The team settles in to take care of some tasks they’ve been neglecting for a while. Arkadi and Miko heed Zenobia’s wishes and drive the black Volga out of town, ferrying it up to the highway maintenance garage. Before they leave, they assemble the makings of an emergency equipment cache and throw it in the trunk.
Fuel brewing and the harvest continue. With the medium still operational and plenty of leftover organic material coming in from the fields, this is the time to fill every vehicle’s tank and Ponikla’s reserves.
Zenobia, and Arkadi once he returns to town, tear into the BTR-70K. They’re able to condense five damaged radios into two working ones. Once that’s done, Arkadi and Minka set to work on the BTR’s KPV, while Red and Zenobia head east to drop off the working radio with Von Bahr. He still has some obvious warlordy tendencies that make the team edgy, but he’s the most combat-capable ally they’ve found so far – and he’s sitting on a strategic piece of infrastructure.
Pettimore’s burns heal with the unnerving speed the team has come to expect from their little microscopic friends.
This whole scene was a result of rolling into the topmost hex of my weather hex flower table (to be detailed in another upcoming post). That result for weather indicates some sort of hazardous weather. Because the previous day had been extremely hot, I decided to throw in a day that would have been a red flag warning in modern National Weather Service terms: hot, low humidity, and high winds, perfect for starting and spreading wildfires. I struggled a little bit on how to make a wildfire interesting and “winnable” before settling on a field fire that would start small enough to be manageable… if not for some complicating factors.
The action sequencing for this “fight” ran according to my normal initiative house rules, with the farm NPCs assisting the PCs and the fire acting in the NPC phase. Attempting to extinguish an adjacent burning hex was a slow action requiring a successful Stamina roll. This received the usual +1 bonus for each helper, and an additional +1 if the PC was foolish enough to stand in a burning hex and try to extinguish it.
Good enough so far, but how about the fire “fighting back” and spreading? Well, I decided that while the initial UXO blast that sparked the fire was “natural,” the weather and – ahem – other conditions were right to attract entities that would drive its spread. What the PCs couldn’t see (until Minka and Pettimore uttered their respective prayers) were the two hexes that I had designated as holding the initial entities:
On each NPC/fire turn, I rolled 1d10 for each active entity. For each success (6+), the fire spread one hex. For each maxed die, a new entity would join the fight – which would drive faster spread on subsequent turns.
For each hex of spread, I chose a burning hex and rolled an appropriate die to randomly determine where the fire would go. For example, this would just be a d5 (or d10 / 2) roll:
After all spread had been resolved, each burning hex rolled a normal intensity C (2d8) fire attack against each character within its flames.
So far, this would work perfectly well for fighting a normal fire, perhaps with some mechanism for randomizing the spread rather than picking the source hex with deliberate ill intent (and for pushing the spread downwind).
As far as the entities went – Minka dubbed them “fire sprites” in the team’s after-action review and the name stuck – I decided that they’d be invisible to the PCs, but anyone who spent a turn studying the fire’s spread would get a Command or Survival check to realize the fire was acting unnaturally. With success, they’d be able to perceive the fire sprites. Minka was designated as getting automatic success because of all the PCs, she’s been leaning the hardest into the local folklore. If we’re putting it in D&D terms, she’s the party’s druid to Pettimore’s paladin – but as it turned out, both players independently did things that made me say, “screw it, you can see” without a roll – as did Arkadi’s player a couple of turns later.
Banishing a fire sprite required total melee damage (or Thoughts and Prayers damage) of 5 points. I also was open to creative solutions, but Minka, Pettimore, and Arkadi solved the problem rather efficiently once they could actually see it.
It’s another scorching-hot day in Ponikla. There’s not a cloud in the sky, the air is paper-dry, and a stiff northwest wind is more like standing in front of an oven than any sort of source of cooling. The team is getting ready for chores that hopefully won’t involve field work (good luck with that in the middle of the wheat harvest) or standing in the forge all day.
Minka is working with the horses before it gets too hot when she hears the rhythmic squeak and rattle of a bicycle coming into town from the northeast road. It’s Blanka Laska, one of the teenagers from the north farms. She’s out of breath and looks to be suffering from incipient heatstroke. Minka drops what she’s doing and runs to meet the girl, with Red and Arkadi arriving just behind her.
Bianka is semi-functional but manages to stammer out her message as the PCs half-carry her into Red’s lab/clinic. Her family and farmhands were preparing for the day’s work when something exploded in the treeline next to the wheat field they were planning to harvest. There are multiple critical injuries.
Red and Arkadi share a grim look. “UXO.” There’s no need for either of them to say more.
There’s a quick assessment of time and distance. Most of the team’s transport has to cross the rail bridge about ten kilometers east of Ponikla, which will cost them valuable time (and fuel, though no one is thinking in those terms right now). They could take the horses and motorcycles across the smaller, less-robust bridge at Mysiakowiec… but they also have the BTR-70K, whose amphibious capability is still intact. Its main gun remains disabled and it’s still mechanically sketchy (they’ve only restored 2 points of Reliability so far), but it’ll allow them ford the Pilica and it’s built for off-road driving.
With that decision made, Red and Minka begin prepping everything they’ll need for trauma surgery. Arkadi and Leks strip the BTR of everything non-essential, just in case it sinks in the river and they have to drop back to Plan B (though the radios stay aboard for the moment, with stripped screws [and a failed Tech roll] preventing their swift removal). Pettimore and Miko also gear up to help with security in case the explosion was the precursor to some other hostile action or otherwise attracted unwanted attention.
The team loads up, with the roof hatches open and Blanka in the commander’s seat to help navigate. Arkadi fires up the twin V-8s and the big machine grumbles its way down the path the shore, shouldering brambles and saplings out of its way. Everyone holds their breath and mentally rehearses their bailout procedures as Arkadi deploys the trim vane, switches on the one working bilge pump, and eases into the dark water. The hull holds, though, and the BTR surges forward as the rear pumpjet schlorps into action.
Pretty much like this, but with more tension. A lot was riding on Arkadi’s d12+d6 Driving check.
The team arrives at the farm in question in about an hour. They’re met by a collection of worried inhabitants, headed by Julianna Kaluza, the farm’s elderly matriarch. While leading Red and Minka into the main farmhouse, she explains that the blast occurred when the farmers were dropping their equipment and water in the shade of a grove next to the field. There was no indication of any sort of attack and nothing else has happened since.
Red and Minka begin patient assessments and triage. Alfred Kazula, Julianna’s husband, escaped major penetrating trauma, but he has blast injuries and appears to be dealing with multiple broken ribs. Klara Laska, Blanka’s older sister, and Olaf Kwiatkowski, a middle-aged farmhand and refugee from Wloclawek, both have critical abdominal injuries from shrapnel and aren’t likely to live out the day without intervention.
As Red and Minka scrub up, Leks partners up with one of the other elderly farmers. The two of them climb onto the roof of the farm’s machine shed to keep watch. Leks quickly learns that the old dude was a partisan in the 1940s, and the two men begin bonding over stories of killing Nazis and Russians.
