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It is the year 2100. As the world's population has grown, so has the demand for oil. In order to pay off their massive amounts of debt, the United States has forcibly taken control of the Middle East, and controls the majority of the world's energy reserves. The exception is Iran, who has expanded their borders and has started a genocidal campaign to solve the problem of, what they call, "increasing population of the inferior races." Having allied with North Korea, they now rival the United States in terms of nuclear power. NATO is threatening military action as a result of this genocide and nuclear armament, and the world teeters on the brink of war.

As the world drilled deeper for oil, the United States drilled too deep, and hit the Obsidian Core, the center of the Earth which contains the evils of the world and has been growing since Eve took a bit of the apple. The very crust of the world split, and the sins of the world took form and poured out of the gaps. The foremost among these were the Revenants, ghost like creatures embodying the darkest instincts of humans, who possess their prey. These unfortunate souls become Shadow Children, wretched humanoid versions of their once-human forms with raspy voices, pitch hair and glowing yellow eyes. All manner of horrors, led by the Revenants and their Shadow Children, rampaged across the Middle East, destroying all in their path.

Iran immediately jumped on the opportunity. Blaming the United States for the catastrophe, they claimed that it was "a conspiracy amongst NATO to create a threat to destroy Iran and their allies." Saying that to prevent the destruction of the world, they must take over the region, Iran invaded US and NATO territories in the Middle East. NATO responded by aiming nuclear weapons at Iran and demanding that they stop. Iran responded by aiming their nuclear weapons at the countries of NATO, and fired.

All United States citizens were immediately evacuated to extensive underground bomb shelters built during the Cold War, each having radio equipment for trans-shelter communication. Most shelters survived the bombardment with no casualties. The larger problem was that the missiles caused more cracks in the Obsidian Core, unleashing horrors throughout the Western world...which then proceeded to rampage through the bomb shelters, slaughtering the mostly unarmed population at will.

Some survived however, as when the Obsidian Core cracked, it released all manner of dark creatures as well as dark energies into the world, and there are some born with the power to harness and wield this power. Indeed, there are also natural heroes who managed to fight their way to survival through conventional means.

You are one such survivor, and your first goal is this; make it out of your bomb shelter alive, and find anyone else who did.

This sounds like it would be fun!

I'd say d6 based, simply because they're pretty easy to get hold of from board games and dollar/pound stores. That way it wouldn't take away from the "pick up and play" factor!

WaaaaghLord wrote:This sounds like it would be fun!

I'd say d6 based, simply because they're pretty easy to get hold of from board games and dollar/pound stores. That way it wouldn't take away from the "pick up and play" factor!

Awesome! Thanks.

So, going a little into the background here...I want to leave this mostly open for people to make up their own stuff, but there is a little to go into.

Upper Earth was originally a magical land, peaceful, freed from sin and perfect in every way. However, as we all know, a picture perfect world gets boring pretty quickly. So, the greatest engineers of Upper Earth got together to create the largest creation ever made: The Chaos Engine. This engine's purpose was to cause spontaneous happenings and odd events to make the world more interesting, nothing too dramatic though. However, there were a few things amiss once it was done; the first being that the engineers had no idea what it would do. Thus, there were a few...sideffects.

The primary unforseen effect of the engine was that it released the Revenants. The Revenants are quite literally the essence of evil. In their pure form, they manifest as a milky white, floating spirit with no legs, two arms, and eyes fitted into an angular torso. A fully-formed Revenant is incredibly powerful, and can only be harmed by certain metals and magics. Seeing as there are only a handful of Revenants, they themselves are, while powerful, not the main threat to Upper Earth. When released, they went about summoning up the evils from the depths of the world. Trolls, ogres, high-fat foods and what-have-you emerged and began ransacking Upper Earth. Eventually, all that remained was the last city, Thunderguard. The evil horde was halted dead in it's tracks, as the citadel was completely unassailable by all conventional means.

Finding a solution, one of the Revenants divided his essence into several Shards, and used them to slowly possess every inhabitant within the city. Characterized by pale skin, supernatural abilities and glowing red eyes, the Shard Possessed chased out the guards and surrounded the citadel. The army of disorder then broke into the citadel. At the end of the subsequent fight, the Revenant had possessed the king himself. Stormguard, the last bastion of defense, is now the Shadow City, ruled over by the Revenant King.

