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grimgrin
2010-09-23, 10:08 PM
In 4th Millennium you battle for survival in world reshaped by mad microscopic robots. The world has entered a second dark age, the Downfall, caused by the collapse of the global nanobot network, the Nanocosm. In the ruined remains of a marvelous technological utopia you scavenge to survive. Not just technology, but civilization itself is largely lost to the heirs of the Downfall. As a heroic adventurer, your exploits will reshape the world about you. You will fight feral monsters and mutants born outside natural selection or divine genesis. You must collect valuable relics from hidden bunkers and collapsed buildings. The stories of your travels will either inspire others to emulate your activities or dissuade others from such lethal mishap.

Paradise Lost
In the Golden Age of the late 3rd Millennium, humankind had achieved perfect health, long life, and universal wealth with a single dazzling scientific innovation: NANOTECHNOLOGY. Nanotechnology is the construction and programming of viral sized robots that can alter cells, reshape matter, and generate energy at a microscopic level. In a society struggling to control population growth, clean up industrial waste, and manage limited resources, nanotechnology seems a panacea for all ills. These tiny robots are not only tireless workers, but adaptive, and self replicating. Medical Nanobots injected into the bloodstream were able to destroy disease, rebuild damaged organs, and fight aging. Energy Nanobots fed organic waste would emit any type of energy required by the controller. Industrial Nanobots could build any object within minutes given a proper blueprint.

As a result of these marvelous machines by the end of the 3rd Millennium, society was radically altered. Nearly every person (except for violent dissenters and the criminally insane) was host to a colony of Nanobots. These bots not only healed people of disease (and lethal excess), they also provided all the information anyone might ever need. Schools and libraries were a thing of the past. When connected to the Nanocosm, you are instantly provided with any knowledge or physical talent you require. Factories and labor mills became antiquated relics. Industrial Nanobots can replicate any design or device imagined by the human psyche. To a world depleted of fossil fuels and choking on its own trash, a source of clean abundant energy powered by garbage killed two birds with one stone. Unfortunately this era of prosperity lasted only for a few centuries.

No one knows what caused the Downfall, only nanotech records were kept, and the in the chaos and trauma of the event survivor accounts are imperfect. Some believe that in their efforts to improve nanotechnology, scientists unleashed a crippling malfunction. Others believe that a regional war employing Nuclear EMP weapons severed the fragile radio links tying the Nanocosm together. Many have come to believe that the sins of wrath, avarice, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony awoke a divine wrath that laid mankind low. The results are apparent to all.

The Nanocosm is ripped asunder. Nanobots no longer function with the precision and purpose of a united intellect. Fried Nanotech systems no longer function or perform poorly. Corrupted systems produce monsters, mutations, and mad-lands that are hazardous and destructive. Feral nanobot infused creatures have startling new abilities. Aberrant mutants have are a juxtaposition of organic and inorganic parts. Severed environmental systems function out of tune with weather, physics, and logic. You are born to the 4th Millennium and are host to your own personal Nanobot colony. In this world of tattered glory and malignant malice, you must find away to harness your heritage and adapt to the present to thrive.

Mercurial Landscape
Nanotechnology freed the artist and architect of any limitation to form and function in how they lived. Control of their environment allowed the citizens to live in the most hazardous parts of the planet. With the freedom to build any structure they wished many reconstructed the monuments of the ancient past, while others indulged their whimsy with radical and impractical designs. After the Downfall, most structures are frozen in their current form but other areas have become extremely dangerous. Clean Zones are areas that are meticulously maintained by nanobot colonies to the point that, bots will attack any foreign object that enters their habitat. Rad Zones constantly emit dangerous levels of energy. Dust Zones while begin to molecularly deconstruct any object that enters creating a sea of ash. Crush Zones are continually building upon the structures in their radius creating deadfalls, cave-ins, or avalanches.
The Power of Myth
There is no magic. The belief in magic by fools and mad men is based on ignorance and self delusion. Ever since the Downfall, wild Nanobots will infect man, machine, and beast alike. In certain individuals, Energy and Industrial Nanobots form a colony. It is the action of these Nanobots that is the source of the supposed “magic” of the superstitious. The need to extract bodily fluids to perform “Ritual Magic” is clear evidence of the presence of Nanobots in every creatures bloodstream. As a Nanobot Colony grows in size and power within an individual, they can perform more powerful and a greater variety of supernatural powers.

