TEXT:  
   
  Hivers III 
   
   
  STARS 
  WITHOUT NUMBER 
   
  COMPATIBILE 
  
   
   
  Cover Art: Bruno Glätsch 
  Copyright: 2019 Parts Per Million Ltd 
  Special thanks to Kevin Crawford, author of 
  Stars Without Number and Sine Nomine 
  Publishing 
   
   
  
   
   
  Introduction 
  This adventure is the third part of a series. 
  Each part can be played individually with a 
  new set of player characters or they can be 
  strung together to form the start of a 
  campaign. 
  In Part I the characters were instrumental in 
  bringing a hostile insectoid race to a world 
  already suffering a global famine. 
  In Part II the same hostile race had 
  established a foothold in a remote polar 
  region and the characters were dispatched 
  to deal with the alien threat. 
  In Part III an entire city is threatened with 
  being overrun. The characters are called 
  upon again to investigate. 
  This is intended as a drop in adventure. You 
  can play this out on any world you do not 
  mind inflicting a global famine and a 
  plague of aliens on. 
  At the end of Part I the Hivers spaceship 
  exploded 
  in 
  the 
  upper 
  atmosphere 
  scattering eggs. One of those eggs has 
  found its way into the city’s sewer system. 
  Gathering the Characters 
  If you are continuing on from previous 
  Hivers adventures, then the Bessie Powall 
  will continue as the characters primary 
  contact. 
  For 
  new 
  characters 
  there 
  are 
  two 
  suggested approaches. Bessie Powall is a 
  fan of trumping up criminal charges 
  against off-worlders, and then offering to 
  make those charges go away if the 
  characters do her a favor. This current 
  political situation makes this strategy 
  particularly useful. 
  As a little background, due to the severe 
  rationing of food there has been a lot of 
  anti-off-worlder sentiment along the lines 
  of “these people are eating food that 
  should go to ‘locals’”, others are accused of 
  running black market operations and 
  profiteering from the planets misfortune. A 
  few others believe rumors that the famine 
  was caused but a plague brought to the 
  planet by off-worlders. 
  Any one, or all, of these are enough turn a 
  minor insult or accident into justification to 
  start a fight, steal their food or other 
  possessions and generally take out months 
  of fear and want on a convenient target. 
  Alternatively, the characters could just be 
  hired as freelance investigators or security 
  contractors. The authorities don’t want 
  knowledge of the Hivers activities to cause 
  a panic amongst an already threatened 
  population. 
  However the characters are gathered they 
  will be given the same briefing. 
  Security forces have picked up intermittent 
  broadcasts from planet to an unidentified 
  orbital target. The broadcasts come and go 
  so fast that tracking them to closer than 
  inside the city is proving impossible. 
  One research group has a hypothesis that 
  by mapping the broadcast pulses with local 
  seismic activity that there is a correlating 
  tremor to each pulse. The tremors are so 
  small 
  that 
  only 
  the 
  most 
  sensitive 
  seismographs have picked them up, no one 
  would have felt them. The city is nowhere 
  near any kind of fault line or volcanic 
  region. Overlaying the epicenter of the 
  tremor with the city map leads the 
  researchers to a suggestion that the city’s 
  sewers and subterranean service tunnels 
  are being used as a massive antenna. 
  The mission is to investigate the service 
  tunnels, storerooms and sewer system and 
  either eradicate the aliens if they are found 
  or report back if the threat is too big. 
  The characters will be provided with a 
  digital map of the service tunnels and any 
  equipment they feel they need. 
  Hiver Biology 
  The  truly unique thing about the Hiver 
  race is their biological life cycle. It is not 
  unusual for insectoid species to change 
  form just as a caterpillar becomes a 
  butterfly.  
  
