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The real monster... is humanity. The outbreak happened fast. More than half of everybody, everywhere, died the week of the first bloom, driven berserk and choked to death on spores that came from god-knows-where. Then the spores settled in their lungs and skin, burrowed through their meat, pulled their bodies back up, and went to work on the survivors. Society didn't hold together. You read the thread title, right? People did what people do when all the rules go away and they think nobody's watching. Dark times all around.  All of our major cities are lost to the spore. They're still full of ghosts and howling meat-puppets. Huge swathes of terrain are lost, where the wind and humidity were fertile to the spore. You're somewhere in what was once the rural countryside of the continental U.S. There's still plenty of 'safe' land where the earth underfoot isn't choked with mats of the fungus, but maybe a little less of it with every season.  It's been about fifteen years since Z-day. Or more, or less. Did anyone bother to keep up with a calendar? People, like they do, will learn to cope with absolutely anything. Life goes on. Those inclined to try and rebuild have started, to mixed results. And those inclined to keep suckling on the ruined teat of civilization are still finding some good pickings. Of course, there are some violent assholes without a thought past the next meal. And a few violent assholes with plans going long past that. You're left with the results of a severe culling, and ruthless sociopaths got results. Plus, there's no shortage of wayward, traumatized souls who've already lost so much they're not afraid to toss away what they've got left on a bloody gamble for easy scraps.  The Slavering Horde and You: Some Frequently Asked Questions Q: What's that poo poo on its face? Fungal growth. The spores feed on the host, and the poo poo that the host eats, to reproduce. When a host is used up, the fungus takes root, steps up its digestion, and gathers spores for another bloom. You know what? Watch David Attenborough explain it. There's a kind of cordyceps adapted to use humans, and it's mean. Q: So do they bite you, or just spray spores around? They bite. And scratch. And kick. Anything a person could do in a black-out drunken rampage. A lot of nastiness is concentrated in their saliva - if you're bit, you're going to die. Like, soon. In the early days of the outbreak, the spores were like anthrax that knew how to hate. A few of them got in your lungs, it was over. Some landed on your skin, it was a coin toss between dying (then turning) or losing a big piece of yourself to necrotized flesh. By now, everybody still alive has built up some resistance to it. You might get a cough or a rash from moderate exposure to airborne spores. Whatever. Q: Can they run? Yeah. Q: How smart are they? Not very. They can't figure out a doorknob, but they will bang and smash until their shattered forearms wear down the door frame. They've got a full range of human senses, and they're drawn to exciting poo poo like movement, light, and sound. They can probably smell human meat. Or sweat. Or fear. They don't chew on each other. They'll chase after animals, but rarely catch any. When something gets their attention, they've got some chemical-pheromone-spore release bullshit to rile up any others nearby. They flock together and follow each other in a way that only seems single-minded.  So~ Who are you? We don't need your whole life's story. Everyone - everyone - has a story about how they were doing one thing, it was nice, and then it all went to poo poo, they lost their beloved [spouse, child, pet, bang-friend] then they found the will to survive in the darkest of times. Maybe we can get drunk and cry about old times later, but nobody likes to start out on that note. This is round two. What have you got going on now? Tell us what's on the surface. What does everyone who knows you know about you? How do you come off to the world? And tell me what lies beneath. What's your deal? Is anything on that last line just a front? What do you lie about? If there wasn't anything to gently caress with you, what would you do with your life? That kind of thing. Spoiler-tag this, if you want. Be social, be human. Gamey Stuff I'm looking for five-ish people who can post every day or three. I'm inclined to stick with the core set of playbooks. Several of the limited edition ones are a bit gimmick-y, and a lot of fan-classes haven't been thought through very hard. But if you've got an idea you love, I invite you to sell me on it. When you get beaten up, worn down, dragged out, and pushed too hard you'll mark it on a Fatigue countdown that works a lot like the normal Harm clock. You can call yours 'endurance' or 'tired' or 'pep,' whatever you feel like. When you're at 9:00 (or 4/6) Fatigue and you make any standard move, you treat a 10+ as if it were a 7-9. When you get some rest, take a mark off your Fatigue countdown. If you've got something to eat, mark off another one. If you're somewhere secure, mark off another one. If you've got company and you decide to trust them, mark off another one. (If trusting them is a mistake, you're wide open for some fuckery) When you get hurt straight-up, you'll use these alternate harm rules as a guideline for how badly, and what that entails. If your Fatigue countdown is full and you're in infested territory, add this to the list of Serious poo poo that can and will happen: You're bit. Ask me things. Help me figure out what's left, and what happens to it. StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 19:02 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 08:22
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Never played AW, but recently read a bit into DW. I will roll up a char in the next day, and I a available to post everyday.
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Apr 19, 2014 08:39
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Never played AW either, but The Last of Us is a cool game. Something Else fucked around with this message at 18:29 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 08:53
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I am looking at these character sheets and I have no idea. Can you post some words on how this game plays. (Specifically how often do all these abilities and moves that involve controlling territory and doing entertainment and controlling gangs of npcs to do work?) goodness fucked around with this message at 09:14 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 09:05
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I've played lots of Dungeon World, but never Apocalypse World. I'd like to try it out. (not so big anymore) "Big" Mike the Savvyhead What’s on the surface Big Mike owns Big Mike’s Autoshop & Junkyard just off the Turnpike. He owned it before the poo poo. He owns it now. It’s nice to see that kind of continuity in a hosed up world like this. He still shows up in his piece-of-poo poo tow truck whenever you’re in a jam, just so he can have the pleasure of explaining every wrong turn you’ve ever taken in your life. Sure, he’ll get you out of it, for a fair price… if you don’t count the lecture. Most folks went with Pep-Boys. Now he’s got a monopoly, and he really loves to milk it. No, no, the price is still fair… if you don’t count the lecture. What lies beneath Mike Bercouski is an old man who loves his community. There’s so much continuity in him, most folks don’t see the wrinkles grow. They don’t see how heavy everything has become. He only has a few years left, maybe less in this dangerous new world. They don’t know it, but he does. His dear wife died a long time ago. It would be natural if he followed her. His son left for college before the outbreak. He likes to believe that the boy is still alive, but San Francisco? Not a real chance. He can admit that, but only when he’s having an honest night alone, in the dark, waiting for the ever-encroaching horde to finally break through the traps. All he has left is the ever dwindling folks in his little town. He tries to look out for them. He tries to set them right. Get their stuff working again. Get their lives back on track. Set an example. Show them that life doesn’t have to change so much. That if they try hard enough, they can make things right again, for the future. He hopes someone will pick up the torch and carry on. When he finally kicks the bucket, and Bike Mike’s Autoshop & Junkyard closes down for good, the last piece of the old world will be gone. Savvyhead Stats Cool+1 Hard-1 Hot=0 Sharp+1 Weird+2 Look Man with vintage wear & tools, a marked face, white beard, appraising eyes, and an aged body. Workspace A Junkyard A Truck Booby Traps Gear Shotgun (3-harm close messy) Old girl served me well in a few tight spots. Each shot gives me a bruise now though. Don't know how many more times I can pull the trigger without falling over. Crowbar (2-harm hand messy) Useful tool, always carry one now. Pry open boxes, open doors, lift debris, break monster skulls. A lot of applications for a lever. Anti-Spore Suit 2.3 (2 armor) Used to be something beautiful to behold. Could walk through a spore field without fear. Could get hit with a whole mob and come out without a scratch. Could get in a firefight and see bullets bounce right off. Now it's lighter, sleeker, and inferior. I couldn't wear the old one anymore. Too heavy for these old bones. 3-Barter Solar charger Portable DVD player + DVDs Spare tool kit Moves There when he's needed At the beginning of the session, roll+weird. On a 10+, hold 1+1. On a 7–9, hold 1. At any time, either you or the MC can spend your hold to have you already be there, with the proper tools and knowledge, with or without any clear explanation why. If your hold was 1+1, take +1forward now. On a miss, the MC holds 1, and can spend it to have you already be there, but somehow pinned, caught or trapped. Knows what's right for you When a character comes to you for advice, tell them what you honestly think the best course is. If they do it, they take +1 to any rolls they make in the doing, and you mark an experience circle Mr. Prokosch fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 10:24
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goodness posted:Can you post some words on how this game plays. (Specifically how often do all these abilities and moves that involve controlling territory and doing entertainment and controlling gangs of npcs to do work?) Looks interesting and I'm thinking about doing up a character, but I've never seen/heard of this system before so yeah... I'd like more information like goodness posted (above).
