Eclipse Phase 2e Router Case Files.pdf

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router Case Files

EclipsePhase.com

ECLIPSE PHASE

CREATED BY

Rob Boyle and Brian Cross

Writing:

Simon Berman, Rob Boyle, Laura Briskin-Limehouse, Michael DeVillar,

Margaret M. Foy, Adam Franti, Violet Hargrave, Whitney Lee, Kira Magrann, Paul

Matijevic, Jason Mical, Vera Vartanian

Editing:

Rob Boyle, Adam Jury

Development:

Rob Boyle, Jack Graham

Art Direction:

Rob Boyle, Adam Jury

Graphic Design & Layout:

Adam Jury

Cover and Interior Art:

Alex Drummond, Danijel Firak, Mark Molnar, Ben Wootten

Musical Inspiration:

Khurch, Nostromo, Owl Vision, Sarin

Version 1.0 by Posthuman Studios

(Dec 2019)

info@posthumanstudios.com

or eclipsephase.com

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Creative Commons License;

Some Rights Reserved.

This work is licensed under the

Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike

4.0 International

(CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license:

creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0

In plain English: you are free to copy,

share, and remix the text and artwork

within this book under the following

conditions:

• you do so only for noncommercial

purposes;

• you attribute Posthuman Studios;

• you license any derivatives under the

same license.

For specific details, appropriate credits,

and updates/changes to this license, see:

http://eclipsephase.com/cclicense

The following pages provide a selection of plot hooks

for gamemasters (GMs) to run with. These ideas

are short and provide the bare-bones outline for a

scenario. Some provide specific details, like the names

of hypercorps and non-player characters (NPCs), or a

recommended setting (i.e., Elysium on Mars), while

others are more generic, leaving those details to be

filled in. We often include several possibilities for the

GM to choose from, to best fit your campaign and

keep the players on their toes in case they read this

too! Most of these hooks are meant to be run over the

course of a session or three, but they could certainly

be stretched out for more sessions if needed.

We’ve organized these plot hooks into rough

categories; each two-page spread covering a

different topic. The first three focus on specific

campaign types: Firewall, gatecrashing, or Guanxi

criminals. The next two spreads cover the inner and

outer halves of the Solar System, respectively. The

remaining spreads relate to different focus areas:

hypercorps, mercurials, the mesh and media, politics,

transhumanity, and weirder things.

On top of that, we list a set of keyword

tags

with

each hook that indicate what other topics, groups,

and places that scenario idea might relate to. This

provides an easy way of scanning them for specific

subjects. Need an adventure idea that involves Venus,

forking, or exsurgents? Scan the tags to see which

ones might work. We’ve included an index of the tags

at the very back, so you can see a full list of the hooks

for each subject.

As always, any given details can and should be

changed by the GM as you see fit. Take these ideas

and run with them!

HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

An uplifted neo-parrot operate a Pandora gate blue-box unit; a Firewall team takes cover during

a firefight outside a Martian dome; a fixer watches their contacts arrive to a rooftop aircar pad

for a face-to-face meeting; drone fighters patrol the airspace around a hypercorp facility.

ON THE COVER:

Posthuman Studios is:

Rob Boyle, Davidson Cole, Brian Cross, and Adam Jury

These plots hooks involve x-risks and Firewall intrigues.

The Venus-Earth scum cycler

Precious Bodily Fluids,

passing near

the Earth-Luna L5 point, has suddenly cut all communications and

swerved away from its swarm, initiating a rocket-assisted high-g

burn toward Luna. Trajectory projections place it as aimed directly

towards Erato, making the ship a potential crude bomb strike on a

major habitat. The sentinels are called into action, but they have less

than 12 hours to stop the cycler.

The sentinels have two options for getting aboard the ship. First is

to somehow establish a communications link with the ship, hack in,

and hope to find morphs on board the PCs can sleeve into. Second

is to catch up to the cycler with a smaller, faster ship launched

from the station Fresh Kills, another scum ship in the swarm, or

somewhere else nearby in the system. They have a potential ally on

board: another Firewall sentinel known as Najila Khodayari, who

is aboard the ship for reasons unknown; Firewall lost contact with

them shortly before the incident began.

Lunar-Lagrange Alliance (LLA) ships and defenses are prepared

to destroy the

Precious Bodily Fluids

if it fails to stop. There are

hundreds aboard the cycler, however, and scum voices online

quickly call foul, pointing out that LLA media sources routinely

paint the scum as terrorists and use them as convenient scapegoats.

The narrative takes a sharp turn when scum surveillance cams

reveal that a known Oversight operative and a number of disguised

Direct Action mercenaries boarded the ship just hours before it

diverted course. Tensions between the scum, LLA, and Planetary

Consortium heighten around the system as a potential diplomatic

incident begins to boil over.

The seizure of the ship could be the work of political extremists,

exsurgents, or a shadowy third party hoping to engineer a war

between the PC and LLA. The sentinels will need to navigate a

hostile environment, a potentially captive crew, and other factions

to defuse a powder keg.

