Game Idea 12-18-2006 The Park of Ancient Times

[jayphailey]

Game Idea 12-18-2006

"Control"

2135 - On Ameibo II, Krigh-tan, a galactic level genius in Genetic engineering creates a method for extracting and reconstruction prehistoric DNA.

2145 - on Ameibo II Krigh-tan, after years of arranging financing and infrastructure holds the grand opening of "The Park of Ancient Times." A wildlife preserve featuring recreated life forms previously known from fossils. Blatglum-dar, a Mathematician and Systems Analyst warns against the project citing the impossibility of controlling all aspects of the enviroment. He is ignored.

Ancient Avian mega fauna and plants run riot.

The park is a disaster closing in a few days as animals escape and wreak havok, eating several hapless park goers. Krigh-tan is ruined.

2146 - on Ameibo II, Plants and small animals from "The Park of Ancients" are spotted on the main land, having escaped their island.

2156 - a Deadly Plague sweeps Ameido II, creating mass havok and causing millions of deaths. Krigh-tan is last seen in the Capital city, treated the ill. Civilization on Ameibo II stumbles in the face of advancing disaster.

2200 - Ameido II is in the grips of a fierce ecological war. An Ancient Eco System is fighting to establish itself over the modern ecosystem. Waves of plagues decimate modern animals and plants. Modern diseases take a horrible toll on ancient forms - leading to refinement of both ancient and modern life forms to their most hardy and resistant forms.

2215 - Megafauna Avian Predators (Think Twenty ton Terror Birds) along with dozens of aggressive and dangerous smaller forms rampage through temperate areas of Ameibo II. Although exterminated wholesale by humanoids with guns, it seems there is always a cache of eggs that gets missed, or a slippery, fast small avian that escapes and gives rise to a new generation of monsters.

Scientists realize that Krigh-tan's life forms are hyper adaptive. 5 pound mouse hunters can, in a few generations give rise to T-Rex sized monsters. This hyper adaptive DNA construction is what drives the diseases decimating the Ameiban population.

Federation aid is requested.

2233 - the first Federation aid mission to Ameibo II is destroyed by disease and aggressive predators. The Federation moves to re-establish the aid mission with much stronger precautions.

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2365 - Ameibo is home to an agressive mix of Ancient and Modern life forms. The surviving natives are disease resistant, quick on the draw and very alert.

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The PCs get a message - get to Ameibo II immediately and pick up Ganthan Zolaar. Zolaar is an expatriate Cardassian scientist who was working with a Civilian Federation Science Mission to Amedio II.


A top secret debrifing reveals that Zolaar was a Starfleet Intelligence asset. He made a brief, cut off contact that started off as a code requesting immediate emergency back up.

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Zolaar was an actual scientist as well as a Starfleet Intelligence Agent.

Hidden in the jungles of a former city on Ameido II, the Cardassians have set up a bio-warfare lab. If they can culture the adaptive and agresssive disease organisms of Ameido II, they can acquire essentially prefabbed war plagues. Untraceable ones yet. The damage to federation planets and loss of Life could be amazing.

Zolaar and party stumbled across this while doing a life form survey.

They are being held by Cardassian Agents who are using them as guinea pigs, except for for Zolaar who will be hauled back to Cardassia and tried as a traitor.

Zolaar escaped the Cardassian Union and fled to the Federation seeking the Federations freedom of research and scientific enquiry. He is wanted by the Cardassians. Zolaar became an Intelligence Asset in his early years mainly by breifing Federation researchers on the culture of Cardassia.

Later, while on a survey, Zolaar discovered illegal drug cultivation and became an informat for Starfleet Intelligence. he has always refused to work on Cardassian Intelligence - and Starfleet Command respects this wish.

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The PCs must get to Ameido II, find contacts, and back track Dr Zolaar and company's trail.

Ameidans are faintly suspicious of Federation people. The Federation may have tilted the balance in favor of the survival of the Ameidans, but they don't see the Federation as being of much help or much worth.

Some Ameidans make a living as scouts for hunters. It is not uncommon for forign Visitors to catch horrible diseases on Ameido II and wind up fighting for their lives. It's also not uncommon for such big game hunters to be mauled, poisoned or eaten alive by aggressive avian predators.

So Ameidan wilderness scouts are very brave, very skilled and always demand their money up front.

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In a post Dominion War setting it may be a Romulan covert mission, or an Orion syndicate mission, seeking to develop untraceable means of assassination and new designer drugs.


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If at all possible, an Ameidan scavenger (imagine a piranakeet) will do it's level best to stow away with the PCs in order to turn the PCs ship into the happy hunting grounds for itself and it's offspring.

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The Bad Guy Mission may well be in the ruins of "The Park of Ancient Times" where every form of Ancient Avian Horror may await the unwary.

It's Jurassic Park with Feathers. and Poison. And disease. And suspicious, faintly hostile natives. And cloak and dager Spy adventure.

[Innkeeper]

This is one game idea that is not overly grand. A one or two session game. Get the Cardassian science guy. And complications along the way.

[jayphailey]

Boink.

The best adventure ideas start out on 3X5 cards.

[Innkeeper]

Boink.

The best adventure ideas start out on 3X5 cards.

Jay's issue is a tendency to staple the card to an encyclopedia. Someone needs to stand behind you and smack you with a rolled up newspaper when you reach for the stapler.

You have GOOD IDEAS! Then you overload them with unnecessary frontloading, dark secrets, and too much specific detail. Often you half solve the conflict, in a very specific way, in the intro. I have seen you run a 20 year campaign in your idea pitch.

You need to be working for a game company that can curb your less good habits and encourage your good ones.

[jayphailey]

Shrug, okay