The rest of Upper Earth is much like the Shadow City; inhabited by all manner of dark creatures and once orderly citizens turned renegade. The only safe place left now are the Taverns, because as we all know, the armies of evil are terrified of beer due to it's nature of attracting heroes. It is now up to you, human/dwarf/geeksittingbehindacomputer/elf of Upper Earth, to go fight not for order, not for peace, not for the downfall of evil warlords, but for cool weapons and wargear in the name of glory! Onward!

Sounds cool let's hear the rules.

Lord of battles wrote:Sounds cool let's hear the rules.

Unfortunately those won't get posted till after my finals are done. So about Wednesday, I'll try to update some if I can before then.

1.) What will be the difference to all the other RPG systems existing, a.o. the generic ones like GURPS, D20 and Savage Worlds?
2.) I think most people like to have a rich existing background and ready adventures. A new set of rules is not the main thing people look for.

Just saying because maybe 5% of all RPG players want to make new rule systems.

Kroothawk wrote:1.) What will be the difference to all the other RPG systems existing, a.o. the generic ones like GURPS, D20 and Savage Worlds?
2.) I think most people like to have a rich existing background and ready adventures. A new set of rules is not the main thing people look for.

Just saying because maybe 5% of all RPG players want to make new rule systems.

I have some detailed fluff readily available, however I felt that would detract from the "pick up and play to your liking" aspect. I'll give more details tonight, however I'm gonna turn this into a regular miniatures RPG if I'm going with real background. Stay tuned, this'll get interesting!

I am having a hard time understanding how this is different from any other game system out there.

There are literally 50+ generic gaming systems that range from stupid complicated to extremely simplistic storytelling systems available already. Most gamers that are capable of coming up with their own background lore in a setting are also capable of using any one of these systems or making their own.

The paper map is something that has been happening forever in roleplaying games. Wet-erase markers and mats have been filling this niche nicely for years and years.

I may be misunderstanding the intent of the paper map gimmick, but I don't see what seperates this from anything else on the market. Help me understand!

I'm locking this thread and starting a new one since now I have drifted away from what it was originally going to be; see you guys in the new thread! look in Dakka Discussions.

Edit: er well, thought I could lock it...wrong forum

But it's already in Dakka Discussions?

Balance wrote:But it's already in Dakka Discussions?

I was going to start a new thread since this now has completely drifted away from the original idea. Should I just completely revamp the first post instead?

DarkCorsair wrote:

Balance wrote:But it's already in Dakka Discussions?

I was going to start a new thread since this now has completely drifted away from the original idea. Should I just completely revamp the first post instead?

Your call... I'm not a mod here. I'd say just restate your intent and keep going, though, as it's not a huge diversion, really.

Alright! Sounds good. So here goes on fluff....

It is the year 2100. As the world's population has grown, so has the demand for oil. In order to pay off their massive amounts of debt, the United States has forcibly taken control of the Middle East, and controls the majority of the world's energy reserves. The exception is Iran, who has expanded their borders and has started a genocidal campaign to solve the problem of, what they call, "increasing population of the inferior races." Having allied with North Korea, they now rival the United States in terms of nuclear power. NATO is threatening military action as a result of this genocide and nuclear armament, and the world teeters on the brink of war.

As the world drilled deeper for oil, the United States drilled too deep, and hit the Obsidian Core, the center of the Earth which contains the evils of the world and has been growing since Eve took a bit of the apple. The very crust of the world split, and the sins of the world took form and poured out of the gaps. The foremost among these were the Revenants, ghost like creatures embodying the darkest instincts of humans, who possess their prey. These unfortunate souls become Shadow Children, wretched humanoid versions of their once-human forms with raspy voices, pitch hair and glowing yellow eyes. All manner of horrors, led by the Revenants and their Shadow Children, rampaged across the Middle East, destroying all in their path.

Iran immediately jumped on the opportunity. Blaming the United States for the catastrophe, they claimed that it was "a conspiracy amongst NATO to create a threat to destroy Iran and their allies." Saying that to prevent the destruction of the world, they must take over the region, Iran invaded US and NATO territories in the Middle East. NATO responded by aiming nuclear weapons at Iran and demanding that they stop. Iran responded by aiming their nuclear weapons at the countries of NATO, and fired.

