Session 5 Prep

 News & Rumors 

Good evening Arkheologorodok! This is Lara Kiseleva broadcasting live from the Orbita News building, bringing you this week’s news round-up.

The top story of this week is the surprise defeat of Governor Yevseyev and the Refurbishment Party's New Media Law in the Assembly of Deputies. The law, described by Yevseyev as a vital means of protecting public order from "disruptive and extremist elements' was publicly denounced by the chess grandmaster Georgi Shuripov as "a crushing of one of the few things we managed to gain since dissolution that serves only to shackle vision and inquiry to  the whims of sightless fat men in overstuffed leather chairs." This marks the beloved grandmaster's first public appearance since going into hiding 14 years ago. The office of the Governor has declined to comment.  

In preparation for the Ramon Mercader Day celebrations next week, Commissioner Nikitan has announced a rigorous restoration campaign for public order and cleanliness. The Militsiya ask all citizens to help make the streets neat and tidy, and to refrain from any acts of public disorder. Citizens can expect to see plenty of work crews around the city for the next week, painting over any public defacements. 

We've gotten some great pictures and theories about the mysterious clown, and we're pleased to announce that Yakov Dmietriev of the Gunig Prigorod as our winner. Be sure to check out his theories and pictures on our website. We've also heard that Silent Train has started to appear again, so be sure to have your phones ready for a picture when you're on the metro! 

And that was this weeks news round up, brought to you by Steppak Meats, feeding families for twenty years. For Orbita News, this is Lara Kiseleva, singing off. 

 Character Interests: 

The pigs aren't just chasing bums off the street and painting over graffiti, they're smashing up and clearing away any unauthorized structures, shrines included, Aleksandr. 

In all the hustle of setting up a homeless shelter, readying the parts for Spartak's experimental augmentation, and your day to day surgeries at the Sanitorium, you've only just now remembered the pale blue lambency of the water you recovered from the Silo, Dr. Galidikas

Lev and Oksana have been asking you about those shrooms got a while back, Spartak. They think they could make a good chunk of dough selling another batch if you can get it. 

You don't think you ever been so busy in your life, Professor Semenov, and you love it. You haven't even had time to sit down and watch that video tape you found. 

You've been practicing with that porcelain katana all week, Gavril, and you can't wait to try it out on something...or someone.

Jobs and Leads:

Slava has $200 on the table for installing a surveillance device in the southern part of the "Complex," he says be sure not to go too far South, or you'll end up in the basement of the Banya. 

Abram says the expedition to the new passages to the southwest of the complex hasn't returned, that includes Gennadiy and Artyom. The club treasurer, Tatiana Zhutova, is pulling out emergency funds for a rescue mission. 

Mara is trying to get an expedition to the old Church Crypt together. She's promising $100 to anyone who can get her there, plus looting rights. She's also mentioned she's willing to negotiate "services for services."

Those of you who gave your real names and contact info to those strange men answering to "uncle" get a message saying to go to Samarkand Meat Market in the southeast of the city just before closing and to ask for "Vernisa."

Session 3: Schnappi and the Gay Nazis

 

The Return of Hans Speidel 
(the medals read "For the War Against France" "For the War Against England")

Another week, another expedition into the world of Arkheologorodok. Spartak spent most of the week at the Party Headquarters/Nightclub of the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia, getting to know everyone, "learning" their esoteric principles, getting fed LSD, and dancing the night away. Dr Galidikas has spent his week writing up plans for some experimental surgery, and Aleksandr has been conducting his own investigations. 

 

Early in the day, Aleksandr gets a call from Artyom, the teenage subway employee they met at the Excavators of the Underground Earth. He's in a bit of a bind, because he needs to get to work, but his father has trapped him in the bathroom, demanding money for booze. Aleksandr wastes no time getting to the boy's apartment, and after invoking the power of the Holy Lady of Death to command the fat drunk to cease strangling the boy, he instructs both the drunk father and the junkie mother that Artyom is now under his protection. Fairly confident that the proper amount of fear has been instilled in these two, Aleksandr leaves with Artyom, who thanks him before running off to work.

The party sans Gavril re-assembles in Professor Semenov's VAZ-2109, now an essential part of the party's logistics, and head towards the Silent Homes to complete Slava's job of deploying surveillance devices. Before going in, Aleksandr asks Semenov is he can ask around the medical school about a nurse named Anya Dmitrieva while Dr Galidikas gets Spartak to sign some consent forms.

