Patron: Activist, Scientist
Required Skills: none
Required Equipment: none

Players’ Information:
While the group is visiting a bar near the starport on this medium tech and medium population backwater world, they are approached by a thin middle aged man in green clothes that doesn’t look like an army type. He present himself as Dr. Karl-Eneri Ristoff, and say that he is a member of a local environmentalist group called “Balance in Nature” that is going to protest against the annual spluka hunt. He says that the spluka hunt is both cruel and stupid, since the splukas are close to extinction. Nobles from all over the subsector come here once a year to hunt the splukas, only to cut of their heads off to mount as trophies.

Dr. Ristoff explains to the group that the demonstration is going to be held in two days. The demonstration is legal, but some locals and some hunters will not like the demonstration. Dr. Ristoff says that Balance in Nature are unarmed pacifists, but he suspects that some locals and maybe someone else might use violence to stop the demonstration and that the local police will look the other way. Therefore he wants the group to document the demonstration and then give the videotape to offworld news stations. If some nobles actually would embarrass themselves, that would really help the cause. Dr. Ristoff will lend the group video cameras from the university where he works. The only thing the group has to do is to videotape the demonstration, no matter what will happen. The group can then make copies at the university, and distribute these to subsector news stations. The compensation for this simple task will be Cr. 5000 and any money that the video tape could be sold for.

Image from PETA. Public Domain

Referee’s Information:
The spluka can be substituted for any beast that would fit the current campaign. The local farmers would not like the beast since it kills their livestock. There is an annual hunting season, where only invited nobles are allowed to hunt. This gives the rulers of the planet some extra income, and that is why the local police doesn’t protect the demonstration very well.

When the videotape hits the subsector news, the group will have got themselves some new powerful enemies…

1. All is as represented. There will be some rotten vegetables thrown at the demonstration, but that is all.

2. As 1, but after some rock throwing, the police will step in before things get out of hand.

3. As 2, but the police will do nothing about it. Some of the demonstrators will get seriously injured. When the group with the video camera is spotted, they will also get attacked. Later a local court will order the group to hand over all copies of the video.

4. As 2, but Dr. Ristoff has hired some of his students from the university to pose as local farmers and attack with knives and hay-forks. The demonstrators will use fake blood to simulate injury. The important thing is that it looks good on video.

5. As 3, but the demonstration has been infiltrated. Dr. Ristoff did try to hire someone else first, but they told the nobles, and now some of the demonstrators are actually shooting at the locals.

6. As 1, but some splukas will later attack the demonstration, killing some of the demonstrators. Dr. Ristoff wants to have that part of the video erased.

In all cases the referee should determine the flow of subsequent events.

This post first appeared in Stellar Reaches as a contribution to the 76 Ethical Patrons contest. Unfortunately the title of this “parton” was wrong. It had been mixed up with another of my contributions.