   
   
  Hivers have five life stages. They start as 
  eggs and when they hatch they are a tiny 
  fraction of their adult size and take an hour 
  to two to pump blood into their wings and 
  expand their body cavities to  their full size. 
  A Hiver egg is 20cm diameter and 50cm-
  60cm tall. An adult Hiver is approximately 
  2m tall. 
  Once reaching the adult stage Hivers can 
  pupate 
  and 
  change 
  their 
  body 
  configuration. There are four genders of 
  Hiver. The first is a Worker. These cannot fly 
  but their saliva can soften chitin so that it 
  can be reshaped and repurposed. 
  The second gender is that of the drone. 
  Drone have the same saliva glands but also 
  have waspish wings and can fly. 
  The third gender is the soldier. Soldiers 
  have the wings of the drone but are 
  stronger and faster. 
  Finally, the queen is an almost immobile 
  egg laying machine. She can lay an egg 
  every 10 minutes under optimal conditions. 
  Hivers can pupate, a process that takes 4 to 
  6 
  hours 
  and 
  change 
  their 
  body 
  configuration at any time. This involves 
  building a cocoon and sealing themselves 
  in. Once they emerge, they are fully 
  functioning members of that gender. 
  Any Hiver soldier or drone can fertilize 
  Hiver eggs. Just one Hiver could build a 
  nest as a worker, pupate into a queen and 
  lay hundreds of eggs then pupate again 
  into a worker or drone to tend the eggs. 
  Eggs take approximately 14hrs to hatch. 
  In this way even a single surviving Hiver 
  can repopulate an entire nest or colony. 
  Hivers feed of f of the bodily fluids of 
  mammals. Any mammal will do. They inject 
  a paralyzing saliva that also includes an 
  anti-coagulant. Then over a number of 
  days they will drain all the fluids from every 
  part of the victim.  Most die from shock long 
  before they are fully drained. 
  Hivers are known to eat their own and a 
  squadron of Hiver soldiers will eat their 
  own fallen brethren after a battle. This 
  preserves the nutrients and strategically 
  prevents their losses being apparent. Not 
  that Hivers ever think about losses and 
  losing. 
  Hiver soldiers tend to travel in single file 
  when on foot or in swarms when in the air. 
  Their strategy almost exclusively relies on 
  massively superior numbers as losses have 
  no meaning to them.
  
   
   
   
   
  A submarine style hatch with large locking wheel. 
   
   
   
  Iris Seal controlled by PIN code touch pad. 
   
   
   
  Sliding door operated by a motion sensor when 
  anything moves within 2m of the door. 
   
   
  Sliding Door operated by a PIN code touch pad. 
   
   
  Stairs up to an emergency exit at street level. 
   
   
  Stairs down to sewers 
    
   
   
  
   
   
  Going Underground 
  True to their word the characters will be 
  provided with anything they feel they 
  need. 
  Not every room on the map is detailed. This 
  is not intended to be a dungeon crawl, 
  killing the monsters and taking their stuff! 
  The secret is to try and maintain the sense 
  of this being a horror themed adventure. 
  There are three atmospheric events that 
  you can play on the characters. 
  In addition, there are 13 set items dotted 
  around 
  the 
  corridors, 
  six 
  random 
  encounters, six moveable rooms you can 
  put in the characters path and some fixed 
  detailed rooms. 
  The important thing is to try and maintain 
  a sense of cat and mouse. The characters 
  are going into the heart of enemy territory. 
  If they haven’t faced Hivers before they do 
  not know what they are facing. If they 
  have, then they will be expecting a 
  veritable swarm once the alarm is raised. 
  Event I 
  All the lights blink twice and then snap off. 
  This is accompanied with the fading away 
  of 
  a 
  background 
  hum, 
  which 
  had 
  previously not been noticed as it was 
  simply the constant and ‘normal’ hum of 
  the lighting and ventilation systems. 
  Event II 
  A vibration starts to be felt, as seen in the 
  form of ripples and agitation in the water in 
  the bottom of the corridors. The vibration 
  builds and a with it a sound that starts with 
  a rumble and builds to a ear splitting 
  screech before becoming a whine and 
  then finally going out of hearing frequency 
  range. Even when it cannot be heard it can 
  still be seen in reflective surfaces that 
  appear blurred due to vibration and liquids 
  that are agitated into interference patterns. 
  After a minute or two there is a palpable 
  feeling of relief as the vibrations stop. This 
  is the alien signal being sent that was the 
  reason for the mission. 
  Event III 
  If the lights have already failed, in event I, 
  they will suddenly flicker back in to life, just 
  for a second and then fail into darkness, 
  come on again for a couple of seconds, and 
  then fail, come on again for a whole minute 
  and then fail. 
  The Entrance 
  The entrance is (bottom of map, center) is 
  via a secured Iris Valve hatch. There is PIN 
  code 1-7-9-3-5 and opening the hatch 
  immediately releases a truly foul stench. 
  City Service Tunnels 
  These tunnels are made of rivetted steel 
  plates with a non-slip grid or mesh floor. 
  There are strip lights at human shoulder 
  height. Each light is 3 m long, 10 cm tall 
  and stands about 10cm proud of the wall. 
  They give off a harsh blue/white light. 
  Approximately one in ten of these lights 
  flickers intermittently. 
  There are pools of water all along the floor, 
  the walls are wet on many places. 
  Occasionally there are plant roots hanging 
  from 
  the 
  ceiling 
  where 
  they 
  have 
  penetrated from the ground above. 
  A constant dripping sound can be heard 
  everywhere inside the tunnels. Sounds 
  echo down the tunnels. 
  Tunnels 
   