Pettimore, Arkadi, and Miko grab a couple of the farmhands who can show them where the explosion occurred. They head down to investigate, cutting around an already-cleared field and through a couple of orchards. When they’re about fifty meters away from the blast scene, Miko takes point, ve-e-e-e-e-ry cautiously advancing while looking for tripwires, mine triggers, or anything else that could indicate the potential for a second explosion.
The smell of smoke and high explosives is heavy in the air. The blast appears to have been large – an artillery shell or air-dropped bomb – and subterranean. The ground is ruptured and heaved up, and several trees have been overturned or shattered at their roots.
Arkadi and Pettimore come to the realization at about the same time. It’s been three hours since the explosion, and that northwest wind has been pretty constant. They shouldn’t be smelling three-hour-old smoke, much less explosive residue.
That’s when they catch sight of the blackened trail leading into the field, and, beyond it, the flickering orange light and white haze of a grass fire.
Miko [Agility B, Mobility C, Runner specialization] takes off at a dead sprint, heading back to the farm buildings to rally all available able-bodied people. There are a few minutes of confused activity as the PCs drop packs and weapons and the farmers grab shovels, rakes, and any other tools that might come in handy. Red [best Command in the group and Logistician specialty] assembles everyone on the north side of the burning field, intending to fight the fire with the wind at the team’s back.
Dramatic re-creation because I failed to get a screen shot at any point during this scene.
[The rules for this “fight” were kind of fun, so I’ll write them up in a separate post.]
The team enjoys some initial success in knocking down the flames, and the burning area is shrinking. Then the fire flares back up, re-igniting in the areas they’ve extinguished – and, in some cases, moved into. Minka takes some minor burns. Pettimore is less fortunate, being set alight and severely burned on both arms [burn crit].
Arkadi takes a moment to study the scene and realizes that the fire is spreading against the wind – and, more often than not, toward the people who are trying to fight it.
Pettimore pushes himself up from the ground where’s extinguished himself and begins praying.
Minka casts something [a ration] into the dirt at her feet and begins praying, too.
[When I planned this scene, I had a general trigger condition set for PCs to notice certain things about the situation. Imagine my surprise and entertainment when, on the same turn, both Pettimore’s player and Minka’s player independently PM’d me:
Pettimore: Pettimore will begin to pray silently that the others survive this, and these people's harvest survives.
Minka: "Please do not burn my friends, my friends food! I will give you a small portion of harvest, thick sweet spirits and fruits... Stop hurting my friends you impressive, fiery bastard!"]
Pettimore and Minka look into the flames and see. On the south side of the fire, three vaguely-humanoid figures are dancing and capering in the flames. They appear to be made of fire themselves, with skeletal wings that are fanning an invisible wind against the direction of the actual wind.
Pettimore staggers into a run toward where he dropped his pack.. and his rifle.
Minka drops her shovel, unslings her hammer, and begins circling the fire, trying to get to its south edge.
In most fights, Minka is more dangerous with this than with her rifle. Today was no exception.
The fire continues blazing back in the team’s faces. Miko screams and charges into it, laying about wildly with his shovel and somehow avoiding serious injury; the farmer partnered with him has no interest in following. Arkadi takes a minor burn but is able to extinguish himself with his partner’s aid.
There’s a soft, unnoticed click as Pettimore drops to a knee, flicks off his rifle’s safety, and takes aim.
Miko continues darting in and out of the fire. Red tries to rally the rest of the team on the western flank, collecting the farmers that were aiding Miko and Pettimore. The team’s fighting a holding action but they’re making no headway.
Minka screams something and swings her sledgehammer through the flames. She feels a feathery, gossamer resistance as it slashes through the pelvis (or at least the location where the pelvis should be) of one of the burning figures. The ground around it hisses like red-hot steel being quenched and the fire there goes out.
Everyone stares.
Pettimore presses the trigger.
Visible only to Minka and Pettimore, another of the burning figures flies apart and the flames where it was dancing hiss out like snuffed candles.
Arkadi has no idea why Pettimore is shooting the fire, but he trusts Pettimore implicitly and knows there’s gotta be a reason for this. He doesn’t know Minka as well, but she’s competent and seems rational, so there’s gotta be something…
Arkadi drops his rake, draws his tomahawk, and sees.
His swing cuts the legs out from under the third figure. It has time to see him in return and begin drawing itself up for a return strike before Minka crushes its head.
As the flames in front of Arkadi and Minka die, the rest of the team moves in. It’s only a few minutes’ work to knock down what remains.
First, a digression on a couple of signature weapons:
Since Pettimore’s inception in this campaign’s previous iteration, he’s carried a Dragunov SVD named Thoughts and Prayers. Shortly before entering the catacombs of Czestochowa, Pettimore met a Polish Catholic priest, Father Wojiech (yes, that Father Wojiech). In the course of exchanging information and receiving counsel, he asked the good father to bless his rifle. We’ve never specified exactly what the blessing did in game terms, but, well… here we are.
For his part, Arkadi carries a hand-forged tomahawk from a limited run commissioned by 10th Special Forces Group shortly before the war. They were originally exclusive to 10th Group, but a few spares, as well as examples formerly owned by fallen SF troops, were given to members of allied intelligence and direct action units operating alongside the unit. Arkadi is the only KGB defector to earn one. As far as we know, it has no particular special blessing on it, but it definitely had an effect in this session, and it now emanates a faint haze of smoke.
This was quite a fun session to run. Even without the paranormal aspect, I’m quite happy with how the “combat” against the fire worked. As noted above, I’ll share the mechanics behind that in a separate post.
Technically, there was some cleanup work at the end of this session, as well as discussions of what to do next, but this seemed like a good place to wrap up the narrative. The next couple of campaign posts will include this session’s post-fight details and their outcomes.
Only a couple of days of downtime, as events are about to overtake the team.
While Red, Magda, Minka, and Zenobia were away making friends, the rest of the team tested the new still and continueed with the harvest.
The day after that is 07 August, a full downtime day. Pettimore, Leks, Minka, and Zenobia take the 2.5-ton truck out to the hog farm construction site and recover the concrete premix and lumber. It’ll take another couple of trips to bring in the roofing materials, but this is a start. Minka works constructing a paddock for the stallion [the player has named the horses and set out Minka’s agenda for training each of them]. Miko heads out to meet up with Ellis for a bit of reconnaissance and possibly sabotage [to be detailed separately]. Fuel brewing continues.
On 08 August, Red, Zenobia, and Arkadi throw a bunch of parts and tools in the 2.5-ton truck and drive out to the vehicle cache, meeting some of Von Bahr’s crew who are doing similar work. They get the BTR-70K into working condition (Reliability 2/5), convert its engine to run on alcohol (it was still set up for gas when it was abandoned), and bring it back. Its radios are trashed and its mounted KPV is out of ammo at at 0/5 Reliability, but it’s a start. Minka finishes the paddock with surprising speed (perhaps faster than any reasonable person should have been able to without help…) and puts in some horse time. Miko returns from whatever he and Ellis were up to. The harvest continues.
