The Golden Bands
Act One
Setting:
The majority of the action in this Act takes place in and around a public storage rental site. Beyond that, however, the individual Watcher running this event is free to decide what city or metropolitan area (or whatever/wherever) is used as a general setting. For myself, I intend to use Columbia, capitol city of South Carolina, as that’s both where me and my gamer-group live, and where we have chosen to set our ongoing MHP campaign. For my game then the storage site is located on Platt Springs Road, on a nice little business strip just down the highway from the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.
Prominent Locations
Rental storage site (Driveway area, Assorted junk and furniture, Vehicles)
This is where the action starts, with Grey’s mercenaries already having run afoul of the police and engaged in one aborted shootout with them (the sound of which likely being what attracts the Heroes). The storage site consists of one wide driveway down the center of the storage site, with a solid series of individual storage units along each side and capping off the far end. At the street-side the driveway is normally closed off by a security gate operated from a small guard shack, barely large enough to allow one security guard to sit and tend to patrons that come through. Currently it’s open and blocked off instead by two police cruisers.
Most of the contents of the storage unit the mercenaries are busy rummaging through has been thrown or shoved into the driveway in the process of ransacking it. Various cardboard boxes, assorted junk and a few sturdy pieces of furniture are scattered about the area nearby. Two police cruisers currently block the open security gate, with the officers taking cover behind them after having exchanged gunfire with the mercenaries a moment ago. The mercenaries have a full-sized dual-wheeled pickup truck parked near the storage unit with them, using that for cover themselves.
Two-lane highway (Busy traffic, Noisy)
Leading into the city from the suburban areas and lined with various businesses, this section of the highway has a significant amount of traffic both up and down the highway and between the businesses it supports. It’s a busy highway, with a large number of moving vehicles present at any given time.
Crowded parking lot (Parked cars, Open area, Frightened civilians)
Many of the businesses near the storage site sport medium sized parking lots, usually either sharing and adjoining the next business over. Most of the parking spots will be occupied by vehicles and there will be at least some measure of civilian foot traffic through any of them at any given time.
Suggested Doom Pool: 2d6
Hook
Again, this is largely up to the Watcher and players running the event since it is written with no particular setting or group of heroes in mind. Your heroes may be on patrol when they hear the short gunfight break out or hear reports of it over police band radio. Regardless, this is something best determined with your players.
Action Scene: Shootout at Frank’s Mini-Storage
However the Heroes show up on the scene they arrive after a short gunfight has already taken place. Having forced the security guard at the guard shack to accompany them to the storage unit they were quick to use him as a hostage to end the shootout before things got any farther out of hand. And, of course, to buy themselves enough time to finish ransacking the storage unit.
The mercenaries are professionals, intent on securing the Golden Bands from the storage unit before fleeing the scene, but have just realized they aren’t there. Having come to that frustrating revelation they’ve shaken the security guard a bit and learned from him that the renter came by that morning. They’re smart enough to figure out she must have taken the bands with her. As the Heroes arrive on the scene the mercs will have just made the decision that it’s time to bust out of there and escape. With automatic weapons, body armor and a dual-wheeled truck they’re confident enough they can ram through the police blockade, if not elude any resulting police pursuit entirely.
The Watcher is of course free to run the action scene however they like, but should give thought to timing here. If the Heroes are allowed to act first in the initial action order the mercenaries may well never make it out of the driveway. Naturally there’s nothing wrong with that but if the Watcher would prefer the action to spill out into another area, especially if they think a running chase scene down the crowded highway might be fun, then giving the mercs the first go and a chance to ram through the police blockade as their first action might be a good idea.
The Watcher should bear in mind also that these aren’t your typical brutish thugs. These are trained mercenaries hired to get a job done. They’re likely ex-military or even ex-law enforcement, at least fairly well trained and definitely well armed and outfitted. Perhaps not nearly as well as your typical superhero or villain, but these aren’t your average mooks. The Watcher should play them smart and take advantage of any opportunities (literally) that arise, as that’s exactly what mercenaries can be expected to do.
Nevertheless, your Heroes can be expected to make fairly short work of these guys. And that’s absolutely fine if they do. They’ll run into more of them later and find them not as easy to deal with under less favorable circumstances.
Mercenary Squad
In It For The Money
Disciplined
Team: 4d6
Combat Expert d8
Body Armor d6
Submachine Guns d8
SFX: Area attack; Add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.
SFX: Focus; You may replace two dice of equal size with one die +1 step larger.
