Garden City General Encounters

[13]

[1] Giant Electric Thrips (2 HD, 1d6 electric shock attack, attack can chain to adjacent person up to three times, can climb)

Number Appearing: 1d4

These giant bugs crawl up the sides of buildings and use their long antennae to drain and feed on small amounts of power from light and electricity fixtures. They glow dimly depending on how much they have charged up, sometimes the alleyway they hide in can glow bright enough to be visible from the street. When fully charged the thrips can mate and unleash a 1d8 electric attack.

[2] The paperboy runs by and shakes you down for a dollar for today's paper. News is bland as usual, but the paper contains 1d4 useful rumors in the classified section.

[3] Hover-limo floats by. If the party looks professional or well dressed, the person inside may invite them inside for a ride and to discuss a business proposition. If the party is especially ratty or poor looking, the rich person inside rolls the window down a crack, throws out 1d10 glow-in-the-dark bucks, and then drives away with an evil, mocking laugh.

[4] Bloodsucking Ivy (3 HD, 1d4 blood draining thorns, attack entangles, takes x2 damage from fire, immune to damage from firearms)

Number Appearing: 1

This predatory ivy-like plant appears green when inert, but quickly turns red when it attacks. The ivy entangles people and sucks blood out of them. Due to literally being a large number of ivy vines that animate and attack people, it can't really be shot with bullets and must be fought with melee weapons, fire, and psychic abilities. The bloodsucking ivy is the reason many sweeps carry machetes, spades, or sharpened gardening sheers. Usually places where this ivy lives contains the bones of small animals caught in its grip, and only rarely do they get big enough to attack the residents of the city. Because it is stationary once you escape its grasp or know where it hides it is easy to avoid.

[5] Two small bands of orange alien lemurs are fighting it out in a deserted street or down a wide alley. As long as the party doesn't interfere or make any noise, the lemurs will battle. The lemurs fight by jumping at each other, aggressively posturing, and flicking scented hormones from their tails at each other. If a lemur is captured or the fight is interrupted they'll scatter; but you can sell a lemur's scent gland in their butt for 5$ and sell the rest of the lemur for meat at a meat stand for 2$

[6] Sidewalk Sam/Sally (1 HD, 1d6 knife, 3 armor AND psychic resistance)

Number Appearing: 1 or 2

Sidewalk Sams/Sally are psychic manifestations of pedestrians, forgotten faces, and the feeling of being followed. Some powerful psychics create them to stalk and attack their foes, and others unintentionally create them by remembering faces of passersby. Sidewalk Sams/Sallys look like normal people that attack immediately if you acknowledge or try to speak to them. They're not very common or strong, but their bodies are made of smog and they “bleed” small amounts of vapor when injured.

[7] No matter where you are; a dance floor made of wooden boards and music blares from a gramophone accompanies 1d20 folks dancing to swing. If you join in, each party member that dances should state their dance moves and the one with the best dance moves gets to roll a reaction check. If successful; you bump into a powerful character from a random district of the city at the party and get +1 clout with them.

[8] There is a small shrine set up here with several candles, flowers, and sunshine drawings to a dead man or woman. Also along the shrine their gun is hung, though without bullets it still works otherwise. There is someone tending to the shrine, but you could steal the gun if you're quick.

[9] Samurai Hobos (2 HD, 2 armor, 1d8 scrap swords and 1d6 scrap shortbows)

Number Appearing: 1d6 + 1

Several homeless people have joined forces to steal from Garden's residents in this area. Not quite large and influential enough to be a gang, plus they just rob and kill everyone they get their hands on instead of a normal gang racket. Do not roll reaction check; they simply jump from the shadows and attack, wearing suits of scrap metal armor and their hands on large scraps of metal sharpened into swords.

[10] 1d8 wild hogs escaped from the pig farm and ended up here. They root through the trash and soil of the front gardens of the nearby homes, looking for mushrooms. Each hog could be sold whole to a butchery for 10$, but the more you sell the more heat you'll gain from the butcher's gang without paying your meat dues.

The hogs may get aggressive if the party members disturb it; Treat them as wild hogs.

Wild Hogs (2 HD, 1d6+1 tusks, +1 armor)

[11] Film crew recording some staged performance about love and drama. If the party is being followed by [12], then it has a 1 in 4 chance of appearing at this moment. The camera crew will film it and launch the party into action movie hero stardom.

[12] Slasher (2 HD, +1 HD per victim close to party members killed, nearly unkillable, 1d10 brutal melee weapons like hatchets, swords, or power tools)

Number Appearing: 1

Slashers are people in Garden who have tapped into the power of fear and violence to give themselves more power. They slowly lose their minds as they put more and more of themselves into a murderous, silent persona. Each person they kill grants them power over those close to the victim, as well as letting them absorb some of their lifeforce and extend their lifespan. Whenever the slasher is killed, their body disappears in 1d4 turns as soon as it is not being watched, even escaping from locked and guarded rooms or airtight containers. Eventually they will return, regain their strength, and stalk the night again.

Unlike many of the other dangers of Garden, Slashers are almost always people who have chosen to become them to gain immortality and feed off the life force of other citizens of the city. It is for this reason that Slashers are hated and presenting a valid Slasher token (an article of their appearance that is always constant regardless of their incarnation) gets you paid $100. However it is almost impossible to hunt down and kill a Slasher, as they are the ones who do the hunting.

[13] Arrogant purple-skinned antelope Pyrokinetic psychic with bat wings where his ears should be wanders into the party. He has three tiny wisps of fire vertically suspended between his horns. If he senses a psychic in the player's party he demands they engage in a psychic contest with him so he can offload his psychic stress onto them.

Arrogant Pyrokinetic (2 HD, 1d4 derringer stuffed in pocket, can fire 1 damage wicks from between horns at start of a gunfight, starts with 1d6 Psychic Stress)

Major/Minor Pyrokinesis

[14] Rusted hovercar drives by slow, with their lights off, before unleashing a hail of bullets. Save or take 3d6 damage from the flurry of bullets. The drive by will always be from the gang that you have the most heat with. If you don't have any heat with any gang, it will be a random gang that mistook your party for members of another gang.

[15] Saucy dame in a red dress walks by. Her eyes are bright like stars, her legs go on for miles and her neck doesn't quit. She also has two fuzzy horns and spots because she's a giraffe person. If you stop her she'll give you a business card to a club where she sings once in a while. If you roll this again, you meet a very noir private detective looking for her.

[16] Random worker strike at a small sweatshop factory. Workers are throwing rocks up at the windows and the guards on the rooftop aren't doing much about it. If you spend 1 clout you can get inside to talk to the big boss, or you can rally the workers with a reaction check and storm the place. If you end the strike or take over the factory whoever wins will reward you with 1d6x10 $ for your trouble.

[17] You see a very confused looking creature walking down the street, wearing clothes and trying to get a signal on his electronic pocket communicator. He's a new arrival and doesn't know anything about Garden yet. You could either trick him and get his valuables or you could show him the ropes and make yourself a friend.

[18] You see 1d8 troublemaking kids trying to break open a lockbox on the ground. They'll ask you to help them and split the contents 50/50, but only because they aren't armed and couldn't stop you if you wanted to take it from them. The box contains a single weird artifact, as though it was from a Locker beneath the city.

[19] You meet a street vendor. Roll on the Street Vendor Generator

[20] With a horrifying click, the power on this block goes out. Roll 1d12 on the Midnight Monster Table; you encounter it. The blackout lasts 1d20 minutes.