INTRODUCTION

Welcome to Urban Jungle, an adventure for ICONS Superpowered

Roleplaying, featuring the villainous Creeper and Gila Master, two of the
arch-villains you can find in ICONS: The Assembled Edition!
This adventure is best suited for a group of two to four heroes, with varying
power levels. Feel free to adjust the difficulty of encounters or tests if you
feel they will be too easy for you heroes, or decrease the difficulty if you
have heroes more on par with street-level crime fighters. In particular, you
can adjust the number of minions and minor villains in a scene to make
things more or less challenging.
So, get your snacks, your Determination counters, and your character
sheets ready for Urban Jungle!

OVERVIEW
This tale of villainous vines and horrifying horticulture begins with the
Creeper and his flunkies giving out free samples of strange and exotic
plants to the Victory City Metropolitan Garden Club at their Annual Flower
and Garden Show.
The Creeper’s botanical beneficence is of course a ploy to get samples of
his Mind Creeper vines—derived from the alien plant intelligence Nepenthe
—into the hands of the gardening spouses and significant others of the
city’s highest echelons of government. Once the Mind Creepers have grown
to full maturity, they copy the target, becoming a perfect clone of that
person but under the direct control of The Creeper!
While this infiltration and takeover is happening, what of our heroes?
Well, your heroes will be attempting to thwart the machinations of The
Creeper Clones, as they carry out heists unconnected with the cloning
scheme all over town. This side plot is intended to divert the heroes’
attention away from The Creeper’s plan to replace the highest echelons of
Victory City’s government with his personal army of enthralled Creeper
Clones.
The Creeper eventually reveals his master stroke, and takes over the city. In
grand fanfare, he announces his ultimate victory. In a public display of his
power, the Mayor and the City Council hand direct control over to The
Creeper in a televised ceremony. The broadcast emanates from the
completely overgrown and overtaken City Hall building. The heroes at this
point will be assaulting what they believe to be Creeper’s hideout.
Before our heroes can put things right, Creeper is suddenly transformed,
his body becoming a conduit for N’Gen-Mapu, a nature spirit driven mad
with hatred for mankind by the maniacal master of mind control and mystic
power, the Gila Master!

A
Gila Master’s mental powers and magical summons have been focused for
years on the destruction of the Chosen One, the Mighty Saguaro. Gila
Master’s current plan is to destroy the civilization of humanity, along with
Saguaro, by controlling one of the legendary N’Gen, the beings mystics
claim are responsible for defining reality. N’Gen-Mapu is the spirit of nature
and the forests, and Gila Master has been abusing a powerful ancient
artifact to enrage and torment the spirit.
Gila Master is using the same technique to summon N’Gen-Mapu he used
when he was transformed into his reptilian form, but hoping that his Mind
Control and mystical tortures will drive the normally benign spirit mad
enough to wipe out humanity upon its arrival into our plane of existence.
The heroes need to respond to the catastrophes that begin because of
N’Gen-Mapu’s manifestation in Victory City, and figure out a way to break
Gila Master’s control over this spirit. The key to his defeat is in subduing
Gila Master and either confiscating or destroying the Caller’s Staff, the
artifact Gila Master has stolen and used to drive N’Gen-Mapu mad. Once
the staff and Gila Master are under control, The Creeper is freed from his
bond with N’Gen-Mapu, and the ancient spirit returns to its plane of origin.
This leaves only The Creeper, furious at being hoodwinked by Gila Master,
to enact vengeance against those he’d cultivated for his original plan. When
the Creeper Clones are created, the originals must be placed into organic
plant pods and kept comatose.
Creeper has hidden the victims of his clones in the Dozier Memorial Garden
Expo Hall’s grand gardens. Following Gila Master’s defeat, Creeper makes a
final desperate attempt to drive a tanker filled with a gas derived from
Nepenthe’s pollen to permanently convert every one of the comatose
victims all at once. The heroes will be led on a chase and have to stop his
tanker before it arrives and sprays the Expo Center!
THE MIGHTY SAGUARO!
The villains of this adventure are The Creeper and Gila Master—who
have tangled with Saguaro in the past or are his direct arch-enemy.
During our play-tests, we had a player who was new to ICONS take on
the role of Saguaro, with fantastic results. The player was immediately
brought into the story, and was able to understand the game much
better than if they’d made up a character beforehand. On the other
hand, if you have a player who wouldn’t mind taking the mantle of the
Mighty Saguaro, by all means hand them a copy of his character
sheet from ICONS and let them have at it.
The option is there, of course, to run Saguaro as a Game Master
character as well. The module has as its default scenario that Saguaro
has been compromised and cloned by The Creeper. This plot point is
revealed as part of the false scenario Creeper has designed as a
distraction. Either way, feel free to include or remove Saguaro as
needed, replacing him with another hero or villain from the
Assembled Edition core rulebook if you like who may be more
appropriate to the story or power level of your home game.
 Chapter One: 

