I have a campaign I’m running in 4th edition, so set in 2070. A lot of the background matches the published material. The biggest change is that around 2061 Aztechnology made a play to bring the Horrors into the world. This was stopped by a coalition led by Lofwyr. A former group of PC Shadowrunners worked as point on the missions. The end result was that no Horrors came through but there was a major magical disaster affecting Mexico (country-wide background count), severe destruction of key Aztech resources and a great weakening of the corporation. Sections of Aztechnology were absorbed by other corporations, but against odds Aztechnology survived and has clawed its way back to a respectable presence. It's probably the weakest of the current mega-corps, but it's still a mega-corp.

The current campaign is set in Denver and the scenario (code named Treasure Hunt) revolves around a lead on an old and believed abandoned Aztech black ops base hidden SW of Denver. The base is concealed under a stone quarry and off a deep elevator shaft (~2 miles) that connects to a set of coal mine tunnels extending through several old mines to as far south as Pueblo.

As I have it currently the quarry is defunct and had a hidden elevator in the floor which dropped to a large storage chamber. The fact that the quarry had a hidden storage at least implies that it hoped to find something more valuable than granite, or that something else was planned for it. I have some ideas of what I want to do with this, but other ideas welcome. Hidden in a corner of the storage chamber was a second hidden elevator dropping to the mines below. Combined this finishes a smuggling route going to a point as far south as Pueblo. Off the deep elevator shaft is the entrance to the hidden facility.

Ok, the base itself was affected as part of collateral damage from Ghostwalker’s assault on Denver with sections of the base itself suffering from cave-ins. The damage opened a way for a pack of Naga to move in and finish off their prey, converting the base to a new nest. It was just bad luck for the base’s occupants. The timing for the base falling occurred at a time of great upheaval for Aztechnology. So calls for support while the base was under assault got lost in the chaos. At this point the base isn’t even within standard Aztechnology records anymore given the vast destruction that occurred within Aztechnology itself in the failed attempt to return the horrors.
So, here are the questions I have.

1. Any suggestions for tightening the background for making this a facility that has been unexplored or reviewed by Aztechnology over the past 9 years?
2. The group contains a number of mages with a penchant for using spirits as scouts. They’ve encountered a force 10 mana barrier protecting the base or at least the front door. I’d like to have them need to actually get in before being able to find out what’s sealed within the base.
3. Does anything short of a mana barrier stop an elemental from going wherever they want to send it? A background count might make it uncomfortable, but I can’t see having a high one there or the number of magic using Naga probably wouldn’t have stayed.
4. Is there anything besides a mana barrier that will stop a projecting mage from going wherever they want? Does lead or any other common material prevent astral movement?
5. Right now I’m planning on having the base completely unpowered. It’s been almost a decade so I doubt any sort of backup generator would still be functioning. It also isn’t the sort of facility that would need or expect to need a long term backup in the case of a power failure. Does anyone see a reason to have the base powered and if so, what explanation would make the most sense?
6. What sorts of threats besides the Naga would you see making sense? Certain things such as pressure plates, internal drone defenses etc. would have had to have been disabled for the Naga to live there. Bound spirits wouldn’t be around still, so I’m leaning towards just the Naga as the threat.
7. Any suggestions on what the maximum reward would be for fully clearing the base? I want to make this a real test of their abilities and force them to deal with a real magical threat. Currently they’re in the mid-sixties for Karma and other than one extensively customized vehicle have earned maybe 50 -70K tops in money/equipment each. Not enough to provide for any serious equipment or implant upgrades. I’d like to start making that a possibility for them, but I also want to ensure that I don’t have each mage with a handful plus sustaining foci etc.

Any thoughts or suggestions would be welcome.

Thanks!

With a sweep of his...

Hat

Sounds good, and has given me some ideas.

I wonder how many places like this there could be, after the Matrix crashes scramble or delete data ??

I would say the base should have some, minimal power - you'd probably needs air pumps and filtration for it to be habitable..
..With geothermal power for ease of use/maintenance

I'd not reward them with cash, as such [unless they are actually given the task by someone]..
..But almost anything could be there - old computers running in freezers [so they'd be very fast], experimental gear [whose plans were lost in the crashes], rare documents, orichalcham [naturally occurring in Snowdonia, if I remem correctly], big bad nasties [Balrog, anyone ??]

