The Stealth Carriage

Stealth Train can be found in Crash Priority

One of my favourite adventures of all time is Stealth Train for Paranoia. I first got to play it thanks to +Paul Baldowski and was delighted at how it piles up the chaos in such a perfect manner. In your standard games you find that players have time to formulate some kind of plan, some way to gain an edge, but in Stealth Train its predominantly a reactive state - just as the players get their head around one issue, another piles in and complicates things further till the final point its a sort of, "Fuck all this, lets just get out of here in one piece!".

I'd been mulling for some time about porting this adventure into Lamentations of the Flame Princess when, while engaging in some Red and Pleasant Land campaign reflecting, it occurred to me that Stealth Train could work really well in the RPL setting. The general premise of Stealth Train is that the Troubleshooters have been sent to guard a top secret project (the stealth train) but arrive to find the station empty, but then after all it is a stealth train and they've been told by their superiors that its there. It then goes on to escalate dramatically over the space of one long shift.

To convert it into a Red and Pleasant Land one shot it would require a bit of adjustment obviously; less lasers, no computers, and no commies for a start. Traitors still a must, confused players being a definite.

The set up was that the players were all a part of a group of footmen for the Heart Queen. They were unique however in that they weren't completely incompetent and were in fact pegged for better things if they were to keep up their good work. They had just spent the past day searching for a croquet ball when their leader, Clive, was told he would be attending a special ceremony the next day but the rest of the squad would be guarding a top secret project during the night.

The project was the 'Stealth Carriage', a creation by the Knave of Hearts. The Stealth Carriage was designed to be the perfect pastry stealing carriage, capable of sneaking into the domain of the Pale King to pilfer his baked goods. The Queen herself was to be attending the opening ceremony and had apparently invested a lot of gold into the Knaves project.

The mission was simple:

1. Guard the Stealth Carriage.
2. Don't let anyone unauthorised see it.
3. Don't mess around with it.

The first hurdle was to find the interior hall where the project was stored. They had a room number but spent 3 hours trying to find the right corridor to begin with. They then had to find the right door which proved frustrating at first as the door numbers kept changing, and the caterpillars who were stationed at the doors were less than helpful, though appreciated the assistance the players provided in solving their crossword.

Eventually they found the right door and entered. The corridor was of an old Victorian style underground which bent down a 90 degree angle as they progressed. They then discovered there to be an invisible lift of sorts when two of the players dropped 4 floors, though no fatalities were incurred.

They checked in with Clive via a magic skull who began to get quite agitated that it had taken them 3 hours to get this far.

They entered the hall to find a group of very pissed off looking Club Knights who had been waiting several hours for the players to relieve them. The hall itself had a worn road running through it that came down one wall from a tunnel in the ceiling, across the room, then up the other wall into another tunnel. In the middle of the hall there was a large rigging set up over the road, bits of building equipment around, a podium behind it and a large banner hanging up that said "WELCOME QUEEN".

The Club Knights wasted no time in leaving, tell the players to keep a close eye on the carriage with a smirk. One of the players did remark that there was no carriage there but then another quickly pointed that of course they couldn't see it, what with it being a stealth carriage and all.

Some time passed before Clive checked in with them via the skull. He had Rumplecaster next to him who was the Knave's assistant, wanting the players to run a few checks on the carriage. It was at this point that the players confessed they couldn't see anything. Rumplecaster got really angry, asking if the players were using the goggles. A quick search and they found the goggles, set them to the highest setting ("Can't see it even if you squint") .. and still couldn't see a carriage.

Rumplecaster hung up, saying he would assemble some people and be down there soon. The players reflected on this for a moment, coming to the conclusion that if anyone was going to get into trouble for this then it would likely be them. A couple of the players split off from the group and began to search the tunnels, hoping to find the carriage, while the remainder stayed behind and attempted to build a new carriage out of scaffolding and hay. They had found the original blue prints which stipulated it was a large carriage pulled by two Voivodjan pure-bred stallions, had a carriage filled with the Heart Queen's favourite pastries, a special looking gem that generated the stealth field, and a large harpoon on top of the carriage. It was hard going to replicate such a thing.

Rumplecaster called back once more, trying his luck, and was delighted when one of the players confirmed that the stealth carriage was there after all. Excellent! Rumplecaster then asked the player to run through a few checks:

• The Voivodjan Stallions are known for their deep 'whinny' - could you be a lamb and get one of them to whinny loudly so I can hear it?
• The carriage should be filled with the Queen's favourite goodies - whats in there just now? No jam doughnuts? Oh there are? Great stuff.
• Where the gem is, you should see a lever, can you push that up to full power? I should be able to hear a - ah yes, there we go, sounds good! Ok, can you push the gem downwards and rotate 90 degress? Excellent.
• Finally, can you get one of your team to climb onto the roof and fire the harpoon down the tunnel? It should retract safely, just make sure not to hit someone... oh wow, that was a bit louder than expected but Im sure its ok.

As this was taking place, two of the players in one of the tunnels stumbled across 'a' stealth carriage. They were sure it couldn't be the same one though as this one was a beat up piece of rubbish that someone had crudely painted "Stealth Carriage" on, being pulled by a donkey. It was being driven by a Diamond courtier who at first was very friendly, asking the players to keep a secret as he admitted he and some friends had taken it out for a test run. The players insisted that it couldn't be the real thing as they could see it, but the Diamond was equally if not more so insistent that they couldn't so he ordered them to shut up and get on the carriage. One of the players noted that instead of a harpoon on top someone had crudely affixed a short bow, and inside the carriage (in addition to a few more Diamond courtiers) there was in fact just one pack of Jammy Dodgers.