It’s also worth noting that 08 August brings a heat wave to central Poland, with brutally high temperatures and a stiff wind that does nothing to cool people working outside (or at a forge).
The day is clear, sunny, and promising to be hot. It’s perfect harvest weather – which may be why only Magda, Zenobia, Red, and Minka are aboard the UAZ-469 when it rolls out of Ponikla early in the morning. They’re headed east, moving downriver along the Pilica’s south bank to survey and map more of the territory between their home base and the hydroelectric power plant whose location Minka recently obtained.
The team stops at Mysiakowiec, the village only a kilometer downriver from Ponikla with the bridge that’s only safe for pedestrians, horses, and motorcycles. There’s evidence of more refugee movement through the area, southbound across the bridge, with at least one group having overnighted in the ruins. Presumably, whatever is happening around Warsaw is still driving people away.
There’s no contact to be made, so the team presses on, using the unpaved service roads that roughly parallel the river. About an hour in, Magda sights a complex of half-intact, skeletal buildings – and beyond them, two vehicles. The team halts and Zenobia carefully moves in to get a better look.
The site is long abandoned. Before the war, someone was building a large hog farm. Four long, low barns have frames and partial roofs, and poured foundations show where service buildings and workers’ quarters would have gone if the war hadn’t interrupted construction. The vehicles were once medium-sized cargo trucks, 5-tonners or thereabouts, but they’ve burned so thoroughly that it’s hard to tell model or origin. Other signs of a firefight at least a year ago speaks of something having gone down here, but scant evidence has endured this long.
The construction materials scattered around the site are in better shape. There’s a large amount of corrugated sheet tin roofing material, two pallets of concrete mix, and two pallets of treated lumber. Additionally, the team turns up five glass bottles of Coca-Cola, apparently bottled in West Germany, and a single 152mm HE artillery shell.
The UAZ-469 lacks the cargo space for the building materials and no one wants to be seatmates with fifty kilos of TNT and shrapnel, so the team takes the Coke and leaves the rest for later retrieval.
Battle at the Boneyard
The service road gradually fades out as the terrain slopes down toward the river’s floodplain. The team is driving along a spit of land between two creeks when they hear the sound of a larger and more poorly-tuned engine from somewhere ahead. Pulling over, they park the UAZ behind a hill and move forward to investigate, Zenobia on point.
Pulpscape from Patreon comes through again. This was a combination of two of their geomorphic battlemaps.
As Zenobia reaches the hill’s crest, she sees a fair amount of metal. About sixty meters away, a scattering of trees and shrouds of tattered camouflage netting conceal four vehicles: a pair of BTRs, a BMP-1, and a T-72. A GAZ-66 light truck is parked in the open. Around it are nine men in piecemeal attire – civilian garb and Soviet and Polish fatigues – and NATO-style helmets. They’re armed with the assortment of Warsaw Pact weaponry that’s common in the area, and they’re in the process of taking up defensive positions facing east.
The threat they’re aligning towards is a slightly-larger force that’s just come into view. A pair of four-man rifle teams are maneuvering up either side of the spit of land, with a machine gun team anchoring the line in the center. Along the southern of the two creeks, another BTR is snorting its way down into the water. As it turns, Zenobia can make out its ZOMO markings.
The leader of the group nearer the PCs is snapping commands in German, which Red speaks. There’s no clue as to the group’s origin, though.
As the PCs watch, a gunfight begins. The presumed-Germans, lacking heavy weapons, quickly take the worst of it. Two of them go down and their comrades pull them behind cover. The ZOMO forces close in, supported by judiciously-placed short bursts from the BTR’s 14.5mm heavy MG.
There’s a quick debate about what to do. The team definitely doesn’t want to help the ZOMO squad, assuming they’re part of the Radom garrison that is becoming more of a concern with every new piece of intel. On the other hand, they have no idea who the Germans are.
The ZOMO’s superior numbers and fire support establish a clear advantage. Between the MG team and the BTR, the Germans are pinned down. Their leader calls to his men to get the wounded aboard their truck. A well-timed frag grenade arcs out, suppressing one of the ZOMO rifle teams and giving the Germans the opening they need to start their breakout.
On the hill, a quick vote shows two in favor of helping the Germans, one opposed, and one undecided. The PCs are as yet unnoticed, so they have options. The biggest problem is the BTR. Without Leks, they’re limited in heavy firepower – but Red, who can march for days with a much heavier burden than his build suggests [Load Carrier specialty], digs a HEAT rifle grenade out of his ruck. He’s been carrying it for a while in case such an occasion presented itself.
Of the three who are not the team’s sniper, Magda is the best shot. Red hands the rifle grenade to her and they sprint southeast, followed by Minka. Zenobia pulls her ghillie suit over her head, eases forward, and blows the head off the distant machinegunner.
There’s a flurry of gunfire as the ZOMO troops react to this new intrusion. Red takes a flesh wound and reciprocates by dropping one of the ZOMO riflemen. Zenobia kills the assistant gunner before he can recover from his shock and take over the PK. Magda takes careful aim and launches a rifle grenade for the first time since her initial military training.
The warhead sails downrange and slams into the BTR’s turret. A spray of fire and gore blasts out the far side [penetrating hit, gunner, critical]. The big KPV swings skyward and falls silent.
The PCs’ entrance turns the tide immediately. A few of the Germans take blast and frag injuries from an RPG round, but under Zenobia’s precision fire and the massed counterattack of Red, Minka, Magda, and the Germans, the ZOMO troops fall. The sole survivor is the BTR’s driver, who surrenders after failing to restart his stalled vehicle [seriously, three failed Driving checks in a row].
The Germans are reloading and eyeing the new arrivals nervously. Red takes the lead in the negotiations. The German commander introduces himself as Oberstleutnant (Lieutenant Colonel) Boris Von Bahr, formerly the field-promoted XO of the 28th Panzergrenadier Division’s armor component. Red recognizes the unit designation: the 28th PzGren was formerly the East German 8th Motor Rifle Division, one of the units that threw in with NATO when the war began.
Von Bahr’s Story
Von Bahr doesn’t attempt to throw around his rank, but it’s clear that he’s conscious of Red’s relatively junior pay grade (whatever that means these days). However, he explains that he and his troops recently arrived in the area. The 28th PzGren took part in the Operation Advent Crown offensive through Poland in 1997, making it nearly to the Soviet border before the desperate Russians unbottled the nuclear genie. Von Bahr and his troops were subsequently captured around Lodz during the NATO retreat. The Soviets shipped them east to a prison camp near Brest, where they were interned for two and a half years.
In April, the guard force on the camp was halved. A prisoner uprising was partially successful. Von Bahr gathered as many former East German prisoners as he could and organized a force which managed to break out. Stealing weapons and transport, they headed west.
