This is a short adventure module for the Morrow Project role playing game. It is set in southwestern Oklahoma, a part of my ongoing Morrow Project Travel Guide. This work is VERY loosely based on the four-book Freeway Warrior series from 1988-89, with both setting and pacing altered considerably. Absolutely no offense or copyright infringement is intended against either the author Joe Dever or the vile unholy cabal of lawyers on retainer with Berkley Books, Incorporated.
This adventure is meant to take place after the events in Operation: Lone Star (R-06), once the invasion has been stopped. I guess it could happen at anytime, and with any team, but I think it will flow better if your team is already in Texas at the start. This will be a four part adventure, with each ending hopefully leading into the beginning of the next part. This is a new idea for me, so I hope it works the way I hope it does.
Altus, Oklahoma: Altus died when the SS-N-8 nuclear warhead popped low over Altus Air Force Base, five miles to the east. The blast effects and flash started fires in the wooden structures on the east side of town, which quickly raced through the area as chaos reined. Within a week, there were only a dozen people still living in Altus, and probably 85% of the structures were uninhabitable. For the next century or so, the ruins remained empty except for the occasional family or scavengers or hunters.
Newcomers: Four years ago, a group of settlers from the fringes of the Republic of Texas came across the Red River and investigated the area. They found a ranch just north of the ruins that looked like it could be reclaimed. All was fine until a week ago when another group moved into the area. This was a Bandit Clan who quickly made it known that they were up to no good.
Play of the adventure: The settlers radio their family back home in Texas, telling them of the situation and requesting help from the Republic of Texas Army. The MP Team somehow gets involved here. How exactly is up to you and where you team is at the moment. The 4th Regiment is assigned this border, but they cannot help as they have sent nearly every combat unit south to stop the invasion and only a few support and supply units remain in the area. So the MP Team decides to go to their aid instead. The route to Altus is dictated by the scarcity of intact bridges across the Red River. They will have to go north up Highway 83 and cross the Red River at that bridge, then turn east on Highway 62 and head across the old Oklahoma border towards Altus. As the Team will be passing back along the same route later, make sure they pay attention to the area.
The Ranch: The settlement is a ranch north of town. It looks more like an old frontier post than a ranch, with a fortified perimeter wall of rubble and old cars, a stake-filled moat, and crudely-built lookout posts that command the road approaches. They are secure within the compound, but their fields are needing attention if they are to keep the crops. Their artesian well provides them with water, but they need to get more food. They can't go hunting for fear of leaving the compound defenseless and can't afford the ammo to hold them off forever.
People: There are currently 12 people living here, eight men and four women. There are two families, Jonas and Betty-Ann Phoenix with their 20-year old nephew Calvin, and Juan and Rosita Rodriguez with their six-year old daughter Maria. There is also a mechanic named Cutter Jacks, four farmhands named Pop Ewell, Jake Bannerman, Gary Rickenbacher, and Harvey Harlan, and a young orphan girl named Kate Norton.
Notes: Jacks is a top-shelf mechanic, his incredible mechanical skill and knowledge of pre-war cars and engines has been invaluable in keeping the settlement's vehicles and tractor running. Pop Ewell is 70-years old and of limited value in any fight. Calvin is far and away the most effective fighter in the settlement. Kate is a beautiful blonde who wandered in a few months ago from Kansas City, Missouri. She was once a harem girl of a Krell General and has a lot of information about them.
Assets: The settlement only has a few firearms with which to defend itself, and only enough ammunition left for a few more short firefights. The firearms they have are one Uzi machinepistol, one .30-30 hunting rifle, three 12-gauge shotguns, one sawed-off 10-gauge shotgun, one old Colt .45 pistol, one Baretta 92 pistol, one rusty .38 revolver, and one Derringer pistol. They have four operating vehicles, all running on alcohol. These are one John Deer tractor, one beat-up Chevrolet pickup truck, one GMC full-size school bus, and one Kenworth gasoline tanker salvaged from an old drilling site nearby. The tanker has a square canvas canopy rigged to hide the tank's tell-tale cylindrical body. They have 50 gallons of alcohol fuel in an underground storage tank under the ranch.
The Bandit Clan: A motley group of criminals armed with an assortment of weapons and equipment. They were originally from the western Colorado region, before moving into this area a few months ago. The main body of the Clan is encamped in the Black Kettle National Grasslands about 70 miles north of Altus. The band that is currently terrorizing Altus is a small subgroup, which was sent down here to see what loot and plunder could be found.
Stronghold: The Clan group down here is encamped about 6 miles north of Altus, in an large service depot off Highway 6 near the turnoff to Martha. The depot once repaired busses and trucks and is a sturdy concrete and steel building.
Numbers: There are 22 bandits here now, 20 men and two women. In the last week, six have been killed during two blunted raids on the settlement. The leader of this band is named Chief Drawoher. He is an Amerind wearing a lamella brest-plate and a magnificent headdress of eagle feathers, carrying a tomahawk and a ceremonial dagger carved from buffalo bone. The other 21 bandits are named Choctaw, Electra-Glide, Trans-am, Stake-out, Kroom, Belushi, Six-pack, Cuttisark, Warhol, Copperhead, Emteevee, Mosquito, Manhattan, Meltdown, Tweet, Chickamauga, Alcatraz, Stinger, and Bronx. The two females are named Lipsync and Catsup.