Once everyone had reassembled back at the main hall and the courtiers had left, the players pondered their course of action. This clearly wasn't the stealth carriage but it was at least a carriage, it was a start. One of the players became aware that there was someone approaching outside however so he quickly braced the door with some scaffolding.

It was a troop of guards, demanding they open the door after they realised it was stuck, so the players moved the carriage up against the door too. When the guards finally broke in, damaging the carriage, they relaxed instantly - the carriage, though damaged, was still there. There had been an incident, apparently a Pale King spy had pretended to be Rumplecaster and had duped Clive to talk to the players before knocking him out, and rumour had it that the players had activated a self destruct sequence... but it was fine, the carriage was safe! The damage was the player's problem though.

The players felt a bit relieved. Clive had been knocked out but not hurt severely at least, they had a carriage that seemed to pass initial inspection, maybe they could get out of this?

The sound of squabbling kids changed that however as the Heart Children came barrelling down the tunnel. They went ballistic with joy when they saw the donkey and carriage and began climbing all over it, hitting the donkey in the face to get it to whinny - generally being annoying. As the players tried to figure out how to deal with this, there was a knock at the door again.

The players quickly braced the door to stop entry which was just as well - it was the Voivodjan Times, here to get a scoop on the new project. Bribery failed to get them in so instead the reporter began taking everything out of context that was being said through the door, leaving with the story that the footmen were involved in some sort of scandal with the Heart Children and a donkey.

Their leader then contacted them again to warn them that the real Rumplecaster was on his way down with some relief footmen. It had been a truly messed-up evening and Clive was beside himself with worry. The real Rumplecaster stormed into the room with the new footmen and didn't fool around, immediately berating the players, demanding to know what had happened and what piece of rubbish was currently sitting in the middle of the room - it sure as hell wasn't the real stealth carriage!

The room was then plunged into darkness and several things happened. The players could hear the carriage and donkey rumble away up one tunnel, they could hear footsteps running up the other tunnel, and they heard a lot of "wooshing" sounds followed by a "Urgnhh...." sound. As the darkness spell faded away, they realised that the new footmen were missing along with the carriage and that Rumplecaster lay before them, filled with arrows.

No one moved.

An explosion then boomed from the tunnel where the carriage had gone, and a cartwheel followed, rolling towards them before doing that awkward spin on the spot that gets lower and lower and lower before eventually laying flat.

Still no one moved, nothing was said.

Trumpets blared from outside the room, royal trumpets which the players realised would mean the Queen of Hearts was coming. Shit.

The players quickly shoved the deceased Rumplecaster (finding some blueprints in his pocket along with some notes that questioned the project and was trying to figure out where the gold had been going) and the cartwheel out of sight, just in time as the Queen of Hearts swept in with a panicked looking Knave beside her. She demanded to see the Stealth Carriage, right now.

The players waved to the empty road and said, "It's there.". This led to a very thankful Knave backing them up, agreeing that the carriage was there but due to a few magical bugs they couldn't disable the stealth spell yet but he was working on it. The Heart Queen was not convinced but eventually subsided a little after the players insisted.

A laugh from one of the tunnels echoed out across the scene. From out of the shadows came the Diamond courtiers from before, but now they were wearing Pale King tabards and were armed with crossbows that dripped with Holy water.

They were delighted, their plan had worked to lure the Knave out but not only that they also had the Heart Queen! All they had to do was create enough fuss to raise attention, the foolish players had down wonderfully.

"Not so fast....!" echoed out from the opposing tunnel. It was the Club Knights from the start of the shift. They had figured something stunk about this whole project and had circled back, spying on events to determine what was really happening.

So the players found themselves in the middle of the hall with the Heart Queen and the Knave of Hearts, between two groups of heavily armed vampires. It was at that moment that the door behind them was kicked in - it was Clive armed with two crossbows, yelling at the players for being so incompetent. The first arrow was fired, and all hell broke loose.

The ensuing battle saw some of the players usher the Queen and the Knave to the door behind the cartwheel, one of the player set fire to everything including the big banner, and a battle between the Clubs and the former Diamonds. As the last of the Diamonds fell (though it was close), the leader of the Clubs group marched towards the Queen; he had the flaming scene behind him to match the smouldering good looks as he offered his hand to the Queen and helped her up from behind the cartwheel.

Allow me to indulge in exposition for a moment.

He outlined his beliefs, Poirot style, accusing the Knave of embezzlement. The Queen however was far more interested in him, and how she could repay him for his bravery (while completely ignoring the players) as they left arm in arm. The players found themselves alone amidst the destruction, grateful at least that they had survived physically though their reputation lay in tatters.

Overall the adventure was quite a bit of fun though it ran a bit short. I think there's a lot of scope there for a fun one shot RPL session but its definitely sitting on the silly side of things, thanks to its Paranoia origin. It could easily be tied into a more serious affair though with a bit more work and some further re-jigging. The player group I had was made up of two players from the RPL campaign and 3 new players (new to both RPL and LotFP) so it was a good test in that respect as they seemed to really enjoy it. Keeping it restricted to just one room with interaction from clearly more powerful NPCs meant that the players were able to get stuck in with minimal background knowledge while still getting a good flavour of the setting.

I'd run it again after some more work, that's for sure. If you're interested in checking out the original adventure, its in the Paranoia book, "Crash Priority" of which theres a few copies still kicking around. Many thanks to the players +Scott Dorward, +Anthony Edmonds, Alex, Michael, and Dom for being ideal footmen.