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Apr 19, 2014 10:55
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Piecemeal the Brainer pre:Stats Cool +1 Hard +1 Hot -2 Sharp +1 Weird +2 Look Concealed gender Environmental wear improper to the local environment Scarred face Pale eyes Awkward angular body Moves Deep brain scan In-brain puppet strings Gear Violation glove (hand hi-tech) Pain-wave projector (1-harm ap area loud reload hi-tech) Hidden knives (2-harm hand infinite) Leather jacket and tons of knick-knacks (1-armor) Oddments worth 5-barter Piecemeal is known to roam between local outposts, a figure not well loved, but widely tolerated for his? talent to navigate around the area without encountering too many infected, and his? knack for finding lost people. While he? has some unnerving habits, such as collecting discarded toys and giving knives to children, quite a few owe him? their lives because of his? warnings of incoming trouble. What lies beneath In the short time between outbreak and total collapse, nearly every hospital and research facility in the world changed focus to only one thing; to find a cure or vaccine for the calamity that suddenly threatened everyone. As desperation grew, more and more outlandish methods were suggested, attempted, and discarded. While no-one can say for sure there was no headway made before they were overrun, we can safely say most "cures" were complete failures, and no concrete results have ever emerged. Piecemeal was too young to remember all this of course. What he? can remember is the ever-present pressure of the hunger from the roaming mobs of shamblers. In the end, he? found his way to the relative safety of a collection of uninfected, where there is at least some coherent thoughts to dampen the noise. Sax Battler fucked around with this message at 16:23 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 11:31
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 Angel Eyes, the Battlebabe pre:Stats Cool +3 Hard -2 Hot +1 Sharp +1 Weird +1 Look Woman Luxe wear Handsome face Arresting eyes Slim body Moves Ice Cold Visions of Death Gear Oddments worth 2-barter A Goddamned Handcannon(4-harm close reload loud) [handgun, hi-powered, big] One Of Those Swords (3-harm hand) [handle, long blade] That suit is sick as hell. Where did you even get that? (1-armor) A badass bitch right out of some old spaghetti western. Or maybe a Kurosawa flick? Like anybody remembers who Akira Kurosawa was anymore. She's calm, cool, professional. Always quick with a smile or a joke. Civilized places don't like her because she never puts down roots. Bandits don't like her because if they have the bad luck of not dying straight away, they get staked out for the hordes. Individuals, though? Individuals all have needs, grudges, and ambitions. Very few of those things can be satisfied without risk, and that's where Angel Eyes comes in. Whether you need a guide, a bodyguard, or a killer she's happy to take your dosh. What lies beneath They call me a dog of war, but they're wrong. I'm not a person disguised as a dog. I'm a monster, disguised as a person. Talk all you like about how humanity has to band together to survive. That someday this will all be over and we can leave a better world for the kids. We just have to hold on to our morals and laws and all that garbage that never saved anyone. Keep telling yourself that. You'll come to me eventually, when someone bigger and meaner decides they want to run things. Or maybe the hordes take your family and you can't live with the idea of killing them, but you can't live with the idea of letting them suffer. Maybe you'll just decide you can't stand listening to your wife complain a single moment longer. One way or another, you'll find me me and you'll ask me to do something you swore you never would. And when it's over, you'll see yourself for the hypocrite you are and the shame will eat at you. And you'll realize you also can't live with someone knowing about it. So you'll come for me, maybe alone, maybe with some backup. It doesn't matter. I've walked that road a hundred times and it always ends at the same place. The hunters killing the monster in the end? Only in the stories we tell our children. quote:Ask me things. Help me figure out what's left, and what happens to it. Do you have an idea where the game will be taking place? Personally, I like having the option of urban or wilderness depending on which direction I walk that day. Does a government exist in any fashion that we know of? What happens if you break out the peace pipe and smoke a bowl of fungus? Shardix fucked around with this message at 16:26 on Apr 20, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 14:47
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goodness posted:I am looking at these character sheets and I have no idea. You might use moves whenever your character needs to take action to progress in a scene where the consequences of failing to act would cause harm to themselves or others they care about; or if you're trying to forcefully affect change to NPCs, other Players or the environment. Try reading some of the example scenarios in the AW handbook, or browsing a few of the *world games in this forum if you need to see it in action. It's very much a 'story game' in which the rules are simply there to assist with the mechanical facilitation of the plot. Was looking forward to this! I'm totes positive SoL will be an awesome MC  This will be fun to make an app for, anyways (I has an addiction  ) Never done an Angel before! Let's see what haps
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Apr 19, 2014 15:10
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For those of you who have no idea what, the whole book is up over here, And the guy who wrote it sells it here. http://apocalypse-world.com/ It's polite to tip a writer[/content creator of any description] if you pirate their stuff and like it. The basic flow is this: you describe what your person is doing, I describe how the world reacts to it. When you do something risky, someone rolls dice to see how badly it goes. The things are called 'moves,' but you don't 'make a move,' so to speak. You do stuff, and when the 'move' would apply, dice happen and we look at the results. I am now considering handling all the dice MC-side and having everyone just fiction/action-barf with words. Thoughts on that? StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 07:03 on May 9, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 15:59
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 Betty Boom, the Gun Lugger pre:Stats
Cool +1
Hard +2
Hot -1
Sharp +1
Weird +0
Look
Woman
Scrounged Mismatched Armor
Dull Face
Sad Eyes
Compact Body
Moves
gently caress this poo poo: name your escape route and
roll+hard. On a 10+, sweet, you're
gone. On a 7-9, you can go or stay,
but if you go it costs you: leave
something behind, or take something
with you, the MC will tell you what.
On a miss, you're caught vulnerable,
half in and half out.
Bloodcrazed: whenever you inflict harm,
inflict +1harm.
Battlefield Instincts: When you open your
brain to the world's psychic maelstrom,
roll+hard instead of roll+weird, but
only in battle.
Gear
Grenade Launcher(4-harm close area messy)
SMG (2-harm close area An uncharismatic, albeit dangerous, loner. Usually keeps quiet, but when raiders or monsters make their presence known she'll be the first into battle. What lies beneath A broken individual who has lost everything. Her hopes for a restored world have long since vanished, but she longs for connection more than anything. She wants a family, friends, something... The world may be dangerous, but she knows how to keep people safe or so she believes. quote:Ask me things. Help me figure out what's left, and what happens to it. Is there anyone or any organization still actively trying to find a cure to this outbreak? What do the clusters of humanity look like? Cities? Well-guarded territories? How "weird" has the world become in the 15 years of pandemonium? Any evolutionary changes outside of having adapted to the spores to some degree? Idle Amalgam fucked around with this message at 19:06 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 16:58
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StringOfLetters posted:I am now considering handling all the dice MC-side and having everyone just fiction/action-barf with words. Thoughts on that? It's not really too hard for a player to keep track of their own stats/rolls IMO. I'm just going to make up a bunch of stuff for my app (whether or not any of it is used), but I always thought having an AW set on an abandoned college campus would be cool. Maybe there's generators you can still get running too.
