Hepplewhite, Inc.

This adventure takes place after the player characters have already played the sample adventure provided in the Star Frontiers Alpha Dawn rule book. The agency that originally hired the player characters to handle that mission rehires the player characters to further investigate why Hepplewhite's starship crashed. From the sample adventure, the player characters learned that the starship was destroyed with a bomb, but it is still a mystery who placed that bomb.

The player characters are assigned to investigate Hepplewhite's corporate headquarters on Hargut in the Gruna Garu system. They find a few interesting things by talking with employees, looking at computer records, or other forms of research. Hepplewhite specializes in robot parts. The company was on the verge of going out of business about a year ago, but suddenly for no reason business picked up. The company has been making an unbelievable profit since then. There is a limited degree of manufacture and shipping going on in the building, but hardly enough to explain the kind of earnings the company is bringing in. The player characters also find that all starship travel is carefully documented, but the flight that crashed is nowhere on file.

Some employees are helpful, but others are suspicious of the players and may even try to detain them. This is because the upper management of Hepplewhite, Inc. has been using the company as a front for smuggling weapons and Sathar soldiers from planet to planet. A generous paycheck from the Sathar empire has been the cause of the company's recent financial success.

The crew on the ship that crashed in the sample adventure were honest Hepplewhite employees who found out that their company was helping the Sathar. They were on their way to carry evidence of this and to get help, but Hepplewhite's management found out about their plan and planted the bomb to stop them.

If the player characters venture far enough, they find a secret underground section of the building. This section contains a room filled with grenades, rifles, ammunition and many other types of weaponry. Another room down there is filled with computers where the player characters can find evidence of what Hepplewhite has been doing. A large room in the underground section is packed from wall to wall with a few hundred beds and Sathar soldiers. The Sathar are not expecting an attack, and most of them are asleep when the player characters arrive.

Much of this adventure is open, so the players can do whatever they want in whatever order they choose.

a. Office of human resource manager (Sathar agent)

b. Office of travel manager

c. Ladies' restroom

d. Employee records

e. Men's restroom (but where do the Dralasite's go?)

f. Locked and armored vault room

g. Office of general manager (Sathar agent)

h. Employee personal locker area

i. Shipping department, five Yazirian workers

j. Secret panel, allows general manager to communicate with agents in data processing

k. Data processing room, four Yazirian workers (Sathar agents)

l. Manufacturing floor, dozens of Yazirians making robot parts

m. Lounge

n. Cafeteria and Bar

o. Warehouse, 2 Yazirian workers and inventory computer

A. One armed Sathar guarding area beneath trap door

B. Weapons storage

C. Sathar mess hall

D. Sathar computer room

E. Sathar barracks