TEXT:  
  Liberty Boost 
  A1 
   
  “ I’m offering 50,000 XDR for the laptop. I’m offering zero for Donny Lester.  
  If you want to know what’s on the laptop, that’ll cost you 100,000. 
  Think carefully about what you really want.”  
  – Nelson Rockefeller, cracker 
  Liberty Boost 
  This adventure is an introduction to the setting of Bleeding Edge. This adventure is set in the storied country 
  of Liberia, on the west coast of Africa. Liberia’s lax weapon-control laws will give players the freedom to use 
  their proscribed equipment and weapons. This adventure should offer a mix of information-gathering, 
  breaking-and-entering, computer-hacking, and combat skills. 
  -- Post #43bc59bf-1b8b-696e-438f-190085ed0203--------------------  
  Location: Liberia 
  Subject: BOOSTED 
   
  Need one or more enterprising individuals to 
  acquire physical goods from Liberia. Offering 
  ¤50,000 XDR. Offer expires in three days. 
  Serious inquiries only. 
  It is NOT okay to contact this poster with unsolicited services or offers. 
   -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  
  Readme.txt 
  Two days ago, an enterprising anonymous hacker 
  (who we will call “Nelson Rockefeller”) was using a 
  stolen time-share on a server farm to mine crypto-
  currencies. To keep his account there, he had an 
  inside man – Donny Lester, an over-paid over-
  worked code monkey. One day, Donny decided he 
  didn’t need Nelson, and he moved the volume with 
  the cryptos to his own laptop. Donny thought he 
  could liquidate the currency… but the hacker had 
  locked the file with password protection. Donny had 
  just enough smarts to know how to hack a password, 
  but not enough to do it quickly.  
  Nelson, who was understandably upset, put out a hit 
  on Donny. Donny left the country to Liberia, a 
  country with lax law enforcement and lots of 
  broadband access. Donny rented an office from 
  Janjay Quaiyan, a slum-lady in Paynesville. 
  Donny wasn’t in Liberia for more than 24 hours 
  when he mouthed off to Sundaygar the gang-boss 
  and his gang of water-sellers. The gang members 
  abducted him, worked him over, then shot him and 
  tossed his body in a dumpster. Janjay, annoyed that 
  her guest was making trouble that she didn’t need, 
  sought to make a quick buck by selling off Donny’s 
  only worthwhile possession – his laptop, to her cousin 
  Garmuyu.  Garmuyu is one of the enforcers for the 
  Gola Overseers, a group of armed slavers who are 
  operating an illegal diamond mine in the neighboring 
  forest. Garmuyu turned the laptop over to his boss, a 
  Russian Mafioso named Charne Slager. 
  At the start of this adventure: 
   
  Donny Lester is dead, a rotting corpse in a 
  dumpster. 
   
  Janjay is back to business as usual, renting 
  and selling real estate. 
   
  Sundaygar & company are stealing water 
  and selling it to the locals at high rates 
   
  The Gola Overseers are patrolling their 
  open-air diamond mine 
   
  Charne Slager is trying to break the 
  encryption on the laptop. 
  Remember the assist bonus! Some Difficulty targets are 
  pretty high, being 15 or more. A single Player-Character 
  could have a very hard time beating that target … but two 
  or more working together could still beat it. Encourage 
  your party members to work together. 
  Success in the first part can lead to an assist bonus in the 
  next part. For example, successfully getting intel from 
  Sundaygar’s gang could give a +2 assist bonus to finding 
  the Gola Overseers. 
  Use the Me/us/them questions to spur action. If a player 
  says they can’t think of what to do, ask them one or more 
  of the three personal questions. “How do you see 
  yourself?” “How do your friends see you?” “How do your 
  enemies see you?” Merely asking a question like this can 
  spur someone on to play their role in a fun and novel way. 
  
