MD49

This is for the Morrow Project role playing game. It's based VERY loosely on the 1989 novel My Father Immortal by Michael Weaver (don't sue me!). I have chosen to cherry-pick certain parts of the book out and leave big chunks alone to create a small and localized adventure setting. I've tried to key it to my ongoing Morrow Project Travel Guide, so check that out while you are here.

"MD49" centers around a unique village of super mutants living in the barren wastes north of the ruins of Las Vegas, Nevada. A Team might stumble upon this village by accident, or hear of it by rumors and come to investigate. How they play the first encounter with the residents will determine how the rest of the session goes. This can either be a one-off adventure, or if they handle it well, the mutants can either be a great help to the Project or a great hindrance.

Since it's in the Southern Nevada region, it might be integrated into the play of the Prime Base, Desert Search, or American Outback modules. You can even move it to any other part of the nation if you prefer (the book was actually set in New York state).

A word of warning. Due to the unique qualities of these mutants, they can really throw your campaign for a loop. The whole idea of immortal mutants is edging towards Gamma World or Darwin's World territory anyway, so perhaps you might have to alter my ideas a bit to fit into your worldview. That said, this can definitely be a nice challenge for the more gung-ho members of your Team.

The mutants: The community of mutants are all genetically altered in one way or the other by mysterious means. There are 16 members of the community here, thirteen men and three women. They have no great aspirations except to get up each day and go to sleep the next night. They have never thought of conquest or even moving from this area, and pose extremely little threat to anyone who doesn't seek to harm them. Attempt to attack them, however, and they will destroy you.

The village: The village is located in the eastern foothills of the Sheep Range, in a narrow creek valley. It has two main buildings, the Batcave and Algy's house, and the rest of the village is a chaotic ramshackle collection of rock and mud huts. The village was formed 140 years ago by Algy and Monk, who have the highest intelligence. Around the edges are several small irrigated fields where they "grow" the mineral compounds and crystals that provide them with sustenance. These are wet shiny rocks that they swallow whole. There are also a few plots of corn, but these are only used as mash for Algy's gin still. Water is pulled from the creek and from a spring nearby.

The area: The area outside the creek valley is mostly a barren high desert, a scarred empty quarter of rocks and infertile yellow soil. A few miles to the west, and stretching off to the north and south to form a geological border, is the ancient weather-worn Sheep Mountain range. Its rounded peaks harbor several small seasonal lakes that feed water to the creek valley through runoff and streams both over and underground.

More about the mutants: Truly Homo superior, with a twist. They have been alive at least since the War, and probably further back, though none can remember that far. They haven't aged in their lifetimes and are truly immortal, though they are all infertile and have never had children. They typically have warped faces, most muscled more than gorillas, colors of every shade, though nothing particularly ugly. Some even look normal, even beautiful. They speak a clicking, tortured form of English. They live in a communal setting and all get along quite well with each other. "Happy" and "content" are the best words to describe their lives.

Strengths: Despite their differences in shape and size, what all of them have in common is that they are virtually indestructible and immortal. They do not get sick, do not get injured, and do not have to eat. Their skin is impervious to anything from bullets up to nuclear weapons.

Weaknesses: That said, all the mutants have weak points in the corners of their eyes. It takes a lucky direct hit in the eye to hurt them. Even then, even a laser hit to the eye may not kill them. Something like an explosive-tipped spear driven into the eye will kill one, however. As well, all the mutants have a tendency to drink way, way too much "firewater" (gin made by Algy). They can consume vast quantities before having any effect, but they do loose some faculties eventually. They are mostly all dumb as rocks, too, except for a few of them, and have the mentality of maybe eight-year olds. The exceptions are Algy and Monk, whose intelligence is near genius-level.

Technology: The village has no electricity or "modern" technology to speak of. They live a Stone Age existence, though they have large quantities of pre-war goods lying around. The mutants have no weaponry to speak of, as they have not known any form of warfare for a century. Their indestructibility and vast physical strength more than make up for their lack of weapons. Algy has a large collection of guns and explosives in his house, but nobody much cares about them. These include M-60 machineguns, M-16E rifles and MK3A2 grenades. They wear some clothes, but don't have to as the elements can't affect them. Most all run around naked and barefoot, regardless of the season.

Algy: The smartest of the mutants, by leaps and bounds. Algy is a short hobbling aged man with white hair and a kind dog-like face. He loves to make old machines work and to build new ones. He alone can read and write and speaks the best English.

Algy's lab: Algy lives in a white brick building that he designed and built himself. Inside are all his labs and storerooms where he keeps and builds his inventions. It's a treasure trove of pre-war gadgets and technology, most of which Algy understands, even if he chooses not to use it. Most all of it has been collected over the years by foraging trips to the ruins of Las Vegas.

Some of the items he has made or repaired include; firewater gin, music boxes, video players showing movies of old music stars such as Prince and Jimi Hendrix, and musical instruments for Fiberglass Muskrat. In his lab you can find a wide assortment of stuff, from clocks to radar poles, to Coke bottles to guitars, to a hang glider, to a polished reconstructed vintage 1971 Chevrolet Camaro (which came in piece by piece). In one corner is a stack of oil paintings, including an authentic Picasso.

