DARK CONSPIRACY ®

THIS JUST INSa

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“This just in. An explosion has rocked the sleepy business district in the

300 block of Radisson Avenue. Local authorities are calling it a terrorist

attack. Early reports have 16 dead and another 23 wounded, some criti-

cally. The explosion destroyed a facility on one floor of the Marionette

Building, but several floors above and below are also destroyed. The

building is not in danger of collapse, but authorities are warning people to

stay away from the damaged building. More on this story at 11.”

Made in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.Copyright ©2011 Kinstaff Media LLC

dba 3Hombres GamesDark Conspiracy® is a registered trade-

mark of GDW, Game Designer’s Work-shop.

You can find 1st and 2nd editions of Dark Conspiracy online at:

www.DriveThruRPG.com ®

www.kinstaffmedia.com/3hombres

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Table of Contents

Overview ................................................................................................ 1The Setting .......................................................................................... 1The Story .............................................................................................. 1The Threat ........................................................................................... 4The Characters ................................................................................. 9The Storyboard ...............................................................................13Conclusion .........................................................................................26Firearms ............................................................................................27Melee Weapons .............................................................................29DarkTek ..............................................................................................29Further Stories ...............................................................................30

A Cross-Fire Adventure

Author:Norm Fenlason

Cover & Illustrations:Edmund Kinstaff

Editing:Lee WIlliams

Graphic Design and Layout:Norm Fenlason

DARK CONSPIRACY®

Made in the U.S.A. All rights reserved.Copyright ©2011 Kinstaff Media LLC dba 3Hombres GamesDark Conspiracy® is a registered trademark of GDW, Game

Designer’s Workshop.You can find 1st and 2nd editions of Dark Conspiracy at: www.DriveThruRPG.com www.kinstaffmedia.com/3hombres

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1DARK CONSPIRACY

Ov e r v i e w

This Just In is an adventure providing the referee a means to bring starting player characters together and expose them to the Dark. It is set in an urban environment of aged and decaying high-rise buildings in a once prosperous business district. A recent and poorly explained terrorist attack has devastated several floors of one of the lesser known buildings. Characters in the players’ party should have personal knowledge of some of the victims of the blast or the witnesses to it. Now these acquaintances are dis-appearing. Is it a continuation of an ongoing rash of disappearances plaguing the area or related to the blast itself? One thing is for sure, the story pitched by the authorities is pure bunk.

Several opportunities to link PCs together exist at the beginning of the story. The come-together opening is a press conference held to declare the case closed. The terror-ists themselves were reportedly killed in the blast. Several witnesses and survivors, as well as a friendly journalist, also attend the press conference. Afterwards they just want to get together to compare notes. Thus, the characters are drawn in.

Th e Se T T i n g

This adventure takes place in the Trenton, NewBosWash Administrative District or some other urban environment. Any anthill or miketown can be used, but dreamlands should be avoided, as they are typically inaccessible to non-Nome characters. Specific locations used in this Story are:

The Facility – an urban office building that has seen better times with several floors destroyed by a blast.

The Escape Route – a subterranean-access set of tunnels used by antagonists to move between the Facility and the Laboratory.

The Laboratory – one faction’s home-base where inhuman experimentation has been going on.

The Holding Center – the home-base of another faction where missing survi-vors and witnesses have been ending up.

Other ancillary locations can also be used, such as the Coal Bin, a pub in the general

area of the explosion.

Th e ST O r y

All the news outlets carried the story of the explosion in the downtown high rise. Called the work of terrorists, the blast destroyed what the media labeled as an animal testing facility where experiments on dogs were taking place. The explosion destroyed the labora-tory and killed 12 workers and four terrorists. The authorities released what appeared to be a bomb threat letter from an organization calling itself Protecting Animal Rights through Direct Action (PARDA). This organization is a known, but minor terrorist faction whose complete membership appears to have died in the blast. The case appears to be one of simple terrorism.

But to the people that witnessed the blast the case is not so simple. Besides gouts of green flame, a purple glow, and strange things hanging out of the hole in the building, the evidence showed no sign of any explosive mechanism, and no nitrocellulose, plastique, etc., was found on the scene. Several witnesses and survivors of the blast have different stories. Some of the more outspoken of these have since vanished. The player characters

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2 THIS JUST IN

should have relationships with some of these witnesses and should feel inclined to inves-tigate, especially when the witnesses go missing. It is the common thread that brings the party together and exposes them to the machinations of the Dark.

One survivor in particular, Dr. Maruti Chanakya Shenoy, was an employee of GloChem International, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Antco Inc., a large multinational agriculture and food processing conglomerate. GloChem was the cover corporation that operated the destroyed facility. Dr. Shenoy may approach one of the characters, who he may know, with a wild story about aliens, gateways, and horribly mutated alien-human hybrids. In his story human mutations are accomplished offsite at what he calls the Laboratory. From there mutants were moved to the Facility where an “interdimensional gate” sent them to some other location.

Dr. Shenoy guesses that the attackers where terrorists and accidently caused the de-struction of that gateway. He did not think they were professionals—too scruffy. Unfortu-nately the blast was much stronger than predicted and killed the terrorists. The blowback from the gate’s destruction was responsible for the damage to the rest of the facility. Dr. Shenoy knows how to get to the Laboratory through what is called the Escape Route.

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