The Jordaan Mission

The Jordaan Logistics Report Mission

This mission is to be played on a 4 x 5 table.  One arbitrator, two players.

The center of the table will contain Enthalter's house, approx. 6" x 6".

Somewhere on the board there will be a power box.  The power box may be manipulated by someone being in base contact with it and successfully making a Nerve check.  The box may be detonated by placing a grenade ( real grenade, not a smoke or something dumb like that ) inside the box and closing the cover during the action phase.  If the power box is disabled, power will be cut to a four-block radius and security systems will be off line.  If the power box is detonated, it will do the same after exploding in a small-blast radius (most likely catching the grenade-placer in the blast).

There will be two buildings, one in the center of each short board edge,  one will be Gang Jordaan, the other will be Gang Klebstoff.  Gang Jordaan will number about 15 models.  Klebstoff will number 5.  They will be imperial citizens with basic weapons: knife, necromunda pattern las-pistols, and clubs.  The models will be chosen by the arbitrator and pretty much be WYSIWYG.

There will be a weapons dealer in an alleyway placed by the arbitrator.  If a model approaches the weapons dealer the arbitrator will engage the player in trade- the arbitrator has the final say whether or not an item is sold.  Attacking the weapons dealer is not allowed.

 

Jordaan Gang Special Abilities: Close Quarters Brawler.  If a Jordaan Gang member chooses to pushes a model in close combat and the model hits an obstacle, each successive hit gains a +2 bonus instead of a +1.  

Xenophobia:  The Jordaan Gang will immediately attack any xenos model they see, and his or her friends. 

Union First:  Jordaan don't respond will to repeated questions.  They'll hand out information only if the model asking offers something material (a weapon, equipment, etc) in return.

Klebstoff Gang: The Klebstoff gang is admittedly a little freaked out right now.  They may take rash and unpredictable actions if shit starts hittin' the fan.  They can be swayed by a character pleading with them by making a LD check.  A plead may be tried as many times as a player wants, but every check is at an additional -1 penalty, cumulative.  The "this guy is nuts, ignore him" rule.  The Klebstoffs will make a Ld check every turn they are fired upon.  If failed, they will immediately retreat back to their hideout and fight it out from there for the rest of the game.

The Power Box:  The power box is somewhere on the board, hidden.  The players must find a way to locate the box if they are to manipulate it.

Klebstoff Residence: The Klebstoff house is rigged with alarm systems and security cameras.  If anyone comes in base contact with the wall, they run the risk of being electrocuted by the security wires.  A model will take a single hit unless it makes a successful initiative test.  If anyone enters the house while the cameras are active, their picture will be taken and sent to Vrall Security Centers across the planet.  The cameras can see through smoke.

Vrall Security Team: The Vrall Security Team is set up in the Klebstoff house, and are well armed.  Probably folly to try to take them on all at once.  Special Rule Unsure: Vrall Security aren't the most loyal folk, and if they're injured they'll automatically be out of the action.

Special mission information is being sent to each player.

The Jordaan

For fifty-five years, the mining conglomerates on Cassius had one directive: drilling.  For miles they would dive beneath the planet's surface, looking for anything that could be salvaged as ore.  They came up, for the most part, empty-handed.  Including the fact that Cassius was not in the "average deviation" from Imperial shipping rounds, the mining conglomerate soon found itself broke and unable to pay its workers.

Almost a hundred percent of the mining labor was comprised of people from a racial sub-group called the Jordaan.  Nobody really understands what makes the people who call themselves the Jordaan a racial sub-group, except the Jordaan themselves.  The Jordann elders keep verbal traditional tales of long lineage alive through secret meetings in darkened basements beneath slums comprised of cramped habitation blocks.  The Jordaan live in the slums that surround the mines, yet very few of them actually enter the mines themselves.

