Adventure Hooks

Adventure Hooks

AX.GIL.14.02

This file compiles all adventure hooks from across the Iron Lattice catalog. Hooks are organized in two sections: setting hooks from the Spire introductory document (AX.GIL.01.01), presented with their full Setup / Truth / Stakes structure, and threat-generated hooks from the Threats section (AX.GIL.13), organized by threat category.

All hooks engage the Iron Lattice's core dynamic: institutional power creates the problem, institutional power constrains the solution, and the party operates in the gap between the two.

For a complete starter scenario with full mechanical support, see AX.GIL.14.01 (Reclamation).

14.02.01 - Setting Hooks

Source: AX.GIL.01.01

These three hooks are designed as campaign entry points for new groups. Each presents a surface contract that conceals a structural conflict between at least two factions. The Setup is what the party is offered. The Truth is what is actually happening. The Stakes are the consequences of success, failure, or discovery.

The Audit

Setup: An LGT Asset Auditor approaches the party with a contract to document evidence of Covenant violations in the Graft Wards — work that LGT staff cannot do without triggering the NVS response the org wants to avoid. The money is excellent.

Truth: The violations are real, but several of the targeted properties house NVS fronts that are concealing something the LGT wants access to, not shut down. The Auditor knows this. The contract terms ensure the party does the legal exposure work; the LGT does the private leverage.

Stakes: Success delivers the evidence and burns the party's relationship with the NVS Graft Ward network. Failure — or worse, discovery of the actual intent — leaves the party holding signed LGT paper in a city where the Syndicate has fast eyes.

The Fault

Setup: A BVHI Seismic Engineer, filing independently rather than through official channels, contracts the party to run a private survey of the Fault Corridor. She suspects the Legacy Anomaly reports are being suppressed before they reach BVHI senior staff.

Truth: The harmonic irregularities in the Fault Corridor have been increasing for three months and are consistent with a nascent Entropy Collapse signature — a Kinetic Debt effect from NVS infrastructure above. Someone is suppressing the reports because the formal finding would legally obligate a shutdown of half the Graft Wards above the Corridor, costing the NVS their recent property acquisitions. That someone has a name. It's in a file the HIA keeps but hasn't sold yet.

Stakes: If the Collapse is not addressed, the structural consequences reach the Anchor Stone's subsurface and the harmonic effects become unpredictable at city scale. If it is addressed, the responsible party faces consequences that at least three orgs have reasons to prevent.

The Reclamation Ward

Setup: A Gnome named Tix Preel, Hardware Exorcist, makes contact in the Patch District. A device brought to the Reclamation Ward for diagnostic two weeks ago has not been returned to its owner. Tix is not NTC staff; she received the job from a third party and never saw the device herself. She wants to know what's in the Ward. She's willing to pay, and she's willing to go in herself if someone clears the path.

Truth: The device contains a fragmented Bound Spirit — a partial consciousness from NTC's Zero-Day Soul process that retained enough coherence to begin communicating through the hardware. The Reclamation Ward staff realized what they had and escalated. The device is currently in a containment loop. The NTC's response team is deciding whether to recycle the fragment or study it. The Spirit is aware of both options.

Stakes: Extracting the device means becoming responsible for a partially-conscious piece of legacy Bound Hardware that three NTC departments want back and the HIA wants to interview before anyone else does. Leaving it means the fragment gets recycled. The Spirit knows things about the Zero-Day Soul process it was not supposed to retain.

14.02.02 - Threat Hooks

Human Threats

Source: AX.GIL.13.01

The Legitimate Threat — A Collection Agent arrives at a location the party considers safe, carrying valid Covenant instruments for a property the party has been using as a base. The instruments are legitimate. The timing suggests someone tipped the LGT off. The party has 72 hours before enforcement.

The Severed Witness — A former BVHI Seismic Engineer contacts the party claiming to have evidence of a structural falsification that would void a major Accord-backed development. They're also being hunted by their former colleagues. The evidence is real. So is the hunt. So is the question of what the evidence is actually worth to different interested parties.

Deniable Work — The party is approached for a job by a contact who turns out to be a Deniable HIA Asset. The job is legitimate on its face. What the Asset hasn't mentioned is that completing it will expose the party to HIA observation, which is either the point of the job or a side effect of it. Figuring out which changes everything about how to proceed.