  a 
  A foul odor fills the corridor 
  c 
  A foul odor fills the corridor 
  e 
  A steel plate has come away from 
  the ceiling here and plant roots as well as 
  electrical wiring hangs down into the 
  tunnel. 
  i 
  The tunnel here is deeply gouged 
  and scraped along it length. 
  m 
  Anti Off-Worlder graffiti covers the 
  tunnel walls here. 
  n 
  A ventilation duct in the ceiling 
  brings down the sounds from the street 
  above. 
  
   
   
  r 
  Corpses have been sealed into the 
  wall with wax along the tunnel, a dozen in 
  all. They look like a maintenance crew. 
  s 
  An emergency services SOS phone 
  is fixed to the wall here. The light above it 
  flickers on and off. 
  u 
  Some maintenance work was in 
  progress here. Wall sections have been 
  removed revealing masses of cables and 
  connections and blinking LEDs. 
  v 
  A steel grill blocks this tunnel. There 
  is a gate in it, secured by a traditional 
  padlock that is rusted solid. 
  w 
  There is a recently dead body 
  huddled to one side of the tunnel. It looks 
  like a vagrant went to sleep and never 
  woke up. 
  x 
  Acrid fumes hang in the air in this 
  tunnel. You can see a blue haze in the air 
  and it smells of chlorine and ozone. It will 
  cause coughing and burning eyes but no 
  lasting effects. 
  z 
  Discarded 
  cocoon 
  shells 
  have 
  blocked the water flow along this tunnel 
  leading to a buildup of water about 50 cm 
  deep along its length.  
  Random Encounters 
   
  1 
  Hiver Workers (as many as there are 
  characters) approach from ahead. 
  2 
  Two drones carrying a dead body 
  approach (they are going to wax it to a 
  tunnel wall). 
  3 
  A Hiver Soldier is part of a regular 
  patrol. It will be missed in a matter of 
  minutes if it doesn’t return. 
  4 
  A squadron of Hiver soldiers, (half 
  as many as there are characters) flying in 
  single file. 
  5 
  A pair of Hiver workers hurrying 
  alone the tunnel. 
  6 
  A Hiver Soldier investigating the 
  scent of the characters, it will track the 
  party until it knows if they are food or foe 
  then raise the alarm. 
  Room #1 
   
  Environmental suits line the east wall and 
  bench seats run north south in the center 
  of the room. This is where sewer workers 
  would suit up before work. Lockers line the 
  west wall. North Entry 
  Locked 
  Simple Wooden Door (superior lock) 
  The looping corridor on to the west are 
  communal showers with showerheads 
  high on both walls. 
  There are the bloody remains of a security 
  officers’ uniform in the corner, but no body. 
  Room #4 
   
  A grey chitinous mass sits here, it seems to 
  have embedded itself into the power grid 
  system. It expands and contracts slowly 
  every two to three minutes. 
  Room #5 
   
  This room contains a Hiver Queen and 
  three times as many Hiver Drones as there 
  are characters. 
  Room #6 
   
  A central mass of hexagonal cells made of 
  grey chitin with yellowish wax seals. Inside 
  can be seen the semi liquid forms of 
  pupating Hivers. 
  Room #7 
   