The reason for this is that the mining company that used to operate this sector (aptly named the Jordaan District)  haven't actually mined anything in ten years.  The Jordaan revolted against low pay, polluted living conditions and poor leadership.  In the ensuing six-year labor disputes, over 1,500 Jordaan were executed by Vrall Enforcers.  However, the Jordaan ended up finding ways to shoot, poison, drown, and crush with rolling boulders the four owners of the Jordaan District mines (in that particular order).  The Jordaan claimed the District as a place where only the Jordaan belong, and under a period of surprisingly civil evictions, the Jordaan District became a two-mile by four-mile territory comprised of only those of pure Jordaan bloodlines.  The Vrall Enforcers found themselves outnumbered in tight alleyways where citizens formed an almost endless militia comprised of very strong and regularly inebriated miners with too much time on their hands.  After a few embarrassing patrols into the district, the Vrall just gave up.  They regularly forge reports to their superiors that everything in the Jordaan is just fine and civil, which is true as long as they don't actually set foot inside the Jordaan District.

The Jordaan have been emboldened by this show of solidarity, and when the solidarity was mixed and shaken with a dram of nationalism, things grew extremist. The Jordaan now see themselves as racially superior, and destined for a new future.  Xenophobia has moved in and unpacked in the mind of the average Jordaan - uneducated minds powered by hate speech.  The Jordaan are now mostly preoccupied with doing things that prove that they are more Jordaan than others around them.  Speak of a "pureblood" Jordaan race is regular conversation in the district.

Strangely enough, this definition of the Jordaan people was written sometime around the founding of the Jordaan District Mining Company.  A logistics man for the JDMC named Gelande Klebstoff had written a report to his managers about an area on the south side of a habitation complex that housed a group of people that called themselves the Jordaan Family.  The patriarch of this clan had fifteen sons, each of which carried an average of 6" higher than the average man and could outlift anyone else on Cassius.  Each of these sons had multiple wives and many of them were raising extraordinarily strong children.  The Jordaan Family (really quickly turning into a clan) were poor farmers from the fungus vats, and could probably be convinced to become miners if their lives were improved to any degree.  This report to the JDMC, called The Areas Surrounding Sector 5.5 South Logistics Report mentions the family several times, "...the people comprised of this clan are essentially taller, strong, with sandy-brown hair, small ears and facial features, a muscular build, with thick hands and large feet."  There are other references to the "tall patriarch" whose eyes were "small and beady."  In his report, Gelande Klebstoff was obviously impressed with Jordaan senior's family, and he was so convincing that mining was the key to the Jordaan Family's future he was accepted into their ranks as family, and allowed to marry a daughter (a woman of proportionally large size, reportedly).

At some time, Jordaan the Elder (who was quite old at the time of this report) exchanged gifts with Klebstoff, and Klebstoff was given a tube of sealing wax.  Normally this was done amongst the people of the area as a sign of trust, as sealing documents was seen as the moral equivalent as making a promise or a pledge.  The important part of all of this was: the Jordaan family would always add a drop of their own blood to the sealing wax.  It is quite possible that this report is sealed with wax containing the blood of the oldest known Jordaan.

This story of the wax and the Logistics Report have recently fascinated the Jordaan.  They could extract genetic information from a wax like this, and have the actual genetic imprint of pureblood Jordaan.  They even know where the report is.  It lies in the middle of the district. 

The problem for the Jordaan is that the report is held by the grandson of Gelande Klebstoff,  Enthalten Klebstoff.  Enthalten sees himself as of the Jordaan since his grandmother was the granddaughter of Jordaan the Elder.  However much proof he can bring, there are always those in the district that think he is a mixed-blood.  Enthalten has become a controversial figure, becoming alienated, holed up in a small building, clutching onto the Logistics Report.  He sees the wax-sealed document (which he stole from a warehouse left unlocked on the conglomerate's property) as an important part of his own family's history, as evidence that the wishes of Jordaan the Elder was that the Klebstoffs and the Jordaan were meant to be part of the same family.  It is this evidence exactly that gets the Klebstoffs employed: being known as someone who "Jordaan jobs it" is someone you wanna hire.

