fires of ra extended review notes

 

At this point I have to raise the same complaint that I did in my godbox review.. the surprising lack of maps available to the GM and players for an adventure of this length and scope.. a battlemap of the museum would have been very useful especially when the hooded cobra and his minions burst in and attack the PC's set on obtaining the same item the PC's are after.. I would modify the existing description in the adventure, adding "your goal is on the second, lower floor of the adventure.. but first you have to get past the "chokepoint" of sensors and guards in the hallway leading to that second floor where the, presumably, very rare and precious items are kept... for players who (justifiably) want a map of this scene you'll have to break the news to them that there is no such map.. 

...see also my thoughts in the godbox review on how some GM's and players may not want or require maps versus the GM's and players who would enjoy such a thing and the benefits of online gaming in terms of leveraging one's computers to display maps you can find online.. for example if you Google " modern museum map rpg" you'll come up with a number of museum type maps - reddit in particular is a good source for this sort of thing (and once again see my godbox review on how reddit has come a long way from being blacklisted as a haven for bigots in case you're like me and hesitant to go on the website as a result ...happy to report  I didn't encounter a single bigoted comment looking at maps on the website).     In particular if you Google "reddit royal museum battlemap afternoon maps" you should come up with what I thought was a particularly excellent map the OP made free for use.. or if you Google "deviantart tomasreichmann Museum-first-floor-RPG-map " this will also turn up a map one might argue is even better given the presence of Egyptian style sphinx's and sarcophagi.. here are the links below that will hopefully work if not you have the Google search terms above

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmaps/comments/cs0mbp/royal_museum_battle_map_30x30/

https://www.deviantart.com/tomasreichmann/art/Museum-first-floor-RPG-map-494991840

worth noting that when you copy and paste the search terms for Google do not include the quotation marks " "  or this will result in Google not turning anything at all up for you.

Of course neither of these maps nor any others you find online will feature the hole in the wall that was created by the bad guys.. see my godbox review for my thoughts on irfanview and how this free download can be used to paint a clumsy black rectangle or blob or what have you over the part of the wall that was blown inwards... it's definitely worth pointing out to the players that the PCs don't yet know exactly what it is they're looking for, only that they need to stop Mobius's agents from getting it.. and this is where the first of many challenges pops up.. what happens if the PC's get their hands on the item before the Hooded Cobra (pulp villain and leader of the shock troopers the PC's are facing off against right now) does?

A few thoughts come to mind... increase the number of shocktroopers to say five per storm knight instead of the two listed, allowing the Hooded Cobra to effectively pin the PC's down with his minion's superior firepower.. although bear in mind that true Nile Empire style a PC may defy certain death and run past the hail of gunfire to grapple with the Hooded Cobra and wrest the item away from him... in a situation like this I would have the seemingly triumphant PC's start to let's say beat a fighting retreat (or if you stay with the 2 shocktroopers per storm knight the adventure recommends stay put and fight .. perhaps not the best idea, point out to the players that they're in a museum in Venice, Italy and the alarms going off thanks to the hooded cobra's violent entry... could summon hapless police officers who could be easily gunned down in the crossfire between the nile empire shocktroopers and the PC's or simply murdered by the shocktroopers ) the Hooded Cobra  whips out some obviously outlandish looking weird science contraption that hums as he points it at the PC holding the device.. and the device vanishes to appear in the Hooded Cobra's hands as he shrieks triumphantly " The genius of Dr. Mobius's weird science triumphs once again you witless fools!  Hail pharaoh Mobius !  Hail the Nile Empire!".. 

...the adventure makes it clear by the way the Hooded Cobra secretly hates Mobius and wants to replace him as the new high lord and ruler of the Nile Empire but of course the Hooded Cobra would feel there's nothing wrong with at least giving the appearance he's a loyal servant of Mobius in order to lower Mobius's guard when the time comes.. at that point I would have still more shocktroopers (2 more per storm knight let's say, more than that if necessary) rush in and form a literal wall of bodies between the PC's if necessary allowing the Hooded Cobra to make his mistake.. and then in true cinematic fashion the PC's should see a flash of red and blue energy around the shocktroopers followed by their clothes changing to that of soldiers bearing the emblem of the Italian flag, staring at each other and speaking in confused tones in Italian.. inform the players that every single one of them just disconnected and transformed to core earth reality and what's more appear to have lost their memories.. except for some that wail and disintegrate into dust, hapless transformed former core earthers who didn't survive the second transformation as per the torg eternity core rules information (note that if you go this route you will have to declare still more stormtroopers were waiting outside in their own boats to help the Hooded Cobra out in the PC's boat chase against the Cobra, see below)    This nonetheless leaves the PC's free to chase the Hooded Cobra as the adventure states - only to observe  (should they catch up to him) the Hooded Cobra howling in outrage as he opens the jar, discovers it to be empty (lest the players wonder how they could spot the jar being empty from a distance in the boat chase I would have the Hooded Cobra scream so loudly it's impossible not to hear him " Empty!  The damn thing is EMPTY!" and hurl the jar at the PC's boat in frustration.. I would have it miraculously land in one piece on the floor of the boat and, as the PC's will discover upon examination later on, it is in fact empty.

It's worth noting that the GM will want to review and even take notes on the chase scene rules in the torg eternity core rulebook .. or if the GM finds them to be too complex the GM can simply "wing it" and simply call for water vehicle skill checks from PC's and bad guys alike and narrate what happens as a result of said checks..  the GM should run this by the players first to make sure they're okay with the GM abandoning the rules even if the GM explains s/he explains  they might be complex enough to slow the game down and make it not as fun.. alternately GM's who have the time can literally run their copies of the PC's character sheets and the stats for the boats and the stats for the villains through a "mock combat" prior to running the "real thing" to get a better idea of how the rules work and make things flow more smoothly during the actual game session.. also worth noting page 170 of the torg core rulebook has the stats for the motorboats that both the PC's and the bad guys will be using though I'm a bit surprised that the writers didn't mention specifically that this could be found in the torg core rulebook.

as a side note I loved the critical problem result that can arise from the drama deck where a sluice gate closes after the Hooded Cobra makes his way through it and the PC's boat has to make a successful water vehicles test to use a nearby boat ramp to launch the boat over the gate in true cinematic fashion .. I'd be tempted to declare that this happens even if the drama deck doesn't declare a critical problem for the sheer enjoyment factor for the players - hopefully they've been getting into the spirit of the nile empire between hamming it up in their role playing (exchanging insults with the easily angered Hooded Cobra during the firefight in the museum and heroically declaring he'll never win as long as the PC's are around, taking risky dramatic actions and so forth) and have by now been awarded with the extra possibilities I recommended to make this jump more likely to succeed.

Once again no battle map has been provided.. the best map I could find online .. and the pickings when you do a search for say " canal map rpg " or "canal map rpg reddit" are meager... was a map thoughtfully provided by scalpelarts .. if you do a Google search for "scalpelarts dungeons and dragons canal city battle map reddit" (leave out the quotation " " marks when you copy and paste those search terms though or Google won't be of any help to you) it should pop up a map that scalpelarts has thoughtfully provided free of charge... but even this map will require some work on the GM's part through the clone feature in the paint dialogue box in irfanview (zooming in on the appropriate parts of the map before using the clone feature should do it)... a GM can clumsily replace bridges that would otherwise block the chase in the map with water, it won't look pretty but it should do the job.. the numerous boats blocking the path of the high speed boat chase will also have to be clone-replaced by water as well.  I've  been using infanview for over a decade now (free download) with no problems, no spyware or anything like that that's ever been packaged with it.   Here's the links to that map and to irfanview that will hopefully work for you

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/pvp22r/canal_city_battle_map_30x30/

https://www.irfanview.com/

The adventure also assumes that the Hooded Cobra will succeed in jumping onto the rope ladder that his ally, other pulp villain Lady Hourglass, lowers for the Cobra to jump on and escape.. PC's may want to jump right onto the rope ladder to pursue the Cobra regardless and the GM should be prepared for the resulting fight scene .. one way to handle this is to invoke the law of action and the law of drama including the law of inevitable return... declare that the rope ladder frays and falls apart obviously not built for the weight of two people let alone two fighting people, allow the PC the necessary skill rolls to land on a boat or catch hold of a boat as it zooms past and have the PC's watch as the Hooded Cobra gets sucked down in an eddy of water, a type of miniature whirlpool that has formed naturally for whatever reasons at that canal, screaming in rage as he seemingly drowns.. only to reappear later on cackling at the PC's with his triumphant tale of how his weird science water breathing device allowed him to survive until he hit bottom.. miraculously surviving the impact he swam through the gaps in the submerged parts of the buildings of the Venice canal eventually finding a way where he could make his way to the surface.

The players will have to be reminded next of part two of their Delphi council contact's instructions.. go to a specific bar in Cairo ...meaning they need to go into the Nile Empire conquered/dominant part of Egypt ... which could give pause to the players of say elves, dwarves, edeinos or PC's with cyberware given the constant presence of nile empire shocktroopers ... again this is where the nile empire sourcebook comes in handy.. I would review with the players the description of Cairo pages 60-61 particularly the parts about how it's a city of nine million people and while many of them are loyal to Mobius thanks to the axiom wash as the Nile Empire overlaid earth's reality, the sheer number of people in the city makes it easy to hide in the masses.. as well I would mention to the players that their Delphi contact they met earlier took note of PC's with an obviously "overt" appearance (elves, dwarves, edeinos, PC's sporting obvious cyberware and so forth), equipped them with robes similar to what many Egyptian residents wear and in addition to what he mentioned above the Delphi agent also advised them that the shocktroopers in Cairo are shockingly undisciplined, less skilled, often sent to Cairo as a punishment, mob war between gangs erupts frequently and openly on the streets and most surprisingly the governor of Cairo - servant to Mobius the Insidious Wu Han - seems to turn a blind eye to all of this as do his stormtroopers unless the chaos that erupts is so obvious and widespread that Wu Han has to sent the shocktroopers in to at least give some kind of appearance of law and order - so a fight between say hundreds of people in two mobs against each other would be ignored but even something as brazen as an armed gunfight between say twenty combatants total in a gang war is ignored even if innocents get killed in the crossfire - the mobsters aren't noted for their compassion and apparently neither is Wu Han.. in other words, says the Delphi agent reassuringly, as long as the PC's try to keep a low profile it's unlikely that they will be immediately overwhelmed and even when the PCs get into the inevitable fight all storm knights do (the Delphi agent smiles as he says this going on to clarify it's the unavoidable " good fight, against the invaders, on behalf of earth's people - the unavoidable fight) even then he predicts as long as the PC's promptly try to get away and vanish into the masses after that they should be relatively safe.

If I was the GM I would look up say a YouTube compilation of jazz music and set it as background music at the gaming table if you're having a live gaming session .. as far as online gamers my Google research shows that it is possible both on skype and on discord to stream music as the background to a conversation though you'll probably want to set the volume low so the players can hear each other and the GM... as far as discord I came up with this bit of advice

"There's some light panic in the sub lately from what I understand to be one of the most popular music bots being broken. While I used a bot myself in the past, I stumbled onto a much simpler solution - discord steaming feature.

What you do is you open your music app or web page of choice, and you start to listen to music as you would if you were just listening alone. Then you open discord and start a stream, choosing to stream only that window at high sound quality and low video quality & framerate. You then tell each player to join the stream and voila - everyone hears what music you want them to hear, in sync, without fiddling with programming-adjacency of using coded bots. I've done this for two years now, and there was rarely any problem with this solution."

Of course when the PC's get to the "gin joint" they've been told to find the intrepid reporter at who can help them get to the next part of the adventure, they are told by the mobsters at the gin joint (also a jazz club) that the reporter has been kidnapped by an evil weird scientist seeking revenge on the reporter .. of course a fight breaks out in the gin joint between the mobsters and a different rival gang of mobsters that burst inside.. once again no battlemap is provided but a Google search for "bar map rpg" or "nightclub map rpg" should turn up some suitable maps.. the one I liked most should pop up if you do a Google search for the words " davidnashart seedy tavern bar rpg map pinterest " (if you do a Google search for "davidnashart blogspot " you will come across his blog where he has kindly posted a variety of maps and illustrations  he's done for different organizations over the years)...

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/223491200247274103/

http://davidnashart.blogspot.com/2015/

if that one's too small for you here's a bigger one .. Google search " Kandru1L reddit the club map "  if the link below does not work

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/jvwb7n/the_club/

 while stats are given for the mob boss and the enemy mob (the Hajjar enforcers) there's an oversight in that the writers don't mention that stats for the mob boss's goons are given on page 110 of this book ... I do love the fact that the PC's have a chance to shine and show themselves to be the heroes that they are in terms of getting the stampeding panicked - and possibly trapped by gunfire - guests at the club to safety .. as well as accounting for what happens if the PC's actually try to help the mob boss against his opponents despite the fact that the mob boss told the PC's where they could find the hapless reporter laughing cruelly at the fact that she's "hanging out” at the Cairo Tower restaurant, “having a blast”  as the adventure puts it... though it's possible the PC's after getting the guests to safety (which they hopefully do!  

Any PC's who just start shooting should have a missed shot come perilously close to a hapless customer trapped by the gunfire who hollers in fear... bear in mind the world law of morality too detailed in the nile empire sourcebook, the PC should be flat out told that while his/her mind is still her own she's overwhelmed by a terrible sense of guilt over not making any efforts to get the club goers to safety first, a guilt that should echo in any PC's mind who's not doing the same - the GM should immediately follow this by referring the players to pages 84-85 and quoting from the rules listed there if necessary, reminding the players that reality itself is different and changes drastically from invaded cosm to invaded cosm within earth.. and in this reality the heroes, which is a category the PC's are automatically considered to fall into, are expected to follow the higher code of morality found in four color pulp comics of the 1930's to 1940's... 

....of course the players could just ignore this and go on shooting at mob goons from both sides not caring in the slightest who gets caught in the crossfire - as opposed to say getting in between a group of customers and a goon and shouting " RUN " while drawing the goon's fire shooting at the goon ( or simply braving the storm of fire, running to a customer and shooing them out of the club if the PC's don't think of the first option) ... at this point I would give any missed shot on the PC's or the mob goon's part a 25 percent chance (a result of say 1 to 5 on the d20 die used in torg eternity) of hitting a hapless customer  or you could just follow the firing into melee rules on page 123 of the torg core rules book and on an odd (1, 3, and so on) die roll compare the attack total to the selected target's dodge (assume the hapless customer has no dodge skill adds and the typical dexterity score of 6 - very easy to hit) ... if the shot that hit a hapless customer comes from a PC.. well this is where the pay what you want GM's screen and the archetypes presented there come in ... use the nile empire heroes from there as PC enemies who grimly show up right when the PC's right after a battle with the bad guys (it's entirely possible the PC's have already taken damage from the bad guys) - and attack the PC's with non lethal force ordering them to surrender, specifically mentioning the hapless innocent(s) they killed in the club (assume word gets around quickly) and retreating if the fight goes against them ... then a different group of nile empire heroes shows up later on right after another bad guy fight, once again attacking with non lethal force and have this continue until the PC's express some sort of promise to "not do it again"... I would also have the Delphi council in any cosm severely chew the PC's out and warn them that behavior like this will not be tolerated in the future.

Of course this has every possibility of starting an indignant player rebellion and arguments about morality .. see my review of the godbox (specifically the blog post in there) for some thoughts on what to do with players in a situation like this but , briefly, refer the players to page 183 of the torg eternity core rules "protect the innocent" as far as the storm knights role (that is the PC's) in the possibility wars and page 181 which mentions the PC's transcended during a moment of crisis where they made a strong moral choice to "support the good"... accept long drawn arguments about exactly what morality is, this is war and sacrifices have to be made and so forth then patiently explain that the writers of these adventures envisioned PC's with a higher level of morality than the PC's are currently displaying and it will become impossible to run this, or any future torg adventures even ones set outside the nile empire, if the players continue on the path they have chosen... as a GM I would due my due diligence and warn players of this sort of thing during character creation and also warn them this can, and will, involve the PC's endangering themselves for the common good - saving innocents even if it's at serious threat to the PC's lives and/or stops the PC's from accomplishing a mission goal in the adventure or otherwise puts them at a disadvantage, not murdering captured enemies even the vilest of them, not killing hapless mind controlled NPC's forced to attack the PC's even if the mind controlled NPC is trying to kill the PC.. cite these as specific examples to the players and emphasize even before starting your torg eternity campaign that if they can't do that then the adventures you're going to run simply will not work effectively bringing the campaign to an end.   Hopefully you're not faced with morally grey players like these.... 

....although, a GM who is good at improvising on the fly and who likes the idea of morally grey characters who barely bother with morality at all (making them enemies of the Delphi council to boot) could run a torg eternity campaign that way making the PC's stormers (not storm knights) who simply want to fight the invaders for their own reasons ... but such a GM will have a LOT of work to do and will have to be very good at coming up with stuff on the spur of the moment when such players do something completely opposite to what the writers of the published torg adventures were expecting... the GM will also probably have to modify the rules of corruption in orrosh such that PC's can still maintain control of their PC's who will undoubtedly turn into monsters (no doubt to the delight of players who enjoy morally grey PC's in the first place) if the GM wants to run a morally grey Torg campaign... personally not my cup of tea and as a player I've been known to leave gaming groups where I discover all the other PC's are murder hobos so if you have more conscientious players in your group be prepared for them to stop having fun and leave your gaming group.

Putting aside arguments with players on morality that you hopefully will not need to have.. on the one hand, I absolutely loved the damsel in distress scene that follows given that it truly captures the spirit of the nile empire with it's four color pulp comics influence... sure enough the reporter has been strapped to the spire of a very tall building, dynamite strapped to her on top of that, and the evil weird scientist she made an enemy of is flying around in (of course) his jetpack with his robot servants who fire on the PC's and of course the whole thing is an elaborate death trap which can be triggered if the rotating sky-view restaurant on top of the building (which the spire in turn is on top of) completes it's rotation forcing the PC's into a dramatic skill resolution check (the writers do make it clear that the wire leading from the dynamite can easily be spotted trailing to something down below) amidst the winding gears that let the restaurant rotate in order to defuse the dynamite-bomb.. sadly there is no battle map provided for this fight which would have been great and a Google search won't do you much good given the specific nature of the map- it takes place on a round circular area, the roof of the rotating restaurant presumably, and there's a spire on top too so you  will have to explain to players (who might be disappointed and/or annoyed over this) that no map was provided and you couldn't find one online .. GM's who have the time and have purchased software like say dungeondraft could make their own map - if someone does so please leave a link to it on a comment for the fires of ra here on drivethru rpg..

I do like how the writers also account for the possibility of the PC

s ignoring this completely and just trying to rescue the hapless reporter first - of course there's a big explosion, the reporter and restaurant patrons alike in the restaurant die and the hapless reporter's editor seeks the PC's out to impart the information that leads to the next part of the story ..  ..

... on the other hand the pro-feminist part of me winces a bit at this trope - while it's absolutely a tried and true staple of pulp comics it also reinforces the women-are-second-class-citizens-who-need-to-be-rescued trope that was also a staple of such comics at the time and I find myself tempted to gender swap the reporter to a male and make him a potential love interest for interested PC's whether male or female..... I looked it up, apparently Shaf can also be used as a male name and can mean among other things independent, fearless, investigative in Arabic ... there are conflicting opinions as to what "shafira" (the reporter's name as given in the written adventure) but "distinguished" "kind" and "courageous" is a common Google search result.

Talking about names in turn makes me think of pictures of the NPC's the characters encounter... a Google search for "Egyptian woman professional stock photo" will turn up a wide variety of photos .. it's no coincidence that the majority of photos involve a head covering and GM's like me who were ignorant of this at first and are tempted to look for a "bare headed" photo because we assume in our ignorance that's how Egyptian women dress should look to the illustration on page 59 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook where both men and women are depicted as having head coverings... as I mentioned in the godbox review I would go so far as to use one's computer to take a screenshot of the appropriate page in the pdf (or if you have the printed book version just take a picture with your phone or scan it if you're fortunate enough to have a scanner), crop the screenshot in the paint program inherent to windows and then present this to the players when they first enter Cairo... also loved the illustration of hooded cobra and his fellow pulp villains lady hourglass and Brick Knuckle Branko which absolutely should be shared with the players.. 

However there are not illustrations for several (although the writers have been great about including pictures of all the pulp villains the PC's fight) of the NPC's which is more than understandable most prepublished adventures fall into this category whether torg or otherwise.. however this is where torg being set in an alternate "real life" version of earth since as mentioned above you can use Google to turn up pictures for the players to look at... this is something that didn't occur to me in the godbox review I wrote but the GM might prefer rather than using photos of real life people to use the search terms "Egyptian woman professional artwork portrait" which turns up some great results that look more like a drawn illustration like the torg artwork that appears in the books.. hopefully the link below works.. it's a drawing of the Egyptian actress faten hamama which I thought might serve as one possible illustration of shafira

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/662099582687499271/

or for a wider variety of illustrations see

https://www.pinterest.com/a_r_010/egyptian-women/

or another one from that selection that I think might work for sharina

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/662099582687499279/

personally I would ignore the illustration of sharira provided in the fires of ra sourcebook since it's simply a cropped version of a picture reused for various storm knight women of ethnic origins that pops up at various times in different torg publications

as far as a picture of the mafia boss ..that was much harder to turn up given how specific the description is (scarred and wearing a pinstripe suit).. this was the closest I could find but this guy has no scars

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/415105290640678172/

there is no picture provided of the mad scientist who captured the reporter... however given that the adventure describes him as the "stereotypical mad scientist complete with white hair", a Google search for "mad scientist artwork" turns up a large number of images that exactly depict this sort of thing, for example see the link below

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/431853051754159397/

....one interesting concept that occurred to me during the Google search was the idea of gender swapping the mobster boss, forget the scars and use an illustration like this instead while making it clear the mobster boss is just as ruthless as her male counterpart if not more so given that she had to prove herself to the male gangsters beneath her and the other mob bosses - all male - that she does business with (or attacks depending on the situation)... this gives some intriguing possibilities in terms of her taking an interest in women PC's from other cosms and being curious about their situation there and how women are treated in particular... see also the nile empire description of the social axiom pages 79-80 where it mentions that while on the one hand men and women are equal in terms of legality (so at least a woman can say vote, inherit property if her male relatives/husband dies and so forth) there are strictly defined gender roles and women who violate said roles are subject to public ridicule.. which could actually make a gender swapped mob boss someone the PC's can sympathize with.. perhaps she would have under different circumstances gone on to become a successful businesswoman in the nile empire and she felt  this was the only way she could "advance" herself and achieve her goals in life.

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/23432860537634980/

or

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/371687775507226616/

(apologies for the f bomb the enthusiastic poster included in the link above)

I was pleased to see that the writers provided stats for the reporter, Sharifa (and also pleased to see that she is possibility rated which should allow her to say potentially land a hit on a robot servitor of the mad scientist or otherwise help the PC's out should they free her - this comforts me given my discomfort with the damsel in distress trope as I noted above) , in the adventure as well as a writeup of the newspaper she works for and the role it plays in Cairo as far as reporting on the nefarious activities of various villains - which of course earns it the enmity of said villains.   

The writers have provided a map of the next scene that takes place which has the storm knights tracking down their next lead - trying to find canopic jars Mobius has taken an interest in for some reason according to the reporter they just rescued.. and I love the concept of how their next battle takes place inside of a movie production lot complete with "fake" terrain sets of forests, a room in an Egyptian tomb and rooms from inside a house, all depicted on the map and which raises all sorts of possibilities for when bare knuckles Branko and his shocktrooper minions show up to fight the PC's - only to discover in the process that this canopic jar is empty too much like the ones the PC's were after in the Italian museum earlier on.. in the meantime though the shocktroopers can take cover in the "trees" or behind the "sarcophagus" prop and open fire on the PCs hopefully prompting the PC's to take similar action, Branko can lift a hapless storm knight up and toss said PC through the "window" of one of the room sets on the studio and so forth.. interestingly enough if the PC's kill and/or permanently capture Bare Knuckles Branko, this does not derail the rest of the adventure later on so there's no need to use the law of inevitable return for him as opposed to say the Hooded Cobra.   

The PC's find out next that a very famous actor in Nile Empire Cairo is involved.. and that he will be at a posh club... no battle map is provided here which would have been nice given that the hooded cobra and lady hourglass show up to fight the PC's.. one possibility is

https://www.reddit.com/r/cyberpunkred/comments/l0mp56/the_dungeon_night_club_tabletop_simulator_map/

or if you didn't use it earlier for the gin joint where the gang mob battle takes place

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/jvwb7n/the_club/

as far as the jazz singer the hooded cobra takes hostage ... fortunately she's dressed as an Egyptian priestess and there's plenty of artwork available for that sort of thing on Google... deviantart in particular has some great artwork like this one

https://www.deviantart.com/laclillac/art/Ma-at-311640843

which I personally like more than the picture of jazz singer "Cleopatra" that admittedly is presented in the adventure if you want to use that instead.

