Cold Web is an adventure for any tabletop RPG inspired by Mega Man Battle Network, or any other game involving students, their AI companions, and fantastical technology. Over the course of this adventure, the party will visit a museum, settle the final theatre in a conflict that ended decades ago, and consume foods with cheap pun names.

Introduction

It’s the first field trip of the year, and you’re all very excited. You’re going to the Wattford Net Museum, where networking technology from across the decades is displayed. From early telegraphs to prototype Terminals, the Net Museum has it all, and according to your teacher, they’ve got a new exhibit that just opened— a computer from a Canadian radar installation, complete with simulated radar inputs and analysis!

You all take the train downtown, chattering excitedly.

Give the players a moment here to talk amongst themselves about what they’re looking forward to. Take notes! Some of these suggestions can make great hooks.

You enter the museum, and a smartly dressed middle-aged woman greets your class. “Welcome to the Wattford Net Museum!” she says, “I’m Ms. Cherryh, and I’ll be your tour guide today! Just before we begin, I have to warn you that we’re having problems with the new DEW Line exhibit, but we’ve got plenty of other things to show you!”

You’re all a little disappointed, but the tour goes on as scheduled. You see some early telegraphs, field telephones, radios, and so on until you reach the new DEW Line exhibit.

“The Distant Early Warning Line, or ‘DEW Line,’ was a series of radar installations in the north during a period called the ‘Cold War,’ where the Soviet Union and the USA had a series of tense disputes. Luckily, this conflict ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, and its former territory is now split between Russia, Ukraine, and a number of other countries. You’ll learn more about that in a few years, but the DEW Line was a vital part of ensuring our safety.’

We have a simulated radar array set up to display how this DEW Line computer would’ve analyzed incoming radar readings. Unfortunately…” she trails off. “Anyway, you can still take a look at how it would’ve looked in situ— that’s science talk for ‘in its original environment!’”

The DEW Line computer is a large, blue machine covered in blinking lights, dials, and controls. An old CRT sits beside it, displaying graphs and readouts. A mannequin of a soldier sits beside the TV, holding a blue mug with a unit insignia on it. The unit insignia says “Military Intelligence Liaison Force” on the top of the ring, and “GLACIER” on the bottom.

After the DEW Line exhibit, your class is ushered to the museum’s cafe for lunch. What would you like to do?

The party has several options from here.

The cafe has many food items, all of which have cheap pun names. Two-Byte Cookies, Firewall Fries, Pixelated Poutine, and so on. A favorite is the Trojan Muffin, a muffin with a filling that’s different each day. Today, it’s bacon-flavoured jam.

If asked, Mrs. Cherryh will tell the party everything she knows about the computer: It was mothballed in the 1980s and was restored by a crack team of retro computer technicians earlier this year. It responded to the first tests of the radar simulator but went completely unresponsive after being connected to the wider network.

Ms. Steakley does not know any of the technical details about the issues with the DEW Line computer, but if the party expresses concern to her, she will mention that they still have the Russian Zenit satellite to look forward to later.

The tables of the cafe all have screens on them and ports for jacking in, allowing visitors’ Navis to hang out in a similar virtual cafe and talk to their operators through speakers. The cafe area is separated from the rest of the network by a locked door. If someone tries to go through this door, it prompts for a four-digit passcode with the clue “DIODE COLA.”

A quick look around reveals a cooler with various drinks in it, with labels on the shelves. Diode Cola is out of stock, but costs $1.97. The passcode is 0197.

The Network

There are three main areas of the network: The main hub, which includes the cafe. The DEW Server, to the west. Zenit, to the east.

The main hub looks like a mid-20th-century office building, with Art Deco motifs on the walls and floors. It is unusually busy, filled with more programs than seems reasonable for a mere museum. Most of these programs are actually viruses in disguise. Most are from Zenit, the Russian spy satellite, but a few are from the DEW Server.

The Zenit spies look like janitors until confronted, at which point they turn into gigantic bees and attack by firing stingers at their opponents. The DEW spies are disguised as data couriers, moving information around. Their true form is that of a bird-like monster that attacks primarily by diving at its opponents, or grabbing them and suplexing them.

In front of the office building of the Main Hub, there is a roadway. To the west is a heavily fortified checkpoint, with sandbag walls topped by barbed wire. A break wide enough for a single program is guarded by a virus that looks like a soldier, complete with a metal helmet. This is the main entrance to the DEW Line Server, but no one will be allowed in without the right permit.