Very dungeon-crawl-like, which, given the scenario, actually works.
And its kind of an alternate-history piece, which is a neat way to go too. (I'm a big fan of What If...? scenarios)

To the questions...



Well, its a Black Ops facility, so a limited group of people knew about it. If most of them were killed during the conflict, then it very well might have "vanished" from Aztech's records. They might have also written it off as too risky when Ghostwalker came to town.



Earth. Rock, soil, etc. are part of the Gaiasphere, which astral bodies can't penetrate (except very, very, stupidly slowly). So, they pretty much need to get inside before scouting things out.



See above.

Also, unless they've changed it from previous editions, active Magical Lodges generate a Mana Barrier when in use.

There might be a problem with the barrier though. If Naga are dual natured, and I think they are, then they'll have to have some way to get through the barrier. That could be as simple as the Naga being the originators of the barrier... But it certainly won't be left over from 9 years ago.



What kind of power did it run on in the first place? Fuel cells? Nuclear or fusion might still be servicable.

Even if the power can be turned back on, maybe there's damage to repair? The Naga might have sabotaged the power system to put the former occupants at a disadvantage?
"They cut the power..."
"How could they cut the power?! They're just animals, man!"

Of course, if the power is off, it might be a bit difficult to descend to the lower levels...

If the power is off, allow them to get the power on the upper level working, maybe through a portable generator? Just enough juice to get the lift working and maybe get the lights on the upper level turned on.

The lower level should be as pitch black as you can get. Low-Light won't work without some ambient light, so they better have Thermo or Flashlights. The mages could astrall percieve, but that would just open them up to all kinds of astral nastiness. Think residual background count.



Oh, lots of options.

Spirits, first off. Naga are magically active, iirc. So, they could maybe summons spirits? Give those PC summoned spirits a run for their money. Also consider that a relatively weak free spirit could really hose the PCs up in a big way.

The PCs might also trigger an intruder alert, especially if they get the power back online. Imagine some Aztech security dood sitting around considering which Miracle Shooter upgrade to unlock, when all of a sudden he gets a system alert from some place he didn't know existed and that doesn't show up on the corp database anywhere. It might take them some time, but an Azzie team almost certainly would be dispatched to check it out. They might arrive just a bit before the PCs finish up the exploration, complicating their efforts to leave with whatever loot they managed to haul back up the shaft.

And, there could be all kinds of bioengineered nasties and paracritters that either escaped or found the place and decided to set up shop. Think things like Phase Spiders (best D&D monster ever, imo, and easy to port to SR), snakes (snakes in a black ops facility!), and so on.



I'd make it contigent on how much they managed to get past the Azzies (if you use that option). You could also have the lift to the lower level break, limiting them to whatever the could carry out on the first trip. Maybe it gets damaged in the fighting with the Azzies (again, if you use that option)?

Also consider that the tech is 2061 era, which is a lifetime ago in terms of the SOTA curve. They might find some guns or gear. Maybe some drones that could be tuned up. No vehicles. Maybe a magical toy or two (potentially dangerous with the Blood Magic and all). If they get hard cash out of the deal, it'll be from selling paydata.

To determine how much...

I'd ask each player (in private) to name one piece of gear their character have been wanting to buy. Tell them to make it reasonable. Take the average price of all the stuff and give them about 90% of that. So, they won't be able to instantly get the item (unless its not that expensive), but they'll be well within striking distance. And if you were feeling really nice, they might even find the stuff in the facility or on the corpse of the opposition (if you use the Azzie complication).


-paws

You definitely have a great concept with this run. In my game, the megacorporations are beginning a full out, military campaign against Aztechnology which my runners will be getting caught up in. A base like this has fantastic possibilities.

Shedim could work. A Tamanous body shop in the complex could work well in there as well. They would just have to use some sort of portable generators. Bug spirits could work in there too. If the complex is large enough (which it sounds like it would be), perhaps more than one type of bug colony has infested the base (like fly spirits and ant spirits). If that is the case, the runners could get caught up in a cross fire between the two colonies, looking to wipe the other colony out and claim the entire complex for themselves.