A Ruse By Any Other
Name…

A
This chapter begins with The Creeper setting up the wild goose chase for
the heroes and planting the seeds for his Creeper Clone takeover at the
Garden Show. The Creeper and his flunkies are giving away free plants at
the Garden Show, but a high profile heist at the Victory City University’s
Botanical Studies Lab calls the heroes away from the Garden Show, and
starts them on a wild goose chase The Creeper has planned while his real
scheme to replace the city’s most powerful and influential with Creeper
Clones takes place. As GM, it’s important that you convince your players the
wild goose chase is the primary adventure, at least until The Creeper
reveals his takeover of City Hall. The chapter ends with the heroes
investigating the things that were stolen and the strange criminals who
performed the robbery, discovering a surprising link with The Creeper’s
alter ego.
Read or paraphrase the following to your players:

It’s spring again, following one of the coldest winters on record. But,
as the Almanac often says, the coldest winters bring out the finest
flowers. The Dozier Memorial Garden Hall is festooned with blooms
and buds of every kind, hosting the city’s premier Garden Show.
Professional and amateur gardeners from every walk of life in the city
have come to see the new species of plants, the most beautiful
flowers and the newest and greatest gardening techniques developed
over the past year. Many have also come to compete in the annual
flower competition. Spring is in full swing, when suddenly your
attention is drawn to City University’s Botanical Research Center!

The Botanical Research Center is being robbed by clones of The Creeper’s

flunkies, created from clippings of Nepenthe, an alien species of plant.
The number of flunkies performing the robbery is equal to three times the
number of characters, using the Thug archetype from p. 192 of ICONS: The
Assembled Edition. Half of them are armed with Blast 5 submachine guns,
the other half with Affliction (Stun) 5 Knockout Gas Pheromone sprayers.
These minions are led by a head thug, attempting to leave with a canister
of experimental super-fertilizer. Each of these thugs can easily be defeated
by one successful hit.
Once hit, the Clone Flunkies explode in a shower of glowing green pollen
and plant matter like bursting seed pods.
Preventing the escape of the Flunkies is key to this scene. They are running
toward a Florist’s Van, and attempt to flee towards the Industrial district to
deposit the fertilizer in the Clone Version of The Creeper’s secondary
hideout.
Page One: The alarms go off. If the players have a Headquarters in the city,
or are connected via Specialties or Qualities to Law Enforcement, they are
notified of the crime in progress. During page one the heroes should be en
route to the robbery. The Clone Flunkies are spraying the technicians and
botanists, knocking them out, and making good their escape from the
research labs. There are three areas to pass through before reaching their
van, each taking a page to get through. If there are super-speedsters on the
scene, or a hero with a Bad Luck quality that puts them on scene in their
civilian identity, the laboratory area has three Qualities: Flammable
Materials, Scientists In Danger, and Delicate Machinery, which can affect
what the hero decides to do and how to handle the cloned thugs.

A
Page Two: The Clone Flunkies enter the enormous greenhouse connected
to the labs, where, outside in the parking area awaits their getaway vehicle,
Mrs. Thorny’s Bouquet Boutique Van. By page 2 the heroes should be on
the scene. The Greenhouse has the Qualities: Camouflaged Cover,
Labyrinthine Aisles, Glass House. This should give the heroes pause as to
using powers where they might miss, and give the Flunkies a fighting
chance.
Page Three: If the player’s characters haven’t arrived on scene by this
point, the lead Clone Flunky loads the canister into the van, and they begin
driving away. The streets of Victory City have the Qualities Heavy Traffic,
Flocking Pedestrians, and Police In Pursuit if the heroes are unable to stop
the Clone Flunkies from escaping the Botanical Research Lab and getting
into their van.
Once the battle with the flunkies is concluded, the heroes should be keyed
in to a few clues to what’s going on: the type of fertilizer that’s being
stolen, the Mrs. Thorny’s van, and the plant matter left behind by the
exploding Clone Flunkies. If the heroes had prior contact with The Creeper,
or know about his prior schemes, they may also have notes regarding the
common M.O. for his crimes.
The clues found here are meant to leave a false trail for the heroes to follow
while The Creeper clones the city’s government and halls of power. The
trails lead to different pockets of Cloned Flunkies, a Clone Saguaro, and a
Clone version of The Creeper. As GM, you may use one or all the trails in
this adventure as you like. In fact, if you are pressed for time, combine
Encounter B and Encounter C for a confrontation with the Clone Saguaro
and Clone Creeper at the same time!