Zenit Server

To the east, there is a brutalist block of concrete with a sign-out front that says “Зени́т Kафе” (Zenit Cafe). The interior of the Zenit Cafe is a smoky room with about a dozen tables strewn about, plus a bar with various Coffee Appliances behind it. A few programs sit at the tables, holding newspapers and jotting information down in notebooks. One wall has what appears to be a bookshelf all along its length, but it is just a flat texture… Except for one red book which sticks out slightly. Pressing it causes part of the “bookshelf” to swing out, allowing access to the real interior of the Zenit Server: The Basement.

The Basement is a warren of offices, document stacks, and twisting hallways. The stacks of documents can be pushed over to create trip hazards, or lit on fire to create more light, make obscuring smoke, or whatever the party thinks of. If the party decides to ransack one of the offices, they should find one or both of the following things: A counterfeit DEW Line Server pass that will allow them through the checkpoint, and a battle program that summons a lit molotov cocktail for them to throw, covering a small area around where it lands in flames.

The largest room in the Basement is Zenith’s office. It has concrete floors and a plain metal desk, and on the back wall is a world map circa 1985. And, of course, it has Zenith, sitting in an office chair. See the Dramatis Personae for a description of Zenith.

Unless the party is disguised as a Zenit virus or something like that, Zenith will calmly ask them who they think they are and what they’re doing in his office. He is willing to listen to whatever they have to say, but will not take the first step to reach out to the DEW Line Server’s administrator, Cambridge. If the party is hostile, he will respond in kind, fighting them by summoning virus minions and shooting fireballs.

DEW Line Server

There are two main ways to enter the DEW Line Server: Jacking in directly, or finding a counterfeit pass in the Basement of the Zenit Server (see above).

The DEW Line Server is a maze of trenches straight out of the First World War. DEW Line viruses patrol the area. Some look like soldiers and attack from range, others look like polar bears (with packs of ammunition on their backs) and attack with their vicious claws.

Distant explosions can be heard the entire time the Navigators are in the DEW Line Server. It is impossible to climb out of the trenches, in the same way that it is generally impossible to walk off a catwalk in the net. The trenches have walls that appear to be made out of dirt, and walkways made of wood. Two sections of trench run mostly parallel, but they combine in some places.

If accessed from the Museum’s network, the first section of the trench network has stockpiles of ammunition. If the party decides to rifle through these, they’ll find two battle programs: One that temporarily summons a Sten Gun they can use to fire a few shots, and one that creates a 15-foot long section of barbed wire perpendicular to the way the Navigator is aiming.

Jacking in directly is a difficult proposition— the DEW Line Server is behind a velvet rope, which clearly indicates that this is not a place for visitors. In addition, the janitor, Xena “Memphis” McMillan is wandering around the area, and will drag the party back to the cafe by their ears if she catches them in an exhibit.

While the big, grey DEW Line Computer is mostly authentic, there is a panel on the back side (hidden from view if you’re behind the velvet ropes) which is clearly newer than the rest of the casing. It is held shut by two blue thumbscrews and, if opened, it reveals a set of ports that can be used to jack into it.

Jacking in directly deposits the party’s Navigators in the western part of the trench network, in clear view of the concrete fortress mentioned immediately below. This section is one of the crossover points, an intersection between the two trench lines. At the south end, a bolthole has been dug into the wall. The bolthole contains a torn sleeping bag, and if the party examines it, they find 500 zenny or a similarly small amount of money in your system of choice.

The most important area of the trench network is a concrete fortress bristling with machine guns and artillery cannons. inside here is a table with a map of the network, being studied by Cambridge and two soldier viruses.

Cambridge will immediately try to fight the party, and will not listen until they’ve roughed him up at least a bit.

Defeating Cambridge in combat or convincing him that War is Bad will return the server to normal. This will also result in the party receiving a battle program that creates a sandbag barrier, and a Navigator Customization program that allows them to wear Cambridge’s Nice Hat, optionally recolored to the Navigator’s color scheme.

Dramatis Personae

Real World

The Network

Afterword

As always, I hope you’ve enjoyed this adventure! No points for guessing what I’ve been playing lately.

There’s a few systems you could use for this: The most obvious one is NetBattlers, a Mega Man Battle Network inspired TTRPG, but Micro Circuits could work as well. After all, the humans don’t really need stats.

Actually, I wonder how well a cyberspace-crawling hack of Mausritter would work…

Until next time!

-Garm

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