Mission Report: The Yellow Curse of Euthermios

Spoiler Alert

If you don't want to GM, don't read this chapter!

You have been warned.

Ronin Time Bureaucracy is not meant to be a plot-driven game. Rather, it is meant to be improv-driven. This mission report is designed as a loose canvas upon which to unleash your Crew. It's more than ok if they step out of the boundaries, start tearing holes in everything you have planned, or go adventuring somewhere else, as long as everybody is having fun – just go with the flow.

Just don't forget to remind them that creating a Pocket Continuum is generally a very bad idea, and that Snafuing the universe is something that should be avoided at any cost. Well, at least for a Crew of beginners.

Out of the box, this Mission Report involves:

• the dictatorial Time Brigade, albeit not necessarily in its default role of boogeyman;
• the toylike Brick Nation, which may end up becoming the Big Threat in your campaign, depending of how the Crew handles things;
• the mysterious/annoying Time Hierarchy, which may be used to spice things and/or provide deus ex machina services.

Synopsis

The mission is set in and around the city of Euthermios, in Ancient Greece. An outbreak of Plague is killing its inhabitants, while mythological monsters are besieging the city, preventing anyone from coming in or escaping. Of course, none of the dwiddling number of inhabitants seems to pay particular attention to either the Plague or the Monsters. It goes without saying that both the Plague and the Monsters have Time-Traveling origins. The Monsters are fakes, put together by a Political Officer of the Time Brigade as soon as he realized the gravity of this Plague, in an effort to avoid Snafuing mankind and the universe. As for the Plague, it is not technically a disease: rather, it is a an advanced cloud of nanobots, designed to brickiform entire cities, turning its objects into plastic bricks and its inhabitants into toy-like Brick Figs.

Why are the characters here?

A few ideas:

• the usual "let's visit a fun part of time & space";
• the Time Brigade has launched a distress signal, which the Crew may have caught;

• the Time Brigade is trying its best to prevent a Continuum Indirection from taking off, this may have side-effects on other Indirections traveling nearby;

• the Crew has found a manuscript about this city, except no other archive seems to ever mention the city, and they are after a mystery;

• appointment with a smuggler (Suen Ng-hung is a good candidate, see below);

• bounty hunting through time and space (again, Suen Ng-hung is a good candidate);

• one of the Crew is afflicted with some ill, and the temples of Euthermios were rumored to be able to cure all diseases;

• looking for a vanished Crew of the Time Brigade (see below), either as a rescue mission, as a search & destroy mission, as an opportunity to steal some Time Brigade technology, looking for conveniently missing time travelers to sustain a Pocket Continuum, ...;

• ...

As usual, the only limit is the Entirety of Time and Space. Just remember the reason and make it an Aspect of the story.

To save Ancient Greece – and the Continuum itself – the Crew will need to find a way to deal with both the locals, the Time Brigade, and a vaguely threatening Time Smuggler, while finding a way to either defeat the Plague, negotiate with it, or somehow deflect it to another time and place.

Aspects of the story

• <Whatever the Crew is doing here>
• This Plague could Snafu the entire Continuum
• Killer monsters, killer mosquitoes, killer heat, and killer Plague.

A few Greek names, should you need them

• Agafya (F)
• Achilles (M)
• Economos (M)
• Ianthe (F)
• Sophia (F)
• Stamitos (M)

What about women in Ancient Greece?

Historically, women in Ancient Greece were expected to remain hidden in the gynaeceum, they were not supposed to take any decision outside of the household, etc. Playing a woman outsmarting these rules might actually be fun, but not all players would enjoy it. So if one of your Player Characters is a woman and the player isn't particularly interested in this side of role-playing, just assume that all the Time Peasants in and around Euthermios are so much in a state of shock that they don't have time to pay attention to the outrage that is a woman actually speaking without her male relative's permission.

