Help - Search - Members - Calendar
Full Version: Aztechnology and Mayan myths
Dumpshock Forums > Discussion > Shadowrun
Chrysalis
Greets,

I have been toying with the idea for a grand finale with my Behind the Shadows group. As the campaign progresses they will get embroiled in a plot to discover the origins of VITAS.

Aztechnology in cooperation with Deus masquerading behind Horizon are doing exploration of a site from 15,000 BC in the Andean mountains. Thanks to global warming the ice sheet has shifted revealing the ruins.

The players gain access to a recent found mayan codex which tells of a Mayan warlord who heard about the site and found ancient weapons and items of power which they used. The owner of the site, the Mayan god of death, Ah Puch (Yum Cimil), is angered with the warlord by the obvious disregard of his things and visits on them a pox of blackened spots. The warlord is overthrown by his fearful people and the clergy, with the items returned to the site. The manuscript is then buried in a ceremonial cave and a stela is erected near the site to warn of its dangers.

The site is mostly destroyed due to its age. However Aztechnology has been able to excavate well preserved bodies and retrieve some of the devices found. I was thinking that the original inhabitants are ancient astronauts who were tasked on coming up with a new biological weapon or device for whatever interstellar war which is probably still raging on. There is a horrible accident and the inhabitants and their human lab rats are exposed. Most die of the mutations.

Neither Aztechnology or Horizon really have any clue what they have and the dangers.

What kinds of further thoughts changes, suggestions do you have?
Snow_Fox
local natives will want to keep everyone away from the spot. They know from legend it is taboo and anyone oging there will bring destruction on the world (which is how they think of their litlte patch of jungle)

Add a little disent to the corp teams by having some of their experts thinknig 'you know this is a really bad idea..."

That and jungles are dangerous places anyway. Maybe other htings are roaming qaorund the remaining glacial area

Maybe amazonia or some naturalist group like green War want this to be a protected site to restore the ice. (hey some of these fruit loops are already a few fries short of a happy meal today)
Backgammon
That's really fucking cool Chrys.

I wouldn't really modify anything. I see an opportunity to add a cool NPC in the form of the head of the excavation project. You can go with several interesting angle - maybe she's a fervent Aztlan patriot, maybe an obsessive researcher, etc. Just to give it some nice flavour.
Chrysalis
I was thinking that one thing that is going is actually a revolution among the jaguar guard which has been sent by Aztechnology to guard the location. The rites and traditions of these warriors mesh well with the site. That there is a wish to actually leave the site. There have been some minor sabotages, which has made Horizon increasingly nervous and have hired some external guards enabling the PCs to sneak into the location masquerading as, well, shadowrunners.

The jaguar guard with every discovery becomes sure this is the sacred place of Ah Puch (Yum Cimil) and that this amounts to no more than graverobbing at best and the destruction of an ancient sacred place at worst. Aztechnology has instilled them the belief that they are divine warriors of the gods. Aztechnology becomes an increasingly false god as they become impatient with the setbacks. I want to also give them genetic traits of the jaguar as well.

An overly obsessive, but disgraced archeologist reaching for fame and fortune would be the dig supervisor and the NPC nanny of the group.
ludomastro
I read this the first day you posted it but had to think about it.

I am going to assume that you are NOT using the Earthdawn backstory - which is fine.

A left over guardian is always good. Biological or mechanical - or a little of both. Something that creates a mana warp around itself would also be good. Even if it is not particularly dangerous it should look dangerous, screw with mana and ultimately scare your players.
Chrysalis
My players would EXPECT an Earthdawn backstory. If I want elves, fairies, and dragons I will go play D&D. Besides, why use fantasy tripe err trope when I can use the REAL myths. Unexpected keeps players and characters on their toes. Too old tropes and it becomes boring.

-Chrysalis
ludomastro
Not nitpicking just making sure I understand. The group I currently game with has little to no experience with SR in any form. For them the Earthdawn connection would be new and interesting. If that is not the case with your group then bravo for trying something new.

-----

Seriously, guardians of some kind. Perhaps the Mayan God of Death was inspired by the appearance of one of these ancient astronauts? Any chance they have friends/enemies? Were they physical from this universe? Or were they from an alternate one? Any chance they will come back?
Chrysalis
Alex, Earthdawn is a bit old hat with this group. It is a conspiracy theory game, so I am no longer working according to script. Otherwise, we end up with Monster Manuals and players who memorize them.