  This is a control room for water pumping 
  equipment. Many of the consoles are burnt 
  out as if they caught fire from the inside. 
  Nothing seems to be working. 
  Room#12 
  The center of this room is taken up by a 
  huge black grey mass of chitin embedded 
  into which is all sorts of electronic 
  equipment. This is the hivers interface been 
  the worlds tech and their own organic 
  brain. It is the origin of the broadcast signal. 
  The mass can be seen to breathe 
  occasionally. There are dozens of power 
  cables ripped from walls and the ceiling 
  feeding into this mass. 
  Room #14 
  This is a larder. The walls and ceiling are 
  lined with bodies held in place by yellow 
  wax. Many can be seen to show very faint 
  
   
   
  signs of life, although the enzymes they 
  have been injected with mean that they 
  will die within a matter of hours should 
  they be removed. No one will recover 
  consciousness if cut out of the wax. These 
  bodies are being used for feeding newly 
  hatched eggs and the queen in Room #5. 
  Room #36 
   
  The walls of this room are completely lined 
  with hiver eggs. Each egg is about 20cm 
  across and 60cm tall and colored like a 
  grain of rice.  
  Significant Others 
  These are not rooms but features. It is not 
  expected that anyone is going to trail 
  around the entire underground complex. 
  You can use these features to add 
  interesting things to the rooms that the 
  characters actually visit. 
  Security Monitors 
  This room has four desks each facing eight 
  monitors that show tunnel sections from all 
  angles. Watching for more than 30 
  seconds reveals that the screens flick from 
  camera to camera and it is almost 
  impossible to identify which cameras are 
  showing what. 
  (use the random encounters to populate a 
  few Hivers on to the screens). 
  Fire Control 
  This room contains fire and hazardous 
  material protection suits, foam and inert 
  gas fire extinguishers, big axes and 
  breathing apparatus. 
  Sickbay 
  Two or three medical trolleys with mobile 
  medical gear like heart rate monitors, 
  ultrasound scanner and the all-important 
  defibrillator. 
  Maintenance 
  The room contains professional quality tool 
  cabinets, on wheels, as well as work 
  benches 
  and 
  wall 
  mounted 
  heavier 
  equipment like grinders and presses. The 
  walls are veritably plastered in health and 
  safety notices. 
  Massacre Room 
  A fight tool place in this room, the walls are 
  splattered with blood and gore and there is 
  a thick bloody trail across the floor and out 
  one of the exits. The trail will be lost in the 
  standing water in the next tunnel. 
  Gunfight Room 
  There are a few scraps of uniform here that 
  look like city security forces. There is a lot of 
  spend brass bullet cases on the floor and 
  the far walls are riddled with bullet pock 
  marks. 
  Where are the Hivers? 
  In the south west of the service tunnels is a 
  staircase down to the sewer levels. The 
  sewers are circular pipes. They are not 
  mapped use can use this table to auto 
  generate them. 
  1-2 
  Sewer continues straight ahead 
  3 
  Side sewer joins from the left. 
  4 
  Side sewer joins from the right 
  5 
  Sewer contracts by 30cm 
  6 
  Sewer expands by 30cm 
   
  The sewers start 2m in diameter. As the 
  characters wander around, they will 
  discover many side tunnels. The numbers 
  down the  
  center of these pages will give you 
  probably more than enough random 
  numbers generate a significant sewer 
  system. 
  Use the numbers top to bottom but when 
  reading left to right you get a double (11, 
  22, 33 etc.) treat this as a random 
  encounter from the table below. 
   
  1 
  Half as many Hiver Workers as 
  there are characters.  
  2 
  An aquatic predator - think 
  alien alligator.  
  3 
  Half as many Hiver Drones as 
  there are characters.  
  4 
  An equal number of Hiver 
  Drones as there are characters.  
  5 
  Tentacle horror 
  6 
  An equal number of Hiver 
  Soldiers as there are characters. 
  1 5
  5 4
  2 5
  4 1
  2 5
  4 1
  5 4
  3 5
  5 6
  4 2
  5 5
  4 5
  2 4
  5 3
  5 5
  4 1
  2 1
  4 5
  6 3
  3 6
  4 3
  5 2
  6 4
  1 6
  4 4
  3 4
  1 2
  1 6
  4 5
  2 4
  1 6
  5 5
  6 4
  3 2
  6 6
  2 5
  4 5
  1 1
  3 3
  2 6
  3 6
  5 2
  2 2
  3 4
  