We are presented here with the classic problem that has faced many a gamesmaster in various RPG's of any sort throughout the ages.. the PC's are asked to surrender their weapons before going into the nightclub where the adventure takes place... knowing full well some situation will undoubtedly erupt where the PC's will need their weapons the players refuse to do so.. fortunately the writers have accounted for this and simply state the PC's miss out on the first round of action once the bad guys storm the club... but what do you do if storm knights intimidate the bouncer at the front of the restaurant or simply shove their way past?   

One would assume a club as posh and swanky as the writers describe it to be has it's own security and while stats are provided for security guards (page 110) PC's who are crass enough to actually start a fight with security guards could provide an unexpected wrinkle in the adventure... I would have the fight progress normally pointing out the rules for non-lethal combat (make sure the security guards use non lethal combat options too like grappling) provided on pages 123 and 125 and see above for suggested consequences as far as PC's crass enough to actually do lethal damage against the security guards (see above as well for strong hints to the players as far as "it feels wrong", reminding them of the law of heroism in the nile empire and so forth)... of course halfway through the fight the bad guys show up and create further problems attacking the PC's ... 

Hopefully a brawl with the security guards doesn't erupt ... the other challenge is the PC's obtaining and wearing high fashion clothing in order to appease the bouncer at the front who insists that the club calls for "proper attire"... in my opinion the GM should allow for PC's who make successful intimidation or persuasion rolls to get past the bouncer in the front ... on the other hand what about players who (hopefully) want to get into the spirit of things and go in dressed in high fashion even if it means no armor or weapons?    

Hopefully the PC's took the heroic route and saved one of the gin joint patrons earlier on ... if they did, while the adventure does call for a streetwise or persuasion test to get a hold of the appropriate fancy outfits at a neighboring shop... which to me as a GM didn't make sense, streetwise possibly but it should take at least a few hours to look through shady street contacts to get clothing like that by which time I would assume the hooded cobra and lady hourglass show up, grab the scepter and leave with the clueless PC's talking to a contact in some back alley far away.. or even with a successful persuasion roll how is that going to convince a shop owner to give away clothing for free?

The GM may be forced to resort to one of these methods anyways if nothing else presents itself but I'd like to suggest an alternative.. the PC's look at the clothing store and see a familiar face - it's one of the gin joint customers the PC's rescued.. the gin joint customer sees the PC's at the same time, smiles, beckons them over and having spotted the PC's in front of the nightclub smiles, suggests that they'll need proper outfits, gives them free formal wear with his or her compliments (turns out the customer is the owner of the shop) and refuses all attempts at payments saying solemnly " You saved my life ... you think my life is worth less than these outfits?  Well sirs and madams I don't value my life that cheaply" and then smiles and gently squeezes a PC's shoulder to make it clear he's joking a bit ... then turns serious " Please it would be my honor.. I'm no hero like you and I won't ask what important business brings you into that club but please.. let me be a part of your heroics in even only the small way a humble shop owner like me can do."   Advise the PC's that this guy (or girl ) has a huge selection of clothing - the shop has a basement and a basement below the basement with lots of extra "stock" he hasn't brought out yet.. and ask the players what their "dream outfit" would be for formal wear bearing in mind it's something that has to match either high fashion of the 1930's to 1940's era or clothing that looks like it's from ancient Egypt except flashy and impressive nobleperson clothing type stuff.. then tell the players after they give their description the person they saved has an outfit just like that.   The person they saved, smiling, even shows them what he calls a "daring" collection of tuxedos for women " There are women who wear these secretly" he confides in a whisper " Why in secrecy I don't know.. maybe one day they will wear them in public."   Of course the shop owner looks confused then delighted if told they ARE wearing them outside of the nile empire (again refer to the social axiom write up in the nile empire sourcebook ... also assume this person is a transformed former core earther who has lost his/her memory of the varied outfits women wear nowadays, "stuck" in the mindset of the nile empire).

Pandemonium breaks out at the club with nile empire shocktrooper barring the doors to the club or otherwise stopping panicked patrons from getting out while Hooded Cobra aka "mister butterfingers" who drops the scepter into the crowd orders his shocktroopers to retrieve it ... I'm surprised the writers didn't bring this up as a possibility but I would remind players of the law of heroism in case not even one of the PC's tries to overcome a shocktrooper barring a door, succeeds, opens the door and shouts  " Everybody out this way !" which of course the panicked customers do immediately (give the PC's a mind roll difficulty 2 and advise them if 2 or 3 doors are opened in this fashion the customers can leave all the more quickly... this is where the maps I mentioned or whatever map the GM finds on his/her own comes in handy for a club  battlemap but of course you should make a note of how many doors there are leading out of the map - in the two story club map I referenced note that the second door involves people fleeing through multiple doors to get to the white tiled area.. to make things easier I would place a stormtrooper at the first door at the red carpeted area that leads to the white tiled area and then not have any stormtroopers at the doors people have to get through after that to get outside of the building).. 

....the GM will have to decide how many rounds it takes for the customers to flee but this is one way of overcoming the dramatic skill resolution that the writers present to the players to get the scepter as it's frantically kicked around by panicked patrons on the floor in the pandemonium that follows the bad guy's arrival.. if you want to go the way the writers envisioned it however I would make a point of the bad guys surprisingly not opening fire on the PC's, being far more concerned with grabbing the scepter.. to make the getaway easier I would have the hooded cobra and lady hourglass drag their captive.. the lounge singer.. towards the nearest door all the while this is taking place albeit waiting to see if a storm trooper grabs the scepter and tosses it to the hooded cobra (the adventure says lady hourglass and one shocktrooper are trying to grab the scepter while the hooded cobra makes his way to the exit.. given that the writers would seem to prefer hooded cobra and lady hourglass show up repeatedly to harass the PC's however I would simply have three shocktroopers trying to get the scepter instead, two troopers replacing the more apt and powerful lady hourglass, while the other shocktroopers as mentioned in the adventure attack the Pc's during the dramatic skill resolution... be prepared for PC's to attack hooded cobra and lady hourglass who of course return fire and flat out declare (after warning players that the hooded cobra is using the lounge singer as a shield) that any missed shot on the hooded cobra hits the lounge singer instead with consequences for the heroes as described above in terms of nile empire heroes coming for the PC's after that... and of course if the PC's haven't bothered to evacuate the panicked club goers as mentioned above give a very good chance they get shot as well in any crossfire that erupts should the PC's open fire.   

The next part of the adventure has the usual drawback in the writers assume the bad guys get away and there's yet another high speed chase after them (or if the PC's get a hold of the scepter the bad guys are chasing the PC's).. but who's to say the PC's don't stop capture or kill the bad guys?   The problem with using the nile empire world law of inevitable return here is there's no river, mountain or other high place (the bad guy drops out of sight) or other immediate explanation to say how the bad guy(s) come back if they're killed... the only possible explanation I can give here is that the bad guys show up AGAIN even after being killed raging about " How you killed my twin brother/sister Cloaked Cobra/Madame Hourglass who was pretending to be me ! " .. which will no doubt provoke player groans or outrage but remind the players once again of the law of inevitable return (which again you should have reviewed with the players at the start of the adventure) and remind them that the GM can at his/her option make this work in favor of the PC's as well in the nile empire.

If the high speed chase through the streets of Cairo does take place, as disappointing as this might be this is one of the few situations where I wouldn't bother Google searching for say " street battle map rpg marketplace" given that the adventure describes the chase taking place through "The chase leads down several alleys, against traffic on a busy Heliopolis boulevard, 

along a sidewalk crowded with pedestrians, and then through the lobby of a fancy hotel.".. which is wonderfully dramatic in true nile empire fashion but it's going to be impossible to find a map on Google that can capture all of that.   If the Hooded Cobra and/or Lady Hourglass are close to death due to PC attacks I would go so far as to have both of them "die" in explosions right before the PC's eyes, of course there's no body.. a stray bullet or other missile weapon from a shocktrooper hits their gas tanks and kills them both ... only to have them triumphantly return cackling about how they survived the fire, were healed by the priests loyal to Mobius and are here for their revenge on the PC's, their unconscious bodies were teleported away thanks to Mobius's weird science teleportation ray as Mobius's scientists have been monitoring Hooded Cobra and Lady Hourglass the entire time, they're now in big trouble with Mobius thanks to the PC's and, add the pulp villains darkly, the PC's are going to pay for that and so forth... as I type this it occurs to me again how important it is that the GM review all the world laws - including the law of inevitable return - for the players prior to starting this adventure and point out that this can benefit PC's as well as NPC foes too given it's entire possible the PC's have "killed" Hooded Cobra many times only to have him keep popping up... let the PC's know that even if it seems impossible to permanently kill a foe in the nile empire you can defeat their schemes and plots - repeatedly if need be - while protecting and serving the greater good.. remind the players of the situations in comic books where villains who appear to be killed - and  heroes for that matter too.. always seem to come back sooner or later - in the nile empire it just happens to be sooner.  It's worth noting that the adventure states Cobra sacrifices Lady Hourglass if necessary to make good his escape and that her capture and/or death does not derail the adventure in the same way say Hooded Cobra's would at this point in the adventure.

Whether they're in possession of the scepter or not... and I did enjoy how the writers prepared the GM for both scenarios with instructions as to make changes to how the next act proceeds if the PC's are very unlucky and the Hooded Cobra makes off with the scepter .. the PC's have intelligence passed on to them from the reporter Shafira's boss which gives them the location of the dig site where Mobius's shocktroopers are after the tomb that the scepter is supposed to open .. and of course if it interests Mobius that means it interests the PCs too in terms of stopping Mobius's plans.. 

I got a chuckle out of the inevitable plane crash that the torg writers seem to love although the plane crash here is different than the one in the Godbox in that in the Godbox (spoiler alert here if you haven't played through the godbox yet) the PC's have more "room to breathe" in that after they defeat the flying dinosaur that took their plane down they have a lot of time to descend the tree the plane is stuck in ... of course in the nile empire "spare leisurely time" runs counter to the frantic pace and mood of the cosm so of course the plane is literally about to crash into the ground forcing the PC's to make successful rolls to deploy their parachutes.. note that the adventure assumes that Shafira the reporter comes along with the PC's and the GM should be prepared for PC's who flat out refuse to bring Shafira on the grounds that she could be held as a hostage or otherwise be a liability to the PC's .. I would review the game mechanics of how tales of glory are spread in order to safely rip out stelae .. say stelae in the nile empire at some point in time... in order to refill the populace with possibility energy so they don't die in a fiery explosion ....the exact page number escapes me but I believe one of the torg books - maybe the core rulebook or the nile empire - mentions a tragic situation where let's say military personnel who didn't check with Quinn Sebastian first successfully uprooted stelae only to watch as the populace that had already been transformed failed to transform again back to core earth reality and fell apart into ash as their possibility energy was sucked out from them.... if you're interested see my suggestions in my blogger link on the godbox review regarding how the players can be run through the various Day One adventures (pay what you want title from Torg Eternity) ending with the PC's who make the "final cut" (the final PC each player selects to run as their "permanent" PC from Day One) are briefed either individually or together by Quinn on the nature of the possibility wars.. high lords, darkness devices, eternity shards, stelae, and the importance above all else of spreading tales of glory lest the citizens they're trying to rescue fall apart into ash and dust.   

But getting back to the reporter situation.. point out to the players that Shafira's reporting on the PC's heroics can help as far as spreading tales of the PC's exploits for when the time comes to remove the stelae.. I would have the reporter become furious, declare that she has handled herself in dangerous situations before (then become even more furious if the PC's point out that they rescued her from a deathtrap not too long ago) and that it's her job to report the news... if her boss is present I would have him look uncomfortable but explain that Shafira has survived many situations like this before, sometimes on her own sometimes with help from heroes like the Storm Knights the Mystery Men pulp heroes of the Nile Empire that is ... and that she understands and accepts the risk to herself.. of course it's possible that even after all that the PC's will still refuse to bring Shafira along.. I would let that happen but also have Shafira's understanding boss describe the contact Shafira has and say that said contact could provide useful equipment (weapons, ammunition) to the PC's if they look him up and give the PC's his location in the city next to the dig site.. I did like how the adventure accounts for the PC's just flat out skipping the meeting with said contact entirely ... though if it was me as a GM I would make a point of mentioning how the contact seeks the PC's out - turns out he's been given a description of the PC's by Shafira (the contact explains a furious Sharifa is present as well having gone to the dig site on her own presumably via a different plane that didn't crash .. Shafira has no intention of following the PC's since they've made their desires very clear on that but the reporter is hoping to get information from the contact and/or second hand information from citizens who gossip about the PC's exploits Shafira can report)... the contact is important in that he betrays the PC's later on tipping the hooded cobra off to the fact that the PC's are present (see below).

The scepter in turn leads to the inevitable deadly pyramid gauntlet of traps that is a staple of both Indiana Jones and (thus ) nile empire action .. I found myself puzzled at the player handout which is supposed to contain clues that let players figure out how to navigate one such trap without setting off the fireball launchers ... even after examining the clues in the handout I still couldn't figure out how to navigate the trap but I could just be clueless in general  :)  ... if the players are stumped too I would just give them four consecutive Mind skill checks (if the PC's are fortunate enough to have an actual archeologist or someone else with a background on Egyptian history - including tombs - as a PC I would set the difficulty number to 4, 12 otherwise) .. and each failed check results in a misstep and of course fireball..  the death trap filling with sand is a classic bit from any deadly pyramid though I personally did not like the fact that step C of the dramatic skill resolution it triggers calls for a spirit check because the writers feel the PC's are scared of the statues and the fact that this part of the tomb is filling up with sand potentially ending the PC's lives.. the players could argue (justifiably) that if this is the case why isn't the GM calling for a spirit check every time the Pc's are in danger?  Also I feel like the last thing you want to do is to tell the PC's how their characters are feeling - based on my experience in the past this NEVER goes over well with the players short of an extreme situation like  supernatural/psionic/some other outside influence fear or mind control and then the player should be given a chance to appropriately role play out their PC's new motivation with the GM taking over only if the player can't bring themselves to do it for some reason .. instead I would tell the players that the statue's eyes' light up and beams of light from them play upon the PC's, showing them visions of others who tried to overcome this death trap and failed, dying in the process .. advise the players the statues are enchanted to create a supernatural fear effect by ancient long dead Egyptian priests .. or wizards perhaps.. and THEN call for the Spirit check.     

Ironically if the PC's fall prey to the sand trap this makes the next part of the adventure easier .. have the PC's test for defeat as the adventure states but then have them wake up having somehow miraculously survived (the hooded cobra gleefully informs them that his people blew a hole in the side of the temple after he got impatient and out came the unconscious PC's before they could die) ... otherwise the next part of the adventure is going to be tricky in that it calls for the PC's being captured something that NEVER goes over well with players... I would have say a hundred stormtroopers with guns surrounding the PC's and in the event the players decide their PC's want to "go down fighting" which is entirely possible I would use the law of inevitable return here.. have the PC's test for defeat as per normal after being "killed" by literally one hundred bullets flying their way.. only to wake up later on with the hooded cobra gleefully declaring that the last bullet that should have killed the PC's just grazed their temple instead..the cobra seems a bit confused at first as to how it is that ALL the PC's had the exact same luck then shrugs and says " Well I've seen things like that happen before to entire groups of meddling do-gooders like you that I've fought before" and remind the players again that the law of inevitable return can work for PC's too not just villains.. if the PC's are sensible enough to surrender .. or even just for the PC's who don't put up a fight and let themselves get captured .. I would award those PC's not one but three possibilities for their troubles as the adventure suggests.   

The PC's are rescued by a nile empire pulp hero whom persons who have read the nile empire sourcebook will be familiar with,  the Raven, who cuts their bonds and arranges a distraction - an explosion (of course) that lets the PC's acquire their own vehicles and potentially a flamethrower and machine guns.. there is of course another high speed chase that once again covers so much varied terrain that a battlemap for it would be impossible so I can see how that would have to be entirely narrative in nature.. though while this adventure has a LOT of chase scenes I do have to say the chase scenes are well written with plenty of helpful suggestions on complication results from the drama deck for PC's and NPC foes alike that truly capture the non stop action frantic pace of the nile empire (or that the GM simply throws in there anyways given the  world law of drama and obstacle piling mentioned on page 82 of the nile empire sourcebook , something else that should be pointed out to the PC's and of course the GM should make sure these obstacles can and do pop up in a way that hampers the bad guys too so the PC's don't feel like they're the only ones facing these challenges) .    Eventually the chase leads the PC's to a train and a suitably dramatic fight on the train with appropriate complications to said fight suggested by the writers and the hooded cobra using the eye as a distraction if need be ...the adventure states that the hooded cobra tosses it off the train but I would go so far as to tell the players they see it land on a very distinctive looking rock formation making it at least possible for the PC's to come back and find it later on .. the problem here is that despite what the writers intended I'm sure the PC's will in fact not dive off the train to go for the eye but rather continue to attack the hooded cobra.. at which point I would have the train go over a bridge and have the cobra jump off the train into the water below that the bridge crosses.

The adventure is a bit puzzling in that the same reporter who insisted on accompanying the PC's now wants to leave them stating she has enough material to write her story despite the fact that the story is clearly ongoing .. I would explain this as the writer looking a bit embarrassed and explaining that she's already got so much material it's going to be challenging to fit it even into a single article and she's found if she makes her column too long in the paper that readers lose interest.. I would have her however practically beg PC's to come back and find her after their adventure is over to let her know what happened so she can write follow up articles (remind the players again of the importance of spreading tales of heroism).

Whether the PC's end up in possession of the eye or not..the Egyptian artifact they hopefully retrieved from the Hooded Cobra (though I do like the fact that the writers have accounted for either possibility, the PC's either getting or not getting a hold of the eye) , the PC's next clue is the location that was given to them by their rescuer the Raven ... by the way her stats can be found in the pay what you want  Death of the Mystery Men title which I would recommend grabbing not only for the illustrations of not only the Raven but many other prominent Mystery Men heroes of the Nile Empire including my favorite the adorable Ensign Egypt as well as their stats .. I wouldn't worry too much about paying less than the suggested price either - remember the pay what you want titles are gateway drugs  :)  presented by the torg eternity team to convince you to pay for say the cosm sourcebooks which you should absolutely pick up for all of the Torg cosms as I've argued above.

I really enjoyed how in true cinematic nile empire style the wooden coin the raven gives the PC's fits into the coin slot at the phone booth they're directed to in Cairo which in turn opens up a secret headquarters and weird science lab slash Delphi council hideout where the PC's meet up with the Raven again as well as Dr. Frest of the Mystery men (the writers assume here that the GM has purchased the Nile Empire cosm sourcebook and direct the GM to provide background info for Frest based off that sourcebook) ... this leads to what comprises the rest of this entire act .. getting a hold of an ancient artifact.. an eternity shard .. that will let the PC's open diplomatic negotiations with the literal Amazon warrior island that has arisen after the Nile Empire axioms spread across the portions of earth that the Nile Empire conquered.  I was disappointed that there was no illustration provided of Frest either in the adventure or the nile empire cosm sourcebook for that matter given how frequently he's mentioned and not even any stats for him even though it's clearly obvious he's really intended to serve more as a plot device than anything else...attempts to find an illustration or artwork of a handsome middle aged man on Google were unsuccessful though there are plenty of real life photos of such although this tends to ruin the "vibe" of the previous pictures of NPC's given that these are all illustrated artwork.   the adventure goes on to offer the PC's one of three weird science use once or use limited number of time items before they burn out and become unusable.. if it was me personally I would have them give the PC's all three gadgets with Frest quietly telling the PC's that's how desperately they need the alliance with the amazons.. I would go so far as to have Frest talk about how thinly stretched the Mystery Men are fighting Mobius's pulp villains and shocktroopers alike across the Nile Empire and more innocents than Frest would like to think about have died at the hands of said shocktroopers and pulp villains (this sets the PC's up for the backstory of the helpful little boy they come across later on) ... " Orphans whose parents are dead.... widows grieving for their lost husbands, now destitute financially... or husbands shattered by the loss of the love of their life, numbly carrying on with their work supporting their children as best as they can but never really whole again... I've lost track of how many there are .. and sure MOBIUS"  Frest's face twists in anger "still has popular support in Egypt that much is clear, thanks to his axiom wash the vast majority of Egyptian citizens are firmly convinced he's their divine pharaoh that will lead them to victory over the rest of the world.. but trust me.. there are many, many people suffering... if we can start harassing Mobius with hostile amazons that will force him to divert more of his pulp villains to fight the amazons.. and trust me from what I've heard the villains will be the ones in trouble after that not the amazons" Frest smiles grimly.. " And then.. with his resources stretched thin on the "home front" of Egypt ... less villains in Egypt means more innocents we can save.. and maybe, just maybe.. overthrowing Mobius and getting your Egypt back to the way it was before the possibility wars started here in your world."   I would flat out tell the PC's that thanks to their talks with the reporter they encountered earlier they are well aware of her quiet stories .. and articles.. about families shattered by the mob wars or pulp villain atrocities, articles that the general public appears to ignore since it  paints their beloved pharaoh in a bad light.. but still, this supports what Frest is saying as well.

Hopefully this entire speech convinces the PC's to give up the eternity shard to the amazons later on ... I would have Frest sound particularly desperate as he pleads with the PC's to please, please promise him they will give the shard to the Amazonian queen.. " I know that it's a life and death struggle for you against Mobius and other high lords for that matter" says Frest.  " I can see how you might be tempted to hang onto the shard for yourself.. but please, we REALLY need the help of the Amazonians here.. you can save so many innocent lives if you do this for us."   

In addition to the weird science gadgets , see also page 51 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook... I would recommend that the Delphi council agent Snowflake also give the PC's the "free to storm knights" as the cosm sourcebook mentions Delphi council nile empire survival kit gifted to PC's operating in the nile empire.. the light sources (flashlight, matches in waterproof container) mentioned in there will be particularly helpful later on when the PC's have to fight a mummy in the dark (see below).. 

This meeting in turn leads the PC's to a city which if I understand correctly is either next to or within a jungle on the Cairo river... there's a boy who comes running up to the PC's who serves as a useful contact and gives bonuses to streetwise or persuasion tests while in said city .. I would personally flesh out his backstory a little more.. make him say 12 years old, and if the PC's ask where his parents is he looks down sadly then gives them his story.. " My dad always said ' Always stand up to bullies, never let them push you around. ' ... so when he saw that guy threatening that old lady ... called himself the ' something cobra ' " .. the boy goes on to give an exact description of the hooded cobra... " My dad stepped out of his shop and said ' You leave that old lady alone!'  .. so the cobra guy laughed and... "  the boy swallows hard tears in his eyes then continues " Shot my dad right in the head.. And my mom.. she screamed, she came running out of the shop with a knife right at the cobra guy, and he laughed and.. and he shot her too.   The Cobra guy kept calling for some person called ' The Shroud ' to show himself ... then this guy in a mask shows up from behind the Cobra and jumped on him, they fought, the Cobra got away... and this Shroud guy came up to me afterwards.. and I couldn't tell because he had his mask on but.. I think he was crying when he said it.. he said he was so sorry he didn't get here sooner, he tried but Mobius's shocktroopers had him pinned down and it took too long for him to get rid of them."  The boy gulps then continues. " So this Shroud guy opened his wallet, gave me his money, said it was all the money he had.. said he was sorry again.. then he disappeared.   I used the money to buy a ticket to this city where my aunt lives.. but when I got here I found out she got eaten by something in the jungle."  The boy lifts his chin defiantly " So I find things to sell like that gear you just gave me .. and I sell them.. and I keep my ears open and I listen.. and eventually when I grow up..I'm going to find that cobra guy.. and I'm going to make him pay."  The boy clenches his fists.   It's entirely possible the PC's might bring the boy with them .. or not knowing the boy would be in danger...if they do hopefully they've made an NPC ally along the way.. maybe Magdha or Scarlett and her family from the Godbox adventure if the PC's have played through that already.. who can adopt the boy.. an alternate possibility is the PC's adopt the boy themselves leading to a hodgepodge of training from various PC's that turns the boy into a potent fighting force later on (perhaps the GM can even work a vision of the future into the PC's lives where the boy is grown up and an agent of the Delphi Council .. even if the high lords have been driven from Earth at that point in the vision maybe there are "leftover" reality rated bad guys dotted throughout Earth the Delphi Council still has to track down and deal with and the boy is one of their top agents).   On the other hand in the pulp comics teenage sidekicks are not uncommon... maybe the vision is two years into the future and a now 14 year old boy is fighting alongside a nile empire PC if there's one in the group as his or her  now trained and talented sidekick.

As far as the locals being reluctant to speak about the lost city the PC's have to recover the eternity shard from, obviously the boy shouldn't be reluctant like the rest of the locals to talk about the city.. but the boy confesses that he really doesn't know anything about the city other than everyone says the city is cursed and it's bad luck to speak about it.