Otherwise, a few ideas to let a woman walk freely in such a conservative society:

• pretend to be some kind of priestess;
• pretend to be some kind of goddess;
• pretend to be a man or a teenage boy;
• pretend to be a slave (yes, that's probably not ideal);
• pretend to be the authoritarian mother/wife/sister of a male Crew member (may actually be fun to role-play);
• pretend to be an Amazon (this will scare off many men, may intrigue some women);
• pretend to be some Barbarian queen – Ancient Greeks may despise Barbarians, but they are always willing to trade with them;
• ...

What about Barbarians in Ancient Greece?

Anybody too blond/red-haired/fair-skinned/dark-skinned/tall/short/... will undoubtedly look outlandish in Ancient Greece and will be considered a Barbarian. While Ancient Greeks openly despise Barbarians, they are willing to make exceptions for Greek-speaking ones and/or rich-looking ones. Also, Ancient Greeks are not stupid, the are not going to provoke fights they cannot win.

The City of Euthermios

This story is set in the Ancient Greek city of Euthermios. If you haven't heard about that city, well, there's probably a good reason... Until a few weeks ago, this city was a major cultural and commercial node in the Greek Civilization. It overlooks the sea, controls a river known as the Lakedon, and is home to one of the greatest libraries of the Mediterranean, natural hot baths, as well as no less than ten temples to the various Gods known and lost, a volcanic crater rumoured to hide an entrance to the Land of the Dead, and a fabled Colossus. Philosophers, merchants and pilgrims came from all over the Mediterranean Sea and the Greek Peninsula to exchange, barter, pray and have their future read. According to legends, this is where Herakles defeated the dreaded Tricorn and buried it somewhere. Of course, at the best of times, this is also a city of slavery, one that smells of the piss and sweat of ten thousand human beings (a true metropolis), even when it's not beset by mosquitoes.

During the last two weeks, however, the situation has taken a turn for the worse. It started with a sick pilgrim, or a sick priest, or perhaps a rat in the granary. A few days later, dozens of people were walking the streets, complaining about their cracking, dry skin, their falling teeth, eyes they could barely keep open. Now, thousands are dead or dying... and very few seem to pay attention to that fact. Yes, there seems to be a trend of reinforcing the walls to prevent citizens from leaving, and of citizens going to pray in Temple until their death, but surely, everything is normal. Also, some who have attempted to leave the city report mythical monsters besieging Euthermios. Oh, and, the night has new noises. Yellow ones.

A few places the Crew may wish to visit:

• Around the city
  • The road to the city.
  • The marshes.
  • The city walls.
  • The sea.
  • The river.
  • The crater.
  • The cementary.
• In the city
  • The streets.
  • Houses.
  • A dozen temples.
  • The Time Brigade Citadel (once the Crew has found it).
  • The Colossus.
  • The Palace.
  • The Theater.
  • The port.

Around the city

The city can easily be reached from a well-travelled dirt road, from the sea (staying close to the land – Greek ships aren't too good and Greek sailors don't like to take chances), the river. With more efforts, the Crew can also travel off-road or even cross through the marshes (good luck with the mosquitoes).

If the Crew attempts some kind of airborne/remote reconnaissance, they will notice a number of moving points that cannot be scanned, clearly because of cloaking devices (the Crowd-Control Crows) and they may notice a monster or two tearing a part a few travelers.

Aspects:

• Nobody gets in, nobody gets out.
• Killer heat, killer mosquitoes.

Travelers in Greece

Coming from the dirt road, from the sea or the river is pretty much the same story: the Crew will encounter a group of ~50 merchants, pilgrims, philosophers and slaves (also, possibly sailors), most of them male, traveling away from the city in a hurry. The leader of the group is a merchant called Eurystheus of Athens. The travelers intended to reach the city a few days ago, but they heard of monsters blocking the path, so they decided to wait here while the twin sons of Eurystheus scouted ahead (even if the travellers were on a ship, the sons scouted from the land).

