The Good Doctor



 

The Mission

Some time ago, the heroes were contacted by an American scientist, Doctor Algion Turnbull and contracted to bring the good doctor to the planet Chaco in the Racimo Cluster of Independent Systems area of space. Doctor Turnbull provides paperwork indicating that he has a grant and authorization to explore Martian ruins and recover certain artifacts and he plans to use his grant to explore what he believes to be ruins on the planet.

 

What the heroes don’t know is that Turnbull has other designs.

 

Doctor Turnbull began his career as an astronomer and is best known for discovering several habitable planets in the Federal Territories, giving the Americans quite a jump on the other nations in the settlement of resource rich worlds in their sector. His accomplishments were celebrated for a time, but soon he fell back into obscurity mapping stellar routes for the US Galactic Survey Institute. After his time in the limelight, the mundane work of the GSI galled him.

 

Not long ago, he ran across a Martian text that referenced a strange trans-galactic body that appears at odd times and resembles a flaming bat or bird. Continuing to research the body while performing his “day job,” he hoped that if he found enough lost information on the body, he could “discover,” describe, and map the body and regain his former fame. What he found not only disturbed him, but led him to ever more dark sources for information.

 

What he found led him to develop a theory that not only is the fiery god worshiped by globally and galactically dispersed aboriginal tribes of many races, but that the appearance of the stellar body seems to imbue sensitive observers with uncanny power and even enabled those sensitives to travel through spacetime directly to the body.

 

He learned that the methods for finding Zapotec, as the Mayans called it, were considered not only arcane, but also on the darker side of the dark arts in various cultures. Turnbull began researching these forbidden arts while he gathered more information on Zapotec. Both paths of information converged on a little planet in the Racimo Cluster where the ruins of a strange temple, called Masu huk'ucha by the local Guaranis.

 

What do we have and what do we know?

 

The serial assumes that the heroes have worked together or were otherwise assembled for this mission. The serial requires an interstellar transport. If the heroes don’t have one, Turnbull has access to a Junkers Ju52-IS3. Turnbull has also taken the liberty of hiring a small group of guards and a larger group of porters as well as procuring the equipment and supplies for an extended expedition in the Chaco jungles.

 

The heroes know Turnbull’s overt mission, and if hero backgrounds allow, they know or, can research on the flight out, the history and current situation on the Chaco. If any of the heroes are natives or have a history on Chaco, they can also have contacts (which can be good or bad). A natural contact is Goni Colque in Outpost Paraíso.

 

The serial opens as the heroes are streaking over the planet’s surface, so be sure to prepare any “off-camera” stuff before play begins, including equipment sets, extras that are accompanying heroes, and other details.

 

Navigator

Background
Secrets of the Chaco
Main Page - Main Page
Episode 1: Wages of Fear
Episode 2: Outpost Paraíso
Episode 3: A Little Piece of the Moon
Ships and Vehicles
Mooks and Wild Cards