I particularly enjoyed the writeup of Sir Killingsworth.. a groaning pun-worthy name to be sure (if the PC's react to the name I would have Killingsworth.. after he makes his true intentions clear to the PC's when he tries to kill them later on... shrug and say " Not my idea - some newspaper writer for that rag the Cairo Clarion started calling me that and the name caught on .. became pointless to fight it after a while".. I would give him a different name , say Sir Ivan Millingstone, and have him apologetically in true British fashion inform the PC's later on that he's deceived them and give his true name at that point, as GM I would remind the players of everything he said in the conversation with them earlier that he's "there to hunt the most dangerous game" and so on .. ) ... and how he actively tries to befriend the PC's and goes so far as to warn them of some of the dangers they'll face ahead making his deception all the more effective when, like the skilled hunter that he is, he (attempts) to bring down the "most dangerous game of all" , the prey being the PCs of course.. so there's a delightful irony that he tells the PC's to their face that he's there to kill them but of course he makes it seem like he's there to hunt the hippos , gorillas and tsetse flies the PC's will face later on ... I loved how the adventure accounts for the PC's asking this dangerous villain to tag along and help fight amongst them .. something that might occur to the PC's since he'd be someone who will help them kill menaces the PC's will have to fight anyways.. and how Sir Killingsworth gladly accepts the offer to "study the herd from within."   Note that an illustration of Killingsworth appears much later on page 45 though in addition to my aforementioned suggestion of using a screenshot and Microsoft paint to crop until you get just the image, it occurs to me that you'd probably need to use a program like infanview to clone the cream/tan colored background over the text to avoid giving away what happens in the adventure to the PC's as well as covering Killingsworth's name (again I would strongly recommend he give a fake name for himself a name like "Killingsworth" is just a complete giveaway to the players).

While it's great that the writers have included an overland large scale map of the route through the jungle to the PC's destination.. the lost city.. unfortunately the writers haven't included a player's eyes version of the map that omits labels like say "ape lair" or "pit of dead bodies"... as I mention in my godbox review, I've been using the free software download irfanview for over a decade now with no problems - no spyware or other unwanted stuff included in it.. and there's a paint tool in it that has a clone feature you can use along with zooming in on the map to clumsily paint over the labels but as my players have jokingly pointed out this makes them all the more likely to avoid the areas that are obviously "greyed out".

There is of course an encounter with pirates and their leader on the river journey to the lost city ... while I loved the well written description and background of said leader.. the type of scum that preys on animals that legally speaking should be left alone and sells their body parts prior to the possibility wars and himself possibility rated to boot making him a dangerous opponent ... given his physical description ... linen suits, glass eye, and a long scar on his face.. it's going to be impossible to find a picture of him online to show the players though that evocative physical description alone should be enough to let them clearly envision him.. one drawback in the adventure is should the PC's capture and interrogate a pirate or even the leader himself , the adventure mentions their cache of stolen boats, supplies including guns and explosives and hapless yet dangerous animals in their cages.... PC's may be understandably reluctant to release these animals... as a GM I would play up their soulful big eyed stares into the PC's eyes (even say a tiger can look mournfully like an overgrown house cat if played right I would argue) and whimper as they push against the cage bars.. alternately if the PC's get captured by the pirates this is a great opportunity for the PC's to escape their bonds (maybe a particularly smart monkey who got out of his cage actually presses a knife or lockpicking tool into the hands of the PC best suited to escape said bonds - remember this is the nile empire where outrageous coincidences of fortune like this take place on a routine basis just like in the campy 1930's to 1940's comic books) and if the animals are released from their cages they can wreak savage gory vengeance on the pirates then vanish into the jungle ... perhaps in a touching display the captured tigers or let's say gorillas even jump in between a PC and an attacking pirate snarling their rage and attacking the PC's foes .... I would have said animal show a display of affection (tiger head-butts a PC and rubs it's head against the PC's side, gorilla clumsily pats a PC on the head) before wandering off into the jungle.  

Should the PC's find themselves in possession of this stolen gear if there's any pirate and or pirate leader captives they should comment (fearfully in the case of an ordinary pirate who's now presumably been defeated by the PC's, sneeringly defiant in the case of the leader) that there's no use trying to return the goods to their original owners because said owners are all dead.. the GM is going to have to come up with suitable weapons and gear from the nile empire (the adventure states earlier on that gear brought into this city and the surrounding jungle tends to transform to nile empire axiom equivalents) .. there should be surplus gear the PC's can't really use (parts for say boat repair) .. if the boy who helped the PC's isn't around I would give the PC's a low (4 difficulty) Mind roll for all PC's for it to occur to them the boy would be deliriously happy to come into possession of these parts and could make a good amount of money on them (assuming the PC's haven't arranged to adopt the boy and/or carry him with them until they can find someone to adopt the boy).   Again this is where the nile empire cosm sourcebook comes in handy with it's expanded gear item descriptions including weapons in addition to the nile empire axiom gear described in the torg eternity core rulebook.

The next part of the adventure has the PC's dealing with the effects of a nightmare tree which, at night time, turns the area into a mixed orrosh/nile empire zone... again this is where the cosm sourcebooks come in handy, in this case the Orrosh sourcebook (which along with the Living Land are my two favorite cosm sourcebooks and absolutely worth the purchase price, see my review for that title if you like) in case puzzled players are wondering why is it they suddenly have to deal with orrosh axioms in the nile empire (although when the PC's get far enough in the adventure they come across a journal entry that makes things more clear).. as the orrosh sourcebook states the gaunt man has made a point of planting various nightmare trees (often posing as dimthread trees to "help" the other high lords - again see the orrosh sourcebook for the true purpose of these trees and how they help the gaunt man at the expense of other high lords).. and other times you have a non dimthread nightmare tree that is planted (presumably by the gaunt man's agents) , which at any given point in time can be adapted into a dimthread tree ... so presumably (the orrosh sourcebook heavily implies this)  the other high lords would actually know of and allow the gaunt man's agents to plant said trees inside the other cosm conquered areas of earth given the huge advantage of a dimthread tree creating more than one portal to another place in said conquered area of earth that the high lord's agents can use as instant teleportation in that area... note that as the godbox adventure states this is NOT a situation where one nightmare/dimthread tree has to connect to another to create a portal between them , rather a single nightmare tree can create can create a single number of fixed "teleportation points" or portals per tree.  

for players whoever who find this mystery annoying (presumably even if the players have played through the godbox adventure and know of the nightmare/dimthread tree's teleportation ability they probably won't know of the deal the gaunt man made with the other high lords to let his nightmare trees be planted in their conquered earth areas)  I would allow a Mind roll possibly a scholar roll if a PC has that skill but let everyone make a normal  (10 difficulty) Mind or scholar roll.. on a standard or better success inform the persons who made the roll that in their prior briefing with Quinn Sebastian he made a passing reference to nightmare trees being plopped down in various parts of other invaded cosms which enforce orroshan reality .. exactly why the other high lord are allowing this Quinn doesn't know but, he added grimly during the time of the debriefing with the PC, it can't be anything good.    Obviously PC's from the Orrosh cosm who are in a position to know - say a scholar type character from Gaea - could conceivably be granted more knowledge on the nightmare/dimthread trees at the GM's option.

Of course as the adventure states in this case this was an "accidental" planting of a nightmare tree that makes it horrendously effective.. a group of storm knights trying to do research into the gaunt man's nightmare trees got a hold of a nightmare tree seed from orrosh  and were flying it back to a Delphi headquarters research facility in Morocco when they had the colossal bad luck of flying over a part of the Congo river where new nile empire stelae were activated.. the resulting reality storms caused the plane to crash and the nightmare tree now outside the plane on the ground to grow , influenced (presumably) by the surging axiom wash of the nile empire stelae just planted to become a particularly huge specimen of it's kind that has overgrown and grown around the lost ruins that the eternity shard is in the PC's are after , forcing the PC's to travel within the nightmare tree itself to obtain their goal.  I absolutely loved this part of the adventure not only for the evocative write up but also in how it captures the creepy horror feel of orrosh given that the PC's are in a jungle (dark, overgrown, already a dangerous place) - sure nile empire world laws still work to the PC's advantage like having an extra drama deck/destiny card in their hand and being able to spend two possibilities and take the better result - but the monsters the PC's have to deal with .. like the weird science creation ape that is suitably creepy not only for it's obviously human-like intelligence but also it's exposed brain in a transparent dome fastened to the ape's head and it's pincer arms not to mention it's command of the normally peaceful (but evil at night when orroshan reality comes into play - which suitably enough it does during the nighttime, during the daytime it's just "plain old" nile empire reality)  ... to me this is a perfect melding of the nile empire and orrosh cosms, though the GM should be careful to state that night falls when the PC's start exploring the ruins so the threats can actually be, well, threats to the PC's    

The PC's of course will have to deal with said weird science ape and his chimpanzee minions.. the writers have not provided a map but I found one map online that someone named Angela has thoughtfully provided for free

https://angelamaps.com/2021/01/20/the-pit/

when the PC's need to fight the ape and his chimpanzee minions after rescuing a hapless ord from the treasure hunter/archeologist team whose headless bodies the PC's were forced to "kill" a second time earlier on when they dug themselves free from their graves (presumably the hapless ord they were rescuing buried them) said hapless ord being at the bottom of an (of course) spike filled pit... of course there's a lion the evil ape has managed to trap in a tunnel behind a portcullis gate -  and, of course, the ape of course raises the gate through a lever (it's interesting that the gate and lever still work given the ruins are described as being mostly in decay.. if a player expresses confusion over this I would state that it's possible the nile empire axiom wash has restored "suitable dramatic" items that suit the nile empire - like the gate - to working condition) .. the question is how did the ape get the lion down there in the first place?   given that the ape is described as insane in the adventure maybe the ape and his chimpanzee minions ganged up on the lion but rather than administering the death blow the ape knocked the lion unconscious using the non lethal combat option provided in the torg eternity core rulebook, dragged it behind the gated portcullis, closed the gate, waited for the lion to wake up then let the poor injured lion mostly starve this entire time, throwing down the occasional animal .. never enough for the lion to be fully sated.. and watching as the lion devoured the animal (note that the adventure states that if the PC's explore the area after the lion is taken out they discover the corpses of these hapless animals as well as some sticks of dynamite the chimpanzee minions didn't perceive to be a threat.. I would add that human bloodied clothing and bones is down here as well, presumably one of the hapless ord treasure seekers got tossed down here with the dynamite and was taken out by the lion before s/he could light the fuse on the dynamite)...  the adventure says instead it's a human in badly decayed explorer garb but personally I like the idea of one of the hapless ord explorers being fed to the starving lion with only clothes and bones left behind, it definitely reinforces the nightmarish orrosh feel .. 

The GM and players may want or need a different map for this fight at the bottom of the pit with the lion.. here's one possibility 

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/qa0gpb/collapsed_dungeon_tunnel_22x17/

though if you use that map I would use something like infanview to draw a clumsy black bar across one of the openings and advise the PC's this represents the gate, the other openings too cluttered with rubble to allow entry or exit for the lion or the PC's.

What if the PC's befriended a chimpanzee during the daytime?   If it was me as GM I would reward such effort by having that particular chimpanzee not attack that round when it goes after the PC(s) who befriended it (this could occur with more than one chimpanzee depending on how many PC's were friendly) ... I would have the chimpanzee(s) stop , their hate filled toothy grimace vanishing from their face for a moment, the chimpanzee holds their head screaming in their chimp voice in obvious anguish, looks at the PC whimpering that round.. and then the following round the hate filled grimace returns and the chimp attacks normally.. remind players who want to exercise the option that there are non lethal combat options in the torg eternity core rulebook using unarmed combat or melee weapon options (perhaps the butt of a gun rather than a bullet) and given a successful mind roll (say difficulty number 6) point out that this is a chimpanzee.. a blood hungry chimpanzee sure but still not as deadly as say the nile empire shocktroopers with guns or pulp villains the PC's have survived battles with before.. it seems unlikely a single chimp can kill an individual PC in hand to hand combat if that particular chimp is subdued.. when the nightmare tree is dealt with (see below) I would have the chimp hold it's head for a moment with a look on it's face that the PC could swear is confusion.. then look up at the PC and seem to grin, pat the PC affectionately on the arm and skitter off into the jungle.. the PC could very well return when sir killingsworth makes his appearance and tries to kill the PC's say on an appropriate result on the drama deck like a setback for the bad guys, landing on killingsworth's head and distracting him as it chitters angrily banging on killingsworth's head with it's fists 

After making their way past a series of traps (presumably ancient ones set centuries ago that are still active) the PC's finally make their way to the nightmare tree that has grown around and meshed itself with the wooden room their goal, the eternity shard, is located within.. the PC's also have to contend with a giant sized (90 feet long, 6 feet wide) python grown to enormous size thanks to the influence of the nightmare tree .. on top of that Killingsworth either turns on the PC's at this point if he was invited to join them, trusting in his ability to get away from the giant python after a combination of his and the python's attacks kill the PC's ...I would have the python look at the PC's as Killingsworth turns on the PC's.. then make a point of attacking the PC's but not Killingsworth.. give the PC's a find check difficulty number 10, if any PC succeeds they noticed the tree pulsing and almost seeming to breath at the same time the python looked at Killingsworth attacking the PC's, a clue that the tree is influencing the python's actions .. and of course given there's a body whose face is contorted in agony hanging from a cavity within the tree it should hopefully be obvious to the PC's that this is an evil tree (the adventure doesn't clearly state this in the description of the scene when the PCs first come across it but from the GM point of view I would argue that in order for putting the hapless storm knight fueling the tree's activities to rest option to be possible to begin with the PC's would have to see the storm knight in question).

It's worth noting that the law of inevitable return doesn't have to be used for Killingsworth as you would for say the Hooded Cobra.. his capture and/or death will not derail the rest of the adventure in other words.

Sadly the writers have not included a map for this rather epic and memorable fight which is disappointing especially given how wonderfully written the description is .. there's a plane suspended in the branches of a gigantic tree (the tree the hapless aforementioned storm knights from orrosh went down in) right in the middle of ancient ruins that represent a maze the giant python can duck into and attack by surprise from ... as one might expect finding a map that represents all of this via Google search would be next to impossible .. the best I could find online even close to the situation described is this one

https://www.deviantart.com/dwarfcookies/art/Cursed-Tree-Map-695231925

and if you used this map I would alter the description given in the adventure to say the "rough terrain" labeled as such on the borders of the map represents the fact that on top of the tree being in the maze-ruins, the maze-ruins have themselves become overgrown with foliage to the point where it's ridiculously easy for the giant serpent to dart in and out of the maze/ruin/foliage.   That way the description of the scene at least matches the scenario shown in the map.   

Given that the PC's are undoubtedly supposed to be the good guys this creates a possible problem when running this adventure.. the adventure states that one way to defeat the nightmare tree is to kill the body it is feeding off of.. the problem is the storm knights will probably want to save the hapless storm knight being used to fuel the tree even after hacking through the tree branches that constrict and grow around the hapless storm knight .. I would have the storm knight regain consciousness enough to smile sadly at the PC's, state that the storm knight is already dead- the storm knight and his/her team have devoted their lives to fighting nightmare trees in orrosh and have learned through bitter experience if more than a few days goes by when a human is put into a pod then no matter what the human dies despite any attempts to rescue them - and adds the storm knight with a grim smile, it's been months for him/her (this also explains how it is that the human rescued from the nightmare tree pod in the godbox adventure book can survive the PC's presumably got to her in time) ...  then I would have him/her start sobbing as the storm knight says s/he could feel and see in his/her sleeping nightmares the mad science ape and chimpanzees the PC's just defeated murdering the ord treasure hunters as they screamed for help.. the storm knight saw their desecrated bodies rise from the grave to try and kill the PC's whom the storm knight recognizes as fellow heroes .. the storm knight mentions an adventure the PC's have successfully completed before (perhaps the godbox adventure, perhaps one of the day one adventures or Delphi council rising storm adventures) referring specifically to the details of the adventure and smiles weakly saying that tales of the PC's exploits have grown... then grimaces again and says that thanks to the tree feeding on him/her s/he was almost responsible for killing the PC's and point out that if the nightmare tree is allowed to continue with it's activities it will lure still more hapless victims into this nightmare jungle it's created and kill them too even after the PC's are gone...

as far as an illustration of the storm knight .. for argument's sake let's say she's female and Indian since I like the idea of strong and powerful women who are ethnic due to my left wing liberal tendencies :)  ... needless to say a Google search for "artwork India secret service agent" didn't turn up much.. apparently however there was a movie called "raazi" in India about real life Indian secret service agent sehmat khan and a Google search for "raazi sehmat khan" will turn up pictures of the actress and scene stills from her role as sehmat khan... perhaps you can even use that as the alias the storm knight goes by in tribute to the real life (and now presumably dead) sehmat khan.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raazi

https://indianexpress.com/article/lifestyle/art-and-culture/knowing-sehmat-beyond-raazi-harinder-sikka-alia-bhatt-5230678/

normally I would hesitate to use this as inspiration given the current tide of anti Islamic bigotry in Indian (see my orrosh sourcebook review for some thoughts on this) and given that the movie based on her life shows her infiltrating the Pakistani government and portraying them in a negative light - however it's also worth noting that in the movie her own people, the Indian secret service agency (see below) tries to kill her on the grounds that she "knows too much" and can "tip off the enemy" ... while the PC's obviously won't get to know this storm knight since she's basically already dead (see below) I would have a letter she wrote but never mailed found in her pocket should the storm knights check her body along with a cover letter she attached to said letter knowing full well how dangerous her line of work was fighting the dimensional invaders, said cover letter asking that the letter be delivered in person to her family in India and asking that her family be informed of what happened to her.. .should the PC's follow up on this her family is obviously heartbroken ... I would have the father be Muslim and the mother be a former Hindu from a prominent politician’s family turned Muslim to marry said father resulting in the clear and obvious hatred of the largely Hindu community around her, people going so far as to be seen throwing garbage at the hapless parents and cursing at them when the PC's first encounter the hapless parents (hopefully the PC's take action against the harassers, putting a good scare into them maybe) ... 

....the parents are of course heartbroken over what happened to their daughter (whom as one might expect was also a Muslim yet still recruited by India's secret intelligence agency, she was that good)  but tearfully confide in the PC's how proud they were of their daughter knowing she was fighting against the invaders and knowing full well that said fight had an excellent chance of resulting in her death - they thank the PCs for delivering the letter (written in Hindi) and read it aloud, the letter talking about how much she loves her parents, citing specific beloved memories with them and how proud she is to be a storm knight fighting for the people of India.. I would go so far as to have a Hindu reporter show up who is not among those bigoted persons who persecute Muslims (and if you do some Google research on this there ARE people who are not happy at all about India's government riding to power on the tide of hatred towards Muslims, not unlike certain politicians here in the USA riding similar tides of hatred to political power.. and the factions within America that oppose them) who has been angling forever for an interview from the parents about the daughter's heroics.. stunned and saddened but not surprised at her death, I would have the reporter ask the PC's for all information they can give the parents tearfully giving their blessing to this so their daughter's story can be heard - remind the PC's that this is a way tales of glory can be spread although overcoming the bigotry towards Muslims in India could hamper this particular story ... still and nonetheless if nothing else Muslims and non bigoted Hindus, Christians and so forth could be inspired by said story not to mention persons in Pakistan who might very well be overjoyed a Muslim storm knight died a hero. 

I realize I've raised some controversial issues here and for readers convinced I'm picking on India in general please bear in mind what I said earlier on.. morally bankrupt politicians harnessing fear, hatred and bigotry to their rise to political power are persons (sadly) very much present in both the USA and India so I make no exception for such politicians or movements within my home country, the USA.. put it this way if the former leader of the Klu Klux Klan , a revolting white supremacy group, repeated endorses Trump for president and Trump goes on to win the election you know you've got a problem here in the United States as well.. my orrosh sourcebook review gives some more thoughts in this vein on how personally satisfying it might be for players to defeat these forces of bigotry and hatred in-game at least in a heroic fashion provided a GM is willing and able to deal with such controversial topics.   

If the PC still refuses to kill the storm knight there are a few options I can think of off the top of my head

If Killingsworth is still around, on Killingsworth's action in the combat round the PC holding the storm knight sees the storm knight's head explode in a shower of brains and gore on the PC ... " Demoralizing your prey makes them easier to kill" says Killingsworth cheerfully as he cranks his rifle trigger back to prepare for another shot.   "One of many gems of wisdom I've learned when hunting... oh dear."   Killingsworth stares in dismay as the nightmare tree keens in agony then stops moving .. at the same time the giant python collapses into a hollow slimy dead skin.   "Another time then my friends" smiles Killingsworth starting to back away from the PC's (next combat round Killingsworth tries to flee).

If Killingsworth is already dead but a setback for the bad guys or some other advantage for the PC's shows up as a result of the drama deck or destiny card played, I would have the python rush towards the PC holding the storm knight - miss - and hit the storm knight instead, slamming the already weakened storm knight into a wall instead and splattering the storm knight into gore.. the tree seems to scream in anger and the python almost seems to look dismayed before the tree goes still and quiet and the python collapses into a hollow slimy dead skin.

Absolute worst case scenario have the storm knight smile weakly at the PC holding him/her and say " Good luck my fellow storm knights.. I wish you well."  and then bite down hard.. foam fills the storm knight's mouth, the obvious result of a poison pill hidden in the storm knight's tooth,  as s/he trashes in the PC's arms and then goes still.. the tree keens in agony and stops moving .. at the same time the python collapses into a slimy dead hollow skin.. if the PC's search the storm knight's pockets afterwards they see that the storm knight was also a member of India's Research and Analysis Wing or R A & W with these words stamped both in English and Hindi on a badge inside the storm knight's clothes.. the storm knight recognizes this as India's version of America's CIA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_and_Analysis_Wing

so that would make the storm knight a core earth person still operating under core earth's axioms.

The adventure also states that the tree can also be killed by setting it on fire (admittedly a much more dangerous option as the fire spreads and threatens PC's and bad guys alike) ... but here's where things get interesting.. if you look at the orrosh sourcebook it states that killing a nightmare tree is not that easy and you in fact have to go through similar steps as if you were removing an orrosh stelae.. there are a couple of ways you can handle this that spring to mind.

the first option is that the nightmare tree is both stronger, and weaker, due to the aforementioned wash of nile empire axioms.. the laws of drama, action and heroism work against the tree making it easier for the PC's to permanently triumph over the tree and kill it much more easily than they would in say an orrosh dominant or orrosh pure zone.   

Another option is that , in true orrosh "evil never dies - well not unless you research the heck out of it and make sure it really IS dead" fashion the tree appears to be dead... but as the orrosh sourcebook mentions it's a similar situation to what happens if the nightmare tree is attacked in the daytime - the tree can be easily "destroyed" during the daytime but all this results in is the tree regrowing itself later on, the root underneath surviving.   This in turns results in some NPC contact the PC's made seeking out the PC's later on and grimly informing them that the jungle is still claiming victims just like it did prior to the PC's "dealing" with the nightmare tree.. orrosh axioms are once again in effect now that the tree has regrown itself.    Personally I like the first option better.

The adventure is a bit murky as far as dealing with the nightmare tree's roots overgrowing and protecting the door the PC's have to pry open to get to the tomb the tree has grown over and around where the eternity shard is.. I would rule as GM here that the roots do indeed attack and fight back if the PC's attempt this while the tree is still alive.. players will (understandably) be annoyed if the roots are still fighting back after the tree has been killed in that this won't make much sense so I would leave out the part where the roots fight back but let the toughness 10 part of the roots that the PC's have to hack past as is.  

Once the PC's get past the door they are greeted by an appropriately creepy tomb, thought if I was the GM here I would make a point of saying that the PC's can visibly feel the terror and dread that permeated the very air around them fading as the nightmare tree is defeated and declare that the PC's realize the orrosh world laws and axioms must be fading away (in other words no more orrosh limitations like the one limiting how much the PC's can heal even when they spend a possibility and so forth .. besides the mummy and spectre swarm mentioned below are perfectly in keeping with even the nile empire flavor of things) .. said tomb is pitch black so hopefully the GM gave the PC's that Delphi council nile empire survival kit I mentioned earlier since it has a light source in it - even if not given how common flashlights are I would be merciful and just say the players all have one if no player thought to get a hold of say a powerful lantern that can be perched on a shelf leaving both the PC's hands free to hold weapons or what not .. of course the warrior queen whose bow/eternity shard the PC's have been sent to retrieve is now an undead mummy still served even in death by her high ranking priests and other servants who now comprise a spectre swarm (stats for both are given in the adventure).. disappointingly there's no illustration of either to show the players though a Google search for  "mummy deviantart "  can turn up some good artwork (although in both cases this means that the picture differs from the written description given to the players), I didn't have much luck Google searching a picture of "ghost swarm"... here's one impressive picture of a female mummy I found

https://www.deviantart.com/miguelregodon/art/Neferuset-495411425

Presumably the PC's successfully get a hold of the eternity shard/bow which leads the PC's to the next act, all of which takes place on the Amazonian island on which the PC's are intended to make an alliance with the amazons' queen.

