Hi Guys,

I need a little bit of advice. I'll set the scene for you, my group of players are attempting to break into a crime lords lair to release a potential Inquisition infromant. The lair is essentially an underground bunker, the team made the logical leap that there must be a ventilation system and that this was a weakness that could be exploited. Unfortunately I had wandered in to GM dreamland thinking that my players would merely use the vents to access the facility, rookie error I know. My illusions were shattered when they decided they were going to gas the place. I did remind them that the informant wouldn't be much use to them dead. "Oh don't worry, we've thought of that, we're going to use drugs! Can I borrow the Inquisitor's Handbook to see if anything fits the bill?"After a couple of minutes looking through the Hive World section they come up with Night Dust, "If we use Chem Use we could make it airborne right?" Luckily for me it was getting late and we had to wrap the session up.

The Night Dust section says that it can be burnt as an incense but when my team want to use it on such a grand scale I'm a little lost how much they would actually need. So my question is how much smoke/vapour (m3) does one dose of Night Dust produce?

Any comments or musings on this subject would be very helpful.

is that the approach you want them to take?

Bear in mind that Night Dust is 250 thrones per dose adn it's very rare so it may take them weeks or months to source a alrge quantity and I'd guess at about 20+ doses to do even a small bunker as, I'm sure I read tihs somewhere ywears ago, by making such a drug airborne you ened to massively boost the quality to get the same effect as it's diluted by the process of being made airborne. Then there's the fact that most modern bunkers come with filtration systems to scrub the air as surely gas and or posion attacks would ahve been forseen by the bunkers builders.

Still the players have been thinking outside the box and that's never to be discouraged ;-) Try letting them source ten doses, distribute it through the system giving all the 'bad guys' -10 to -20 on physical skills but maybe, asa side effect giving them +10 on awareness rolls as some find hallucinogenics, in diluted forms, actually boosts awareness.. so i've been told anyway *cough cough* . Of course you don't have to tell the players that it'll these effects and let 'em find out in game ;-)

This is a bunker, surely there are filtration systems and scrubbers built in multiple redundancies. I would say one does is one cubic meter. I wuld think that the user would light the incense and lean over it, perhaps with a cover to keep the fumes in.

Hi Werefish,

is this a bunker like a military bunker or just something inside a hive? And, is this military bunker equipt for chemical warfare? If so, the pc will need to take out several redundant filter system to ensure that it works. And alarms.

Another thing about using gas in an attack: if you want to flood a bunker (or any other building complex) with gas, you need gas that is (at least slightly) heavier-then-air. Otherwise, it is simply no good. At least, this is how I got it.

Years ago, there was an incident with "smart" russian military(or security; I am not sure) commander who thought that it would be a good idea to end a hostage situation with pumping some kind of knock-out gas into the building the kidnappers where hold up in. The plan ended with a lot of dead hostages.

What happend? The gas used is heavier then air. So it starts to concentrates on the ground and "builds up". The majority of the hostages where laying on the floor, face down (as ordered by the criminals). Before the gas reached the criminals, the concentration of the gas on the ground had already reached a lethal concentration (an unstilled anethesist can actually kill a patient if he would give him to much). The fact that the criminals noticed what was going on as they begin to feel droosy and allt he hostages blacked out did not helped, either.

Talking about your actual situation:
As already mentioned, Night Dust is highly costly...and it is an illegal drug! Even the pc would be able to come up with the cash to buy...let´s say 100 to 300 doses of night dust, it might simply not be readily avaibable. In addition, I do not think that the chemcial the pc are going to mix up will be able to "flood" the bunker. Last but not least, the pc will need a lab (and not a small one!) and time.

Security: If it is a military style bunker, you can have a lot of systems which will warn the enemy. This starts with something akin to a "burglar alarm" at the air ducts (which the pc might be able to overcome) to an "air tester" that will raise an alarm as soon as something is not quit right with the air supply. And do not forget the filter system. Air gets sucked in, gets cleaned through VARIOUS filters (in a military bunker!), builds up to a pressure slightly higher then the surrounding (to prevent "accidental" intrusion of outside air) and gets out again. Its hard to gas a bunker. At least one equipped for chemical warfare.

Role with the blow!: So your pc got smart. Gratulate them and work with it. While the Night Dust, thing won´t work, it is quiet possible that a pc of yours with the Chem-Use can come up with something more usefull. Perhaps some "knock-out-gas" is in use by the local Enforcers.

Step One: Aquire chemicals
The pc need to have a lab (or equal equipment) and need to buy certain chemicals. This sounds taxing to me (Inquiry+0; might be substituted with Trade (Merchant)+10). I say this will take 72 hours; reduced by 6 hours for every level of success. 500 thrones, minimum. Perhaps 750 thrones. If the role is not successfull, they wasted 72 hours (tell them up front; role in secret and ask them if they want to give up at a certain point..perhaps after 24 hours).
The test can be rerolled as often as the pc wish. But keep track of the levels of failure. As five are summed up, local Enforcers might start to search after them. The pc are not the only one who know what might be done with such chemicals....

Step Two: Mixing the gas; calculating the concentration
Chem-Use(+0). If the test is failed, the concentration is to low. Nothing will happen at first, later the people will feel kinda sleepy (a point of Fatigue after 1d5 minutes if a Toughness test is failed). But that´s it. Feel free to have them make a too heavy a mixture..with the chance of killing the informant (or sending him into a coma). See my comment above for the reason why...

If successfull, they will have a gas that will (under THIS circumstances) start to effect the inmates of the bunker after 1d5+3 minutes. After that, each inmate needs to pass a Toughness(+0) test (each round?). On a failure, the victim is stunned for 1d10 minutes. Only if the test was failed by three levels, the victim will fall unoncious for 1d5 hours.

But, during each minute the gas builds up, the inmates get an Awarness test (+0 or -10; as you choose). That is based on the assumption that the gas has a veint smell to it.

Level of success on the initial Chem-Use test can be used to

• Make it work quicker (the build-up time of the gas is reduced by one minute; the gas is "light enough")
• Make it more potent (difficutly of the Toughness-test is raised by one step)
• Reduce the smell (difficulty of the Awareness test is raised by one step)

So, if your pc storm the bunker there is a good chance that somebody is still standing (whom might have reached for a respirator) while the majority of bad guys is out (if not down).

[by the way: I always adivce to design the TOPIC of a request in a way so it is clear that this IS an request for aid. I first sought somebody wanted to bragg about some achievements of himself ]

When I ran Edge of Darkness, one of my players came up with the idea of "smoking out" the baddies hiding on the top floor of the HQ. I pointed out that it would take a massive amount of smoke to fill it up...