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Apr 19, 2014 17:23
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Shardix posted:Do you have an idea where the game will be taking place? Personally, I like having the option of urban or wilderness depending on which direction I walk that day. Most of the Good poo poo left over from civilization is packed into the cities, and the cities are hell on earth. Megamarkets full of canned food, pristine tools, medicine that's past its written shelf date (but who ever paid attention to that? It's probably still good) and more cars and toys than there are people left alive. It would make sense for a settlement to be close enough to Old civilization to make a scavenging trip if they need something - but not too close, in the all-too-likely event that a hundred zombies start following a squirrel or something and shuffle in your direction. / The capital-G Government broke apart. Almost everyone in charge died, and everyone else stopped showing up for work. Some people might consider themselves the worthy successors. And then disagree with each other about that. And, of course, some folks are going to start their own new nation in the fertile ruins of the old one. Tell us about one of those. / If it's not hot enough to incinerate the spores - and they're pretty drat resilient - you infect yourself. Moderate inhalation is like dried-out pneumonia with a grudge. You'll hack and wheeze for weeks. If it is hot enough to burn up the bad parts, then you're going to scald your throat. Some people say there's a very precise sweet spot where the fumes send you into a half-conscious blood-hungry fugue. Doctor Idle posted:Is there anyone or any organization still actively trying to find a cure to this outbreak? Yeah, probably. Trying to 'cure' somebody whose meat and brain has been chewed up by the spore is going to be at least as hard as bringing them back from the dead. Figuring out some kind of immunization - that's a plausible goal. / Hell of a lot of variance, there. There might be some cleared-out small towns, neo-castles surrounded by ditches and barbed wire, families living alone in an RV in the woods, refugee-looking tent cities, nomadic bands on horseback with huge backpacks. Prosperous settlements are few and far between, but it's a big country. There's no, like, standard template for one. Tell us about a settlement near you - what does it look like? / A bit loving weird. Over toward hill country, some bodies have been found mostly-eaten and their bones gnawed on. Tooth marks look almost human, but maybe a little closer to a great ape or something. Pepper Jack swears he saw a pack of bears with cordyceps poo poo growing out their ears. That'd be a new one - and he knows bears aren't supposed to travel in packs. There's a bunch of new-looking fruits and veggies growing near matted territory. Adaptations of the old staples we know and love, maybe. Are they toxic? Delicious? And the birds have gotten smarter - they've learned that if they caw just so, they can lure zombies around. What else has changed in nature? hctibyllis posted:I'm just going to make up a bunch of stuff for my app (whether or not any of it is used), but I always thought having an AW set on an abandoned college campus would be cool. Maybe there's generators you can still get running too. Sweet.  The catastrophe that killed everybody didn't break everything, so finding a generator wouldn't be too hard. (Said the ivory-tower jerkoff who didn't have to risk their rear end to haul it back) Gasoline breaks down when it's sitting anywhere with room to evaporate, though. How does the U of AW keep their stuff juiced up?Edit: vv, Okay! StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 16:09 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 18:21
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Some science lab geeks might have left behind a formula for some kind of bio-fuel, which a savvyhead type has managed to reproduce? I have my own specialty product in mind, but it's not electricity-related! (More of an Angel thing)
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Apr 19, 2014 18:47
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StringOfLetters posted:Yeah, probably. Trying to 'cure' somebody whose meat and brain has been chewed up by the spore is going to be at least as hard as bringing them back from the dead. Figuring out some kind of immunization - that's a plausible goal. Betty would want to help anyone who maintained some semblance of structure or offered a chance at rebuilding the world. She doesn't believe it to be possible, but would linger around to lend herself in anyway she could so long as she believed someone was capable of doing good. Betty has spent most her time wandering. She was young(16?) when the outbreak first happened and doesn't stay in any one place too long. Occasionally she'll tag on with a group of travelers for safer passage, but more often than not she travels alone. The city she passed through for an extended stay most recently was mostly in ruins and overgrown with nature and wildlife out in the middle of Nebraska, but in the heart of the ruins was a small encampment of survivors who made an event center a campground and market. Betty joined them for about a week, helping with hunting and various jobs that needed doing around the settlement. Desperate people just trying to hold on to what they had. These new fruits and vegetables have given most settlers she's encountered reasonable amounts of concern. Betty gives them a wide-berth, but the few people that she knows have eaten them swear that they are delicious and a good source of food given the scarcity of anything else. The changes to the wild-life weren't unexpected, but that they are happening now after all these years is what concerns her. Idle Amalgam fucked around with this message at 20:29 on Apr 19, 2014 |
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Apr 19, 2014 20:25
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 (Click for character sheet)  Faustina's Dream Journal#23 posted:Dreams are like bittersweet photographs, offering only a taste of what our minds fail to capture. Or perhaps they’re more like the residue of information our brains block out to keep us from going crazy, safeguarding perceptions we can comprehend. I know I’m romanticizing again; it just seems a shame for them to simply be the regurgitation of unconscious loose-ends, or whatever. Anyways, I keep having the same terrible nightmares, only now they’ve begun to pervade reality. Well, at least what I assume to be my reality: an endless, hardscrabble, mind-numbing scrape for survival. It always seems like I’m just barely managing to stay a step ahead of the ones that are put down; weaker souls, culled carelessly by the driven, pitiless routines of natural selection. I guess these stupid journals are a way for me to save those ‘photographs’. Maybe someday I can sit down and piece them all together, like a jigsaw. Maybe they’ll help me make some sense of it all. Or maybe the puzzle is just a sad picture of a girl gone mad. Sometimes when I’m really tired I feel myself kind of lapse into a trance, and I start to conjure up similar ghostly scenes. They whisper things to me about places and people, some I know and some I don’t. Some I hope I’ll never see. On The Surface Why did I bring all that crap up? The reason will probably sound even stranger than the psychoactive machinations themselves: I can heal people. I’m not talking about the first aid / basic trauma stuff I picked up reading daddy's books in the early days, I mean like honest-to-god-how-the-gently caress-lay-on-hands-miracle-type poo poo. If I focus hard enough, let enough of that madness flow through me, I can channel it into others. Unfortunately, acting as a living conduit for that much raw energy usually means lights out for me. But by the time I open my eyes again, the subject's wounds will have seemingly reversed, often mending completely. Now, I didn't have the opportunity to go to med school (or highschool; hey at least I can list more skills on your post-civilization resume than 'Proficient bone gnawer'), but I'm pretty sure Jesus Skillz 101 wasn't part of the syllabus. It's obviously impossible, and when people learn of what I can do they typically either try to lock me up or worship me. You can bet I don't want a band of nuts staggering around behind me where ever I go, so I try to keep my 'power' under wraps if I can. Honestly, it scares the hell out of me – like most of the weird things in this world I don't understand. And there's more of that kinda stuff than I'd care to admit. Lately I've been staying with this group of women who made a fort out of a half-demolished college campus. I wandered into the place looking for food and ended up getting chased right back out, until one of them, Stefani, tumbled down some stairs trying to catch me. She had a nasty head wound, and she would have bled out or gone comatose if I hadn't turned around and did my thing. Knowles (a pretty, dark-skinned lady who's kind of their leader) saw it and told them all to stand down. I was fed the first real meal I'd had in a long time, and they told me I could stay on if I wanted. Turned out most of them had come down with some nasty colds, and they didn't have a shred of medical knowledge between them to help combat the illness or keep it from spreading. Ignorance aside, they're not that bad. We get along pretty well, despite my being at least fifteen years younger than any of them. They gave me some pretty clothes to replace my rags; old school uniform dresses that were slightly tattered, but at least not stained with blood and god-knows-what. From what I've gathered, they used to all be part of this collegiate sisterhood called a 'Sore-roar-itie', and weren't exactly dedicated to studies back when the university was in its pre-annihilation glory days. Which brings us to to my current occupation: official campus soap-maker. Laugh if you want, but keeping clean with the stuff is an essential practice for staying healthy in this toxic cesspool of an environment we have to endure daily. It's no piece of cake either; the ingredients are readily available (thanks to a preserved storage of lye we found in an old maintenance shed), but the process is definitely a science worthy of my old man. Not that I really remember him but... Never mind, there I go romanticizing again. Say again? Smoking is what? Where on earth did you read that? What Lies Beneath What are they? A more evolved homosapien systematically wiping out its weaker composition? Some sort of twisted alien experiment? Spawn of an infernal demon come to claim the debt of our sins? Whatever they are, those nondead, unliving plant-head things, they're speaking to me. Every time someone dies under my hands their echoes come through a little clearer. Low, forgotten voices, humming a siren's song, drawing me towards the City in the Jungle. The place that was the center of it all, when everything began. Where my family died while I was off at a summer camp so long ago. No one goes there anymore except the most brutal of tribes (it's rich in resources, but also sacheads). Spears can hear them too. She's a bit slow, though. gently caress... I hope a life of spore breathing isn't causing some kind of neuropathy.
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Apr 20, 2014 04:12
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Edited my app a bit. First attempt wasn't quite doing it for me.