The two young men (teenagers, in fact) have just returned with word of a man-eating, fire-breathing bull laying in ambush and/or a gigantic, many-eyed sea monster devouring ships. According to them, both monsters have killed so many brave men that they are surrounded by flocks of carrion birds, waiting for the next prey to fall into their hands/tentacles. The teenagers are still flush with their adventure and their tale grows with each retelling. In the meantime, the merchants are discussing the best place to travel to sell their wares, the philosophers try to make sense of what is happening, and the pilgrims moan to the Gods. The travellers seem to take the loss reasonably well, though, and are pretty easy to discuss with. Promises of riches will, of course, help chat with merchants, mystery hunting and logical questioning will help with the philosophers, adventure with the teenagers, etc. The travelers will generally try and convince the Crew not to venture towards the city, but won't insist if the Crew is bent on going towards their deaths.

If the Crew attempts to travel through the marshes or off-road, they will actually meet the twin teenagers heading back to the camp with the same story.

Eurystheus of Athens

• I'm a merchant, not a hero

The twins

• Eager and gullible

Getting in through the blockade

Once the Crew has decided to ignore the warnings, they can approach the city. Within sight of the Walls, they will witness some mythological monster eating alive a dozen of warriors or sailors, surrounded by black crows. No matter what path they take to approach the city (including flying), they will encounter a monster. Interestingly, the monsters leave no bodies, and if the Crew attempts to find where the victims come from, they will realize that said victims left no traces. Alternatively, if they wait long enough, the Crew may realize that the exact same victims get eaten each time. Also, any sufficiently advanced recording equipment will quickly help the Crew conclude that victims and monsters are in fact holographic projections.

In fact, the monsters are no threat. They have been set here as part of the blockade to scare travelers in an attempt to limit the plague. The crows, however, are customized Crowd Control Clockworks of the Time Brigade. As such, they are equipped with stun tasers and a rudimentary memory-wipe mechanism meant to convince travelers that they have barely escaped with their life. Should the Crew be memory-wiped, the crude illusion won't stand for more than a few minutes.

The Monsters

• Nothing but an illusion

Good at: Scaring people to death.
Poor at: Pretty much everything else.

Robustness: Pretty much unkillable.

Crowd Control Crows

• Hidden among illusions.
• Easy to spot, hard to catch.

• Limitless numbers.

  Robustness: Mook.

Good at: Flying, tasing, spotting travelers.
Poor at: Being smart, fighting determined opposition, dealing with time travelers, being resilient to damage.

Stealth will let the Crew past the Crows. Putting up too much of a fight before falling will cause the Crew to be spotted as time travelers and wake up in a cell of the Palace, to be interrogated by the Envoy of Apollo. Being spotted as time travelers but not captured, or damaging too many Crowd Control Crows, will cause one of the monster illusions to actually ask politely the Crew to cease and desist: the city is under quarantine due to a deadly plague and bringing in any Time Traveler would be a Very Bad idea. Should the Crew prove determined, the monsters will deliver an invitation to the Citadel in the center of the City. Examining a destroyed Crow will let the Crew find out that they belong to the Time Brigade.

Getting past the the three-meter tall walls themselves may offer a minor challenge to the Crew, but nothing that should hold them for long. As the plague started spreading, a traveling philosopher named Tymon has concluded that the city was lost and that nobody should be allowed to leave Euthermios and travel to other cities. He has sent is disciples to the city walls to try and convince the local garrison to enforce this blockade. While some of the officers and soldiers have preferred running either away from the city or towards their families, a few dozen archers are manning the walls to try and prevent anybody from spreading the plague. By now, they are exhausted and hungry, which makes them both more irritated and less efficient, but they are determined to hold. Note that they are looking for people who might attempt to sneak out of the city, rather than people sneaking in, which should simplify the life of the Crew. It might be possible to negotiate with them.

The Men on the Wall

• Determined to hold.
• Hungry, tired and irritated.
• Nothing to lose.

Robustness: Mook (unless given an opportunity to rest and rearm).

Good at: Spotting people sneaking out of the city, shooting, close combat, ignoring the monsters.

Poor at: Spotting people sneaking into the city, being sufficiently numerous to cover the entire wall, communicating.

Agatone, Last Commander of the Wall

• Seasoned soldier, broken man.
• I will fall last.
• The crows talk to me.

Robustness: Underboss.

