Blackhawk748
2016-05-17, 05:51 PM
While perusing the internet i found that there is a distinct lack of this sort of thing, so i figured id start one here and see how many we can get. Heres a few from another site:
1) The Wandering Stranger
A strange visitor comes to the Pc's village or camp. He's better armed than most, but friendly. Wanting to barter, and swap tales. He tells a tale of a dangerous Ancients dwelling nearby, that might have great treasure. He's unwilling to go alone, but can be persuaded to lead the adventurous PC's to it. All in exchange for a small treasure from inside. A single lost key.
The key goes to a weapons cache, he discovered it another ruin, but couldn't force his way in, he's willing to split the value of that treasure with the PC's if they help him get that key. The only problem is of course a small atomic bomb is wired to the door. Timed to go off within fifteen minutes of the door being opened. The bomb is small enough and buried deep enough to not hurt the villages "nearby, but it will ruin an adventurer's day. It can be deactivated if the PC's are smart enough though.
2) The Rad Mad
People reacted to the nuclear apocalypse in different ways. Some went quiet and grim, some sat in corners weeping, some picked themselves up and began to scratch out whatever existance they could.
and some went insane. No one knows the cause, but the Rad Mad went bat **** crazy. They roam the highways now, a fierce motorcycle gang of cannibals. They don't want your loot, they burn and despoil everything they encounter rather than use it. If they find you, they pursue you with a single-mindedness that denies hope of escape. When they catch you, they torture you to death, slowly, they skin you and sew the skin into their clothing, and then they eat you. If you are very very lucky, you are dead before they start to eat you.
Most would die rather than get caught by them.
Sometimes they take people, rather than kill them. They force them to watch as they defile and devour the person's companions and family, and then they take them somewhere. No one knows what happens after that...but occasionally a person who was taken can be seen riding with them, with skin sewed into their clothes and blood-lust in their eyes.
3) We Dig
The party comes across a shanty town inexplicably located in the middle of the desert. The inhabitants have taken great pains to live here, with an aqueduct built from miles away, the very same you followed to find this place. The inhabitants are of all ages, and the party are surprised to find how tall and pale many of them are, despite many of them being born After and living in this desert.
When you meet the leaders, they try to barter for any explosives you have. You can't part with them, but they are insistent. They will go to any lengths to take them from you, though they are not even nearly as well armed as you.
If you investigate further, you find that the whole town is centered around the Dig, which has reached a dead end two hundred meters down against solid steel. The people here come from this underground bunker, a bunker so successful that they must expel surplus populace to maintain the society. At first they tried to limit growth and fertility, then expel the old only, but soon the politics lead to expulsion of only dissidents and other undesirables. The men and women and children who live here are trying to break back in. The bunker is, by the accounts of the townspeople, fantastically well equipped, able to survive indefinitely so long as it is not over exploited.
4) Medical Care
You're wandering in a uninhabited area, one where nobody's moved into since the Apocalypse, when something happens - you get hit by a falling tree, fall down a hole, gased, or just lie down for the night.
When you wake up you're in a hospital bed, not strapped in but undressed with clean blankets and with oxygen and an IV running into your arm. The hospital also seems to be unstaffed, but pretty decently stocked.
Do you risk the wrath of whatever brought you here and loot the place? Stick around and try to make it a base of operations? Or run like hell?
5. Not as they seem
The PC's come across a small town seemingly unaffected by the apocalypse, they have shelter, solar power and enough food and water for everyone. The townsfolk seem pleasant if a bit eccentric and
Creepily religious, but upon further investigation the truth is revealed..... They are actually genuinely decent people.
It's sometimes good to play against genre
6) Green Folk
In late autumn, the PCs encounter an isolated mountain village of sheep-herders. These shepherds are friendly, generous....and green. If asked about their strange coloration, they explain that their ancestors meddled with their genetic code, causing their skin to generate chlorophyll. As a consequence, they gain much of their sustenance just from being out in the sunlight. What they don't tell the PCs is the reason for their generosity--the dark days of winter are coming, and with them an incredible need for animal protein (thus the sheep). When the snows come and the passes close, these peaceful shepherds turn into something else entirely. While cannibalism isn't strictly needed, it IS a welcome change from mutton...
7) RUMORS
In the new world, information can be a resource just as valuable as salt or gold... Only somebody has been poisoning the well. Wave after wave of sensational stories are coming from the east, and none of the news is good- cannibal raiders are descending into the valley like a biblical flood. Ancient military grade war machines have awakened from the mountains destroying everything they come in contact with. All water in the region is contaminated and unsafe to drink. All medical supplies are not to be trusted. The crops should all be burned as well because of poisonous bugs infecting the stems. All newborn babies will become flesh eating mutants. The governor of Capital City himself has gone completely mad and is building an army of religious zealots and a network of spies. The drums of doom beat on.
