Yora
2020-06-19, 03:21 PM
While I am currently running a D&D sandbox campaign that is fairly preparation intensive, I am entertaining the idea to also take a shot at running an Apocalypse world game, which is a system where you can make things up pretty much as you go. (No stats for enemies and most equipment helps a lot with that.)
Even though it's called Apocalypse World, it really is a rules system with a heavy focus of "make something up that seems cool at that moment" to have a crazy rollercoaster ride instead of following a planned out path. And creating unique and original settings to let the players loose on them is a big part of that. The rules themselves are deliberately vague on what the world for a campaign should look like.
Somebody’s sure to ask.
The apocalypse happened about 50 years ago. The oldest people still around have childhood memories of it. Nobody knows what really happened or why, though. Maybe nobody ever knew.
“Hey MC, it says here ‘the world’s psychic maelstrom’—what’s that?”
It’s everywhere, just outside your perception, and if you open your brain up to it you can learn things from it. It learns things from you, too. If you know how, you can reach out into it to make things happen. It caused the apocalypse, or else the apocalypse caused it, nobody knows.
The standard setting for post-apocalyptic stories is a nuclear desert wasteland. Which can be fun, but has been done to death. Then there's also the always popular "Main, Washington, England, or Ukraine with a constant drizzle and gray clouds". That just gets too depressing way too fast. The usual causes for apocalypses are nuclear war, desertification, and zombies. Again, they have their place, but I want to do something new.
Something I always found much more interesting about global warming than desertification is the corresponding increase in warm humid air over the oceans. Warm air means more energy for wind, and humid air means more water that has to come down somewhere. Deserts make good stock photos for news articles, but coastal storms are where climate change really is going to hit the most painfully.
I was inspired by this highly entertaining map (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/f1/c0/1af1c034c53fc6f20c2a2509159f81d5.jpg) showing a sea level rise of 60 meters, assuming that all ice on Earth melts. (Which even in worst case scenarios would take a thousand years.) That's not a plausible scenario for a near future setting, but it had me thinking about dramatic sea level rise in the Baltic Sea region where I live. It's a part of the world I always considered pretty boring as a local, but it also doesn't really get much attention from the rest of the world. Having the post-apocalypse in Kiel just feels hilarious to me.
Inspirations
Metro: Obviously. In particular the Volga and Taiga regions of Exodus.
Neon Genesis Evanglion: For the apocalypse.
Fury Road: The machine cult is fantastic.
Annihilation: Bring the weird ****!
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Dawn: Some aspects of Tiberium.
Mass Effect: Indoctrination.
The Apocalypse
During the 21st century, retreating ice in Antarctica uncovered ancient growths of lichens consisting of a mundane form of algae and a strange form of fungus. The retreating ice also uncovered large amount of nutrients that had been trapped for millions of years, which fed the fungus, while the algae made good use of the permanent sunlight for half of the year. With there not being any real competition from plants in Antarctica, the lichen soon covered every piece of ice-free rock before any plants could get a foothold there. Even more disturbingly, the lichens produced considerable amounts of heat, increasing the rate of ice melt, which uncovered more ground for it to spread. This resulted in even more warming of Antarctica, turning into a chain reaction. Killing the lichen with nuclear weapons was considered, but that would only melt more ice, potentially making the situation even worse a few years later. Massive use of pesticides was ruled out as the runoff from the melting glaciers it would poison the whole southern ocean with unpredictable damage.
Those whole deliberations didn't go anywhere because one morning people in Northern Europe woke up to find that the electricity was out. Over the following days, people travelling between cities in cars spread the news that the nearby power stations had been fried by a massive power surge, and with no phone or internet, nobody knew how widespread the issue was. The power never came back on.
While there were always rumors about cities in other places that had working power and would provide shelter for people making the journey, there was never any real evidence that any place in the world had been spared. Meanwhile the sea levels continued to rise at a dramatic rate over the following decades until it more or less stabilized at 30 meters above normal, completely submerging all port cities and huge parts of the Northern European Plain. Saint Petersburg, Hamburg, Stockhholm, Copehagen, Helsinki, Riga, Göteburg, Gdansk, Tallinn, Kaliningrad, Kiel, Lübeck all went beneath the sea, together with thousands of smaller cities and towns.