All United States citizens were immediately evacuated to extensive underground bomb shelters built during the Cold War, each having radio equipment for trans-shelter communication. Most shelters survived the bombardment with no casualties. The larger problem was that the missiles caused more cracks in the Obsidian Core, unleashing horrors throughout the Western world...which then proceeded to rampage through the bomb shelters, slaughtering the mostly unarmed population at will.

Some survived however, as when the Obsidian Core cracked, it released all manner of dark creatures as well as dark energies into the world, and there are some born with the power to harness and wield this power. Indeed, there are also natural heroes who managed to fight their way to survival through conventional means.

You are one such survivor, and your first goal is this; make it out of your bomb shelter alive, and find anyone else who did.

Are you looking for a critique or looking to get people posting in-character? if the latter, this definitely needs a mod to move it to another forum.

Critique on the basis of the fluff, sorry if the last line made that confusing. I'll certainly elaborate more, I'm just not a very fast typer so I'll try to do it a little later.

I wouldn't mention the center of the earth, we can't drill that far nor would we because you would hit magma long before the center. Also, there are not enough bomb shelters in the entire world to fit the population of the US into, let alone in the US. Cold war bomb shelters have largely been abandoned or sold off. Even NORAD has largely left Cheyenne mountain at this point.

I wouldn't use Iran unless you explain how they manage to come to power, which can be a story all to itself.

Honestly, I would be more interested in this story without the supernatural element. There are plenty of wacky/weird post-apoc games out there that include the supernatural twist already. If you plan on marketing this you are going to have to be prepared for huge comparisons to fallout lore as well, as the premise (change supernatural creatures to mutants) is pretty close.

Swabby wrote:I wouldn't mention the center of the earth, we can't drill that far nor would we because you would hit magma long before the center. Also, there are not enough bomb shelters in the entire world to fit the population of the US into, let alone in the US. Cold war bomb shelters have largely been abandoned or sold off. Even NORAD has largely left Cheyenne mountain at this point.

I wouldn't use Iran unless you explain how they manage to come to power, which can be a story all to itself.

Honestly, I would be more interested in this story without the supernatural element. There are plenty of wacky/weird post-apoc games out there that include the supernatural twist already. If you plan on marketing this you are going to have to be prepared for huge comparisons to fallout lore as well, as the premise (change supernatural creatures to mutants) is pretty close.

Well it isn't dead center per say, more like forming up the core of the Earth but several miles below the surface. The idea is that it started out being the very center, but grew and consumed more of the inside of the Earth as the sin of humans grew.

Cold war bomb shelters being abandoned = easy fix. United States began a top-secret project to have essentially whole underground cities around 2050 when Iran and North Korea began first threatening nuclear action.

I'll expand on that; need to get the base fluff down first Although really, it would mostly be Germany-WWII style, i.e to try to prevent war they give in a little to Iran's demands, backed up by a large military, at first, but then NATO threatens to stop them when it goes too far.

I didn't go the 'mutant' way for exactly the reason of being compared to fallout. I'll think of something right after today's exams, and get back on that.

Still miss my russian hordes.

Iran? Seriously?.... ok, your ride, your dime.

Grot 6 wrote:Still miss my russian hordes.

Iran? Seriously?.... ok, your ride, your dime.

Well Iran certainly seems like a good candidate for this. Since this has to do with oil, they're good because they're in the middle east, they've been pursuing nuclear development and they aren't exactly friendly to the United States. Oh, and I doubt anyone from Iran is on Dakka, which some people might from Russia

What are your thoughts on changing the resource to water instead of oil? There is quite a bit of speculation that fresh water is going to be a huge source of conflict in the coming century.

Just throwing out an idea to try to help break the fallout mold.

Also, have you read a book called Wool? I would check it out for inspiration for 'life in a vault' like stuff. It is probably the best written story I have ever read on the subject.

I think a better idea would be to make the protagonists ie you, iranian. In your fluff america look like the big evil bugbear. Lets hear it for Sharia strikes and mutant mullahs!

A country can just change their currency to get out of debt. It's a drastic move as it says eh we screwed up and we're not paying back any outstanding debt. What might be more plausible is due to the scarcity of oil, the United States . . .. The other nice thing about this is if you look at countries currently exporting large amounts of oil many of them are not US friendly and can give you more villain material. I think there's even oil in Russia so you could pull them in to Iran's side. Venezuela is also an oil exporter and currently anti-US (pro communist too) so you could include them in your list of villains. Of course being from the US I refer to the others as the villains but since in your scenario we opened up the big bad maybe we're the villains.