  Liberty Boost  
  A2 
   
  Getting the Players Involved 
  If this is the first adventure, the Game Host can just 
  give each Player-Character an excuse to be in Liberia. 
  In the world of the Permanent Emergency, Liberia is 
  home to some of the best telecommunications 
  industry, as well as a port of convenience for several 
  legal and not-so-legal shipping companies. 
  If this isn’t the first adventure, the Game Host should 
  find a reason the players would accept this job. 
  Perhaps they’ve worked with Nelson Rockefeller 
  before. 
  Once players have accepted the job, tell the Players to 
  add “Get the laptop to Nelson Rockefeller” to their list 
  of Goals. 
  If the Player-Characters successfully get the laptop to 
  Nelson, they will earn a reward of a new gift, as chosen by 
  the Game Host. The most common reward is “Insider 
  with Nelson Rockefeller”… but players who go above and 
  beyond may earn better gifts, such as “Veteran”, “Master 
  Occupation”, or a Skill Specialty. The new gift should 
  reflect something the Player-Character did during 
  the adventure. 
  Who is Nelson Rockefeller? 
  Nelson only communicates via text. He (or she?) is an 
  identity thief and highly skilled hacker. After all, 
  Nelson encrypted the files that hold the crypto-
  currency keys at an expert level (Difficulty 30). 
  Nelson has a deadline of three days because crypto-
  currencies are notoriously speculative. In three days, 
  the other miners of this type of coin, all over the 
  world, will have mined so many other valid keys as to 
  make the value of the stolen coins to drop in value. 
  If the Player-Characters can do some convincing 
  (Difficulty 20), they can convince Nelson to extend the 
  deadline for a few more days. It’s a bit easier 
  (Difficulty 15) to convince Nelson to forward them an 
  advance (up to ¤10,000, with good rolls) or to 
  “acquire” other services for them (such as plane 
  tickets). 
  Trying to hack the net to find out who Nelson really is, 
  is rather difficult (Difficulty 25)… and if they try, 
  Nelson will call down his Bot-Net, which will raise the 
  Difficulty by 10 for a while… and will make Nelson 
  pretty mad. 
  Nelson will use a burner email account to send the 
  Player-Characters all the information he has on 
  Donny Lester. (This file counts as a Database Software 
  on Donny Lester, which takes up 1 Program slot and 
  gives a +2 bonus on rolls relevant to Donny Lester.) 
  The Trail to Liberia 
  Donny Lester is a reasonably effective criminal. He 
  took a domestic flight from Ronald Reagan 
  International Airport (Washington DC, US) to Roberts 
  International Airport (Harbel, LR). Even in 2047, the 
  Robertsfield airport is still just one single airstrip with 
  very little security.  
  Liberian landscapes are still off-road, and the auto 
  industry is so back-dated, that taxi service is still done 
  by human drivers. (If your Player-Characters decide 
  they need a friendly cab driver, you can use 
  Mardea Marah, a lean faced woman who has seen 
  it all. If they tip her well, she may give assist bonus to 
  rolls, and the +2 or +3 from high rolls could help.) 
  Ask the Players what skills and abilities their 
  characters have to find information. Do they want to 
  talk to the locals? Do they want to hack into the local 
  airport cameras? The minimum Difficulty for finding 
  any trails is 10. (Don’t forget the possible +2 assist 
  bonus from using the database software.) If our 
  heroes can get any leads at all, all evidence points to 
  Donny Lester getting in a cab and going to 
  Paynesville. 
  Paynesville and Omega Town 
  At the dawn of the 20th century, Liberia was in the 
  throes of its second civil war. The capital city of 
  Monrovia, and the eastern suburb of Paynesville, 
  were the sites of widespread slaughter of civilians. 
  After 2003, democratic elections settled, and 
  Monrovia enjoyed a tech boom, with many 
  businesses moving in.  
  In the last decade of austerity following Mad Tuesday, 
  a wave of neoliberalist government sentiment has 
  privatized many services. Rising unemployment has 
  led people to look for work elsewhere, and large 
  stretches of Paynesville are still derelict. A few seaside 
  locations suffered earthquake damage from the Ring 
  of Fire quakes and still haven’t been repaired. 
  Mardea Marah ♀ Taxi Driver 
  (Monrovia-Paynesville-Harbel, LR) 
  Str -1, Dex +1, Con -1, Int 0, Wis +1, Cha 0 
  Master Taxi Driver (+5 to do a taxi driver’s job) 
  Local Knowledge of Liberia (+5 to all rolls to know stuff in Liberia) 
  Driving skill (3d6+2 or 12, increases to 3d6+7 or 17 when 
  driving a taxi),  
  Observation skill (3d6+Int+Wis or 11) 
  Sport Outfit (Armor +2, Athletics +2) 
  Headset Phone (Social Media) 
  Small Pistol (25m+, 2d6+2, Effect Damage 14, 
  Critical Effect 16, Ammo: High) 
  Dodge 2d6+2, Soak 2d6+2 
  
