SouthernDiscomfort

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A dual-stat d20 Modern/Unisystem adventure of exploration for the Odyssey Prime game

Requires the use of d20 Modern, published by Wizards of the Coast®

CREDITSCREDITS

Mission Control (Publishers & Production): Eden Studios & Misfit StudiosCommunications Director (Adventure Author, Development, Design, Editing): Christina StilesOperations Coordinator (Original Game Concept & Design): Tony LeeOperations Technician (Additional Design): Jim MontgomeryChief of Operations (Development & Publication): M. Alexander Jurkat, Steven TrustrumProcedure Engineer (Unisystem Rules): C. J. CarellaTopographic Intelligence (Cartography): Steven TrustrumChiefs of Optical Logistics (Layout, Graphics): George Vasilakos, Steven TrustrumVisual Profile Specialists (Illustrations): Gary DupuisInsignia Engineer (Cover): Gary Dupuis with William McAusland (base)

Odyssey Teams (Playtesting): Rich Arendt, Jimmy Ashley, Michael J. Brisbois, Roger Calver, David Carroll, Todd Cash, Isaiah Choczynski, Daniel R. Davis, Christine Doering, Katrina Fairchild, Guy Fellows, Mike Fellows, Chris Fisher, Jeff “Venture” Fournier, Lisa Fournier, D.J., Joshua Gekeler, Ashley Harper, Alan Harrison, David Harrison, Ben Hubbard, Jeremy Hunt, Jerome Ingall, Douglas S. Kilmer, Naia Kirkpatrick, Nick Kirkpatrick, Jeff Kiser, Dan Lambert, Curtis Lanford, Brian Larbig, Sandie Law, Tony Law, Stephen B. Lombardo, Matt Macintyre, Joseph E. Martin, Colin McGaffrey, Jim Montgomery, Cindy Moore, Scott Moore, Scotty Nelson, Joe O’Brien, Jeremy Patterson, Andy Peregrine, Corey Perez, John Polack, Megan Raynak, John Reavis, Tammey Reed, David Sharma, Wayne Shaw, Gaylene Sutton-Monk, Ryan Walsh, Jonathan Wilson.

Wetwork Crew (Christina’s Special Thanks): C.J. Carella, Dave Chapman, Daniel R. Davis, Joseph Goodman/Goodman Games, M. Alexander Jurkat, Douglas S. Kilmer, Tony Lee, Joseph E. Martin, Ron McClung of ConCarolinas, Jim Montgomery, Steven Trustrum, and George Vasilakos.

Unisystem and the Unisystem logo are trademarks of CJ Carella and are used under li-cense. Unisystem game mechanics are copyright 2006 CJ Carella. All rights reserved.

D20 Modern(R) and Wizards of the Coast(R) are Registered Trademarks of Wizards of the Coast, and are used with permission.

‘D20 System’ and the ‘D20 System’ logo are Trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast and are used according to the terms of the D20 System License version 3.0. A copy of this License can

be found at www.wizards.com/d20.

STOCK EDN7201ISBN: 1-933105-07-0

Keep up to date on Odyssey Prime news athttp://www.misfi t-studios.com/op/

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Table of Contents

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Project Odyssey and Parallel Earths 3

Game Information 3

Dam Con Adventure Background 3

Dam Con Adventure Summary 5

Charleston or Bust! 5

Act One: Briefi ng the Dam Con Members 6

Act Two: The Investigation Begins 6

Act Three: Southern Nessie 8

Act Four: An Off-World Gate Opens 9

Act Five: Debriefi ng 12

Dam Con Conclusion 12

Odyssey Team: King’s Gate 13

Odyssey Team Adventure Summary 13

Act One: Briefi ng the Od Team 13

Act Two: Gating Out 14

Act Three: The Grailsmen’s Lair 15

Act Four: Keeping Them Busy 17

Act Five: Debriefi ng 17

Od Team Conclusion 18

Further Adventures 18

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33This is an introductory Odyssey Prime adventure that

includes encounters with intelligent dinosaurs on a paral-lel Earth—as in parallel universes, not two planets called Earth separated by mere distance. On this particular Earth, you Game Masters must decide if the dinosaurs never died out and humans merely evolved in their pres-ence and developed space technology, or whether the Earthlings reached into space and discovered and colo-nized a planet with intelligent dinosaur life. Or perhaps the intelligent dinos developed space travel and invaded Earth? Or the humans could have invaded the intelligent dinos’ planet. As for why the dinos are intelligent, as-sume they just “evolved” that way. Before you play this adventure, make sure you have some general details of this parallel world in mind, as they players are sure to ask questions about it (See Chapter Six of Odyssey Prime: The Journey of a Thousand Worlds for some world ideas, or see the Pre-made Dino World sidebar on p. 4).