SURGE critters may be fun. You would have to convert them from SR3, but includng them would add some nice continuity in the storyline, such as demon rats from YOTC. Heck, even enough devil rats may make things interesting for the runners.

Free spirits, including shadow spirits, could make for great adversaries for the runners. Just fill in the blanks as to what they may be up to, such as possibly imprisoning and torturing the souls of the soldiers that were at this base when it fell.

Its also possible that this has become a hideout for another runner team, who will fight to defend what they have already claimed. This would be a good location for a smuggling ring too. If its a smuggling ring, the runners could potentially keep what the smugglers are hiding in the complex.

Just some ideas that I thought of.

3: Use a 2-point aspected count in addition to and extending slightly beyond the barrier, reducing the force of all spirits & spells by 2 before they try to pass through the barrier. It will also significantly weaken the mages in the facility while increasing the power of the Naga's. The mage's should still be quite useful, but the focus would be a little more on defense & the sammies.

4: I forget exactly how it works, but dense/thick materials can stop astral movement - example being a projecting mage can only go a few feet into the earth before encountering extreme resistance (only applies to passing through the earth, not going through caves, tunnels, etc). Of course, that may be something with the gaiasphere instead of the dirt.

To power up even the lights of something like this would take a big generator. To run the elevators (assuming they work after 9 years of corrosion and no lubrication) would take more. Like a semi-sized cat gen set, with someone who understands how to do commercial electrical work hooking it up. The only character I've ever made who could claim to know how to hook up a >300KW generator was the fusion physicist for Frank's Mars game....

I'd suggest learning to rappel and ascend, and bring lots of batteries. Bad things can happen in the dark.

Thanks for all the thoughts. The base I'd been thinking of originally at least was like 30 folks or so, primarily an opfor location, so living quarters, armory, with a small amount devoted to an office so to speak. Naga are only listed as grouping up to 24 so that was part of the reason to limit the size. I may reconsider that though.

There's actually a concealed rear exit from the facility as a bolt method if necessary. Door is 1 way from the inside. The naga gained entrance because the facility sits near a set of natural caves and when the earthquake style damage happened it opened a fissure from the natural caves into the rear of the base.

The Aztechnology guy monitoring a board and possibly seeing something flare to life is definitely a nice touch.

The base was probably powered by fuel cells or a standard generator, given my original intent for size. I may reconsider that.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

So, some things to include:
Bunkrooms, four-up, for squads
Twins for senior NCOs/warrant officers
Singles for the officers
Rec room
Dining room
Kitchen
Commisary Stores
OC's office
Adjutant's office
Open plan office space for all other troops; doubles as briefing room
Several smaller briefing/meeting/planning rooms
Armoury/Magazine
Sergreant-at-arms office
Armourer's workshop
Comms/server room/suite
Power/ventilation/utilities rooms
Garage
Vehicle/Mechanic shop



I wouldn't base the size of the base on "who came after", but on its original designed function.



When people put in secret bases like this you better bet they've done their geology homework. And given the handy caves, the Azzies would probably have made use of them.



Depending on its intended potential uses, you might want to have either a geothermal, or just a plain heat pump power source as backup. Either can work pretty indefinitely if not interfered with. Without a long-life reserve, it's possible that any team erturning to the facility after it's lain unused for a time would have to make a manual descent unless there's an auxiliary way of powering the lift from the surface. Given its covert nature, fuel cells (liquid fuel - methanol etc, rather than hydrogen) would be a better bet than generators that have to hide their exhaust, thermally and chemically, and have the issue of getting that exhaust to the outside world.

Nice base for the party maybe if they can get it cleaned out quiet-like.

Excellent point. And a good rundown of the rooms you might want in the floor plan.