The writers have accounted for a variety of player approaches.. sneaky PC's who try to arrive on the island via stealth, PC's who arrive more openly on the island not hiding their intentions, PC's who go along with the requests of the amazons including that sticky situation that pops up over and over again - do the PC's surrender their weapons if asked to?    If I was the GM running this adventure I would err on the side of mercy and give the PC's easy (difficulty number 4) mind rolls when they want to do something overt that won't win them any favors with the amazons, reminding the players of Dr. Frest's earnest heartfelt pleas about how they could really use the Amazon’s help, innocent civilians dying on the street, remind the players of the tragic tale of the boys' parents and how the boy is now an orphan, and remind the players that amazons harassing Mobius on the battlefront can make life easier for the Nile Empire's mystery men pulp heroes meaning more innocent lives saved.. in other words the player's actions on this island will have big consequences for the innocent civilians of the nile empire... this scene mentions that Frest's main goal is to secure Amazon help against this flying weapon device Mobius is building and sure you can mention that too but highlighting the suffering of the average nile citizen empire is likely to (hopefully) hit closer to home with the players.. if not.. well the writers have accounted too for what happens if the PC's decide to antagonize the Amazon queen whether intentionally or not.

One potential problem I can see is the PC's, perhaps understandably, getting annoyed if the queen accepts the eternity shard/bow the moment the PC's see her.. but with the same cool, almost frigid, emotionless grace she displays towards the PC's in general.. if I was the GM running this adventure I would have her tilt her head curiously to the side and ask the PC's how they came into possession of this bow.. the entire story, the PC's shouldn't be afraid to go into detail she says.. give the PC's a very easy (difficulty number 2) Mind roll to realize they can tell the impressive story of all the foes and battles and dangers they overcame to acquire the bow to this, the warrior queen of a group of warrior women who would (hopefully) be impressed by such a thing.. I would have the queen's frigid manner start to openly and visibly thaw as the PC's (hopefully) recount their exploits and so go far as to have other Amazon women in attendance at the court murmur in obvious admiration.. of course if there are female PC's in the group I would have the Amazon women in the court other than the queen look on at the female PC's with open admiration clearly thinking that the female PC's must have done most of the work no matter how the story is told... indeed I would go so far as to have the queen be more openly warm and friendly towards female PC's, especially female PC's who fall into what she considers to be a "warrior" role (a female PC police officer for example or females who actually list "warrior" as their occupation from say Asyle or female monster hunters) , asking specific questions as to what those PC's did during the fights after the story is recounted, what their weapons of choice were or if they fought bare handedly... if a female PC is more timid by nature I would argue the Amazon queen should immediately switch to a far more sympathetic expression and murmur loudly enough to be heard " Poor woman.. you have spent too long in the lands of men.. please, consider living with us for a while .. we shall train you how to be a warrior in every sense of the world.. understand that this is an invitation, not a demand on our part."   

Of course the GM can skip doing all of that but this may (justifiably in my opinion) result in outraged players annoyed by the queen's frigid manner after they risked their lives getting her this gosh-darned bow refusing to engage in further diplomatic relations ...

The next sticky part of the adventure involves the PC's being expected to sit around in their chambers behind a door that visibly and obviously locks behind them effectively trapping the PC's.. an Amazon woman, Avgo, is among the first Amazonian women the PC's encounter when arriving on the Amazonian island who , whether the PC's figure it out or not, is secretly considering whether or not she wants to leave the Amazon island and tries to subtly pump the PC's for information on the world outside.. I would have Avgo apologetically explain to the PC's that locking them inside the room is nothing personal... " Normally we would fill any strangers full of arrows who set foot on our island" she explains " So just the fact that our queen is even allowing you to be on this island is.. different, very different from the way we normally greet outsiders, put it that way.    Still, you are strangers to our land.. and strangers can be dangerous.  You will not be in here very long - soon you shall be invited to a meal with our queen."   I would have Avgo start to close the door but stop long enough to answer any questions that won't in the GM's opinion cause the players to immediately want to leave the room, say for example revealing the presence of Dr. Mobius's pulp villain henchmen who have shown up also trying to win the queen's favor.   

Of course you can have PC's who put up a fight and refuse to let the door be barred or who want to sneak out the moment the door is locked.. again I would give them a very low (difficulty number 2) Mind roll to remind the players of what's at stake here if the help of the Amazonians is not secured in terms of the average nile empire citizen suffering and how much help the Amazonians could be harassing Mobius on the warfront.

I love how the writers have made sure that Avgo is sympathetic to begin with .. even without the ideas I suggested the writers state that Avgo warms up to and is friendly towards the PC's by the time the PC's are invited to dinner and gives them pointers on Amazon culture and how to impress the queen (basically  I would flat out read most of the information from the "gaining Aegea's favor" sidebar leaving out stuff the PCs would have no idea of knowing yet like the secret plan among traitor Amazonian women to overthrow the queen).    

In order to avoid the PC's immediately attacking the female nile empire shocktrooper captain and her soldiers and the pulp villains immediately as soon as the PC's spot them sitting at the table for dinner as well  I would also have Avgo say the following 

"I like you more than the other guests" Avgo declares then frowns " Honestly I do not like the other guests at all to be honest something about them feels... wrong... I told this to my queen and my queen said that so far we have been neutral towards the outside world and that if we are to stop being neutral we must hear the story from both sides of those involved.. I believe you are meant to be one side and these ' shocktroopers ' of this ' Dr. Mobius ' and his people are the other side she wants to hear from.    I am told that this Dr. Mobius has many enemies and since you are not with his people I have to assume you may very well be among his enemies."

Avgo fixes you with a serious, earnest look "Please, understand that my queen has extended you... and your enemies.. a great honor simply by letting you stay on this island, let alone having dinner with any of you... if you attack your enemies while they are here, under my queen's invitation, it will be as if you attacked the queen herself... I know that you would not be here unless you wanted the Amazon’s help, this much even a simple warrior like me can tell.. and I say this to you... if you attack your enemies here, you will never gain my queen's help.

"There is something my queen likes to tell us, her people.. a good warrior fights well with her weapons or her bare hands... a GREAT warrior fights equally well with her words."  Avgo smiles brilliantly at you.  "My queen is wise... but, will you listen to the wisdom she has imparted onto her people?  Will you also be wise and fight, not with your weapons or your fists.. but with words?"

Hopefully this provokes the players into accepting the challenge that the adventure is clearly meant to pose.. thanks to the tragic story of the boy at the jungle city they were at earlier on, Dr. Frest's sad words about innocents dying in the nile empire that the mystery men are failing to save, the mob war the PC's personally were caught in the middle of, plus any other examples of the cruelty of Dr. Mobius's servants towards innocents, the PC's should have PLENTY of ammunition as far as their war of words against the bad guys seated at the dinner table.. I would resolve this by contested persuasion rolls for all PC's who join in on the conversation but even if the bad guys get higher persuasion rolls although it looks for the time being that the queen is swayed by say the bad guys' insistence that " This is base slander, don't listen to these vicious rumors!   Pharoah Mobius is a just ruler beloved by his people" .. on the other hand the queen gives the representatives of Mobius a long hard look.. then I would have one of the Queen's people who are present at the dinner (say the science minded Amazonian the adventure mentions) protest " But my Queen, if this is true and this Pharoah Mobius is endangering helpless innocents, NON-COMBATANTS my queen !  No Amazonian would stoop to behavior that low, that dishonorable..."  the queen holds up a hand instantly silencing the protesting Amazonian but I would follow that by the female captain of the female shocktroopers shooting the PC's a dark look, clearly not happy with them... this will help the players feel like the situation isn't hopeless even if the bad guys succeed with higher persuasion rolls and make it clear that PC efforts to sway the queen are not in vain.  Even if the PC's succeed with higher persuasion rolls I wouldn't have the queen immediately eject the bad guys from the island , rather have the same suggested flavor text play out above, a long hard look at the bad guys, protesting Amazonian science minded woman.. the only difference being I would state to the PC's it's visibly obvious the queen is more inclined to believe the PC's than the bad guys.

Note that not only stats but illustrations are provided for Mirage, one of the pulp villains that the PC's will have to contend with in a war of words, if you go to the stats provided at the end of this book.. while stats are provided not only for the red hand but also for Avgo on pages 61 and 60 respectively, I do wish the writers had immediately provided this page reference the moment these NPC's were mentioned so an overeager GM (like myself :)  ) would not waste time brainstorming stats for the Red Hand and Avgo.. pages 96-97 of the nile empire sourcebook does give a nice description of the red hand including his costume (red zoot suit, fedora and black mask which makes it blatantly obvious he's a pulp villain the moment the PC's lay eyes on him ) 

I'm familiar with the red hand's stats from the 1990's nile empire torg book and honestly speaking I prefer them to what appears to be a more watered down version of the red hand in torg eternity .. and while his possibility stealing hand is a unique invention to be sure I'm positive this will leave you with outraged players wanting to know where the heck in the nile empire torg eternity sourcebook does it say there is a pulp power that allows the red hand to steal possibilities?  unless.. and if this is the case it would be nice if the writers had said so in the adventure.. you have the red hand cackle triumphantly and say " Fools !   Do you feel the power in this room, how it fuels our every action ?   Witness the harnessing of that power in the form of my RED HAND, stronger than ever before as it steals the very essence of your life energy!"  .. and indeed the PC's can see what appears to be a small rotating radar-type dish on the oversized red gauntlet the red hand is wearing on his right hand.. red and blue wisps of energy float from the pool of eternium below to the gauntlet.. of course this would mean on a called shot the PC's can destroy the radar dish on the gauntlet, ending it's ability to drain possibilities.. if you go this route however you should also allow any PC's fortunate enough to be weird scientists (I would declare that if the PC doesn't have the weird scientist perk like the red hand they can't pull off stunts like this) cobble together some elaborate weird science power that is more powerful than normal as well making it clear to the players that this is a one-time only thing and only because the PC's are standing on top of a giant pool of eternium.  Of course if a PC takes out the radar dish I wouldn't have the red hand's gauntlet stop working completely but would still have him scream in rage and on every round the red hand attacks, on a setback or player's call or other complication for the bad guys have the already damaged gauntlet spark visibly where the PC struck it and not work for that round at all (the attack automatically fails) ...

Of course the giant pool of eternium the PC's come across later on in the adventure is the real goal of Mobius' henchmen ... Mirage , if the Red Hand lost it earlier on, was angry because the Red Hand cost them the potential of the Amazon queen banishing the PC's from the island earlier on so she and her allies wouldn't have to deal with the PC's on top of the amazons still loyal to their queen.

Going back to the red hand however.. personally, I would make changes to his existing write up to bring him closer to the 1990's nile empire torg eternity book .. which, as I've argued before, I really do wish that the torg eternity team had made available for purchase at a heavily discounted price say if you purchased the torg eternity nile empire sourcebook given say for example the provided stats for several important NPC villains in the nile empire , or at least make the cost a few dollars for all the 1990's torg book for everyone so it isn't that "heavy" of an additional investment... the 1990's book says the red hand's "claim to fame" is his electro gun so I would write that up using the electro ray pulp power described under "ray" on pages 26-27 of the torg eternity nile empire sourcebook as well as all the enhancements applicable to it listed on page 27 of that book - and if you like give it the "dazzle" power as described in his write up in the fires of ra adventure too ... the red hand is also described as a scientific genius who quote "likes to experiment on himself" and the 1990's torg book describes his suit as having weird science circuitry built into it's breastplate that the red hand can pull out and tinker with when the creative urge strikes him... I would represent this as the "gizmo" perk on page 25 of the nile empire sourcebook and possibly even the gadgeteer perk (also page 25) on top of that  which in turn allows the red hand to construct devices that temporarily allow him to replicate other pulp powers and I would give him all the enhancements listed there to represent his connections with Mobius and his high status in Mobius' government.. and of course the weird scientist perk page 31 torg eternity nile empire cosm sourcebook .. 

...as well I would give him a Mind of 12 instead of the 10 score the written adventure gives him, three  skill adds in  persuasion given he's described as a quote "charmer, especially with the ladies" which is no doubt why he was sent as an envoy to the Amazonian island (honestly I'm surprised that his write up in the adventure lists intimidation as a skill.. which makes sense given he's a pulp villain and his description of having "strength inside a velvet glove" in the torg eternity nile empire book.. but no adds whatsoever in persuasion is a shock given his background/personality write up) and two skill adds in missile weapons so he can fire electro ray blasts out of his gauntlet.. I would leave the "power punch" ability in place and let the Red Hand use it after using up his 5 (or 10 if you go that route with enhancements to the pulp power) blasts with the electro ray.  Of course the GM could always rule enough called shots on the gauntlet start to disable the pulp powers (electro ray, powered punch ability) one by one after disabling the possibility draining ability,  but the problem is this sets a precedent for PC's disabling all weird science gadget type powers by player's call attacks on said gadget .. which the GM may or may not be okay with, warn the players if they go down this road that players with weird science gadgets can be similarly targeted (perhaps science rolls can be made outside of combat to repair the gadget and get it up and running again for villains and PC's alike) 

....if this makes him too powerful a foe for the PC's that can be dealt with too, just have him wander towards the edge of the battlemap when the PC's face him in "real" life and death combat over the pool of eternium (see below) cackling some more and shouting about how he's positioning himself even closer to the pool of eternium so his gauntlet can drain even more of it's power... or just start him out on the edge of the combat map to begin with... and if a PC lands a successful hit on him (especially if the drama deck indicates some sort of favorable condition for the PC's or unfavorable condition for the bad guys like say a setback) the red hand wobbles back and forth then pitches into the pool of eternium screaming in terror.. which of course means the whole cavern where the eternium pool collapses in on itself never happens but given that the queen is supposed to be pleased with the PC's at the end of this act I would ignore that part of the written adventure completely .. at the very least even if the red hand uses a stick of dynamite and his master criminal perk to get away by collapsing a pillar in cloud of obscuring smoke as the adventure dictates I wouldn't have it trigger the earthquake that seals off the entrance/exit to this room and topples stone into the molten pool of eternium (which probably melts the stone but players may justifiably argue that much melted stone could wreak havoc with a pool of molten eternium "gumming up the works" as it were)

Worth noting that killing off and/or capturing either the red hand or mirage does not derail the rest of the adventure in the same way as if this happened to say the hooded cobra so if say either one of them gets knocked into the molten pool of eternium the PCs fight them on top of later on (see below) or is imprisoned (and quite possibly executed later on after standing trial) by the amazons it doesn't necessarily derail the adventure.

As far as the red hand being a quote unquote "charmer" as the nile empire sourcebook says... at the dinner table scene I would role play this out as a dismayed Red hand's obvious attempts to flirt backfire as the queen makes it clear with  her icy demeanor she has no interest in the affections or attention of males as far as romance or even flirting) .. and let's say 10 Dexterity and high skill adds in the missile weapons skills (by high I'd say give him the maximum 5 adds that can normally be applied as per torg eternity core rules).... 

pages 96-97 of the nile empire sourcebook  gives a nice description of the red hand including his costume (red zoot suit, fedora and black mask which makes it blatantly obvious he's a pulp villain the moment the PC's lay eyes on him ) 

No illustrations are provided for any of the amazons which surprised me given the importance the queen of the amazons plays in this adventure ... a search using the terms "Amazon deviantart" on Google comes up with a lot of pictures but sadly a lot of them are intended for a "male heterosexual audience" in that they fall into the cheesecake pinup variety and it was hard for me to find pictures of say an Amazonian woman fully dressed.. this is the best I could come up with as far as possible pictures for the Amazon queen

https://www.deviantart.com/diegochso/art/Amazon-Queen-755891282

https://www.deviantart.com/eacone01/art/Amazone-s-Queen-153222634

and possible pics of Avgo

https://www.deviantart.com/verahnika/art/Kassandra-816870024

https://www.deviantart.com/leejun35/art/Athena-683267404

and a possible picture of Amazonian women charging although unfortunately they're not in the battle armor you would expect

https://www.deviantart.com/bodak1984/art/Hoplites-The-charge-765245499

and a possible picture of the leader of the traitor Amazonians who wants to overthrow the queen later on during the final dramatic showdown over the pool of eternium later on in the act

https://www.deviantart.com/yadrey/art/Penthesilea-the-Queen-of-the-Amazons-786487549

the adventure goes on to present ten possible events during the dinner that will either give the PC's a chance to win favor with the Amazonian queen or lose favor with her ... as the writers state if the scene is progressing well simply by back and forth verbal attacks between the PC's and the bad guys the GM should leave well enough alone.. personally however I think these ten events are all great and would go so far as to insert all ten into the adventure interspersing them between the barbed attack comments between PC's and bad guys alike.

The opportunity to talk about faith is particularly interesting as one of these ten events.. if the player simply says " I talk about my faith" then leave the difficulty number as is, 8.. if the player however role plays it out with an impassioned speech going into detail about how much the PC loves his/her faith while explaining the tenets of said faith , I would inform the player the difficulty number just dropped from 8 to 2 due to the impassioned nature of the speech (the player can only fail if they roll a "1") .. the problem is the writers don't talk about the Amazonian’s religious beliefs should the PC politely ask about their religious beliefs.. 

I would start out with the high priestess of the amazons who is present at the dinner explaining that faith plays a key role in their lives (as the adventure states) and then simply default to the standard "real world" version of the Amazonian myth.. they worship the Greek deities, the Amazonian priestess going on to give a brief description of some of the Greek deities and why each one is important which should be fairly self evident anyways.. for example they would obviously revere Ares  as the deity of war since they themselves are warrior women, but revere Athena even more so and the most as the female deity of both warfare and wisdom  (and for what it's worth the adventure does state later on that Athena is the patron deity of the amazons it just doesn't address the role of the other Greek deities), Diana as deity of the hunt, Aphrodite as the deity of love, passion and beauty who inspires love between the Amazonian women (the writers have perhaps deliberately not said anything about this but you would have to assume given there are no men on the island and that romance would presumably still be an option that the amazons engage in same-sex relationships with each other) and so forth.. see

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_Olympians#:~:text=In%20ancient%20Greek%20religion%20and,and%20either%20Hestia%20or%20Dionysus.

One problem with the adventure as written is that it talks about the Amazonian deity "Nemesis, goddess of destruction" and the worship of her obviously plays a key role later on in the adventure.. but players will understandably be left scratching their head in confusion since Nemesis was never listed as one of the Greek deities (see Wikipedia link above).. as it turns out in "real world Earth" there is a goddess of the Greek pantheon named nemesis but this is not exactly "common knowledge" to  most people in real life outside of the torg campaign, unlike the twelve Olympians named above

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nemesis#:~:text=In%20ancient%20Greek%20religion%2C%20Nemesis,hubris%2C%20arrogance%20before%20the%20gods.

the problem is, the Wikipedia write-up above gives no reason whatsoever as to why even aggressive amazons who want to take a rulership position in the world outside (as the adventure clearly states the traitors-to-the-queen Amazon movement wants to do) would worship her given that she is the deity who punishes hubris in mortals..

I would do the following.. rename her to "Rhamnusia, or ' Nemesis', goddess of conquest" ... and make the dinner party part of the conversation about religion happen no matter what, even if none of the PC's have faith adds, letting a PC make a persuasion skill check instead if a PC simply talks about one or more religions followed by the people from that PC's "home cosm" whether it be core earth (core earth could still apply even in the case of a transformed PC who very well might still be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist and so forth in religious beliefs even with no faith skill adds) , Asyle, the Sacelleum faith of Gaea from Orrosh and so forth.. of course it's possible none of the PC's will want to talk about religion at all even if the high priestess of the amazons asks specifically about what religious beliefs the PC's have.. in which case I would have the high priestess and other amazons look at each other and frown the Amazon high priestess saying out loud " either they have no religion.. or they don't think highly enough of it to be able to make conversation about it.. "  It's clear that the amazons are not impressed by this at all and give the PC's one final chance to talk about religion before the high priestess goes on to talk about Nemesis, after of course discussing the deities they view favorably as mentioned above.

"' Rhamnusia ' .. or as you outsiders would translate the word to, 'Nemesis' " explains the high priestess " Is the thirteenth deity of our pantheon though not one of the Olympian twelve.. she was born to their ranks and at first tasked with punishing hubris among the mortals towards the gods.. some would say she took her role she was tasked with too well - she was banished when she insisted on travelling to the mortal world and making war on mortals, convinced that they could not govern themselves properly and needed her rulership... the gods thereafter declared that though they, the gods, should be worshipped and revered, that they were not responsible for leading humanity .. .that task was left to humanity itself."

"And that is why you are not queen of the amazons" says the queen but it's obvious she's joking as she smiles at her high priestess.. her high priestess smiles back at her " My queen I would not desire the burden of rulership ... I am happy to simply oversee the worship and rites of Athena and the other deities here on our beloved island."    "But " the high priestess frowns " There were those among the amazons who felt that Nemesis was right.. they went so far as to say that the amazons should venture outside of our island and conquer the rest of the world, liberating women from their bondage to men and erecting temples to Rhamnusia throughout the world.. do we want women to be masters of their own destiny?  Of course.   But this much we do know.. for some strange reason in the outside world , women outsiders actually have relationship with men and go on to make male offspring."  The high priestess shakes her head in confusion.  "Our babies simply appear to us if Hera wills it and we pray hard enough.. always female of course.   But my point is this ... we would not slaughter these .. what is the word you outsiders use?.. ' husbands ' of the misguided women outside of our island and we certainly wouldn't slaughter boy children whose only crime was to be born the wrong gender.. yet there was a movement on this island of amazons who advocated those very same reprehensible things and made no secret of their worship of Rhamnusia .. they were , needless to say, fought and banished from our island.. and that" says the priestess with grim satisfaction " Is the last we ever saw of the Rhamnusia  worshippers."  As the adventure clearly shows later on the high priestess is wrong, the worship of Nemesis was simply driven underground instead.    Remind the players of this conversation later on when Avgo gasps "Rhamnusia!" and the PC's see in the statue where they meet with the Amazonian traitors that the existing head of the female the statue was made of has been broken off and a new stone female head put in it's place.

the adventure eventually leads to the Amazonian version of coliseum games.. however, perhaps disappointingly to the players, it's not the roman spectacle of armed warrior combat one might expect but rather a game played on horses involving a ball that needs to be scooped up and tossed into the goal on the other side... this is resolved as a dramatic skill check though players may (justifiably) be annoyed at yet another one of these as opposed to simply resolving it normally through beast rider and other such checks ... the torg core rulebook says beast riding can be used unskilled which is a bit surprising - I would definitely award bonus possibilities to PC's who have never been on a horse before role playing out their awkwardness handling their mount.    Honestly speaking as a GM I would rather have the queen declare that they are not a bloodthirsty society and that there shall be NO KILLING , the queen glaring hard at both opposing groups.. the PC's on one side, Mobius's henchmen on the other side.. and continuing to declare that this shall be non lethal combat .. wooden versions of swords, maces and so forth are provided clearly intended for non lethal damage and as the adventure states leather armor is provided for any PC who wishes to have it ... and as the torg core rulebook states leather armor, while only providing a +1 to toughness, also does not provide any penalties or really hamper the wearer in any way (pages 143-144 core rulebook).. however I would describe the armor as being clearly noticeable, having Greek stylized letters on it and other colorful symbols ..

... while the armor is still able to be worn and functional I would also have all the armor clearly designed for females .. for example there are two cups on the chest .. resulting in laughter from the audience when male PC's and NPC's alike don the armor, the Amazon queen turning in a full circle and glaring the audience into silence shouting loudly " It was not their fault they were born males.. be silent!    And consider apologizing!"   Some of the audience members shout " Apologies ! " but are clearly unable to contain their snickering as they do so much to the queen's obvious displeasure.. I would make a point of showing just how furious this makes the pulp villain the red hand - the PC's can see his fists clench and his body stiffen in obvious fury ....

....note that in the written adventure the red hand swears vengeance on the PC's if he's defeated in the arena and stalks off in fury ... between this and his playboy "I'm in this for the fun of it" image as depicted in the torg eternity nile empire book and, more importantly, in the original 1990's torg nile empire book,  I take this to mean that he is at heart a spoiled brat and this should come out should the red hand be sufficiently aggravated.. I would go so far as to give each PC say a difficulty number 10 Mind check and any PC who succeeds finds the queen's words.. " We are not a bloodthirsty society.. there shall be NO killing" echoing through the PC's mind as well as Avgo's previous words about the guests being there , mobius's henchmen and the PC's alike, being a huge honor not rarely extended to outsiders as well as Avgo's words that the PC's need to engage in a war of words, and finally an image of the red hand's clenched fists and entire body stiffening in rage as some of the Amazonian audience members laugh at the male combatants... hopefully this should be enough hints for the player to catch on .. if players simply declare " I try to enrage the red hand" and leave it at that then let them roll a Taunt check... if players however take the time to role play out their insults in a creative , extended fashion I would either lower the difficulty of the taunt check to say 2 or just let it automatically succeed , the enraged red hand pulling out his electro gun and firing at a PC , the queen rising in fury immediately afterwards and let's say one hundred archers abruptly arming their bows at the PC's and NPC's alike (if any PC wants to attack anyways point out to the player they can do so - and then immediately die afterwards becoming a human pincushion as 100 arrows fly that PC's way) , the queen shouting loudly " This is a grave insult !  YOU " she points at the Red Hand , and " YOU , YOU, YOU, and YOU " she points at Mirage, the female shocktrooper Tali, and her female shocktroopers " Are banished from our island, never to return!"   " You IDIOT ! " screams an obviously furious Mirage at the Red Hand ... follow this with the Red Hand furiously declaring vengeance some day on the PC's and amazons alike with the queen shouting immediately afterwards " Did you not hear me?  I said LEAVE !  NOW ! " .. the Red Hand, Mirage, Tali and shocktroopers are escorted out of the arena (out of the audience section in Mirage's case) by heavily armed amazons.. leaving the PC's .. the queen arises, gestures to the PC's and announces simply " The victors" provoking shouts and thunderous applause from the  audience and the garlands of flowers tossed at them as the adventure says.

