on August 26th 2022.
Game Master: Jim Mead
Players(7, added an Extra US Marine):
|
Character |
Player |
| Captain Willard | Michael McGuire |
| WO Phillips | Matt Hyra |
| Engineman Hicks | William Havelin |
| Medic Jones | William Staab |
| Gunner Bottoms | Andrew H |
| Gunner Miller | Russel W |
| GUSMC PFC Sam | Simon Graff |
Captain Willard
WO Phillips
Engineman Jay "Frenchie" Hicks
Medic Tom Jones
Gunner Lance Bottoms
Gunner Tyrone "Mr Clean" Miller
Friday November 28th 1969
Opening Scene: Its 1969 in the jungles of Vietnam. Your US military short timers and survivors of the Tet offensive. You've been recalled to Saigon, supposedly for processing to be shipped back home. Instead, you are summoned to meet privately with The US Military Brass to do one more mission...
Opening Scene: Saigon, the day after American Thanksgiving, a meeting in the
Hotel Continental, an old, but still posh 1890s French hotel near the
Nha Tho duc, a Notre Dame Style cathedral in Saigon.
WIS CHECK (10), Success: “This is odd, why here?”
At 4pm they are meet there by an American Army Staff Captain Ford. As the Beatles play "Come together" on the radio in the lobby, Captain Ford escorts them onto a gilded brass elevator up to the presidential suite on the 4th Floor.
The Team
Captain Benjamin L. Willard, Commanding Officer (The Assassin)
Chief Petty Officer Phillips, Petty Officer (The PBR Skipper)
Medic Tom Jones, The Medic
Engineman Jay Hicks, The Engineer
Gunner Lance, The Heavy Weapons Specialist (Gunner) 1
Gunner Tyrone, The Heavy Weapons Specialist (Gunner) 2
USMC PFC Sam
There they are briefed by Marine Colonel Satchell Wade, an Army General with no name tag, and a CIA agent.
The team is offered seats around a large oval table. The Hotel staff serves you and your hosts’ dinner. The Marine Colonel says, eat first, then we will tell you what is going on.
The Mission: An American Army Green Beret Colonel sent into Cambodia to organize a large tribe of indigenous jungle people to help fight the North Vietnamese, Veit Cong, and Khmer Rouge. He has gone rouge. You are being sent into Cambodia to retrieve him, and then hand him off to Marine Colonel Satchell Wade tomorrow morning in Tan Chau. You will be flown to a town on the boarder by helicopter. There you will travel up river in a river patrol boat. You will have the support of a Marine Assault unit of 300 US Marines in 30 UH-1Bs, if needed.
One Final thing, you need to leave immediately. All the gear you will need will be provided at the forward base at the border. Also, the area in which you are going is particularly “microbial”.
You are given a “Booster Pill” for malaria and other diseases right here at the table. It works better if you have a full stomach.
Secret Instructions:
Retrieve the yellow gem, and Kill Kurtz. DO NOT Return with him alive. Retrieve the yellow gem above all else.
If things get bad, you can call in back up by radio. A Marine air assault battalion is currently on the ready for your signal all night tonight at Tan Chau. Make the call in things look bad and 300 US Marines will arrive at the rouge Colonel Kurtz's outpost within an hour.
“Arc Light” airstrike: If all else fails a Flight of 72 B52s would drop 3 kilotons of High Explosive Incendiary Rounds will be hitting the Ho Chi Min Trail to the north tonight. To divert these planes to hit your target, you need to spend in a coded radio signal before 23:59 (11:59 pm). They will hit the target at 00:30 so be more than 2 miles away by then.
ACT ONE
Scene one: Night life in Tan Chau
The teams UH-1 “Huey” Helicopter flies over Tan Chau at 6pm just after dark. The town is well illuminated however. It sits right on Mekong, a long strip of bamboo and corrugated steel shacks hugging the river with the jungle at its back. The river is full of boats, many currently centered around a large well lite Barge dock at a circular auditorium like structure on the south side of the town.
Although the hour flight in from Saigon was uneventful, everyone is experiencing a bit of indigestion. The airfield is a dirt field cut out of the jungle at the north end of town, directly on the side of the river. The airport is a pair of prefab metal trailers, a radio tower and a line of 6 port-a-potties.