Good at: Strategy, hand to hand combat, holding no matter what.

Poor at: Living with the consequences of his choices.

Summary of information

• Travelers can't get into the city because of monsters.
• Monsters are illusory, but backed by Crows.
• Crows belong to the Time Brigade.

Getting out

Should the Crew attempt to get out of the city, things may get complicated for them if they do not have the authorization of the Time Brigade. For one thing, the wall, the archers and their commander will still be present, and they will be looking in the right direction.

Just as importantly, the Time Brigade is convinced that the fate of the Continuum depends on making sure that absolutely nobody leaves the city, and they are doing pretty well given the limited means at hand. The Time Brigade has launched a satellite to monitor the walls properly. They will spot anyone attempting to leave the city. Unless a diversion has been prepared, they will send their Crows to make sure that Agatone has archers in the right place to block the Crew and the Crows will run interference against the Crew while the Archers attempt to drive them back and/or kill them. Should this be insufficient, the Gods will send reinforcements to aid the Archers – namely a few Polymorphic Provocateurs teleported from the Time Citadel. While the Provocateurs are nearly as strong as the Crew, they are very efficient in a support role.

Polymorphic Provocateurs

• No will of my own.
• I am the person standing next to you, the civilian at the end of the street, or perhaps your teacup.
• As smart as needed for a specific task.

Durability: Underboss.

Good at: Causing Chaos, backstabbing, overhearing any plan.

Poor at: Standing up and fighting, coming up with fresh ideas.

Note that Polymorphic Provocateurs are largely organic and may be infected by the Plague.

The Time Brigade assumes that any Time Pedestrian present in the city is dying, so by default, they will not pull any blow. While they have limited reserves of weapons, if needed, they may teleport Crowd-Control Crows to drop explosives on top of the Crew. If they realize that they are targeting Time Travelers, though, they will attempt to use non-lethal means, starting with a simple order delivered from thin air: turn back and meet at the Citadel.

The cemetary

The cemetary is outside the city walls. A dozen of deserters are camping here. They found a way out of the city through tunnels from one of the temples, but so far, every attempt they have made to leave the city has been blocked by the monsters. They have realized only yesterday that they are touched by the plague. Now, they are planning to run for it, no matter what the cost. By opposition to most people, they realize that something is very wrong. Their despair makes them very dangerous and very aggressive.

The crater

Another band of survivors made its way to the crater before the Time Brigade and Agatone's men managed to cordon off the city. One of the first actions undertaken by the Time Brigade in Euthermios was to send a few Crowd-Control Clockworks loaded with explosives and detonate these survivors.

The plague hasn't reached that far (these survivors were not infected), so the bodies are still there, as well as the remains of a Crowd-Control Clockwork that didn't make it out in time.

In the crater, there is also a small empty shrine to Herakles.

In Euthermios

If the Crew has means to reconnoiter the city before getting there, they will find that things are normal... almost. Plenty of citizens roaming around the city, as if nothing strange was happening. Philosophers teaching their students, priests collecting sacrifices to the Gods, a marketplace, etc.

A few things are odd, though:

• hundreds of spots are difficult/impossible to reconnoiter from afar, clearly because of cloaking devices, including
  • one of the two palaces (in fact, the Citadel of the Time Brigade);
  • one of the Temples (namely, the Temple of Lost Gods);
  • many moving points (in fact, Crowd-Control Crows and Polymorphic Provocateurs);
• archers on the city wall are looking inside instead of outside;
• no travelers coming in or leaving the city;
• the port seems to have been partially burnt, along with all the ships;
• the number of inhabitants and animals seems quite lower than expected.

Streets and houses

Walking inside the city, the Crew will progressively observe essentially the same things: everything is very, very normal, except that there may not be quite enough people, and there seem to be a whole lot of crows. At first, noticing the Plague itself will be difficult. What may be more obvious is a number of empty houses and masked soldiers conducting random searches for sick people.