Project Odyssey Project Odyssey

and Parallel Earthsand Parallel EarthsWhen dealing with parallel Earths, keep in mind that

the Od Team’s mission is to report on a world’s suitabil-ity for colonization. In this particular adventure, they en-counter a world that could fit the bill, though the presence of intelligent dinosaurs makes it a very dangerous world to colonize—of course, in this instance, humans live on the planet and have learned to coexist with the beasts,

so other humans might be able to do so, as well. If you have the PCs continue to explore the parallel or target

world, you’ll need to flesh out the back-ground story of the world for the PCs to

discover how humans and dinos came to inhabit a world together.

Discovering one alternate Earth does not solve Project Odyssey’s problems. More investigation is necessary, and that can take several months. Then, the question becomes how much population growth the new world can sustain and how the natives will react to such immigration. After all, this Earth’s mass exodus could be seen by the new world as a hostile alien occupation.

Game InformationGame Information

This adventure is for 1st to 3rd-level characters but can be scaled for higher levels by increasing the number of enemies encountered. Critical game stats are provided in both Modern d20 and Unisystem format. If running this adventure for Unisystem, it is suitable for Pre-Heroic or Heroic characters. Open Gaming Content for this adven-ture is contained only in special indicated sidebars.

As we suggest players run two characters in Odyssey Prime, this adventure takes place in two parts. The initial run is for Dam Con members, the characters that deal with problems on Earth. They’ve got to put out a little fire in-volving a dinosaur sighting in the Charleston Harbor in Charleston, South Carolina. The second part of the adven-ture begins with the section called “King’s Gate,” and it is for actual Odyssey Team members, those who do the off-world travel and exploration. These folks get to deal with the off-world gate that brought the dinosaur and the “invaders” that soon followed to Charleston.

Dam Con Adventure Dam Con Adventure

BackgroundBackground

In a parallel universe, Arthur Doyle, a bookish trader from a city-ship (call it the Charleston for irony), arrived on planet Caravene three months ago. With him he brought a rare item from his trader father’s secret cache, his father

Southern Discomfort provides a full, dual-stat adventure for both Dam Con and Od Teams. OGC material is included in boxes with rounded corners while Unisystem information is presented in boxes with cropped corners.

Product IdentityProduct Identity

The Odyssey Prime name, Project Odyssey, Odyssey Team, the Eden Odyssey product line name, any logos and identify-ing marks including trade dress, artwork, symbols, designs, depictions, likenesses, formats, and graphic and other visual representations are designated Product Identity, within the meaning of the Open Gaming License, reprinted at the end. The graphic features of this work, likenesses of such features, or any work derived from such features may not be used, absent express written consent of Misfi t Studios and Eden Studios.

Open Game Content Open Game Content

Open Gaming Content, subject to the previously detailed Product Identity, is indicated by the OGC boxes (boxes with rounded corners.) All materials originating in, or derivative of, the d20 Modern System Reference Document are Open Game Content.

Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex™ and related materials used and referenced with permission of Goodman Games.Sa

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having died two weeks before Arthur’s departure. The item, a highly polished silver mirror standing over 15 feet tall with two crossed swords forming its standing base and a jumble of complex electronics behind it, had been securely locked in a massive box within a well-protected vault. That his father hid the item so securely told him it was something valuable. Only when he read his father’s personal notes regarding this “gate device” did he real-ize the gaudy mirror’s importance. His father’s notes even claimed the item, which had been discovered on Earth

in the 1920’s in Great Britain, was an Arthurian artifact. Arthur Doyle dubbed the intriguing item King’s Gate, and he went to great pains and expense to transport it from storage on the city-ship Charleston to a new home on a nearby planet (Caravene; Cretasus, if you are using the BRsetting), home to humans and intelligent dinosaurs. He knew that if he brought the item to the planet where he could study it and unlock its secrets in privacy, he could write his own ticket to wealth, as the King’s Gate’s tech-nology surpassed that of the known gates in existence in reliability and mobility (yes, this world has some warp gate technology that works occasionally).

The trail of money Arthur spent in securing the item caught the attention of some unscrupulous transporters, however. Aboard the Grail’s Run, which Arthur had cho-sen as an omen of his coming fortune, the ship’s sailors broke into the box, thinking it held normal treasures for the plunder. When they looked upon the mirror, they couldn’t quite believe their eyes; the sight of so much pure silver had them salivating over the money the item would bring when melted down…or the money a collector might pay for the antique mirror in its undamaged state. Their leader, Captain Karver, the brightest among them, real-ized that Mr. Doyle’s attempt at secrecy and the money he had spent to transport the item meant there was some-thing more to this “antique mirror” than its appearance in-dicated. That’s when Captain Karver sent his men to pull the little man from his room for a chat.

Oh, Arthur tried to be as strong as his namesake and to withhold the secrets he had uncovered from the pi-rates, and he did so—for a full 20 minutes. But when they cut off his right pinky, his mouth opened and he spilled it all.

