Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination
Machine of Death: The Game of Creative Assassination Rulebook
Table of Contents
Table of Contents
In the Box
- Death Cards
- Black Market Gift Cards
- Specialist Cards
- Target Intel Sheets
- Fate Coin (succeed on heads, fail on tails)
- Skull Die (6-sided die with a skull on the 1 face)
Starred cards are harder! Leave them out of the deck for your first few games.
Object
In this game, you will take on the role of an assassin. Working with your fellow players, you will create assassination plans to kill targets, in a way consistent with their death prediction cards.
You already know how each target will die; the Machine of Death has predicted it for you. Now, you just need to make it happen.
This game is more about storytelling than about beating the dice. It relies on you being creative with your plans, and honest when evaluating them. Whenever a question of logic or judgment comes up, make the choice that makes the story most fun.
A game lasts four rounds. In each round, you will ① generate a target (page 8), ② make an assassination plan (page 10), and then ③ attempt the kill (page 14).
If a kill fails, you've lost. Game over. If the kill is successful, you'll have a chance to ④ earn bonus cards (page 16) before moving on to the next round.
If you can successfully kill all four targets, you win! If you fail to kill any of them, you lose. This is a cooperative game, and you and your fellow assassins will work as a team, winning or losing together.
This game works best with 2-4 players. If you have more than 4 players, check out pages 20-21 for some other ways to play!
Game Terms
Target – The person you'll try to kill.
Mission – Four targets linked in a narrative. Playing a full game means playing one mission of four targets.
Intel – Useful details about the target, such as his or her likes, dislikes, physical characteristics, and/or current location.
Target Generation – You can play pre-written missions, which provide you with the targets. Or, you can make up your own mission by using the tables on page 22 and the Target Intel Sheets included with the game.
Death Cards – Reveal the way a target will someday die. Your goal is to make that day today.
Assassination Plan – A series of three actions that will chain together to result in the death of the target.
Black Market Gift Cards – Represent items you can obtain to aid in your assassination plan. Each card is worth one item, and each item can be used in one action.
Specialist Cards – Represent people with special skills that you can call to perform an action.
Item – Each Gift Card gets you one of anything in the category listed (i.e. ANIMAL; SOMETHING RED; etc). Items may be plural (SWARM OF BEES; DOROTHY'S RUBY SLIPPERS). If you can justify it, you can have it (i.e. MUPPET DRUMMER; ALGER HISS).
Budget – The gift cards + specialist cards that you have available to use in your assassination plan.
Action – Each gift card or specialist can create one action. Actions can succeed or fail, depending on rolls of the die. Three successful actions make a kill.
Difficulty – A measure of how likely a particular action is to succeed, on a scale of 2 (very likely) to 6 (very unlikely).
6-Sided Skull Die – Rolled against each action's difficulty. If the skull face comes up, flip the Fate Coin.
Kill – When three actions succeed against a given target, the target is killed.
Aftermath – If the target is killed and there's still time left on the timer, you can attempt bonus tasks. Each successful task earns a bonus Specialist card added to your budget for later rounds.
Setting Up
To begin, separate the Death Cards, Black Market Gift Cards, and Specialists. Place one death card face-down (A). Separate Gift Cards and Specialists into respective draw decks (G/H) and keep them handy.
Count out 20 Gift Cards and place them in a stack, face-down (D). This is your starting budget. You'll mostly draw from this deck.
The Target Intel Sheet goes on the table as well (B), if you've made up your own target (which we describe on the next page). If you're playing a mission, just keep the mission book nearby for consultation.
As you earn bonus cards (we'll get to this on page 16), you can place them face-up in your budget row (F). There is no limit to the number of bonus cards that you can earn; we've shown room for three, but you can have more. As many as can fit on your table. Move your drink onto the ground.
Once the game begins, you will turn over the Death Card, then draw three Gift Cards from your budget deck (D) and place them face-up in the (C) row.
First, however, it's time to make a target! Time to turn the page! Time to turn the page and make a target!!
① Generate a Target
Who you gonna kill? Let's find out!
To start the game, you'll need four targets to try and kill! Since there are billions of people on the planet, choosing just four should be EASY.