CLUE TRAIL A – THE FERTILIZER

Project Mossflower is the codename for a super fertilizer developed by the
horticulturalists and botanists of Victory City University, it’s designed to
reverse damaged soil’s pH, and does so in wondrous ways. It changes even
salted earth into fertile soil, and enhances the growth of plants grown in
normal soil. The one drawback is the fertilizer is unstable on a molecular
level and can be combined with other common chemicals to create high
explosives.
The project lead, Annabelle Parks, was one of the few botanists to escape
The Creeper’s first attack against the University’s faculty unscathed. Carl
Wessler’s affection for Ms. Parks spared her the brunt of his anger after his
transformation into The Creeper.
However, she is in fear of The Creeper returning someday. She received a
message a month prior to this robbery, inviting her to a party being held in
Grand Arbor Park instead of coming into work today. It seems to be a
warning sent to her from The Creeper himself, and leads the players to
Encounter A.

CLUE TRAIL B – MRS. THORNY’S BOUQUET

BOUTIQUE VAN
Players with Law Enforcement Specialties or Qualities with allies in Law
Enforcement can get the registration of the vehicle being used in the
getaway. On the other hand, a character with sufficient Intellect and a
computer Specialty can also gather that information with a difficulty 4 test.
Any hero that has had prior contact with The Creeper before this adventure
has knowledge of this alias with a successful difficulty 4 Intellect or
Awareness test.
The Van is registered to Credenza Thorny, an alias used by The Creeper in a
former heist. The Bouquet Boutique is located in the low-income housing
area of Victory City, and has been closed down since that heist was
thwarted. This clue trail leads the heroes to Encounter B.

CLUE TRAIL C – THE CLONE FLUNKIES

The plant matter left behind when the Clone Flunkies explode is rapidly
deteriorating, but a hero with scientific Specialties or perhaps powers that
give them insight into such things can scan them for traces of strange alien
plant matter with a difficulty 5 test.
The trace of alien plant matter is from a clipping The Creeper took from
Nepenthe to develop his clones. Nepenthe initially requires a greenhouse to
germinate, and the only greenhouse in this area capable of keeping such a
plant alive is on the outskirts of the city. This clue trail leads them to
Encounter C.
ENCOUNTER A – PICNIC IN THE PARK
There are a number of Clone Flunkies equal to three times the number of
heroes, armed similarly to the flunkies at the heist, lying in wait for Dr. Parks
or whoever stumbles across the secluded patch of forest in Grand Arbor
Park.
Read or paraphrase the following to your players:

In the shady confines of a copse of trees in Grand Arbor Park, an

elegant picnic spread is laid out. A bottle of wine, a basket lunch, and
a massive checkered blanket adorn the gently sloping hill next to the
lake. The birdsong that normally fills the air of the park is noticeably
absent here, the air still.

This is an ambush. The Clone Flunkies attack as soon as the heroes arrive,
jumping from the trees and bushes. This picnic area has the Qualities Thick
Underbrush, and can also have the Quality Accidental Bystander in case
you’d like a park visitor to happen across this mighty battle.
The Clone Flunkies are the same as the robbery suspects, exploding at a
successful hit. The lead flunky has a magnetic keycard to the door of the
Greenhouse in Encounter C. One of the Pheromone Spray Guns has a part
that is stamped with the address of the Mrs. Thorny’s Bouquet Boutique as
well, leading to the address in Encounter B.
If your heroes are defeated, they are subsequently taken to the Encounter
C location, the Industrial Greenhouse.

ENCOUNTER B – MRS. THORNY’S BOUQUET

BOUTIQUE
The Clone Flunkies are putting together the pheromone spray fluid at this
location, a place The Creeper used to use as a hideout.
Read or paraphrase the following to your players:
 This flower shop is in the middle of one of Victory City’s rough
patches, a neighborhood with gang trouble and petty crime. A
massive sign featuring a kindly looking elderly lady with
grandmotherly features proclaims this shop to be Mrs. Thorny’s
Bouquet Boutique. Its windows are boarded up, and its door appears
to be locked and chained closed with a fluttering pale yellow tattered
remnant of police tape hanging from the doorjamb.