Limit: Gear
Assets: Full-sized dual-wheeled pickup truck d6
Transition Scene: Investigation
Once the mercenaries are dealt with we can offer the Heroes an easy transition scene to do a little investigating and start figuring out what’s going on. Interrogating the mercenaries and the witnesses on the scene is the logical first step.
The mercenaries may freely admit they’ve been hired on to do a job, as well as what that job was (getting the Golden Bands from the storage unit and delivering them to their employer). If the Heroes have given them reason to be especially resentful of their treatment so far, they may well stall or play tough for a bit just for the sake of being ornery. It shouldn’t take much to get information out of them, though. The identity of their employer is another matter. That they will not be willing to divulge and if the Watcher determines the Heroes are likely to force that information out of them it may even be prudent to simply decide the mercs aren’t aware of their employer’s identity. This isn’t something the Heroes should learn just yet.
They can also learn from either the mercs or the storage site’s security guard (who’s been the mercs’ hostage up until this point) that the renter of that particular storage unit visited it early that morning and apparently took the Golden Bands with her. It will take some persuasion to convince the guard to identify the woman for them, as that’s rather against company policy. Nonetheless our Heroes very likely just saved the man’s life so it can be expected he’ll be easy to persuade.
The police on the scene will be interested at first only with securing the mercenaries; disarming them and making sure they’re restrained. After that they’ll probably allow the Heroes a little interaction with them while waiting for backup to arrive to help haul them away. That will depend of course on how the action scene played out. If our Heroes managed to level a block or two of private property in the course of the defeating the mercenaries then they might not be very agreeable. If they managed to defeat the mercs without a lot of collateral damage, then it can be expected they won’t require any convincing beyond simply asking politely for a moment to slap the mercs around a bit for info.
In the end the Heroes should ideally have the identity of the storage unit’s owner (Consuela Valdez) and know that the mercenaries were hired to retrieve an artifacts of some sort (with a general description the Golden Bands). The identity of their employer should still be unknown.
The Heroes may also activate Specialty Resources for additional information.
Business resources could provide information about Consuela, identify her father and provide information about Valdez Import/Export Company.
Covert or Crime resources might provide information about the mercenaries, though it would be up to the Watcher whether any links between them and the company are revealed. Even in such a case, Mr. Grey should not be identified as their employer. This would in fact be a good opportunity to throw the Heroes off his trail a little, if such a resource incorrectly links the mercenaries to Valdez rather than Mr. Grey.
Menace or Psych resources could result in further information being wrested from the mercenaries during their brief interrogation. Again, the Watcher should avoid naming Mr. Grey just yet but linking the mercenaries to his company can be done by simply dropping Valdez’s name rather than his.
Mystic resources could clue the Heroes in on the Golden Bands, suggesting their magical properties. Supposed immortality and vague allusions to dangerous powers granted to their owners could serve to clue the Heroes in that the bands aren’t merely a pretty set of expensive jewelry but a possibly dangerous artifact.
[Alternate Action Scene: Going After the Mercs]
Mercenary Headquarters (Crates of munitions, Lots of cover)
If the Heroes manage to get information about the mercenaries and realize the few they’ve (presumably) apprehended are hardly the whole group, they may decide to go after the rest of them, especially their leader. In such a case tracking the mercs to a warehouse downtown or any others suitable location for a mercenary gang’s headquarter could provide a nice action scene. It wouldn’t hurt the Event at all (perhaps the opposite) for the Heroes to get a chance to interact a bit with the mercenary captain, though the Watcher will have to be mindful to arrange his escape (or simply his release from police custody) since he’s needed in the second Act.
This, however, should play out differently from the rest of the Heroes conflicts with the mercs in this Event. In this case the Heroes face the mercenaries on their own turf, with their leader on hand to direct them. The mercenaries would then assault any invaders as a mob while the mercenary captain hangs back to grandstand, building up the doom pool to allow for additional dice and effects for the mercs, or even creating scene distinctions, splitting up the Heroes and using effect die from reaction rolls.
Should the Heroes catch on quickly that the mercenary captain is grandstanding, deciding to go after him instead, the situation reverses with the mob doing the same. They start making support actions for the mercenary captain and grandstanding for the Doom Pool to offer him Doom Dice to spend as well.
Play this action scene smart and use all your Watcher tricks. If the Heroes are going after the mercenaries early in the Event then it provides a good opportunity for them to learn that professional mercenaries make for a tougher fight than a bunch of street-level mook/thugs.