TAGS:

Earth Orbit • Firewall • Inner System • Lunar-Lagrange Alliance • Luna •

Planetary Consortium • Politics • Scum

FIrEWall

PrECIOUS TENSIONS

to it first. Or, the reclaimers may have discovered evidence that a

powerful LLA politician and oligarch is a TITAN sleeper agent, and

have gone into hiding to evade the oligarch’s operatives who are

eager to keep their secrets.

TAGS:

Earth • Extropians • Firewall • Inner System • Lunar-Lagrange Alliance •

Oligarchs • Outer System • Reclaimers • TITANs

A Firewall crow receives a message via long-unused communication

channels claiming to be from Niagh Owiti, an infosec specialist who

was part of the Jormungandr Intitiative, a proto-Firewall organiza-

tion active during the Fall. Niagh was thought to have been killed

trying to escape Earth via the Kilimanjaro space elevator; none of

her backups are known to have survived.

Niagh’s message claims that her ego has been held captive in a

virtual environment hidden within a popular simulspace wargame

for years. Called Struggle of States, the game gives players the roles

of national leaders in a recreation of Earth’s 18th century. The

game seems utterly unremarkable, apart from a lively gambling

culture and the vast amounts of money some players spend on their

particular countries. Though Niagh’s message is brief, it includes a

call-sign known only to Jormungandr operatives, giving it credibility.

She also hints that other egos are imprisoned or enslaved within

the game.

The message’s trail has been erased and the security flaw used to

send it fixed, so Firewall opts to send a team into the game’s VR to

investigate. Not only was Niagh a valued agent, but she was carrying

fragments of TITAN code when she disappeared. Firewall wants her

rescued and debriefed, if possible, and the simulspace evaluated

for potential risks. Once inside, the sentinels discover that some of

the players and factions within the game are more than they seem,

though they will need to acquire cheat codes to access the darkest

secrets buried within the game’s servers. Whether the game hides a

secret Ozma virtual prison, a cabal of ego slavers, or hostile TITAN

software, the sentinels will quickly discover they are not the only

party investigating its mysteries.

TAGS:

Firewall • Mesh • Ozma • TITANs

VIrTUal SECrETS

lIBEraTING CHOICES

An illicit Earthside salvage operation run by reclaimers goes dark

just days after discovering a major pre-Fall artifact. A few days

later, several prominent reclaimers with ties to the project go

missing off-world. Firewall puts the pieces together and launches

an investigation.

The sentinels first discover that the operation on Earth sent

one last transmission that managed to get past the jamming. This

transmission included a large volume of data — or possibly an

ego. Further investigation of the reclaimers who received it, now

missing, indicates that they used an illegal darkcasting surface to

egocast to Extropia.

There are several possible conclusions to this mystery. First, the

reclaimers may now be infected TITAN puppets, on a mission to

reactivate a TITAN project in the Main Belt. Alternatively, the

reclaimers may have discovered the location to a valuable cache

of Earth artifacts, which they hope to retrieve in order to fund

their cause — if others that intercepted the transmission don’t get

a MESSaGE FrOM EarTH

Firewall’s attention is directed towards “The Contraband,” a radical

group planning a sophisticated viral attack against IndEx, the

Planetary Consortium’s indenture exchange market. The sentinels

are sent to monitor and possibly even infiltrate the group.

Firewall keeps a close eye on IndEx, not only for the potential

economic and social malfeasance, but also for the utterly massive

quantities of personal data kept in storage. Firewall is also quite

concerned about the egos or forks of Firewall agents and friendlies

that may get traded on the exchange or that are held within hyper-

corp and criminal data vaults, having been recovered, forknapped,

or otherwise acquired. The risk that the identity of Firewall sentinels

and proxies and knowledge about the history of the Fall, TITANs,

and other x-risks could fall into the hands of unscrupulous criminal

or ideological elements is substantial.

Firewall’s primary source of information on IndEx is Pyrrhos, a

proxy working within IndEx’s executive staff. While he’s undoubt-

edly an effective agent, many in the Eye are suspicious of his loyal-

ties, given his position as an ego profiteer and, some would argue,

legal slaver.

FIrEWall •

Precious Tensions–LiberaTing choices

The Contraband demand the dissolution of the indenture

markets, freedom for all indentured egos, and the end of planned

obsolescence in morph design. They have carried out several clever

and successful acts of economic vandalism in the past. If their new

viral attack is successfully implemented, it will inflict widespread

damage to IndEx networks, nullify thousands of in-progress

contracts, and throw the labor markets on several habitats into

chaos. Various hab expansion and construction projects on or

in orbit around Luna and Mars will grind to a halt. However, the

attack will also make sensitive personal information public, cause

the sudden release of thousands of indentures (many of whom are

convicts), reset some contracts to an earlier state (including trans-

ferred and completed ones), and create mesh blackouts and network

interruptions across the system.

