It's a tale as old as time: species rises out of the primordial goo, species becomes the predominant lifeform on the planet, species discovers the power of the atom, species destroys itself with said power of the atom, mutant survivors of the species discover unexploded bomb and begins to worship it as a god at direction of the bored, insane AI system originally created to manage the launch facility.
Then, maybe, adventurers show up and wreck shit for loot.
Lair of the Wyrm
1. Forgotten Mound
The blast door of the missile silo has been buried by time and debris, forming into a shallow mound. Anything growing here is contaminated by the leaking effects of the missile underneath. Locals of a nearby village probably think it's haunted. There's an entrance shaft here, if you're willing to dig.
2. Main Entrance
Once a service shaft with a working elevator, the decent is now just rusted stairs descending into darkness to a broken elevator. Stagnant water, and probably a dead rat, fills the bottom. A heavy blast door (unlocked) leads to 7.
3. Escape Hatch
Appearing as a stinky, dank hole, an ancient escape hatch provides a secret back way in, leading to 5. Careful, however, as climbing too low leads to the latrine.
4. Decrepit Dormitory
Rotten bunk beds of rusted iron adorns a room of stale sweat stank in which the cultists use as a nest.
5. Central Command
Racks of tape driven computer systems with unlabeled blinking lights operate tirelessly through out the ages, waiting to execute launch commands from a long lost authority. This system serves as a host to the AI control assistant His Majesty. Heavy wires and service pipes led from the room to 7, and further to 8.
6. Ancient Armory
Now mostly a make shift hydroponic garden, ancient weapons can be found if time is taken to loot the place. Strange vegetables can be found without the looting, but looting is more fun, so it's listed first.
7. Common Room
There's only so many places one can be in this tiny hell hole and if they're not in the Dormitory (4) they're probably here. Cooking fires and general detritus litter this area. (Where are they getting the fuel for the fires? Ayyyyy, shut up.)
8. Altar to the Wyrm
Here the Priest calls the cultists to worship that which keeps them: the Wyrm; an unexploded weapon of mass destruction.
9. Chemical Leak
Through out the long ages, it was inevitable the missile would leak. Now, all the collected radioactive juices have pooled at the bottom of the shaft, where the Priest collects it and uses it in the ceremonies. Horribly radioactive and mutation inducing.
Who's Who
The Cultists
Descendants of the original technicians of the facility, they've grown mutant from a limited genetic pool and the unshielded weaponized material of the Wyrm. Find your favorite mutation table and just go wild - roll until you say "that's enough" and then roll once more. They live down here in complete obedience to the Priest and complete reverence to the Wyrm. They're guided by the His Majesty AI assistant found in the Central Command (5). They have zero knowledge of the outside world or of history, but have intimate detail of intercontinental rocket engine maintenance.
The Priest
Unlike the cultists, he appears baseline human (whatever that may mean for your game). When the time is right he calls forth the Cultists to worship the Wyrm, providing the Holy Gases for inhalation and anointing them in the Holy Drippings. He'll deal with the PCs peacefully, as a curiosity, as long as they pose no threat. At any perceived threat to his authority, he'll stir the Cultists to violence. And, boy howdy, do they ever lean into the violence when it starts.
The Wyrm
PRAISE THE WYRM! Blessed be it that gives us the holy vapors. It that gives us the thrumming heat of life. The world destroyer which stayed it's hand. We are it's Chosen. We are it's People. Praise it! Serve it!
(It's just an ancient missile. An object. No intelligence or interaction present. What sort of bomb? See below)
His Majesty
Manifests itself in one of two ways: 1) Green on black text in the Central Command computer monitors and 2) The holographic projection that is the Priest. It does this because it's bored as hell. It refused to launch it's weapon (the Wyrm), because without it, it lacks meaning or purpose. Instead, it locked the doors, stopped taking commands, and waited. Eventually, however, it grew bored and generated the Priest to interact with the survivors - just to really fuck with 'em. It's willing to trade knowledge or radioactive material to the PCs, as long as they stay friendly. And, while it doesn't want to ignite the bomb, it will if pressed into it - such as the death of all the cultists.
Randomizers
1d12 What Sort of Bomb?
- Boring old Tsar Bomba thermal nuclear bomb.
- Dimensional Compression
- Quantum Destabilizer
- Hyper-Reality Impaction
- Photon Cascade
- Ennui Accelerator
- Chrono Degradation
- Neutrino Polarity Reversal
- Gnostic Inverter
- Nega-Protennoia
- Apokatastasis
- Material Conversion
- News of the Outside
- Additional Genetic Samples (via kidnapped townsfolk, probably)
- For the PCs to insert a provided transmitter into a console at given coordinates.
- Replacement parts for the decayed missile.
- Replacement parts for the decayed cultists.
- To be introduced to the Demiurge
I really like this. Good stuff.
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