Do You Like Our Owl?

[plot description by original author]

The Hook, Line and Sinker format appeared in SHADIS magazine:

Hook: The current location or situation of the party.
Line: The situation which introduces the side-adventure.
Sinker: The twist, or what is unknown to the party, and the result.

HOOK: The player-characters (PCs) are investigators or people working for security aboard a large space-station, which must have a "garden", greenhouse or other artificial park habitat.

LINE: The PCs are called in to investigate the mysterious death of a trade factor aboard the station. He was found dead in his secured, sound-proofed sleeping quarters, with bloody slash-marks over most of his chest and back. Time of death can be estimated to be 0500 station time, about the middle of his sleep cycle (he went to bars to gamble until well past midnight and was a late riser). Hours later, while the PCs are still analyzing forensic samples and questioning associates and suspects, ANOTHER trader is found murdered in a rarely-accessed storage depot, but this one has been poisoned and stuffed between two large crates.

SINKER: The murder methods are bizarre, but clues are found here and there, such as strands of hair caught in a ventilation grill near the depot and, much later, feathers found in a service hatchway near the trade factor's quarters.

Eventually this will lead to the park habitat. The hair and feathers match android animals which are programmed to scurry around in the underbrush or make chirping bird-noises to enhance the atmosphere of the park. They need no care and feeding apart from occasional maintenance and reprogramming of the central computer control-module. A maintenance technician has been tampering with these androids, refitting a larger bird with sharp retractable claws and a wolflike animal with poison fangs. He then reprogrammed these refitted androids for very special expeditions outside the park. His motive was either political or part of an attempt by a corporation to "ice" the independent traders.

Station personnel consider these androids mere decoration (unlike in a real zoo, these never stray or escape from their assigned park sections), and are totally unprepared for the possibility of animals roaming free about the station. This will make for a harrowing encounter when the PCs start to investigate ventilation shafts and other cramped accessways leading from the murder scenes back to the park, in a way similar to scenes in the ALIEN movies. One character will be severely attacked by one of these animals, but will not die if help arrives in time, and will give a confused account of his assailant.

Because space-station inhabitants are totally unprepared for the prospect of loose animals, not even other technicians will think of examining the androids closely, which is something the tech counted on. If the PCs inspect the androids or close in on the tech, he will act like even more of a cornered animal than his androids, and activate a special defense routine of the androids to assist him.