The PCs may find themselves torn between stopping the attack

and letting it happen. On one hand, they may see it as justified and

an opportunity to liberate some Firewall egos from bondage. On

the other hand, the plan will unleash chaos and put many other

indentures and former indentures at risk. Some sensitive data may

also fall into the wrong hands. Complicating the situation, some

suspect that the Contraband are being manipulated by a third

party that plans to use the chaos of the hack as a cover for some

additional goal.

TAGS:

Firewall • Hypercorps • Indentures • Mesh •

Planetary Consortium • Politics

The authorities fear an exsurgent outbreak or nanovirus, while

Firewall fears a malicious async or group of asyncs may be

responsible. As the PCs conduct their research, they may have the

opportunity to intervene in a new crime as it occurs. A careful look

at correlating details among the subjects will eventually notice that

all of them have recently installed skillware systems. Each of them

acquired the ware through the same cyberclinic.

As it turns out, the doctor who installed each of these implants is

a secret exhuman. The skillware tech is based on an experimental

prototype stolen from Cognite and modified for the exhuman’s

own nefarious purposes. These modified implants not only func-

tion slightly better due to Cognite’s enhanced functionality, but

they also imprint new motivations and behaviors in the subject,

eventually forcing them to commit acts they would not otherwise

have committed. The exhuman should avoid the PCs’ first efforts

to capture them, going to ground in a secret lair within the habitat.

They will then use a backdoor they installed in each of the skillware

systems to turn others who have been implanted with the ware

against the PCs. These mental puppets will also be incited to create

havoc across the habitat. As the team works to track down the

exhuman, they will also have to deal with a Cognite team that has

arrived to confiscate their stolen tech.

TAGS:

Exhumans • Firewall • Hypercorps

MECHaNICal EDEN

A Firewall proxy takes a risk and gets involved in fieldwork when

one of their sentinel teams needs a hand. Unfortunately, the op

went sideways and the proxy has ended up in the hands of local

authorities — along with a small cache of TITAN artifacts. To make

matters worse, Oversight has already been called in to investigate

the affair. If the proxy is thoroughly interrogated by Oversight

agents, it will be an operational disaster for the local server, as they

could spill details on quite a few of Firewall’s ongoing activities.

The PCs are sent in to rescue the proxy before that interrogation

happens — or eliminate their stack. If the PCs can also dispose of

the TITAN machinery, even better.

The proxy was captured in the Martian outback and is being

delivered by Martian Rangers to an Oversight office in the nearest

large habitat. The team can try to intercept them en route, stage an

ambush within the city, or infiltrate the Oversight offices. Whatever

choice they make, they need to move fast. As an added complication,

the smugglers who were originally transporting the TITAN artifacts

also want their goods back. They may get to the Rangers before

the PCs do, forcing the team into a chase with the Rangers and

Oversight also on their heels.

TAGS:

Firewall • Guanxi • Inner System • Mars • Oversight • TITANs

STEM THE FlOW

An outbreak of unusual activity on a habitat has piqued the

interest of Firewall — and local authorities. Several citizens have

committed murder, habitat sabotage, and other crimes, each

claiming they were somehow manipulated and could not help

themselves. Though cyberbrain hacking has been ruled out (the

subjects have bio brains), there are concerns about other causes.

SKIllSOFT EXTraS

Firewall becomes aware of a situation with a remote automated

corporate factory outpost. According to the hypercorp’s intercepted

internal comms, they received signals requesting unusual agricul-

tural supplies before the facility suddenly went silent. The corp sent

a team of techs to repair the station, but lost contact; the last trans-

mission featuring what sounds like screams and gunfire. Fearing

some sort of outbreak, Firewall sends the PCs in to investigate.

Upon gaining access to the habitat, the team is met with the

sight of the bodies of a second corporate strike squad that arrived

just before them. Each corpse is propped up with metal and wood

in strange poses, with a strong lamp shining down upon it. Further

scouting will reveal a facility that is barely functioning and in

poorly maintained condition. The discovery of what appear to be

metallic flower sculptures and the echoing broadcast of haunted,

fragmented melodies over public AR channels is likely to put the

PCs on edge.

The team does not face exsurgent monsters, however, but an

emergent and confused AI. The ALI that operates the facility

suffered problems with its code many years ago, attempted to patch

itself, and partly due to a lack of maintenance and oversight, even-

tually expressed its own neurodivergent general intelligence. Due to

its own misconceptions about its own nature and an understanding

of life, it has created its own faux ecosystem and propped up the

corpses in an attempt to make them “regrow.” The AI remains quite

protective of itself, and will dispatch oddly-enhanced robots to

counter any attempts to cut its power systems or otherwise cause

it harm. The AI is mostly benign if often confused. As another

corporate strike team arrives, the team will need to decide whether

to protect it or help destroy it.

TAGS:

Firewall • Hypercorps • Infolife

FIrEWall •

sTem The FLow–mechanicaL eden

Eclipse Phase 2e Router Case Files.pdf

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