Homebrew - In Prison on Akiton

[kaotic]

Hello my friends!

I am working on an opening segment of a homebrew campaign centered around a group of (soon to be) space pirates that will begin with the PCs imprisoned on Akiton. I’m in the brainstorming phase for this section and have found some fun inspiration from several sources, but wanted to bring this to your brilliant minds.

I want this to encompass probably a full session (4-5 hours) worth of content and they are starting at level 1. So far I’ve got some potential conflicts (or alliances) set up with AAF, with an ex-military Vesk supremacy group imprisoned for war crimes from pre-Accord, and with a famous Free Captain. I’ve got some random fun NPCs to add some interaction both friendly and hostile and some connections to upper echelons of the criminal underworld like arms and drug traffickers and mob lords, etc.

I’d love some ideas for 1st level characters to get some good obstacles and situations to overcome and role play in prison before they are sprung out. I’d also love to let the players interactions and relationships lead them places in the System later on.

Let me know if you’ve got some fun ideas for some IN prison adventures as opposed to the tons and tons of ‘Prison Break’ type stories out there.

Thanks!
Kaotic

[Metaphysician]

So, the first big question that pops to mind: Where, exactly, are they imprisoned?

Its important to remember that Akiton does not really have a functioning planetary government. As such, there is no single planetary standard for doing hard time. So, who is running this prison? One of the still-civilized cities? A megacorporation? A warlord city-state? Which culture is the local culture?

All of these will massively effect the results. A prison run out of the old capital, operated by the Vitari Corporation, is going to look a lot different than a prison run in the wastes by a Mad Max-style "king".

[kaotic]

@Metaphysician
A fantastic question! I had envisioned this sort of in the wastes, with the nearest major settlement being Maro. My vision for this was that the prison was a remnant of the now dead government that had vacant and unused for decades but purchased, upgraded, and governed by VitariTech after one too many shipments were hit by local brigands leaving the planet. The result is a marriage of an old prison outfitted with some new tech. It has been operating only for about 10 years. The PC's have been inside for various crimes and for various stents of time before the beginning of the story.

The PC's don't really have to break out themselves, as an escape will be organized to free the Free Captain I mentioned (who will end up playing a large role later on) which will create an opportunity for many of the prisoners to escape, some of which will come back into the story later on. The interactions inside will dictate what role these NPC prisoners will play later on.

Thanks!

[ZandrXI]

Well the first thing that comes to mind for the more martial PC's is to have a under ground fight ring run by the guards who pit the prisoners against each other. The PC's could show off their fighting skills to the different groups and earn a prize or something.

The science types could craft drugs and work with the face of the group to sell them for supplies to craft gear such as prison shanks, junk swords or crude tasers.

here is a link to a list of just a few things prisoners have mad in real life.

[Metaphysician]

If its being run by VitariTech, even just partially, then that can only mean one thing: unethical human experimentation. So, give some thought to what horrible things their resident mad scientists are doing with the prisoners. The first thing to pop into my mind is "inmates can earn benefits by 'volunteering' for testing of an unclear nature". If you want better quarters, or commissary funds, or possibly even time off your sentence? You walk up to the medical office to volunteer. Sure, you've got about a 10% chance of never being seen again, allegedly, but prison is risky anyway, right?

[BigNorseWolf]

possible idea: Due to the downturn in the Akitonian economy the prison is just open air. There's some guns to shoot down unauthorized vehicles/aircraft, but the prison is otherwise a magical water tap and "food" air dropped on the place monthly, and 400 miles of akitonian desert any way you want to walk. Which you're welcome to do at any time.

Some in prison stuff

The party needs a macguffin so they have to go around on a mad cap trading /bribery/extortion/trading robbery/ adventure to trade their way to it.

Ysoki on vesk gang rivalry. Stop it either by fighting or by hopping on one side. Vesk obviously have the better fighters but the ysoki's quantity has a quality all its own...

The prison is of course on top of some kind of mine or and prisoners are being used for labor/ humanoid trap detector

Prisoners, including some in for mundane things like tax evasion start going violently psyco. Turns out someone rolled a 1 on their profession prison brewery check and got some akitonian ergot in their last batch.

[kaotic]

@ZandrXI and @BigNorseWolf - love the ideas, thank you!!
@Metaphysician - thank you for the great setting specific color with regard to Akiton and Vitari, I’ve layered a lot of this into my campaign notes to incorporate in one way or another.

Keep the ideas flowing if anyone else has some fun stuff to throw in!

Thanks!
Kaotic