   
  Liberty Boost 
  A3 
   
  The trail after Donny Lester leads to Omega Town, an 
  inland borough of Paynesville, and one that was hit 
  hard by the bust economy. Once there, he disappears. 
  There’s no credit or debit trails. Getting more leads on 
  Donny will require more legwork. Players may want 
  to double-up and to assist one another. Paynesville 
  has numerous security cameras to be hacked into, 
  people to be interviewed, and trails to follow. Ask 
  your players what talents and abilities they can bring 
  to bear, and then work with it. 
  Beating a Difficulty of 10 will reveal signs that Donny 
  Lester was here. He was a loud, obnoxious, pasty-
  faced American who made no friends. Rolling 15 or 
  more will get evidence (from gossipy locals, or blurry 
  surveillance footage, etc.) that Donny got into a fight 
  with some guys, who then rode away on a ten-
  wheeler truck. The more inventive your players are, 
  and the better they roll, the more details you should 
  give out. 
  Donny Lester is the sole renter in a simple two-story 
  office building. The building couldn’t look more drab: 
  concrete, brutalist construction, with wireless 
  cameras. The building is owned by Janjay Quaiyan, 
  but there’s no record of Lester renting it.  
  Dealing with Janjay the Landlady 
  Janjay has a public phone number and email address 
  – she is a realtor, after all, and she owns way too 
  much property in the Omega Town district that she 
  wants to unload. Subterfuge to get an interview with 
  her is relatively easy (Difficulty 10). Rolls to gather 
  information on Janjay can be used as an assist bonus 
  on later attempts to convince her to give up Donny. 
  If confronted about Donny, Janjay will lie and claim 
  she doesn’t know him. Beating a Difficulty of 15 will 
  get her to admit that she rented him the property… 
  and that she knows that Sundaygar’s gang were seen 
  roughing him up.  
  But Player-Characters will have to somehow beat a 
  Difficulty of 20 or more to get her to give up that she 
  knows Donny is dead and that she sold off his stuff. 
  Then she’ll give up that she sold the stuff to her cousin 
  Garmuyu, who is one of the Gola Overseers.  
  The Empty Office Building 
  Breaking into the office building is no trivial task. The 
  locks are physical, and the office has cameras. Only 
  skilled thieves could get in, undetected. (Difficulty 15, 
  and coming back at night with the cover of darkness 
  would give a +2 assist bonus.) 
  Once inside, the place is empty, with doors wide open 
  and wide “will divide to suit” spaces. Only two 
  interior doors are locked: the utility closet (which has 
  the vacuum robot, cleaning supplies and the 
  building’s computer) and office #13. The interior locks 
  are easily forced (Difficulty 10). Office #13 has been 
  vacuumed recently (unlike everything else, so 
  suspicious!). Good intel gathering rolls (10 or more) 
  will reveal indentations in the carpet, crumbs from 
  food, marks of a sleeping bag, etc. – all signs that 
  someone was living here. Most notably absent are 
  Donny’s things.  
  Successful intel gathering on Donny’s last 
  whereabouts should give a +2 assist bonus (or more) 
  on future rolls to find him. Player-Characters with 
  unusual science or forensics may find clues such as 
  DNA traces, obscure footprints, etc. that will lead to 
  where the last fight took place.  
  Sundaygar and his Water-Sellers 
  In this period of austerity, good drinking water is 
  hard to find. Most everyone in Paynesville resorts to 
  bottled water. Corruption runs rampant, with various 
  criminals bribing, stealing, and killing to control the 
  bottled water supply. 
  Omega Town is under the control of Sundaygar. He 
  has his boys pick up the water directly from the 
  Nuraco Bottling Plant on the coast, then he sells it to 
  the locals at a huge markup. Donny Lester made 
  trouble on the first day, and then said some things he 
  shouldn’t have, to some gangsters who were having a 
  bad day and who had no patience for some fat 
  American who didn’t understand how things were 
  done. Donny was taken back to Sundaygar’s 
  warehouse, worked over, killed, and thrown in the 
  onsite dumpster, where he’ll be picked up in a 
  few days. 
  Janjay Quaiyan ♀ Land Owner and 
  Real-Estate Agent (Paynesville, LR) 
  Str 0, Dex 0, Con 0, Int 0, Wis 0, Cha 0 
  Master Realtor (+5 to do a realtor’s job) 
  Insider with Gola Slavers (+5 to all rolls to deal with them) 
  Local Knowledge of Liberia (+5 to all rolls to know stuff in Liberia) 
  Deceit skill  
  Social Media skill  
  Business Outfit (Social Media, Data-base of 
  owned properties) 
  Incapacitating Spray (1m++, 3d6, Effect 2d6+Con+Wis 
  vs. 10 or Confused, Critical Effect 2d6+Con+Wis vs. 13 
  or Confused, Ammo: High) 
  Dodge 2d6, Soak 2d6 
  
