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A Sample Adventure:

Scene #1: The stalkers meet one of their dealers, who suggests an

expedition based on a map he has acquired. The map-maker’s team found a good artefact on an expedition but ran into an anomaly on the way back. The artefact had to be left behind and the survivors drew a map. He will pay something if they check it out and more if they can actually find the artefact.

Scene #2: The stalkers’ own investigations in the city confirm the

main points of the dealer’s story. The map is probably real. Now, there is preparation for the expedition, looking for a door, perhaps interaction with a community that dwells near the Zone. Finally, a good door is found: a stream has carved its way under the fence that surrounds the Zone. By advancing along the stream, it should be pos- sible to fool even the Institute’s dog patrols.

Scene #3: The actual border crossing happens on a mist-shrouded

night. It can be described as a tense game of hide-and-seek with the border guards but the crossing is actually meant to succeed despite some close calls. On the Zone side, the landmark is a ruined church. The team spends the night in a graveyard.

Scene #4: Advancing from one landmark to another in daylight. The

anomalous region continues: a gas station, a railway bridge, a dead field, a line of logging trucks stopped on a forest road. By searching and taking risks the characters might be able to find something here as well. Every now and then, the characters run into challenges or baits that the players can try to grab if they wish.

As evening falls, the stalkers arrive at what is supposed to be the border of an oasis. The oasis seems to have burned into ashes and they also find the remains of the previous expedition. Two skeletons surrounded by bullet casings. One of them has shot himself. A bit further in, there’s a third one: just a charred skeleton. Even the belt buckle has melted into a metal disk.

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THE GAMEMASTER’S BOOK

Scene #5: The stalkers carry on in the morning. They face a jungle

of charred trees and fallen trunks. Deep within, there is an old manor that looks like it is still intact. The artefact, some sort of lump of bony curves, is in the foyer and can be seen from the yard through the doorway. There is a hole in the ceiling above it, as if it had fallen from the heavens. When moved, it bursts into flame. Farther among the trees, there’s also a burst of flame and in the middle of it is a Burning Man, a very dangerous inorganism. It approaches but stops at the doorway. The manor catches fire in the terrible heat.

Scene #6: The stalkers must do something or they’ll burn with the

manor. The Burning Man can be distracted with loud noises or move- ment. Damaging it is nearly impossible. One of the adventurers re- members that the railway bridge crossed a river. Perhaps the Burning Man will avoid masses of water? When the adventurers make it to the river, the Burning Man vanishes.

Scene #7: The night passes peacefully and the next day the stalkers

reach the graveyard. In the middle of the night, the artefact sud- denly bursts into flame and they see the Burning Man rise up from the edge of the graveyard. Their flames reach toward one another. The stalkers can either abandon the artefact or suppress the flames with a coat, wet from the morning dew, and run for it. A nightly sprint through the Zone puts them in mortal danger but if they can remem- ber their original route,they have a chance. At the stream, the arte- fact goes out and the burning man vanishes into thin air.

Scene #8: After the previous scene playing around with border guards

would mostly be frustrating, so it is quiet on the other side. The flames have been noticed but that just makes the guards keep their distance. The artefact is cold and lifeless again.

Scene #9: The wounded are taken to borderland quacks and the

gear of the dead is divided up by the living. Maybe the stalkers will try to figure out what the artefact does. Fire behaves in strange and unexpected ways around it but that is all they can learn.

Scene #10: The dealer is sorry that the cartographer’s description

of the hazards was not honest but he sees it as just another downside of the profession. He offers a thousand per stalker for just the trip, and twenty thousand to the whole team for the artefact. The price may be haggled up to thirty thousand. With an artefact so poorly understood, you are unlikely to get any more on the open market. A month later, a research centre funded by the University of Lyon and a major European mobile phone manufacturer goes up in flames. In the security camera footage leaked to the news a Burning Man is seen walking down the hallway. In the aftermath, there is an embar- rassing scandal when it turns out the company had been acquiring artefacts illegally, past the Institute’s official channels.

The dealer who offered them the job disappears. For a while, also security on the border is clearly tighter. By their next adventure, the stalkers will hear that the Institute is now tracing the money traffic of their dealer and his own clients killed him to get rid of a potential witness. Oh, and there is a group of killers on their way to take out the stalkers as well. The next adventure is thus a part of the same continuity and flows naturally from the previous one.

STALKER:

The SciFi Roleplaying Game

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