Dex check: only 6 Potties Precep check: who's has an X files mob in it(hallucinations). After the team recovers their wits, they can decided to go retrieve the gear, get their boat, or go into town for the party. OR they can do all three.
Scenes Two: Night life in Tan Chau 18:15
The players can explore town as they go to collect their PBR. The Moon is rising in the East, it will be a full moon tonight.
Scenes Three: Supply Depoe18:30
There is a big USO show going on at the docks near the supply Depoe, including a dance routine performed by a trio of Playboy Playmates.
Scenes Four: Das Boat PBR-113 18:45
The Team finish signing out the papers for the handover of the PBR-113, a USN MkII Patrol Boat Riverine littoral craft. Chief Phillips notes that is almost identical to the one just served a year on. The PBR is clean and stocked. The boat was staled to be handed over the South Vietnamese forces next month as part of the new “Vietnamization” program of handing over frontline combat duties from US troops to their South Vietnam allies.
Scene Five: Boat ride up the Mekong
The team get their gear and the PBR fueled and ready to go by 7pm. It will take the patrol boat an hour to go up the Mekong River to reach the border: checkpoint Zulu. As they pull away from the dock a heavy rain starts along with, thunder and lightning. It’s still very hot, though a little less humid.
Rainy season in southern Vietnam and Cambodia Starts in Late June and ends in early December. The sounds of Tan Chau quickly fade into the darkness and fog of the night.
ACT TWO
Scene one: 30 Minutes out their patrol boat rams into a Ghost boat. The team stops to investigate. The boat is laden with rice and fresh vegetables, and there is lots of blood, but no bodies. They do find an abandoned puppy on board.
Scene Two Checkpoint Zulu: Vinh, Xu’o’ng, a bridge too far.
The team's boat reaches Checkpoint Zulu at about 8pm at night. Beyond the bridge up river is Cambodia. The bridge is under repair by US engineers from a heavy mortar attacks it sustained over the past week. The team’s boat needs to stop for an hour while the US Army engineers finish removing some debris in the way so the boat can continue up river. The team can dock here and talk to the Check Point Zulu’s commanding officer. The Major in charge has a strange tale to tell. The bridge had been under attack for the past week from Viet Con forces on the other side of the boarder. All requests for air support had been denied. Then in the middle of a barrage two nights ago, it all suddenly stopped leaving an eerie silence. Been quiet ever since.
The Major receive a radio message for them just an hour ago from the Brass in
Saigon; he hands the message to Captain Willard. The radio dispatch states
that another MACV-SOG operative, Special Forces Captain Richard Colby,
was sent on an earlier mission identical to Willard's and has since joined Kurtz.
Scene Three: 9pm; with the debris removed, the river is now completely cleared for river traffic. The Team’s boat continues its way up river into Cambodia. Once they make it past the bridge the rain suddenly stops. The river is engulfed in a Thick fog. 20 to 30 minutes up river the fog gets even thicker.
Precep check: Giant tentacles in the fog (hallucinations).
Dex check: Those that make their Precept Checks BUT fail their Dex Checks fall over board.
After the team recovers their wits, and collects any team members in the water, they can continue up river.
Scene Four
10pm; the fog suddenly thins as the patrol boat approaches an island with a half sunken temple on it.
Shallow Island of the Tcho Tcho
This is the last reported location of the rogue Green Beret Colonel Walter Kurtz.
Kurtz's outpost, an abandoned Angkor Empire temple compound teeming with Cambodian Jungle tribesmen children and strewn with corpses and severed heads. Willard, Chef and Lance are greeted by an American photojournalist, who praises Kurtz's genius. They encounter a near-catatonic Colby.
The Cambodian Jungle tribesmen, upon closer observation are not children at all but adults. None of them seem to be over 4 feet tall. Another odd feature is their oversized bright yellow teeth which are all to the last man, filed to sharp points.
Scene Five
Willard orders Chef and anyone else that are staying on the boat to call in backup immediately after Willard and his group leaves. Call in an “Arc Light” airstrike on the outpost if Willard and however he takes with him does do not return within 45 minutes.
Scene Six 22:05
In the camp, Willard and team members with him are overwhelmed and are bound and brought before Kurtz in a darkened temple. If there are team members still at the boat Kurtz uses “Siren’s Song” on them [Will Save 28] to join them in the Temple.