As they traveled, it became clear that the camp’s guard force had been reduced to allocate soldiers to a major Soviet and Polish operation. The escapees were moving west in the wake of a massive troop movement. Realizing they were still far behind enemy lines, they temporarily set aside their goal of returning home. Instead, they found an ungoverned village with a nearby defensible industrial site and settled in, establishing themselves as local protectors (read: warlords). They’re still undecided if this is a temporary arrangement or if they intend to settle here.
The vehicles? Ah, there’s another tale. During the NATO withdrawal in the autumn of 1997, retreating forces had to abandon a large amount of equipment that wasn’t capable of keeping up. The 28th PzGren has been this way before, and Von Bahr recognized a couple of landmarks in the area. He and his men were on an initial survey to see if anything was still here and recoverable.
Boneyard Report
While this conversation is happening, Zenobia and Minka are inspecting the vehicles alongside Von Bahr’s troops. Their assessment is:
One BTR-70 is better used as a parts donor. It took a large-caliber gun hit in the engine compartment and it’s surprising that it didn’t burn where it stood.
The second BTR is actually a BTR-70K, the command vehicle variant of the basic design. Its troop compartment is holed and the radios don’t look so good, but it’s mechanically recoverable.
The BMP-1 also took a heavy hit to the troop compartment, straight through the rear doors. The fuel tanks must have been nearly empty because it didn’t explode and burn, but there’s shock damage throughout the vehicle and the troop compartment is not a place anyone will want to sit.
The T-72’s engine appears to have eaten itself. Zenobia counts at least three separate issues of poor quality control at the factory – arguably, it’s impressive that the thing made it this far. Its main gun is also a wreck, as someone set a small demolition charge on the breech before abandoning it.
Finally, the ZOMO BTR-60 is intact other than a ragged hole through the turret and a fresh coat of gunner on much of the interior.
Von Bahr listens to Zenobia’s (translated by Red) survey report, which aligns with that of his own mechanics. His troops are gathering up the ZOMO weapons and equipment, but he acknowledges – a trifle grudgingly, Red thinks – that he’d be in a lot worse place right now if not for the PCs. Since his original intent here was salvage, he offers them a choice of the BMP-1 or one of the BTR-70s, provided they can repair and fuel it. After some discussion, the team opts to claim the BTR-70K, hoping they can get some of its radios working.
[The player behind Ellis and Arkadi, who wasn’t able to make this session, has been the driving force behind a lot of the team’s intel operations. There was some discussion of taking the BMP-1 just to hear his reaction upon learning that the team passed up a command vehicle. Strategic planning prevailed over the hunger for a bigger gun, though.
At this point, the party actually has a ridiculously large motor pool: two motorcycles, a UAZ-469 with mounted PK, a technical with mounted M2HB, an OT-64, an M35 deuce and a half, a farm tractor, a small bulldozer, five horses, and now a recoverable BTR-70K. Plus the Black Volga, around which no one but Arkadi seems comfortable…]
Von Bahr’s troops bundle up their dead and load them into the GAZ-66. They’ll come back with parts and tools, but for now, they’ve done all they can here. Von Bahr invites the PCs to partake of what hospitality he can offer. They accept; his description of his base makes it pretty clear that he’s taken over the hydroelectric plant that was their eventual objective, so yes, they will take the opportunity for a tour.
Cognitohazards
The team mounts up and rolls east behind the GAZ. Eventually, the power plant comes into sight. It’s an unlovely complex of heavy industrial architecture squatting behind a high chain-link fence along the diversion channel that once fed the turbines. Von Bahr halts and gives what’s evidently a duress/all-clear sign to the sentries on duty, and the party proceeds into the compound.
World map update, with two hexes opened up during this session.
Inside, the compound is clearly showing signs of long disuse followed by recent cleanup. The Germans are setting up for a long stay, but they’ve only been here a couple of weeks. There are the beginnings of garden plots but no crops or livestock. A second GAZ-66 is parked next to a former machine shop and there’s a sandbagged machine gun emplacement atop one of the sturdier buildings.
Von Bahr’s total force appears to be 19 troops (after subtracting the two casualties he just took), about a third of whom are female and seem to be on equal footing (allowing for residual rank) with the men. Four civilian women are also present, two of whom are visibly pregnant. When queried, Von Bahr explains that the latter are war brides. One of them is the unit’s only medical support, a former POW camp nurse with a public health background.
Magda spots a town a few kilometers to the east, sitting at the junction of two major highways. According to Von Bahr, that’s Bialobrzegi. Formerly home to a small shipyard and a large commercial garage, as well as the housing and support facilities for the power plant, it’s now home to a few hundred subsistence farmers. The place was ungoverned when his force arrived and it’s now under their protection. Red and Magda don’t quite get a “marauder protection racket” vibe, but Von Bahr’s attitude does seem to be somewhere between dismissive of civilians and outright warlord.
While Red and Magda continue to trade information with Von Bahr, Zenobia and Minka are more interested in the machinery on site. Von Bahr is dismissively fine with them inspecting the turbines and the rest of the plant, though he does insist they have an escort. His apparent XO is Oberfahnrich (Senior Warrant Officer) Thekla Adler, a snub-nosed, shaven-headed woman with the emaciated greyhound build of a distance runner who’s spent a couple of years on short rations. She’s a bit standoffish, which is a good match for Zenobia’s usual demeanor, but isn’t unwelcoming. She admits that the East Germans hadn’t really considered the possibility that the power plant might be restored to operation. To them, it’s just a defensible position close to water and a population center.
About thirty minutes of mechanical inspection seems to indicate that the turbines and other worky bits are aged (the place was built in the 1950s) and haven’t seen maintenance for a few years, but it should be possible for a good engineering crew to put them back into operation. The broader question is getting the local grid back up – if they can’t transmit the power anywhere, the plant is of little use. Zenobia asks about seeing the control room. Adler has to think about this for a moment – for some reason, that’s another thing that it never occurred to any of the East Germans to check out when they moved into the compound.
The control room [because I have an unlimited budget for special effects and set design] is a spacious room on the facility’s top level with the archetypal slanted glass wall overlooking the turbine floor. It’s dusty but appears to have been shut down in good order. No problems here.
Minka spins around in one of the swivel chairs and freezes. On the back wall, unnoticed when the trio came in, is a map of the regional power grid. She points it out to Zenobia, who starts making strangled joyous sounds. While the PCs did find a vintage map of Polish mineral resources in the museum, this is the first no-shit usable technical map they’ve encountered. Minka and Zenobia manage to avoid drawing Adler’s attention to the map just yet – they remain wary of whatever brain-fog seems to be affecting damn near everyone they meet.
Zenobia notices a door off to one side, with a small plaque next to it: Superintendent. “Can we take a look in there?” she asks. Unsurprisingly by this point, it’s another room Adler hasn’t noticed before. It’s locked… for all of fifteen seconds, before Zenobia (who is an actual locksmith by prewar trade) has her way with it.
