™ PARTheAN UnderplexOIA The abandoned tunnel network that interpenetrates Alpha Complex, and all the ways it can kill your PCs PAUL BALDOWSKI, Architect (www.omegacomplex.com) GREG INGBER DAN GELBER CONTENTS KARL LOW GREG COSTIKYAN Introduction 2 ERIC MINTON ERIC GOLDBERG 1. Under construction 4 Additional material and poorfreadnig/ Original game design & development/ 2. Under population 14 Contractors Building committee 3. Hook, line and sinkhole 38 4. Gear 31 BETH FISCHI IAN BELCHER Mission: ‘The One’ 35 ANDY FITZPATRICK Mongoose Publishing RPG manager/ Appendix 1: Random Underplex 46 ALLEN VARNEY Construction supervisor Appendix 2: Overfl ow 47 Editing, layout, graphics/Drillbots ALEXANDER FENNELL JIM HOLLOWAY Mongoose Publishing production director/ The ‘fortune cookies’ at the lower right of Cover and interior illustrations/Blueprints Struts around wearing fun yellow hardhat each two-page spread come from loyal citizens Paul Baldowski, Karl Low, Saul Resnikoff, Bart Savenije, Silent, and THE COMPUTER Tobias Svalborg, who answered the call on the PARANOIA development blog (www. Orders it built; seals it off; repeat costik.com/paranoia). Commendations! Security Clearance ULTRAVIOLET WARNING: Knowledge or possession of this information by any citizen of Security Clearance VIOLET or lower is treason, dark nasty skulking subterranean treason of the most deeply entrenched kind TM & Copyright © 1983, 1987, 2006 by Eric Goldberg & Greg Costikyan. All Rights Reserved. Mongoose Publishing Ltd., Authorized User. Based on material published in previous editions of PARANOIA. ILLUMINATI is a registered trademark of Steve Jackson Games, and is used by permission. The reproduction of material from this book for personal or corporate profi t, by photographic, electronic, or other means of storage and retrieval, is prohibited. You may copy character sheets, record sheets, checklists and tables for personal use. E-mail questions and comments to Mongoose Publishing at [email protected], or write to PO Box 1018, Swindon, Wiltshire SN3 1DG, UNITED KINGDOM. On the World Wide Web: www.mongoosepublishing.com. Published by Mongoose Publishing, Ltd. Publication MGP 6641. Published March 2006. First printing March 2006. UNDERPLEX CLEARANCE ULTRAVIOLET Hey! What’s behind this wall? Alpha Complex is a huge, multileveled between the slick rocks, covered with into range of a squad of trigger-happy Vulture underground city, a web of supposedly self- something that looks surprisingly like Warrior scouts, with not a handy INFRARED contained sectors. The Computer administers last night’s algae casserole. Then the in sight. them as a single massive community. To fl oor seems to disappear beneath you. Before we launch you headfirst into the maintain happiness and improve effi ciency, The A layer of rock falls away, and you drop depths, here’s an overview of what you get in Computer not only orders new construction; with it. As luck would have it, the strap The Underplex: it also dictates incessant remodeling and of your uniform snags on a rock jutting repurposing of existing structures. Service out of the pit, leaving you dangling 1: Under construction fi rm contractors also prize effi ciency—that is, precariously. Q the effi cient funneling of credits from padded Frank-R: Phew, that was lucky. Anyone got Like Alpha Complex bureaucracy, the Underplex expense budgets to their secret Gray Subnet a ten-foot pole? Haha! Okay, guys, has depths few would willingly choose to trawl. accounts. They order their engineers and help me up, will ya? [Silence, except This section details the setting’s many levels. bots to build cheap and fast, and if the new for the faint rustles of exchanged The Tranz: A chaos of derelict tunnels, recreation center happens to wall off the only notes.] Guys? What are you doing? tubes and ducts—a dangerous transition access to an entire subsector, well.... Just throw me a line or something; I’m to the environs below. To improve maintenance effi ciency ratings, not sure I can get a handhold down High Programmers delete from The Computer’s here. Guys? The Dungeon: Purposely sealed holding databanks the very existence of blocked GM: The light above you flickers and facilities intended to imprison the worst corridors, defunct barracks and derelict dwindles. You hear footsteps receding. genetic anomalies and bioengineered facilities. Then they ensure citizens rapidly You hear someone say what sounds monsters. forget the old places ever existed; or, if a like ‘mutie traitor’—then you see six The Underplex: Forgotten rooms, lost troublemaker displays an unpleasantly good piercingly bright shots of red laser sectors and Old Reckoning habitats memory, they ensure citizens rapidly forget the fi re hit the ceiling of the cavern. You’re that twist like an Escher illustration old troublemaker ever existed. hanging alone in the dark. You hear a in, around, and among the inhabited These thousands of forgotten rooms, faint rumbling sound overhead. What portions of Alpha Complex. discarded corridors and dusty maintenance do you do? tubes comprise the Underplex. This shadow- The Deeps: Natural caverns, narrow city interpenetrates every inhabited sector, mere The Underplex is a fresh setting for tunnels and water-slick pitches that meters away from subsurface transportation PARANOIA missions, an uncompromising reach far down into the Earth’s crust. tunnels, INFRARED accommodations and environment of trigger-happy troopers, brain- moderately shielded power generation facilities. hungry mutants, and Dark Rooms so dark they Q 2: Under population It is a place of escape, of absence, as close as should have big neon signs fl ashing ‘All-You- the other side of that wall. Over centuries, the Can-Commit Treason! Here! Now!’ Underdwellers—residents of the Underplex— Underplex has become a refuge for the lost and Like Alpha Complex proper, the Underplex is see Alpha Complex as a source of ready-made disappeared, the unwanted and unsightly, the an overwhelming labyrinth fi lled with indifferent goods and raw materials. Alpha Complex illegal and treasonous. neighbors and unforgiving opponents. But our citizens see the Underplex as a menace and If you’ve picked up this book expecting a inspiration was not the dungeon crawls of security breach. This section outlines the status, wizards-and-lizards dungeon crawl, brace other (non-fun) roleplaying games; instead, views and objectives of the Underdwellers, as yourself for something more original and a we looked to the modern ‘urban infi ltration’ well as those of Alpha Complex service groups lot cooler. The Underplex, though fi lled with explorers, the intrepid folks who break into and secret societies. monstrous brain-hungry mutants and Old sewers, abandoned factories and the like just Reckoning relics, is still pure PARANOIA: to see if they can. 3: Hook, line and sinkhole (Not that we have anything against Q GM: You’re standing at the open mouth of a dungeons! We heartily recommend the Tools for handling the Underplex setting dark cavern. Water cascades down the 64-page PARANOIA mission collection using the PARANOIA rules, or what passes walls, gathering in dark pools. In the Collapsatron, which includes an updated for rules. This section includes notes on shadows at the back of the chamber version of Ken Rolston’s brilliant 1987 fantasy- handling Tension in a security-lite environment, you half-glimpse something moving… RPG parody Orcbusters.) recruiting Troubleshooters into UNDER perhaps the very traitors your mission Troubleshooters in the Underplex rapidly (Underplex Navigation, Defense, Exploration requires you locate. discover that escape from The Computer’s and Recon) teams, and survival in a naturally Frank-R: Wow, this rocks! PARANOIA in a crazed oppression can, in certain respects, hazardous environment. dungeon... it’s like the old days. I bet suck. Though the bright and hygienic corridors we meet Randy the Wonder Lizard! of Alpha Complex make covert activity a 4: Gear So, who wants to be the magic-user, headache, at least in an emergency they Q huh? I set out across the cavern with might grab a passerby as a convenient human Items designed to assist those venturing into my laser drawn. shield. In the Underplex, they can fi nd plenty the Underplex. Old Reckoning archaeological GM: [Takes notes, rolls dice.] You step of places to have a private meeting with their fi nds. Stuff! gingerly through the puddles and FCCC-P contacts; but they might as easily walk 2 PARANOIA: The Underplex INTRODUCTION GETTING DOWN Computer been of one alert, focused mind, place, full of tunnels and caves. What do you Q Mission: ‘The One’ it might have remained aware of the world mean, “What’s a cave?”’ The Underplex works well for either an beneath—but it’s The Computer, you know? So If you approach things this way, your NPCs occasional side trip or an extended campaign. when it suddenly detects the Underplex, The assume the PCs know what’s up (or rather, This campaign kickoff mission, ‘The One’, takes Computer reacts with its typical binary-code down). They react uniformly with frustration the Troubleshooters into a few proximate parts equivalents of shock, horror, bewilderment, when the team starts asking questions. of the Underplex. paranoia and complete incomprehension. It Everyone of RED Clearance and higher seems believes the Underplex appeared suddenly to know more about the Underplex than the Appendix: Random tables and spontaneously, as part of a massive secret Troubleshooters. Q invasion. The appendix offers tables in the style of the The Computer’s drive to deal with the Colorful background excellent mission blender (included in the potential threat of the underworld sends Q PARANOIA Gamemaster Screen). You can everyone into a panic, citizens, service groups Don’t want to send your PCs into the Underplex generate areas of the Underplex with a few and secret societies alike. This is the premise of under any circumstances? Fair enough—you die rolls. this supplement’s kickoff mission, ‘The One’.