There are two ways to generate targets. The easiest way is to play a mission, where the targets are predetermined. For your first game, try playing the mission on page 25 of this booklet.
Once you have a handle on how that works, the second way to generate targets is to craft your own! It's kind of like Mad Libs.
Using the Target Intel Sheets provided with the game, one player should ask the group for suggestions, or choose randomly from the tables on page 22, to fill in:
- ALIAS – any made-up name.
- INTEL #1 – something this target likes, knows well, or is excited by.
- INTEL #2 – something this target dislikes, or that hinders him or her.
- COORDINATES – this target's current location.
As you make your assassination plan, keep this intel in mind! Knowing your target's likes and dislikes can help you predict their behavior, and the reaction they'll have to things you place in their path.
Sample target intel table (the words in blue are variables; you can always replace them with different things for variety):
- Collects antique cuckoo clocks
- Loves the feel of masonry
- Favorite food is lemon meringue pie
- Enjoys competitive hang gliding
- Severely allergic to newspaper
- Irrationally hates ancient Greek statuary
- Phobia of toy snakes
- Afflicted with chronic migraine headaches
- Parking lot of a grocery store
- Sleeping on top of a speeding city bus
- Crossing the ocean in a hot air balloon
- Trapped in a high school locker room
Choose one from each category to build your target. Create four targets to build your own mission! You can also consult the fan-created Intel Randomizer at machineofdeath.net/intel and have it create a target for you (or add your own for others). Full intel tables are on page 22.
Example target: Alias "Tony Needlemayer"; Intel #1 "Loves touching masonry"; Intel #2 "Afraid of toy snakes"; Coordinates "Grocery store parking lot".
② Make a Plan
Turn over the Death Card (A). This is that target's predicted death, and any attempt to kill him or her must take this prediction into account.
It doesn't have to be an obvious connection. It can be straightforward or ironic. It might be a play on words or a homonym, but the prediction is absolutely, 100% guaranteed how that person will die. If the prediction is not somehow involved in the plan, then you know it won't kill the person. Think of something else!
Now, if the Machine were to actually exist, would you want to know how you are fated to die? Some do, some don't – and that includes your targets. So:
Flip the Fate Coin to determine whether the target knows their own death prediction or not. If your target knows, you're going to have to be extra sneaky. For instance, if their predicted death is GUITAR, you will probably never get them into a rock concert. But if they don't know their prediction, they might stroll on in.
The death prediction is like the Coroner's Report. It's how the person dies. It's not an item that you already have at your disposal. You gotta get the items to create a death that matches the prediction.
Draw three Gift Cards from your budget and place them face-up (C). These represent three items you can use in your assassination plan. You must now concoct a plan that will make the target's death prediction come true.
Start planning! Discuss as a group what items you want to get with the Gift Cards, and start crafting a scenario that will kill the target.
Example: Target Tony Needlemayer is currently located in a grocery store parking lot. Tony's death prediction is BLAZE. The Gift Cards drawn for the round are SOMETHING RED, LIQUID, and WEAPON.
The players, Annie, Ben, and Carla, eventually decide, after various ideas are considered and discarded, that they will get BRICKS (red), GASOLINE (liquid), and FLAMING ARROWS (weapon).
The three actions they will attempt are:
- build a wall around Tony to trap him
- fill the enclosure with gasoline
- ignite it with a flaming arrow
Everyone agrees that this seems like a pretty good plan.
You have to use all three Gift Cards! Each plan requires three actions. If you think your plan is too straightforward to need all three, remember: you can always do more to prevent the target from escaping, or to prevent bystanders or the environment from interfering.
(Continued on page 13.)
The planning discussion can take as long as you like until the group agrees on a plan they think might work. The Gift Cards may be re-ordered on the table as desired to match the order of events in the plan.
For each individual action – i.e., each Gift Card – you'll soon have to roll the die to see if it works. If all three rolls succeed, so does the kill! If any action fails, play continues as new Gift Cards are drawn from the budget, and new actions are planned, rated, and rolled for.