Session 3 Prep

 News & Rumors 

Good evening Arkheologorodok! This is Lara Kiseleva broadcasting live from the Orbita News building, bringing you this week’s news round-up.

More violence this week in the city's meat packing district. Residents have reported gunshots and a subsequent fire on the top floor of an apartment bloc on Kirov Street. The Militsiya has no released the names of the victims, but witnesses on the scene report at least five bodies being removed from the scene. In a press release, Commissioner Nikitan has stated that investigations have shown no link to the grenade attack on the Steppak Meats Abattoir a week prior, and that statements to the contrary are "baseless speculations and hysteria." 

Several individuals were arrested under charges of "rioting" after a flash protest against Mayor Yevseyev's proposed Media Law in front of the Assembly Building. The illusive leader of CounterDogma, known only as filaret, was said to have been arrested, but CounterDogma has since released a photo of him standing in front of Commissioner Nikitan's home holding a newspaper and an obscene portrait of the Commissioner and the Mayor in a homosexual act. Neither the Commissioner nor the Mayor could be reached for comment. 

On a brighter note, Russian billionaire Dariy Belov has recently announced that the planed refurbishment and re-opening of the old Leisure Park. Belov has stated that he and the other stakeholders of the NOVOST Group, the conglomeration that owns Stepneft, are grateful for all that Arkheologorodok has already given them, and wish to give back to the community in what he described as "the first phase of a long and fruitful relationship." 

There have been more sightings of a clown in the metro tunnels. Be sure to post your pictures and craziest theories on our website to win a prize of $100!

And that was this week's news-roundup, brought to you by Vos'moy. Vos'moy, bringing you every convenience in one store. For Orbita News, this is Lara Kiseleva, signing off. 

 Character Interactions: 

Abram to Spartak: Oh shit, you actually joined them? I only ever go to the parties they throw. They're a bunch of fucking weirdos, bro, be careful.

Dr. Galidikas: You got called into the Sanatorium by the Administrator himself. You had to perform emergency surgery on a couple of gut-shot men, one very tall and lanky with fair hair, the other of Mongoloid physiognomy and wearing the protective gear of a slaughterhouse worker. Once the deed was done, the Administrator thanked you for a job well, saying he was glad to have welcomed you into the City Sanatorium "family." 

Aleksandr: She fought to the death, and died with a fanatic's smile of her face. Neither you nor Mara know why she killed Stefan in his hospital bed, but the grim look you shared let you know you both think it must have something to do with his discovery of that crypt. 

Jobs and Leads:

  Slava has "gently" reminded you that those surveillance devices still need deploying in the South-West. 1000 bucks and Mayami Import's good will are on the table. Says he'll throw in another 200 if you put one in a southern chamber of the "Complex"

Chef Mosolov is always willing to pay for exciting new ingredients

You still have that sample of the water from the occult baking experiment gone a-rye

One of your new New Bolshevik friends has asked a favor of you, Spartak. She's a real nice lady with blue hair who really like spiders named Oksana Sinodzuka.  Apparently her old boyfriend really didn't like her joining a revolutionary party and kicked her out before she could even gather up all her stuff. She'd really appreciate it if you got it for her, and she says you can keep whatever else you find. Apparently you can get there through the basement of a power sub-station near the river...

Speaking of those new friends, the party's head of propaganda Eugeni and his very good friend Lavro are also part of some kind of art collective. He says he wants to introduce you to them, apparently they've got some kind of plan to disrupt some new bourgeois media law.  

Artyom was really excited to text you all about an expedition everyone is gearing up for an expedition to some new chambers they found leading south from the Complex. Says you're all welcome to join. 

Session 2 The Conquest of Bread!

 Завоевание хлеба!

"Wealth of the Motherland" decorative carpet, 1939

A week has passed since the party's first foray in the Underground, and they now gather again in the basement of the Central State Library once again to prepare for a second expedition. Earlier in the day, Dr. Galidikas observed Spartak trip on the shrooms recovered last week, and was disappointed by the failure of ancestral memories to surface. When the pair arrived to meet with the others, Spartak was still feeling the residual effects.

Gavril and Professor Semenov attempted to recover the promised payment for last week's expedition from Gennadiy Chupov, citing that they were not warned of the dangers they faced. Gennadiy agreed, but before he could pay them, the Excavator's treasurer, Tatiana Zhutova, intervened, pointing out the job was to find and map the rumored North-Western passage from the Silo, and seeing as the party had been magically bound to deny its existence, they could not protest the claim they had not found it. 