Pre-made Dino World, pt. 1Pre-made Dino World, pt. 1

While this adventure can take place on any alternate Earth of the GM’s choice or imagination, Goodman Games’ Dinosaur Planet: Broncosaurus Rex™ would make an excellent setting for this particular mission. Its inclusion here also highlights the fl exibility of the Odyssey Prime game in incorporating already exist-ing settings into a game of larger scope. We have in-cluded sidebar information throughout the adventure for using the Broncosaurus Rex setting (which we re-fer to as BR).

Let’s start with some background on the BR setting. This is a parallel Earth setting that takes place on the planet Cretasus, for humans have mastered space travel and have colonized the planet. To understand BR, imagine the Civil War ended in two distinct fac-tions: the Union and the Confederacy. Fast forward a few hundred years to a time when naturally occurring warp gates are used to travel through space in primi-tive craft built of iron. Then advance a bit further and imagine the discovery of a planet full of intelligent di-nosaurs. That is Broncosaurus Rex: dinosaurs, space travel, the Wild West, and the Civil War. Pioneers from across the galaxy come to farm, ranch, hunt, and ride the dinos. The Union and the Confederacy rush to establish a military presence on Cretasus, the dinosaur planet. As more humans arrive, the dinosaur tribes organize against them. Soon Cretasus is the most exciting frontier in the galaxy.

In Broncosaurus Rex, psionic T-rex families raid min-ing colonies. Dino ranchers herd stegosaurus, the newwhite meat. Velociraptor tribes plot with their human allies to secure prime hunting grounds. Bronco riders lead their broncos (slang for triceratops) across the plains. The Confederate Dino Warriors oppose Union industrialists. Warp pirates ambush safari hunters who have come to hunt the biggest game. The Wild Ones leave human society to live with the dinosaurs. The tech levels on the planet vary, though some groups have access to spaceships and guns more advanced than what the OP groups may have.

Pre-made Dino World, pt. 2Pre-made Dino World, pt. 2

If setting this adventure on BR, here are some sug-gestions.

● Arthur Doyle can be a Freeman from one of the Free Fleet’s city-ships, and his kidnappers brought him to Cretasus, not Caravene, three months ago.

● The Grailsmen pirates are also Freemen.

● The Grailsmen have taken Arthur Doyle and the gate to Pleisiosaur Bay on the planet Cretasus, not Dino Bay (Pleisiosaur Bay is described in the Cretasus Adventure Guide).

● The King’s Gate’s portability and controllabil-ity make it more useful than the invisible, unpredict-able “known” warp gates present in BR.

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The Grailsmen, as they called themselves (they’re pi-rates, really), then proceeded to the planet and brought the man and the mirror to Dino Bay, a lawless area controlled by dinosaurs and outlaws, where they had a hideout in a series of caves outside the rowdy town of the same name. Over the past several months, they’ve had Arthur Doyle working on activating the mirror. Scared to be the first live subjects through the new gate, which had opened up into what at first appeared to be a water world, they sent three trained plesiosauruses through. While two returned as trained, one strayed out further into the new world.

Dam Con Adventure Dam Con Adventure

SummarySummaryIn the first part of this adventure, which takes

place on Earth, the PCs, all Dam Con members, are going to be asked to look

into the sighting of a plesiosaurus in Charleston, South Carolina. Now,

legend says such a dinosaur lives in the Loch Ness Bay, and, of course, folks call that dino the Loch Ness Monster or Nessie. In the Odyssey Prime game mythos, the British actually brought Nessie to our Earth via an early Sherman Ring experiment (see Odyssey Prime), so Project Odyssey is not going to take the chance that such a sighting is a hoax. They are concerned that Nessie has either relocated, or it seems that some gate malfunction has brought another of her kind to the Charleston area.

In this case, they do have confirmation from a Coast Guard informant that something large and odd is indeed in the waters, so the Dam Con team is to extract it before it alarms the general populace. They can kill it or capture it alive; ei-ther way, Project Odyssey wants its body recov-ered, for they want no questions to arise from a washed up corpse or a free-Willying Nessie.

At some point, explorers from the parallel Earth universe (from that planet Caravene or Cretasus) come to check out the PCs’ world for themselves, hell bent to plunder—that’s what bandits/pirates do, after all. Once they arrive, the PCs get to fight with them and possibly take prisoners. They will also, with their wrist por-tal monitor, gain the coordinates of the invad-ers’ world and note the cause of the problem in the harbor is due to an off-world gate, the first in their known history. Of course, they’ll take this info back to the Project, and the Odyssey Team will be asked to investigate.

Charleston or Bust!Charleston or Bust!