Idle thoughts:

• The Azzies discovered the cave system, originally a Naga nesting ground, almost by accident.
• Azzie mages originally used Earth Spirits/Elementals to carve the existing caves into something more servicable.
• The original plan for the base used the rest of the cave system as the "quick getaway" backdoor.
• The base probably got up and running right about when the drek hit the fan for Aztech (or maybe a few months before). Probably not long enough to build up much of a background count. In addition to the deal with trying to bring the Horrors across, the military conflicts that ensued, and Ghostwalker coming to town... all of a sudden you have a couple dozen irritable, hormonal Nagas coming home to find the nesting ground they've been using since the Awakening have been taken over and destroyed by a bunch of filthy humans.

Incidentally, if the cave system is situated closer to the base, then you get even more opportunities to throw paracritter nasties at the PCs.



Or it could be sold off to an interested party, probably for big bucks, if they can get the place fixed up. Anyother source of cash maybe?

Sounds like a perfect hive or roach warren to me...but if you've got your heart set on nagas then go for it

In the magic book there are a couple things that stop projecting mages. FAB bacteria and some kind of magical Ivy (forgot the name) come to mind. The Ivy may not make much sense, but the FAB bacteria could.


Possibly they used thermal heat to power the place; It might not be on, but the possibly to turn it back on might be there.

Ok, here's the first pass at the entrance. I still haven't decided quite how extensive the base will be, but any base will need a way in. The entrance itself is heavily fortified as it's simpler to use the main entrance as a choke-point rather than require individual segments to be quite as defensible. the base will be run off of geo-thermal power and the room breakdown Shiloh provided will likely serve as a core for the base. Thanks for all the suggestions so far! Any feedback welcome.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

General Base notes:
The base was completed in early 2061 and while state of the art at the time is decidedly behind the curve now. Everything is hard wired as widespread use of wireless hadn’t been common, so access to environmental controls such as lighting requires actually finding switches or jacking in.

Concealed Door: 100’ down the elevator shaft is a concealed door that provides access to the base. For anyone who knows approximately where the door should be, finding it requires an extended perception test (12, 10 minutes). Searching all 2 miles of the elevator shaft itself requires an extended perception test (12, 1 day). Once discovered, finding the access panel is fairly easy (4, 1 minute). There are two access methods permitted. One is a fingerprint scanner, the other is a keypad. Successful use of either individually will result in the door being opened, though a failure to use both will result in a silent alarm and arguably a greeting party.

Current condition: Damage to the base structure has cut off the biometric data feed. Even with an appropriate individual, this piece will not be active. The good news is that the alarm is also severed so the PCs simply need to bypass the keypad for entry.

Entrance: Behind the door off the elevator shaft is a tunnel approximately 4 meters wide and 70m in length. The walls are surprisingly decorative with a wide variety of carved reliefs while the floors are tiled. While attractive, they are uninformative as to a potential source or style. Every 6 meters is an alcove on each side, enough to provide cover against assault. The alcoves are triangular cut outs providing far less cover coming in than going out. Every 10 meters is a decorative grill running floor to ceiling and 2m wide making the approach a bit of an obstacle course, intended to prevent quick progress to the door at the far end. Ceiling mounted turrets with light machine guns are spaced every 15 meters to provide cover, making this entrance difficult to take. Careful examination of the hall will discover regular gas venting in each of the alcove areas and in spots in between to release additional gas. Two different gases may be vented at a time. Typically one decreases visibility while the other is a sleep or nerve agent. Spotting the gas vents requires a Perception (4) visual check. There are also a number of “eyes� within the hallway as well. These are tied to fiber optic cables and mage goggles allowing one or more mages to assist with the defense from behind closed doors. Spotting any of these eyes requires a Perception (5) visual check. The several security cameras covering the hallway aren’t as concealed and only require a Perception (3) visual test. There are both standard and emergency lighting in this hall. All lighting and security here are hard wired to controls on the other side of the main door. The tile floor conceals a large number of pressure pads used to aid the targeting of individuals within the hall.

Current condition: The hall has a moderate amount of rock and debris in it from part of the tunnel ceiling collapsing. The path to the far end is navigable, though will require moving some rock to get around one of the decorative grates or the grate’s removal. Consider the grates to have an armor rating of 8 and a structure rating of 7. (See page 157), the twisted form of a turret can be seen on the ground while a couple of fiber optic cables dangle from the ceiling. Emergency lighting is active here and the pressure sensors are pretty much useless.