There are four times the heroes number of Clone Flunkies and a Clone of
Saguaro on site, who needs to be reduced to half Stamina to be
incapacitated. A map in the store shows a big red circle around the
industrial greenhouse on the outskirts of the city. One of the Clone Flunkies
is carrying a keycard to the greenhouse as well.
The shop has the Qualities: Confined Space, Weak Foundation, and
Explosive Elements. If the pheromone tanks are destroyed, it releases a
massive cloud of Stun Gas that affects a whole city block. The Saguaro
Clone is just as intelligent as the original, only completely loyal to the
Creeper and will fight the heroes to its bitter end. The Clone Flunkies
attempt to subdue the heroes and bring them to the Clone Creeper for
holding until the real Creeper is finished with his plan.

ENCOUNTER C – VICTORY GARDENS

GREENHOUSE
The Creeper made a clone of himself to run the Clone Flunkies, to
perpetrate a crime he’d planned, but abandoned after discovering the
qualities of the Mind-Creeper Vine. The crime is to create a massive
overgrowth of plants that blanket the city that he can control from the
sewer system. The Clone Creeper is working on this formula, and with this
fertilizer, will be able to create the plant takeover eventually.
Read or paraphrase the following to your heroes:

The Victory Gardens Industrial Gardens are the single largest

growing facility and factory farm in the state. From the hills
surrounding the facility, you can see a strange pulsing greenish yellow
glow from the greenhouse area.
Victory Gardens is one of the largest producers of vegetables in the state,
and their factory garden has a massive internally heated and lit greenhouse
that creates food year round. The greenhouse is where The Clone Creeper
has been creating his overgrowth pods, and has a crew of Clone Flunkies
with him equal to twice the number of heroes. In addition to the Clone
Flunkies, he has a Clone Saguaro on-site as well. Read or paraphrase the
following to your players.

A
The industrial greenhouse is lit from beneath by bioluminescent plant life,
glowing with eerie amber light. You see cloned enforcers pacing up and
down the aisles, brandishing stun weapons and automatic rifles as well. The
massive greenhouse area is choked with overgrown plants that look like
common garden species grown to gargantuan size.
The industrial greenhouse has the Qualities: Industrial Complex, Gigantic
Greenery, and The Creeper Clone is half the power level of the original
Creeper (see his traits in ICONS: The Assembled Edition). The same goes for
the Saguaro Clone, he is not fully powered but ready to fight once the
heroes are spotted. The greenhouse has a magnetic card lock for its doors.
Clone Flunkies have the key, but circumventing the door requires a
difficulty 6 Intellect test.
Once the battle is finished, with the destruction of the Creeper Clone, read
or paraphrase the following to your players:

Out of the corner of your eye you notice a small computer monitor
that’s been converted to show local television signals. The screen is
live with an image that fills your stomach with ice; City Hall, wrapped
in vines as thick and round as a full human torso, pulsing and climbing
mindlessly upward. The villainous viny vandal, The Creeper stands in
front of this nightmare scene, with what appears to be every member
of the city council and The Mayor Herself!
“Citizens of Victory City” The Creeper begins, “I have the unique
privilege of relating to you a moment that will live forever in history
as the moment when your lives truly flowered…when I, The Creeper,
took total governmental control of this City and am named the sole
lawmaking body! HAHAHAHA!” – his cackle raises the ire of anyone
who hears it, and he points to a document in his hand.
“While your city’s heroes have been chasing their tails searching for
thistles among the weeds, I have been convincing your city’s leaders
into signing THIS DECLARATION OF FEALTY!” The Creeper laughs as
the camera zooms in on the official looking document. The Mayor,
Deanna Aquilar steps forward, smiling and nodding as she speaks,
“Oh yes, your elected officials have all signed off on this course of
action – it is really what’s best for our fair city!”
The Creeper nearly doubles over in laughter, then ACTUALLY doubles
over as tremors fill the greenhouse, and you can see the cameraman
shake as well.
“Wh-What’s happening?!” The Creeper’s eyes suddenly flood with
green light and he shrieks in pain! From an alcove steps a scaly,
sinister reptilian villain known to everyone as The Gila Master.
“SSss….Enough of thisss charade….Creeper – You now are host to
N’Gen-Mapu – spirit of destruction—who I call forth to ERADICATE
this BLIGHT OF A CITY!” Gila Master waves a mystically inscribed
staff and suddenly the ground erupts with tree-trunk sized vines
lurching through and Creeper himself getting wrapped up in vines
emanating from his very skin! A blur of green motion lashes at the
cameraman and the screen goes black.
 Chapter Two: 

Vines of Vengeance!