There are other players in this scenario.  The Cassius Mining Conglomeration Incorporated wants the logistics report as well for several reasons.  The first being that it is, actually, their property.  They look very bad when things like this aren't squirreled away by a scribe-servitor.  Word's got out that it is missing, and they'd pay cash for its return.  However, they aren't stupid, and know that anyone they send in would get nowhere near the Klebstoff residence.

Recently, there's been gang fights between the Jordaan and the Klebstoffs.  One particularly nasty one just flared up around Enthalten's hab.  Enthalten had to evacuate his family, but he remains behind guarding his cache of stolen documents.

During the gang fight, a group of Vrall Enforcers infiltrated the district and into Enthalten's house.  They are there essentially holding him prisoner, waiting for the airlift out.  It is assumed that when he's gone, the report will go with him, and probably get returned to the conglomerate, or mysteriously lost somewhere along the way.

The Enforcers in Enthalten's house are well armed and there are many of them.  The Jordaan are currently spreading word that their document is leaving the district, and hundreds of them will be gathering in the area before long, ready to try to take it.

Its a pretty tense situation.

Cassius, Chapter Three.

What's happened so far:

In the months past, two gangs have been "having it out" on Cassius.  One gang was led by the Inquisitor Arkhan Lan, the other by the Rogue Trader Miguel Quasar.  In their first encounter, Arkhan Lan stole some pertinent information from under the noses of the local police, the Vrall Enforcers.  Quasar and his Eldar cohort were also looking for said information, and decided to set an ambush to try and steal it from Arkhan.  The battle was bloody, and Arkhan still escaped with the plans intact, but both gangs had taken casualties.

The information gained put together another piece to the puzzle of the mysterious caves beneath the cities of Cassius.  What were they for?  Who built them?  More importantly, what was down there that could be fashioned into a makeshift weapon?

Quasar hired some locals and assaulted the hideout of Arkhan; while the Inquisitor fell to the insidious Death Seer Yog Soth'oth (Quasar's murderous Eldar bodyguard), the plans remained intact and in the hands of Lan's gang, who were "taken over" by Sgt. Hulka.

Without warning, the communications systems on Cassius were disrupted while an alien vessel plummeted to the planet's surface.  A satellite infected with a malicious computer virus was fought over by the Marines Errant and the Apostles of Contagion.  The Errants captured the uplink computer, which had uploaded the virus, and quickly left the planet's surface to deliver it to the Adeptus Mechanicus.

Lan's men (Sgt. Hulka) and Quasar clashed at the crash site of the alien ship the same day the Errants and Apostles were duking it out over the satellite.  Upon arriving at the site, Sgt. Hulka jumped on board and downloaded starmaps and other vital information onto his data-board, jumped on board a toad (Cassius's ubiquitous utility vehicles) and raced off the board.  Quasar got caught up in combat with several automated defense robots that emerged (heck, just materialized ala-necron style) around the alien vessel.  Quasar found himself badly wounded and surrounded by Hulka's men, he was captured and roughed up and held for ransom.

The next day Yog Soth'oth, Hiro, Oblio and Damon (the four Eldar left from Quasar's gang) decided to make a deal with Hulka; if they could find the location of the caves mentioned in the information stolen from mission one, Hulka would release Quasar.  The Eldar, lost without their leader, stumbled into xenophobic districts and came up empty handed.  The cops were called, and the Eldar ended up running for their lives.  Quasar was eventually sold into slavery on an off-world site.

Hulka's crew then learned about a factory that was full of equipment and weapons- a backlog of production that could probably be looted for pretty easy pickings.  They infiltrated the factory, found a few cool things, before the Vrall Enforcers arrived and chased them out.  Before they left, a nasty automated "killer robot" controlled by the factory owner came out and really laid out some fearsome damage.  They all escaped with their lives, but had to pick some bullets out.

That's a quick summary, I'll try to archive the missions as they were planned.  But for now, let's move to the next mission fluff.

The Purpose Behind this.

My name is mark.  The purpose of this blog is sort of a dumping ground for free-form gaming and the Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty Project, which will be detailed at a later date (at least later than this posting).