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Apr 20, 2014 16:29
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For my concept, I wanted to explore the mindset of the ubiquitous post-apocalyptic bandit -- like, what's a day in the life for these violent jerks who hang out in the ruins and generally make life lovely for your general protagonist types? Juck  Juck was dug in behind a rotting concrete wall just across the way from the workshop -- Lala's drat workshop -- where the thieves were making their last stand. Partridge crouched beside her, calmly reloading his pistol and watching for the moment when the thieves would screw up, leave an opening. "How the gently caress'd they even get in the workshop without --" a bullet thudded into the wall above Juck, showering her with finely powdered concrete "-- without coming through the gates?" Partridge squeezed off two shots in response, and grimaced: no hits. Partridge hated wasting ammo unnecessarily. "Dunno, boss; up through the tunnels maybe?" Great, so not only were the thieves in her workshop, loving with her poo poo, but they were probably infected and coughing spores all over her stuff. It was going to take the rest of the afternoon to air out the workshop properly after this. "How many are there, you think?" Partridge gave a little shrug. "At least two, but that could be it, I'm thinking." Juck poked her head around the wall. It'd gone quiet in the workshop; maybe they were reloading, maybe they were out of bullets. Whatever, this had gone on long enough. With a few quick hand motions, Juck signalled to Jeanette and Dog Head to bust into the workshop from the sides. There was a high-pitched scream, and the two thieves came tumbling out of the workshop into the street, sprawling rear end over teakettle. Two of them, a man and a little girl, the man still holding Lala's prized toolbox. Juck and her gang left their cover and walked over to the thieves where they had fallen. Juck stepped heavily on the man's wrist, grinding against the rubble in the street. He screamed and released his grip on Lala's toolbox. Juck reached down and picked up the toolbox, handing it around her back to Lala, who looked relieved as all hell to get it back. Jonker had ripped the man's backpack off him and was poking through it. "Juck, boss -- these assholes have seriously been going to town on our poo poo! Med supplies, ammo -- fuckin' Dez's best pair of scissors? What the gently caress, you little turds!" Juck's gang all started yelling at once, and the two thieves began whimpering. Juck held up her fist, and everyone shut up quickly. "Jonker, go through the rest of their stuff, make sure that anything they took that belonged to one of us goes back to them's that owns it, put the rest in the stash. Jeanette, Dog Head -- put your masks on, and take these punks out back. No telling how loaded up with spores they are, if they came up through the tunnels. Make sure you burn the bodies good and proper when you're done: I don't want these dipshits coming back after us." pre:Playbook: Chopper Look: Woman, Combat Biker Wear, Rugged Face, Calculating Eyes, Rangy Body Stats: Cool+1, Hard=+3, Hot=+1, Sharp=0, Weird-1 ADVANCEMENTS
A ruthless leader of a bandit gang, preying on refugees and terrorizing small survivor encampments for supplies. A scourge of the land, and an all-round just plain evil piece of work. What lies beneath At the core of things, Juck's really just a pragmatist. It's not like she gets off on the whole burning settlements to the ground and engaging in wholesale murder of quote-unquote innocents, but she's been around long enough to know that as soon as people get the idea you can be hosed with, that's when you get hosed with. Juck remembers a time when the hardass act was more act than truth, but that was a while ago. The act's been a lot easier lately. Profane Accessory fucked around with this message at 02:53 on May 22, 2014 |
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Apr 20, 2014 18:48
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Solomon pre:Playbook: Operator Look: Man, Vintage Look, Hard Face, Guarded Eyes, Energetic Body Stats: Cool+2 Hard-1 Hot+1 Sharp+1 Weird=0 Operator Moves Moonlighting: you get 2-juggling. Whenever there’s a stretch of downtime in play, or between sessions, choose a number of your gigs to work. Choose no more than your juggling. Roll+cool. On a 10+, you get profit from all the gigs you chose. On a 7–9, you get profit from at least 1; if you chose more, you get catastrophe from 1 and profit from the rest. On a miss, catastrophe all around. The gigs you aren’t working give you neither profit nor catastrophe. Whenever you get a new gig, you also get +1 juggling. Eye on the door: name your escape route and roll+cool. On a 10+ you’re gone. On a 7–9, you can go or stay, but if you go it costs you: leave something behind, or take something with you, the MC will tell you what. On a miss, you’re caught vulnerable, half in and half out. GIGS Honest work (1-barter / impoverished) Raiding (1-barter / embattled) Compound defense (2-barter / infiltrated) Maintaining your honor (you keep your word and your name / you cross a line) GEAR 9mm (2-harm close loud) oddments worth 1-barter fashion suitable to your look, including at your option a piece worth 1-armor (thick leather jackets are always boss) CREW/CONTACTS TBD HX TBD What lies beneath: That's just been the best strategy to survive, so far...
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Apr 20, 2014 20:18
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On the Surface Nobody knows where he came from, really. The man they call The Deacon just appeared one day, wandering out of the forest, preaching his strange new gospel. Deacon (He insists it’s his name, although most treat it like a title) had some funny ideas about the plague. He said it weren’t a curse after all but a blessing in disguise, that the fungus had hidden benefits for those prepared to receive its gifts. Hogwash, of course -- anybody that’d seen one of those things turn could tell you that. But Deacon had a charisma about him. A mad charisma, maybe, but you look into those deep green eyes of his and listened to his even, newscastery voice and even the biggest hogwash started sounding like a truth. It wasn’t long before folks started leaving the holds to follow him. Just the burnouts at first, the crazy, the useless, the banished, the ones nobody much missed. It weren’t for nothing we started calling Deacon’s group the Anathemata, though if they or him minded, it didn’t show. But soon enough it was the able-bodied, too: the ones with enough to leave behind in the holds that joining Deacon on his mad crusade started to taste of real sacrifice. The Anathemata did okay for themselves, after a fashion: camping in the wilds, moving constantly to avoid becoming a target for the hordes, yet somehow finding time to scavenge for the choice jingle that they always had a stock of when they came to town to trade. They didn’t get sick, neither, even though they weren’t nearly as careful as most about the fungal blooms. It made you think. If they was able to survive out there in the wilds, thrive out there, despite the fungus, despite even eating the spores if some of the stories were true, than maybe Deacon was on to something? We ain’t about to trade the comfort of our hold en masse for a tent and Deacon’s enlightenment, but when he come to town now more folks are inclined to give ears to what he say. Sometime, when he leaves, folks go with him. When he showed up, we all thought he was crazy. Now, I think deep down most of us are starting to doubt. What lies beneath Pre-outbreak, the man calling himself Deacon Thorne (It’s not actually his name, after all) was an epidemiologist for the CDC, which means he had a front row seat for most of the nastiness attendant to Z Day and the fall of humanity. Even managed to get himself bitten by a shambler. Somehow, miraculously, he survived. He doesn’t attribute his survival to God, or anything like that. Privately, the man calling himself Deacon Thorne is an atheist. It was just one of those million to one flukes: the girl in the Ebola ridden village who recovers in 3 days even as the rest of her village dies, the cancer patient who goes into remission on his own despite lack of treatment or any of the genetic markers for resistance. The bite left him with two things: an awful, disgusting scar on his upper torso he’s ashamed of, and a conviction that the spores were a disease like any other, and they could be fought with the traditional tools humanity had always used to fight disease. A cure, a true cure, was probably out of reach. There weren’t enough people left alive with the knowledge to synthesize a vaccine, and most advanced biotech facilities where it could be done were destroyed along with the infrastructure needed to distribute it anyway. No, there wasn’t anything as easy as a vaccine coming, but the disease could still be conquered slowly, over generations, through a program of selective exposure, conditioning, and immune response training. The slight passive immunity most have built up in just 15 years is enough to give one hope. The Anathemata religion, such as it is, was just a tool for realizing that goal. You had to deliver your message in a language that was understood. These were simple people, scared people, who’d had the world they thought they knew stolen from them by something incomprehensible. If you started talking about herd immunity and bursa derived lymphocytes, you’d lose them. If you gave them a spiritual framework to understand, and maybe even profit from the apocalypse, well, that seemed to go better. The religious rites were mostly bullshit, a way to get his followers to expose themselves without fear to small amounts of spore matter for the purpose of building immunity. It was the fact that Deacon mixed his sacraments with targeted doses of scavenged antifungal drugs that kept his flock from immediately turning