Once you've come up with a plan, assign each action a difficulty from 2 to 6. This is a measure of how likely or unlikely this action is to succeed. Using logic (and being honest), each player offers an opinion, thinking about questions like: Does it make sense? Does it require the target to act too cooperatively? Does it, in some way, fulfill the prediction from the target's death card?
Assigning Difficulty
- 2 – This would totally work. Logical, no obvious problems… practically foolproof.
- 3 – Some elements might be left to chance, but on a good day this seems pretty airtight.
- 4 – Average likelihood. There's no reason why this couldn't work, but things might not go as planned.
- 5 – This would take a lot of luck to pull off just right. Lots of things could go wrong or get in the way.
- 6 – The only possible way this crazy idea would ever work is in a Final Destination movie.
Difficulty is a judgment call, and there's no right or wrong answer. Choose the most pessimistic of the opinions offered (the highest number) to be the "official" difficulty for each action. This way, you plan for the worst.
Once the plan is decided on, it's time to attempt the actual kill!
Example (continued):
With the plan figured out, the team judges its difficulty.
First they want to build a wall with BRICKS. This might seem unlikely – why would he just stand there while a wall is being built around him? But the intel says that Tony loves the feel of masonry. He may be obsessed with these bricks, and too distracted to realize he's being trapped. Given this, Ben suggests this action has a difficulty of 3. Annie suggests 4. Carla suggests 3.
Since Annie's estimate is the highest difficulty, they will have to roll a 4.
Filling the enclosure with GASOLINE seems like it's pretty likely to work. Given enough gasoline – and thanks to their gift card, they have an unlimited supply – they're sure to make a pretty substantial pool. Ben and Annie call this one a 2. Carla gives it a 3. So they'll roll for a 3.
Lighting the gasoline with a FLAMING ARROW seems super likely. It's a huge pool of gasoline! All players agree that this is a 2. It's gonna light up like a non-denominational holiday tree!!
(Continued on page 15.)
Use the environment to your advantage. You can incorporate into your plan anything you can logically assume would be in that specific place. But you can only control the behavior of items that you obtain with Gift Cards.
③ Attempt the Kill
Start the timer. You now have 90 seconds to kill the target! Let's go!!
Any player starts by announcing the first action, and rolling the die against that action's difficulty.
If the roll is equal to or greater than the difficulty, that action succeeds! The die passes to the left, and the next player announces and rolls for the next action.
If the roll is less than the difficulty, that action fails. Something went wrong. Anyone can explain what happened that prevented the action from succeeding. That Gift Card is discarded, and a new card is drawn from the budget.
You can't try for the exact same item twice in one game! If you couldn't make a motorcycle work, why would I give you another one? You'd have to try for a "dirt bike" or a "Harley" instead!
With the timer continuing to count down, the team must now adapt the plan on the fly. With the new Gift Card, quickly figure out something that will make sense in the context of your previous plan. Or, you may need to rethink the whole rest of the plan. (Feel free to re-order the later cards as needed.)
As soon as the team agrees on a revision to the plan, a difficulty is determined for the new action, and the person who suggested the new idea rolls for the new action.
The players can continue drawing new Gift Cards and rolling for new actions as long as there is time left in the timer. If there haven't been three successful rolls by the time the timer runs out, the round is over. The target survived. You lost. Sorry.
If the players do succeed in getting three successful rolls before time is out, the target is killed! Hooray! Murder!!
Example (continued):
Annie rolls for the bricks. She rolls a 6! The brick wall works as planned!
Ben rolls for the gasoline. He rolls a 2, so it doesn't work! Anyone can explain what went wrong. It's a hot day, so perhaps all the gasoline evaporated as soon as it was poured out of the can!
Ben discards the failed LIQUID card and draws a new Gift Card to replace it. The new card is NATURE. Anyone can toss out an idea. They already have Tony trapped in a brick enclosure, so Annie suggests that they fill the enclosure with dry wood and tinder, so if they go on to get FLAMING ARROWS, they can light it ablaze. Carla suggests that they try to strike him with lightning.
