The Echo Below
🎭MQ1 – "Gathering Storm"
PCs meet in the canteen and await deployment orders.
Optional RP/Side Quest: “What’s Your Story?”
Encourage players to roleplay, ask questions about one another's background, prior missions, or even rumors about Bastion Thorne.Side Hook: “Eyes in the Mess Hall”
A suspicious NPC (spy, rival, or future ally) is seen watching the group — but vanishes before the mission begins.
🎭MQ2 – "Orders from the Top"
Mission briefing in strategy room with overview of objective and team intro.
Side Option: “Missing Drones Mystery”
PCs may request extra intel or volunteer to analyze and to recover drone fragments to learn what happened to them (bonus recon points for later).Subquest: “Team Bonding or Tension”
PCs can interact with assigned teammates—choose to build rapport or establish rivalries, which might pay off mid-mission or during extraction.
🎭MQ3 – "Final Checks"
Equipment room scene. Gear up, medical prep, ready for insertion.
Side Quest: “Personal Touch”
PCs can add or modify their kits, select optional gear like flare rounds, toxin grenades, or signal boosters (which can change outcomes later).
🎭MQ4 – "Dropzone"
Helipad to insertion; NPC offers a grim history of the Scorpion War while crossing the wastelands.
Side Hook: “War Story”
PCs can choose to ask questions, roll Insight on the NPC's tale, or recount their own memories (unlocking trauma resistance or bonus morale).Optional: “Spot Something Below”
Perception check during flight might reveal a mysterious landmark/figure in the ruins (foreshadowing future arc).
🎭MQ5 – "Ground Recon"
PCs land outside Kardiff ruins, arrange LZ pickup, and move in on foot.
Optional: “Environmental Encounter”
The wasteland may contain a hidden crashed drone, old military bunker, or strange flora that interacts with psionic energy.
🎭MQ6 – "The Crater"
A massive crater near a collapsed building reveals an unusually large burrow.
Subquest: “To Poke or Not to Poke”
PCs who investigate or provoke the area may trigger:A fight with mutated Therax scouts
An encounter with a twitching, half-alive drone transmitting odd static
Optional: “Psionic Residue”
A successful Arcana check reveals lingering energy at the crater that resonates with one PC—could this be a premonition?
🎭MQ7 – "Into the Nest"
The cave is wide, sticky, and eerily silent… until it’s not.
Optional: “Lost Signals”
PCs find a torn squad insignia from a previously lost team (can link to a future rescue/revenge quest).Minor Encounter: “Feeding Ground”
PCs must navigate or clear a chamber full of smaller bugs and half-dissolved human remains.
🎭MQ8 – "Egg Chamber Panic"
The queen awakens. Escape Route A is cut off. PCs must flee to Route B.
Subquest: “Desperate Delay”
Can they plant explosives or bait pheromones to buy time before the queen gives chase?Optional: “Tunnels of Memory”
Route B echoes a scene from a PC’s backstory, triggering a short hallucination or internal struggle.
🎭MQ9 – "Blood for Time"
Two teammates are bitten and choose to sacrifice themselves to collapse the tunnel behind.
Branching Emotion: “Sacrifice Acknowledged”
PCs can either:Stay to try and save one
Obey orders and keep moving
Each choice earns different future NPC reputations or psychological penalties/boons.
🎭MQ10 – "Last Stand"
Horde breaks through blockade. PCs make a desperate final stand.
Optional Combat Twist: “Hive Surge”
Environmental hazards like collapsing rocks, pheromone fog, or collapsing bridges can shift battlefield conditions.
🎭MQ11 – "The Weave Unleashed"
A hidden NPC unleashes a psionic weave and wipes the horde. Everyone collapses.
Foreshadow: “The Weave Mark”
PCs may wake up briefly mid-stasis, with memories of strange shapes—foreshadowing exposure to some ancient psionic force.
🎭MQ12 – "The Cage"
PCs wake up in Bastion Thorne. Military officials begin brutal testing.
Side Quest: “Routine or Resistance”
PCs can:Cooperate with scientists to try to learn more
Secretly pass messages or map the facility
Fake symptoms to delay testing
Subplot: “Who’s Watching?”
One staff member might be a rogue agent—or sympathizer—offering hints toward escape.
🎭MQ13 – "Break the Chains"
PCs should plan their escape. Begin planting seeds for rebellion or rescue.
Optional Escape Routes:
Steal guard ID and access key
Rewire a psionic inhibitor
Coordinate with a rogue faction (e.g., Kumokuni infiltrators)
Branching Outcomes:
Full team escapes
Some PCs left behind or recaptured