Act One
Setting:
The majority of the action in this Act takes place in and around a public storage rental site. Beyond that, however, the individual Watcher running this event is free to decide what city or metropolitan area (or whatever/wherever) is used as a general setting. For myself, I intend to use Columbia, capitol city of South Carolina, as that’s both where me and my gamer-group live, and where we have chosen to set our ongoing MHP campaign. For my game then the storage site is located on Platt Springs Road, on a nice little business strip just down the highway from the Columbia Metropolitan Airport.
Prominent Locations
Rental storage site (Driveway area, Assorted junk and furniture, Vehicles)
This is where the action starts, with Grey’s mercenaries already having run afoul of the police and engaged in one aborted shootout with them (the sound of which likely being what attracts the Heroes). The storage site consists of one wide driveway down the center of the storage site, with a solid series of individual storage units along each side and capping off the far end. At the street-side the driveway is normally closed off by a security gate operated from a small guard shack, barely large enough to allow one security guard to sit and tend to patrons that come through. Currently it’s open and blocked off instead by two police cruisers.
Most of the contents of the storage unit the mercenaries are busy rummaging through has been thrown or shoved into the driveway in the process of ransacking it. Various cardboard boxes, assorted junk and a few sturdy pieces of furniture are scattered about the area nearby. Two police cruisers currently block the open security gate, with the officers taking cover behind them after having exchanged gunfire with the mercenaries a moment ago. The mercenaries have a full-sized dual-wheeled pickup truck parked near the storage unit with them, using that for cover themselves.
Two-lane highway (Busy traffic, Noisy)
Leading into the city from the suburban areas and lined with various businesses, this section of the highway has a significant amount of traffic both up and down the highway and between the businesses it supports. It’s a busy highway, with a large number of moving vehicles present at any given time.
Crowded parking lot (Parked cars, Open area, Frightened civilians)
Many of the businesses near the storage site sport medium sized parking lots, usually either sharing and adjoining the next business over. Most of the parking spots will be occupied by vehicles and there will be at least some measure of civilian foot traffic through any of them at any given time.
Suggested Doom Pool: 2d6
Hook
Again, this is largely up to the Watcher and players running the event since it is written with no particular setting or group of heroes in mind. Your heroes may be on patrol when they hear the short gunfight break out or hear reports of it over police band radio. Regardless, this is something best determined with your players.
Action Scene: Shootout at Frank’s Mini-Storage
However the Heroes show up on the scene they arrive after a short gunfight has already taken place. Having forced the security guard at the guard shack to accompany them to the storage unit they were quick to use him as a hostage to end the shootout before things got any farther out of hand. And, of course, to buy themselves enough time to finish ransacking the storage unit.
The mercenaries are professionals, intent on securing the Golden Bands from the storage unit before fleeing the scene, but have just realized they aren’t there. Having come to that frustrating revelation they’ve shaken the security guard a bit and learned from him that the renter came by that morning. They’re smart enough to figure out she must have taken the bands with her. As the Heroes arrive on the scene the mercs will have just made the decision that it’s time to bust out of there and escape. With automatic weapons, body armor and a dual-wheeled truck they’re confident enough they can ram through the police blockade, if not elude any resulting police pursuit entirely.
The Watcher is of course free to run the action scene however they like, but should give thought to timing here. If the Heroes are allowed to act first in the initial action order the mercenaries may well never make it out of the driveway. Naturally there’s nothing wrong with that but if the Watcher would prefer the action to spill out into another area, especially if they think a running chase scene down the crowded highway might be fun, then giving the mercs the first go and a chance to ram through the police blockade as their first action might be a good idea.
The Watcher should bear in mind also that these aren’t your typical brutish thugs. These are trained mercenaries hired to get a job done. They’re likely ex-military or even ex-law enforcement, at least fairly well trained and definitely well armed and outfitted. Perhaps not nearly as well as your typical superhero or villain, but these aren’t your average mooks. The Watcher should play them smart and take advantage of any opportunities (literally) that arise, as that’s exactly what mercenaries can be expected to do.
Nevertheless, your Heroes can be expected to make fairly short work of these guys. And that’s absolutely fine if they do. They’ll run into more of them later and find them not as easy to deal with under less favorable circumstances.
Mercenary Squad
In It For The Money
Disciplined
Team: 4d6
Combat Expert d8
Body Armor d6
Submachine Guns d8
SFX: Area attack; Add a d6 and keep an additional effect die for each additional target.
SFX: Focus; You may replace two dice of equal size with one die +1 step larger.