The group quickly agrees that the lightning is a good idea. Carla adds that since it might not set him ablaze, they could bring up the WEAPON card to the second slot and try to get NAPALM first. Then, if that works, they can use NATURE to ignite Tony. If the napalm fails, they'll still have the NATURE in reserve to use in a different way.
They decide that dousing Tony with napalm has a difficulty of 3. Carla (since it was her idea) rolls the die. She rolls 4: SPLASH!! Tony's soaked!
All that's left is to ignite the napalm. Will lightning striking napalm create a blaze? It's uncertain, so the group agrees on a difficulty of 4. Ben, who hasn't rolled yet, rolls for the LIGHTNING. He rolls the skull, which means he must flip the Fate Coin. He flips it, and it lands on FAIL. Oh no! The lightning only singed Tony! No blaze resulted.
Ben discards the failed NATURE card.
(Continued on page 18.)
④ Earn Bonus Cards
Aftermath refers to the period between the end of a successful kill and the timer running out. During this time, players can earn bonus cards by accomplishing these tasks:
- Destroy the evidence (skull face)
- Confuse the witnesses (2)
- Flee the scene (3)
- Establish an alibi (4)
- Comfort the target's next of kin (5)
- Cater the target's wake (6)
The number in parentheses is the die face shown by each task's icon (the skull is the 1 face). Confirmed against the printed icons.
As soon as a target has been killed, immediately roll the die to determine which of the above tasks to attempt. Then, draw a new Gift Card from the draw deck (deck G – not your budget). Decide how you will attempt the task using that single card, poll the players to determine the difficulty, and roll!
You only get one attempt per task, whether it succeeds or fails. Once you've rolled, if there's still time left, use the score still on the die to determine the next task. (If it's the same task, move down to the next task you haven't attempted yet this round.) Continue drawing cards and rolling until time runs out.
Once the time is out, draw as many Specialist cards as you had successful Aftermath rolls, and place them face-up in your budget (F). Now you have more chances to kill your targets – it's like your budget went up!
Using Specialists
Starting in your next round, you can swap out any Gift Card you have face-up on the table for a Specialist, if you think the Specialist will be more helpful to your plan. A Specialist's action must have its difficulty determined just like a Gift Card, and is rolled for in the same way. Like a Gift Card, it can succeed or fail, and succesful Specialists count toward the three actions needed for a kill.
Gift Cards that are traded out for Specialists go face-up in your budget (F), and can be swapped back in to replace other Gift Cards or Specialists at any time.
Example (continued):
The team has Tony trapped and covered in napalm. They need one more action to finish him off, and the timer's still counting down. Since the NATURE card failed, Ben draws a new Gift Card: ANIMAL.
Before anyone can think of an appropriate animal, Annie realizes that their FLYING SAUCER RIDE card can be of use here. She happens to know that there is an eternal flame burning in front of the Iwo Jima memorial in New Britain, Connecticut. By playing this card, she can get Queeblek B'yyy to beam the napalm-soaked Tony out of the parking lot and drop him right onto the burning flame, which should ignite his body.
The other players quickly agree that this sounds like a good plan, assigning it a difficulty of 2. (Queeblek, after all, is a professional, and Tony is out in the open.) Annie moves the ANIMAL card to the budget row, and replaces it with the FLYING SAUCER RIDE card.
She rolls a 6! Queeblek comes through! And just like that, Tony is eliminated. Quickly, Annie rolls for the Aftermath.
The roll is 3: "Flee the scene." Ben draws a Gift Card: 3 LETTERS LONG. Carla suggests that they drive away in a VAN. They determine this has a difficulty of 3 – it's good, but not completely foolproof – and roll.
They roll a 2! They got a bad van. It broke down! A failure! Before they can roll any more, the timer runs out. Nuts! No bonus cards were earned this round.
The Game Ends
When one of the following things happens:
You run out of cards. If at any time you run out of both Gift Cards and Specialists before all four targets are dead, you lose.
You fail to kill a target before the timer runs out. You have failed to accomplish what you were hired to do. However, take heart: if you choose to play this exact mission again, you'll still draw all-new Death Cards for each target. So it might be easier on the next go, or it might be harder! Just like life.