Pistols, Rifles, Blasters, Scatter Guns, and Melee Weaponry
The supposed magical implements of these “spell casters” are in actuality Nan-Tech weaponry. The military armaments of the 3rd Millennium physically resembled the firearms of previous centuries, but relied on the Nanotech colonies inside the bearer to fuel or power the weapon. The implement itself was only a focus for the Nanobot colony resident in the shooter. A common implement provides only minor benefits to the combatant. An enhanced implement provides powers of its own and resembles a heavily customized firearm. Melee Weaponry was not as common in the 3rd Millennium but has become ubiquitous in the savage 4th Millennium.
Pistols (Wands)
Rifles (Staves)
Blasters (Rods)
Scatter Guns (Orbs)

Holy Symbols, Totems, and Designer Gear
Some people of the 3rd Millennium preferred to wear their Nanotech tools as jewelry or clothing. But fashion is useless if others can recognize your superior tastes in choosing designer clothes and unique designs. To secure product identity in this highly competitive field of fashion, merchandise was specifically coded to an iconic style for every “Fashion Brand“. Certain effects were linked to specific symbols. For example the Red Cross and the Caduceus were icons of two competing medical research companies and were permanently incorporated into their Nanobot implements. Military, Security/Espionage, and Sports Equipment research also used cultural icons to permanently mark their intellectual property. One company used Ancient Roman designs to designate its ready-to-wear ballistic cloth (togas/robes) and sporting equipment (gladiators and centurions). Others chose

Healing Surge
Miraculous healing is a common experience in the 4th Millennium. Contrary to provincial beliefs, healing prayers due not tap into a divine agency but nanotechnology. “Clerics” and “Paladins” possess the command protocols to active the curative subroutines of the Nanobot Colony of the host creature.

Post Apocalyptic Tribes
The remnants of humanity have entered a new “Dark Ages” with the collapse of the Nanocosm. Without their Nanobot factories and communications people struggle just to survive. Nanobots no longer reliably manufacture and repair machinery. Task left to automated systems such as farming, building, and navigation must be rediscovered. Before the Downfall, people were completely dependant on Nanobots for communication, computation, memorization, transportation, and must make do with on poorly remembered writing systems and muscle driven technology. To endure, survivors of like-mind banded together for protection and stability. These social groups became the three Great Tribes of the Fourth Millennium. Each tribe is split into factions based on philosophy or lifestyle. As a player character you may be the embodiment of your tribe, a social misfit that pursues a character class atypical for your family, or a renegade that follows a radically different philosophy and morality than the rest of your tribe.

Nihilists: This tribe is commonly seen as selfish, uncaring, and vindictive. Its members generally have the belief that life goals are pointless and moral values are worthless. Nihilists are infamous for their warlocks.

Nukers (Infernal Pact): The Nuker faction tends to the be the most violent, destructive, and combative of the Nihilist Tribe.
Pukers (Dark Pact): This faction is especially spiteful and secretive.
Freaks (Fey Pact): This faction is composed of anarchists that delight in chaos and emotional frenzy.
Bleaks (Star Pact): This faction is composed of fatalists that believe in inevitable doom and unchangeable fate.


Waste Landers: Waste Landers are shaped by the environment in which they live. Toxic Jungles, Poisonous Swamps, and Under Cities are favored habitats. They have little tolerance for bureaucracy and little appreciation for civil societies. Waste Landers are well known for preferring melee weapons, thrown weapons, and bows.

Ferals attribute good or bad fortune to a location or inanimate object that is believe to harbor an ancestral spirit. Ferals often adopt the character of an animal they particularly respect and attempt to emulate it in their own behavior. Ferals are unpredictable since they look for omens and portents in everyday items, and prioritize the ‘spiritual matters‘.
Hong Di (aka Terra Cotta Troopers) believe they know how to restore the Nanocosm to harmony by a mystical practice called “Feng Shui”. They are always busy building new monuments, cleaning debris, and demolishing obstacles to the proper flow of “chi“. The Hong Di are the most unified and organized of the Wastelander factions.
Cosmos are not intentionally wicked but find their own goals of foremost importance. Generally isolationists, Cosmos are often led by a single charismatic leader blessed with a “Vision”. They rarely work with others and are often feud with other Cosmo settlements.
Reapers follow the “Three Fold Path“: Life, Death, and Rebirth. These nomads take no more than they need, own a few treasured possessions, and trust in providence. They violently opposes conspicuous consumption, destruction, and waste. Reapers common use sickles and scythes in combat and favor motorbikes and bicycles as transport.



Metros: Metros live in the ruins of urban areas and modern boom towns. They are the group most dedicated to preserving a (usually heavily corrupted) history of the past and restoring it in their own fashion.
    
Frequent Flyers: The faction has lived for generations in airports and follows the tenets of an esoteric prophecy called the “Imminent Departure“. Status seekers are attracted to this faction with its emphasis on elitism and special privilege.
Hospitallers: Hospitallers are a member of a religious order or charitable institution involved in the care of the sick and the destruction of the undead.
Globalists: Globalists are fortune seekers that risk life and limb to make that big score. Many a wealthy “Land Baron” pounded the first claim stake in boomtown built over a rich salvage site.
Beacons: Beacons are always scanning and fiddling with microwaves, gamma rays, and radio waves in the hope of reestablishing the Nanocosm. Technologists and revivalists are attracted to this faction.
Honorbound: The Honorbound are group of people that live according to a strict code of behavior. Members of this faction often work as enforcers, arbitrators, and peacekeepers in their communities. The honor bound have a reputation for fairness, enforcing legal contracts, recovering stolen property, and crime patrolling. Only the highly motivated and disciplined are invited to join this faction.