It wasn't the water that killed people, though. And neither was it starvation. A few months after the power went out, there was a massive outbreak of fungus infections that affected the sinuses and spread from there into the brain, eventually killing most people.
The Psychic Maelstrom
A major element of Apocalypse World is the inclusion of psychic powers that are linked to some kind of psychic energy that has covered the world since The Event. The effects of these powers are defined by the game rules, but their nature and origin are left open as part of the setting for each campaign.
Not all people who suffered the fungus infection died. Some survived, but the fungus growing in their nervous system clearly did something to them. And some of them claimed that they were able to hear each others thoughts in their minds. As well as an immense presence far beneath their feet that clearly is nothing like a human mind in conceivable way.
And the fungus does not just infect humans, but animals as well. It does not affect plants, though.
"It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."
"What did it want?"
"I don't think it wanted anything..."
Culture of the Jutland Archipelago
I was born in Hamburg and grew up in Lübeck and have spend about a dozen vacations in Denmark, so the Jutland region made the obvious choice for where I should set a campaign. With a 30 meter sea level rise, about a third to a half of Denmark and Northern Germany is flooded, drowning almost all of the existing island and creating lots of new ones. All major cities in the region are basically at sea level, and at 30 meters of water, almost all buildings will disappear beneath the water.
http://spriggans-den.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/floodmap2-1024x683.png
We got lots of islands and also a region with a long naval culture. I also checked my subjective perception that we are a major growing region for rapeseed, which can be made into biodiesel. (Which is relatively easy to make, while petroleum fuels have a limited shelf life.) That means Fury Road with speed boats. :smallbiggrin:
(Don't call it Water World.)
I also checked some other subjective perceptions about our regional economy, which we locals consider part of our regional culture, but could potentially not be actually significant:
Population Density:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b1/6f/11/b16f11d4ef6112542849f78fa5bb33ed.jpg
Rapeseed Production Regions:
https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/rssiws/al/crop_production_maps/Europe/EU_Rapeseed_Lev2_Prod_2010_2014.png
Livestock Raising Regions:
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/nutrienteurope-090408093844-phpapp02/95/livestock-density-and-nutrient-balansces-across-europe-2-728.jpg?cb=1239183554
Farm Sizes:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/9/9a/Average_economic_size_of_farm_holdings%2C_2016_%28 EU-28_%3D_100%2C_based_on_the_standard_output_of_the_ average_farm_in_relation_to_the_EU-28_average%2C_by_NUTS_2_regions%29_RYB19.png
As you can see, Northern Germany and Denmark are prime producers for rapeseed, cattle, and pigs, with individual farmers owning very large plots of land. (Which is because we used to give everything to the oldest son instead of splitting it between all sons.)
Population density is much higher than in Sweden and Northern Poland, but still not very high compared to most of central Europe. And given that this region is massively loosing land, I see people primarily trying to central Germany, with very few refugees attempting to get closer to the encroaching water.
This all gave me the idea that the powerful leaders in the new world are the old farming families who own the land at higher elevations. They control the fuel and also all the meat. I really like the idea of going back to measuring wealth in the amount of cattle and pigs that you own, with boars and bulls being popular symbols for powerful groups.
Interestingly, the main bases of the German, Danish, and Swedish Navies are all pretty much right next to hills that will remain above water. So if anyone would have been inclined to save the equipment from their storehouses from the rising waters to higher ground, it wouldn't have been too difficult.
Between them, they also have 7 destroyers, 14 frigates, 15 corvettes, and 11 submarines. Submarines are pointless in a post-apocalyptic world, especially in a region with very shallow coastal waters. The destroyers are probably also too big and complicated to maintain. Which leaves the frigates and corvettes, which except for the Swedish Stealth-Missile-Corvettes all have diesel engines. So I can certainly see one or two warlords cruising around in one of those. Though probably mostly keeping it anchored because the fuel consumption on these things must be enormous.