The door swings open. Inside is a massive desk, nearly empty – only a telephone, a blotter, and a face-down framed picture. Behind the desk is an equally-massive leather chair containing the desiccated remains of a man. Judging from the forensic evidence on the wall behind him and the floor under the chair, he shot himself in the head with an old Nagant revolver.
Against the wall, flanking the desk, are two large bookshelves crammed full of technical documentation on the plant and the regional power grid, as well as a fair amount of electrical engineering textbooks.
Adler starts seizing and drops like her spine has been removed.
“Oh, gods, we killed her with books,” says Minka.
This is a worse manifestation than the team has seen before. Adler stops breathing. Minka goes to work on her and tells Zenobia to get Red now.
Zenobia dashes outside and alerts Red, Magda, and Von Bahr of the emergency. She manages to somewhat-obliquely convey to Red and Magda that Adler is having an extreme version of the apparent brain malfunction they’ve previously observed in others. Von Bahr grabs a nearby soldier and sends him to fetch the camp’s nurse, grabs two more for escorts and follows Zenobia as she drags Red and Magda along in her wake.
Zenobia gets back to the control room, realizes she needs to keep anyone from seeing the map, and manages to position a wheeled chalkboard more-or-less in front of it. She pulls the office door shut just in time to prevent an unfortunate episode.
Red realizes he has perfectly good anticonvulsants in his pharmaceutical stash back in Ponikla. He hits Adler with a shot of epinephrine instead. This seems to get her through the worst of whatever’s going on; at any rate, her breathing stabilizes, although now her heart rate is well north of 120.
Von Bahr is watching the proceedings. The two soldiers who tagged along have posted up on either side of the door, ostentatiously not fondling their slung rifles.
Red gets up from the floor and explains that yes, he has seen this before.
Von Bahr would like an explanation.
Red: “Hmm. You might want to have one of your men cover his ears so you don’t all experience the effects at once.”
Von Bahr gives him a look but orders one of his troops to put in earplugs.
Red: “Maps.”
Von Bahr and the other soldier both glaze over and lock up in the lower-grade seizure that’s more familiar to the team. As Von Bahr comes out of it, Red explains that the team has been seeing this for a while. There seems to be a general, unspecified effect that’s suppressing awareness of any form of recorded knowledge.
Von Bahr: “What you’re talking about is suppressing any attempt to salvage civilization.”
Red: “Pretty much, yeah.”
Red further unpacks the team’s observations to date, including the apparent acclimation period that seems to vary based on exposure. His working theory about Adler’s incapacitation is that she saw… something… in the office (he avoids saying “huge honkin’ bookshelves”) that generated a more direct and severe conflict with the effect than any the team has seen before.
Von Bahr asks what else they’re not telling him.
Red glances over his shoulder at Zenobia, who mouths, “map” and points behind the chalkboard.
Red asks Von Bahr to have his troops step out so their brains don’t explode, and has Minka swivel Adler’s chair around to avoid a similar fate. Then Zenobia slides the chalkboard aside.
Von Bahr looks at the map, slides out of his chair onto his knees, pulls in a nearby wastebasket without looking at it, and empties his stomach.
Once Von Bahr recovers, this is more than enough proof for him – especially once Adler confirms her own experience and, eventually, has her own look at the map. There’s some further discussion about whatever the effect is, but Red has already shared all of what the team has assembled to date.
Conversation turns to other items of mutual interest. Von Bahr’s offer of one of the derelict vehicles stands, and he’s on board with trying to get the power plant back online. Although he outranks Red by a considerable margin (even leaving aside the fact that Red is technically a Staff Corps officer, not a combat commander), he’s not so foolish as to imagine he can place Red or the other PCs under his command. He is quite interested in the regional defense coalition that the PCs seem to be assembling with the farmers to the north, the White Eagle Battalion, and possibly Opoczno, and he sees whatever’s happening in Radom as the most immediate threat facing that alliance.
The team lingers another couple of hours, but the substantial part of the negotiations is pretty much over. Red meets with the East Germans’ nurse, shepherds her through her own brain-rewiring, and briefs her on how to get the rest of Von Bahr’s followers through the process with a safety margin. With that, the team heads back to Ponikla.
A lot happened in this session. I had originally intended Von Bahr to be less cooperative and more of a frenemy, an ongoing variable in the regional calculus. I hadn’t counted on the team hitting him with the reality check. That had some effects on his mindset and strategic thinking that made him much more willing to negotiate with Red as a social peer and military near-peer.
There was a fair amount of out-of-character discussion on how to weaponize the effect. There may be an initiative to paint maps on the sides of the OT-64 and BTR-70K and drive through enemy formations to induce seizures…
After tramping around in the mud all day, the team is less enthusiastic about conserving fuel. They’ve been brewing with a pair of small stills, which have a combined maximum yield of 40 liters per day if operated around the clock [and if everyone makes successful Tech rolls]. Having a larger, more reliable source of alcohol is a priority on which everyone can agree. The entire team piles into the 2.5-ton truck and trundles down to the railyard to spend a day sifting through parts suitable for a larger still.
With the help of the village’s brewer and the former high school chemistry teacher, Red, Minka, Zenobia, and Arkadi spend the next two days banging together a larger still. Pettimore, Leks, Miko, and Magda focus on the harvest and other food supply-related tasks.
Not much of note happens during this time, but at the end of those three days, the tech crew proudly hoists glasses of mead over their new fuel still.
Most of the team (less Arkadi and, of course, Ellis) heads out on another mapping and reconnaissance mission. This time, they’re southbound, exploring the region beyond the railyard and Opoczno. Fuel production is still barely keeping up with consumption, so they decide to march rather than piling into a vehicle.
The sky has been threatening rain all morning. The first raindrops are falling as they take a break at the highway south of Ponikla. Magda and Pettimore, out on point, are the first to hear the howling. Somewhere south of their position, wolves are agitated about something.
Another set of howls starts up from the southwest. They sound like wolves, but the cadence is off. It almost feels more like a conversation.
The team finds a defensible position and hunkers down, but there’s no sign of lupine aggression. After a few minutes, they move out, albeit with a bit more caution than before. The drizzle becomes a downpour as they pass the railyard, checking in with Arkadi, who’s there with the teenagers on a salvage run.
The team continues south into more of the mostly-abandoned farmland that’s the region’s prevalent terrain. Beyond the fields, a scraggly forest offers to mitigate at least some of the downpour. The dirt track the team is following intersects with another muddy road – this one revealing recent footprints. Pettimore hunkers down to inspect the tracks. It looks like about a dozen people, mainly in civilian footwear and including a few kids; a few of them are carrying heavy loads.
The team decides to follow. The tracks lead to a derelict house, half-collapsed and in the process of being reclaimed by nature. Pettimore, Zenobia, and Magda move in to take a closer look. Sure enough, the group they’ve been following is about a dozen refugees, who are currently engaged in an attempt to cook what meager rations they have. A few of them have hand tools that could serve as improvised weapons and one appears to be carrying a firearm under his coat, but they’re not a serious threat.
