IW Recon Team

[Ed the Coastie]

Assume an IW game in which travel between worlds is done through the creation of short-lived magical gates. You are putting together a four-man reconnaissance team (one of which must be able to create the gate so you can get back home) to investigate a newly-accessed parallel. The mission is to spend a couple or three days checking out the immediate area around the gateway.

You know the following:

• Only what can be carried on your person can be taken through the gateway. As yet, the technique for creating the gate does not allow for vehicles/animals/wheelbarrows/etc.
• The general local technology is assumed to be roughly equivalent to that possessed by late-medieval Europe. However, there is evidence of at least limited contact with a handful of persons from the mid-20th Century Homeline.
• Due to the lack of the necessary support infrastructure, devices such as cell phones (no cell towers) and GPS units (no satellites) are effectively useless.
• "Classic" weapons such as swords and bows are obviously as effective here as they are on Homeline. However, there is no evidence one way or the other as to the functionality of such modern devices as firearms, radios, etc.

With this in mind, how do you select your team, how do you equip them, and what kind of missions/experiments do you set for them? Remember that they will be returning in 2-3 days, and you want to keep as low a profile as possible, avoiding as much direct contact with the locals as you can.