Arkheologorodok Session 2- Prep

 News & Rumors

Good evening Arkheologorodok! This is Lara Kiseleva with Orbita News, bringing you this week’s news round-up.

The top story this week is the grenade attack at the abattoir. Witnesses describe a black sedan pulling up to the southern loading dock and tossing two grenades before speeding off. According to officials at the D.I. Dankovskii Hospital, two workers were killed in the blast, with seven others injured. Two workers are currently in critical condition. The Militsiya request that anyone with any information to come forward. Steppak Meats was unable to be reached for comment.

Sightings of a clown in the metro tunnels are making waves online, prompting mass speculation among citizens. Commissioner Nikitan has dismissed such sightings as “baseless hysteria.”

Dry weather is expected to continue after the unexpected rainstorms of last month, with a dry easterly wind bringing elevated pollen levels from across the Steppe.

A new media law is being debated in the city council, with Mayor Yevseyev noting the necessity to curtail what he described as “a flood of extremist propaganda.” Though he has not named them as such, it is believed he is referring to the controversial Nastuplenie! newspaper published by the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia and the increase of pamphlets circulated by the outlawed LGBTQ rights organization CounterDogma. Both groups have been vocal in their criticism of the renewal of anti-sodomy laws.

This week’s news round-up was brought to you by VostockCom, bringing crystal clear internet and cellphone connection to the Steppe. For Orbita News, this is Lara Kiseleva, signing off.

Work & Leads

Slava says to come see him in the Hangar, says there could be a $1000 in it for ya.

Speaking of the Hangar, apparently Arkheologorodok’s great Chef Mosolov has a side project there. Says he’s got a bounty on a specific “ingredient.”

Mara texted you, Aleksandr. Apparently, that friend of hers that managed to get into the old church crypt died in hospital. She says there’s something you need to see at the mortuary. 

Did you meet Ollie? He's this graffiti artist from London that hangs around the Excavators. Apparently he's getting harassed by a couple of gopniks real bad. Says he'll pay $250 to anyone who'll get them to stop. 

Delta Green NPC: Matthew Rockyhara

Here's a useful ally NPC for Delta Green. I wrote him up for this summer's NPC contest over at Night at the Opera. I started working on some expanded acquisition rules to make him more useful, but the deadline came before I could do that, but I still plan on doing that, so sit tight because I'll post it here when I do.
 You can get the Google Docs version here.

Matthew Rockyhara

The Agents find themselves outside a shamble down prefab building in the dreary badlands on the outskirts of the city. Behind the chain link fence topped with razor wire are cars of every make and model, the lights on the prefab illuminate red letters spelling “A#1 Towing Service” with “Your Satisfaction is Our #1 Priority” underneath, with “NO CHECKS ACCEPTED” written beneath that. This is where the case officer said to meet your contact for support.  A little old lady stands nearby the entrance, looking on the verge of tears. A wall of a man emerges from the prefab, looking like some kind of parody of a modern outlaw in his cowboy boots and raybans. The old woman starts babbling about how she needs that car to get her prescriptions. He tells her if she can’t cough up the $560 she can get bent. He walks past her towards the agents, beaming with a big smile when he spots them. He hands the agents the keys “Hey there! Our friend told me you guys would be here soon, said you needed a car. I got the perfect one, you don’t even need to worry about getting it back to me.” “What about the $560” one of the agents asks sheepishly “Oh, that? That’s all bullshit fees the city lets me charge. Only cost me $15 in gas to tow it over here for ya’ll, don’t worry about it!” He extends his hand in earnest friendship  “Matthew Rockyhara, by the way. At your service.”

Matthew Rockyhara is many things. A veteran. A small business owner. A scoundrel. A patriot. A minor crime lord. A friend. It was around the time our invasion of Panama was wrapping up in 1990 that Matthew Rockyhara had his brush with the unnatural. He flew Sikorsky Seahawks as an ensign for the navy, and it was in one of those helicopters that he proved himself a reliable and heroic man. Those agents would have died deaths indescribable in that jungle had he not braved that shimmering sky and juked the things filtering down from the sky. 

Session 1 Going Below

Emancipation
by Veniamin Kushnir

So not only was this the first session of Esoteric Enterprises I’ve ever run, or even just the first dungeon crawler I’ve ever run, but also the first of either that any of my players have ever played. It was a little rough, but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. First mistake I made was not instructing the players that they would need to actually MAP the interior of the dungeons they explored, but that was rectified by the time they reached the second dungeon, the Silo.