Pettimore takes up his bow,and slinks off in search of wildlife. Magda and and Red [who were not built with Empathy as a dump stat] move in to initiate conversation while the rest of the team holds position in case something goes sideways.
The refugees are standoffish, as expected, but the team’s negotiators win them over. Pettimore certainly doesn’t hurt the process when he returns and donates a deer to the stewpot. The refugees’ nominal leader, Roman Sobol [a good random Polish name], indicates that the group is traveling from Radom to Opoczno.
The team perks up at this. Radom is on their radar as the source of the ZOMO detachment that was threatening their farmer friends to the north of Ponikla, and, more recently, as the intended destination of the slavers who abducted Bianka, Tamara, and Pawel from the railyard.
Roman fills them in on recent events. The Radom ZOMO, which functions as the ruined city’s military government, is under increasing pressure from the Polish puppet government at Lublin (which Roman believes is, in turn, under pressure from Soviet Reserve Front HQ there). The new capital wants Radom’s arms factory restored to some level of function, despite the heavy damage it took during NATO forces’ withdrawal at the end of Operation Advent Crown in late ’97. The Radom ZOMO is responding by increasing labor quotas, diverting workers from the fields at the most critical point in the harvest, and demanding more work from the inmates at the POW camp.
Beyond that, Radom has seen a significant amount of westward Soviet troop movement over the past month, with couriers going both east and west with increased regularity and urgency. There are rumors that a NATO offensive somewhere around Lodz destroyed the units that were sent west.
The conversation is interrupted by more wolf howls – this time from the north. There’s another brief exchange, immediately followed by two explosions.
The team hastily gives Roman directions for reaching Opoczno without exposing themselves on the main road. They then gear up and move out, heading toward the noise of what now sounds like an intense gunfight. A couple more explosions shake the forest.
Smoke is rising over the trees as the team approaches the highway. They spread out and approach cautiously. Around a bend, armed figures are moving around a Soviet convoy that’s seen better days. The lead vehicle of the eastbound unit was a BTR-70, which is now on its side courtesy of what appears to have been a massive IED. Behind it, a Ural-375 with some sort of communications shelter on the back is fully engulfed in flames. Another Ural-375, this one the standard cargo model, appears intact, as does a UAZ-469 towing a trailered generator. At the rear of the convoy, a UAZ-469 gun jeep is leaking fluids around its four flat tires.
The Poles in the team are the first to recognize the insignia on the arms of the figures who are picking through the debris. It’s the white eagle on red of the Polish Home Army, the anti-Soviet movement that aligned with NATO at the war’s onset. Magda, herself a former Home Army fighter, has recently resumed wearing her own insignia, so she takes point as the team heads down to meet presumed allies.
The woman in charge of the ambushers comes out to meet Magda. She’s tall, with brilliant green eyes, delicate hands that look more suited to surgery or a piano than the AKM she’s holding, and an old knife scar across the side and back of her neck. She introduces herself as Marietta Rabarchak, a lieutenant with the White Eagle Battalion operating out of Skarzysko-Kamienna, a city about 40 kilometers southeast of their current location. She wasn’t aware any other Home Army forces were in the area; Magda has to quickly explain that while she’s Home Army, her companions are something of a grab bag.
(Red and Pettimore identify the convoy as a Soviet signals intelligence unit, probably returning to Lublin after doing unpleasant things in support of the forces that crushed the U.S. 5th Infantry Division. Unfortunately, the vehicles that might have contained the items that the team is most interested in – maps and radios – are on fire. Such is war.)
Rabarchak gives the team a quick summary of her group’s situation. The White Eagle Battalion holds Skarzysko-Kamienna and is focusing its efforts on the Soviet presence in the region. They’ve been hitting couriers and convoys along the main line of communications between Lublin and the forces in the west. They knew someone else was in the area after finding the remains of a GRU unit that they themselves hadn’t hit. They expect that the Soviets will start stationing quick reaction forces along the route; Pettimore infers that they’re about to change up their tactics in the hope that they can lure the QRFs into larger or secondary ambushes.
Before the team can get too far into the details, a trio of men emerges from the woods. These guys aren’t wearing Home Army colors; they’re dressed in ragged civilian attire under wolfskin cloaks. All are carrying scoped bolt-action rifles that probably saw service in the 1940s. Their leader, a dude with a pierced eyebrow and a beard that would do ZZ Top proud, walks up to the conversation and eyes the team warily. In monosyllables, he asks Rabarchak who the newcomers are. She explains and introduces him as Filip, an individual of some importance within an allied partisan group, the Bracia Wilkow.
(The PCs don’t recognize the name but the Poles in the party immediately parse it: the Wolf-Brothers.)
Filip gives the team some more stink-eye. He’s obviously assessing them as a potential problem. He locks onto Pettimore, steps into the sniper’s personal space, and sniffs. “Mm. Bearkiller. You’ll do.”
[Exposition at this point for the home audience: Pettimore is a legacy PC from a previous iteration of this campaign world. Early in that campaign, he was out hunting when a bear attacked him. He killed the beast with his sidearm, skinned and dressed it, and took one of its claws as a trophy necklace. All of the carcass except that claw subsequently vanished from the team’s HMMWV, with tracks and blood smears strongly suggesting that it got up and walked the hell away.
Pettimore still has the necklace, but he wears it under his shirt and no one in this campaign has ever seen it.]
While Pettimore is studiously not reacting to this, Filip shifts his attention to Minka and does the same thing. “You smell of the forge and old things. Good.”
And then he just walks away, gathering his two associates and disappearing back into the forest.
Rabarchak doesn’t have much explanation to offer. Apparently, the Bracia Wilkow are like that. They operate out of the forest somewhere south of here and west of Skarzysko-Kamienna, and they occasionally show up to support the White Eagle Battalion with reconnaissance and the odd sniper shot. And there are standing orders to not piss them off.
She checks her watch and realizes that she’s spent about as much time next to a burning Soviet convoy as she wants to. Her platoon wraps up the looting and begins loading up the usable UAZ and Ural. Red negotiates a communication dropoff at Opoczno; apparently, one of the merchants there is part of the White Eagles’ network. With that, the partisans head south and the PCs circle back to pick up Roman’s refugees and escort them into Opoczno.
This was a remarkably tense session despite the complete lack of combat. All of the players from that previous iteration are in this campaign, and they have unpleasant memories of men who associate themselves closely with wolves. Pettimore is the only PC who continued (or sideslipped) into this campaign, and my players are pretty good at not metagaming, but the paranoia was contagious.
With Miko badly injured, the team pulls in their horns and focuses on agriculture and infrastructure for the nine days it’ll take that shattered elbow to heal.
Pettimore, Leks, and Magda throw themselves into the harvest. July’s bounty includes black and red currants, cherries, potatoes, and barley. The month’s total yield from all fields harvested is an impressive 6,100 rations of food. On rainy days when working the fields is impractical, the team supplements this with foraging and hunting.
