Fall of Ferro

[agile ore]

by NocFenix

Fall of Ferro is a one-shot Cinematic adventure. It should be possible to run it in 4-5 hours, and is good for 3-5 players. The scenario tells the story of a space trucker crew on a routine supply mission to a remote, Weyland-Yutani outpost on a hostile environment world, that turns into anything but routine.

[bronze berry]

Thank for this!

[agile ore]

My pleasure. If it looks like any of the assets are missing, let me know and I'll get them added.

[scenic terrace]

My players enjoyed this and now want to run it for others. I am going to compile an FG module for them. I want to put your name in as "Author". Should I use "NocFenix" or your name? I want to give full credit to everyone involved in making this. I will add a Credits page. Please let me know what and who you want listed there.

[agile ore]

NocFenix is fine. I'm glad your players really enjoyed it! Having run it, do you have any feedback on it; anything that could be streamlined or made clearer?

[scenic terrace]

Ok, got it. Yes, there are several things that I felt were missing or wrong. They were small things, though, and I just fixed them. I could share if you want me to.

[agile ore]

Yeah, if you wanna DM them to me that'd be great.

[agile ore]

Fall of Ferro Scenario 2.0.1
Updated PDF to include more of the backstory and some clarity on other points for GMs.

[hasty pond]

With @agile ore’s permission, could you share that Fantasy Grounds module with me? (I was going to also run it in FG.)

[agile ore]

Of course! I gave out this stuff totally free for a reason 😄

[scenic terrace]

Sorry! I have been lazy. Yup. I can do that right now!

@hasty pond I cannot figure out Discord. I keep sending messages to a different person. Unless you are messing me up with different names?

I tried to post it here but it seems to get automatically deleted. So sorry! I failed to shared it. I will look into getting onto Forge.

[hasty pond]

My nickname here is different from my username. You were sending to the right person.

[scenic terrace]

OK, shared!

[scenic terrace]

In the end I was never given permission to post the Fantasy Grounds conversion on the FG community forum. Can it be added to the files here?

[agile ore]

Depending on the file format, should be fine.

[scenic terrace]

I tried to post it. It is a zip file. Discord blocked it. It is a small file.

[agile ore]

Yeah, Discord is anti-zip files unfortunately

[frozen bison]

Made some printer friendly and somewhat simplified maps.

Also some character sheets and Id cards to hand out https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1P2_pa6fr5bR0Q6atB7MjojUf_vuJaKT5

[frozen bison]

@agile ore the map seem in your video (https://youtu.be/SqmawU935VE?si=-ckH-rJOa9f4BqZo) around the 1 hour mark for sub level 1 is drastically different than the maps provided. Does the ladder from surface now descend to sub level 2 or is there a secondary ladder I am missing? Thanks for your help, I'm intending to run this later today and just noticed this.

[agile ore]

Haha. Wow, that video is old. That is my v1 of the maps. The current ones are the v2.

[frozen bison]

Awesome. Ladder go all the down?

[agile ore]

Yup.

[frozen bison]

Just ran the game with great success. 1 original character survived plus the marshal. All others died. I would definitely allow 6 or so hours if your players like to RP it or explore. Ran it in 4.5 with me moving them on and glossing over small details. One thing I did notice is, on the map, there isn't a place where they kept the queen prior to containment breach. I might add that close to the kennels or in patient rooms if I ran it again. A+ job on the story. Players were embarrassed they didn't pick up on all the hooks about the real marshal until late in the game.

[agile ore]

Ah. Good point. I think when I wrote it that I imagined the Queen came after the breach but that probably doesn't work with the short time line since the breakout before the crew arrives. Maybe she was in a test tube thingy, her growth stunted until the breach and subsequent setting free.

[cunning sand]

I'm about to run this as part of a streamed charity fundraiser in a couple of weeks. For anyone that has run this before, do you have any tips or tricks or "gotchas" you ran into that you'd be willing to share? Thanks in advance!

[cunning sand]

I have posted my playthrough of this one-shot on my YouTube. I'm not sure if that's okay to post here, so if you want a link to it to watch as a reference, feel free to DM me. One major note: I ran it as a single-session game AND as a charity game with donation rewards, so there were some creative liberties taken and unique creatures added that were not in @agile ore's write-up.

[frozen bison]

Awesome! Sorry I didn't see your question in time. I'll give this a watch tomorrow

[dense prawn]

@frozen bison Hey there! So I've got a few questions regarding the scenario. My main one being, did your group bump into any logical problems regarding the keycards or timeline of events, and the Emergency Lockdown? Things that didn't make sense? A few things have me scratching my head, trying to make a logical explanations when my players ask the NPCs.

[frozen bison]

My players did not question the key cards or timeline. They hardly caught onto the swapped marshal and prisoner until near the end when the inevitable betrayal happened.

[dense prawn]

did you do the Optional Event: Foreman Jacobs, by the way?

[frozen bison]

They did question the queen without a space where they stored the queen, but the author said it could have been a face hugger.

I did do that optional event. Luckily he did not encounter the marshal, but I had him birth pretty quickly after the players met him.

The players had separated by then

[dense prawn]

Should he be trapped in his Office, or should he have the ability to open doors that need Keycards? Or has he been locked there for an entire week? That's the part that's confusing me.

when the players come knocking on his door, I mean.

also, if you have any tips whatsoever for the scenario, spill the beans, it's all welcome!

[frozen bison]

I had him locked in there, eating supplies that were stored in there. Your players will have a high comtech skill they could leverage if you're worried about key cards. I would encourage both optional events of reactor meltdown and no survivors. I played up the length of the ride between the main base and reactor, far enough that I had a xeno battle in the moving car which was fun for everyone.

Play up the eerie quiet of the topside base. Shit started going sideways when they made it to the medical/science room, and hit the fan when they got to the reactor.

[dense prawn]

Haha, when I looked at the cable car ride, I thought of the same thing - looks like a fun moment to have a combat, something landing on the roof, or something like that.

Did your players fight anything on the first sublevel, besides the Jacobs chestburster?

and I'll be sure to add the reactor meltdown and No Survivors 👍

[frozen bison]

The players evidence of something in the cargo hold but didn't explore it. I likely would have skipped it for time though and just had a nest.

[dense prawn]

Also, would you allow players to open keycard-locked doors with a Heavy Machinery roll and some equipment as well?

[frozen bison]

Yep. I do in my campaign as will. Figure it's like they are forcing the doors apart or hot wiring it. If you think it should be difficult make them roll two fewer dice. But don't trap them from progressing behind a skill roll

[agile ore]

Oh wow. That's just vicious. I intentionally left the cable-car ride as a place for the PCs to lose 1-2 Stress and gain back 1 Health since it feels safe-ish and nothing else happens. But yeah, great place for an ambush if you're wanting to keep the players on edge.

[agile ore]

I usually have my players encounter a Runner if they explore the housing block (this generally happens when I run this because Higgins wants to try to find their SO). Otherwise, just the Jacobs incident. If you do too much too early, players will drop like flies. I like to have most of the PCs at least get to the second sublevel.

[agile ore]

Yes. HM works just fine; I usually say they need a Maintenance Jack to pop open a panel and manually crank back the hydraulics when they take this approach.