A
After thwarting the Clone Creeper’s plot, the heroes find themselves on the
outside of a vegetation choked metropolis, with plant life wreaking havoc
all over the city. They have a two-fold mission: to learn more about the
villain, Gila Master, and to rescue the endangered populace of Victory City!
At the end of the chapter, the heroes find themselves face-to-face with the
arch-foe of Saguaro, and of every human that lives, Gila Master and the
avatar of N’Gen-Mapu, the possessed Creeper!
The heroes are now outside of the city, a massive earthquake has destroyed
a portion of the city from the vines of N’Gen-Mapu erupting all over,
creating havoc and mayhem in the streets. This puts a lot of people in
danger, so the heroes must leap into action to save them. At this point feel
free to activate a character’s Qualities involving their connections to put
them in one of the situations listed below of your choice, endangering the
heroes’ supporting cast.
The events below can be run in order or rolled randomly with a single die,
but your heroes should have to deal with at least one event per hero. In our
play-test, we added an additional disaster scenario for our players to
handle, because they were having so much fun! Feel free to modify the
events as you see fit, adding supporting cast members to them for your
players.

1 – CREEPER CLONES ATTACK!

There are a group of Creeper Clones attacking citizens in Grand Arbor Park,
now a thickly overgrown patch of jungle. There are twice the heroes’
number in Clones, and they are magically-enhanced by the influence of
N’Gen-Mapu, and so use the Soldier template from ICONS: The Assembled
Edition. The park now has the Qualities: Thick Underbrush, Panicked
Crowd, and Unstable Earth. Once the Creeper Clones are dealt with, the
citizens are saved.

2 – CARNIVOROUS PLANTS!
Carnivorous Plants equal to twice the number of heroes have burst out of
the ground in an inner-city playground in Victory City. There are children
endangered by vicious, deadly plants. The playground equipment is
partially standing and the children are panicking. The scene has the
Qualities: Frightened Children, Unstable Earth, and Rubble Abounds.

CARNIVOROUS PLANT

Powers: Damage Resistance 3, Regeneration 3, Strike 5 (slashing)

Qualities: Feed Me!, Plant

3 – FALLING BUILDINGS!
One of the oldest buildings in the city, the Parker-Richards Hotel, is
collapsing! It’s a ten-story apartment building that has been nearly toppled!
There are a number of citizens in danger equal to the the number of heroes
plus one and, in four pages, the building will collapse. The people are
screaming for help, and the scene has the Qualities Pressed for Time,
Rickety Flooring, and Fragile Walls.

4- THE CANYON ON FIFTH AVENUE!

The street has been destroyed, peeled apart and has exposed a trench
hundreds of feet deep! Cars are stopped on either side, but vines are
pushing all of the cars slowly into the crevasse. The cars are piled upon one
another, and in a matter of moments, the cars will tumble into the abyss
along with their drivers and passengers! There are people in peril equal to
twice the number of heroes. The scene has the Qualities Steep Sides,
Aggressive Vines, and Pressed for Time.
There are a number of vines equal to the number of heroes able to attack
them. Use the traits of the carnivorous plants (previously) without the
Strike power. Cars traits are found p. 116 of ICONS: The Assembled Edition
and they can be pulled apart, pushed back, or lifted up to rescue drivers
and passengers.

5 – CLOUD OF POLLEN
The stun pollen has spread into a noxious cloud floating near the City’s
Hospital, where it could complicate or severely harm patients inside. The
heroes have to find a way to dissipate the cloud within five pages. The
Pollen Cloud has the Qualities Gigantic Cloud, Unpredictable, and Slow
Moving. Any hero caught in the cloud suffers an Affliction 7 (Stun) attack.
Those holding their breath or with Life Support (Breathing) are unaffected.

6 – REACHING VINES
The heroes are suddenly grasped by vines, binding them, and pulling them
towards a gaping maw of a carnivorous plant! The heroes each receive a
Determination token for the ambush. The vines and carnivorous jaws have
the same traits as the plants in event 2, except the spines of the plant’s jaws
also introduce an Affliction 8 venom into anyone damaged by them. Life
Support or Resistance to Toxins protect against this attack.

