Fashionable hacker intent on their system with a binary background representing the work in which they are engaged.

Sleeping Hearts, Full On Darkness

In The Bad Sleep Well, individuals are merely pawns for the powerful to sacrifice when they become inconvenient. The ambitious who toss aside those who have supported them without remorse are particular villains. Like Hamlet gaining revenge for his father’s fate, The Bad Sleep Well centres on a plot to gain revenge. That’s the inspiration for this one-pager. It could work in a modern, near future, or cyberpunk setting—or even an earlier 20th Century framing. While records were harder to search and harder to duplicate and exfiltrate before digitization, that could add some level of complication to the story, which is always a good thing.

Story

An old friend—The Victim—faces legal troubles as they are blamed for insider trading. They assure you that they are being framed. While managing their boss’ accounts, they noticed discrepancies that suggested corruption, but—being a loyal employee—they went to The Boss hoping there was a good explanation. There was not. Now The Boss is targeting The Victim, framing them for the boss’ own crimes. The Victim has no where else to turn.

Places

The Office: This is where one would find all the evidence, but there is no way to access the information from the outside. The data is on an intranet that is accessible only on specific systems inside The Office. And since so much of it is proprietary information—useful for competitors—security is tight.

The Estate: The Boss isn’t the top executive, but they are maybe doing better than someone in their particular position should. Their home shows that—quite large in a very exclusive and secure neighbourhood. Surveillance will show that they have a specific air-gapped system—not networked—and when they are working on that, they are using a datachip. This is another possible source of evidence for the PCs.

People

The Boss: VP of Finance at a major multinational, The Boss is ruthless. They have a loyal cadre around them. More than once, they’ve had an employee disappear—often quietly but sometimes in a cloud of scandal. The scandal ones are like The Victim, swearing they are innocent, even from their jail cell. The evidence against them came from company records.

The Fed: There’s a government investigator—probably with the tax office, or the office that oversees trading or commercial competition—who is tracking The Boss. They will quietly contact The Victim. They want to hear their side of the story. They highlight how The Victim’s predicament fits into a pattern of others taking the fall for The Boss’ crimes. The Fed is willing to help, but wants reciprocity. They need to see the evidence the PCs uncover. But are they trustworthy? Who’s running them?

Events

The Mistake: Once The Boss learns that The Victim has effective investigators working for them—that’d be the PCs—they panic. They send their ‘problem-solver’ after The Victim. The Boss wants The Victim silenced. Depending on your comfort with certain topics, that might be threats and pressure, it might be violence, and it might even be an attempt to make it look like The Victim chose their own exit.

The Trial: A good tactic would be to let this go to trial—especially if one of the PCs is The Victim’s lawyer. Whatever actual legal practice might be, run this like a movie or TV show. Make it dramatic, and let the PCs present their evidence in public—in a way The Boss can’t bury—saving The Victim and turning the tables on The Boss.

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