into mindless animals, not any supernatural power on his part. Sure, he arranged marriages, but that was just old fashioned eugenics: pairing up people who seemed most resistant to the disease to hopefully breed that trait into the offspring. The aestheticism and physical training? That was just good sense -- you needed to be strong to survive post-apocalypse. It was all a scam, a way of tricking folk into acting for the good of all rather than in their short-term self interest. At least, that’s what Deacon thought in the beginning. He’s starting to forget what was CDC best practices cloaked in religious symbolism, and what actually came to him in a dream. He’s been having a lot of disturbing dreams lately, and not always when he’s sleeping. Sometimes he reaches out in dreams and its felt in the real world. Somehow, that feels like his right. He’s been noticing things, too. Changes in his flock. Things that have nothing to with immune response. How Garretty seems, now, to always know where her husband Cuff Button is, and exactly what he’s doing. How Lemur spends more and more of his time talking to nobody in particular. How often Lemur’s advice that he gets from nobody in particular turns out to be right. Then there’s this strange charisma. Pre Z Day he could hardly convince a drunk girl at a bar to go home with him, let alone convince a man to fight and die for him in the wastes. Now? He once converted a marauder gang to a life of passivism with a few words, and he wasn’t even trying. There’s his eyes too: deep, deep green, almost luminous, nearly impossible to look away from when he meets your gaze. They’d been a different color, once, hadn’t they? He’s having a harder and harder time remembering. Questions: How do most people become infected these days? Being bitten, wandering into a high concentration of spores, etc.? How does the disease progress? Are there any early warning signs? At what point do you know you're hosed? How bad are the gangs in the region? Deacon Thorne The Hocus pre:Cool +1 Hard+1 Hot-1 Sharp+1 Weird+3 Gear: Like his followers, Deacon dresses in scrounged milsurp gear, dirty from roughing it in the wilds. His only affectation of rank is a ring he wears on his right hand, bearing the group’s broken circle emblem. Deacon’s followers typically wear the symbol somewhere on their clothes, but Deacon is the only one allowed to wear it as jewelry. At the moment, he is carrying odds and ends scavenged from the nearby city worth 2 Barter. Moves: Fortunes: At the beginning of the session, roll+fortune. On a 10+, your followers have surplus. On a 7–9, they have surplus, but choose 1 want. On a miss, they are in want. If their surplus lists barter, like 1-barter or 2-barter, that’s your personal share. Charismatic: when you try to manipulate someone, roll+weird instead of roll+hot. loving wacknut: you get +1weird (weird+3). Followers: The Anathemata The Anathemata are fringe cult practicing a kind of post-apocalyptic gnosticism. They believe that by merging with the fungus, they can achieve a kind of spiritual enlightenment. The reason infection is normally so disastrous, they believe, is that most people have not properly prepared their minds, bodies, and souls for the transcendental wisdom brought upon by the full change. To that end they practice ascetic rituals meant to strengthen their bodies and their will, and ingest small amounts of fungus as a part of their religious rites to ease their way into full communion. Naturally, the group’s doctrine is looked upon with suspicion by non-members, and they’re often shunned and sometimes persecuted for their beliefs. Still, they’re peaceful enough, and are among the best scroungers in the area due to their rough lifestyle and greater courage when it comes to the infection -- attributes that make them accepted, if not entirely welcomed, in most survivor communities. The Anethemata Travelling Cult Attributes: Fortune +1, Surplus: +2 Barter, +Augury Want: +Hunger, +Disease, +Desperation Dedicated to Deacon Spiritual Antenna Disdain convention Dependent on Deacon for guidance Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 03:52 on May 13, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 06:21
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quote:And, of course, some folks are going to start their own new nation in the fertile ruins of the old one. Tell us about one of those. Purity Meadows. Even the name makes me want to vomit. Back in the day, it was what they called a gated community, which apparently meant "No insufficiently affluent people". Not much has changed in fifteen years. The golf course gave way to farmland, and it's no longer considered a faux pas to open carry during your daily errands, but they still think they run the world. Luckily for us rabble, they've taken it upon themselves to police the surrounding areas and rid us of any undesirables in the name of the New Republic of America. Shockingly, not many people appreciate this consideration. Might have to do with the fact that anyone who doesn't surrender themselves to their authority is labeled an "undesirable". Still, if you can stomach the holier-than-thou attitude and act appropriately obsequious they can be useful. Whatever else they might be, they still believe in a day's pay for a day's work.
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Apr 21, 2014 06:30
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Oh my gosh, you guys. You guys. I was kind of excited about running this when I posted it, but now you're throwing gasoline on me. These are outstanding. Big Mike, you ever meet anyone who seems willing to pick up that torch when you're done with it? Anyone t'whom you might some day pass the keys to your truck? Piecemeal, what's the word? Angel Eyes, anyone ever come after you with an honest-to-god justified grudge? Betty Boom, you found someone convinced they were on track to finding a cure. Or vaccine, whatever. How'd that go? Still in touch with them? Faustina, miracle healing and making soap is fine and dandy (if weirdly foreboding) but life hasn't always been so gentle as to allow it. What's the worst you ever hurt someone? Juck, are there any lines you won't cross? Anything still sacred? Also, is that 'J' like the one in 'Jack,' 'Juan,' or 'Jäger?' Solomon, anyone ever make a mistake by trusting you? Deacon, that's a tricky balance to keep, bullshitting with the best intentions. Your little religion ever get out of hand? Draw some conclusions you didn't mean for them to reach? Did you try to rein them in, or let it roll? Baby Babbeh posted:Questions: Getting bit and then getting away is pretty uncommon these days. Mostly, you either get away, or get grabbed and torn to bits. Getting surprised by a spore bloom is most common. You walk into an old building, you think it's clear, then you open a closet and some poo poo erupts into your face. Or your filter mask rips while you're around some bad air and you just don't notice. Or you spend the night somewhere you can't see or smell anything nasty, but maybe the wind shifts a little after you're out, and the stuff builds up in you. Someone gets bit, everyone knows what's about to happen, someone can take The Appropriate Measures. (3 to 8 grams lead, applied orally, once) But someone gets sick, and everyone keeps hoping he'll pull through. / First you get sick - hacking cough, fever, a little more delirium than your average fever, big blotchy rashes if there's spore on your skin. Your sinuses fill up, your eyes get bloodshot. As it progresses, the cough gets worse, maybe some blood comes up, you pass through fits of raw-nerve irritability. The coughing, by the way, is another vector - you're contagious for a while, even if you live through it. Your brain starts to swell inside its case - headaches like you wouldn't believe, some people get seizures. Latest stages, it starts to effect your nervous system. Shakes, twitches, intermittent full-body I'm-on-fire aches. It can drag on for a week, or burn someone up in a couple days. Then you die, usually still twitching, and your body's back up inside of five minutes. Mad part is, there isn't a clear point of no return. Everyone's heard of that one-in-a-hundred who's dripping bloody froth through the chomp-bit you shoved in to keep them from biting off their own tongue, their kin are in the next room discussing who's going to pull the trigger, then they make a full recovery. / Pretty loving bad. StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 17:27 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 17:16
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Q: If someone dies, and they're not near any spores, do they still turn? It kinda affects my response!
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Apr 21, 2014 17:49
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A: Nope! A(ddendum): If they were fighting off a low-grade infection and would have gotten over it, then something else kills them, they could surprise you. It happens sometimes, but it's not a rule.
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Apr 21, 2014 18:03
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quote:Betty Boom, you found someone convinced they were on track to finding a cure. Or vaccine, whatever. How'd that go? Still in touch with them? "Unfortunately, it went like all the other times I put myself out for someone. A wild goose-chase for someone who had already lost a good portion of their mind. I don't know if it is this situation or the fear, or perhaps even some combination of the two, but it changes people. It changed me." "I helped this guy for about a month in what was left of Brighton. He seemed like he knew what he was doing, but it ended up with him getting infected and almost infecting me in the process." "I left him a pistol I scrounged off of a corpse and enough ammunition to do the right thing. Last I heard of him." Betty says sighing as she lets out a thin stream of smoke from some found cigarettes.