INVESTIGATION
Once these perils are overcome the heroes can investigate the villainous
Gila Master and his strange new abilities. Information about Gila Master
that’s readily known is that he is an intelligent foe with Mind Control
powers. His hatred for Saguaro is also well-known. However, he’s never
been shown to be able to control plants before, much less to this extent.
Heroes with connections to Law Enforcement know Gila Master has never
been incarcerated for his crimes, as he has never been apprehended. In
addition, his record suggests that he’s mentally unstable.
Heroes with connections or origins based on magic or with the Occult
Specialty may make a difficulty 5 Intellect test to discern the origin of the
creature from the video and the staff Gila Master is wielding. If none of your
players have a background in magic, they may head to the University or to
the Museum of Natural History for information regarding the staff, and
possibly the creature.
A successful test reveal the following information:
Marginal Success: The staff is of South American origin, appears to be an
Argentinian artifact. This can lead them to looking up robberies at South
American sites, or any other information. The truth is that Gila Master stole
this from a Mapuche holy site, and it did make the news in Chile.
Moderate Success: The mystical staff is known as a Song Staff. It’s a kind of
crozier for Mapuche ceremonies of nature worship, but appears to have
been either embellished or altered in significant ways.
Massive Success: Gila Master has stolen the chief artifact of the Mapuche,
The Caller’s Staff, which has the ability to communicate directly with forces
of nature called the N’gen, the spirits that steward the Earth. The staff has
been altered to do more, however, as it is acting more like a lash or a goad,
and seems to have driven the spirit entity mad.
Once the heroes have studied or investigated N’Gen Mapu and Gila Master
to their satisfaction and they approach the overrun City Hall, we head to
the next chapter! Even if they decide to not investigate the creature or the
artifact, the next chapter begins when the heroes approach City Hall.
 Chapter Three: 

You Can’t Fight 

(In) City Hall!

A
This is the climax of the story, where the heroes assault City Hall and face
off with N’Gen-Mapu and Gila Master and take down The Creeper. But once
they arrive, they find themselves face to face with the clones of the City
Council and their Cloned Flunky bodyguards. N’Gen-Mapu is a plot effect
creature, who attacks in one of six ways randomly throughout the chapter
as they go through the three floors of City Hall, and finally find Gila Master
in the central meeting area on the top floor, surrounded by Clone Flunkies
and animated vines. The goal is to get the staff away from Gila Master, and
commune with N’Gen-Mapu to send the spirit back to its dimension of
origin.
Once the Creeper regains his senses, he slips away and decides to take his
revenge, taking a tanker, filled with the gas that changes humans into the
Plant Clones. He intends to crash the tanker into the Dozier Garden, where
he has hidden the clone pods of the City Council and Madame Mayor, and
permanently seal them in their pods! This will be a tense chase through the
streets of the city to stop the vengeful Creeper.

OUTSIDE CITY HALL

The heroes are standing in the courtyard across from City Hall, and face a
creature made of plant life protecting Gila Master, even as it tries to choke
out the buildings of the city. The building has no entrances, so the heroes
will have to get inside by either cutting, burning, or tearing their way in.
Read or paraphrase the following to your players:

City Hall, home to the lawmakers and record-keepers of this fair city.
But now the building more resembles an overgrown temple in the
jungles of Cambodia. The vines squeeze the building, and the
unearthly sound of marble fracturing from the pressure is like glaciers
settling. There is no visible entry into this green nightmare. You see a
council-member staggering out from behind one of the austere but
vine-covered columns who stares at you, then transmogrifies into a
disturbing mix of carnivorous plant and humanoid clone!

The Cloned Council-member screeches, it’s been changed from a simple

docile clone into a ferocious and killer beast. The shriek of the Aberrant
Clone draws the attention of the Aberrant Clone Flunkies in the area, equal
to twice the number of heroes, and the Aberrant Clone leaps to strike! Use
the Soldier template from ICONS: The Assembled Edition.
A

WHAT’S N’GEN-MAPU UP TO?