Limit: Gear
Assets: Full-sized dual-wheeled pickup truck d6
Transition Scene: Investigation
Once the mercenaries are dealt with we can offer the Heroes an easy transition scene to do a little investigating and start figuring out what’s going on. Interrogating the mercenaries and the witnesses on the scene is the logical first step.
The mercenaries may freely admit they’ve been hired on to do a job, as well as what that job was (getting the Golden Bands from the storage unit and delivering them to their employer). If the Heroes have given them reason to be especially resentful of their treatment so far, they may well stall or play tough for a bit just for the sake of being ornery. It shouldn’t take much to get information out of them, though. The identity of their employer is another matter. That they will not be willing to divulge and if the Watcher determines the Heroes are likely to force that information out of them it may even be prudent to simply decide the mercs aren’t aware of their employer’s identity. This isn’t something the Heroes should learn just yet.
They can also learn from either the mercs or the storage site’s security guard (who’s been the mercs’ hostage up until this point) that the renter of that particular storage unit visited it early that morning and apparently took the Golden Bands with her. It will take some persuasion to convince the guard to identify the woman for them, as that’s rather against company policy. Nonetheless our Heroes very likely just saved the man’s life so it can be expected he’ll be easy to persuade.
The police on the scene will be interested at first only with securing the mercenaries; disarming them and making sure they’re restrained. After that they’ll probably allow the Heroes a little interaction with them while waiting for backup to arrive to help haul them away. That will depend of course on how the action scene played out. If our Heroes managed to level a block or two of private property in the course of the defeating the mercenaries then they might not be very agreeable. If they managed to defeat the mercs without a lot of collateral damage, then it can be expected they won’t require any convincing beyond simply asking politely for a moment to slap the mercs around a bit for info.
In the end the Heroes should ideally have the identity of the storage unit’s owner (Consuela Valdez) and know that the mercenaries were hired to retrieve an artifacts of some sort (with a general description the Golden Bands). The identity of their employer should still be unknown.
The Heroes may also activate Specialty Resources for additional information.
Business resources could provide information about Consuela, identify her father and provide information about Valdez Import/Export Company.
Covert or Crime resources might provide information about the mercenaries, though it would be up to the Watcher whether any links between them and the company are revealed. Even in such a case, Mr. Grey should not be identified as their employer. This would in fact be a good opportunity to throw the Heroes off his trail a little, if such a resource incorrectly links the mercenaries to Valdez rather than Mr. Grey.
Menace or Psych resources could result in further information being wrested from the mercenaries during their brief interrogation. Again, the Watcher should avoid naming Mr. Grey just yet but linking the mercenaries to his company can be done by simply dropping Valdez’s name rather than his.
Mystic resources could clue the Heroes in on the Golden Bands, suggesting their magical properties. Supposed immortality and vague allusions to dangerous powers granted to their owners could serve to clue the Heroes in that the bands aren’t merely a pretty set of expensive jewelry but a possibly dangerous artifact.
[Alternate Action Scene: Going After the Mercs]
Mercenary Headquarters (Crates of munitions, Lots of cover)
If the Heroes manage to get information about the mercenaries and realize the few they’ve (presumably) apprehended are hardly the whole group, they may decide to go after the rest of them, especially their leader. In such a case tracking the mercs to a warehouse downtown or any others suitable location for a mercenary gang’s headquarter could provide a nice action scene. It wouldn’t hurt the Event at all (perhaps the opposite) for the Heroes to get a chance to interact a bit with the mercenary captain, though the Watcher will have to be mindful to arrange his escape (or simply his release from police custody) since he’s needed in the second Act.
This, however, should play out differently from the rest of the Heroes conflicts with the mercs in this Event. In this case the Heroes face the mercenaries on their own turf, with their leader on hand to direct them. The mercenaries would then assault any invaders as a mob while the mercenary captain hangs back to grandstand, building up the doom pool to allow for additional dice and effects for the mercs, or even creating scene distinctions, splitting up the Heroes and using effect die from reaction rolls.
Should the Heroes catch on quickly that the mercenary captain is grandstanding, deciding to go after him instead, the situation reverses with the mob doing the same. They start making support actions for the mercenary captain and grandstanding for the Doom Pool to offer him Doom Dice to spend as well.
Play this action scene smart and use all your Watcher tricks. If the Heroes are going after the mercenaries early in the Event then it provides a good opportunity for them to learn that professional mercenaries make for a tougher fight than a bunch of street-level mook/thugs.