You successfully kill all four targets. Hooray! You won! You have conquered this mission. Nice work! Try another?
But with a successful kill, as well as the ANIMAL card now ready and waiting in their budget, the assassins move on to their next target, and the world is better for the elimination of Tony Needlemayer, probably.
Gamemaster Variant
Chief Mode (3-5 players)
In this mode, one player isn't an assassin, but instead sits aside to play the role of the Chief, narrating the story as it unfolds.
The Chief is the one who decides the difficulty of each action that the assassins come up with. He or she can ask clarification questions, make suggestions, and then lays down a ruling for each action. The assassins can consult the Chief as much as they like in the planning phase to determine their most likely plan.
Whenever any action succeeds or fails, the Chief explains exactly what happened and why. The Chief also narrates the behavior of the target in a logical way, describing if he or she changes locations, takes some action to defend him or herself, or if the assassins' actions have altered the enviroment in any way that may affect the team's plan.
Future rounds in the same game may, at the Chief's discretion, go on to share narrative continuity with the previous rounds, with the consequences of previous plans continuing to affect future targets and future plans.
The Chief is the authority on any questions regarding the targets, their circumstances and environments, any item or Gift Card, or any other question that might arise. The Chief should strive to be impartial, to assign each action's difficulty fairly, and to fill the world with interesting storytelling details.
The role of the Chief may stay consistent throughout the entire game, or it can rotate to a new player with each new target – whichever you prefer.
Another Game to Play
Psychopath (4-6 players)
Psychopath is a card-connecting game similar to Apples to Apples.
Every player is dealt 5 Death Cards. You are all homicidal psychopaths, and each card represents a hostage you have taken.
Each turn, a player takes on the role of the Killer. (Start with the dealer, and move clockwise each turn.) The Killer draws a Gift Card, and uses it to declare a "weapon" that he or she will use on a murderous rampage. For example: the ANIMAL card might prompt the suggestion "Hungry lion", or SOMETHING BLACK might prompt "Black ice on a frozen highway". Anything...dangerous.
The other players then each choose a hostage that is most likely to be killed in that scenario. The goal is to have your hostage killed – so you want to choose the one whose prediction best matches the weapon currently being waved around by the Killer, or the deadly circumstance the Killer has crafted.
Each player places a hostage (death card) face-down in the center of the table. The Killer mixes up and turns over the cards. Then, the Killer chooses which hostage is most likely to die in their proposed scenario (using whatever criteria he or she likes). Lobbying by other players is allowed.
Once the Killer chooses a hostage (and, presumably, kills them), their card is awarded back to that player as a trophy. The other cards (the hostages that were spared) are discarded; players draw to replenish their hands; and the role of Killer moves to the left. The winner is the first player to have 5 hostages killed.
If the draw deck runs out before the game ends, shuffle and use the discard pile.
Target Intel Tables
Select at random, or change the blue text to create your own!
| Name 1 | Name 2 | Intel 1 | Intel 2 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Marcia | "the Champ" | Loves eating candied squid | Allergic to oranges |
| Dr. Skye | Mistletoe | Ostrich groomer | Hates kids' birthday parties |
| Muttle | McMunger | Can see through walls | Terrified of open spaces |
| Seymour | Lazarus | Skeet shooting enthusiast | Believes everything he reads |
| Reza | Ishimura Jr. | Loves doing laundry | One leg is 18 inches shorter |
| Norwood S. | Belldinger |
Coordinates
- At a baby shower in Grandma's backyard
- In line at the bank
- The bad part of town at night
- Trapped in an office elevator
- On top of the Eiffel Tower
- Adrift on the ocean in a rowboat
- Mount Everest base camp
- Underground in a stopped subway car
- Bicycling on a winding mountain road
- Walking the floor of a car factory
- Trapped in a crab net in a boxcar
- Asleep on a transatlantic flight
- Hiding under Mom's bed
- Camping in a remote ice cave
- Driving a tank through downtown
- In a police holding cell
- Lying in a hot tub at a fancy spa
- In a capsule at the center of the earth
- Strapped into an electric chair in jail
- On the moon
Generate your own
- Hobby: a sport / artform or craft / involving animals / something competitive / involving something mechanical / something most people hate doing
- Physical trait: a heightened ability / particular stature or body type / a prosthetic or implant / a learned physical skill
- Experience or indulgence they will never turn down • Sexual fetish • Favorite food
- Phobia of: a type of animal / something invisible / something absurd / something naturally occurring
- Allergy to: something environmental / a food / an animal / a synthetic substance
- Aversion to a social situation of some kind • A secret shame • An illness or condition • An irrational hatred of something specific
- In or at a place: that was built over 100 years ago / people have died in / that often has many people in it / where there are animals / where nothing bad could ever happen
- In or on a vehicle that: flies / requires multiple people to control / only holds one person / goes fast / existed 100 years ago
- A place that starts with a random letter of the alphabet
Sample Missions
Each mission is four targets linked in a narrative. The mission text is printed with its targets; the Death Cards for each target come with the game.