Except the PCs know that none of this is true. They've recently been traveling from township to township, and things aren't any better or worse than they normally are. Sure, life in the wastes is never 'great' but it isn't as bleak as this endless new wave of rumors makes it sound. Not that the wild-eyed panic stricken townsfolk will listen to them. As terror exponentially spreads and sleep becomes more scarce, it's only a matter of time before this powderkeg ignites and takes the PCs with it.
Who is behind this relentless campaign of misinformation? How are they spreading it so quickly and effectively? And why?
More importantly, can the PCs put a stop to it? Or perhaps use the mayhem for their own ends?
8. Paradise is coming!
Two or three decades after the apocalypse: The PCs are living in a small but somewhat wealthy and secure coastal village. Then, over a couple of months, they start losing contact with trading partners and other harbor towns further down the coast - and a weird rumor tells of a giant ship, a colossal artificial *mobile* island, a wonder of the old world still active and still inhabited by the idle rich who once fled to this so-called "tax haven". Only now those rich people - and their kids - have turned into human locusts, traveling the seas, living a life of luxury and decadence fueled by the weapons of their "security guards"...
And now some from me
9. Dark and Stormy Night
After running into a fairly intact building to escape a rad storm the PCs find out that they are not alone in this building. A Caravan and a few scavengers, not all of them together, have also taken shelter in this building. Things start out well, everyone introduces themselves and then sit down and share some food, however, about an hour after dinner, when everyone has gotten comfortable in various locations on the first floor one of the Scavengers goes to "answer a call of nature". Several seconds after he leaves everyone hears a scream. When the go an investigate the man has been brutally murdered.
What did it? Is it one of the people in the building, or is something else in here with them?
10. Devil's Point
A ship that the PCs where traveling on has crashed just off of Devils Point Lighthouse. When the PCs go to the Lighthouse for help, they find the door open. As the approach the open door something, or someone bursts out of the door and runs for the woods. When the PCs go and investigate the Lighthouse they find the keeper's family dead inside, the bodies to mauled to be positively identifiable.
Shortly afterward someone pulls up in a car, its the sheriff of a nearby town and hes responding to a cry for help from the lighthouse over the CB. He promptly arrests the PCs and takes them back to town. Once there they are able to acquit themselves quickly but the larger mystery still remains. Who or what was that thing and why did it kill the Lighthouse keepers?
1) The Wandering Stranger
A strange visitor comes to the Pc's village or camp. He's better armed than most, but friendly. Wanting to barter, and swap tales. He tells a tale of a dangerous Ancients dwelling nearby, that might have great treasure. He's unwilling to go alone, but can be persuaded to lead the adventurous PC's to it. All in exchange for a small treasure from inside. A single lost key.
The key goes to a weapons cache, he discovered it another ruin, but couldn't force his way in, he's willing to split the value of that treasure with the PC's if they help him get that key. The only problem is of course a small atomic bomb is wired to the door. Timed to go off within fifteen minutes of the door being opened. The bomb is small enough and buried deep enough to not hurt the villages "nearby, but it will ruin an adventurer's day. It can be deactivated if the PC's are smart enough though.
2) The Rad Mad
People reacted to the nuclear apocalypse in different ways. Some went quiet and grim, some sat in corners weeping, some picked themselves up and began to scratch out whatever existance they could.
and some went insane. No one knows the cause, but the Rad Mad went bat **** crazy. They roam the highways now, a fierce motorcycle gang of cannibals. They don't want your loot, they burn and despoil everything they encounter rather than use it. If they find you, they pursue you with a single-mindedness that denies hope of escape. When they catch you, they torture you to death, slowly, they skin you and sew the skin into their clothing, and then they eat you. If you are very very lucky, you are dead before they start to eat you.
Most would die rather than get caught by them.
Sometimes they take people, rather than kill them. They force them to watch as they defile and devour the person's companions and family, and then they take them somewhere. No one knows what happens after that...but occasionally a person who was taken can be seen riding with them, with skin sewed into their clothes and blood-lust in their eyes.
3) We Dig
The party comes across a shanty town inexplicably located in the middle of the desert. The inhabitants have taken great pains to live here, with an aqueduct built from miles away, the very same you followed to find this place. The inhabitants are of all ages, and the party are surprised to find how tall and pale many of them are, despite many of them being born After and living in this desert.
When you meet the leaders, they try to barter for any explosives you have. You can't part with them, but they are insistent. They will go to any lengths to take them from you, though they are not even nearly as well armed as you.