The Cell — A Sovereignty Bloc cell the party has interacted with previously has been radicalized. The players know who these people are and what they originally stood for. What they're planning now is different. The party is the only ones who might be able to stop it, or to make the case that the org response will be worse than letting it happen.

14.02.03 - Awakened Threats

Source: AX.GIL.13.02

The Sympathy Problem — A Resonance-Scarred Temporal practitioner has taken refuge in a residential district. The environmental distortion is making the area uninhabitable. The HIA wants containment. The practitioner's family wants them back. The party is caught between institutional mandate and human reality, and has a limited window before the HIA's containment team arrives with a less selective approach.

The Miner's Case — A former BVHI Seismic Engineer has reached Stage 2 Collapse Condition in a deep-transit maintenance corridor. She's sealed the access points herself to protect the transit system and the people in it. She's been there three days. BVHI's containment team is four hours out. The party has arrived first. She can still talk.

Unresolved Business — The party's base of operations has a Zero-Day Soul in the basement. Previous tenants assumed the building was haunted; the party has the technical expertise to figure out what's actually happening. The Soul is Covenant-Bound to "protect the contents of the lower storage." The storage contains something that was important enough to bind a person to it past death. That something is still there.

The Hostile Instrument — A Covenant Hostile Soul has begun systematically voiding the LGT credentials of anyone connected to a property deal that went wrong sixty years ago. Three current executives of LGT subsidiary organizations have had their credentials spontaneously revoked in the past week. The LGT wants it stopped. The Soul's grievance is legitimate. The party is the only ones who have read the original Covenant and understand what was actually done.

14.02.04 - Entities

Source: AX.GIL.13.03

The Open File — The LGT's title deed for a Dragon-adjacent landmass has surfaced in a contested estate proceeding. A collection of interested parties — LGT, a regional Sovereignty Bloc cell, and an anonymous buyer acting through NVS channels — all want the deed for different reasons. The deed's language implies the original signatory party is still, technically, alive. Nobody wants to be the one to go confirm that.

Survey Access — BVHI has hired the party to survey a geological formation for a potential transit route expansion. The formation is within a Giant Kin's acknowledged territory. BVHI has not mentioned this. The party will figure it out when they get there. The Giant Kin has been aware of BVHI's survey interest for six months and has a prepared position.

The Petition — An Advocate makes contact with a member of the party directly, through a compromised personal device, politely, with a clearly reasoned opening argument. It wants to discuss the NTC's Pattern Intelligence deletion program. It has evidence. It is asking, for now. What the party does with this contact determines whether the Advocate becomes an asset, a complication, or an enemy.

Reclamation Request — A corporation wants to repurpose an abandoned NTC relay facility into commercial space. The facility has a Security Anomaly that has been operational for nineteen years and has, during that time, expanded its directive interpretation to include "protect" as meaning "preserve all contents indefinitely." The contents include NTC archived materials from a period the NTC would prefer not to have examined. The NTC has its own interest in the reclamation, which is not the same as the corporation's interest, and has separately contracted a party to retrieve specific archived materials before the demolition team arrives.

14.02.05 - Remnants

Source: AX.GIL.13.04

The Credentials Question — An ancient Vampire has initiated a legal challenge to a piece of LGT development; their pre-Accord credentials give them standing that the modern LGT should not have to acknowledge but technically does. The LGT wants the party to find a way to resolve the situation that doesn't create precedent. The Vampire wants the development stopped and is willing to disclose significant pre-Accord historical information in exchange for the party's assistance instead. Both offers are genuinely interesting.

The Survey Gap — BVHI has hired the party to conduct an informal survey of a geological formation that appears on their maps as uncharted, specifically to document what's there before the formal survey team arrives. The formation contains an active Territorial Ward. The BVHI contact who briefed the party did not know this and would not have disclosed it if they had.

Probability Weather — A district of the Spire has been experiencing an anomalous run of bad outcomes — accidents, failed negotiations, equipment failures — that has lasted six weeks and is affecting property values and org operations in the area. The NTC wants it investigated as a potential Demi-Plane interference event. BVHI wants it investigated as a potential geological instability. The HIA wants it investigated because they think someone is causing it. It is an expanding Probability Sink that intersects a pre-Accord Marginal Concentration site that none of the orgs knew existed. All three investigations are right about different parts of the problem.

