Corrosive Questions

Who built the colossal derricks and hoists and all the abandoned superstructure that extend down, down below the surface of Ain 4, deep down for mile after mile? Were they building something that extended down to the core of the world, or were they trying to reach the surface? How many levels are there in all these dark, dismal and heavily polluted areas? Where are the builders? What happened to them? Who--what--lives down there now?

Dimsheen: The Deep Below

Deep below the curdled and scorched crustal wastelands of Ain-4, beneath even the fetid shade-swamps and crag bubblements there are deep tunnels and abandoned mine shafts left-over from the hey day of wildcatters and geological exploitation that ripped millions of tons of raw kiloov crystals and other riches from the uneasy bedrock of this world. Many of these places have been sealed-up, with now dim and whispery psi-casting warning signs and gaudy danger-tape that has mostly peeled away from the dank and mold encrusted walls. Few go this far down into the old sites any more.

It is said amongst the scrapmongers and scavenger-clans of the dustlands and crater-rimtowns both that there are things that have made homes for themselves down amongst the alkaline pools and blackspace galleries and subsidance caverns.

Former slave-laborers were often left down below when the major geo-exploitation corporations pulled-out. This is one of the dirty little open secrets all who dwell upon Ain-4 know all too well. Most of those slaves died out, their alien physiologies were not able to adapt or cope with the harsh conditions deep below.

But some did survive. Troggu and Vomph and the horrid Glingtish have become the stuff of urban legend and moralistic bed-time tales, having long ago displaced the Vrilyu and Hlutrim-progeny as bogeys that go bump in the night. The ultra-poisonous Garbler Fish have become a much sought after delicacy, despite the potent toxins saturating their flesh and the fact that they are the mutated tad-pole stage of a formerly intelligent species. Everyone knows of the tiny bands of Pasquine and Jerboans that all the Company Reps denied existed for decades before they burned down a string of settlements. Then there are the Filter Worms. One of the most indispensible unnatural resources upon Ain-4, the Filter Worms are the single most sought after free-range life-forms loose upon this world. They are living filtration systems. One modest-sized Filter Worm can keep a typical dome settlement or bubblefort livable for months, even longer if they are properly cared for, but who are we kidding?--this is Ain-4; nothing here has been maintained or properly cared for in centuries.

But worms and fish and rat-like pack-hunting pseudo-mammals aren't the only things down below in the black regions of the old tunnels.

One particular species has only lately been discovered, entirely through chance and happenstance. They are the H'lannikari and they are the degenerate descendants of a failed colony of beings from a distant star. The H'lannikari are vaguely bat-like, but entirely wingless, flightless and extremely cannibalistic. Their long isolation in the deep regions has changed these once gentle, conscientious laborers and technicians. They have mutated, degenerated, become a new and awful thing unto themselves that only vaguely resembles what they once were. Like so many things down below the curdled, pock-marked and toxin-riddled crust of this dismal planet...

Dimsheen: Events

Event Sub-Table for Dimsheen

1. Section of Dome collapses, exposing everyone in 4d100' to massive glare, heat and dessication effects.
2. Dust Blow-out at Smelter. Most of the explosion is contained by makeshift barriers. This time.
3. Dust Storm surrounds the entire dome-plex. No one is going anywhere for 1d6 hours.
4. Sumps back-up, cause flooding in alleys. Takes 1d4 days to get cleaned-up and drained.
5. Air plant malfunctions. Air supply doesn't get replenished for 1d4 hours.
6. Excessive Glare. Dome opacity fails. Interior exposed to harmful ultaviolet radiation.
7. Cybertribe raiding party strikes outlying domes.
8. Inspector arrives by way of ornithopter from South Polar Authority Complex.
9. Sewer-slugs (or incredibly large snails) break loose, go on rampage.
10. Riot amongst Dust Trawler crews working for one of the four main outfits.
11. General Strike called.
12. Anarchists sabotage the Alloy Works. Parts will need to be shipped-in.
13. Bar room brawl gets out of hand, 1d4 fatalities and Security is called.
14. Sinkhole forms within 1d100 miles of main dome.
15. Dust Trawler lost under mysterious circumstances.
16. Tramp trade-ship lands, against regulations.
17. Cultists celebrate major holiday--everyone else stays indoors.
18. Patch-crew blown away in gale force winds; hole in dome requires even more resources to repair now.
19. Temperature Inversion hits dome-zone. Heatstroke a real issue.
20. Special.

Specials

1. War breaks out between two major cybertribes.
2. Bounty hunters clear-out the lower levels until they run into Gralf the Grimjaw.
3. Chelation systems breakdown. People begin dying in one hour...
4. Air Plant sabotaged with nerve agent.
5. Bomb planted in main airlock.
6. Cult uprising, fanatics stage simultaneous take-over of all of the dome's major control centers.
7. Dust Trawler crashes into Dome-Zone. The cab is filled with glistening xeno-eggs.
8. Toxic gas discharged from septic-subsystems.
9. Major subsidence, some domes ruptured.
10. Ship crashes out in the Dust.
11. Dutchman's Trawler spotted within 1d4 miles of Dome-zone.
12. Take-over attempt by minor competitor Lordling and 2d20 recently hired mercenaries.
13. Trawler Crews attempt to unionize.
14. Smelter-Teams go on strike. Ruin the Smelters. Total replacement necessary.
15. Fungal bloom in lower levels gets out of hand.
16. Macro-Blob unleashed within Main Dome-Zone.
17. Plague breaks out.
18. Arsonist using industrial accelerants on rampage.
19. Agent Provateur captured and hung in main hydroponic park as an example.
20. Site closed down with no further explanation.