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Apr 21, 2014 18:14
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quote:Big Mike, you ever meet anyone who seems willing to pick up that torch when you're done with it? Anyone t'whom you might some day pass the keys to your truck? Well, there was old Leeroy. Good kid, worked for me before the outbreak. He ran off to find his sister in the city and never came back. Beth, she used to work at the Diner. Figured she needed a new line of work. Pretty, and too gentle to fight. She was a target if she wasn't useful. So I taught her for a while, then she disappeared. I don't know what happened. Maybe I don't want to know. Rick the Wrecker, he was a tough lad, part of a biker gang that just kept riding after the outbreak. They kidnapped me for a month or two, probably so he could learn everything I know and then slit my throat. He was a quick learner, and we grew close. Eventually he let me go. He probably knows the most now, but I haven't seen him since then. I'm always willing to teach, and I give people a lesson here and there. But no one so far thinks it's a good idea to do what I do, to risk their neck to help folks out of a jam. I get a lot of visitors who say they want to learn, but really they just want a safe place to rest their head and some food in their belly. Most folks don't have the heart for this kind of learning now. They could do it, but they think there's no point when they could die tomorrow. I keep telling them, you could have died any day before. poo poo, car fatalities are way down these days. Also, around here they think I'll always be there to keep things going. Silly, ain't it? They think they're gonna die and I'm gonna live forever. Folks ain't always rational. Questions 1. What kind of political troubles had the local area seen recently. Sure, there's stuff going on all over the world, raiders and rebuilders and zealots, but which gangs or groups are vying for control right here and right now? 2. Is most food scavenged, or grown? If the heartland isn't choked with spores yet I imagine people can still grow plenty of food, but do they? Mr. Prokosch fucked around with this message at 20:30 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 20:24
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At the uni we at least grow olive trees, for the soap y'see. Probably more stuff too. Venison is all the rage these days if it's meat you're craving; but if you've seen anyone with cattle or chicken for the love of god send them our way! As for gangs, there's one I'm about to mention when I get my reply up... (Hopefully by this evening!) e: of course anything I say might be wrong! just going with the spirit of collaboration!
hctibyllis fucked around with this message at 21:53 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 21:39
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Mr. Prokosch posted:Questions Second one first - grown. Most of the food from the old times, preservatives or not, has gone bad by now. Yeah, professional scavengers will still pass around canned meatballs and peaches for trade, but that's small volume. Now that most of the population is dead, it's not too hard to survive off the land if you've got a clue what you're doing. Hunting, fishing - all fine, just cook it well in case they're carrying. The deer population pretty well exploded after Z-day. But if you're hunting with a rifle, be afraid for an hour after you take a shot. People stopped tending to the corn fields - today's wild growth might only be a fraction of what big agro was pulling out, but so're the folks eating it. As for who's where - a lot of that depends on what you folks are bringing in with your apps. Just about everything posted here so far, from anyone, is now canon. For others - the Cheyenne Dog Soldiers have been pretty active in the region. I don't want to say the country's original inhabitants got off easy in the outbreak, but they had some basic proficiencies and a sense of community that gave them a leg up on most of society. From the stories most of 'em grew up with, they assume white folks are responsible for the outbreak, somehow or another. Most of the time they'd rather live and let live, but if they think someone's getting ready to make a move on them, or if someone shouts too loud about 'territory,' they will end a bitch and make no apologies. And they're real serious about blood for blood - got some grudges stirred up with a lot of people scattered around, never mind who started which. There's a pretty big pack of dipshits in mil-spec camo, still acting like there's a country to defend. The 82nd Remnants have assault rifles, few artillery pieces, a poo poo-ton of ammo, some working jeeps, and angles plotted for every open inch of ground near Weller Airforce Base. They're the Good Guys. Anyone who doesn't do what they say, when they say it, is probably one of the Bad Guys, and they aren't shy about requisitioning stuff they want from civvies. At least they loving love shooting up zombies. There's a branch of La Familia that's doing pretty well. They had like twenty acres of weed hidden around deep in national forest land - that particular business is doing better than ever. They've got a bunch of forever-parked RV's, trailers, and tents packed with luxe stuff, out near their fields. They're actually pretty stand-up guys, by today's standards. Under the wise leadership and firm hand of Queen Alarcón, they've got a thriving settlement of members and tributaries alike. They'll almost always offer to buy or trade, even at a poo poo price, before they take your stuff by force. If you disrespect them, they might torture you. ^(Without many exceptions, they all loving hate each other.) The Church of the Nazarene has a walled-off chunk of small town, piles of scrapped cars and part-demolished homes, around a deep well. Pure, clean, guaranteed spore-free water, with only the faintest taste of sulfur. They're actually really friendly - charitable, even - as long as you come off as reasonably righteous. While somebody brings up a this-is-the-end spiel at every bible study (sundays, mondays, wednesdays and fridays) their take on the apocalypse is that it's another Deluge meant to wipe the world clean of sinners, and they (the righteous) are being tested to weather the storm, or something like that. Unless you've got a bad rep that precedes you, they'll let you fill up some jugs after passing by a sermon and a collection plate. Plus a whole bunch of people living in small groups, with their families or close friends, in secure little hole-ups. Sometimes they rob each other. Small-time gangs cluster up then burn out real quick. Not a lot of grand politicking or warfare, mostly skirmishing and petty feuds. StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 23:01 on Apr 21, 2014 |
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Apr 21, 2014 22:45
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StringOfLetters posted:Faustina, miracle healing and making soap is fine and dandy (if weirdly foreboding) but life hasn't always been so gentle as to allow it. What's the worst you ever hurt someone? Fucksick and the Floaters. If you’re laughing you probably haven’t been kicking around here very long. As the name implies, Fucksick got a little carried away with all the raping and pillaging back in the early days and wound up with some kind of horrific growth down there. Like his junk basically became a petri dish that could have colonized new organisms for a second apocalypse. Rumor has it he had the stuff carved off, and now there’s nothing between his legs but a cool breeze. Gotta love karma, right? Except that didn’t exactly slow him down any. Him and his crew (called the Floaters because they’re hard as hell to kill off) have been terrorizing the area around the city for as long as anyone remembers. They’re one of the few gangs that have muscle enough to scavenge out in those parts. Jungle City is no-man’s land, only psychos and sacheads stake turf anywhere near it. Sometimes though people get desperate… Faced with starvation, the lure of a quick meal (maybe something canned or powdered that might have survived the devastation) calls some unfortunate souls to try a bit of ill-advised snooping amongst the overgrown ruins. Usually they'll get bit, or at least a face-full of spores for their trouble. Others wind up like I did, cornered by leering assholes and forced to beg for mercy. Remember what I said about people wanting to lock me up? Well, Fucksick and his boys had me dead to rights, or worse, and I likely wouldn't be here today if it weren't for my otherworldly ability. One of their guys had almost lost an eye to infection, and I offered to heal it if they let me go. In my panic, I'd forgotten about my untimely tendency to pass out afterwards; so the next thing I felt after touching the wounded dude was the sensation of cold cement beneath me. The bastards had hauled me all the way back to their camp, which turned out to be a truck stop a little ways past the outskirts of the city. They had welded actual freaking iron bars around the toilet stalls in a bathroom, and judging by the piles of bloody clothes in the corner I wasn't the first person they'd put up in there for the night. One of the Floaters, Gummo, had been given the duty of playing babysitter and was slumped in a folding lawn chair next to the exit. He'd been at the bottle a while, so it took a few minutes of screaming to wake him up. At first he just grinned and drooled at me; then when I told him my 'powers' could make his little coffee stirrer swell up like an elephant's, he came in closer. I grabbed his shirt, yanked him into the bars then snatched for the gun tucked in his waistband. It went off. The .38 caliber might not come in a wtfhuge package, but any surgeon will tell you its the lower powered bullets that do the real damage. They don't just punch in and punch out like their bigger brothers, they hang out for a while; go organ-hopping with the bros, if you will. You're pretty much DOA when your guts look like spoiled PB&J after less than a second. God dammit PB&J. Need to find some bloody peanuts! ...where was I? Oh, right. None of those thoughts occurred to me while I was rooting through Gummo's pockets for the cell keys. Not even after I collapsed from exhaustion five miles away, still holding the murder weapon. Okay so maybe it wasn't murder. There's no telling what they would have done, right? That's what I tell myself now whenever I think about that creep and his crew coming for some old-fashioned revenge. I did what I had to. And so will they. hctibyllis fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 00:56
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StringOfLetters posted:Juck, are there any lines you won't cross? Anything still sacred? Also, is that 'J' like the one in 'Jack,' 'Juan,' or 'Jäger?' Look man, Juck (that'd be a hard J, but the now that she thinks about it the Germanic Y/J has a certain flair to it) realizes that she's got a reputation, and yeah, she's killed a bunch of folks and left still more to die. But it's not like food's easy to come by, and at some point you just got to realize that most of your choices outside the settlements come down to an us versus them kind of deal pretty quickly. Did all those folks deserve what they got? Does anybody? What does it matter, anyway? At some point, someone (if Juck had to guess, Dog Head would probably be the lead contender here -- fucker's been a problem lately) will end up taking Juck round the back and putting a bullet in her pan, just statistically speaking; all Juck's trying to do is delay that eventuality. And from the perspective of your average moron trying to make a run across the ganglands, you could do worse than running into Juck's gang. I mean, there's sick fuckers like Taco's crew, who go in for the whole rape and torture thing like it's their one true calling in life, and The Borgur will loving eat you alive from the toes up, cooking the bits piece by piece with a propane torch. Juck's gang, by comparison, are consummate professionals. Yeah, I'm sure some folks would object to having their charred and dismembered corpses put on display as a warning, but gently caress 'em -- they were already dead, and it's not like they were going to get an actual burial or anything. Let's be realistic, here. But actual, hard boundaries? Hard to say. Juck's never eaten a human before; she can't really say whether that's because she's actually morally opposed to the idea, or just that she's hasn't been hungry enough yet. Most of the travelers Juck's crew picks up are pretty much just skin and bone; Juck'd have to be pretty drat hungry to consider actually eating their corpses. But people do all kinds of poo poo they never thought they would when they get desperate enough; never say never, right? World Questions How long did it take for the world to fall apart when people started getting infected with the spores? Are the highways all clogged up with abandoned vehicles, or did the big drop in population occur sufficiently slowly that the roads were cleared? What do people do for gas?
