Possible Quest Lines

[vache]

Nether Cultists

• Theme: Explore, Exterminate
• Description: Existing cultist cabin + relic + prison quest line, with added nether exploration
• Precondition: None
• Postcondition: Player knows more about the nether things.
• Steps:
  1. Relic quest
  2. Priest diary quest
  3. Hidden cabin quest
  4. Prison visionary quest
  5. Combine all items from quests to craft some teleporter artifact. Alternately, the journals could reveal that the cabin was built above the nether tunnels.
  6. Return to hidden cabin and activate artifact to teleport to hidden temple and tunnels underground. Alternately, using the information from the diary to activate a hidden door leading down to the tunnels.
  7. Explore, kill nether creatures, acquire nether things, and so on. Could possibly have some sort of tablet that an NPC can translate using the priest diary or prison visionary diary that reveals that interdimensional connections have existed in the past, but most of the creatures could only survive for long periods of time deep underground.

What Happened

• Theme: Explore
• Description: Piece together what lead up to the cataclysm. Will require traveling to a variety of locations, like labs, military bunkers (not the storage ones we have now but real ones), government offices, news stations, hospitals, etc.
• Precondition: Encountering a scientist NPC, or entering a science lab, or otherwise acquiring any info regarding portal/blob research.
• Postcondition: Player has more knowledge about the game lore. Character has info to share with NPCs encountered. This could shape their attitudes towards scientists/military/government.

Mutagen Lab

• Theme: Explore, Exterminate
• Description: Scouts have spotted a facility with mutated abominations crawling all over. Find out what the deal is and handle it.
• Precondition: An overmap with the facility has been generated. Player is able to get missions from the military or a settlement.
• Postcondition: Facility is neutralized. Possibly have a new companion.
• Steps:
  1. Find the facility that is overrun with mutated zombies.
  2. While exploring facility, encounter a friendly mutated NPC. Player has to choose whether to help or kill NPC. If player helps NPC, the NPC will help the player get around the facility. The NPC will request the player not kill any mutated scientists, and the NPC will offer different rewards based on how many get killed, ranging from things like training skills or providing recipes or other knowledge.
  3. Deal with the boss
  4. At the base of the facility is a boss fight. The giant mutated abomination has many mutations and shifts abilities repeatedly throughout the fight. The reward is special material that can duplicate any existing mutagen or serum the player has.
  5. Alternately, if player has high computer and electronics skills, they can activate emergency power and activate the heavy doors that seal off the bottom of the lab.
  6. Another alternative is that the player can nuke the facility from the missile silo without ever being required to visit it.
  7. If the mutated NPC is still alive, if the player killed too many mutated scientists, the NPC will leave and go wandering or stay to attempt to research how to cure his colleagues, otherwise, the player can attempt to convince them to join him. This will lead into the Mutant Acceptance quest line with whatever settlement is visited. Additionally, the NPC will be a very valuable scientist for the Science Must Go On quest line. NPC could also share location of other mutation focused labs that may have suffered a different fate.

Mutant Acceptance

• Theme: Explore, Expand
• Description: A mutated human wishes to join the settlement. Some of the population disagrees.
• Precondition: Settlement is established, mutated settler wants to join.
• Postcondition: One of many outcomes:
  • Critical failure: settlement becomes hostile to both player and mutated settler.
  • Failure: settlement becomes hostile to mutated settler.
  • Failure: settlement rejects mutated settler and forces them to leave.
  • Neutral: settlement establishes "ghetto" area for mutated settlers.
  • Neutral: settlement rejects mutated settlers as a whole, but accepts any that are your followers, as long as they remain in your company.
  • Moderate success: settlement accepts mutated settlers to a point, ones that appear less human than monster will be rejected.
  • Success: settlement accepts and fully integrates mutated settlers.
• Steps:
  • Should require either a majority (supermajority?) of settlers or decision makers in support of decision. If a military settlement, require support of whoever is at top of chain of command.
  • Could be solved mostly with speaking/influence checks.
  • If cannot pass speech checks, by performing favors for people.
  • Some NPCs may already secretly have mutations and may be willing to out themselves as supporters of the cause. They may be willing to convince other NPCs to support you.
  • Some NPCs may be completely stubborn or even openly aggressive towards mutated NPCs. A pro-mutant solution may cause them to break off and form their own settlement if there are enough.

Establish a New Society

• Theme: Expand, Exploit
• Description: Establish a settlement, acquire settlers.

Science Must Go On

• Theme: Explore, Expand
• Description: Track down living scientists and recruit them to help any way they can.
• Precondition: An established settlement.
• Postcondition: Your scientists will produce new technology for you when needed.
• Steps:
  1. Secure a facility
  2. Power the facility
  3. Find scientists and escort them to facility
  4. Scientists will periodically request certain materials that you need to provide
  5. Depending on context and other quests, you can have them do a variety of things like create and weapons, or create quest specific tools
• Implementation: NPCs could have a science class and a specific science role, loosely tied to the different lab types, like portal technology, energy weapon technology, blob research, and so on. Your science lab could have a "foreman" type character who keeps track of your capabilities in each field. They could be the characters that give you resource requests and that you make research requests to. The resource requests could lead to other quests of their own, requiring any combination of things, like just finding an item, exploring a lab for a blueprint, or collecting a set of ingredients to produce an item with a set of tools.

Stop the Invaders

• Theme: Exterminate
• Description: A nether portal has been discovered, kill everything nearby and find some way to seal it. Will probably require having some of the science work done.

Meet the New Boss

• Theme: Explore, Expand
• Description: Find the local government stronghold.

Aliens

• Theme: Explore, Exploit
• Description: Stumble across a lab with a few specimens of creature you have never seen before. Exploring this and similar labs and reading their lab notes and manuals will indicate that they are aliens, and the extradimensional technology was originally derived from alien technology. Further, their research indicates that aliens also had trouble dealing with subprime entities, and they may have developed technology with the ability to collapse portals. These lab notes and some materials may be required by your scientists to create portal closing technology.

Get to the Chopper

• Theme: Explore, Expand
• Description: An NPC you've run into is a former medevac chopper pilot for the regional hospital. If you can escort him to it, he can pilot the chopper and scout the area for survivors or to make loot runs. After slogging your way through the hospital (much larger than the current hospital), there is no helicopter. The player should be able to recover a large amount of medical supplies as a reward though.

Supply Cache

• Theme: Exterminate, Exploit
• Description: An NPC knows the location of a weapons cache that he offers to lead you to in exchange for food and protection. After leading you into a dark basement, he attacks you in an attempt to steal your supplies. Alternately, he leads you to a bunker that he has gotten the front door open but not any of the other doors.

Medical Expansion

• Theme: Expand, Exploit
• Description: An NPC doctor (surgeon?) has joined the settlement and needs a few things to be effective. He sends you out to recover tools and supplies: monitoring devices, autoclave, scalpel, forceps, stethoscope, blood pressure wrist thing, and a wide variety of medications.

Industrial Expansion

• Theme: Expand, Exploit
• Description: Operating with hand tools is slow and limiting. Find a location with heavy duty industrial tools and find a way to get it powered and operational. Optionally, haul the tools to the settlement.

Mysterious Note

• Theme: Expand, Exploit
• Description: The player finds a randomly generated note at a location, written by some other long gone survivor, that alludes to some sort of hidden cache. Sometimes, the cache is still there, sometimes there is nothing.