  Liberty Boost  
  A4 
   
  Sundaygar’s men spend the day driving around in 
  three stolen trucks, making the rounds to sell bottled 
  water to locals. At night, they either hole up in the 
  warehouse to play video games or to party… or they 
  go into Monrovia proper, to party. His warehouse is 
  protected on all sides by an opaque wall and 
  automatic gates, with ladar motion sensors and other 
  sophisticated systems to keep his competitors out. (It’s 
  at least a Difficulty 15 to get past it.) Getting into his 
  compound and searching will turn up such things as 
  his arms stash, his drug stash, and the dumpster with 
  Donny’s body in it. (No laptop.) 
  Player-Characters eager for violence may get into a fight 
  with Sundaygar’s men. (Engaging in violence in the city 
  limits will raise the Player-Character’s profiles by +1 or 
  more.) The gangsters will assume any plain-clothes 
  people that they engage with are with a rival gang. 
  If the players interrogate Sundaygar, or any of his 
  men, they will freely confess to murdering Donny 
  Lester because he was a loud-mouthed jerk and they 
  didn’t like him. 
  The only loot the gang has is in their safe: ¤700 in 
  kruggerands and five kilos of cocaine that they can’t 
  find a buyer for. (It’s possibly worth ¤20,000 or more.) 
  Gola Rainforest National Park and 
  Secret Diamond Mine 
  The Gola Rainforest National Park Forest is about 
  60km northwest of Omega Town in Paynesville, and 
  it’s over the border into the neighboring country of 
  Sierra Leone. It was once teeming with wildlife. 
  However, years of poaching from the desperately 
  poor have left only a few desperate animals and small 
  game. The only taxi driver who would even brave 
  driving through here is Mardea, and even she can 
  only take the players to the Lofa-Mano National Park, 
  on the Liberian side of the border (which is 
  about 40km). 
  Water-Sellers ×9 ♂ Gangsters 
  (Paynesville, LR) 
  Str 0, Dex 0, Con 0, Int 0, Wis 0, Cha 0 
  Job: Criminal (+2 to do a criminal’s job) 
  Insider with Omega-Town Water Sellers (+5 to all rolls to 
  deal with Omega-Town Water Sellers) 
  Local Knowledge of Liberia (+5 to all rolls to know stuff in Liberia) 
  Evasion skill 
  Shooting skill  
  Gang Outfit (Armor +2, Streetwise +2) 
  Burner Phone (Social Media, Expires, Untraceable) 
  Submachinegun (50m++, 3d6+2 or 12, Effect Damage 12, 
  Critical Damage 15, Ammo: High) 
  Dodge 3d6 or 10, Soak 2d6+2 
   
  Sundaygar ♂ Head Gangster 
  (Paynesville, LR) 
  Str +1, Dex +1, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +1 
  Master Criminal (+5 to do a criminal’s job) 
  Insider with Omega-Town Water Sellers (+5 to all rolls to 
  deal with Omega-Town Water Sellers) 
  Local Knowledge of Liberia (+5 to all rolls to know stuff in Liberia) 
  Evasion skill 
  Shooting skill  
  Gang Outfit (Armor +2, Streetwise +2) 
  Burner Phone (Social Media, Expires, Untraceable) 
  Submachinegun (50m++, 3d6+7 or 17, Effect Damage 13, 
  Critical Damage 16, Ammo: High) 
  Dodge 3d6+2 or 12, Soak 2d6+3 
   
   
  Gola Overseers ×4+1 (Garmuyu) ♂ Slavers 
  (Gola, SL) 
  Str 0, Dex 0, Con 0, Int 0, Wis 0, Cha 0 
  Job: Mercenary (+2 to do a mercenary’s job) 
  Insider with Russian Mafia (+5 to all rolls to deal with the 
  Russian Mafia) 
  Local Knowledge of Sierra Leone (+5 to all rolls to know 
  stuff in Sierra Leone) 
  Evasion skill 
  Observaton skill 
  Shooting skill  
  Veteran (+2 to attacks, counters, and dodges) 
  SWAT Outfit (Armor +2d6+2, Policing +2, Social Media, 
  Sensory Enhancement) 
  Assault Rifle (100m++, 3d6+4 or 14, Effect Damage 15, 
  Critical Damage 20, Ammo: High) + 3 reloads 
  Dodge 3d6+2 or 12, Soak 4d6+2 
   
