Fluff: Amaryllis, Post-apoc librarian

Date: 02 Mar 08
Player: S.

Together, S. & I came up with the basic world: post nuclear apocalypse in the Badlands of South Dakota. America is gone, though remnants of civilization are slowly regrouping in Sioux City IA, Albany NY, Sarasota FL, Seattle WA, Juneau AK, Cabo San Lucas MX, Rio BR. S.'s character, Amaryllis ("Rye"), is scouring the Badlands on her chopper, looking for books and remnants of civilization. Due to some strange effect of the fallout, gunpowder no longer works.

Rye needs gas. She encounters a blockade formed by a couple buses on the deserted highway, guarded by 3 men. Rather than give over her bike as "tax", she manages to power around the blockade. She takes a couple hits in the battle--one being a crossbow bolt in the leg as she flees. But she gave about as well as she got.

Pulling off the road to avoid pursuit, she meets a young boy named Sam who has been run off from the nearby town for being a "mutant" and a "devil-child". Apparently things seem to move around him. He explains the town is run by the Landlord, who lives up in the "Castle" overlooking the town. He's the only one would have gas.

The two lie low while the three guards from the road block return to town and gather a group of torch-bearers to scour the surrounding desert in the darkness. Rye hides her bike, and she and Sam approach the "Castle"--which proves to be a Quonset hut and another shed surrounded by a high fence.

After trying to figure out how to approach the building without alerting the kenneled guard dogs, Rye eventually attacks a lone guard. A second one comes running, but he is "magically" repelled by a cowering Sam. The original guard and Rye are both bloodied, though Rye puts a thrown dagger in the guard's back as he tries to run for reinforcements. Rye and Sam stumble towards the door of the Quonset hut while the formerly repelled guard begins to stir once more...


This was about 1.5 hours of play. We ended things here as we wanted to make it to a movie that day. S. thought things looked pretty bleak, and we haven't returned to this story since. Should we do so, here's the details:

Amaryllis: Good fighting, Bad strength, Okay grace, Okay know-how, Okay perception, Worse social, Okay survival.

Sam: Bad fighting, Bad strength, Okay grace, Bad know-how, Okay perception, Bad social, Okay survival, (Good psi).


Ideas: I'd thought of having an episodic campaign structure, where each session involves some need--gas, food, supplies, etc--that involves Rye in some local dispute or story. General prompters: muts and tards, a burnt cityscape with preserved convenience store, trail of previous survivors, a sheet trap, tard horde in the city, muts in the subway system.

Also, when we left things so bleak, I considered a world-jumping campaign idea. Perhaps when Sam and Rye pass through doorways together, they move to another world but with the same story--so a fantasy setting (Sam's a wizard), or Hyperborean (Rye is like Red Sonja), etc.