I want to keep them guessing. I want to keep it as a mystery. If they do come back it won't be pretty, anyone who can travel between stars is not doing it with anything comparable to Shadowrun tech. I was thinking that they have genetically engineered themselves for stasis. Einstein was right you can't go faster than light. Instead you change the rules, you redesign the species and the ships to last for a very, very long time.

On earth they become accustomed to being treated like gods, so they believe themselves to be gods. The chimera trait of the jaguar guard appropriated to Aztechnology is such a trait passed on as a recessive gene. The myths build up around them.

They could be dead or in stasis, depending on how I wish to shift the plot or add that twist. Every answer should lead to two more questions.

I do not believe there should be an ancient boogieman in the forest, because if there is it has been there for 17,000 years and will most likely will be more force of nature than creature.
Ovarwa
Hi,

It looks to me like you have a classic Doctor Who episode on your hands. Not the run-of-the-mill 90 minute four part episodes, mind you, but a full-blown seven chapter epic.

Except with more firefights and (hopefully) fewer corridors.

We have a classic setup. A group of scientists and engineers undertake to unearth something that Man Isn't Meant to Know Yet. The mission is plagued by unexpected mishaps. Worse, the local savages are less than cooperative. If only they weren't such ignorant fools, believing in their foolish, ignorant myths! If only their shaman weren't so powerful...

Every second episode, the characters' idea of what is going on must undergo a radical revision. Things aren't how they thought they were... the stakes are bigger.

Do the characters think the episode is about a VITAS cure? Fine. By the end of episode 1, the PCs realize that the cure isn't real and someone is faking data. By the end of episode 2, there is a VITAS outbreak. By the end of episode 3, the VITAS outbreak is the least of their concerns, because someone on the team has created a VITAS strain that is far more deadly. Autopsies on the dead creatures found in the artifact might provide clues to a cure, except someone has trashed the labs and the natives are mustering to attack in order to prevent their gods from being desecrated. By the end of episode 4, the dead creatures who have been cut into are discovered to still be alive; worse, they are waking up feeling quite displeased with their treatment. By the end of episode 5, that misunderstanding has been cleared up, or at least postponed, because.....

Andean mountains? That's Inca country. Sun god, human sacrifice, vast empire waiting to be reborn, vengeance, lost vaults of gold, killer mummies....


But that's just me,

Ken
ornot
Whatever you do, don't go to Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull for inspiration. I was sooo disappointed with that movie I want to start a get George Lucas off Crystal Meth campaign.
Chrysalis
Wel lit had the usual tropes Indiana Jones. I was actually hesistant to even think of anceitn astronauts, but in the Shadowrun world if you say that dragons begetted humans and are still around like some giant Elminister I am going to walk away. To be honest Elminster is one of the few times I have ever thrown a book straigh across the room with enough force for the pages to go flying.

Anyways, my point is that I want the mystery to be wrapped in conspiracy while the reality is often very venal. I was even thinking that while we can claim ancient astronauts etc. It can also be a village up in the Andes killed by hemorrhagic fever about 3000 BC which meant that there are now all the ancient myths about the place. Not because of alien experimentation, but rather because of the dangers of a disease that the majority of South America has immunity to but European descendants don't.

However as the end I don't really wish that all the alien stuff and the weird stuff was just smoke and mirrors, but there is something to reward players with.
darthmord
QUOTE (Chrysalis @ Apr 6 2009, 08:43 AM) *
Anyways, my point is that I want the mystery to be wrapped in conspiracy while the reality is often very venal. I was even thinking that while we can claim ancient astronauts etc. It can also be a village up in the Andes killed by hemorrhagic fever about 3000 BC which meant that there are now all the ancient myths about the place. Not because of alien experimentation, but rather because of the dangers of a disease that the majority of South America has immunity to but European descendants don't.


If you want to expand on this part, have the harmless-to-natives-but-deadly-to-everyone-else strain mutate once someone non-native catches it... thereby making it far worse than it originally was.

