This supplement is a 4 part mini-campaign set over the course of a year, with each adventure/chapter taking place over the course of a season (spring, summer, autumn, winter). The synopsis is basically an experiment at the Loop opens a space-time rift and allows a creature to come through, lay an egg, and pass back through before the rift closes. The PC’s are to collect the egg, protect it and the creature that hatches from it, and help it get back to the rift, which a scientist is trying to recreate, and allow the creature to leave.
Chapter One introduces the adventures and gives a quick overview of each scenario. Chapter Two gives background of the area the adventures are set in (Norfolk UK), things to do locally (and during the 80’s), and other essential information needed for both the GM and players, such as adapting the scenarios to Boulder, Nevada, or the Malaren Islands in Sweden.
*Easter Egg Hunt is the first adventure, set in the Spring. During a camping trip, at least one of the PC’s awakens to see a large creature floating in the sky near the Loop before flying back over the site and disappearing. More necessary information is included for the specific scenario as well as “countdowns” for specific things to push the narrative along. Each scenario will have one or more of these countdowns for different items. The adventure ends, in theory, with the players getting the egg, and moving it to safety.
The Rest of What Might be is next. The egg hatches, and they need to go on a scavenger hunt for the creature, all the while keeping it hidden.
The Year’s Last, Loveliest Smile comes next, spanning the autumn. The creature is getting bigger and therefore harder to hide. Depending how things play out, they find a good place to hide the creature without it being found or seen by any scientists, or any other people in general. Worst case scenario, the creature is captured, the PC’s are detained first by the powers that be, and secondly by their parents (as in they get grounded), meaning saving the creature in the last adventure will be more difficult.
You Can’t Get Too Much… is the final chapter of the series. If the PC’s were able to hide the creature in the previous episode, it was seen by someone and reported to those at the Loop, who swoop in and retrieve the creature. Either way, the PC’s need to figure out a way to find and free the creature, and get it to the Loop, where a scientist is trying to recreate the conditions that opened the rift in the first place. Best case scenario, the creature goes home. Worst case scenario, it’s stuck here, but manages to escape and flee to parts unknown, never to be seen again.
This looks to be an awesome mini-campaign that could be set into your current campaign, or even as a 4 session one-off between other campaigns. It’s an engaging story that should make for great sessions.
Boy do I have questions.
Why are a bunch of kids, “protecting” this egg? How do they know it was laid to even look for it?
What is so bad about taking the thing to the experts? You know biologists, zoologists, etc… How do they know how to treat it? Bird eggs need to be rotated. Reptile eggs must not be. The odds are against the egg even hatching.
Part two is hiding the creature, part three it is found anyway? Doesn’t that rather obliterate any success you had in part two? As a player I would be pissed.
If you are hiding the creature how does a scientist (from whom you are hiding) know to create a rift to send the creature back?
Either there is a lot you are not saying or the thing is full of holes.
I did gloss over a bit of the adventure just trying to highlight some moments in it, so no holes, or very few anyway. Why a bunch of kids? Mainly because the game is centered around a bunch of kids doing stuff and going on adventures. As far as how they know to look for it, while camping one (or more) of the kids sees “something” (the mom) flying over the Loop area and lands momentarily before taking off again. Kids being kids, “hey we need to investigate.” A scientist had been working on an experiment that caused the rift to open, and later on is trying to recreate the circumstances of the rift opening, partly to prove a theory, and partly to let the creature leave, as he realized it was more than just an “average” animal. And there had been evidence of something lying over the Loop to show the scientists there was something going on. Why not take it to the experts? LOL Have you watched sci-fi and seen what humans do to creatures different than us? They end up on an examination table and dissected to see what makes them tick. As far as the creature being found, the kids can’t be around it 24/7, and no matter how well they hide it, people are still going to have an eye out and if it decides to take a random walk around the area you are keeping it and someone sees it, they’re going to tell someone. Hope I clarified at least a little of it for you.
It still feels very contrived. And I would still be pissed abut two to three. Why did I bother?
And I live on SF. I also know real life and pretty much those scientists are fictional. A zoologist’s first concern would be the well being of the animal. Stuck with an alien egg the local zoo would be my first stop.
And what is this “loop”?
To a degree it is contrived. It’s a fictionalized Earth, and in Fiction Earth scientists to crazy things. And in this setting, taking the egg to a zoologist is going to result in classic sci-fi tropisms about what we do to “alien beings.” I don’t disagree real life might be a little different, but it’s not real life. As far as the Loop, it’s an underground research facility designed (according to the Amazon Prime show) “to make the impossible possible.” And I’d probably be a little pissed about losing the creature, but if everything goes right, it gets saved and gets to go home. And it makes for having an objective during that act of the story. If I were to create the 4 part scenario, I don’t know what I would replace it getting captured with, other than maybe completely cutting it and making it a 3 part scenario. I think they wanted a year long mini-campaign and needed to have action in each season of the year, so they had to come up with something to happen to stretch it out other than to say “you lay low for the season, and nothing much happens other than a close call. End of adventure.” Bit I also don’t disagree with your take on it.