The escaped plesiosaurus has traveled from the Atlantic Ocean to the Charleston Harbor outside Charleston, SC. In particular, the creature has been hang-ing around Fort Sumter, and a few college students who were fishing just north of there claim (at the local bars) to have seen the Loch Ness monster in the harbor. Since then, another fisherman has seen it and snapped a pic-ture, which he sent to the The Post & Courier, but the pic-ture was too grainy to be convincing. The reporter told him that the picture could very well be an unpainted, abandoned buoy—depending on one’s perspective—so it wasn’t printed. The rumor of the college students’ sighting has reached radio (See Dam Con: Act Two, p. 8), but no one appears to be taking it too seriously.

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Getting Getting ‘‘Em ThereEm There

The Dam Con characters can get involved in one of the following ways:

● A reporter character is in the area covering another story, perhaps a Presidential visit to a naval base. Either the character overhears some local fisherman discussing the incident at a bar, or some drunken teenagers who saw it during a trip to Fort Sumter are discussing it on Charleston’s Battery. Knowing the history behind the Loch Ness monster’s appearance in Great Britain, the character should realize something is afoot—if it’s true, anyway.

● A member of the Coast Guard sees the creature and reports it to a superior. As one of Project Odyssey’s “ears,” the superior brings it to FEMA’s attention, af-ter having confirmed a large creature in the bay with sonar. FEMA assigns it to the characters, wanting them to check on the veracity of the claim, and to take care of the situation if it is indeed a Nessie.

If you decide to have the Dam Con team learn of the plesiosaurus through overheard conversations, play that out as you see fit. The character overhearing the conver-sation should, as Project Odyssey policy dictates, contact FEMA for directions on how to proceed and to acquire other team members to assist with the mission.

Act One: Briefing the Act One: Briefing the

Dam Con MembersDam Con Members

You’ve all been gathered together at your FEMA headquarters at 05:00 hours for a briefi ng on your mission. Dr. Kristen Astley, your Project Director, a thick brunette with glasses, is the only person with a sense of humor that you’ve encountered during your project training.

“Some guys in Charleston claim to have spotted the Loch Ness Monster while fi shing near Fort Sumter around dusk one evening. While we all know how trustworthy drunken fi shermen are, we’ve had con-fi rmation from one of our Coast Guard informants of something big and odd in the Charleston Harbor.

“So, gang, it seems like old Nessie has tired of the British cuisine and booked passage to Charleston, SC. Or perhaps her child has. God forbid another gate mishap has brought one here . . . Anyway, I know you are all itching for some action after be-ing stuck in the building for some time, so get your-selves down there, and be discreet about it. We don’t want the locals stirring up any controversy. Run some media interference if you have to.

“So far, our girl has settled around the Fort Sumter area. Perhaps she’s a Civil War buff—don’t know. Check out the fort and see what you can fi nd out. If the story is true, shoot for containment, as some of our scientists would like to study this beast. If all else fails, put her down, but bring the body back for dissection. That means no blowing to bits, so no grenades, please. There will be a cleanup crew with a Coast Guard tug to help you move the beast or its body. Captain Jones will contact you when you arrive at the hotel. Any questions?”

The good doctor answers any questions to the best of her ability. When the PCs are done, she dis-misses them. “Good luck, and happy hunting. Sign your gear out at the equipment room. Also, keep it discreet, folks. Don’t make us send a veteran Dam Con team out to dam a leak—permanently, if you get my drift. Your plane leaves in one hour, so get a move on.”

Let the PCs decide if they need any special weapons or equipment. As long as they don’t ask for anything too outrageous, their requests should be granted. If they don’t take the time to make any equipment/weapon decisions, assume they are equipped with the standard Dam Con package (see Odyssey Prime), but provide them (one or all) with an Od Team’s wrist portal monitor (see Odyssey Prime)—just in case there is something wacky going on.

Act Two: The Act Two: The

Investigation BeginsInvestigation Begins

The characters arrive in Charleston, where they have a rental car awaiting them at the airport. While traveling in the car—whose radio has been left on—they hear the following:

A female radio jockey is saying: “Oh, did you hear about this? Several College of Charleston boys claim to have seen something large and gray in the harbor a few nights ago while they were fi shing off their boat. According the boys, who declined to give their names—surprise—the creature, as they called it,” she chuckles, “had a long neck and a small head, and it resembled pictures they’ve seen of the Loch Ness Monster.” She laughs some more.

Guy Jockey: “I wonder what they were drinking? Hey, guys, didn’t your mom ever tell you: it doesn’t pay to drink and fi sh!”

Girl Jockey: “Ha! It doesn’t say. How odd. Ten to one alcohol or weed was involved.”

Guy Jockey: “They said it had a long neck, small head? Sounds like someone has a bad case of Loch Ness envy . . .”

Girl Jockey: Laughing, “You are bad! Way too bad! Anyway, we gotta break . . .”

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