Mission: The Great Heist
You've been sent by the Chief after low-level hood Tim Ellis, who's crossed the wrong people in some real estate shenanigans. Should be a walk in the park; Ellis is known around town for being easy to startle. He rides an electric skateboard, so you follow him on your own electric skateboard to a suspicious-looking warehouse. After taking a call, Ellis nervously loiters outside on the sidewalk, riding his skateboard back and forth in front of the warehouse door.
This looks suspicious, but it's none of your business. You're here to whack Ellis and get out. Ellis is terrified of needles, but fascinated by butterflies and bubbles. Without his skateboard, he is a poor runner.
Target: Tim Ellis
The commotion has alerted someone inside the warehouse. Known criminal Alex Twiston-Davies pokes his head out and pops off a few shots in your direction. Now it's personal! You give chase as Alex ducks back into the warehouse.
The warehouse turns out to be full of big-screen televisions. You must have interrupted a heist in progress! Alex is in here somewhere, hiding. You happen to know that he is an avid baker, and can't resist trying new types of baked goods. He enjoys playing the ukulele, but nobody ever asks him to. He is also highly allergic to wool – it makes him bleed from the nearest orifice.
Target: Alex T Davies
A sudden sound startles you. Running through the warehouse, you find a hole blasted through the floor. You descend a ladder and find yourself in an underground tunnel. These thieves are after something far bigger than televisions! You follow the tunnel into a concrete bunker. From up ahead come a series of sinister clicks.
Rounding the corner, you find that master safecracker Andrew Quinton has just managed to open a giant vault. With a cackle of glee, he reaches in and pulls out the original Magna Carta. "It's mine!" he says. "Mine!"
Quinton has unruly hair and loves cashews. He hates spiders and elephants, and will vomit at the slightest hint of cilantro. You must not destroy the Magna Carta.
Target: Andrew Quinton
Before the dust has even settled, the door bursts open and there before you is infamous mob boss Norm Walsh. Taking in the carnage, he takes two purposeful strides and snatches the Magna Carta. "This is bigger than you can even imagine," he hisses at you. "When I destroy this, I destroy Western civilization! I'll show you all!"
Before you can react, he's turned and disappeared again. You race through the door and follow him up several flights onto the roof of the warehouse. Walsh already has his Zippo out, flickering in the wind. If he burns the document, the foundations of our entire society will crumble!
Walsh loves puzzles, but hates crowds. He's fascinated by squirrels and, as a child, wanted to be a traffic cop.
Target: Boss Walsh
Can you save the Magna Carta?
Mission: Urban Planners Worldwide
Ever wonder why parking is such a hassle in the big city? Blame Shaun Peoples. He's the parking commissioner for Urban Planners Worldwide – a "nonpartisan advocacy group" that's really a front for an oil conglomerate. The more circling you have to do to find a spot (as you're attempting now, on the street outside his office building), the more gas you burn, and oil companies rake in the profits.
Shaun is a fast talker and always wears a tie. Find him after hours in his penthouse office. Shaun loves auto racing (of course) and college football. A former military explosives technician, Shaun will be tough to scare, but he is in fact deathly afraid of termites.