Notes: A few of them are Amerinds, the rest whites. All have scars of some sort, some have lost fingers or an eye, and personal hygiene is not a priority here. They all wear a variety of clothes, usually tattered buckskins or homespun shirts and pants. Some sport composite costumes of leather and metal plates with sharpened riveted steel studs. Many of them have shaved heads and tattoos, the most common being a snake tattoo around the neck.
Assets: They have just one working vehicle, a 1968 Thunderbird convertible, with bodywork and chrome gleaming. All have knives or melee weapons of some sort, such as wooden clubs, sharpened meat hooks, tomahawks, and machetes. There are also one Browning Citori 12-guage shotgun, five black powder rifles, and four black powder pistols.
The local area: Altus itself is a wreck. Most of the buildings are just burnt-out, rubble-filled shells, their contents either buried beyond reach or looted decades ago by city gangs. The tallest standing structure in town is the old Baptist church, which can be seen from some distance. There are no other people here except some old vagrants and scavengers. Pretty much all the other small towns in this area are abandoned, except for a few hungry coyotes that have come down from the hills looking for rabbits. The only people are hermits and wanderers. Conditions in them are generally the same, most of the dust-blown battered houses and decaying stores are still standing, although few have roofs anymore. The local fauna is typical of pre-war times. The exceptions are some mutant rattlesnakes, Fiddleback spiders, hornets, scorpions, and the occasional five-foot long lizards.
Resolution: How you work this is up to you, but ideally the team needs to arrive just in time to stave off the final bandit attack. This should not be an easy or bloodless fight. The bandits are vicious killers, and even though outgunned, they will fight furiously. However it happens, at least one of the bandits should escape to alert the main body of the defeat.
Beginning: Following the breaking of the siege, the surviving settlers decide to head back to Texas for now. The dangers of living this far into "wild country" outweigh the benefits. There is considerable debate about what to take, if they are returning one day, and what to do with the house. In the end, they decide to take everything of value and leave the empty house for the next settlers.
Reinforcements: While they pack up, the team is called by the Republic of Texas Army. It seems that a small detachment of soldiers is on the way to Altus to help them. These are two relatives of the settlers and a four-man team of Republic of Texas soldiers. The soldiers are from a Transportation Company of the 4th Regiment, all that could be spared at the moment. The soldiers are Captain Frankland, Sergeant Haskell, Private Gunter, and Private Knott. The civilians are the brothers Pete and Rex Tyler, who own the armored crew-cab tow truck they are traveling in. The soldiers have normal load-outs per Operation: Lone Star except that Haskell has a pre-war incendiary grenade.
Preparations and departure: The enclave has a lot of stuff that they insist on taking with them back to Texas. This should be interesting as it might mean that the team's MPVs are overloaded with stuff when the ambush occurs in Hollis. The stuff they wont budge on taking includes oxyacetylene welding torches, bolt cutters, copper rods, a locked storage box containing 20 cartons of pre-war cigarettes packed in cartons of 200 each, a 175-year old bottle of California dry white wine, and a large crate full of tubs of sodium chloride (common salt). Everyone loads up all they can carry and heads out west on Highway 62.
Clan ambushers: Everything goes fine until they reach the ruined town of Hollis, just before the Texas border. Here they are ambushed by a group of bandits. This group was sent here by the clan leader after learning of the defeat at Altus. This clan force is highly motorized, having arrived in a Ford station wagon, a GMC military pickup truck, an open-top Jeep Wrangler, and a 1000cc motorcycle. They are well-armed, all carrying firearms of some sort. They also have two heavy weapons in the GMC truck, a Mk. 19 automatic grenade launcher and a Stinger SAM. The group�s leader is named Mekong Mike, a large man who wears bright clothes and a horned steer tattooed across his forehead., he carries a Smith and Wesson Model 459 pistol. The bandit force has 14 men, named Amex Gold, Ricky Riot, Harley-D, Hang-Ten, Rockblitz, Guerrero, Armalite, Purple Haze, Kalashnikov, B-52, Ray-Ban, Chinatown, Super-Nova, and Yellow-Cab.
The local area: Between Altus and Hollis are a few abandoned towns along Highway 62. All are long since destroyed, what little of these towns that survived the post-war years has long since been gutted and looted by wanderers and scavengers. The only inhabitants are packs of feral cats and the odd hermit or two. Hollis itself is not much better, all the houses and stores of this forgotten town have collapsed long ago, except for a package store, the brick-built library and a tiny three-pump gas station.
Beginnings: However the ambush at Hollis goes, what needs to happen is that at least one settler is kidnapped by the clan and taken off. The hostage needs to be one or more of the women and children, preferably, to tug at the teams' hearts. The other settlers see no recourse but to chase the fleeing clansmen to rescue their people. Unfortunately, the bad guys have a few hours head start.