ACT THREE
Scene One 22:15
Once Willard and his team members with him they are released and Kurtz lectures him on his theories of war, praising the ruthlessness of the Viet Cong. He then reveals his plan to use the Star-Stone of Nyarlathotep to summon Azathoth and kill half the people in SE Asia. “Much the same way Azathoth did to the classical Maya Empire in 900AD”. Kurtz then orders his Tcho-Tcho allies to hold Willard down to be marked as one to be spared. Willard is tattooed with the “Yellow Sign”. While they are doing this Kurtz explains why he won’t be returning him to the States. “Those in charge there want men that will do their dirty work and then Disappear. I just need one of you to get out of here alive.” He then explains that he knows about the upcoming Marine Assault and the following airstrike. “All needed for the ritual. Only thing that can go wrong now is breaking the Star-Stone.” Kurtz discusses his family and asks that Willard tell his son about him after Willard returns to the States and give him Kurtz’s diary.
Scene Two 23:00
Kurtz tells Willard, “I’ll be back to get you to your boat before the bombs fall. Best to stay here while the Marines and Tcho-Tcho are mixing it up, I don’t want to see you get killed.” Kurtz then leaves the team sitting in a trance or tied up depending on if they were under his spell or not and joins his Tcho-Tcho tribesmen for the ceremony to summon Azathoth.
The team may now try to escape.
If they want to prevent the summoning of Azathoth, they need to break the Star-Stone Crystal (a Yellow Crystal about the size of a baseball.)
Scene Three 23:30
The US Navy’s Marine Assault Unit, which includes 30 UH-1Bs and 300 US Marines, arrives and an all-out battle for the temple begins. Tentacles start shooting out of the jungle smashing UH-1 “Huey” Helicopters as they fly in in the Moon Light.
Sanity Checks 1/1d10 San Loss
Scene Four 00:30
If the team isn’t out of the Temple area by now the USAF starts its
“Arc Light” airstrike: a Flight of 72 B52s drop 3 kilotons of
High Explosive Incendiary Rounds centered on the Temple.
The PBR is the only way out, since the Jungle Tentacles are is devouring anything in the air or on the ground. The Firefight is still going strong as the Marines fight it out with the Tcho-Tcho and the Jungle Tentacles as the High Explosive Incendiary Rounds fall and burn up everything in a 2 mile radius.
If the Crystal is still intact, then everyone within a 1500km radius, which includes Hanoi to the North and Singapore to the south and quarter of Burma to the west dies or goes insane.
Willard with his tattoos is unaffected.
The team kill kurt and destroy the crystal.
If the team decides to meet with Wade Saturday morning in Tan Chau, play out Scene Five.
Captain Willard decides he wants answers. While the rest of the team go to the
Saigon rendezvous with the CIA, while Captain Willard gets off in Tan Chau.
Scene Five Saturday November 29th 1969
09:00 Tan Chau
The team was instructed to meet Marine Colonel Satchell Wade and hand over Colonel Kurtz at the Tan Chau airfield at 9am.
Instead of flying in on a Helicopter, Marine Colonel Satchell Wade, The US Army General with no name tag, and a Platoon of 50 ARVN soldiers appear out of a jungle path on the airfield perimeter.
“Come with me, your under arrest”, Wade commands and Willard is hand cuffed and escorted off the air field back into the Jungle at gun point. If any US Army Guards challenge them, they are told the team has been put under arrest for desertion and they don’t interfere.
Once well into the Jungle Wade askes “where is the Crystal?”
Whatever the answer, a few moments later the US Army General Transforms into Nyarlathotep and he promptly trys to eat Willard, but he pulls the pin on a grenade he had hidden on his person and denigns Nyarlathotep the pleasure of killing him..
Willard is later listed as Missing under suspicion of Desertion.
Scene Six Sunday November 30th 1969
The team members that decided to head to Saigon, meet the CIA operative at the
docks. They know Col. Kurts is dead so very little is said and they are sent to
Military Out processing. The Military processes them out in a day or two and
then they go home
as if nothing happened.
They never see by Marine Colonel Satchell Wade again.
They do hear about him in the News back state side a few months later,
that on
January 7th 1970 he was murdered by his own men after
leading a Marine Battalion to their deaths on an ill planned mission on the
Cambodian border.