   
   
  5 1 
  1 3 
  3 2 
  4 2 
  4 3 
  2 5 
  4 4 
  2 3 
  1 5 
  4 2 
  1 3 
  6 6 
  3 4 
  5 6 
  3 4 
  4 5 
  4 3 
  5 2 
  6 5 
  6 5 
  5 3 
  5 3 
  5 4 
  3 6 
  2 1 
  3 1 
  2 1 
  2 5 
  3 2 
  3 6 
  1 1 
  1 6 
  1 4 
  5 5 
  4 5 
  6 4 
  4 6 
  3 5 
  5 5 
  1 4 
  6 4 
  1 5 
  3 1 
  1 3 
  3 3 
  1 1 
  6 5 
  If the double is odd (11, 33, 55) the 
  encounter approaches from the rear. 
  If the double is even (22, 44, 66) the 
  encounter approaches from the front. 
  If the double is below 40 (11, 22, 33) any 
  Hivers are empty handed and are on their 
  way out of the nest. 
  If the double is above 40 (44, 55, 66) any 
  Hivers are carrying the bodies of people 
  snatched 
  off 
  the 
  street. 
  They 
  are 
  unconscious but alive. Although they could 
  well drown if dropped into the sewer 
  during any confrontation! 
  Encounters with the aquatic predator does 
  not have to be an immediate combat. It 
  could simply start to track the characters, 
  rolling this multiple times could bring a 
  pack of alien style alligators drifting after 
  the characters. Alternatively, the predator 
  could take one look at the characters and 
  flee into the murky water. 
  The tentacle horror is some sort of mutated 
  quid or octopus that is hundreds of meters 
  long and extends down many tunnels. It is 
  likely to try and grab a character and drag 
  them away into the darkness. The creature 
  does not need to be seen, it could simply be 
  a movement under the black water and 
  sludge of the sewers. Any damage inflicted 
  on it will make it let go of its prey and 
  retract that tentacle, for now. 
  The sewers are much older than the service 
  complex above, some parts go back to the 
  early days of the city. They are typically not 
  perfectly circular tubes but have a slightly 
  wider diameter for the top half than the 
  bottom half and the ‘join’ forms a narrow 
  walkway ledge on one side or the other. 
  These walkways will often be wet, slippery 
  and any lights will small, bad tempered 
  lizards (consider them the planets answer 
  to rats, but these things can run upside 
  down on the ceiling). 
  You should be able to run an entire 
  underground exploration just using these 
  random tables. If you run out of numbers, 
  then just start that the bottom again and 
  work up the columns. 
  What will happen eventually is that all the 
  tunnels become too small to navigate. 
  Without going on ones belly and slithering 
  along. This is something that the hivers are 
  perfectly prepared to do. 
  The only way in or out of this complex for 
  player characters is via the exits detailed in 
  the service level. 
  Running Hivers III 
  The most sensible thing to do is for the 
  characters to report back as soon as they 
  realize that nearly everyone is dead and get 
  the military to deal with the infestation. 
  For the Game Master this adventure is all 
  about trying to maintain the sense of threat 
  posed by the Hiver invasion. You can have 
  Hiver soldiers building up on every side as 
  they surround the characters before finally 
  mounting an attack in the pitch black after 
  the lights have failed. 
  The intended vibe is that of a game of cat 
  and mouse. You can use sound, most of the 
  tunnels are both wet, so footsteps can 
  splash and echoey due to their metal 
  construction so sounds will be distorted 
  and will carry a long way. 
  Having the Hiver signal emitting brain give 
  out its signal when they [the characters] 
  are in the room with both announce it as 
  the source of the signal but it can also be 
  used to deafen the characters for a period 
  of time, during which they will not be able 
  to hear each other or approaching danger. 
  When you are in the room it is ear 
  bleedingly loud if not “pass out on the floor 
  and come around only being able to hear 
  a roaring in your ears” loud. 
  Concluding Hivers III 
  The perfect solution to this adventure is get 
  in, find the source of the signal, destroy it 
  and get out alive. 
  Those criteria can be impressed upon the 
  characters either at the start or if they make 
  periodic reports back to the surface.
  
