2. I went "hmmmm", one of my SOs said to the other "he's thinking again" and she said she'd get a cold cloth..........
3. It's South America in the thirties, civil war is de rigueur.
4. Let's handwave the practicalities of the 3 know riverboat evading the USN blockade and making it down there.
5. And makes more sense than many of the Doc Savage stories.
6. Proud of his distant connections to both John and Sam.