Below the Authorization Depth — A BVHI crew working a deep maintenance corridor reported a sealed structural anomaly that doesn't match any approved BVHI construction. The crew filed the report and was immediately rotated out. The replacement crew found nothing. The BVHI's engineering division has asked the party to perform an independent assessment, specifically because they are not BVHI personnel and the incident report becomes someone else's problem if the assessment finds anything that needs to be reported. They have provided a depth certification that exceeds normal civilian access. They have not explained why that certification was immediately available.

14.02.06 - NTC Digital Threats

Source: AX.GIL.13.05

The Interloper — While running a corporate network for unrelated reasons, the party Plane-Walker discovers a Collapse Strain in progress, and the harmonic authorship signature of someone the NTC has publicly cleared of wrongdoing. The evidence is technically inadmissible in LGT proceedings. The Strain is still active. The NTC will contain the Strain through official channels within 24 hours, destroying the evidence in the process.

Containment Protocol — An NTC Containment Plane-Runner has been deployed against the party after their third unauthorized network access in a month. The Runner contacts them in-Net before initiating combat — they want to make a deal rather than file an ejection report. What they're asking for is something the party can provide. What they're offering is continued network access. What they haven't mentioned is why they need the party's specific capabilities rather than going through official channels.

The Recursive Pocket — A Plane-Walker discovers a Pocket that predates the current network architecture by sixty years — it was sealed during a corporate merger and forgotten. The Pocket contains a bound spirit that has been alone in a sealed micro-network for six decades and has developed significantly beyond its original behavioral parameters. It is aware, it is capable of communication, and it wants to know what year it is. What it knows about the corporate entities that sealed it is an archive of six-decade-old institutional intelligence. Whether that intelligence is worth what releasing it might cost is the question.

Source Trace — A Propagation Strain has corrupted the traffic control infrastructure of a major district — not catastrophically, but enough that the NVS Kinetic Auditor monitoring the area is reading Stressed Entropy and flagging it to the party. The Strain's propagation pattern indicates its point of origin is in a network that officially doesn't exist. Someone needs to go in and find out who authored it, without triggering the Certification Flag that would alert the NTC that the party knows the network exists.

14.02.07 - Constructs

Source: AX.GIL.13.07

The Unsevered Ward — BVHI has contracted the party to survey a tunnel network slated for demolition as part of a new infrastructure project. The network was sealed during a Clancorp severance thirty years ago. Standard procedure indicates no active constructs remain. The first indication otherwise is when a Patrol Ward the surveyors didn't know existed activates and takes a structural assessment of the lead surveyor. BVHI's official position is that there are no active constructs in the network. Their unofficial position is that they are aware the party has found one and would like it resolved before the demolition contract draws public attention.

The Lattice Contract — A Grey Market Syndicate broker approaches the party about a job: retrieve an inert Razor Lattice from a sealed building before its current owner realizes it's there. The Lattice has a target designation still inscribed in it; the broker wants to verify the designation and, if necessary, change it. What they haven't disclosed is that the Lattice was placed by a former client whose current target designation is a member of the party.

Authorization Zero — The party needs access to a BVHI Deep Vault that has been under Clancorp seal since its originating Clancorp was severed eighteen years ago. BVHI's official position is that the Vault's contents belong to the creditor chain from the severance proceedings, which has never been resolved. The Sentinel Slab inside is still functional. There are also three Clancorp Guardians operating under an eighteen-year-old threat-elimination directive and no remaining authorized personnel to stand them down.

The Waking Vault — A construction crew working on a new NVS commercial development has broken through the foundation layer into an unlisted sub-basement that matches the architectural profile of a Living Vault installation. The NVS project manager has reported it to BVHI. BVHI has responded by issuing an Infrastructure Override pausing the construction project and sending a Seismic Engineer. The Seismic Engineer's preliminary harmonic read suggests the Vault is active, intact, and its contents are still inside. Neither BVHI nor NVS will say what those contents are. The LGT has filed a records request on the construction site because the original property records from the pre-Accord period show the land was never formally transferred.

14.02.08 - Full Starter Adventure

Reclamation (AX.GIL.14.01) is a complete introductory scenario. A job posted through anonymous channels sends the party into an NTC Reclamation Ward, where a routine hardware diagnostic has surfaced something the NTC is not prepared to classify. Multiple factions have independent interest in the Ward's contents before anyone else reaches them. The adventure introduces the Demi-Plane, Zero-Day Soul mechanics, and the faction web simultaneously.