One thing that puzzles me is how the leader of the traitor movement within the amazons.. said leader feeling that the amazons need to take their place as rulers of the world to "stamp out evil" and that the queen is well meaning but too timid and afraid to act.. would listen to the red hand, a charismatic bad guy granted but still a man .. this of course is something secret that isn't revealed until later on in the adventure when the PC's have to overcome the traitor and her sympathetic warriors allied with her... although the writers don't go into as much detail here as they should I would argue that the Red Hand flat out lies to the traitor, telling her that Mobius , who could use some help conquering other areas of Earth, will provide the amazons with greater swaths of land for the amazons to conquer after he plants stelae there enforcing the nile empire reality the amazons are now part of, and presumably the Amazonian women will liberate oppressed females from the bondage of male rule in these areas , with the traitor firmly convinced she can turn events to her advantage, outwit Mobius, and seize control of the Nile Empire , turning the tables on the Red Hand as it were... I would have her flat out say all of this in her speech to Avgo later on including the part about the stelae and conquering parts of earth ....which should lead to Avgo saying ' stelae?  conquer earth?  What are these ' stelae ' ?" in confused tones... the PC's of course thanks to their conversation with Quinn Sebastian know exactly what stelae are and what the red hand is proposing to bribe the traitor with.. to make it absolutely clear the Amazon queen would not support this at all I would  amend Avgo's response to the traitor's words to  " Peace and prosperity .. at the point of a sword? I'd rather die and so would good queen Aegea.. she would never support this and neither will I ! " .. 

There is no battle map provided for this first fight against the Amazonian traitors which is disappointing.. surprisingly my Google search for "platform map rpg" or "platform map rpg reddit" .. below is one possibility for a battle map though you'll have to add to the written description there's fog and mist in the temple (for simplicity's sake let's say not so much so that it hampers combat, if PC's ask have Avgo explain it's a mystic property of the platform that has "always been there") and advise the players that given this is an elevated platform a fight too close to the edge could result in a PC - or foe - falling off the edge when combat breaks out (giving you all you need right there for a player's call, setback to either side on the drama deck or simply the GM calling for a Dexterity check if combatants end up too close to the side of the map) 

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/hfla98/the_cloud_temple_30x45_greek_style_battle_map/

here's another map possibility (though I like the one above a lot better) though you'd have to change the written description in the adventure text to match this and  once again advise the players this is a raised platform (allowing for PC's and NPC's alike to fall and suffer falling damage if they get too close to the edge during combat 

https://www.elventower.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/433-Astral-Dial-P.jpg

Again, I would have Avgo gasp "Rhamnusia " when she sees the new statue head that has replaced the broken off head of the existing statue in this meeting place and have her turn furiously on the traitors, asking angrily "How dare you defile this sacred statue of Athena?!?"  I would have the traitor Amazon leader reply "Avgo, you know as well as I do as much as we revere Athena, she isn't the goddess we should be worshipping."  I would take this opportunity to remind the players of the high priestess’s description of Rhamnusia  from the dinner table party earlier on - clearly all the worshippers of  Rhamnusia  were not banished like the high priestess thought.  " All our ' queen ' "  the traitor sneers the world "queen" " Did was drive the worship of Rhamnusia  underground.. but now we will restore her to her rightful place as chief goddess of the island."  "Never! " shouts Avgo.  "Never?"  says the traitor-leader questioningly... "Avgo there are far more Rhamnusia worshippers than you realize.. last we counted one third of the island.. among them Megaera"   Avgo visibly reels in shock gripping a (insert name of PC she's most taken a liking to or just the nearest PC) in an attempt to steady herself... "The captain of the queens guard.. she is with you?"  whispers Avgo... "She is our leader" declares the traitor  Then I would have the traitor proceed with the speech she gives as written in the adventure.. this also makes it clear to the PC's what's going on when they see Amazon fighting Amazon later on.

Avgo begs the PC's to rescue her queen in the throne room and correctly points out there are so many small battles surrounding them, Amazon against Amazon, that it would be pointless to try to come to the rescue of every loyalist Amazon besides which they don't know just by looking which amazons are traitors.. if the PC's insist on joining one or more fights anyways however there's always this map

https://i.redd.it/182q1zjtpnr91.jpg

though in order not to ruin the adventure I would say that the final confrontation with Mobius' henchmen and the traitor amazons still takes place as detailed below no matter how much time the PC's waste in various individual Amazon struggles (it would probably be helpful to have one Amazon shouting " How dare you rebel against our queen! " with the other Amazon shouting " the queen is a weak ineffectual fool" during these battles making it clear who the PC's have to fight) 

After dealing with the traitors the adventure next leads the PC's to , at Avgo's urging, first the queen's throne room.. except I would amend the written description to something that doesn't insult the PC's intelligence, like " The throne room is quiet and empty, save for several

Amazons lying in crumpled heaps around the room.  Curiously, someone created a statue in the exact likeness of Queen Aegea and placed it on the throne.  The statue depicts the queen rearing back with an expression of horror on her face. Two similar statues of queensguard soldiers stand on either side of the throne, arms up as if to shield their eyes... but wait.  Are these really statues.. or something more sinister?"   And follow this up with Avgo saying in anguished tones "My queen" and rushing to the statue of the queen, tears from her face falling upon the statue as she weeps.. after the PC's question the one dying Amazon warrior that still clings to life (rather than letting the Amazon warrior die regardless as the adventure dictates I would let PC's who attempt to do so at least have the option of making a First Aid check although I would quote the 10 minute requirement for the first aid check as per pages 80-81 of the torg eternity core rules.. of course it's possible an especially heroic PC will refuse to let the Amazon warrior die for lack of attention even if it means missing out on the fight below... at that point I would have another Amazon warrior run into the room who also wanted to check on the queen and have Avgo smile visibly relieved and say " My Amazonian sister here is skilled in the arts of medicine.. she will tend to her yes?"  The Amazon who rushed in nods yes, thanks the PC who was rendering first aid and takes over.. Avgo then begs all the PC's to accompany her through the now open secret door to the pool of eternium it leads to below the throne room, the real goal of Mobius's henchmen.

Fortunately the writers have provided a battle map for this climatic scene... see above for my thoughts on how this battle should play out... however I would also do the following as far as the gorgon is concerned.. given that she needs to get an outstanding result to turn someone to stone, on a less than outstanding result when she targets a PC I would describe it as follows.. " You can feel yourself stiffening, slowing down for a moment, your skin taking on a stone-like appearance... mentally you see two possible futures before you, one where you turn entire to stone and one in which you don't... instinctively you select the one where you don't turn to stone and the effect fades away.. but as the gorgon hisses maliciously at you it becomes clear exactly how much danger you're in from her.. indeed, if it wasn't for the wash of possibility energy you all find yourselves immersed in radiating from the pool of eternium below it's clear that you would have turned to stone regardless.. how long your luck holds remains to be seen."    But I would also have the gorgon on alternate turns instead of attacking a PC  turn on any one of the ordinary shocktroopers (one per PC) or Tali captain of the shocktroopers or traitor "normal" amazons (one per PC) as opposed to Megaera, head of the Amazonian queens guard and traitor to her queen turn them to stone and, if close enough to the edge of the map, casually push the statue off the edge of the map and hiss in glee as the statue melts and bubbles in the molten eternium below.. " What is this?!?  We had an arrangement! " shrieks Megaera at the gorgon the first time the gorgon targets a PC foe ... the gorgon merely smiles maliciously and goes on to laugh at any PC who attempts to strike a deal with her, making it clear she wants to kill everyone in  the room.. however lest you have players who (justifiably) start laughing out loud when you describe the gorgon as wearing a ballistic vest as described in the adventure which seems kind of odd, even if the gorgon liberated it from say some hapless core earth victim why hasn't it transformed to the nile empire reality yet?.. Instead I would simply say the gorgon's natural scales give it the same armor protection as a ballistic vest.. the first time the PC's see Megaera cast a miracle spell they should hear her shout " Rhamnusia come to my aid" and remind the players who Rhamnusia is.. while you're at it also remind the players who Chryse is, the science minded lead blacksmith that dined with the PC's at the dinner  party scene earlier on - as the adventure states when the PC's see the traitor Amazonians and mobius henchmen threatening Chryse and Chryse still refusing to cooperate it's clear that Chryse is not with the Amazonian traitors.. 

As far as the petrification effect wearing off on the Amazonian queen as the adventure states.. I would clarify this a bit further, with Avgo openly sobbing as she looks upon her queen and practically every single Amazon left standing crying as well .. I would then have the high priestess who sat at the dinner table with the PC's earlier on cry out " Athena, goddess, beloved of the amazons, hear our cry!  Please, if it is your will , return our queen to us.. ".. the high priestess falls to her knees sobbing out "please" again, all the amazons following suit and crying " please" looking up at the sky.. give the PC's a chance to comfort any Amazonians or otherwise react as they will .. then have the stone around the queen's body start to splinter and crack.. the amazons look on in wonder, then start to cheer.. the stone ruptures further then splits open and a dazed queen emerges from the cracks.. tell the players that they just witnessed the single minded devotion of a large number.. even with one third of their number banished or dead.. of warrior women’s' single minded devotion to their queen.. surely , if the queen pledges her aid to the mystery men of the nile empire, she and the amazons could be a potent force against dr. Mobius.. if I was the GM here even if any of the PC's were foolish enough to antagonize the queen or simply failed to impress her, it would be hard for the queen to ignore all the PC's have done to help the queen.. I would automatically have the queen pledge her help to " these mystery men of yours" to the PC's , commenting archly on the various gaffs and mistakes and/or offenses the PC's committed but stating nonetheless she is in the PC's debt ... " Tell them to send an envoy to me " says the queen to the PC's, who then turns to the amazons and says " So this Dr. Mobius thinks he can make war on us?  US, the amazons?   I say we SHOW this Mobius what war means!   What say you my people?"  the crowd enthusiastically roars their approval , many of them shaking a fist in the air.   Curiously enough none of the torg eternity material says how many Amazonian warriors are left even after the insurrection, purging of the traitors and or/loyal to the queen Amazonians who fell in combat against the traitors but pulling a random number out of the air, if a player asks let's say of the five thousand Amazonians on the island the queen will pledge one thousand warriors.. an incredible fighting force if you look at the average Amazonian warrior's stats in the adventure (page 60 - compare to the much wimpier stats of say the average nile empire shocktrooper on page 109 and you'll see that a single Amazonian warrior will mop the floor against a single hapless shocktrooper).   I would also go so far as to outfit the Amazonians with very large very durable nearly impossible to destroy magical flying  chariots armed with catapults, flanks of Amazon warriors with  "rapid fire bows" with large amounts of arrow-ammunition in let's say a self replenishing quiver,  and other magical vehicles or weapons of war given their pool of eternium to make them a match for say the chain mounted machine guns and tanks of Mobius's army (and have the Amazon queen smile grimly and explain this to the PCs if a PC expresses concern in this area.. " We  prepared ourselves for war a long time ago if ever the need came" says the queen)... not to mention the impressive number of spell casting battle priestesses who can and will use their miracles against the foe.

The adventure states that eternium can be used to craft remarkable weapons and armor but doesn't give any game stats for this... despite this as a parting gift I would have the queen tell the PC's that not only are they welcome back to her island at any point (like the adventure states), if they return later on when her blacksmiths have had enough time to craft it , she can have the PC's measurements taken and craft swords and armor for them " of truly remarkable quality"... if a PC takes her up on this offer I would rule that this results in a PC having plate mail as per page 143 of the torg core rules but only minimum strength 6 to wear instead of 10 and it does not result in fatigue when it is worn with a toughness bonus of +4 instead of +3 and provides full body armor protection (although I would point out to the player too that if a PC is trying to blend in with the crowd that the armor makes it impossible unless the PC is wearing a cloak and a cloak wouldn't look out of place in the crowd to begin with).. at the player's discretion a more discrete Amazonian version of elven chain that can be hidden under a shirt given it's lightweight, mesh like construction can be made instead (the blacksmiths ask the PCs about this specifically prior to the PC's leaving the island so the PC gets the kind of armor s/he wants) that also gives +4 armor protection but only for the torso... I would amend the Amazonian armor description in the gear section of the nile empire to reflect this too (add +1 to toughness, does not fatigue) and for that matter amend the armor description (including adding +1 to the toughness bonus the armor provides) for all amazons listed so far in this adventure.

I would also say the PC's are also offered a small, medium or large shield (PC's choice) but there's no strength minimum at all for even the large shield.. finally the PC's are offered their choice of blades, axes, a spear, mace or all metal staff or spear from page 147 of torg core rules but the damage is increased by one point and no unwieldy drawback for the great axe.. in all cases describe the armor and weapons as incredibly lightweight, weighing practically nothing yet very strong and durable... however also have the blacksmiths tell the PC's creating armor and weapons of this quality takes a lot of time and they won't be ready for at least one month of game time... have the blacksmiths offer to have a contingent of Amazonian warriors show up with their gifts at a location of the PC's choice a month from now if the PC's feel they won't have the time to get back to the island by then.

although the adventure doesn't specifically mention this I would role play out when the PC's return to the Delphi council's new agent, the reporter they rescued earlier on (who presumably seeks the PC's out upon their return or is waiting for them outside the Delphi council headquarters from earlier - of course PC's who want to do so anyways should be allowed back inside the secret headquarters to talk to the NPC's they did before ... only to discover they're all gone, only the unnamed weird scientist from earlier on is there looking on in confusion at the PC's and explaining that "Snowflake" , the Raven and Dr. Frest are all away on missions.. I would have the now disgruntled reporter point out that she was already briefed by said NPC's and have her continue to impart her information that leads to the next part of the adventure (though the weird scientist should if the PC's protest be able to raise at least Snowflake on the radio who should express extreme gratitude that the PC's got the Amazon’s as allies, telling the PC's that this will no doubt move Dr. Frest to tears when he finds out, well done and so forth).

In the temple among the threats the PC's encounter are a swarm of spiders... which raises one issue I've had with the torg eternity write up of certain threats.. the adventure forces the PC's to test against fear.. I wince at the thought of the following conversation between the players and the GM

The next part of the adventure of course involves another temple , with traps.. 

" Why are we testing for fear?"

"because it's a scary situation?"

"In what way? Supernatural magical fear?   Mind control against us to make us afraid?"

(gm shrugs shoulders) " It's just a scary situation"

Trust me when I say from my previous experience that this does NOT go over well with players - short of overt supernatural or psionic influence they do not like being told how their characters will react in a given situation since you're basically seizing control of the most precious of their assets in the game - their characters - and if you have a player who's deeply into the role playing out the PC's personality aspect (like say I am as a player, and not to give myself too much credit but from what I've seen the same kind of player a lot of GM's end up wanting to keep in the gaming group too ) they will especially be upset with this given that they already have very firm ideas as to how their beloved PC will react in any given situation.

Instead I would do the following and I'm slapping myself on the head wondering why I didn't think of this before in my previous reviews of other torg books.. announce to the players it's a very scary situation with being enclosed in a tomb and a swarm of spiders crawling all over them that can kill them due to their pincers and claws .. vividly describe what a possible death would look like, the PC vanishing from view disappearing under a constantly moving blanket of black colored deadly vermin.. then tell the players that PC's who choose to take a negative penalty in this situation .. say the Very Stymied result that is normally the result of a failed fear test (page 263 core rulebook)... gets one possibility (maybe even 2 if they role play out their PC's fear very well) for their efforts.   This leaves it in the hands of the players as well it should be in my opinion.. make a point of clarifying to the players that they don't get this bonus in the case of supernatural (magical , spiritual produced by miracles or the like) or psionic effects that cause fear , only in situations where it's really up to the player whether or not the PC gets frightened in that particular situation.   I would use this tactic for every threat in Torg where the GM feels the fear isn't supernatural or psionic in nature.. for example coming face to face with a high lord, one would assume the PC's feel the full weight of the high lord's darkness device  supporting said high lord, which itself probably qualifies as a cosmic force ... or coming face to face with monsters from orrosh who inspire fear automatically due to the very nature of reality in the realm.. monsters from Tharkold or Asyle could have the same effect due to their obviously supernatural nature, let's say a fear aura that supernaturally radiates from them .. but threats the players could encounter in "real life earth" like this shouldn't automatically call for a fear check in my honest opinion, nor should fights against say a ravagon just because the ravagon is a fierce warrior (unless the ravagon has been say turned into a monster of orrosh for example lost to the power of corruption).

There's a wonderful scene where the PC's have to fight one of the walking "god" statue constructs , the sebek version in this case, on a rotating platform that spins faster and faster possibly with stalactites crashing down on both them and the sebek statue .. while no illustration is provided here's one picture I found on Google that might work though it would have to be explained to the players that this is a statue, albeit a life like looking one going by the artwork

https://www.deviantart.com/marcelodisco/art/Sobek-504912222

The next part of the adventure has the PC's meet up with - big surprise - Hooded Cobra yet again who confesses that there are forces within the Nile Empire who want to paint him as a traitor to  Mobius.. " all lies and slander of course" says the Cobra, presumably the PC's are smart enough to see through that bluff... and the Cobra proposes a temporary team up to go after the plans for the floating death dealing fortress Mobius created that has already been constructed by now and is wreaking havoc on.. well the adventure doesn't say exactly who it's targeting but let's say core earth armies on the borders of Mobius's conquered stelae-bound zones of earth in an obvious attempt by Mobius to expand the borders of the areas of earth he's already conquered... I enjoyed how the adventure accounts for if the PCs make an alliance with the cobra and if they do not explaining what happens either way as well as accounting for what happens if the PC's raise the alarm in the fortress they enter by being too noisy or otherwise arousing suspicion and a possibly way out of the headquarters though it should be made clear to the players this is NOT a desirable outcome and that stealth is the watchword of the day given that they are in the very heard of dr mobius's headquarters meaning thousands of shocktroopers they'll be overwhelmed with if they draw attention to themselves.   The temple the PC's came through, as it turns out, was part of a secret passage into the headquarters of Dr. Mobius himself.. fortunately for the PC's the high lord is not there right now.

I enjoyed as well how the adventure gives much more detail about Mobius' headquarters/lair particularly the game stats for and how the dreaded omegatron works ... though there are parts of the adventure that I thought were particularly unfairly written to the players .... for example how any attempt by a PC to say " yes " to the siren call of mobius's darkness device results in Mobius instantly teleporting to the darkness device via dimthread and the PC's inevitable defeat .. I would reword this to PC's who say yes being treated to an image of the Pc in complete and utter control of the Nile Empire -after first transforming into a nile empire pulp villain of course .. the PC's every cruel whim satisfied, a dark and sinister version of the PC who's given in to his/her every urge unfolding in the vision (more than likely a player will protest " that's not how a dark and evil version of my character would be like"... the GM can either say " well you see what you just suggested instead" or if the player has no such suggestions simply state that perhaps the darkness device doesn't know the PC as well as it thinks it does)... it should be made absolutely clear to the PC's that they are dealing with an item of overwhelming power and should they make the appropriate scholar/faith/science and so forth roll realize that this is a darkness device.. yet strangely enough they can feel the darkness device's amusement then feel it withdraw it's attention from them looking elsewhere .. almost as if it doesn't particularly care if the PC's are there or not... strange.. and I would have the darkness device deliberately obscure Mobius's awareness that it's talking to a PC, knowledge that the darkness device shares with the PC before it's presence fades from the PC's mind....

Give PC's a ridiculously low (Mind 2 ) roll if they are foolish enough to try and attack the darkness device, explaining not only the feeling of immense power they got from it and the certain feeling somehow that even a nuclear explosion might not be enough to dismantle it, but also point out they are in the heart of Dr. Mobius's fortress (the adventure doesn't make this clear from the beginning of the act but now is a good time to point this out to the PC's) meaning any overt actions on the PC's part could mean being overwhelmed by thousands of Mobius's shocktroopers, wave after wave all stationed at his headquarters.... which is a bit of an exaggeration , the adventure makes it clear a limited number of enemies attack at first should the PC's draw attention to themselves (though I would argue the sixteen gospog of the third planting alone that come rushing in would be enough to overwhelm the PC's let alone the gang of spellcasting acolyte priests that show up and either one or two shocktroopers per PC - see also later on in the adventure where the cloud of knockout gas is triggered if the PC's are foolish enough to stand there and keep fighting) ... although the adventure doesn't specifically state this I would argue  if the PC's somehow defeat these foes more show up wave after wave until the PC's are overwhelmed even if by some miracle they avoid the effects of the knockout gas (rules for the gas aren't provided in the written adventure and strangely enough my search of the torg eternity core rules and the nile empire sourcebook provided no stats at all for knockout gas which seems to be a huge oversight in my opinion.. I would just use the poison rules from page 265 of the torg core rulebook, declare it only does shock damage not wounds and give it a difficulty number of 14 as far as resisting it's damage effects or it does "damage 14" basically just non lethal).

Also as far as the fear check the darkness device (understandably) forces on the PCs as soon as they see the darkness device, if the PC's are "in disguise" as a shocktrooper or other person whose appearance matches that of a servant of Dr. Mobius, while the adventure does state something as subtle as the PC breaking their stride automatically takes place if they fail the fear check, while it draws looks from the followers of Mobius that surround the PC's it has no other ill effects.. the GM could leave it like that to heighten the player's sense of paranoia here deep in the bowels of enemy territory.. or, if I was GM here, I would have a shocktrooper give a PC in an appropriate disguise a clap on the shoulder then whisper looking fearfully at the darkness device " Yeah, it did the same thing to me too.. to pretty much everyone who sees it actually.. I'm glad Pharoah Mobius is the one who deals with it, I'd go nuts with fear if I had to talk to it all the time the way Pharoah does - all hail Mobius"  the last part can be barely heard as the shocktrooper gives the darkness device a fearful look over his shoulder then ushers the PC's on ahead towards their destination.. if it's a PC who's clearly meant to be a captive I would have the shocktroopers simply sneer out loud at the PC's fear , conveniently ignoring the fact that they too have been subject to the same fear from the darkness device.  

Given the importance of stealth I would flat out tell the players now is a good time to spend destiny card and possibilities on attempts regarding stealth and trickery.. but in order not to make the players waste their time on trying to trick or persuade the two guards at the door of the omegatron to let them in (and bear in mind the PC's don't HAVE to enter the omegatron room though given the groans of tormented pain from inside that are unnerving even the shocktroopers guarding the door it wouldn't be surprising if the PC's insisted on doing just that- remember they're supposed to be the good guys) , have the PC's overhear the guards talk about what happened to a shocktrooper who was tortured to death.. " You heard about what happened to Amir right? "  " I did... that idiot actually let a mystery man talk himself right past this door"  pounds fist on the door behind him.  " Then you know what they did to him?"  the other guard shudders.. " I was there.. they made us all watch while Natatiri tore him apart with red hot pincers - poor bastard was still alive when she did it.. and she LIKED it, I could tell.  Not letting that happen to me - nobody's getting past this door no matter they say.. I don't care if they say it's Mobius's orders himself I'm not being fooled like poor Amir was."  " You got that right" agrees the other guard vehemently.  Flat out tell the players that it's blatantly obvious even the best dice roll results  on an attempt to talk or persuade  their way past the guards is doomed to failure.. they will have to use other stealthy means to take the guards out that doesn't involve getting the guards to agree to let them in.    

Hopefully it will occur to the PC's to use the cinematic time honored.. Indiana Jones style too for that matter if you think about it in the true spirit of the nile empire.. method of one or more PC's distracting the guards with something that gets their full attention followed by other PC's knocking the guards out or killing them quietly... hopefully by spending enough possibilities and cards they PC's get a high enough result to take the two guards out with a single blow...