The chase: The bad guys race north on Highway 30, before turning east on Interstate 40, headed for their base in the Black Kettle Grasslands. The fleeing group of clansmen meets in the small town of Sayre another group of their mates coming down to support them. Several hours behind, the team races after the kidnapped civilians north through the open land. They catch up to the bandits when they stop at Sayre, but are surprised to see that the number of bad guys has increased dramatically.
New bad guys: This bandit group's leader is named Santana, a Hispanic man with a violent streak. He is bringing with him 11 other bandits, named Slammer, Yucatan, Big Apple, Skunk, Banderas, Exxon, Firefox, Babe Ruth, Mustang, Camaro, and Gator. The new arrivals are heavily motorized, riding in three vehicles. These are a Jeep Cherokee pick-up truck with a spotlight mounted on the roof, a former US Army M151 jeep with a heavy, belt-fed M2 .50 caliber machinegun mounted on column behind front seats, and a former US Army M809 5-ton six-wheeled cargo truck. The bandits are armed in typical fashion, though they do have a single M-16 rifle. They also have a 3-dog pack of trained pit bull terriers in the truck.
Helmut Varken: Just to make things more interesting, riding through the area at this time is a dangerous man on a mission. This is Helmut Varken, infamous for having shot and wounded the President of the Republic of Texas twelve years ago. He has been driving around the region ever since, doing an occasional good deed, and more than his share of killing. He rides a black BMW motorcycle and has a black leather riding suit with a glass-visored helmet and a full rig of combat gear. His weapon of choice is a M21 sniper rifle with a 20-round banana-clip. He also has a pair of sophisticated enhanced-resolution binoculars and several HE and CS gas grenades. Varken is not interested in the bandits, nor the settlers, but will be very intrigued by the team and their vehicles. He will have no qualms trying to pick off the team members so he can get their MPV.
The local area: All of the towns in the area are similar. They are all uninhabited, just sorry collections of wind-damaged stores and homes, many of them have long since collapsed. A few wandering vagrants or hunting parties can be found, but no permanent settlements.
Sayre, Oklahoma: A derelict and deserted town full of dust-blown stores and houses. The total population of Sayre is six people, all living on the southern edge. These are the brothers Steve and Jack Lendorff, their wives, Carly and Marian, and their kids, Bruce and Sissy. They are living in a large country house, once a mansion of a wealthy man. They have been here for ten years, and have so far avoided being attacked by the clansmen. They will join the team if asked, they were thinking about immigrating to Texas in the spring anyway. They bring with them considerable stocks of food and guns. The brothers might even help you in a fight.
Resolution: What needs to happen is that the teams catches up with the fleeing hostages near Sayre. As the action begins, the clan reinforcements from Black Kettle arrive. The fight should be bloody and brisk. However this part ends, the team must make a decision. If they get the hostages back, they can either leave for Texas or they can decide to take care of the clan situation for good. Give them a reason to take the latter option. They learn the exact location of the Clan hideout in the grasslands, maybe from a dying clansman. The team must realize that they can put an end to the clan's rein of terror, before they can regroup and reorganize.
Beginnings: This assumes that the team chooses to finish off the bandit clan here and now. Either by interrogating a captured bandit, or by asking a local, the team determines that the bandit base is located in the little town of Cheyenne inside the Black Kettle Grasslands.
The final battle: Make the team think that they are about to face a hundred clansmen, all armed to the teeth. The truth is that all the fighting over the last month has serious depleted the ranks of the clan. Here in Cheyenne there are currently only 14 total fighters left. These are the best of the best, however, and the fight will still be difficult.
The bandits: The clan leader is Mad Dog Michigan. He is a swarthy man, dressed in a leather jacket adorned with finger bones of his victims. He rules by absolute fear and intimidation. His favorite weapon is a chainsaw. With him in Cheyenne are 13 other bandits, named Pentagon, Bravo, Pee-Wee, Fat Cat, Dumper, Blowback, Re-con, Deacon Blue, Groucho, Shiloh, Cape Cod, Daytona, and Stonewall. They are armed better than previous groups encountered, with a higher percentage of pre-war firearms.
The captives: Held in the old county jail are 12 people recently kidnapped from Elk City. They are named Mike Gorgas, Red Macy, Mike Langdon, Paul Avenal, Cookie Jones, Willie Cleaver, Elmer Zay, Joe Frazer, Bob Grant, Alice Yardam, Patrick Ohlde, and John Barlow.
Notes: Gorgas was the "Lawreader" in Elk City, their judge and lawyer. Yardam is the only female and she has been very badly treated. Barlow is in fact a murderer and a thief himself. His being captured by the clan is secondary to that fact, and if allowed to travel with the team, might very well attempt a crime along the way.
Elk City, Oklahoma: A large town of some 800 people. They have been the frequent targets of raids by the bandit clan for the last month. Other than that, they are doing quite well. If the team returns their captive citizens to them, they will be most grateful and generous. They could make a friend in this area for life.
Brent Jaeger: Just to add some additional hooks, somewhere around here the team meets a wandering traveler. His name is Brent Jaeger and he claims to have walked all the way up here from Panama! He is indeed telling the truth and has some wonderful stories to tell.