The session began with the assembling of the PCs into a coherent group. Spartak had already met Dr. Jurgen Galidikas while being treated at the free City Sanitarium No. 1 after getting hit by a bus shortly after arriving in Arkheologorodok (the bus came away the poorer). Because he has no money, Spartak has been staying at the hostel near the Gunig Marsh, where he shares the room with a friendly back backing Israeli hippie named Abram Bunin. Jurgen arrives after getting off work (having just performed a live saving surgery on a young girl plus a free sterilization) to find with great dismay that his ape man subject of study has been convinced to attend a meeting of the Excavators of the Underground Earth in the basement of the Central State Library at 5:30 pm. He reluctantly joins.

Spartak's Youth Hostel

City Sanitarium No. 1

Tenure review is quickly approaching at Stepnoy Universitet and Professor Luka Semenov decides he must take proactive steps to find the ancient Slavonic city now or he never will. He has seen flyers for a group of urban explorers called the Excavators of the Underground Earth around the university. He sets off to the Central State Library with cash in hand hoping to put together an expedition to plumb the depths for ancient Slavonic Wisdom.

Stepnoy Universitet 

Aleksandr has been in in Arkheologorodok for a few days, waiting for a sign form Santa Muerte. One night he’s drinking in the bar of the Hotel Cosima when he locks eyes with a young woman named Mara Tsiolkovskaya and there is an immediate mutual understanding that they are both closer to the dead than the living. She tells him to meet her and her friends the next day in the basement of the library on Ramon Merkador Prospekt. Aleksandr has gotten his sign.

Hotel Cosima
source: modernism.art

Gavril rolled into town the other day in his BMW 525i and checked into the nicest hotel he could find, the Hotel Cosima in the now downtown, just off Elektricheskaya Prospekt. By some uncanny coincidence, his bags are delivered to the wrong room. When they finally arrive at Gavril’s room, they are in the hands of a strange one eyed man named Aleksandr, who apparently regards it as some kind of sign. Gavril can recognize another mobster when he sees one, and he’s already starting to run out of money, so when Aleksandr offers to hire him as a bodyguard, he agrees. Apparently, he wants to go to some meeting of Urban Explorers in the library basement for some reason. Whatever, Gavril thinks, money still spends, even when it is given to you by a mad man.

Gavril's Whip

By hook or crook, the disparate individuals find themselves in a spare storage room in the library basement where head of maintenance Gennadiy Chupov and geological research librarian Tatiana Zhutova are leading a discussion with a motley assortment of individuals about potential routes to the rumored Polis Station to the South East. Abram cheerfully introduces Spartak and Mara switches from her normally cool and somber demeanor to welcome Aleksandr. Professor Semenov shows great interest in the Ruins while Mara tells Aleksandr about her great interest in the recently found Church Crypt, though bemoans the difficult routes there, either through the Plague Pit or up the underground river leading from Leninskaya Station. Only one of their number has managed to get there, but he's currently in the hospital with a truly horrific case of herpes. The statuesque Finn, Aarno Harkonnen,  mentions some rumors he’s heard about a new passageway leading from the Silo to some unknown chamber. Seeing that there are new faces and knowing the bulk of the group either have their own projects or are devoted to the Polis Project, Gennadiy and Tatiana offer $500 dollars to group who can find and map the passage in question. Soon after an Exploring Kid in the metro worker’s uniform and is introduced as Artyom. He is the one who discovered the Gastev Station entrance to the Underground, and he will be happy to show it to the newbies.

While crossing the plaza a man in a white leisure suit, pink shirt, and Rayban wayfarers struts towards them with a clear intent to speak, a prospect that causes Artyom a great deal of worry. The man introduces himself as Slava and makes it clear to Artyom he’s not looking for trouble, just some people who might want some work. He offers to put theme names on the free entry list to the Hanger where his outfit, Mayami Import, runs a black market. He tells them to meet him there for work, and if they want to arm up they should find Comrade Cowboy. Slava tells them to play up any leftist political tendencies they might have if they buy from him and says that he thinks Comrade Cowboy and Spartak will get along, to which Dr Galidikas says something about genetic predispositions and vectors for communist contagion. This makes Slava laugh and ask if he’s a Gay Nazi, which also makes Artyom laugh. Now curious as to whether there are any Strasserists around, Slava and Artyom explain the Gay Nazis are a universally maligned street gang operating in the Underground near the Shkola Granat club. After niceties are exchanged, Slava leaves and the party make their way into Gastev Station.