After reading through David Lewis Johnson's excellent Gathox Vertical Slum for probably the 3rd time now, I decided to make my own DIY content for it. On a longish train ride recently, I sketched up some ideas for a tram system through the slums. My idea is that the trams would not only provide a type of transit and a new location for a variety of random encounters while city-crawling, but also another means and strategy for the territory control and the gangland meta-game. For example, the PCs end up controlling a specific station as a source of income, but are constantly warring against another faction who controls the rest of the line. I felt that this new method of travel would work well in a futuristic/pan-galactic mad-max-esque urban landscape. The tram cars themselves are mostly ramshackle assemblages of discarded technology and are generally in need of constant upkeep. They aren't terribly safe to ride, but still shuttle tens of thousands of passengers a day. Although verticality is a huge part of the Gathox setting, I haven't placed the tram lines vertically within the world -- that's up to the DM. In my game I chose to go with elevated lines that directly followed streets at about six stories up. This led to a variety interesting scenarios and tense encounters.
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How It Works
Depending on where adventurers are in the slum at any given point will affect which lines are available to them. On the map below you can see the tentative placement of three haphazard tram lines, each of them connecting two of the three districts. Each line also comes with an indicated Danger Rating on a scale of 1 (safest) to 3 (most dangerous).
GREEN LINE (3): connects The Kettle to Berchan Favela
BLUE LINE (2): connects The Kettle to The Craw
BLUE LINE (2): connects The Kettle to The Craw
PINK LINE (1): connects Berchan Favela to The Craw
When PCs wish to use the tram to move within a district or between districts, they would pay the indicated fare to the operator, and the DM would roll on the encounter table once for the ride. So for example, if Vardax the Mutant, Kristi the Cosmic Doctor, and Lobat the Martial Master wanted to take the GREEN LINE 2 stops across The Kettle, the DM would roll once on the GREEN LINE ENCOUNTER TABLE after the PCs paid for 2 stops worth of travel.
Map
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| Map courtesy of David's blog. |
Encounter Tables
GREEN LINE (3)
4GP / stop
1 - 5. Ride continues as normal
6. A small band (d4) of hyper-capitalist Kermen plant a flag on the tram car and declare by First Possession Theory that the tram car is now sole property of Kerman society. As such, they quickly begin an attempt to convert the tram car to small textile factory.
7. 1d6+1 X'Xul halt the tram using their space magic and attempt to enslave the passengers (including the PCs).
7. 1d6+1 X'Xul halt the tram using their space magic and attempt to enslave the passengers (including the PCs).
8. One of the tram passengers unwittingly disturbs a trash pile in the rear of the carriage, causing 1d6 Arachnoclasts to spring into action, instantly riddling him with laser holes as they begin firing indiscriminately into the tram car.
9. PCs board the tram car only to find 1d4 dead and dying commoners, potentially victims of a gang scuffle. With proper skills half of them can be saved.
10. As the tram creaks along, a nearby building is swallowed by Gathox, but several vagrants are able to leap from their windows and hang onto the moving carriage for dear life. One of them looks like she's falling though. If saved, she can be recruited as a lvl1 Street Tough hireling at no initial cost.
11. At the first station, a large human and several bodyguards board as well. It seems their leader, Shasta the Serpentigress, is looking for people vaguely matching the PC's description. PCs must persuade that they aren't the right people or be forcibly dragged all the way to the Gorgontula estate to talk to Shasta.
12. A Contrail Antenna flies alongside the tram, spouting inane conspiracy theories about the passengers and PCs alike.
13. PCs pay for a tram ride, but are surprised when none shows up as expected. If they question the fare collector thoroughly enough, they might reveal that they were paid off to ignore any stoppages by a well-funded gang who wished to assassinate a rival gang leader (Krotex Motorhead, Lvl3 Soldier) riding the car. If the PCs can locate the stopped tram in time, they could potentially prevent the assassination.
14. A Contrail Antenna flies alongside the tram, spouting inane conspiracy theories about the passengers and PCs alike.
15. Kalina von Hammershmitzensteinbergovichdorf, a popular celebrity heiress, boards the tram car with a small army of personal servants and several guards. The servants sweep the ground in front of her and clear the rabble from the car. Kalina wears intricate neon and bejeweled robes and avant garde makeup to conceal her face from advanced facial recognition tech employed by the Mokron and some paparazzi.