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Apr 22, 2014 01:28
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 Benny Profane posted:World Questions Less than a week - first bloom, nobody had any resistance whatsoever to it. Couple die-hards kept showing up to work in spite of the massive death epidemic, but over the next couple days, nobody expected the dead to get up, and they sure as hell weren't ready for it. Roads in any city are congested all the way through. Only takes a few wrecks here and there to lock up the whole grid when nobody's towing or policing them. Outlying areas, some roads between new-era points of interest have been cleared. Break a window, put it in neutral, push the hulk off to the side. Any biker is going to be used to a little off-roading, or at least weaving between the empties. Or there's The Killdozer's approach. That thing leaves a criss-crossing trail of crunched up cars and pulped zombie bones like a chunky scar across the countryside. Nobody cleans up after it. For gas - the cheap, common old stuff is all past its shelf life. There might be a rare, lucky find of an un-tapped underground tank at a gas station, or an 18-wheeler in transit full of usable unleaded. Almost everyone with working wheels has a diesel engine. The Apocalypse had some profound effects on the memetic landscape of humanity. Some kernels of information evaporated entirely (nobody has uttered the word 'Kardashian' in twelve years) and a few others, once obscure, suddenly bubbled up to get written down, shared, taught, and passed around like crazy. Biodiesel's a lucrative trade. Plus, old stocks of diesel are still good with a little filtering and polish. StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 14:08 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 05:25
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Oh yes. Lord yes. Being a prophet isn’t something you just do naturally, and all the nearby seminaries stopped accepting applications around the time that the Rapture didn’t happen as scheduled. I will admit, in the early days, I wasn’t as confident in my ministry. I didn’t yet understand the group dynamics, couldn’t always recognize what people needed from me. Didn’t tailor my message to my flock, always. Certainly I didn’t always recognize when a person’s faith was taking them in dangerous directions, didn’t always step in before there were… problems. These are fundamental skills for a preacher, you understand, but I hadn’t developed them yet. The consequences… well, another burden I have to bear. Like Piello. Poor, poor Piello. She was young when she came to me, 9, 10? Seen a lifetime of heartbreak though, poor girl. Both her parents died in a bandit raid. I never got the full story but I get the sense that there were… indignities suffered, before they died. She was living by herself in the woods when I found her, selling flowers and herbs in town for her living. She was an excellent scrounge, thorough, fast, and careful. A quiet girl, understandably, but she listened to every single word you said, and she had a remarkable memory. She could recite a sermon back, word for word. It wasn’t long before she was one of the most productive members of my flock. Really, I think what she wanted more than anything was to be helpful. The warning signs were all there, of course. With the benefit of hindsight it seems so clear to me. Well, I wasn’t thinking in those terms then. The Spore is a source of enlightenment, I told her. To Turn is, in some ways, a gift: we who are left behind in this sinful world are the ones that suffer. How naive I was, to say something like that to someone who had already experienced so much suffering. If she could hide her fundamental damage behind that helpful mask, how much easier must it have been to hide her impatience? I guess it’s a mercy how quick the Turning came for her. It was the fastest I’d ever seen… even the bites generally have some wiggle room between dying and dead. There’s something to be said for Turning willingly, I guess, and injecting the Spore directly into your central nervous system seems to speed things along considerably. She didn’t even have time to tell anyone what she’d done before she was on the ground convulsing, and she was up and walking again before anyone found her. It was… well, the mercy was lost on us. We sleep in close quarters, and our sentries are placed to watch the perimeter, not guard the inside of the camp. She’d already bitten three before people realized what was happening and got her restrained -- Axelrod she killed immediately and Marie died a couple days later, but Cuff Button was lucky. I don't think the Spore was at full strength in her saliva and she’d only bitten his hand, plus we’d found some non expired Caspofungin the week before. That slowed it enough that I was able to save him by taking the arm. In the end, I put the bullet in Piello's head myself. It was the only thing left I had to give her, having failed her so completely. It hasn't happened again. I used it. Piello, she lives on as a reminder of the dangers of moving too fast, of going too soon. Her story is one of the first things new converts learn about, and it never fails to have the desired effect. The Anathemata whisper her name, sometimes, before they do something that calls for extra care, or when the wastes put another obstacle in our path. It gives a man strength, gives him patience, to be reminded of the alternative. She’s become a sort of patron saint of the long suffering, I guess. Maybe she would be happy at that. All she ever really wanted was to help. Baby Babbeh fucked around with this message at 07:55 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 07:48
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quote:Angel Eyes, anyone ever come after you with an honest-to-god justified grudge? This kid, Alice. Well, I guess she's probably not a kid anymore. She was maybe fifteen when I ran into her the first time and this was a year or two back. So there's this guy. His wife caught a lungful of fun stuff and it was only a matter of time before she turned. But this couple, they'd been married since before the world poo poo itself. True love and all that nonsense. The husband can't bring himself to kill her, and he nearly shot his best friend when he offered to do it. So the town gets together and decides 'Welp, nothing for it. Gotta kick him out.' So he moves himself, his wife, and their daughter to the other side of town and soon enough the wife turns and he does what's necessary after all. Sounds pretty cut and dry, right? Not exactly. So here this guy is, trying to feed himself and his daughter, keep themselves safe from the rest of the walking mushrooms, and oh man this winter is looking to be pretty loving harsh. And there's this little town that kicked him out. It sees a respectable amount of trade, and they have plenty of food to spare. They won't miss it. And maybe they wouldn't have. We'll never know because the dumb bastard accidentally led a horde right through the chain link fence he clipped a hole in and the rest is history. When all was said and done, there were maybe ten survivors staring over the ruins of their home. And that's where I come in, hearing this story over a mug of warm beer. Easy enough job. These people get revenge, and I get a cache of supplies they hid away. Sounded easy enough and for once it actually was. To the man's credit, he didn't try to deny his colossal fuckup. And he didn't beg. I respect that most of all. Everyone should die with dignity if they can. His daughter Alice, though. She was understandably pissed. While she admitted she couldn't forgive her dad for getting all those people killed, he was still her father. He'd done what he thought he had to do to take care of her. I can respect that, too. So. I left her there. She wasn't involved in her father's business, so I saw no reason to involve her in mine. Any more than I already had, anyway. A week later I had my payment, and a day's walk from some middle of nowhere town I can't even remember the name of when she caught up with me. I'll admit, she actually got the jump on me. I was hauling rear end away from some infected who'd caught my scent, and when I thought I had gotten away clean she rounds a corner and puts a gun to my head. To my immense relief she didn't shoot me. Maybe because she'd never killed someone before, or maybe she realized the gunshot would draw the infected right to her. Whatever the reason, I didn't have to find out if I could still sling a pistol without a frontal lobe. She lingered just long enough for me to appreciate all the things I took for granted before backing away slowly, staring death at me, and then she was gone. I'm sure she's still out there somewhere. Biding her time, getting tough and mean. She'll have to if she wants another go at me. I look forward to it.