  Charne Slager ♂ Russian Capo (Gola, SL) 
  Str +3, Dex -1, Con +1, Int +1, Wis +1, Cha +1 
  Master Mercenary (+5 to do a mercenary’s job) 
  Insider with Russian Mafia (+5 to all rolls to deal with the 
  Russian Mafia) 
  Computing Skill 
  Evasion skill 
  Fighting skill 
  Shooting skill 
  Cyber Body 
  Veteran (+2 to attacks, counters, and dodges) 
  Paramilitary Outfit (Armor 2d6+Str; Policing +2, Sensory 
  Enhancement, MILSPEC  Intrusion Counter-Measures, 
  2 more slots: Injection Attack, Social Media) 
  Machine Pistol with Smart Sighting (25m+, 3d6+9 or 19, 
  Effect Damage 13, Critical Damage 16, Ammo: Low) 
  + 6 reloads 
  Dodge 3d6+2 or 12, Soak 4d6+4 
  Tap Cyber Body for one +5 Soak Bonus 
   
   
  
   
  Liberty Boost 
  A5 
   
  The Gola Diamond Mine can only be reached on foot 
  through 20km of thick forest. (Difficulty 10, at least.) 
  Within 10km of the place is a perimeter of wireless 
  cameras which need to be evaded. (Difficulty 15 to 
  defeat, through hacking or stealth or what have you.) 
  Gola Overseers carry RFID tags that don’t set off any 
  alarms (Difficulty 20 to fake those). 
  The mine is about 30 workers, all pathetic people 
  stolen from their homes and forced at gunpoint to 
  dig. The edges of the mine are draped in camouflage 
  netting, but the pit itself is visible from the air. The pit 
  is a cone, 400m across and 40m deep. (This area is 
  blurred out on most satellite photos due to hacking – 
  Difficulty 20 to circumvent this.) 
  There are always at least 3 mercenaries on duty, with 
  2 of them with overlapping zones of fire. (In game 
  terms, with take-10 and assist bonus on guard duty, 
  that’s a Difficulty of 14 to get past them.) 
  There’s four barracks: two with no air conditioning, 
  one with good air conditioning, and one with a 
  fantastic air conditioner, a gasoline generator, and a 
  satellite dish. This fancier trailer belongs to Charne 
  Slager, the Russian Mafoso. He has the laptop and he’s 
  trying to decrypt it to get into the files. (He doesn’t 
  know what they are, but he figures he should try.)  
  The Player-Characters will have to figure out how to 
  get the laptop out of this fortified place. Many Player-
  Characters will try to sneak in, or perhaps to infiltrate 
  the compound by pretending to be one of the slaves 
  or even one of the Overseers. A robot jockey could try 
  to sneak a drone past the sensors. Heavily-armed 
  Player-Characters might consider direct combat. 
  Charne and the Overseers will fight to protect the 
  mine, but they will give up if they suffer 50% or more 
  casualties, and they will flee into forest.  
  If Charne survives, he and his Mafia will become a 
  future enemy of the Player-Characters. Make a note, 
  and when later Watch Checks come up positive, the 
  Russian Mafia may take action. 
  Aftermath 
  If the Player-Characters can get the laptop within the 
  three-day time limit, they may call into Nelson, who 
  will arrange for an overnight shipment to a random 
  destination in the US. Once the players drop the 
  package off in the city for shipping, Nelson will 
  transfer the money. (He’s not that worried about 
  getting ripped off, at this point.)   
  Returning the laptop to Nelson accomplishes the goal 
  and earns a free gift. The most common award is 
  “Insider with Nelson Rockefeller”, which gives the 
  Player-Character a +5 bonus to convince Nelson to 
  help them in the future. (Most players will elect to 
  retain this gift for the +5 XP…. But they may wait an 
  adventure or two before cashing in.) 
  The Player Characters may try to liquidate the crypto-
  currencies themselves. Decrypting the laptop 
  requires brains (Int) and social-engineering (Cha) and 
  will need to beat a Challenge of 300, with a maximum 
  of 10 tries, one per hour – harsh, but not impossible. If 
  the players can crack it in the first three days, they 
  can liquidate the cryptos on various dark.nets for 
  ¤5,000,000. If they take longer than that, the market 
  crashes, and they’re lucky to get ¤500.  When Nelson 
  finds out about the liquidation, they will have earned 
  him as an enemy. 
  Your players may come up with some other strange 
  way of resolving everything. Have fun! The 
  adventure is yours to behold. 
  After the adventure is over and the game session has 
  ended, debrief the players. Ask them what worked 
  and what didn’t. Are there any rules they were 
  confused about? … Whether they have any criticisms 
  or not, participating in the debriefing is worth +1 XP. 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Bleeding Edge/Liberty Boost.pdf