The more mechanically-inclined team members get to work on infrastructure tasks. The drilling rig enables them to sink another well (actually, two, but the first one came up dry – literally). Minka gets her forge set up, and her trial efforts produce a couple of the boar spears that Pettimore had requested a while ago. The team also puts some effort into assembling a welding torch, though they still lack a supply of acetylene.
Arkadi was always a hobbyist mechanic and he’s familiar with Volgas. Against Zenobia’s recommendations, he puts a few shifts into patching tires and body panels and reconditioning other components that caught Leks’ wrath. With the Volga restored to driveable condition, the village’s entire vehicle fleet is repaired. A week-plus of no travel also sees the available fuel increase as both stills are in constant use, though they still have a ways to go before reaching their goal of full fuel tanks and a reserve.
Finally, there’s some discussion of long-term infrastructure improvements. Zenobia and Red both want to restore electrical power to the community. Minka has recently come into possession of a stack of technical documentation for the region’s electrical grid, and there seems to be a small hydroelectric generating facility about 30km downriver (east) of Ponikla…
It should come as no surprise by now that the tinkering with rules continues in my Kaserne on the Borderlands campaign.
Improving Coolness Under Fire
I’m not a fan of the rules as written because of the chance to lose Empathy on increasing CUF. As there’s no way to improve attributes during play, that’s a permanent hit to any EMP-reliant character. We’re currently assessing the effects of the following house rule:
At the end of each session, roll your base Coolness Under Fire die.
If the die comes up its maximum value and you were in combat during that session, increase your CUF by one step, to a maximum of A (d12).
If the die comes up a natural 1 and you took a critical hit or were incapacitated from stress during that session, decrease your CUF by 1, to a minimum of D (d6).
Initiative
I’m definitely not a fan of a random initiative system that doesn’t reflect character proficiency (leaving aside the poorly-named Combat Awareness specialty). Our current initiative system, which we’ve been using since the first session, is:
At the beginning of each round, each player rolls Coolness Under Fire (adding Unit Morale if the PC is within voice or visual contact of a teammate). With success, they act in the fast phase, before all NPCs. With failure, they act in the slow phase, after all NPCs. Characters in each phase may act in any sequence and players may (briefly) discuss tactics and order of operations before declaring actions.
As a play aid, I’ll watch the dice log and drop a brief summary of the rolls into the chat. A typical turn sequence may look like:
Fast phase: Red, Leks, Magda, Arkadi, Pettimore (in any order)
NPCs
Slow phase: Minka, Zenobia, Miko (in any order)
This incentivizes keeping the team close (no lone-wolfing), rewards both individual proficiency (Coolness Under Fire) and team cohesion (Unit Morale), and allows the sort of coordinated action that we see in both documentary and cinematic examinations of small unit tactics.
With obvious Warsaw Pact military activity south of them, the team is interested in getting eyes on more of the map in that direction. They load up the UAZ-469 for a reconnaissance push in that direction, heading south or southeast from the railyard.
While they’re prepping their gear, Malvina and Jacob approach them. Jacob’s eye socket has finally healed under Red and Minka’s care, and the two teenagers would like to get back to the railyard to check on their friends. They’ve been exchanging written communication (with a primitive duress/wellness code that Ellis figured out before he left on his mission) but they haven’t actually been back since the team brought Jacob in for surgery.
Arkadi, Zenobia, Leks, Minka, Red, and Miko squeeze into the UAZ along with the two teens. It’s a tight fit but the trip down is uneventful.
Arriving at the railyard, it’s… quiet. The other four teenagers have had semi-regular contact with the team and should recognize the UAZ, but no one comes out to greet them. The team fans out to search.
Miko heads into the woods south of the railyard and immediately picks up on signs that someone’s been here [4 successes on a Survival check… okay, we’ll go with it]. He finds an observation point or sniper hide, apparently occupied last night. About thirty meters back, there’s sign of a larger campsite with horses, dogs, and a horse-drawn cart. As best he’s able to reconstruct, about a half-dozen men with five horses came here yesterday, observed the railyard overnight, and departed a few hours ago.
He also finds signs of a fight. There’s no evidence of gunfire, but blood splatters, trampled undergrowth, and broken branches all indicate that something went down. He also locates the remains of a hand-woven wicker basket that was crushed in the melee along with its cargo of mushrooms and herbs.
Minka is accosted by the tabby cat who gave her and Magda a brief jumpscare on their first trip here. She follows the cat to a damaged and derailed baggage car across the yard. Seeing a gleam of metal in the car’s depths, she squeezes herself through the jammed, half-open door.
The rest of the team sees Minka disappear into the baggage car. A moment later, screaming and the sounds of a ferocious melee erupt! The team dashes in that direction, Arkadi in the lead.
Inside the baggage car, Minka finds herself fending off a panicked, frantic teenager with a knife who seems intent on stabbing her in the kidneys. Fortunately, her tool roll is in the way, and a couple of wrenches take the brunt of the assault. In between the stabs and the screams of “you’re not taking me!” Minka manages to disarm and pin her assailant. It’s Irena, one of the other teenagers.
Arkadi lowers his AK as Minka emerges from the baggage car, followed by a 16-year-old girl with wide eyes and a broken knife. Irena provides the pieces of the story that connect to Miko’s findings. Early this morning, slavers raided the railyard. She recognized two of the same crew that had tried to capture the kids a couple of months ago in the raid that cost Jacob his eye. She was scrounging for parts on the north end of the yard and escaped notice, but the slavers made off with the other three teenagers – Bianka, Tamara, and Pawel.
The team instructs Irena, Malvina, and Jacob to fort up in the railyard and head for Ponikla if they aren’t back after dark. Jacob assures them that they have some hiding places they haven’t shown the team yet (earning a fistbump from Miko, who appreciates teenage paranoia). Malvina hefts Zenobia’s old Glock 17 (which she semi-inherited when Zenobia upgraded to a Glock 18).
The team heads out on the trail. The slavers aren’t hard to track – light rain over the last few days has made the ground soft but not muddy, and they’re using farm roads through largely-abandoned countryside.
Zenobia, riding shotgun while Arkadi drives, spots a couple of large, angular shapes about a kilometer away. They look like tanks. There’s a general swearing and readying of weapons. Leks grabs the one RPG-22 he packed along (after the GRU fight, he’s less inclined to leave home without something that can handle at least light armor).
Binoculars are passed around. Leks, Red, and Arkadi, all with formal military training, are able to recognize the shapes of self-propelled artillery. They also pick out the signs of severe battle damage – these are derelicts, not actively-crewed vehicles.
The team approaches cautiously, Miko out in front on foot to watch for mines or UXO. The tracks they’re following do indicate that the slavers halted to check out the wrecks, but didn’t stay for long. The wreckage is old, several years of rust visible on torn steel. Overgrown craters tell the story: an American artillery battery stayed too long in its firing position and was wiped out with counterbattery fire. The three M109s are hopelessly beyond repair, as are the remains of two 5-ton trucks. The trio of M992 ammunition carriers is only slightly less damaged, but Minka, Zenobia, and Arkadi confer. If they took detailed measurements, fabricated a few drivetrain parts, and camped out here for a week with a good selection of tools, they might be able to strip two of the M992s to get the third back to operating condition.