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Apr 22, 2014 12:34
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StringOfLetters posted:
Hm. Let's see here. A few weeks ago, the word would have been CONTENT. Me and my boy Fishbowl were doing alright, we had out own place hidden away in an old bookshop a bit out of the way. We were doing alright on food, not too many people around, the hunger was manageble. Then, one night, Fishbowl had a bit too loud of a thought, and I found out what he was really planning for me. So I gave him a new word. The next day, we were checking the fifth floor of an apartment building, and he heard his new word. JUMP. After he was gone, I thought about following for a while, but I decided to wait. Then, the word became STRUGGLE. Fishbowl was the one who had handled most of the trading stuff, and I wasn't really up for it. I made do, though, i had food to spare, after all. Anyway, it turned out Fishbowl (the little snot) had told some buddies of his, the Park Street Howlers, about our hideaway, and three of them were waiting for me one day. One of them had heard some rumors about me, and wanted to kill me off right away, but the others wanted to keep me around for a while. For fun. It was their mistake, of course. By the third day, their word was ready, and that word was KILL. And now I have to move. The current word is DILEMMA. Should I try to find a new cranny to crawl into, until someone else finds it? Should I try to join up with a larger group, trading away my supplies for "safety"? Maybe I just dive deep into the hunger, and just let it swallow me? That seems so much easier sometmes. Questions When the outbrek began, where did it start? Every country at once? All major population centers? Do the infected decompose? It sounds like the don't heal anymore, but are they somehow preserved? Sax Battler fucked around with this message at 23:59 on Apr 22, 2014 |
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Apr 22, 2014 23:52
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What's on the surface? Literally? A lot of lipstick, feathering into the fine lines around her mouth. The rest of the works, too--eyeliner, eyeshadow, blush, bronzer, smear it all on. Why not? There's plenty left in the CVSes, the Walgreens. The good stuff's free. Ever since the blight hit, nobody wants makeup anymore. Nobody realizes how important it is to keep up appearances. And it is so important. The minute you start living like a barbarian is the minute you lose. You set a table when you eat, or the ground if that's what you've got. You keep clean. You try to be beautiful. This is why she's the only person around who'll refuse a meal on occasion--her figure, you understand. You, on the other hand, need some meat on your bones, and if you're going on patrol, you are taking this pack lunch, mister. And an extra sweater. And a couple more clips of ammo, just in case. Better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. Right? Check in when you get back. We'll have dinner, a sit-down. Don't slam the door on the way out. What lies beneath? Everybody's their own little planet. They start out molten, erratic, but eventually gravity attracts layers of sediment, and that crazy molten rock gets covered up. Some folks, their gravity's weak, they have thin crusts. Hers is miles deep, her core buried under strata after strata of habits and aphorisms and manners. It's all under there, all her anger and loneliness, and those layers put it under a lot of pressure. Which keeps it down, unless something (like seeing her only little boy slowly turn into a fungus-monster) makes a fault line. Then things get messy. All she wants to do is cook you a nice sit-down, but if she has to smash the skulls of a thousand Cordies in order to do so, she will. And then she'll burn the bodies, because sometimes it takes fire to keep this awful, awful world tidy. quote:Trudy the Solace
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Apr 23, 2014 00:32
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Okay, forums! Last call for recruiting/applications - if anyone's interested but been on the fence or otherwise busy, get some interest-post down within about the next day. Trudy, how about you tell us about a time things did get messy? Methane posted:Questions Everywhere at once, or at least enough places that it might as well have been. If there was any kind of epicenter or 'patient zero,' it ain't common knowledge, and it spread fast enough to not matter. / Nope. Sure, some parts of the body that aren't getting used anymore start to break down on their own. Bust open an infected skull, a stinking mess of gray matter soup and pus will leak out, leaving behind a fungus-wrapped stem and motor center. But most of decomposition happens when other bacteria or fungi start to eat away at dead meat on a micro scale. The infection out-competes all of the 'natural' microbes and poo poo we were used to - it won't let that anything decompose until it's done with a host. There are still animated bodies that got infected on day one. A lot of them have been trapped in a bathroom or something, staring at a wall, for ten years or more. StringOfLetters fucked around with this message at 17:41 on Apr 23, 2014 |
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Apr 23, 2014 05:25
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Definitely interested, if I'm not to late. I'll get a character posted asap. Leaning towards driver at the moment.
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Apr 23, 2014 20:36
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Trudy, how about you tell us about a time things did get messy? "I'm telling you, she's nuts," Griff says. He's chewing on a hard roll, and it's not going down easy. Chuck's no baker, the rolls are like rocks. "And I'm tellin' you she blasted through ten of those fuckers like they were nothing. In heels, for gently caress's sake," Chuck says. "We could use someone like that around." "I dunno," Griff says. "Who wears a pink respirator?" "I don't care what she wears, long as she can kill," Chuck says. "I'm serious. Soon as she saw that mob, it was like she turned into a loving robot. Her eyes went all dead, and she just kept smashing until they were all loving pulp. They weren't even chasing her. She went after 'em. One, she brought a heel down in its loving eye socket. She was, like, laughing. Once they were dead, she was fine again. Like she practically forgot." "Creepy," Griff says, picking off a little bit of the bread and rolling it between his fingers. "She can cook," Chuck says, grabbing a roll and tapping it on the table. It sounds like a gavel. "Aren't you sick of my cooking?" Griff sighs. "She can stick around, if she wants."
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Apr 24, 2014 03:17
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Okay. Okay. We're going to roll with, Big Mike, the Savvyhead (Mr. Prokosch) Angel Eyes, the Battlebabe (Shardix) Faustina, the Angel (hctibyllis) Juck, the Chopper (Benny Profane) Deacon Thorne, the Hocus (Baby Babbeh) Trudy, the Solace (Violajoker) And thanks, the rest of you, for the interest and the quality.  I don't want to over-load it. And sorry, Glitchwraith, for going without you - it's been 24+ hours, and I'm sure you'd only going to give me a harder decision to make.Okay! Let's go around and do Hx. Remember, it's a measure of how well you 'get' someone, and doesn't necessarily imply friendship or reciprocity.
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Apr 25, 2014 04:57
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Yay! Mmm that Fresh New AW smell. I guess Trudy could have a spot on campus if she wanted, which with her Threshhold might make the uni the closest thing we have to a hardhold as it stands currently? Hx time~ Angel Eyes: Plenty of folks have seen the handsome ronin lady in the crazy luxe get-up. I mean, how could you miss her? Unfortunately, the next thing you'll often see is trouble. I don't have a beef with Angel Eyes, or anything ('least not yet), but I can't say I'd be disappointed if she decides to skip sauntering around campus while I'm holed up here. Not that mercenaries don't have their... utilities, but I've toiled over enough bullet-riddled bodies to know this: a life lived by the gun is a short one. It's just generally better not to get too close to those kinds of people, 'else you'll end up making more burial mounds than soap bars. [Angel Eyes takes -1 Hx] - Has someone been beside me and seen everything I've seen? Mark Hx +2. - Has someone put their hand in when it mattered and helped me save a life? Mark Hx +2. Everyone else Mark Hx +1. I don't have many secrets. People seem to like that about me. Trust is essential; always take your time getting to know people, it might mean the difference between a making a fair trade and winding up behind the walls in their wine cellar. I Mark -1Hx from whatever anyone else tells me. It's not you, it's me. Watch a few too many eyes fade out and you might not be the most social butterfly either. hctibyllis fucked around with this message at 15:12 on Apr 25, 2014 |
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Apr 25, 2014 06:57
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