Much more interesting are the Swedish CB 90 assault boats, which are basically troop carrying speed boats with armed with machine guns. And the Swedish Navy has 147 of them! I can totally see a Swedish Pirate King ruling the Baltic Sea with a couple dozen of those. :smallamused:
Even though it's called Apocalypse World, it really is a rules system with a heavy focus of "make something up that seems cool at that moment" to have a crazy rollercoaster ride instead of following a planned out path. And creating unique and original settings to let the players loose on them is a big part of that. The rules themselves are deliberately vague on what the world for a campaign should look like.
Somebody’s sure to ask.
The apocalypse happened about 50 years ago. The oldest people still around have childhood memories of it. Nobody knows what really happened or why, though. Maybe nobody ever knew.
“Hey MC, it says here ‘the world’s psychic maelstrom’—what’s that?”
It’s everywhere, just outside your perception, and if you open your brain up to it you can learn things from it. It learns things from you, too. If you know how, you can reach out into it to make things happen. It caused the apocalypse, or else the apocalypse caused it, nobody knows.
The standard setting for post-apocalyptic stories is a nuclear desert wasteland. Which can be fun, but has been done to death. Then there's also the always popular "Main, Washington, England, or Ukraine with a constant drizzle and gray clouds". That just gets too depressing way too fast. The usual causes for apocalypses are nuclear war, desertification, and zombies. Again, they have their place, but I want to do something new.
Something I always found much more interesting about global warming than desertification is the corresponding increase in warm humid air over the oceans. Warm air means more energy for wind, and humid air means more water that has to come down somewhere. Deserts make good stock photos for news articles, but coastal storms are where climate change really is going to hit the most painfully.
I was inspired by this highly entertaining map (https://i.pinimg.com/originals/1a/f1/c0/1af1c034c53fc6f20c2a2509159f81d5.jpg) showing a sea level rise of 60 meters, assuming that all ice on Earth melts. (Which even in worst case scenarios would take a thousand years.) That's not a plausible scenario for a near future setting, but it had me thinking about dramatic sea level rise in the Baltic Sea region where I live. It's a part of the world I always considered pretty boring as a local, but it also doesn't really get much attention from the rest of the world. Having the post-apocalypse in Kiel just feels hilarious to me.
Inspirations
Metro: Obviously. In particular the Volga and Taiga regions of Exodus.
Neon Genesis Evanglion: For the apocalypse.
Fury Road: The machine cult is fantastic.
Annihilation: Bring the weird ****!
Command & Conquer: Tiberium Dawn: Some aspects of Tiberium.
Mass Effect: Indoctrination.
The Apocalypse
During the 21st century, retreating ice in Antarctica uncovered ancient growths of lichens consisting of a mundane form of algae and a strange form of fungus. The retreating ice also uncovered large amount of nutrients that had been trapped for millions of years, which fed the fungus, while the algae made good use of the permanent sunlight for half of the year. With there not being any real competition from plants in Antarctica, the lichen soon covered every piece of ice-free rock before any plants could get a foothold there. Even more disturbingly, the lichens produced considerable amounts of heat, increasing the rate of ice melt, which uncovered more ground for it to spread. This resulted in even more warming of Antarctica, turning into a chain reaction. Killing the lichen with nuclear weapons was considered, but that would only melt more ice, potentially making the situation even worse a few years later. Massive use of pesticides was ruled out as the runoff from the melting glaciers it would poison the whole southern ocean with unpredictable damage.
Those whole deliberations didn't go anywhere because one morning people in Northern Europe woke up to find that the electricity was out. Over the following days, people travelling between cities in cars spread the news that the nearby power stations had been fried by a massive power surge, and with no phone or internet, nobody knew how widespread the issue was. The power never came back on.
While there were always rumors about cities in other places that had working power and would provide shelter for people making the journey, there was never any real evidence that any place in the world had been spared. Meanwhile the sea levels continued to rise at a dramatic rate over the following decades until it more or less stabilized at 30 meters above normal, completely submerging all port cities and huge parts of the Northern European Plain. Saint Petersburg, Hamburg, Stockhholm, Copehagen, Helsinki, Riga, Göteburg, Gdansk, Tallinn, Kaliningrad, Kiel, Lübeck all went beneath the sea, together with thousands of smaller cities and towns.
It wasn't the water that killed people, though. And neither was it starvation. A few months after the power went out, there was a massive outbreak of fungus infections that affected the sinuses and spread from there into the brain, eventually killing most people.