The next sticky part of the adventure potentially involves rescuing hapless captured mystery men from the omegatron if the PC's choose to.. bear in mind what I've said above, torg eternity adventures by default appear to be written for PC's who are clearly the good guys.. and who as a result probably won't be able to resist rescuing the person they hear groaning inside the megatron.. the problem is the way the adventure is written it almost guarantees certain death for a PC who tries to do so.. while this makes sense given the dread nature of the omegatron fueled as it is by Dr. Mobius's evil and enormous intellect and the darkness device itself as the adventure states , in a manner that makes it obvious even to the PC's.. it seems grossly unfair to punish the players simply for acting like the heroes their PC's are supposed to be.. I would amend this to the PC being overwhelmed in pain, falling unconscious to the floor, automatically taking one wound of damage as their very flesh rips open.. and somehow the PC knows that further attempts will result in the PC being sucked into the omegatron and certain death... on top of that I would have a PC spot a healing potion (see page 52 of the nile empire sourcebook) that they can use to eliminate that single wound so they're not overtly punished simply for doing the right thing, flasks secreted away by Dr. Mobius no doubt to revive a victim - then shove him screaming back into the omegatron after Mobius is done questioning him or simply to sadistically get the mystery man's hopes up .. having said that be prepared for stubborn PC's each attempting their reality role PC by PC since - well that's what heroes do (you may need multiple healing flasks being spotted to account for this).. let them rescue the mystery man captured in there but leave out the part where he talks about other mystery men trapped in the omegatron or you're going to have a total party kill situation on your hands where PC after PC kills themselves trying to fish hapless mystery men out.. just have the rescued mystery man be so far gone (he's already practically incoherent) that he doesn't even remember the presence of the other mystery men in there until much later on when the PC's are far away from the omegatron.     The adventure does show a picture of the omegatron which is easily cropped and which I would definitely show to the players , just tell them that the Shroud, a well known hero of the Nile Empire and mystery man, is not there and to just imagine the picture shows one of the PC's at the sarcophagus that is the heart of the omegatron instead

the adventure states that if the PC's... understandably.. try to destroy the omegatron Mobius shows up himself to capture the PC's.. again this seems grossly unfair to players who are just trying to have their PC's do the right thing.. .instead I would have their attempts to destroy it recoil on themselves... the entire thing appears to be indestructible.. the PC who heard the darkness device before hears it chuckling in the PCs mind as it whispers that it's made certain the entire thing is indestructible... of course, whispers the darkness device, the PC's could go on making noise trying to wreck something they can't destroy.. the darkness device is curious, it says, as to what would happen next... oddly enough nobody comes to investigate no matter how much noise the PC's make trying to wreck it... let the PC's continue futilely as long as they like, the darkness device creating a zone of silence (as per the pulp power) at that point which the PC's notice at that point, their attacks making no sound at all and the PC's unable to even speak to each other.. the PC the darkness device spoke to can hear it chuckling in his/her mind.. " I changed my mind" whispers the darkness device " You are far too interesting to let you die in so .. mundane.. a fashion.  I will be watching you storm knight."

I would also have the players uncover, should they go inside the omegatron room, papers that hint at , if the PC's make a successful science roll (but set the difficulty number low to say 4) , schemes that involve a "travelling reality" (let the PC's figure that much out even on a failed science roll or even if none of the PC's has the science skill) as a hint of the gigantic plot device that makes up the dramatic final conclusion of this written adventure later on (and also so you're less likely to have potentially outraged players hollering " come on ! " when they discover that the flying ship fortress they need to take down later on is built around a "travelling stelae" that carries the nile empire reality with it wherever it goes , something that goes above and beyond anything mentioned in the torg core rulebook or any of the cosm sourcebooks nile empire or no.. as well in order to mentally prepare the players for this later on have the papers review stuff already mentioned in the nile empire cosm sourcebook such that even PC's who normally wouldn't be familiar with such things are now aware of it.. I will quote at this point something that I mention later on below during the final confrontation on the flying ship fortress later on.. 

"....in the writer's defense the nile empire cosm sourcebook does state that engineers can set up some interesting matrixes within pyramids that result in some potent traps and even let people with no training in spellcasting ability cast spells within pyramids thanks to hieroglyphics so it's not a far stretch for particularly brilliant engineers to go even further with their arts for the sake of the plot... likewise the same nile empire sourcebook describes mathematicians using not only astrology but the power of numbers - to the point where they utilize made-up imaginary numbers as the cosm sourcebook states... to pull off spells that as the cosm sourcebook says "astound physicists"... persons familiar with the power of number crunching say in computer programming or applied sciences such as what NASA uses for spacecraft launch should therefore be able to comprehend an "alternate reality".. that of the nile empire .. where numbers are instead used in magical "applied science" so to speak fields for different yet equally powerful purposes... in addition the nile empire cosm sourcebook flat out states rituals can be cast resulting in powerful effects above and beyond those listed in the nile empire cosm sourcebook presumably as a plot device.. see pages 32-34 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook for the instances that I am citing.. so there's all that.. still it would have been nice if the writers had "said that out loud" in the written adventure as opposed to a GM having to guess and extrapolate this from the nile empire cosm sourcebook.   "

If the hooded cobra is with the PC's I would have the hooded cobra whisper frantically to the PC's as they approach the omegatron trying to persuade them not to approach it ... the shocktroopers should regretfully tell the hooded cobra that they can't let even him inside, only Pharoah Mobius himself gets into this room... then I would advise the players while a strangely uncomfortable and obviously fearful cobra tries half heartedly to convince the shocktroopers that the cobra is unwittingly providing a distraction should the PC's want to quietly launch a surprise attack against the shocktroopers in a way that doesn't draw any attention ... if questioned about the omegatron the cobra should continue to be obviously fearful - he can confirm that the rumors are true, the mystery men that oppose Mobius are shoved inside along with the villains that fail or otherwise displease Mobius (there's obvious terror in the cobra's voice at this point and it's clear he REALLY doesn't want to be anywhere near the omegatron) .. and the cobra asserts that aside from the hapless soul groaning in there anyone else that was shoved inside is long gone, dead, their life energy ripped away from them to fuel Mobius's schemes.    The cobra frantically tries to convince PC's not to open the omegatron and/or reach into it whispering " That thing is a death trap!  What are you doing?  Stop!"  (the cobra still wants the PC's along as cannon fodder should an alarm be triggered in Mobius's headquarters).

The adventure assumes that the alarm sounds sooner or later in Mobius's headquarters and that the PC's have to flee (the players may again need to be reminded with say difficulty 2 mind rolls of the overwhelming forces arrayed against them should they stay and fight).. fortunately the secret door they need to escape literally pops right open in front of them if need be... the part about the "room" (presumably where the door is) having no air is a bit confusing and will no doubt confuse the players too as they ask why the room has no air and what the mechanics are behind this strange phenomenon so I would ignore that - I'm sure the players will be inspired to flee the scene anyways once they get their hands on the blueprints for the floating death fortress thing Mobius has built.

No  battlemap unfortunately is provided for the library but here's one possibility I found online though you'd need to explain to the players that the stairs simply lead to an elevated portion of the library where the most important books are held that is the stairs don't lead up or down to another level (remember you want the only entrance/exit to the room once the alarm sounds to be the secret passage out of the library)

https://www.reddit.com/r/dndmaps/comments/i0avr1/55x43battlemap_my_first_floor_of_my_grand_library/

Curiously the adventure doesn't show Hooded Cobra trying to get a hold of the blueprints.. I would have the Cobra turn on the PC's at this point, at first "ordering" them to hand over the blueprints to him in front of the suspicious librarians (acolytes that cast divine miracle spells) .. I would also argue Hooded Cobra's presence if he's along at least buys the PC's some time while the suspicious librarians demand the special ID card nobody has that authorizes the release of the plans and the Hooded Cobra's screams in response, " Do you know who I am you witless worm?!"  " I'll have your head on a platter! "  " Nobody says no to the Hooded Cobra!" ... assume the librarians are far from impressed and this isn't their first run in with a slightly insane power mad pulp villain , besides which they would (justifiably) be more afraid of Dr. Mobius and flat out say they feat their pharaoh more than they do the Hooded Cobra.. " Pharoah Mobius sent me ! "  screams the Hooded Cobra.. " Then why didn't he give you the special ID card?" replies the librarian calmly.   " Forget this - die, all of you DIE !"  ... the PC's can clearly hear the insanity in the hooded cobra's voice as he either attacks with his weapons (if the PC's let him keep said weapons) or his bare hands if necessary, of course triggering the alarm, causing heavy stone slabs to drop over the only entrance and exit to the room (except of course for the secret passage already mentioned out of there)  and prompting the PC's need to escape (of course they need to wrest the blueprints from the acolyte first)... remember that the adventure states the obstacle piling referenced in the nile empire world laws can and should take place including library shelves falling over and the room literally catching fire in the chaos (the adventure doesn't state this but I would just state some foolish librarian brought a flame lit lantern into a room full of books that starts burning .. alternately if he wasn't searched the hooded cobra, cackling, can pull a weird science device from his clothes, toss it at the books and a raging fire starts).

Of course it's entirely possible that the cobra isn't with the PC's anyways in which case the adventure details what challenges the PC's have to work through to get the blueprints then escape ... even if the PC's have been careful to avoid arousing suspicion or triggering any alarms and somehow manage to get the blueprints from the suspicious librarian without raising an alarm, at that point I would have the darkness device speak in lazy tones inside the PC's head it was conversing with earlier saying " I'm curious as to what your next actions would be if I do .. this."  suddenly all the PC's hear an alarm going off and see the stone slab drop into place sealing the entrance/exit to the library closed, the darkness device's lazy chuckle sounding in the PC's head it's been speaking to all this while before going silent.

Once the PC's enter the library, while the adventure states it's all acolytes (who cast divine type spells ) the PC's have to fight as far as spellcasting types, if it was me personally I would replace one or two of the acolytes with the mathematician mentioned in the nile empire... except much to my surprise the nile empire sourcebook does not provide the stats for a "typical" mathematician spell wielder, or an engineer for that matter, in service to Mobius.. even more to my surprise no such stats are provided for them in this fires of ra book either which to me represents a huge missed opportunity on the writers' part... GM's who have the time to do so might want to take this opportunity to write up a mathematician and/or engineer archetype with stats for future use in nile empire adventures.. alternately 

if the hooded cobra is with the PC's the adventure states that he turns on the PC's when they slide out of the impromptu escape chute (a tunnel with a bundle of wires connecting to something) onto a launchpad for a rocket .. I would have the cobra walk up to the bad guys at the launch pad smugness in his voice, point at the PC's and sneer " I just found out these are heroes in disguise - kill them!"  I would assume the cobra hopes to loot the blueprints from the PC's dead body afterwards.. if the Cobra isn't present the adventure states Lady Hourglass or Bare Knuckles Bronco should be present instead.

The next part of the adventure could be a bit tricky if the PC's have played through the Day One adventure set in the nile empire as they will recognize the damsel in distress tied to the rocket as an ally of the bad guys (judging from what she tells the PC's if asked, a dupe of the Hooded Cobra at that) .. amusingly the adventure gives the option of simply leaving the damsel in distress, Jess Carmel, tied to the rocket as the PC's blast off .. I wouldn't hold this against the PC's if they know she's a bad guy despite the law of heroism though I would definitely award a possibility to any PC's who rescue her anyways or who say they're in favor f rescuing her explaining to the players that they are supporting the law of heroism in the nile empire and reality itself can award that sort of thing (hopefully this appeases angry players who wanted to keep Jesse tied to the rocket and who want to know why they aren't being rewarded with a possibility - the GM should prepare him or herself for another argument about morality with players who like to take moral shortcuts at this point).   there is an illustration of Jesse tied to the rocket you can share with the players and, thankfully, a battlemap for the fight as well as an interesting possibility where the captain of the shocktrooper challenges a PC to a no weapons bare knuckle brawl - whether or not a PC takes up the offer remains to be seen.

The next act involves the PC's making their way (hopefully via stealth or disguise though the adventure gives an option for an all out frontal assault too) onto the base containing an air vehicle .. the falcon.. that Dr. Frest can use to help counter Mobius's flying fortress plans.. more specifically the falcon can be used to penetrate the all powerful "heat shield" around the fortress that causes so much damage that it's difficult to survive the trip past it long enough to mount an assault on the fortress.. or alternately collect enough information from the base for Dr. Frest to construct a falcon of his own.    

I enjoyed how the adventure accounts for any one of a variety of ways that the PC's can sneak or otherwise journey into city where the base is located... driving through the desert, arriving via train, via boat... though the adventure fails to mention that the PC's would be provided with fake papers allowing them easy access onto one of the many railroads frequently used for easy access within the nile empire (see also the nile empire sourcebook which mentions this) ... I also liked how the adventure accounts for varying degrees of success with streetwise rolls as far as uncovering various bits of information although there could be a problem with the adventure being derailed if the PC's get an outstanding success on a streetwise roll near the boats in that they'll uncover a band of refugees hoping to escape the nile empire and retreat to core earth .. 

....if the PC's are heroic in nature as they're supposed to be they're going to want to join the refugees and make sure they get there safely .. I would allow for Mind rolls say difficulty number 4 to inform the PC's of the heartbreaking reality .. if Mobius's flying fortress isn't stopped he'll wreak so much damage and havoc on the armies of core earth bordering the nile empire that the single  band of refugees will be minor in comparison to the huge number of refugees such a result would create... if the PC's still insist I would pause the adventure at this point, ask the PC's to quickly write up a second group of PC's or just grab templates from say the pay-what-you-want torg eternity gamesmaster's screen which includes various PC archetypes also requesting that each of the original PC's know the new PC from some previous adventure they shared, and declare the new group of PC's shows up, tells the current group of PC's they'll take it from there (the new group of PC's showed up to let's say stop the "river monster" they've been hearing stories about and confidently accompany the refugees certain they'll come across the monster in question.. the GM should also make it clear that at the player's option any experience points gained by the new "team" can be passed on instead to the "original" PC's though be prepared for players who refuse this option either out of a sense of "realism" (my original PC wasn't present how could s/he benefit?) or simply out of a sense of truly role playing each PC... the GM can simply let the encounter with the river monster occur with the new band of PC's or.. and this would be my personal choice as a GM .. come up with a new and different river monster threat .. say the gigantic crocodile of sebek from page 124 of the nile empire sourcebook or alternately this new set of stats from asyle of all places (not an impossible concept, just make the priest of this shark worshipping race reality rated and his warriors beings that haven't converted over to the nile empire reality yet - or maybe they all have but despite operating under nile empire axioms are still as presented in the link below)

https://daddydm.wordpress.com/2018/05/07/torg-eternity-new-old-creatures-of-aysle/

and decide on an appropriate number of sharks and/or giant sharks accompanying them for the new team of PC's to fight.. this allows the original "river monster" to still be present for the original group of PC's to fight later on.

Pages 74-75 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook come in very handy here as far as describing how Uganda.. which the kingdom of Buganda and the mob the PC's are asked to help calm down are , if I understand correctly, considered to be part of (Uganda that is), see below for the mob scene ... and is particularly helpful in detailing how the area has changed given the Nile Empire invasion of it.. there's a discussion of religion .. apparently mostly Christian with an increasingly larger number of people following the ancient Bantu mythology and as well converts to the "official" Amaatism "Egyptian gods" worship that is the only religion officially sanctioned by the nile empire (meaning worshippers of other religions have to do so secretly).. which I suppose could be used as the basis for the argument given in the adventure later below with said mob riot as to how both ethnic and religious differences are used to incite mob violence citizen against citizen in the mob scene detailed below around the core earth hardpoint.. and sure you could have the Christians, superior in number, angrily picking a fight with the bantu and/or Amaatism worshipping tribal members.. the problem is the reasons they're fighting start to get a bit murky when you combine religious differences and tribal differences in a matter that could be confusing to players who are (understandably) far more concerned with putting out the fires that threaten the core earth hardpoint... as intriguing as the religious differences thing is .. and especially given that one would assume the Christians and Bantu worshippers are used to secretly practicing their religion as detailed in the nile empire sourcebook... I would personally leave out the religion thing completely and focus on the conflict over land suggestion I give later on (see below) 

The PC's come directly across a pulp villain .. the snake king.. and though the PC's will no doubt be unaware of this (unless in true dramatic nile empire fashion the snake king makes a point of dramatically recounting his "backstory" during combat) the snake king's origin story highlights the four color pulp comic nature of the nile empire... after losing his arm to a fellow criminal, the simply act of falling into a snake pit and being repeatedly bitten was enough to give the snake king his powers .. .a hypnotic stare and a giant snake for an arm he can attack and do damage with , though I was a bit confused that the adventure didn't bother to give the snake arm a poison attack as well to represent the snake's venom, which I would personally speaking add as well with say a difficulty number 12 damage to resist for the poison on any successful hit but also allowing for a player's call result in combat to damage the snake head on the arm to the point where further attacks with it are useless.. the snake king leads a prison breakout orchestrated towards gathering further recruits for his gang , whom the PC's also have to fight.

as far as a battlemap for the prison this map sprung out at me 

https://www.reddit.com/r/dungeondraft/comments/s5eyw6/ayetva_souls_end_desert_prison_47_x_36/

given that it has entry and exit points out of the jail right into the desert.. it is however drastically different from the "real" luzira prison in Uganda that the adventure refers to as you can see if you look at the picture detailed in the Wikipedia entry below

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luzira_Maximum_Security_Prison

one way to explain this would be to just say the axiom wash caused an enormous change in the small prison shown in "real life Uganda" in the Wikipedia link above, turning it into a gigantic version of itself suitable for containing the larger number of pulp villains, mobsters and other nile empire bad guys the prison would now have to house (the adventure states pulp villains and death row inmates are housed there but it wouldn't be a far stretch of the imagination to envision mob goons from the mob wars detailed in the nile empire sourcebook to end up there too).   In the map it's the GM’s option as to whether or not the ballista are still functional and can shoot gigantic pointy things at prisoners trying to escape or if it's been disabled by the inmates.    Also be prepared for the PC's staying inside the prison and dealing with any and all escaped inmates and making sure they're all locked down.. which I'm sure will draw puzzled reactions from the shocktroopers manning the jail if they identify the PC's as enemies of Pharoah Mobius yet still helping the shock troopers out... personally I would have the shocktrooper captain of the jail go so far as to say he'll do his best to turn a blind eye to the PC's actions while they're here out of gratefulness for their actions (though obviously this doesn't necessarily help PC's once they leave the prison.. perhaps the shocktrooper jail warden puts the word out in the city the PC's find themselves in and shocktroopers start looking the other way when they see the PC's not hassling them.

Strangely enough the adventure gives a lot of detail about what happens if the PC's ignore the snake king and the prison breakout.. I suppose you could make the argument that the PC's don't want to call attention to themselves in favor of their "bigger goal" of taking down Mobius's flying fortress but given that both the torg core rules and especially the nile empire cosm sourcebook particularly the law of heroism make it clear the PC's are supposed to be the good guys, it seems a bit jarring that the adventure accounts so clearly for PC's who are basically unwilling to do their job. 

The PC's are also approached by a core earth man (akiki - they make it clear akiki is a man from page 83 onwards though given most of us are unfamiliar with the culture and that name it would have been helpful if they used the word "he" right away so the GM is clear from the onset of how to describe this Delphi agent) and fellow agent of the Delphi council who requests the PC's help in putting out a fire and at the same time talking down an angry mob who will inadvertently extinguish a core earth hardpoint as a result, a burial ground centered around long dead kings of Uganda (note that the vast majority of the area is still nile empire this is just a hardpoint of core earth that - curiously enough - the shocktroopers leave alone the adventure stating that the shocktroopers have a respect for burial grounds .. which I suppose would make sense when you think about the importance of buried mummies inside of pyramids and the emphasis placed on Egyptian religion in general in the nile empire) ... this is one of the few areas of the adventure which in my opinion has a drastic lack of detail.. the mob is described as being aroused by kanawa agents who have incited ethnic and religious differences in an effort to take out the core earth hardpoint in an effort to hamper both the core earth Delphi agents in the area and the nile empire.. but I find myself clueless as to how this would harm the nile empire's cause in the slightest (it would actually help the nile empire in my opinion) and core earth axioms are close enough to Pan Pacifica's such that I would imagine Kanawa corporation would want to keep the hardpoint intact.    

Instead I would change the plotline to the following .. as the adventure dictates Kanawa corporation stepped in and used it's funds to restore the area after it was ravaged by a fire (but presumably not so badly as to destroy the core earth hardpoint .. perhaps the Delphi council agent who approaches the storm knights and her fellow agents stopped the fire the first time) ... but then a priest of the various Egyptian deities worshipped in the nile empire found out about the burial site and, even worse in his eyes, the hardpoint it created, became enraged at what he considers to be sacrilege and hired the bad guy mentioned in the adventure .. the pulp villain "the charsonist" ... to incite the mob.   

Despite the Egyptian god worshipping priest of the nile empire hiring the charsonist, rather than focusing on religious conflicts between the various mob elements like the adventure suggests, personally  I would use the Wikipedia and NPR links below to cite the areas of conflict... conflict between the government and, as the NPR interview puts it in their interview with the former real life minister of Buganda, the tribes that came together to form Buganda as a kingdom, specifically conflict over what land belongs to whom...if I understand the article correctly the larger kingdom of Uganda, of which Buganda is one of if not the largest sub-kingdom members, is forcibly taking land from Buganda creating conflict.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=88099586

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buganda

and also here's another article about Buganda

https://www.britannica.com/place/Lake-Victoria

If a player is (understandably) stuck as far as to exactly what his or her PC might say to the mob (it depends on the PC of course.. a PC from say Asyle whose player has read the Asyle cosm sourcebook may be fully aware of the bad things that can happen if members of a kingdom fight against each other and how it weakens everyone involved to the point where the REAL bad guys come along the bad guys have an easy time of it ), I would give the PC an easy Mind roll (say difficulty number 4) for the obvious to occur to the PC ... while say the mob elements of say a tribe whose land is being taken away from it are fighting say the elements of another tribe allied with the government taking away the land, the dimensional invaders.. pharaoh Mobius in this case and his shocktroopers.. can sweep in and take control of everything... hopefully the PC will recount their fight against the Hooded Cobra and his allies specifically the part where Cobra took the lounge singer hostage and using her as an example of how the dimensional invaders care nothing for the populace it is conquering, the horrors of what happened in the jungle city including the hapless headless bodies of the treasure hunters/archeologists coming to life and how the PC's had to put them down, the storm knight whose body was trapped inside a seed pod living an endless nightmare to feed the nightmare tree which in turn allowed the tree to spread it's own horrific reality resulting in the researchers being ripped from the very graves they were buried in  .. a clever PC may even point at the site sacred to presumably most of the members of the mob where previous burganda kings are buried and ask the mob if they want the dimensional invaders to do the same to the burial sites of their beloved kings and watch said kings come back as some twisted horrific monstrosity of themselves that insults the memory of what they were in life ... and if a GM listened to my advice the sad story of the boy in the jungle city and how he became orphaned by the Hooded Cobra, and most recently the story of the Serpent King and his breaking hardened criminals out of jail , the Serpent King himself obviously sporting the powers of the dimensional invaders and the jailbreak no doubt resulting in much grief and heartache for the people of Burganda.. or it would have if the PC's hadn't stopped it but the point is a dimensional invader was responsible for the jailbreak... 

....rather than reciting this all to the player as a GM I would ask the players what they remember of all these past incidents and fill in the gaps for them if necessary if any players can't remember and highlight how everything they've encountered spells trouble for the people of earth.. all at the hands of the dimensional invaders.. with the takeaway being if the people of core earth don't unite against the dimensional invaders what hope do they have?   If the players simply state " Yeah, I repeat all of that to the mob" fine let them have their persuasion skill rolls.. but if a player takes the time to dramatically recount all of these events "in character" via a monologue I would reward that by lowering the difficulty number, say as low to 4 or even 2 depending on how much effort the player puts into the PC's speech, if the PC obviously gets emotional about it and recounts his/her tragedies the PC has personally encountered at the hands of the dimensional invaders and so forth.   While the adventure doesn't specifically state it one would assume the Delphi agent, Akiki, who approaches the PC's translates for them to the mob.   Surprisingly the adventure does not provide any stats for Akiki apparently content  to leave him as a "plot device" .. I would have preferred to see stats for him though stats are at least provided for the person who incited the mob in the first place the charsonist.   The writers do provide a map to detail where the fires are taking place.. sort of, the adventure states flames "lick several of the outer buildings" but don't say which ones on the map leaving that to the GM's imagination.  No stats are provided for the average villager/mob member  which could be a problem if a PC who say has the mind control psionic power or some magical spell that allows for mind control uses it to calm down what the PC considers to be the worst of the rioters as part of crowd control.

By contrast putting out the fire .. also like the persuasion check against the mob a dramatic skill resolution.. seems to be a lot easier and more straightforward.. though given the players are not firefighters in real life you may have to give them very easy (say difficulty number 2) Mind rolls for it occur to them to do the obvious .. forming a waterline in terms of lines of people and buckets of water might occur to the players but potentially not attacking the base of the fire with the water and/or creating firebreaks to keep the fire from spreading (as I suspected looking it up it just means digging a long shallow row of a hole into the ground removing burnable vegetation in the process but I admit I had to look that one up on Google). 

The adventure highlights something I hadn't really stopped to consider before from the Torg Core Rulebook given that the (hopeful) rescuing of the core earth hardpoint, the burial place of previous Burganda kings, takes place in what would presume is a core dominant and/or (depending on how far away you are from the burial site) a core earth/nile empire mixed  zone (see pages 177-179 core rulebook and also pages 222-223 of the core rulebook re: hardpoints ) .. page 25 of the torg eternity core rulebook mentions the law of glory which states that if a PC (one would assume even a PC who doesn't claim core earth as/his her cosm and has transformed to a different cosm) plays for the critical moment (page 113 core rules).. in other words plays all of their destiny cards into their hand for a single action say either when putting out the fire or (perhaps more importantly) swaying the crowd, can pull a glory card right out of the drama deck even if it hasn't been played yet if I interpret what the core rulebook is saying correctly ... as page 183 of the core rulebook states glory cards are particularly important in that they allow the people of earth who hear the heroic tales that form the basis of spreading glory to be refilled with possibility energy such that when stelae are ripped out the already transformed earthers don't die in the process as they are transformed a second time ... 