The furious spirit of nature is essentially a root-system extending all over
the city, with City Hall as its central nervous center, and Gila Master as its
fevered, rage-fueled brain. Gila Master is using all of his concentration to
prevent the normally benign and gentle spirit from regaining control. The
process of permanently driving what is essentially a nature deity mad takes
20 pages in total from the time the heroes arrive.
N’Gen-Mapu’s strength is in creating plant life, and using nature to its
benefit. Currently, it’s focused on plant life, but it can control aspects of the
weather as well. There are six random encounters to add to the mix while
the characters move through the three encounter areas of City Hall. In our
play-test, we used two as a minimum, and spread them out during the
battle, but you can feel free to randomly roll from this chart any number of
times if the battle seems to be going too easy for your group’s power level.
Roll 1d6:
1 – N’Gen-Mapu’s tendrils break through the walls, covered in supernaturally
augmented thorns. There are a number of tendrils equal to the number of
heroes with the traits of the carnivorous plants from Chapter 2, Prowess 5,
Strength 8, and Strike 7 (slashing).
2- N’Gen-Mapu roars and attempts to destroy the footing of the heroes,
add the Quality “Unsure Footing” to the area. If the heroes aren’t in combat,
the ceiling collapses, and dropping slabs of concrete and marble down on
them. The rubble strikes with an attack level of 2 and a weight and damage
level of 6.
3- N’Gen-Mapu’s face appears in the vines, and belches out a cloud of
stinging insects, adding the “Stinging Swarm” Quality to the scene as a
distraction. If the heroes aren’t in combat, N’Gen creates a swarm (p. 194 of
ICONS: the Assembled Edition) that attacks.
4 – The hall fills with vines, which blister with boils that pop into gnashing
mouths and carnivorous bulbs lunging out at the heroes! N’Gen-Mapu’s roar
of rage can be heard as the hallway becomes a tunnel of writhing thorns
like a throat filled with razor sharp teeth as well. The hallway has the
Quality “Dangerous Surfaces.” It has Aura 8 and the carnivorous plants have
the same traits as those in Chapter 2.
5 – The wall in front of the heroes explodes as an animate tidal wave of
vines surges into the hallway and forms into N’Gen-Mapu’s humanoid form.
It points at the heroes and attacks! N’Gen-Mapu is in fact manifested as the
vegetation taking over the entire city, but it creates a smaller version of
itself to attack the heroes. Use the traits of Saguaro from ICONS: the
Assembled Edition for N’Gen-Mapu’s avatar. It attacks the players until they
can reduce his Stamina to half.
6 – The wall’s vines suddenly blossom with exotic tropical flowers that
spray stunning gas into the room, the floor sprouting carnivorous mouths
waiting for the heroes to fall into their jaws. The gas is an Affliction 7 and
the mouths are the same as the carnivorous plants in Chapter 2.

THE CITY CHAMBERS

Read or paraphrase the following to your players:

After a close call with the spirit of nature, N’Gen-Mapu, you find
yourself in the grand chambers of City Hall, and standing in the
middle of what looks like a misty jungle are the rest of the City
Council, malformed vegetation beings who turn and scream, their
countenances twisting and bursting open with wide open gaping
mouths in their torsos!
In the chambers of the City Hall, the rest of the Aberrant Council-member
Clones are mulling about, pseudo-zombified, but immediately turn and
attack the heroes as they enter the chambers. The chamber has the
Qualities “Overgrown Vegetation” and “Unstable Footing.” Use the Soldier
template from ICONS: The Assembled Edition for the Aberrant Clones.
Following the battle with the City Council, the heroes make their way
upstairs to the Mayor’s Office, where Gila Master and the possessed
Creeper are hiding from the destruction happening all over the city.

THE MAYOR’S OFFICE

Read or paraphrase the following to your players:

The air is fetid with the aroma of fermenting plant life, the room
sweltering with a magical, nigh-infernal heat. Seated in the Mayor’s
chair, so overgrown and choked with vines and creepers it resembles
a throne of vegetation, is the Gila Master. His mouth opens wide with
a hiss and he points his staff at you. “INTERLOPERSSS!!! NOW YOU
SSSSHALL PAY FOR YOUR INTERFERENCE!!!”
Gila Master can be found in the sample villains appendix of ICONS: The
Assembled Edition. With the Caller’s Staff, he can manifest one of the
attacks of N’Gen-Mapu from the previous section every other page, or
summon Aberrant Clone Flunkies equal to the number of heroes. In
between, he uses his Mind Control on the most physically powerful member
of the hero team.
Once Gila Master is defeated, read or paraphrase the following to the
players:

The room begins returning to normal. The vines and branches begin
receding, leaving broken chairs, windows and torn wallpaper. Gila
Master’s under wraps, and the day is saved. Weary, and ready for a
long rest, you breathe a collective sigh of relief as this adventure…
“Nooo! What…what did you do, you scaly FREAK!?” the Creeper’s
voice is tremulous and high-pitched, spittle frothing at the corners of
his mouth. “I HAD THEM WHERE I WANTED THEM!!” Creeper makes
a gesture with his hands and a column of vines receding through the
wall picks him up and he rides them out of the building!
You have only a moment to be startled when you hear the sound of a
heavy diesel engine roaring to life outside.

