Thomas Cook Blog

• James is approached by a service agent from the Myanmar military Junta and asked to clear out a group of pro-democracy rebels who have seized significant territories from the Junta since the 2021 coup
• If the PCs want to help, they are arranged flights to be taken to Naypyidaw whereupon they will need to transit to a nearby military base and then be flown onwards and inserted via helo to within 10 clicks of a deep jungle holdout of the People’s Defence Force (PDF)
• Upon reaching the city of Naypyidaw they will be approached by a representative of the PDF who has been made aware that they are a PMC group contracted by the Junta, this PDF representative will plead with the PCs to side with the PDF, and instead of attacking their outpost in the jungle, join forces with them instead in counter raids on government facilities in Mandalay

PCs Choose to Assist the Junta

• The PCs will be taken on a several hour low flying helo flight to a remote jungle location
  • They will be forced by the military to hand over any GPS enabled devices such that they cannot track the location and instead provided with long range radios so they can call an extraction once the mission is complete
  • This is because the Junta need the PCs to have plausible deniability of their exact location during the attack, furthermore it also stops the PCs leaking information about the Juntas military movements, even if by accident
• The PCs will need to move through dense jungle environment to reach the PDF camp once they are inserted
• On the outskirts of the PDF camp, there are booby traps which the PCs need to deal with
• In the camp the PCs can hear and see women and children, in fact they get the impression this is more of a geurilla resistance village than a specifically offensive military outpost
• There are 4D6 armed men in and around the camp
  • Some are patrolling, others keeping once, and a few are sat playing some kind of game
• There are also a few generators dotted about and a large deisel storage tank which is used to refill the generators
• There are several buildings, constructed of timber
  • Barracks, contains bunks for the guards
  • Armory, contains all the weaponry for the camp, there is more than enough for every man, woman and child to take up arms if needs be…
  • Kitchen/Dining, large open sided building with cooking equipment and tables, in the center of the camp
  • Several smaller buildings which appear to be abodes for housing women and children, these are dotted around the far end of the camp
• If the PCs decide to open fire or clear out the camp, most of the women and children will flee away from the gunfire into the jungle, although 1D6 women and children will take up arms from the Armory building and fight back
  • This poses a serious moral dilemna for the PCs, so before the PCs open fire triggering a cascade of events they may regret, this needs signalling!!!
  • The PCs may be able to use methods to distract/clear out the camp that don’t involve directly firing upon or near innocents, this is up to the players imagination of course
  • Make sure to employ the morale rules from the system book to determine if NPCs flee/surrender after casualties are taken
• If the PCs decide that opening fire seems a bit evil and try to parlay with the camp intsead, then roll a reaction to see if the men guarding the camp react with hostility or are open to talking
  • If they are open to talking, the PCs will need to explain why they are stalking around the edge of the camp armed to the teeth…
  • If they can persuade the camp that they have changed their mind on their assignment, then the camp members will ask the PCs to assist them in the upcoming attack on Mandalay (see the other section)

PCs Choose to Assist the PDF

• The PCs will need to rendevous with PDF operatives working undercover within Naypyidaw, all the while dodging Junta forces who are now looking for a rogue PMC element amongst the city
• If and when the PCs manage to rendevous with the PDF operatives, they are blindfolded and have their equipment removed temporarily as they are loaded into the back of a van and driven for several hours down dirt tracks to a deep jungle outpost
• Upon arriving, their blindfolds are removed and they are given their equipment back
  • Apart from any GPS equipped tools as the PDF don’t want the PCs to leak the location of the base, even if by accident
• They are shown around the camp (see notes from first section) and then ran through the plan of action relating to the attack on government offices in Mandalay
• The plan is to use a network of tunnels which the PDF and allies have been digging from outside the city to deep within it since the civil war broke out
• One of these tunnels leads directly underneath a government facility that is responsible for torturing captured PDF forces for information as well as producing the propoganda required to keep the masses from revolting against the Junta
• The PDF forces along with the PCs will blow a hole into the basement of this facility in 2 days time, and, using the element of surprise, take over the facility and use the broadcasting functionality to call the civilian masses across the country to rise up and overthrow the Junta once and for all!

NPC’S

• Myanmar Junta Service Agent

  • Name: Oak
  • Appearance: Middle aged, assertive stance, scarred eye and eye patch, coffee breath, clenched jaw
  • Cadence: Grizzled, grunts, sighs, impatient
  • Notes
    • Offers PCs 500,000 USD for the assignment

• PDF Operative

  • Name: Noi
  • Appearance: Mid 20s, fidgetting, looking around for danger, chews fingers
  • Cadence: Quick, anxious
  • Notes
    • Can only offer the PCs 20,000 USD to assist the PDF, but promises further payments if they manage to overthrow the Myanmar Junta

Descriptors

• Singapore

  • Sight: Gleaming central area bustling with tourists, outskirts and suburbs relatively rundown, chaotic roads, lots of ethnic variation
  • Smell: Clean and floral in the commercial center, but smog and strange industrial smells on the outskirts
  • Hear: Many different languages, cars beeping, engines
  • Feel: Humid, hot breeze, sweat, claustraphobic

• Flight

  • Sight: Beat up 747, loose fairing rivets, sun bleached upholestery
  • Smell: Ozone from air conditioning, curry, body odor
  • Hear: Lots of foreign languages and dialects spoken, kids screaming, snoring
  • Feel: Buffetted by turbulence, getting kicked in the back of chair by kid

• Yangdon

  • Sight: Tropical trees and city blocks meshed together, golden temple in the centre of the city, concrete brutalist architecture, quite busy, armed forces patrolling
  • Smell: Herbal oils, fried vegetables, engine oil
  • Hear: Mostly Thai dialecets, with the occasional foreign language, even some European tourists
  • Feel: Hemmed in, dodging traffic, sweaty and uncomfortable

• Naypyidaw

  • Sight: Tropical trees, golden asian temples juxtaposed against oddly brutalist architecture, surprisingly quiet ghost town
  • Smell: Stale smell from inside buildings, streets smell clean due to lack of traffic
  • Hear: Birds chirping, the occasional car
  • Feel: Watched, uneasy, sweaty and hot

• Jungle

  • Sight: Dense, entangled, opressive, lush, wet, steam
  • Smell: Petrichor, decay, alien, fermentation
  • Hear: Cawing of birds, animal call, rustling of leaves, constant background hum of insects
  • Feel: Humid, heavy lungs, sweat dripping, chafing

FAQ

• Why was their a coup in Myanmar in the first place?
  • A landslide election victory for the National League for Democracy (NLD) in 2020 triggered a reactionary coup by the military
    • PDF forces will say the reason for the coup was the military leadership had military investments which would have been at risk under a continued civilian government
    • Junta forces will say the reason for the coup was because the NLD would have ushered in an age of cultural debasement and selling out of national infrastructure to foreign states
• Where is the jungle camp that we need to attack?
  • Neither side can tell the PCs this for security reasons
• How far is Myanmar from Singapore?
  • You’ll need to fly to Yangdon from Singapore, then you will be picked up from the airport and driven to Naypyidaw via private vehicle which takes a further 5 hours
  • Myanmar International Airlines