As I've mentioned in the torg eternity core rules book I would automatically give all players the storyteller perk for free from page 108 of the torg core rulebook so they're not forced to waste a perk slot performing the very important job of spreading tales of glory to begin with ... however one problem the GM might have with this is the players, understandably, not wanting to play for the critical moment so early in the act with presumably the dramatic showdown/climax of the act yet to come .. yet they must do so now, within the pure core earth area provided by the hardpoint, to automatically achieve that glory result.    As "gimmicky" as this is after explaining to the players that they do get anywhere from one to three bonus possibilities for successfully spreading a tale of glory s per page 108 of the core rules  (a kind GM may simply rule that the persuasion tests the PC's pulled off to sway the crowd counts "twice" , once to calm the mob down and again to spread the tale of glory if the PC recounted the horrors they've encountered but also how the PC overcame those horrors as I suggested earlier on .. personally I would do this as a GM as opposed to making the player make yet another persuasion roll) .. as the rules state the player or players making the persuasion rolls would lose all the cards from their hand playing for the dramatic moment in this scene ... but , and here is where the "gimmicky" part comes in, I would have the players who lost their cards have visions of the dead and buried Burganda kings, as they were in life, turn and smile at the PC's in the PC's heads/thoughts, and the PC's know that they are now directly communing with the spirits of those kings who silently are giving their thanks not only for saving their burial place but also for all the PC's are doing helping not only the people of Burganda but also the people of Earth in general.. the PC can feel themselves flooding with energy and somehow know that they will be able to play for the critical moment a second time within this act as a one time exception to the rules - reality itself has been altered by core earth itself in way  that favors the PC who played for the critical moment to save a core earth hardpoint.  Players who (understandably) groan at the sheer "cheesy-ness" of this can in the GM's defense be directed to "the weird is real" core earth nature of reality in the torg world from page 235 of the core rulebook.

From there assuming the PC's are still on good terms with Akiki ... who as mentioned in the adventure is willing to help the PC's as long as they tried to stop the mob and the fire at the core earth hardpoint whether or not the PC's succeeded in their efforts.. Akiki leads them to a sorry sight... a still proud captain of a large fishing boat who has lost an eye, fingers from one hand, and who still bravely tries to make a living capturing fish despite the fact he's a one man crew on a boat meant for ten people.. I would have liked to see more of a backstory as far as why business is bad in the fishing industry at lake Victoria but this could be easily explained as a consequence of Mobius taking control of the area.. perhaps his fishermen transformed and have deserted to become shocktroopers and the poor captain is having a hard time finding fishermen given that the average resident of Uganda who is willing to do so can make more money simply by joining Mobius's shocktroopers as a raw recruit (presumably said recruits transform to the nile empire reality sooner or later if they still have their "core earth" status to begin with).. if PC's express sympathy over the captain's plight I would give them an easy (say Difficulty 4 ) Mind roll if they successfully stopped the fire and mob earlier on and advise the players they probably have a sympathetic audience back in Buganda and the captain could probably find patriotic audience members back there inspired by the PC's words who would rather make an honest living as a fisherman than join Mobius' army after hearing the PC's.    If you go this route I would make a point of having a thank you letter with smoked fish arrive via a package maybe a few weeks after the adventure ends, maybe just prior to the start of the next adventure, from the captain.   Alternately if the attempt to pacify the mob/stop the fire was a complete failure, the PCs can appeal to the Delphi council "chief agent in command" who gave them their orders at the start of the adventure, Snowflake, who can no doubt use his connections in the area though Akiki to get the captain a better boat and "fishermen" who are Delphi council agents who use the boat as cover for their activities - but also net fish when they're not doing so as part of their cover to help the poor captain out (give the PC's a Mind 4 roll for this to occur to them as well if a PC or PC's should express interest in helping the poor captain).

For the next fight scene no map is provided in the adventure.. however I did find several options online like this one

https://imgur.com/a/57EF6#8

you have to scroll down but eventually you get to a battle map with a boat though the GM would have to alter the description to mention that the islands the refugees can swim to safety on are nearer than expected.. this also means per that map islands and/or vegetation are nearby that the PC's can perch on and say use ranged attacks instead of fighting directly on any of the boats involved which changes the described flavor / challenges of the adventure somewhat.

some other map possibilities - although for the last one players might wonder if it's a refugee ship for smuggling refugees out why the boat is so big as it might draw attention... the first possibility listed below isn't so bad in that regard in my opinion

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/idxwy4/big_booty_boat/

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/sk3b6x/big_boat/

there's also this boat map but the problem is while the boat is beautifully rendered and perfectly captures the image of the kind of boat the refugees might be on, the surrounding waters part of the map is limited in range and the GM may not be able to squeeze as much action in terms of the attacking water-vehicle and attack robots into the map as s/he might like.. still here it is as an option

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/vmo3ut/old_boat_highly_detailed_map_20x20/

or if the GM wants a really exotic fight scene map.. I have to admit this one really appeals to me... the GM could use this map and explain away this obviously luxury level yet  low tech compared to other boats (it's a barge ship) option as one where the captain of the refugee boat somehow overpowered some shocktroopers (maybe they were drunk on the job?) and promptly stole this barge and the shocktrooper uniforms hoping to bluff their way past future shocktrooper inspections.  Despite the Wikipedia entry (see below) one might assume there's some primitive propulsion system built in that lets the barge boat move very slowly compared to other boats, coal powered maybe.

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/unb22l/bargesteam_boat/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barge 

or if the GM wants to go for something a bit more exotic there's this big 

The PC's use the captain's boat to get to the island where the falcon ship they're after is being held .. of course on the way they run into the "river monster" they may have heard about before at the docks, actually a mechanical construct with one of my all time favorite pulp villains from the Delphi council rising storm adventure book .. the iron crocodile.. if the original wearer of the iron crocodile suit died in combat with the PC's during that adventure should the GM have already run it (the entire Delphi council rising storm book is a worthy purchase by the way in my opinion, see my upcoming review of it if you like) then the adventure explains that there's a new man inside the suit and if necessary the being who created the suit (see below) would presumably have rebuilt the suit from scratch , all things the new wearer of the suit should gloatingly explain during combat true nile empire style.

The river monster mechanical construct is itself a formidable opponent given that it can and will attack with it's jaws making it more than just a transportation vehicle and on top of that it has attachments for pods that detach and form attack-robots ... this is all thanks to the genius of the Wunder-Mind whom, in honor of the old comic book trope, is a disembodied brain in a tank perched atop a robot body.. an illustration of wunder-mind is provided on page 86 of the adventure along with his stats but bewilderingly he has no science skill nor does he have the perks one would expect such as weird scientist (page 31 nile empire cosm sourcebook) though they at least give him the gizmo perk - I would also personally add the gadgeteer and wealthy perks on top of that (page 25 nile empire cosm sourcebook, see torg core rulebook for wealthy perk)  .. I would give him all these perks plus 5 adds in the science skill to bring him to an impressive total of science 20 given his mind score of 15 .. not powerful enough to make him rival say Mobius who has a science total of 28 but certainly a weird scientist formidable enough to have created the iron crocodile suit and the deadly "water monster" attack vehicle (the attack robots thankfully - as far as the PC's are concerned - isn't quite as powerful as those two aforementioned threats though the ones that explode during the fight on the lake could certainly give the PC's pause).    The adventure makes it clear later on that Wunder-Mind was German so I would have him furiously shout in German at the PC's every now and then during battles with them.

 The Torg Eternity rules of course don't account for how a character can say create a super powered suit for another character short of that character taking the appropriate perks nor do they account for how a character could create such a potent attack water vehicle which makes sense given you don't want overly powerful PC's so it's clear the Wunder-Mind is intended as a plot device to make these things happen.. interestingly the adventure implies law of inevitable return doesn't apply quite so much to the Wunder-Mind if the PC's succeed in a called shot and do enough damage to wreck the dome containing the brain and then kill the essentially defenseless brain that "grows" tentacles and quickly tries to crawl away resulting in a -4 penalty on attack rolls against the brain but putting a messy and permanent end to it as the adventure mentions... of course the GM could say that the Wunder-Mind had a clone of it's brain prepared for just such an incident that activates in the Wunder-Mind's secret lair, crawls into it's backup robot body and comes for revenge against the PC's in a future adventure, giving a monologue of course about said backup clone brain and robot body and having discovered how the first brain died after some inquiries about the PC's actions in the area ....or an enraged Mobius , who has tasked the Wunder-Mind and thus Wunder-Mind's lackey Iron Crocodile, with making sure no intruders get to the island where the ship the PC's are after is being held .. thus the attack on anyone who gets too close to the island like the hapless refugees... angrily informs the "new" Wunder-Mind what happened and promises certain death should the Wunder-Mind fail Mobius again.

The writers assume that the Wunder-Mind gets away in his attack-water-vehicle after the vehicle takes a single wound only to fight the PC's later on at the island (turns out the water vehicle isn't just a water vehicle and can operate on land too) .. but there's an interesting possibility here.. what if the PC's jump into the attack-vehicle and fight the Wunder-Mind from within it?  While the writers don't account for this in the adventure I would absolutely allow players to do this given it fits the dramatic action-oriented nature of the nile empire.. even if they defeat the wunder mind however and take control of the vehicle (which could let the PC's easily launch a surprise attack against the shocktroopers who would presumably have seen the attack-water-vehicle before and assume it's on the shocktrooper's side), this would require at least one PC who can make Science skill rolls such that they can decipher the controls for the vehicle.. the difficulty number can vary, I'd say something easy like 6 for someone from the nile empire who uses their science skill to build and/or maintain their own weird science gadgets up to say 14 for someone from another cosm who has the science skill but has no idea what weird science is as far as the actual application and study of it.   

One hilarious possibility is after the PC's are done with the water-attack-vehicle is handing it over to the captain and/or the refugees to wreak havoc on Mobius's forces in the future (particularly amusing in my opinion is convincing the Delphi council to hire on the fishing captain as the new captain of the attack water vehicle and making him a Delphi council agent who - no doubt gladly  - attacks boats ferrying nile empire agents across the waters, perhaps with the refugees as his crew.. ).. if the PC's want to keep the water-attack vehicle after this act is over (I don't see how given that the adventure makes it clear the PC's are expected to escape in their goal.. the ship the Falcon.. in the dramatic conclusion to this act ) I would rule instead that the attack-water-vehicle is designed to automatically shut itself down after say a few days if it doesn't interface with the technology inside of Wunder-Mind's robot body (the adventure states his robot body connects directly to the vehicle allowing him to control it but unless he's especially paranoid one can assume Wunder-Mind would have taught the Iron Crocodile how to control the attack vehicle and included a secondary set of controls for that purpose should Wunder-Mind become incapacitated and the bad guys need to make a getaway).

Of course this fight takes place during a scene where the "river monster" has already attacked and caused a boat with refugees to start sinking so the PC's have to fight their foes and do it in a timely enough fashion to save the refugees (though the adventure accounts for this simply not happening and says the refugees can swim to a nearby island for safety if need be.. at the very least hopefully the boat the PC's are on survives and after the battle the refugees can crowd onto the boat).. 

After the PC's have (hopefully) rescued the refugees, they proceed onwards to the factory/airfield where their goal is located... the Falcon ship they are meant to steal... to the writer's credit they have included a larger map which shows all the different building locations and a description for each as well as information on the landing strip and the role the attack-water-vehicle will play if it's still in the picture and/or not under control of the PC's .... unfortunately no battle map is included for fights within the buildings, say for example the fight within the factory building that houses the ship the PC's are meant to steal.. given the specific nature and description of that building finding a map that matches it with an online Google search is practically impossible, this was the closest I could come up with and you'd have to alter the written description in the adventure to match this map or maybe crop out the bottom part of the map completely using infanview and just use the top part... you'd also have to declare one of the two ships pictured is a non-functioning prototype that cannot fly yet

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/d9oyyv/warforged_factory_33x41/

this map might be another possibility though the GM will have to put some gigantic token on the map to represent the ship and explain to the players that the white missile looking thing is not in fact a missile .. unless the GM wants to have some fun with the map and declare the white missile thing is in fact the nile empire weird science version of a bazooka and let the PC's launch it at the hapless shocktroopers in true cinematic nile empire fashion, use the stats for say the core earth law rocket (just declare weird science allows it to do that much damage despite it normally being a core earth tech level device) page 163 core rules... there are weapons strewn about the map which the GM should be prepared for PC's to declare they are grabbing and/or using (which is easy enough if you just use the weapon stats given for nile empire firearms in the torg eternity core rules and/or nile empire sourcebook)... 

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/wa2k41/weapons_factorytest_workshop40x26/

this is another possibility although smaller than what I would like and the GM would have to declare the ship is "off-screen" off the map and draw say an arrow on the map pointing to where the ship is

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/wys32j/factory_70px_30x20/

Another building of interest is the lab where the hapless Captain Cairo is being held captive .. this map could be used with the GM simply declaring the contraption in the middle portion of the map represents the death trap Cairo is caught in.

https://www.reddit.com/r/battlemaps/comments/ogzn67/factory/

for a more generic map where other fights take place you could use

https://farm6.staticflickr.com/5472/9218550156_6ce2a28f60_o.jpg

Cairo's picture.. but sadly not his stats.. is given on page 89 of the adventure which seems like a huge oversight given how prominent of a role Cairo plays in the Nile Empire and Torg in general ... the writers seem to assume that even if rescued Cairo is in no mental state to be much help due to his torture thus no need for stats.. for what it's worth a brief description of his powers, personality and background is given for colonel Cairo on page 107 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook  ..one possibility is to use the stats for the Scrapper from Tharkold in the pay what you want torg eternity gamesmaster's screen with it's character archetypes but make it nile empire reality instead, give him the super attribute perk skill under pulp powers times 2 to increase his strength to 14, give him additional experience points such that he can buy additional perks, trademark weapon and whirlwind for his ball and chain and the bodyguard perk all from the torg eternity core rules... add to this the electrified chain and ball he has which uses Morningstar stats from the torg eternity rulebook but adds +2 to damage between it's electrified nature and the pulp power nature of the nile empire effectively making the device a gadget - perhaps Dr. Frest made it for him.    

Despite what the adventure says I would have an obviously in pain and weary still clearly feeling the effects of the torture yet still ready to fight Colonel Cairo bravely volunteer to fight at the PC's side but have him wobble visibly on his feet even as he says these words and perhaps even go so far as to have to grab a wall and use it to pull himself forward declaring through gritted teeth in true dramatic (that is corny as all heck) nile empire style " Must... continue.. the... fight.... against... EVIL!"...in game terms let's say he's already taken 2 wounds and has only one shock point "left" before he goes completely unconscious and of course if he takes even a single wound of damage he'll have to test for defeat, on top of which he has no possibilities left to spend the death trap he's in having already sucked them out of him .. if the PC's let him fight anyways (and hopefully the PC's have the good sense to convince him not to fight but rather to let the PC's handle it - I would have Cairo put up a protest, visibly wobble on his feet and then reluctantly admit the PC's might have a point) assume he is very stymied on top of all that ... in any and all actions he takes but hopefully (though it seems unlikely) survives to accompany the PC's at the end of the mission back to Delphi council headquarters -after all the adorable Ensign Egypt needs her mentor Colonel Cairo around (see the nile empire cosm sourcebook and the pay what you want death of the mystery men title for ensign Egypt’s stats)... if he dies maybe the Raven can take over as Ensign Egypt's new mentor instead.

The adventure also accounts for the PC's investigating Wunder-Mind's lab and finding his notes... this is another opportunity to prepare the players for what they encounter in the final conclusive act of this adventure .. as I mentioned above if the PC's investigated the omegatron room in Dr. Mobius's fortress headquarters I would have the PC's uncover other papers that hint at , if the PC's make a successful science roll (but set the difficulty number low to say 4) , schemes that involve a "travelling reality" (let the PC's figure that much out even on a failed science roll or even if none of the PC's has the science skill) as a hint of the gigantic plot device that makes up the dramatic final conclusion of this written adventure later on (and also so you're less likely to have potentially outraged players hollering " come on ! " when they discover that the flying ship fortress they need to take down later on is built around a "travelling stelae" that carries the nile empire reality with it wherever it goes , something that goes above and beyond anything mentioned in the torg core rulebook or any of the cosm sourcebooks nile empire or no.. as well in order to mentally prepare the players for this later on have the papers review stuff already mentioned in the nile empire cosm sourcebook such that even PC's who normally wouldn't be familiar with such things are now aware of it.. I will quote at this point something that I mention later on below during the final confrontation on the flying ship fortress later on.. 

"....in the writer's defense the nile empire cosm sourcebook does state that engineers can set up some interesting matrixes within pyramids that result in some potent traps and even let people with no training in spellcasting ability cast spells within pyramids thanks to hieroglyphics so it's not a far stretch for particularly brilliant engineers to go even further with their arts for the sake of the plot... likewise the same nile empire sourcebook describes mathematicians using not only astrology but the power of numbers - to the point where they utilize made-up imaginary numbers as the cosm sourcebook states... to pull off spells that as the cosm sourcebook says "astound physicists"... persons familiar with the power of number crunching say in computer programming or applied sciences such as what NASA uses for spacecraft launch should therefore be able to comprehend an "alternate reality".. that of the nile empire .. where numbers are instead used in magical "applied science" so to speak fields for different yet equally powerful purposes... in addition the nile empire cosm sourcebook flat out states rituals can be cast resulting in powerful effects above and beyond those listed in the nile empire cosm sourcebook presumably as a plot device.. see pages 32-34 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook for the instances that I am citing.. so there's all that.. still it would have been nice if the writers had "said that out loud" in the written adventure as opposed to a GM having to guess and extrapolate this from the nile empire cosm sourcebook.   "

Finally I would have the PC's come across movie reel tapes that match the 1930's to 1940's nile empire technology with Wunder-Mind's note attached to them reading " Possible key to victory .. study carefully" which hopefully should be enough to cause the PC's to grab such reels and carry them with the PC's for viewing later on...if a PC wants to watch it right then and there I would remind the player that they are (hopefully) relying on stealth at this point to not alert the entire small army of shocktroopers surrounding them... as page 80 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook states black and white movies with sound are possible at the nile empire tech axiom (though this is mentioned in the notes about the social axiom on that page).   See below for what the movie reels show the PC's.

I found it fascinating how the adventure describes not only how Wunder-Mind played an instrumental role in the science behind the construction of the Falcon ship the PC's are meant to steal as well as the flying death fortress but also how Wunder-Mind has a mining process in place that dredges up bits of raw material from the ocean floor in this region that can be refined into the eternity shards that weird science devices need to power them.. the problem is the adventure doesn't state how many weird science shards the PC's can make off with... hopefully the PC's are too busy fighting to pause to stuff their pockets with eternity shards but if they do so anyways the GM will have to decide how many s/he wants to let the PC's get away with , without upsetting game balance.. I wish I could give a suggestion but this is going to vary wildly from campaign to campaign.. still , especially if there's a weird scientist and/or person who uses weird science devices I would let the PC's get away with at least let's say 5 or 6 eternium shards given they're described as tiny splinter things you can shove into a pocket (determined PC's might make off with at least 5 to 6 per PC)... 

Sadly the final and concluding act of the adventure, while suitable dramatic enough to be an enjoyable gaming experience for the players, doesn't go into nearly as much detail as it should as to why and how the death flying fortress.. the mandjet ... was able to be constructed around (presumably) Dr. Mobius's two latest inventions, a "travelling stelae" that projects nile empire reality throughout the mandjet allowing it to fly into other cosms without disconnecting.. and the stelae that the mandjet will drop into Israel territory, immediately converting it to Nile Empire reality.. somehow... the writers simply state these are dangers that can take place and/or have to be dealt with, without going into much detail as to how or why they are possible in the first place although they do state it's a combination of magic, weird science and a connection to Mobius' own darkness device  ....

....in the writer's defense the nile empire cosm sourcebook does state that engineers can set up some interesting matrixes within pyramids that result in some potent traps and even let people with no training in spellcasting ability cast spells within pyramids thanks to hieroglyphics so it's not a far stretch for particularly brilliant engineers to go even further with their arts for the sake of the plot... likewise the same nile empire sourcebook describes mathematicians using not only astrology but the power of numbers - to the point where they utilize made-up imaginary numbers as the cosm sourcebook states... to pull off spells that as the cosm sourcebook says "astound physicists"... persons familiar with the power of number crunching say in computer programming or applied sciences such as what NASA uses for spacecraft launch should therefore be able to comprehend an "alternate reality".. that of the nile empire .. where numbers are instead used in magical "applied science" so to speak fields for different yet equally powerful purposes... in addition the nile empire cosm sourcebook flat out states rituals can be cast resulting in powerful effects above and beyond those listed in the nile empire cosm sourcebook presumably as a plot device.. see pages 32-34 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook for the instances that I am citing.. so there's all that.. still it would have been nice if the writers had "said that out loud" in the written adventure as opposed to a GM having to guess and extrapolate this from the nile empire cosm sourcebook.   

Nonetheless, the adventure is also surprisingly hazy on how Hooded cobra hijacks the combination of magic and weird science machinery within the ship simply stating he has a "collection of devices" that allow him to do so , and is even more hazy on it states Hooded Cobra first attempts to sabotage Mobius's dimthread such that it will kill Mobius if he tries to use it but the attempt succeeds too late after Mobius makes it aboard the flying ship fortress... and yet the adventure states after that Mobius can use his dimthreads to escape if the PC's make it to the ship they stole, the Falcon, before Mobius does...though between WunderMind's science skill (not stated as such in the adventure, an oversight on the writers' part as far as I'm concerned just assume he has it) and Mirage's magical abilities one could assume the Cobra has acquired devices/magical items from them that will allow him to seize control of the flying ship fortress...

still, I would use the Bassma NPC explanation that was started earlier on when the PC's (hopefully) got a hold of the movie tape reels from Wundermind's lair and played them , hopefully at the Delphi council headquarters they presumably flew their stolen ship, the falcon, to before making their final assault on the flying ship fortress.  Hopefully at this point the PC's have in their possession movie reel tapes from WunderMind's lab, if not I would even go so far as to say the unfortunate deep cover Delphi agent who died got her hands on another copy of it instead and had it sent to the Delphi council (see below) .. the Delphi council headquarters the PC's end up at prior to the final act of the adventure, of course, have movie reel projectors dug up as antiques from parts of let's say core earth that were still used to play very old movies in third world countries prior to the invasion .. inserting the movie reels results in the following black and white footage... the PC's see Mobius himself inside what appears to be a tomb of some sort, arms crossed looking at a young Egyptian woman with glasses who appears to be somewhere between 18 to 20 years old.. "Basma" says Mobius patiently " I'm very busy .. you need to show me right now what you --- "  which in and by itself (tell the players this) is unusual based on what they know of Mobius.. he walked away from his plots and schemes long enough to not only talk to this woman but to show patience towards her?  This is very unusual behavior for Mobius... Mobius's words are cut off by a bubbling wail of terror.. the camera shifts to an anguished looking woman strapped to some sort of weird science device in a red colored suit and cape clearly marking her as a pulp hero, red and blue energy crackling around her before it's pulled away into a canister in the weird science device she's strapped to.   "The Crimson Cape!" cackles Mobius triumphantly!  " You got her...."  

"Yes Pharoah !" says the young woman triumphantly.  " But my pharaoh.. what else do you notice"  

"You mean aside from the obvious?   This device is obviously some primitive version of my omegatron" Mobius doesn't appear to see the woman stiffen in outrage when he uses the word "primitive", " that drains possibility energy in the most painful way possible from the victim ..."  Mobius's voice trails off as he looks around the room.. then he cackles again, asking the woman although it's obvious from the tone of his voice he has already guessed the answer " And how long has the Crimson Cape been trapped her Bassma?"

" Three months ! "  says the woman Mobius called Bassma triumphantly.  " Three months in Core Earth territory my Pharoah.. without disconnecting!    I've used a combination of -- "

Mobius interrupts Bassma as he studies the device " Mathematical sorcery, Engineering sorcery, and weird science... you've combined all three to create a unique synthesis."

" You haven't seen the best part yet my Pharoah!"  says Bassma enthusiastically.. she grabs Mobius by the hand and the cameraman obviously follows the two outside the tomb judging from the jostling of the camera view... from the outside the tomb is revealed to be a small pyramid.   Bassma produces a remote control from her pocket, clicks a button on it ... and jets, hidden until now, built into the base of the pyramid activate causing the pyramid to lift itself aloft.. " So this means " begins Mobius 

" It works no matter where you transport it to !  This "Israel", " Jordan", "Syria" and "Iraq" that the core earthers have named parts of their world... not that it matters my Pharoah, you can name them what you like when you claim them as part of the Nile Empire.. still, the pyramid worked in all four of these areas "

" That are all core earth territory - it carried the nile empire with it for months!" cackles Mobius .. " And still continues to do so " replies Bassma smugly.   Shockingly based on everything you've heard about Mobius, Mobius actually hugs Bassma who grips Mobius back tightly. " You've done well Bassma" says Mobius triumphantly " I can use this.. I'll improve on your primitive design here.."  Bassma stiffens again at the word primitive but Mobius continues to speak either unaware of or ignoring her reaction " and use it to wreak terror and havoc in a way this Earth world has never seen before!"