Questions I'd want to have answers ready for:

The door: how does it operate? Is it heavy enough to require servomotors? Swing, slide, Iris? Once the locks have been relesased (every entry kit will have a way of providing the power for that operation, is it an emergency manual-open or do they need to feed a larger power supply through the control circuits (which aren't designed for it and so may burn out) to open the door? Or is the base power still active on that circuit. How hard is the door to cut?

The wall decorations: I'd've thought they'd be pretty distinctively Azzie... the screens too. They might even incorporate iconography relevant to the Special Forces division that set the installation up.

The defenses: are the LMGs salvageable by removal? Are the LMG systems still serviceable if they could be accessed? How much cover do the grilles provide? I gather they're pierced, but they'd still be a pain for the turrets to shoot through and provide some protection to intruders. It seems like a strange combination of assets. Having the alcoves actually *in* the corridor seems like a strange defense; better to have firing ports... I gt what you're tying to do with the screen/grille arrangement. Would that be better achieved with something like drop-down *nets* that don't materially impede gunfire? Or more functional grilles, like prison bar-gates, I'm thinking. Decorative can be difficult to make functional.

If you want to drive out intruders in a situation like this, napalm-like fireyness is pretty effective.

I like the above suggestion for Shedim, maybe inhabiting the dead decaying corpses of the staff (security detail mechanics, janitors and scientist/engineers) all were trapped when the base went into lockdown. Even maybe a now uncontrolled blood spirit left over from a corporate mage who is now dead or inhabited by a Master Shedim.
This kind of reminds me of Doom 3. I like it!

The door is fairly thick and would swing in. The door would be 8 inches of stone and steel on a well balanced pivot, so easier to move than expected for its weight. The entry kit would have sufficient power to release the locks and the door can easily be handled from there.

As for how hard the door would be to cut, say Armor 24, structure 17.



Nope. The base will always run the risk of being indentified and infiltrated or attacked. I don't see why they'd have any reason to provide intel on the organization behind the ops, especially when a few well placed charges such as the server room would deny an opponent any opportunity to compromise the data and operations.



The LMGs could be salvaged but would probably need at least some basic maintenance before working smoothly. I'd probably provide a couple die penalty to their use for neglect unless characters actively service them. I'll also probably include a greater glitch chance (half minus 1 in ones) until that service as well.

As for the decorative grilles, I didn't do a good job of describing them. They're not too far off prison bars at least in terms of cover. They would have curves and angles, but again not be much of an issue. As an alternative I might see about concealed sentry guns and painted paper panels perhaps 3' high that arguable could be run through. of course the damage a body would take from running through a monowire mesh woven into the paper would get messy, but details, details.




True, but leaves little left for counter-intelligence.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

Fair point. The reason I had in mind for having the familiar iconography would have been largely for morale purposes. Maintaining esprit de corps on a long deployment, f'rex. Entirely optional.



Have the fougasse half way down the corridor, so that if anyone gets *past* it, they're cut off from escape by a curtain of fiery death and intimidated by the screaming of superheated gases from their teammates' lungs...

Ok, I've reworked the base and have the maps completed. There are 3 copies. The first is the general floorplan. It includes listings for all rooms and doors, but no labels. It's included in case the characters hack the system and pull up the floor plan. The second is the original base including labels. The third is the base in the condition it's in now including all the locations for the nagas and devil rats as well as the rocks and debris and what it will take to move past them.

My only challenge at this point is finding a place to post them so I can share them. I think I've got space, but I'll have to check after I get home from work. If someone else would like to host them I can provide the files. They're less than 2 MB for the 3.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

You can set up a Wiki on Wikispaces. Its pretty simple to use and, if you're ona budget like I am, its free. Just upload the pix to the files section.

Thanks for the tip on the wiki space. Here's a link to the page with the maps.

Maps

With a sweep of his...

Hat

Neat. What program did you use to make the maps?

Excel. I was out of graph paper.

With a sweep of his...

Hat

Excel? Wow, you're determined. Anyway, looks good.

One thing: 3 miles seems like quite a hike just to get to the vehicles, especially carrying mission gear. Did they have some kind of dedicated rail system for to rapidly transport them to the hangar?