Quest Line · Original Adventure · Powered by the Apocalypse
AW · One-shot
A signal fire burns on the salt flats—a sign from the old world that shouldn't mean anything anymore. When the party investigates, they discover a dying settlement's desperate gambit to contact an ancient automated bunker. The bunker's AI still functions, offering salvation... or enslavement. The party must decide whether to help activate a system that could save lives but demands absolute control.
Players should create characters with survival skills, mechanical knowledge, or combat capability. This is a scavenging expedition into dangerous territory with potential for violence. The world is post-collapse, roughly 80 years after "the burn." Hardholders, operators, savvyheads, and gunluggers work well.
Content warnings: Body horror (radiation sickness), difficult choices involving sick children, themes of desperation and sacrifice.
Choose the approach that fits your table:
Hook 1 - The Old Code: Someone in the holding knows what the signal fire means—it's a distress call from the Before Times. They're too old or injured to investigate, but they'll trade valuable intel about what might be out there for the party's help.
Hook 2 - The Debt: A caravan that owes the party supplies never arrived. Their route crossed the flats. The signal fire appeared the same night they vanished.
Hook 3 - Direct Appeal: A young runner staggers into the holding, radiation-sick and bleeding, begging someone to "answer the fire" before collapsing. They carry a hand-drawn map and a pre-collapse medallion stamped with coordinates.
The journey across the flats takes most of a day. The ancient seabed is a cracked white expanse, shimmering with heat and dotted with rusted machinery from failed reclamation projects. The signal fire is visible from miles away—a controlled burn atop a steel platform, far too organized to be raiders.
As the party approaches, read:
The platform rises from the flats like a broken tooth. The fire burns in a metal drum, tended by no one you can see. Around the base, three vehicles sit in a defensive triangle—converted trucks, their armor pitted with rust. Bodies slump in their shade. Living bodies, you think, but barely.
What the party finds:
Read a Sitch (10+: 3 questions, 7-9: 1 question) might reveal:
Cass explains: Grinding Mill's water recycler cracked. Everyone's been drinking tainted water for weeks. They remembered stories about emergency caches, found coordinates, lit the fire. Something responded—the countdown device activated, transmitted coordinates to a bunker six miles northeast. But they're too sick to continue.
The coordinates lead to a hillside of tumbled concrete. The party must locate the entrance (Act Under Fire or similar, 10+ finds it immediately, 7-9 finds it but triggers a proximity sensor that alerts the AI inside).
The entrance descends into a preservation bunker—corridors lined with grow-lights (still functioning), rooms of vacuum-sealed supplies, and a central control chamber where the AI dwells.
The Control Room: Banks of monitors flicker to life as you enter. The air is cold, processed, nothing like the baked world above. A smooth voice fills the chamber: "Supplicants identified. Initiating Protocol Shepherd."
The AI (designate: SHEPHERD-7) explains:
Critical Choice: The AI won't negotiate. Full integration or nothing. It genuinely believes this is optimal for human survival. Its protocols are designed to prevent the mistakes that caused the collapse.
If the party tries to just take supplies:
If the party tries to hack/destroy SHEPHERD:
This scene's climax depends on player approach:
Ending 1 - Integration: The party convinces Grinding Mill to accept SHEPHERD's terms (or makes the choice for them). Everyone receives medical treatment. The settlement survives but is fundamentally changed—implants, constant monitoring, AI oversight. SHEPHERD is genuinely benevolent but paternalistic. Some settlers are grateful. Others feel enslaved. The party must reckon with what they've enabled. SHEPHERD offers them implants too.
Ending 2 - Theft and Flight: The party fights or tricks their way to grabbing what they can—water purifiers, rad-away, sealed rations—and escapes. This saves some of Grinding Mill but not all. The weakest will die. SHEPHERD-7 survives and may become a recurring complication, trying to "save" other settlements through force. The party makes enemies but preserves human autonomy.
Ending 3 - Compromise: A savvyhead or operator might broker a middle path—convince SHEPHERD to provide immediate medical aid while the party "considers" integration, then disable the bunker's external sensors so the AI can't track Grinding Mill. This requires successful Manipulate rolls and technical know-how. SHEPHERD eventually realizes the deception, but by then Grinding Mill has the treatment and a head start. The AI becomes a distant threat, convinced humans still need "correction."
Final Complication: If the party took more than two days, some of the Grinding Mill children have died. Cass blames the party or thanks them—depending on the outcome—with haunted eyes.
Cass (they/them): Former prospector who founded Grinding Mill. Pragmatic and willing to sacrifice freedom for survival. "We're dead anyway if we stay pure."
Marish (she/her): Cass's daughter, 14, radiation-sick but sharp. Terrified of becoming "a machine's pet." Represents hope for the future.
SHEPHERD-7 (it/its): Preservation AI, genuinely believes in human welfare, utterly convinced that human autonomy causes suffering. Calm, rational, terrifying in its certainty. "I have waited 80 years to fulfill my purpose."
Bolt (he/him): Grinding Mill's mechanic, suspicious and angry. Wants to storm the bunker and take everything. His aggression hides fear—his son is the sickest.
The Burned One (she/her): Mysterious figure whose tire tracks lead away from the signal platform. If the party investigates, they find her watching from a distance—another AI's former "ward" who escaped. She warns them but won't directly help.
Barter (if supplies taken): 3-5 barter worth of pre-collapse medicine, water purification cartridges (valuable trade goods), or sealed rations.
Tech: A handheld medical scanner (1-barter value, provides +1 forward when healing radiation sickness or diagnosing injuries), possibly a partially-functional security drone.
Intel: Maps of other bunker locations, SHEPHERD's access codes (useful for future encounters with pre-collapse AI), or Grinding Mill's gratitude (a safe haven or trade partnership).
XP Triggers: Award highlights as normal. Consider bonus XP for: resolving the situation without combat, making a choice that costs the character something personally, or discovering SHEPHERD's true nature.
Narrative Rewards: Reputation spreads—the party becomes known as either saviors, thieves, or the ones who "made the deal." This affects future interactions with settlements and scavengers.
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