"I'm glad your proud of me daddy... er , Pharoah" says Bassma shyly.. now it's Mobius's turn to stiffen.. but shockingly he doesn't let go of Bassma.   " My pharaoh" says Bassma humbly " The only people who know about this right now are you, myself..and the cameraman."  

" Quite true" says Mobius absent mindedly " I shall keep this movie reel for posterity..." Mobius actually ruffles Bassma's head affectionately before pulling out a raygun.. the camera view shifts away from Mobius bouncing up and down as the cameraman shouts in terror trying to flee.. there's the sound of the raygun discharging, an anguished scream and the camera angle bounces forward three times before halting to show Mobius's feet walking towards the camera.. Bassma's giggles can clearly be heard followed by her comment " Excellent shot Pharoah ...I can see right through his chest! " before the film comes to an abrupt end.

The Delphi council member who played the movie reel for the PC's then states the following... they had an agent in deep cover working as a supposed servant in Mobius's government who are funneling information back to the Delphi Council .. had being the operative word as in the agent has stopped sending them communications and is now presumably dead.. the Delphi council strongly suggests the PC's seek out this woman , full name Bassma Ganim, a triple threat in that she is self taught not only in weird science but also the sorcerous arts of mathematics and engineering , who caught the eye of Mobius himself and what's more, hard as it is to believe, his affection, Mobius clearly regarding her as a protégé and even a daughter of sorts... apparently Bassma was furious when Mobius refused to promote the still young (20 years old) Bassma to overgovernor, counseling her to be patient and wait until she can "arrange events such that it happens", subtly encouraging her no doubt to play the long game and sabotage an existing overgovernor somehow such that she can seize that overgovernor's place, something the impatient Bassma was clearly unwilling to do.. she played a key role in the construction of the flying ship fortress but rumor has it the disgruntled Bassma has her own plans for the flying ship fortress that Mobius wouldn't necessarily approve of. 

The Delphi council agent should then give a brief overview of how engineering, mathematics and weird science work in the nile empire for PC's who would not be familiar with such things.. " Some of you may be familiar with the core earth legends about pyramids and the magical things that happen inside of them, mystical traps, rituals and so forth... there's a group of what we would normally call ' wizards ' in any other realm .. they call themselves  ' engineers '.. who specialize in this sort of thing.. pyramids with magical effects "built in" that anyone in the right place at the right time can trigger even if they have no knowledge whatsoever of magic to begin with .. apparently these engineers can also use hieroglyphics to somehow capture possibility energy... I wouldn't be surprised if this Bassma was planning to use the floating pyramid we just saw to steal possibility energy from targeted areas, or people.

" ' Mathematicians' are the other type of what we would call wizards in the Nile Empire. Again some of you who hail from core earth or belonged to our cosm before your transformation may remember just how powerful mathematics can be when used for applied science concepts.. computer programming and thus artificial intelligence, space travel combined with the application of physics, numerous other things.. apparently in the Nile Empire it's used to quantify magic instead through complex numerical formulas in ways that produce effects that quite frankly baffle our core earth physicists.. there are reports of mathematicians using numbers that shouldn't exist according to core earth knowledge of that field to cast spells that can literally rip a person apart from the inside.   

" As for weird science.. again those of you from core earth are probably aware of the outlandish inventions from comics that mad scientists create .. in the nile empire these things are real but I don't have to tell you that - you've probably fought a few nile empire pulp villains wielding that very same weird science technology"

"Now," adds the Delphi agent gloomily " Imagine a young woman who's our version of Albert Einstein who's not only self taught in all three of those fields but who's found a way to combine the application of all three fields of study in a floating, possibility energy sucking device that can carry it's own reality with it as a result ... that's what we're probably up against with this Mandjet .. the flying ship fortress.. that Dr. Mobius has built .. built on the principles this Bassma set up in the first place.. this effectively eliminates the advantage we had on core earth territory with nile empire weapons.. weird science devices, mathematical spells and so forth, not to mention being able to bring our superior technology to bear versus Mobius's 1930's era tanks and guns and what have you .. you HAVE to take out that Mandjet, no matter what!"

 I would add to the description of the "travelling stelae" in the mandjet that the PC's have to uproot as they would a traditional stelae that there is a final "component"... an obviously agonized practically skeletal man in tattered pulp hero clothing strapped to the travelling stelae screaming " Please kill me ! "  as soon as he sees the PC's .. and if the PC's do so give them a +4 modifier on all four dramatic resolution skill checks to uproot the stelae.. conversely if the PC's, in true heroic fashion, refuse to shoot the captive pulp hero immediately award each PC three possibilities for their heroic action ... explain to the players , especially if they puzzled out that the omegatron and/or colonel Cairo death trap they encountered before drains possibilities, that the stelae is able to move and carry the nile empire reality with it due to feeding off the possibility energy of a captive storm knight or stormer .. a final refinement to the weird science devices they've seen earlier.. if the PC's refuse to kill the pulp hero powering the device assume he drops to the PC's feet after they complete step D of the dramatic skill resolution and can be dragged along with the PC's and hopefully carried off the flying ship fortress.   

Sadly there's no battlemap provided for this very dramatic stelae uprooting process (though the writers have included a battlemap for the control room the PC's end up fighting against both Hooded Cobra and potentially Dr. Mobius inside see below) .. a Google search turned up this possibility

https://www.reddit.com/r/FantasyMaps/comments/s16kcz/mad_lads_lab_4_versions/

or if that link doesn't work

https://angelamaps.com/2022/01/11/mad-lads-lab/

though you'd have to amend the written description of the stelae and the room it's in to say obviously dead bodies of others drained of their possibilities are in transparent pods throughout the room, the area in pink represents the still alive pulp hero howling in pain attached to the stelae and so forth, a GM might want to alter the stelae description to match the map instead of making it an obelisk in a metal sphere type thing like the adventure says (or just leave that description of the stelae intact it just doesn't show a black sarcophagus on the map).  As far as the blue things that look like windows the GM could make them screens that show a magnified view of various areas below and around the flying fortress-ship.... unfortunately the ground clearly looks like stone not the metallic ship material one would expect.. maybe the GM can explain this as stone engraved with hieroglyphic symbols, the PC's realizing on a successful scholar roll difficulty number 6 or just a Mind roll DN 10 that these are the same kind of hieroglyphs they've either heard about or seen in person used by the engineering "wizards" (to use the term loosely)  who use their magics in service of Mobius .. they must be contributing somehow to the power of the stelae as well.... on a success roll above standard the PC's remember what pages 33-34 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook says about hieroglyphics in pyramids, that they can trap possibility energy such that even those with no spellcasting ability can use said possibility energy to power magical effects so presumably these hieroglyphs carved into the stone floor use a similar effect - the possibility energy no doubt coming from the hapless drained victims in the transparent pods and the screaming still alive pulp hero strapped to the stelae

I would also insert Bassma into the scene  (the stelae the PC's need to uproot)  at this point, groaning in pain on the ground, arm broken and twisted unnaturally, burn marks on her possibly from some ray gun, obviously looking like she doesn't have much longer to live..  " Betrayed ... me... "  says Bassma weakly as the PC's draw closer... " Used me.. then.. killed.. me... daddy.. Mobius .. right.. should have .. waited.. please..." Basma draws a shuddering breath as she looks at the PC's.. " take.. this... and.. promise me.. you...kill .. Hooded Cobra... " she looks pleadingly at the PC's obviously in tremendous pain.. allow the PC's to exchange a few words with her before she dies.. her clenched fist unfolds revealing an ornate looking weird science key type device clamped within it .. this will probably annoy any players who attempt to use say miraculous healing magic on her but advise the players that Bassma dies before they can even begin to make the attempt and explain that the world law of drama in the nile empire as a side effect allows PCs and NPCs alike to give a dramatic monologue in this fashion even if they should already be dead just before they expire and refer players who still complain to page 82 of the nile empire cosm sourcebook and explain that it can be reasonably argued from reading the description of the world law there that the "dramatic monologue" sub world law could be extrapolated from that given it's emphasis on quote "melodrama"..   alternately if the gamesmaster is interested in having a protégé and unofficially adopted "daughter" of Mobius running around the campaign you can allow the PC's to save her or use the law of inevitable return to have her come back.. perhaps she accounted for her death and had a special pyramid set up once again combining engineering and mathematician magic and rituals with weird science to grow a clone of her from a piece of her flesh she removed shortly before the events in the adventure... an overjoyed Mobius lets her know exactly who killed her when she seeks Mobius out... 

as far as a picture of her see

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/745275438327313992/

or if that link doesn't work you can use

https://www.nicepng.com/ourpic/u2q8y3u2e6y3i1y3_outfit-mad-scientist-eldarya-mad-scientist/

or failing that

https://www.pinterest.com/pin/745275438333401878/

If the GM wants Bassma to live or otherwise needs her stats for some reason here they are .. perhaps the scene below plays out a bit differently if the GM decides the PC's can rescue Bassma, with Mobius protectively clutching her to his chest as he orders the PC's to just leave the fortress before he changes his mind... if a PC tries to get Bassma over to their side , while it's true the Nile Empire cosm sourcebook does state there are some rare occasions where a villain reforms and becomes a hero I wouldn't make this one of them ... instead I would make Bassma appear to reform then desert the PC's and the Delphi Council at her first opportunity returning to her beloved Dr. Mobius who, surprisingly, accepts her contrite apology, chuckling and saying he would have done the exact same thing to his mentor at her age... Bassma then humbly submits to a weird science bomb Mobius has implanted into her skull with Mobius warning her that he'll make the bomb explode if she ever betrays him again.. which of course she no longer has any intention of doing but Mobius still feels like he has to make a point.

I wrote Bassma up as if she was a storm knight (though obviously she's not a good guy) who also has the benefit of 252 experience points making her well the equal of a gamma clearance level storm knight (see pay what you want beta clearance player's primer book) though ironically as her killing at the hands of Hooded Cobra and her allies (or not, up to you) shows her strength lies in the application of science, magic and  her tremendous intellect and that on her own she's not that great at actual combat (the reason green dragon breaks her arm is to make sure she can't use her mathematical or engineering magic against Cobra and his allies or to escape, plus she's in too much pain from the worst injuries she's ever received in her life to summon any magics - Mobius has been careful to pair her with pulp villains who can protect her in the past and wasn't expecting her to betray Mobius nor was he expecting Cobra and his allies to betray her in turn ).. in an uncharacteristically (for Mobius) sensitive gesture Mobius hasn't told Bassma this but he has been quietly feeding her possibilities from his darkness device to boost her power (see below ) in combination with the experience points pulp villains are supposed to get from their adventures as she methodically and scientifically by the side of Dr. Mobius and other henchmen he assigned to her sought out and killed pulp heroes and other thorns in Mobius's side from ages 14 to 20 with first her weird scientist/gizmo perk (in combination with either Mobius's attacks or that of the pulp villains he assigned to her) and later on using her mathematician and engineer spells to help her kill heroes too.. many heroes.

As far as her background story assume she's been a child genius ever since she was small but very dismissive of her parents and their love of her given that they could never be her intellectual equal .. as a matter of fact she cannot love or even like anyone unless they at least come close to her level of intellect, leaving her to view anyone .. even her parents.. with the cold analytical mind of a scientist examining lab rats, something else that endears her to Mobius.. dismissing pulp hero and other persons opposing Mobius' plans as misguided nonsense... obviously against a superior threat like Mobius such actions were illogical and just plain nonsense to begin with.. and having been raised in Mobius's home cosm by the descendents of the original cultists who worshipped Mobius, something that has left an impression on Bassma given her upbringing.. at the young age of 14 Bassma constructed an impressive weird science device that she used to track down a pulp hero who had been a particularly troublesome foe to Mobius up until then, Mobius arriving at the same time Bassma came across the pulp hero and between the two of them killing the pulp hero, Bassma humbly holding back at the end to let Mobius deliver the killing blow then kneeling in front of Mobius saying " My life for you Pharoah".. knowing full well based on her study of Mobius based on his exploits that it would be most effective to appeal to his enormous ego and determined to attach herself to what she knew to be the most brilliant mind of her world... 

....impressed, a cackling Mobius brought her into her team of weird scientists then watched, even more impressed, as she taught herself "on the side" not only the magical study of mathematics but engineering over the next six years, killing jealous mathematicians and/or engineers with more of an air of annoyance than fear .. Mobius, much to his surprise, found himself unofficially adopting her as the daughter he never had while Bassma's feelings for Mobius grew from awe of her intellectual superior to love for the father she had always wanted.. which is the reason for her initial betrayal of Mobius, in her mind she's perfectly capable of being an overgovernor and rejects Mobius's gentle (for him) advice to wait for her opportunity then murder-sabotage an overgovernor in the years to come, wanting Mobius's permission to kill an overgovernor NOW and take his or her place.. her love for Mobius makes his perceived "betrayal" of her hurt all the more and results in her allying with the Hooded Cobra to betray Mobius by giving the Cobra control of the Mandjet flying fortress... something Bassma belatedly realizes is a colossal error afterwards.

Charisma 6, Dexterity 8, Mind 15, Spirit 10, Strength 6 .. originally Bassma's intelligence was effectively a score of 12 say at 14 years old, normally 10 but  went to Mind 12 due to super attribute (mind) with power enhancement , a total of 84 experience points was spent to boost her Mind to 15 over six years from ages 14 to 20.

Shock 10, Wounds 3, possibilities effectively zero right now she’s used them all up just to survive .. normally 3

skills - alteration 5 adds, apportation 5 adds, conjuration 5 adds, divination 5 adds, science 8 adds, evidence analysis 1 add, find 1 add, air vehicles 1 add, land vehicles 1 add, water vehicles 1 add , medicine 1 add, reality 2 adds, scholar 5 adds , willpower 1 add 

perks , weird scientist, super attribute (mind) with power enhancement to boost Mind by 2 adds instead of 1, super skill (science) with power enhancement, nile engineer and nile mathematician and gizmos for 7 perks total... 5 experience points spent to add the third perk, super skill, 7 experience points added to power enhancement for super skill to bump science from the initial +2 adds as a result of the perk to +4 adds instead, 9 experience points to add fourth perk super skill science, 11 experience points to add enhancement to super skill, 13 experience points for nile engineer, 15 experience points for nile mathematician, 17 experience points for gizmos ... 77 experience points spent on perks total

21 experience points were spent to boost science from the original effective 5 adds from super skill  to eight adds, while 14 experience points each for a total of 70 xp was spent to boost alteration, apportation, conjuration, divination and scholar from 1 to 5 adds .. total of 91 experience points spent on skills  

spells mathematician .. corporal diffraction , harmonic wave, one by four by nine

spells engineer... map building, magical trap, mechanical trap

Players might be confused as to why the flying fortress doesn't immediately disconnect from nile empire reality once the stelae is dealt with.. give the PC's a Mind or Science roll standard difficulty 10 (or let's say 6 if someone has the science skill)  to figure out that the effects of the travelling stelae still linger on even after the stelae has been dealt with (for a single day, the flying fortress turning into a hardpoint as the adventure states)  but sooner or later the entire fortress is going to disconnect.. in game terms the moment an NPC who makes a roll on the fortress's behalf operating it's machinery rolls a 1 or 1 to 4 using say the fortress's weapons or making say an air vehicles check to pilot it .... with disastrous results as the now presumably core earth axiom fortress begins to fall apart (an alternate scenario the GM should consider dropping on the PC's but to their advantage if they seem say certain to fall to an attack by Dr. Mobius or otherwise overwhelmed by enemy foes .. the fortress literally falling apart around them as the adventure states later on (after the PC's succeed in sabotaging it) should give the PC's the distraction they need to get to the Falcon and leave, though obviously this shouldn't take place until enough dramatic fights and confrontations have taken place between the PC's and the bad guys)   

As far as the stelae the ship is supposed to drop, replace this information  with the Delphi council scientists filling in for the missing Dr. Frest (whom, off screen so to speak while the PC's were gone, sacrificed his very life in a (failed) attempt to destroy the Omegatron, nonetheless distracting Dr. Mobius to make sure Mobius was not present in the flying fortress at the start of the act which would have resulted in certain total party kill ) informing the PC's that their agents in the field in Israel have turned up the following information... the fortress plans on dropping not one but several reality bombs throughout all of Israel flying to different areas of that country one by one secure in it's own travelling Nile Empire reality,  and Nile Empire agents are ready to plant stelae in various areas as soon as this happens - in combination with an all out assault by nile empire troops that have massed near the borders of Israel, Israel will fall allowing Mobius to further advance his empire and costing core earth a powerful part of it's resistance against the invaders (should Israel fall that is).. furthermore , predict the scientists grimly, this puts the nile empire in a perfect position to capture other surrounding countries right next to Israel , Jordan, Syria and Iraq afterwards further advancing the nile empire ... the more countries that fall the more people are converted to nile empire reality including people who suddenly become loyal to Mobius and recognize him as their Pharoah much like the people of Egypt and other conquered countries did, more possibility energy to feed Mobius' evil plans and so forth.

(here's a map showing location of Israel, Jordan, Syria and Iran on world map - note that Egypt already conquered and is now nile empire territory

https://www.britannica.com/place/Iraq

click on the global map close up picture showing various countries for a closer look at them on the world map )

Also while the adventure doesn't make it clear, Mobius ....who in true dramatic unexpected nile empire fashion does show up - albeit after the PC's have had a chance to take down the travelling stelae on board the ship ..  potentially ends up unexpectedly fighting his own "people" the traitorous Hooded Cobra and his sympathizers who want to seize control of the Nile Empire from Mobius resulting in a three-way battle between Mobius, cobra and his allies and the PC's.. Mobius races the PC's towards the same Falcon ship they used to gain entry to the flying fortress and now need as a way off as the fortress spirals towards destruction , hit by core earth missiles now that the PC's have sabotaged the reactor for the flying fortress.. not so much because Mobius himself needs the ship as a way off, his darkness device's dimthreads take care of that for him, but rather because he presumably doesn't want the PC's to be able to continue claiming "his" ship, the Falcon.  

Basically the adventure states Dr. Mobius should show up at some point in the adventure to make life harder for the PC's... but also to inadvertently help the PC's out by providing a much needed distraction given that the Hooded Cobra and his minions seek to overthrow Mobius and claim the Nile Empire for themselves.  As the adventure states, Mobius ends up in the control room containing the equipment the PC's need to sabotage at some point, and as the adventure states Hooded Cobra is sitting triumphantly on Mobius' throne at that point - Cobra, as the adventure states, also reacts in a mixture of outrage, fear and frothing insanity when he realizes his intended tinkering with the flying ship fortress's energy shield did not render the dimthread teleportation ability of the darkness device that Mobius uses deadly to Mobius as originally planned so given all of that a three way battle between Mobius, cobra and his allies, and the PC's seems all but inevitable.. note that in addition to any surviving pulp villains the PC's faced earlier showing up here, two pulp villains the PC's haven't fought before ..   Grand Cicada and Green Dragon ... whose descriptions I absolutely loved, a pulp villainess whose outfit unfortunately resembles a cockroach (something you should point out immediately to the players to give them fuel for say Taunt rolls against an enraged Grand Cicada) and an edeinos who not only transformed to the nile empire reality but became an edeinos martial artist who wants to beat the PC's up with his hands and fists.. illustrations for both are provided in the adventure, though I would ignore the part in the description that says Green Dragon is disguising his edeinos nature behind his costume since the illustration of him in the adventure clearly shows otherwise.. besides like the Grand Cicada it gives the PC's fuel for any taunt checks (though the green dragon doesn't have the same weakness Grand Cicada has towards such taunt checks the GM can always role play out the Green dragon announcing in true martial arts style that he "accepts the challenge" of the taunting storm knight whether or not the taunt skill check succeeds or not - or simply directs this remark at anyone who insults him for being an edeinos in general - and proceeds to focus all his attacks on that PC) 

Personally the moment Mobius enters the room Cobra is in I would have a familiar voice... Bassma's.. come from a speaker in the room " My pharaoh.. if you're hearing this , that means the sensors I built into the ship have taken note of both my death, and your presence.. " A lens built into a wall projects a grainy black and white recording that nonetheless clearly shows Hooded Cobra laughing at Bassma shouting " You've outlived your usefulness little girl!" and the Green Dragon (see below for his description) jumping through the air with a flying kick that lands on her arm - there's the clear sound of her arm cracking and as she screams in pain the green dragon follows up with a knife-hand blow to her ribs, the sound of cracking bone being heard once again.. screaming a second time she tries to limp away... Grand Cicada flips her whip at Bassma, wrapping it around her throat .. Bassma claws at the whip trying desperately to breathe.. laughing manically, Cobra fires both his ray guns into her body again and again.. Cicada releases the whip and Bassma crawls away ... Cobra holds up a hand as the Green Dragon moves towards her to finish the job.  " No" says Cobra chuckling,  " I enjoy watching her crawl.. after all, she was Mobius' favorite wasn't she?"   the projected recording comes to an end with Bassma's voice saying  " Pharoah... I was wrong..I am so sorry.. please..please daddy... avenge me."    Mobius stands very still for a long moment.. Cobra's voice is a mixture of fear, rage and frothing insanity as he cackles " You loved her like a daughter ' my pharaoh ' .. and she betrayed you anyways."    

at this point give the PC's a chance to speak... if the PC's suggest a temporary truce to take down Cobra, Green Dragon, Grand Cicada and any of cobra's surviving other pulp villains still there I would personally have Mobius utter a single word " Agreed" with an outraged Cobra screaming " What?!?" .. Mobius makes a point of not launching an attack on the PC's during the fight... if the Pc's show any sympathy towards Mobius for his loss I would have Mobius' hand drop to the same ray gun he probably used to murder Cobra if the PC's didn't beat him to it .. then pull his hand away from the gun... under his hood it sounds like he's speaking through gritted teeth as he says " Leave... leave NOW Storm Knights before I change my mind."  and turn his back on the PC's, ignoring the fortress falling apart around him and any PC attempts to convince Mobius to come with them on the Falcon ship (remember, Mobius can dimthread away any time he wants to).   Of course if the PC's simply attack Mobius he spends a round of combat fighting back, then suddenly cackles in what sounds like hysterically insane laughter and sprints away from the PC's.. advise the player he appears to be headed in the same direction the ship they stole, the Falcon, is in , their way off the now falling apart flying ship fortress.

While the adventure does give outlines for what happens if Mobius succeeds in stealing the Falcon away from the PC's and fleeing with it, given the high difficulty number.. 16.. for both the science and air vehicle rolls required for the PC's to salvage an engine strut and use it to fly away to safety , and how much more difficulty those rolls will be if the PC's don't have science and/or air vehicle skills among the party members, I would personally have the weird science key start pulsing at the same time that a section of the hull lights up in the same area Mobius just took off in with the ship the PC's now find themselves in... bringing the key close enough to the lit up part of the hull results in a portion of the hull sliding open revealing a key slot.. putting the key into the slot in turn opens a larger portion of the hull showing a small room just large enough for all the PC's to shove themselves into albeit with the PC's literally crammed up against each other nose to nose... the room was clearly meant for fewer people than the PC's but they can all still fit in albeit barely.. if they all shove their way inside the door closes behind them, the PC's can feel their surroundings shift as the room apparently starts to move, a robotic voice declaring " Escape mechanism engaged" .. the movement the PC's feels grows faster and more intense in nature as the room/pod hurtles towards some unknown destination... minutes later there's an abrupt jarring collision (no damage to the PC's) and the sound of water splashing .. the room abruptly unfolds into smaller floating rectangular  pieces that the PC's can float on with the same robotic voice stating " distress beacon activated" .. the PC's are in the water and can see parts of the flying ship fortress still falling into the water far away from them as well... helicopters make their way towards the PC's and they can hear the sound of someone on a loudspeaker mounted inside the copter shouting " Stand by... Delphi council here.. we see you down there.. help is on the way!" .. after a minute of flight on it's part the copter is much closer to the PC's and a rope ladder is thrown down from it for the PC's to climb up, Delphi council agents climbing down the ladder and grabbing PC's too injured to move if need be.      

I loved how the adventure takes another smaller adventure ... the day one scenario described in the pay what you want torg eternity day one publication (which I absolutely recommend grabbing even if you pay less than the purchase price which you should not feel guilty about given the torg team clearly intends it to be a gateway drug to entice you into using that saved money to buy say the cosm sourcebooks which you really should if you're going to play torg .. see also my review of the day one book if you like) .. such that it's assumed the events in there not only took place but that Mobius is aware a group of newly transformed (and therefore still "green" or inexperienced in his view) storm knights made a fool of Hooded Cobra, Lady Hourglass and Bare Knuckles Bronko and an angry Mobius demoted them afterwards, resulting in these angry villains seeking out others who also felt ill treated by Mobius and forming their own secret society .. the Retribution League .. whose ultimate goal is to overthrow Mobius and take control of the Nile Empire for themselves.