That’s a tomorrow problem, though. The team has much higher priorities right now.
After another hour of driving, the road begins winding downward into a low, swampy area. On a bluff overlooking the road, a bombed-out building looms. It looks worth checking out. Arkadi slows the UAZ as it passes a stand of trees and Miko and Zenobia roll out into the scrub at the side of the road. As they collect themselves, they spot a sniper atop the ridgeline, tracking the UAZ with his rifle as it passes.
The UAZ rolls on to the north, holding the sniper’s attention. Zenobia settles herself into position and waits under her ghillie suit while Miko circles wide and ascends the west end of the bluff to come up behind the sniper. As he does so, he spots two more men in another patch of woods to his east.
Miko applies his hard-won patience and settles in to watch. After about five minutes, the sniper returns to scanning the road and the other armed men head back to a small campsite in a clearing. Miko resumes his stalk, slowly closing on the sniper’s rear with machete in hand.
About 400 meters north of the bluff, Arkadi pulls the UAZ behind a ramshackle abandoned barn. He, Leks, Red, and Minka dismount and begin moving back south. They’re trying for stealth but this isn’t the team’s sneakiest subset…
Miko is about 30 meters from the sniper when he sees the man tense and swing his rifle to the north. He can’t see his approaching teammates but he’s fairly certain what’s captured the sniper’s attention. He dashes in and swings down in a vicious attack, slashing both of the man’s Achilles tendons. The sniper loses his rifle down the bluff as he rolls away screaming, incapacitated with pain.
Distant screaming is the cue for the group to the north to move in. They abandon their stealthy approach and begin dashing south toward the bluff. Red and Leks curve around to a western approach while Minka and Arkadi head due south, hoping to scale the sheer rocks and flank whoever’s in the decrepit building.
Red takes the lead. As he approaches the dirt track that leads up to the building, he sees another armed man emerge with three large dogs. He flattens himself against the bluff to break line of sight, as does Leks – but a moment later, a grenade comes sailing over the edge of the cliff. Shrapnel strikes Red’s chest and the blast knocks both men down. Through the smoke, two of the dogs charge. One tears into Red’s side just below his armor.
Minka scales the bluff like a spider monkey and dashes for the armed man. Arkadi tries to follow her but pulls a hamstring [three total 1s on two successive pushed Mobility checks]. Minka gets in the man’s face – and gets her hammer in his face, too.
Leks dumps a magazine from his Saiga-12 into the dogs that are on Red, tearing them both apart. Before Red can regain his feet, though, the third dog makes it to the fight and latches onto his leg, doing enough damage to incapacitate him.
The man facing Minka flips his AK-74 to full auto and dumps most of a magazine at her. Amazingly, nothing connects. Minka’s reciprocal attack misses too.
Arkadi finally makes it to the top of the cliff and circles around the far end of the building. Coming up behind Minka’s fight, he hurls his tomahawk into the man’s back. The slaver crumples.
Leks picks himself up and moves in, bludgeoning the last dog with his empty Saiga [and reminding us again that he wants Minka to give the shotgun a bayonet attachment]. Minka turns from her fallen foe and leaps off the bluff, landing hammer-first on the dog.
Back on the west side of the fight, Miko sees three men running toward him from the camp. He pulls the pin on a grenade of his own and lobs it into their midst. All three drop prone from the blast.
With Zenobia providing covering fire (and not all that impressed with the M21 she’s recent substituted for her bolt-action Sako), Miko moves in for more machete work. He lops off a hand, lays open a chest, narrowly dodges a tear gas grenade, and closes on the grenadier. He’s about to cut that man down, too, when he sees another adversary at the campsite – this one holding a shotgun on the three missing teenagers.
Miko’s trail of mayhem.
Whatever the guy was expecting, it wasn’t Miko covering 40 meters through dense woods [in a single move action, thanks to ridiculous Mobility rolls] and tackling him to the ground. He recovers quickly, though, fending off the machete-wielding maniac with the barrel of his Benelli and firing a blast that nearly tears of half of Miko’s arm [shattered elbow crit]. Arkadi sprints into the thicket and puts a tight, professional burst into the man’s back before he can finish off Miko.
Miko pushes himself to his feet and goes back after the grenadier. The man tries to bring up his submachine gun but Miko steps in and tears out his throat with a backhand swipe before collapsing in pain.
Minka and Leks get Red back on his feet. He’s bleeding and wobbly but still fit to practice medicine. He hobbles over to Miko. Field surgery without anesthesia is no one’s idea of fun, but the team is able to stabilize Miko before blood loss becomes life-threatening.
Red and Minka check on the kids next. They’re shaken but physically unharmed.
Zenobia and Arkadi wander over to the one survivor, the man who Miko hamstrung. He knows he’s dead and isn’t particularly cooperative. Zenobia shrugs; she’s happy to leave him out here to be eaten by wolves. Arkadi, joined by Red once the surgery is done, eventually pries a little bit of information out of him. The slavers were taking the teens to a prison camp in the ruins of Radom. The camp commissar there has turned to human trafficking and pays well for young, healthy workers. When the conversation is done, Leks asks the others to walk away and quietly disposes of the slaver.
The team gathers the weapons and equipment of the fallen. The most notable items are an HK-69 with an assortment of smoke, paraflare, and CS gas rounds. Each of the slavers had a gas mask, suggesting that they made somewhat regular use of the tear gas as a capture tool.
Minka checks over the horses. They’re all basically healthy, albeit inexpertly cared for. All five are draft crossbreeds, typical of the prewar farm horses seized for military use once fuel and vehicles started running out.
The team hooks up the horsecart, piles Red and Miko into it, and heads back to the railyard. There’s not much question at this point: the teenagers are ready to pack up and move to Ponikla. Leks, Zenobia, and Arkadi stay the night with them to help them pack and to give them an escort in the morning, while Minka takes the badly-injured team members and the horses back to Ponikla.
Miko’s performance this session was a great illustration of the benefits and drawbacks of a melee specialist in this system. His well-timed grenade and its suppression effects probably kept him from being gunned down earlier in the fight, but as it is, he’ll be offline for nine days while he heals that shattered elbow critical.
In addition to the loot, Zenobia and Red both got Coolness Under Fire increases out of this fight. Character progression seems to be going smoothly. There was some discussion about needing to cross-train some skills to ensure that Leks isn’t the only one with Heavy Weapons.
This is the second indication the PCs have received that bad things are brewing over in Radom. With that to the east, the marauders of Tomaszow Mazowiecki to the west, and what looks like a major Warsaw Pact line of communication to their south, the PCs are starting to develop a picture of a threat environment that’s a bit denser than they may have thought a month ago...