The masked soldiers are regular city soldiers wearing incongruous tragedy masks. The masks themselves have been outfitted with improvised respiratory filters that the Time Brigade hopes will help them avoid contagion. The soldiers only know that they are looking for people with either a high fever or a cracking, yellow, skin, and they should bring them to the (real) Palace. They should also burn down dead bodies, as well as their possessions.

Masked soldiers

• Bronze age, half-naked soldiers.
• Everything is perfectly fine, citizen.
• Just doing my job.

Robustness: Robust
Good at: Controlling the crowd, athletics, fighting

Poor at: Dealing with unexpected threats, knowing what's going on

More walking along city streets will show that:

• people seem very, very relaxed;
• yes, there is a second Palace, and it is obviously a tightly-closed Citadel of the Time Brigade;
• orators invite people who feel sick or who have loved ones who feel sick to attend blessings in the (real) Palace.

If the Crew somehow attracts attention, they will be followed by Crowd-Control Crows.

Breaking and entering in houses is quite simple, given that locks have not been invented yet. Most houses, with the exception of temples and a few shops, are one-room, one-floor mud-and-straw houses, which also makes them pretty easy to search. Many are empty – way too many – some burnt down. A few of the burnt down houses appear to have somehow melted, as if they were made of plastic. At this stage, the Crew will not find any dead bodies.

Eventually, the Crew might find a few panicked citizens. Say Althea and her two surviving children. Ten days ago, her husband Nektarios heard the sheep screaming, grabbed a knife, and went to investigate, followed by elder son son Nikolaos. Neither of them returned. When they didn't return, Althea attempted to follow, but found no trace of either her husband, her son or the sheep. She is terrified both for the life of her surviving children and for the unburied souls of those she lost. According to her, the night hides yellow ghosts. Nobody seems to pay care about what has happened.

Eventually, the Crew might also find diseased citizens who haven't been collected by the Masked Soldiers yet. Say Hannah, a child slave they may find lying, feverish, in the street in front of a rich (and still inhabited) house, surrounded by all her meager belongings. As a sick slave, she was promptly (and literally) thrown into the street. At this stage, Hannah is delirious and praying in her mother's tongue (Hebrew).

Summary of informations

• The plague kills humans and animals alike, but does not leave bodies.
• Some houses seem to be made of plastic, but not all.
• There is a Time Brigade Citadel in the city.
• There is a Plague in the city, and monsters without, but nobody seems to care all that much.

The port

The port is, like the rest of the city, dying. Part of if burnt during the early days of the Plague, along with all the ships, a many-tentacled monster is daring the sailors to brave the water, and even the brothel has closed down.

In fact, one of the first measures taken by the Time Brigade was to make sure that the ships could not leave the port. Two Polymorphic Provocateurs were sent to burn down the ships, disguised as sailors. While the mission was a success, one of the Provocateurs was torn to pieces by the crowd of angry sailors. The other one managed to run away and was later sent to help gather the citizens into the Temples, where they could die without contaminating anyone.

During the chaos, the dozen or so of brothel slaves ran for it and made their way to one of the Temples.

If the Crew is looking for diseased sailors, they can easily find a few here. Say Stephanos, the old drunkard. If you believe him, he's traveled through all the seas, has been to the Pillars of Herakles more than once, and had to fight more than his share of sea monsters. Actually, don't believe him. Also, while he's not very mobile, he's more cunning than he looks: if he sees a way out of the city, he might just take it.

Summary of informations

• Ghosts burnt all the ships, but were somehow defeated by the sailors.
• Arrival of the Monsters seemed to coincide with that of the Second Palace (the Citadel).
• It's not clear whether the Monsters arrived before or after the Plague.

The Palace

The palace is currently off-limits, with the exception of the Masked Soldiers and a mysterious Envoy of God Apollo.

This shouldn't be a real problem for the Crew. Once inside, they will find out that King Isocrates will see nobody, and that anybody caught with the disease is actually executed and burnt immediately, by order of the Envoy of God Apollo. In practice, everybody in the palace seems to obey this mysterious Envoy while King Isocrates is cowering with a few slaves and plenty of food and wine in a cave below the castle.

A mysterious prisoner is kept isolated in the gaols.