16. Tram car track/cable snaps/breaks and the whole carriage crashes through the ground into the sewers. The crash ends with the tram car in a pool of oil, and a group of 3d4 sewer children stalking the passengers as they exit.
17. Gathox begins a planet-hop mid tram ride. Gravity is suspended, lights flicker and colors invert. The tram car seems to stretch to infinite length as all matter is extruded and contorted. The effect lasts seemingly forever and for no time at all. When Gathox finally arrives at its new home, things seem to resume as normal, but one of the PCs realizes that their arms and legs have been flipped, the result of an unprepared hyperspace jump.
18. Two upstart nightclub DJs stage a turntable battle on the tram car. The passengers, having decided the winner by the strength of their dancing, mob the loser and attempt to toss him from the moving carriage. If saved, the DJ can be hired as an entertainer to boost the income of any entertainment-type property owned by the PCs.
19. A toxic jet spews from a nearby waste dump, soaking one side of the car in radioactive techno-waste. PCs near the jet of waste (50% chance) must make a DEX throw or suffer 1d6 damage of radiation burns, take a -2 penalty to CHA checks until they can clean themselves, and have a 10% chance of sprouting a random mutation.
20. 4d4 pirates stop the tram with steel grappling hooks and quickly attempt to instal rocket boosters to the tram. This will take 5 turns. If successful, they turn on the rockets and attempt to fly the tram car out of Gathox into the wilds of the planet, and towards their base of operations.
BLUE LINE (2)
8GP / stop
1 - 10. Ride continues as normal
12. A tall, bald woman in neon robes and face paint slips into a seat near the party. She offers to join their street gang (lvl2 Cosmic Doctor) if you agree to help her assassinate the leader of the Free Bastards, the gang that killed her brother.
13. Just as the group settles down on the tram, a supremely ugly mutant in a trench coat approaches and asks if they want to buy any weapons from his "special supply". If so, he gives them an address to a hidden shop in The Kettle.
14. A fanatic of the Elven Primacy Hall leaps onto the tram car from above and tosses a smoke grenade into the car. All party must save vs. poison or hallucinate for 5 hours (-3 to hit).
15. Two human street urchins board the car in the crowd at the next station, and ask among the crowd for donations to an acrobat troupe - worshippers of The Goddess Who Balances on Narrow Precipices. If donation is given by the party, they are invited to a performance in Berchan Favela.
16. Shouting is heard from the front of the tram car as several Vulzari agents leap through the windows and assassinate the tram operator! They claim the tram for the Vulzari and attempt to hold the occupants hostage until they can be taken below ground for forcible conversion.
17. Some newly installed parts explode (50% chance of the explosion being near the party) instantly killing nearby occupants, or dealing 1d6 damage (save for half) to PCs. The explosion leaves the tram near a station but in a precarious situation (i.e. might be hit by another tram car, dangling and about to fall to the street, near a building that's about to collapse, etc.)
18. 1d6+1 gang members from a hostile Neighborhood Friendship Society board the tram and begin asking occupants for "protection money".
19. Several passengers in the back are openly smoking bakra root in the back of the tram, filling the cabin with an acrid smoke. Unless they're stopped, everyone on the tram is spun out by the next stop (save or -1 to all checks for 6 hours).
20. As the PCs get up to exit the car 1d8+1 Sloughs crawl through the car, having already removed the face of the tram operator and one passenger! If left unchecked, they will harvest a number of faces equal to the number of rolled Sloughs -2 before returning underground.
PINK LINE (1)
12GP / stop
1 - 15. Ride continues as normal16. An otherwise uneventful ride is interrupted when the tram's (already unstable) power goes out, leaving it stranded halfway between two stations.
17. A Mi-Chiw elite death squad (1d6+1, level at DM discretion) boards the tram at the next station, shouting loudly that they're searching for someone. The grotesque turtle-people snatch a small boy from his mother if nothing is done and leave the tram car before it departs.
18. Without warning a fight breaks out between d4 humans and d4 Glaatu down the aisle of the tram car. Laser blasts start firing and other passengers flee or hide.
19. If PCs are lucky they'll notice that the tram has begun to move in a direction it wasn't supposed to. It turns out that the Gathox tendrils have eaten the next station, and now the tram is headed deep into the underground caverns where swallowed buildings dwell.
20. A massive sandstorm from the deserts of Red Doom sweep through the city, filling the tram car with a thick red sand haze. When it clears, the PCs realize that the tram has stopped, but they're now missing any currency they were carrying.