For the conspiracy twist, make the mutation turn out to be purposefully engineered by a corp. Perhaps by having the 'test subjects' (read: Runners, PC or NPC) having been 'innoculated' against local diseases (with something that will ultimately cause the disease to mutate upon infection).
ornot
What I really meant was don't have your macguffin be a magnetic alien skull, that returns your aliens to life. And for gods' sakes don't have them look like greys!

Your actual story sounds pretty sweet, and a nice change from the usual urban Shadowrun.

Personally I'd leave it all smoke and mirrors, and damn the players for being greedy grasping fiends! They should be able to squeeze some financial reward out of the corps, but it shouldn't be so easy as "Here is the Macguffin, BOOm, you have lots of money and can retire to your own personal Island. They shouldn't even be pissed at you if you do it well, and it is the end of the adventure anyway.
nezumi
I don't think the Mayans ever made it far enough south (or north) to encounter glaciers. However, you could reference the deep, underwater cave system under the Yucatan which was believed to be the passageway to Xibalba, the Mayan underworld (and which still are almost completely unexplored, but are showing up tremendous cultural finds).

This also gives you the opportunity to include completely unique biomes, since that's precisely what these are. People are finding animals there that exist no where else in the world. Imagine what happens when magic hits.

As for your 'solution' - don't overthink it. I'm not huge on interstellar visitors, but if you've already pulled in Earthdrawn, it'll hardly be jumping the shark. Just make the creature is very non-humanoid (or only sorta humanoid) and don't feel like you have to make it obvious what the critter is exactly. My players have told me some of the best games I've run are those where they were left wondering what the hell they'd just escaped from (but not eager to go back and find out nyahnyah.gif )
HardSix
QUOTE (Chrysalis @ Apr 4 2009, 04:19 PM) *
Greets,

I have been toying with the idea for a grand finale with my Behind the Shadows group...
Sounds awesome so far. rotate.gif Love the cave system idea too; there was a recent PBS show about Kilauea volcanos where the insects in a dormant lava cave system have evolved into new species in less than 400 years... wonder what could have evolved under the South Americans' feet in those 15K years.

QUOTE
the original inhabitants are ancient astronauts who were tasked on coming up with a new biological weapon or device for whatever interstellar war which is probably still raging on. There is a horrible accident and the inhabitants and their human lab rats are exposed. Most die of the mutations.
Maybe this bio-phage is some strain of VITAS engineered to kill flesh-form Horrors/Invae; why couldn't the cycle of magic and Scourge occur on multiple planets besides Earth? Did the Travelers alien.gif gene-tweak an ancient Earth strain of VITAS into their bio-phage, or did a small amount of their version mutate into the modern stain of VITAS? Maybe they intentionally released controlled amounts to document what it killed, how it would mutate in the Earth biosphere, and if/how Earth fauna would develop immunities?

Suppose the Travelers hibernated (oversleep?) on Earth while their experiment takes years to complete... in the meantime, Horrors/Invae successfully invade and Inhabit everyone else back on the Travelers' planet. Even if their experiment is now successful, do they even have a planet to return to? What if the fleshform life on the Traveler's planet have now evolved into a completely new sentient species over those 15K years? Would the new species be allies or enemies to the original Travelers or the original Horrors/Invae? What if the Earth-side Travelers try to communicate with their home (or the Runners accidentally set off a distress beacon), and the new species decide to pay a visit?
HardSix
Edit: I moved this reply (mine) to here, as I was getting off-topic.
Necro Sanct
What is the reasoning behind Horizon working with Aztechnology? Horizon seems like it was created for the the sole purpose of being a major counterweight to Aztechnology. They are competing in most of the same markets, the PCC/Aztlan issues and other things further support this.

It seems more plausable that Horizon would catch wind, from NeoNET, of what Aztechnology is up to. They would take steps to exploit the situation for their own gain through use of runners and members of a secret shell organization run by The Horizon Project. Perhaps this event gives the spark which allows The Horizon Project to take further steps in it's real mission, let's say...removing Aztlan from the face of the world through a contained VITAS trial at the site, to later be systematically enacted if the results are positive. The runners are sent to the location under the impression that they are consultants/security for the "actors" of a new movie being filmed.

I have to add that deja vu happened while I was replying to this which sort of wierds me out right now.
This is a "lo-fi" version of our main content. To view the full version with more information, formatting and images, please click here.
Dumpshock Forums © 2001-2012