With imagination, it may be possible to convince Masked Soldiers to spare some of the Plague prisoners, or to let the Crew talk to the Isolated prisoner. His name is Suen Ng-hung, and he's part of this plot both as an local color, as an annoyance or, if necessary, as a Deus Ex Machina.

Suen Ng-hung

• Trickster of the family.
• I can't help it if I'm smarter, stronger, faster and funnier than you.
• Looking for good time.

Note that the Envoy of God Apollo is just another Polymorphic Provocateur. Nothing odd has happened to King Isocrates – as any well-educated Ancient Greek, he just wants to remain as far as possible from any kind of God. Luckily for him, this also keeps him away from the Plague.

The Time Brigade Citadel

For some reason, the City of Euthermios has two palaces. Well, there is a good reason: one of them has been there for decades, while the other one materialized from the future about two weeks ago. This second palace is a highly recognizable Time Brigad Citadel, pompous, full of high concrete walls, flags and eagles. To describe it, draw inspiration from the architecture of your (least) favorite dictatorship. As is standard, the Citadel uses a cloaking mechanism that makes it hard to scan using Time Bureaucracy technology, but the mechanism does not protect against examination with the naked eye.

The Time Brigade arrived here by following Suen Ng-hung, a loud-mouthed non-affiliated Time Traveler whom they believe to be a Time Smuggler. Upon arrival, the Time Brigade detected a distress signal and they proceeded to land, make their arrest, and investigate the signal, which came from the Temple of Lost Gods.

The team sent to the Temple of Lost Gods lost communications, apparently scrambled, and never returned. The only persons left in the Citadel are Second Political Officer Sergei Tedesco and Engineering Officer Natacha Putto. While they were still in the process of putting together a rescue mission for their team, using Polymorphic Provocateurs and Crowd-Control Clockworks, they realized that the city was stage to an outbreak of some disease. Fearing a connection and a larger plot, they diverted a Polymorphic Provocateurs and a few Crowd-Control Clockworks to investigate. Once they realized that the symptoms of the disease matched those of a Highly Censored/Snafu Potential outbreak in their databanks, they decided to implement full lockdown on the city.

They launched an observation satellite, hacked together some camouflage for the Crowd-Control Crows, scrounged together satellite-projected illusions for the various monsters, burnt the ships, tracked down escaped survivors to kill them. Things haven't got easier since then. They quickly realized that they simply didn't have enough Crowd-Control Crows or Polymorphic Provocateurs or ammo to keep everybody inside the city for long, so they used their illusions to get in touch with Agatone and get his help against anyone attempting to leave the city. They used more illusions, as well as Polymorphic Provocateurs, to get in touch with King Isocrates, convince him that the God Apollo himself was in the city, hunting down and capturing the Nosoi (Plague Gods), and that full cooperation was needed. As anybody educated in Ancient Greece, King Isocrates was fully aware that getting in the way of any God whatsoever was courting an everlasting curse, and is consequently doing his best to provide any help requested by Apollo's envoys while remaining out of sight. Through their Envoy, they use the King's Masked Soldiers to attempt and contain the Plague, while pondering whether they shouldn't rather burn down the entire city before things get out of hand.

So far, Second Political Officer Sergei Tedesco and Engineering Officer Natacha Putt have things mostly under control. However, this lockdown needs almost all their Polymorphic Provocateurs (only two remain in the Citadel) and Crowd-Control Crows, while burning down the ships and executing escapees has used most of their ammo. Also, neither the Polymorphic Provocateurs, nor the Crowd-Control Crows or Masked Soldiers is particularly good at taking initiatives, which means that both officers have had very little time to sleep since the lockdown started, or to perform any kind of medical examinations on the living or the dead, or even to interrogate their prisoner. They are on the point of collapsing from exhaustion and are very well aware that they are the only thing standing between the Continuum and – at best – an Observable Contradiction, or – at worse – a Snafu, if the Plague somehow gets hold of the Continuum Indirection hidden in the Temple to Lost Gods.

The Temples

The disease

Where are the dead?