Strangely, over one of Algy's workbenches is a stone block with "MD49" etched into it. If asked, Algy will say that he carved that himself over a century ago, but he can't remember why. He does remember that it was very important at the time, but now he can't recall.

Fiberglass Muskrat: A rock band of mutants (really!). They practice during the day (which can be heard all the way down in Stigg's caverns) and play nearly every night at the Batcave. They have a lead singer, a guitarist, and a drummer. Original songs they play include "Wrath of the Mole King", "Home is Where my Bottles Are", and "The Trial of the Proosival Roogee". They sound like a German industrial thrash metal band (like Rammstein or Oomph!).

Monk: The lead singer of the band, a black rock of a giant, over seven-feet tall and built like a Greek sculpture of blackest obsidian. Has curly, shoulder-length hair and bright blue eyes. Usually naked except for a tattered pair of blue jeans. His voice is smooth and powerful and he's an amazing singer. Ultra strong, could hold ten grenades in hands and let them blow without pain. While Algy is the intellectual leader of the village, Monk is clearly the decision-maker. His word is final.

Karmen: The female guitar player, and a very good one. She's a tall, wraithlike woman with pale skin and black hair. She's a very jealous woman and is in love with Monk.

Stick: The band's drummer. He has light green skin and brown eyes.

The Batcave: An immense, flat building about 25-feet tall. Made of walls of large unfinished stone. This is the communal meeting place, drinking hall and the concert venue for Fiberglass Muskrat. Inside it's dark and noisy and dusty, but lots of fun, kind of like the best Manhattan goth/punk nightclub, or perhaps the cantina scene from Star Wars or the theater party from Gremlins.

Other villagers: Ten other "typical" mutants in the community, feel free to given them any unique qualities you wish: Jack, Henna (F), Benson, Nightshade, Bamph, Panda (F), Grok, Schlitz, Fredo, and Weezil.

Stigg: Stigg is a large thick muscled man, five-feet tall and three-feet wide. He has black jagged fingernails, crooked teeth, frayed bushy eyebrows, and pitted skin like a shriveled orange. Stigg lives off from the village in underground caverns he has dug out himself. Stigg's most precious possession is a small glass frog statue given to him by Henna, the only woman he has ever loved (and slept with). Stigg has already dug up a number of "hidden treasures" and trades them to Algy for firewater. Stigg is the most likely mutant to develop an attachment to any female members of the Team.

Bobo: One of the smarter mutants, along with Algy and Monk. He chooses to live away from the village, in a dry warm cave in the foothills of the mountains to the west. Algy realized long ago the value of having a sentinel to the west and trusts Bobo to warn the village of any threats coming from that way. Bobo makes the trip to the village once a week for supplies and to catch a show at the Batcave. He walks a perimeter patrol every day, looking for anything new.

Fender Fang: Bobo is not alone, he has a large mutant indestructible sentient dog to keep him company. Fang is a cross between an Alsatian and an overgrown pit bull terrier. He stands four-feet tall at the shoulders. Fang can also communicate somewhat in broken English. Loveable and playful, and loves to play catch. When angered, Fang can rip and mangle nearly anything (including metal) with his claws and teeth. Fang is fiercely loyal to Bobo.

The truth: The truth of the super mutants is to be found to the southeast. There, amidst the ruins of the old Nellis Air Force Base, lie the half-buried ruins of a forgotten laboratory building. Outwardly the EPA's Western Environmental Research Laboratory, this was in fact a secret government biomedical facility set up during the early Reagan administration. Amongst the unit's numerous secret projects was a fringe effort to create a race of "super soldiers" who would be invincible on the nuclear battlefields of WWIII. They were using DNA-enhanced molecular bonding to stimulate active mutations, truly cutting edge science. They had just achieved a major breakthrough and were starting human trials (on homeless people picked up off the streets of Vegas) in September of 1989. When the nukes started pounding the area later that year, the facility was destroyed along with Nellis Air Force Base. The 16 test subjects, however, survived and are still alive today. Over the years, they bonded together and soon moved up north to the current location of their village.

The old ruins: Only Algy still remembers how to get to the old lab complex where they were "created". Radiation is still high from the nearby nuke craters, but with protection a Team might venture here. If led there, they will find a half-buried structure that has slowly been filled in with sand and scrub brush. Only one hallway is still intact, and that is half-filled with broken masonry, broken glass, and ceiling tiles, all covered with ages of dust and dirt. In one room they can find some skeletons, several still covered with strips of petrified rock-hard flesh. In this room they can find a plaque bolted onto an old wall that reads "Danger! Testing Area--Atmosphere Toxic" and amongst the rubble another that reads "Biological/Genetic Engineering". Further poking in the dusty file cabinets will turn up the story of the mutants and the secret lab. The specific DNA agent used to create the mutants was called "MD49", though only a few notations of this can be found. There is nothing in this lab worth salvaging, however, and all it does is provide answers to questions.