The Psychic Maelstrom
A major element of Apocalypse World is the inclusion of psychic powers that are linked to some kind of psychic energy that has covered the world since The Event. The effects of these powers are defined by the game rules, but their nature and origin are left open as part of the setting for each campaign.
Not all people who suffered the fungus infection died. Some survived, but the fungus growing in their nervous system clearly did something to them. And some of them claimed that they were able to hear each others thoughts in their minds. As well as an immense presence far beneath their feet that clearly is nothing like a human mind in conceivable way.
And the fungus does not just infect humans, but animals as well. It does not affect plants, though.
"It's a force. It warps reality just by being there. It doesn't have to want to. It doesn't have to think about it. It just does."
"What did it want?"
"I don't think it wanted anything..."
Culture of the Jutland Archipelago
I was born in Hamburg and grew up in Lübeck and have spend about a dozen vacations in Denmark, so the Jutland region made the obvious choice for where I should set a campaign. With a 30 meter sea level rise, about a third to a half of Denmark and Northern Germany is flooded, drowning almost all of the existing island and creating lots of new ones. All major cities in the region are basically at sea level, and at 30 meters of water, almost all buildings will disappear beneath the water.
http://spriggans-den.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/floodmap2-1024x683.png
We got lots of islands and also a region with a long naval culture. I also checked my subjective perception that we are a major growing region for rapeseed, which can be made into biodiesel. (Which is relatively easy to make, while petroleum fuels have a limited shelf life.) That means Fury Road with speed boats. :smallbiggrin:
(Don't call it Water World.)
I also checked some other subjective perceptions about our regional economy, which we locals consider part of our regional culture, but could potentially not be actually significant:
Population Density:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/b1/6f/11/b16f11d4ef6112542849f78fa5bb33ed.jpg
Rapeseed Production Regions:
https://ipad.fas.usda.gov/rssiws/al/crop_production_maps/Europe/EU_Rapeseed_Lev2_Prod_2010_2014.png
Livestock Raising Regions:
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/nutrienteurope-090408093844-phpapp02/95/livestock-density-and-nutrient-balansces-across-europe-2-728.jpg?cb=1239183554
Farm Sizes:
https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/images/9/9a/Average_economic_size_of_farm_holdings%2C_2016_%28 EU-28_%3D_100%2C_based_on_the_standard_output_of_the_ average_farm_in_relation_to_the_EU-28_average%2C_by_NUTS_2_regions%29_RYB19.png
As you can see, Northern Germany and Denmark are prime producers for rapeseed, cattle, and pigs, with individual farmers owning very large plots of land. (Which is because we used to give everything to the oldest son instead of splitting it between all sons.)
Population density is much higher than in Sweden and Northern Poland, but still not very high compared to most of central Europe. And given that this region is massively loosing land, I see people primarily trying to central Germany, with very few refugees attempting to get closer to the encroaching water.
This all gave me the idea that the powerful leaders in the new world are the old farming families who own the land at higher elevations. They control the fuel and also all the meat. I really like the idea of going back to measuring wealth in the amount of cattle and pigs that you own, with boars and bulls being popular symbols for powerful groups.
Interestingly, the main bases of the German, Danish, and Swedish Navies are all pretty much right next to hills that will remain above water. So if anyone would have been inclined to save the equipment from their storehouses from the rising waters to higher ground, it wouldn't have been too difficult.
Between them, they also have 7 destroyers, 14 frigates, 15 corvettes, and 11 submarines. Submarines are pointless in a post-apocalyptic world, especially in a region with very shallow coastal waters. The destroyers are probably also too big and complicated to maintain. Which leaves the frigates and corvettes, which except for the Swedish Stealth-Missile-Corvettes all have diesel engines. So I can certainly see one or two warlords cruising around in one of those. Though probably mostly keeping it anchored because the fuel consumption on these things must be enormous.
Much more interesting are the Swedish CB 90 assault boats, which are basically troop carrying speed boats with armed with machine guns. And the Swedish Navy has 147 of them! I can totally see a Swedish Pirate King ruling the Baltic Sea with a couple dozen of those. :smallamused: