#Hunt Module Timbern

[themonstrousarchives]

Hunt: Timbern

Apollo “Paul” Robbins [] [] [] [] [] [] [] HP, Armor: 2

Description: The Divine wishes to begin his ritual, but some obstacles are in his way, including a fellow Avatar of the Desolation. An owner of a logging company which is doing mining speculation on the company’s property.

Hook, Session goals: Set up the beginning of the end. Refocus on the Divine’s character goal of bringing about the apocalypse, and secure more resources or allies (or both, potentially) for the Ritual.

This session, the ‘monster’ is a boss.

Apollo “Paul” Robbins

9mm Pistol- 2-harm close loud

Monster Type: Queen (to possess and control)

Powers: Resistant to fire, melting and reforming at will. Can slowly raise the temperature in an area and cook people or things from the inside out without them noticing.

Attacks: 

Contact Burn- 1-harm ignore armor magic fire hand

Frog Boil- 4-harm area innocuous

Weaknesses: Burying him in his own mine, labor unionization, press exposure on the company’s license violations (and the legal consequence of the state enforcing replanting policy)

Minions:

Foreman- Ed Dominici: ([] [] [] [] [] HP, Armor: 1) Loyal to Paul and the company over his workers, about 75% are temporary. Of those 30% are undocumented.

Construction & Loggers ([] [] [] [] []  Armor: 1 for each NPC)- Mostly loyal to the company or at least are not willing to jeopardize their job. Most of them brag about how hard they work, intentionally forgoing breaks as a masculine competition of one-upmanship. A few sensitive souls do exist, and will privately be open to emotional pleas.

Lucas Taylor

Dylan Willis

Patrick Riley

Marvin Pena

Cesar Gould

Brody Hester

Owen Davidson

Kevin Holland

Eli MacGuire

Ramon Costa

Justin Villa

Ramón Cortés

Manuel Cabal

José Mariano

Joaquín Espiga

Ernesto Gallo

Rafael Ortiz

Jonatán Reyes

Countdown:

“Unskilled” workers are hired en masse to build and made to swear utmost secrecy about the mining project. Most workers are... legally vulnerable, and as such have little to no interest compromising their situation.

Robbins Logging Company builds a mine in a hidden corner of the company property. 

The mine opens into a cave system, gold (and pyrite) excavation begins.

Apollo begins arranging dealings with the extracted resources to enrich himself further, filling a bunker with gold bullion. Robbins Logging Company becomes financially intertwined with Lobos Ltd; their security services made necessary.

Due to corporate pressure, the state of California repeals many legal environmental protections to the area, and allows for wholesale destruction of the forest and surrounding biomes.

Entire animal populations collapse from habitat destruction. Dozens of vulnerable workers are killed in workplace accidents. This goes unreported.

Humboldt county, environmentally devastated, becomes an economic wasteland as well, as Lobos Ltd and Robbins Logging Co move elsewhere.

Bystanders:

Construction, Loggers, Miners ([] [] [] [] []  Armor: 1 for each NPC)- see above. Most will not be very helpful but the soft ones will.

William Hayes ([] [] [] [] []  Armor: 1)- a leftist, but is keeping his politics secret, more or less. He could be pushed to encourage the workers to organize but will need help with it by providing resources and cash for the workers to support their families while they strike or otherwise organize.

Locations:

Logging site- obstacles: Foreman (social rolls), the workers

Mine-

1. Rubble coats the ground here. Among the scattered rocks are rusted cans, the occasional pick or hammer, and other antique refuse.

2. More rubble here, but a crack in the wall allows a trickle of spring water through to a small pool in the top corner. There is a box of dynamite in the bottom right corner, farthest away from the corner with the water.

3. A long passageway that betrays many hundred year old footprints, shockingly still intact after so much time. The footprints lead past the cart to the rubble on the right side.

4. Behind the rubble is a Buried avatar, or perhaps Buried Avatars (the collective ghosts of a union who want to destroy and drown the bourgeois in their vengeance). Negotiating with them will be volatile depending on the PCs- if this were any other adventure they would be a full-fledged monster (powers: overwhelming and subsuming, trampling, destruction. weakness: division, separation, isolation, the government, leftist infighting).

5. This chamber has three entrances, and at the end of the center path is a modern mining drill that’s been assembled. To the left of it is an antique hand-crank drill. The modern drill requires some specialized knowledge or training to set it, which Apollo has. If he is killed, some of the construction workers will be able to set it.

Cold Open: 

An old Volkswagen bus, painted in psychedelic colors and shapes, jostles its passengers as it drives slowly through the redwood forest under cover of night. Inside, an ancient, distorted voice croons a melancholy tune over an equally distorted acoustic guitar. The driver and passenger however, don’t sing along- their faces are downcast, the wrinkles forming on their old visages incongruent with the laugh lines that have made their mark.

There’s a gravity to this drive, as if they know this will be the last time they do this. The driver- a long haired man with grey hair that’s yellowed over the years of rough living, puts the bus into park and looks at his partner in crime, love, free love, and cultural appropriation. She wears thick round glasses that magnify her eyes comically, and an old felt hat stained with moss with way, way too many ratty feathers tucked into its band. She pats his upper arm and smiles meekly, like a turtle trying to sell someone a crystal.

The pair step out of the bus, chains in hand, with weights attached and dragging in the leaf litter behind them. They stand before a large tree, marked for logging the next day, when someone steps out from behind them.

“Donna. Craig.“

“Is that you, Apollo? Our little boy...”

“It’s Paul. That isn’t my name anymore. It hasn’t been in a long time.”

“Dancer? Get the chains in place-”

“Donna you should stop where you are and go back to whatever parking lot will have you and your decrepit relic. If you know what’s good for your miserable little lives. What little life you have left.”

“Apoll- Paul, we know we made mistakes raising you, but this is beyond that. What you’re doing here, it’s been wrong since before we ever donned tie dye. You know that we can’t- even if you’re our son, we can’t look away.”

“That’s what I thought you’d say.” The tall man stares his parents down, unmoving.

Hours later, a pillar of smoke billows as Paul Robbins of Robbins Logging Company sits down at his desk and lights a cigar.