Target: Shaun Peoples
You discover in Shaun's office that Urban Planners Worldwide is plotting something even more diabolical than the parking plot: refining crude oil into a dietary additive to spike world demand. The head scientist of this effort is Randy Miller, the only one who knows how this could even be accomplished. Miller wants to add crude oil to baby formula. He must be stopped at all costs.
Miller is scientifically savvy and wears flip-flops. Find him in a remote greenhouse high in the mountains. When not working, he plays the bluegrass fiddle. Miller is highly allergic to apple cider.
Target: Randy Miller
Your snooping around the UPW greenhouse has raised the attention of some very unpleasant people. UPW higher-ups have now dispatched their top assassin, Ribcage Jill, to clean up the mess. Your only hope is to eliminate Jill before she has a chance to fight. You know she's coming, so you have an element of surprise.
Ribcage Jill is approaching the greenhouse in a high-tech helicopter. She's also equipped with a jetpack in case she has to bail out. When she's not working, she loves pancakes and swing music, but really hates birthday cake.
Target: Ribcage Jill
Finally, it's time to go to the top of UPW and dispatch the man in charge of the whole operation: Colonel Chris Dragonovich Whetstone. Whetstone oversees UPW business from an orbiting space station outfitted with the highest-tech surveillance equipment. While the station itself is defenseless, Whetstone wears power armor that can sustain him in space for up to 30 minutes, as well as fire laser blasts.
You are on Earth and must reach the space station. Col. Whetstone is a yachting champ and hates bagpipe music. He cannot control the station's flight.
Target: Col. Whetstone
Can you free us from the UPW?
Mission: Justice in the West
It is the Old West. You are a simple farmer, but luckily you have access to Black Market Gift Cards from the modern era. While your environment and surroundings contain only items from the 19th century, your Gift Cards can time travel and can get you items from the 21st century.
You arrive home to find your farmhouse burned, your livestock slaughtered, and your family missing. Enraged, you burst into the ashy ruins of your home to find, sitting coolly in a rocking chair waiting for you, Tom Quinn. You don't know if he did this, but he was surely involved.
Tom likes line dancing and has a weakness for fancy pocketwatches. He fancies himself a fighter, but gets winded easily. You know that his mother hates him.
Target: Tom Quinn
Before he passed, Quinn choked out one name: John Ness. Your blood runs cold. Sheriff Ness is the law in Belcher's Gulch, and he's given you trouble for years. The last thing you need is a tangle with him. But as a cool rain begins to fall, you know your path is clear. You saddle your horse and ride into Belcher's Gulch.
You find Ness in the saloon, roughing up a few drunks. As soon as he sees you, he smirks. "Shoulda sold that land while you could," he spits. "You know there's a price on your fat ol' head?" This is about to turn ugly.
Ness loves playing chess and hates scorpions. He is very pompous and considers himself extremely handsome. He is a diabetic.
Target: Sheriff Ness
With the sheriff dispatched, the saloon patrons suddenly become forthcoming with information. Soon you are riding hard into Creeper's Canyon, where you find a good trail and recent tracks. Quinn was known to run with a gang of outlaws led by Malcolm Walker, a two-bit rustler with a sociopathic streak. He lit the match.
As night falls, you find their camp. One by one, the outlaws fall asleep, until only Walker is left awake. He has your family captive in a wagon. You need to take him out, and you need to do it now.
Walker has a low tolerance for alcohol, and gets a severe rash when exposed to seafood. When he's not burning down farmhouses, he likes repairing bicycles.
Target: Malcolm Walker
You knew it would come to this eventually. You have long rebuffed offers to buy your land from developers of the Trans-National Canal Line, an attempt to compete with the railroad by digging a continent-wide canal. But the governor, the Hon. Jarrod Lombardo, has no intention of waiting for peons like you to decide to sell before he can start raking in development money for his state. He ordered the arson, and was ready to blackmail you with your family's lives. Until you changed the plan.
Kissing your family and urging them to stay safe, you ride for the governor's mansion. Lombardo likes experimental cooking and fancy brass gearworks. He is severely nearsighted and is terrified of horses.
Target: Gov. Lombardo
Can you stop the canal?????????