If you investigate further, you find that the whole town is centered around the Dig, which has reached a dead end two hundred meters down against solid steel. The people here come from this underground bunker, a bunker so successful that they must expel surplus populace to maintain the society. At first they tried to limit growth and fertility, then expel the old only, but soon the politics lead to expulsion of only dissidents and other undesirables. The men and women and children who live here are trying to break back in. The bunker is, by the accounts of the townspeople, fantastically well equipped, able to survive indefinitely so long as it is not over exploited.
4) Medical Care
You're wandering in a uninhabited area, one where nobody's moved into since the Apocalypse, when something happens - you get hit by a falling tree, fall down a hole, gased, or just lie down for the night.
When you wake up you're in a hospital bed, not strapped in but undressed with clean blankets and with oxygen and an IV running into your arm. The hospital also seems to be unstaffed, but pretty decently stocked.
Do you risk the wrath of whatever brought you here and loot the place? Stick around and try to make it a base of operations? Or run like hell?
5. Not as they seem
The PC's come across a small town seemingly unaffected by the apocalypse, they have shelter, solar power and enough food and water for everyone. The townsfolk seem pleasant if a bit eccentric and
Creepily religious, but upon further investigation the truth is revealed..... They are actually genuinely decent people.
It's sometimes good to play against genre
6) Green Folk
In late autumn, the PCs encounter an isolated mountain village of sheep-herders. These shepherds are friendly, generous....and green. If asked about their strange coloration, they explain that their ancestors meddled with their genetic code, causing their skin to generate chlorophyll. As a consequence, they gain much of their sustenance just from being out in the sunlight. What they don't tell the PCs is the reason for their generosity--the dark days of winter are coming, and with them an incredible need for animal protein (thus the sheep). When the snows come and the passes close, these peaceful shepherds turn into something else entirely. While cannibalism isn't strictly needed, it IS a welcome change from mutton...
7) RUMORS
In the new world, information can be a resource just as valuable as salt or gold... Only somebody has been poisoning the well. Wave after wave of sensational stories are coming from the east, and none of the news is good- cannibal raiders are descending into the valley like a biblical flood. Ancient military grade war machines have awakened from the mountains destroying everything they come in contact with. All water in the region is contaminated and unsafe to drink. All medical supplies are not to be trusted. The crops should all be burned as well because of poisonous bugs infecting the stems. All newborn babies will become flesh eating mutants. The governor of Capital City himself has gone completely mad and is building an army of religious zealots and a network of spies. The drums of doom beat on.
Except the PCs know that none of this is true. They've recently been traveling from township to township, and things aren't any better or worse than they normally are. Sure, life in the wastes is never 'great' but it isn't as bleak as this endless new wave of rumors makes it sound. Not that the wild-eyed panic stricken townsfolk will listen to them. As terror exponentially spreads and sleep becomes more scarce, it's only a matter of time before this powderkeg ignites and takes the PCs with it.
Who is behind this relentless campaign of misinformation? How are they spreading it so quickly and effectively? And why?
More importantly, can the PCs put a stop to it? Or perhaps use the mayhem for their own ends?
8. Paradise is coming!
Two or three decades after the apocalypse: The PCs are living in a small but somewhat wealthy and secure coastal village. Then, over a couple of months, they start losing contact with trading partners and other harbor towns further down the coast - and a weird rumor tells of a giant ship, a colossal artificial *mobile* island, a wonder of the old world still active and still inhabited by the idle rich who once fled to this so-called "tax haven". Only now those rich people - and their kids - have turned into human locusts, traveling the seas, living a life of luxury and decadence fueled by the weapons of their "security guards"...
And now some from me
9. Dark and Stormy Night
After running into a fairly intact building to escape a rad storm the PCs find out that they are not alone in this building. A Caravan and a few scavengers, not all of them together, have also taken shelter in this building. Things start out well, everyone introduces themselves and then sit down and share some food, however, about an hour after dinner, when everyone has gotten comfortable in various locations on the first floor one of the Scavengers goes to "answer a call of nature". Several seconds after he leaves everyone hears a scream. When the go an investigate the man has been brutally murdered.
What did it? Is it one of the people in the building, or is something else in here with them?
10. Devil's Point
A ship that the PCs where traveling on has crashed just off of Devils Point Lighthouse. When the PCs go to the Lighthouse for help, they find the door open. As the approach the open door something, or someone bursts out of the door and runs for the woods. When the PCs go and investigate the Lighthouse they find the keeper's family dead inside, the bodies to mauled to be positively identifiable.
Shortly afterward someone pulls up in a car, its the sheriff of a nearby town and hes responding to a cry for help from the lighthouse over the CB. He promptly arrests the PCs and takes them back to town. Once there they are able to acquit themselves quickly but the larger mystery still remains. Who or what was that thing and why did it kill the Lighthouse keepers?