The Creeper has hidden his tanker full of the alien gas near City Hall in case
he needed to make a swift getaway. This is all that remains of this
compound, but now the Creeper has been driven over the edge! He is
speeding away from the City Hall and towards the hidden Pod People (and
possibly Saguaro!) in the Dozier Memorial Gardens!
The last part of this chapter is a pyramid test for your heroes, requiring a
massive success vs. difficulty 7 to stop the vehicle, which has been
mechanically modified to be tougher than your average tanker truck. The
Garden is a straight shot down an otherwise empty street from the City
Hall, and Creeper is out of his mind with vengeful anger. If the truck
manages to get to the Garden—five pages of traveling as it accelerates—the
truck flips onto its side and releases its gas onto the pods, sealing the City
Council inside, and keeping them comatose inside their vegetative pods
until someone can come up with a cure. The heroes simply need to stop the
tanker truck before it gets to the Garden…if they are successful, read or
paraphrase the following to them:
A

The Creeper’s tanker comes to a shuddering stop, and the man

himself passes out from exertion after being the avatar of a primal
force of nature. You have saved the day and the City Council, along
with the Mayor herself! Congratulations are in order as you hear the
sounds of sirens and rescue personnel bringing the areas affected by
N’Gen-Mapu’s path of destruction back into a semblance of order!

If your heroes successfully stopped the villains, they might gain either one
as an archenemy Team Quality. In addition, they also receive the Team
Quality “Key to the City,” that they can use in later adventures when
smoothing their way with local politicians or government.
The Creeper is taken into custody, but Gila Master manages to escape the
police. In the aftermath of this outrageous turn of events, the heroes find
out how the plants managed to take control of the Council, and one of the
vines has been taken to ULTRA Labs for further study. Or, if you choose, the
heroes can take the vine into their custody as a trophy of their victory over
The Creeper!
We hope you enjoyed “Urban Jungle”! Join us for the next exciting ICONS
adventure!

FURTHER ADVENTURES
• The alien orchid Nepenthe returns for the vine, attempting to send
mind-controlled goons after the scientists at ULTRA Labs, or in the
case the heroes take the vine, send mind controlled family
members or supporting cast to attempt to get it back. Why does
Nepenthe want the vine? What possible nefarious plot could
unfold?

• Word pops up that the clouds of spores and pollen have mutated a
group of young toughs into metahuman villains. These teens are
taking over their neighborhood with their nature- and plant-based
powers, and must be stopped!

• Clone or Not? One of the City Council Members attends the parole
hearing of The Creeper and makes a heartfelt plea for clemency on
his behalf, stating that he was not in control of his faculties when
this happened, but a pawn of Gila Master’s manipulation. Has this
member of City Council gone soft on crime? Or is there a missing
victim of the Creepers horrid horticulture?



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15 COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Open Game License v 1.0 Copyright 2000, Wizards of the Coast, Inc.

Fudge System Reference Document Copyright 2005, Grey Ghost Press, Inc.; Authors Steffan
O’Sullivan and Ann Dupuis, with additional material by Peter Bonney, Deird’Re Brooks, Reimer
Behrends, Shawn Garbett, Steven Hammond, Ed Heil, Bernard Hsiung, Sedge Lewis, Gordon
McCormick, Kent Matthewson, Peter Mikelsons, Anthony Roberson, Andy Skinner, Stephan Szabo,
John Ughrin, Dmitri Zagidulin

FATE (Fantastic Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment), Copyright 2003 by Evil Hat Productions LLC;
Authors Robert Donoghue and Fred Hicks.

Spirit of the Century, Copyright 2006, Evil Hat Productions LLC. Authors Robert Donoghue, Fred
Hicks, and Leonard Balsera.

ICONS Superpowered Roleplaying, Copyright 2010, Steve Kenson.

Urban Jungle, Copyright 2015, Ad Infinitum Adventures, Author: Dan Houser.