   
   
  NPC Roster 
  Bessie Powall  
  Bessie Powall  
  Naval Officer 
  Class and Style Str 
  Dex 
  Con 
  Int 
  Wis 
  Cha HP Atk. Bon. 
  Expert (Nimble) 10 (+0) 14 (+1) 12 (+0) 11 (+0) 9 (+0) 7 (-1) 4 +0 
  Skills: Administer-0, Talk-0, 
  Connect-0, Perform-0 
  Focus: Specialist/Sneak 
  Assassin 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
   
   
  Hivers 
  Hiver Worker 
  Basic Animal Features: Insect,  
  Body Plan: Humanoid 
  Skin Novelty: Exoskeleton  
  Main Weapon: Claws  
  Size: Calf-sized 
  Predator: Hunts in kin-group packs 
  Beast Type 
   
   HD  
  AC  
  Atk.  
  Dmg.  
  Move  
  ML  
  Skills  
  Saves 
  Large Pack Hunter  
  2  
  14  
  +2  
  1d6  
  15m  
  9  
  +1  
  14+ 
  Hiver Soldier 
  Basic Animal Features: Insect,  
  Body Plan: Humanoid 
  Limb Novelty: Wings  
  Skin Novelty: Exoskeleton  
  Main Weapon: Claws  
  Size: Calf-sized 
  Predator: Hunts in kin-group packs 
  Beast Type 
   
   HD  
  AC  
  Atk.  
  Dmg.  
  Move  
  ML  
  Skills  
  Saves 
  Large Pack Hunter  
  2  
  14  
  +2  
  1d6  
  15m  
  9  
  +1  
  14+ 
  Hiver Drone 
  Basic Animal Features: Insect,  
  Body Plan: Humanoid 
  Skin Novelty: Exoskeleton  
  Main Weapon: Claws  
  Size: Calf-sized 
  Predator: Hunts in kin-group packs 
  Beast Type 
   
   HD  
  AC  
  Atk.  
  Dmg.  
  Move  
  ML  
  Skills  
  Saves 
  Small Pack Hunter  
  1  
  13  
  +1  
  1d4  
  15m  
  8  
  +1  
  15+ 
  Hiver Queen 
  Basic Animal Features: Insect,  
  Body Plan: Bulbous 
  Skin Novelty: Exoskeleton  
  Main Weapon: none  
  Size: greater than Elephant-sized 
  Prey: Breeds at tremendous rates 
  Beast Type 
   
   HD  
  AC  
  Atk.  
  Dmg.  
  Move  
  ML  
  Skills  
  Saves 
  Terrifying Apex Predator  8  
  16  
  - 
  -  
  20m  
  9  
  +2  
  11+ 
   
   
   
  
   
   
  Tentacle Horror 
  Basic Animal Features: Reptile,  
  Body Plan: Many legged, tentacles,  
  Skin Novelty: wet and slimy 
  Main Weapon: Bashing tentacles, Teeth Mandibles  
  Size: Elephant-sized or larger 
  Predator: Hunts as a lone, powerful hunter 
  Beast Type 
   
   
   HD  
  AC  
  Atk.  
  Dmg.  
  Move  
  ML  
  Skills  
  Saves 
  Terrifying Apex Predator  
  8  
  16  
  +8 x 2  1d10  
  20m  
  9  
  +2  
  11+ 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  each 
  Aquatic Predator 
  Basic Animal Features: Reptile,  
  Body Plan: Quadruped 
  Skin Novelty: Thick Thermal Protective Coat/Camouflage 
  Main Weapon: Teeth 
  Size: Calf-sized 
  Predator: They’re vicious if threatened  
  Beast Type 
   
   
   HD  
  AC  
  Atk.  
  Dmg.  
  Move  
  ML  
  Skills  
  Saves 
  Large Aggressive Prey Animal  
  5  
  13  
  +4  
  1d10  
  15m  
  8  
  +1  
  12+ 
   
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Stars Without Number/Stars Without Number Adventures & Settings/Hivers (SwN)/Hivers III (SwN).pdf