10 Things about the Anarchy Zone

1. Pure Lands
• Nature has been quick to recover from the absence of humanity. Rivers already look cleaner without discharges, the air lacks haze, and the nights are quiet but full of stars that were normally outshone by electric lights. Many houses are already infiltrated by vines or small plants, weeds and bushes are turning suburbs into tangled jungle already. Animal territories are expanding across the highways.
2. Corrupt Lands
• While no one has found a reactor that exploded like Chernobyl yet, many other industrial plants have suffered mechanical failures,  leaking pesticides, industrial solutions, and tailings into the environment.
3. Hamlets and Villages
•  In many places, groups of twenty to a hundred people have settled - often starting as one or two families and inviting in a few others. In some places, small communities have reclaimed all or part of suburbs and continue to live in subdivisions of pre-Event towns. The limits of subsistence agriculture limit most of those not used to the work to smaller settlements. Going beyond this stage or finding a patron to assist are major goals of many outside the known city-states.
4. Unexpected Loot vs Needed Items
• What  people remembered to take with them, and what they did not can often lead to interesting finds. Hundreds of cameras, watches, tons of silverware and jewelery are all out for the taking, but flashlights and pocket knives are amazingly rare.
5. 10,000 Guns, Zero Bullets
• More problematic than what has been lost is what is still being used. While many places have taken to hand-loading when they have the materials, the average person can't make nitrocellulose or mine lead. 
6. Pockets of Tech
• How the EMP bounced through the ionosphere was somewhat random, as was the status of many items - whether they were off, on, in a car, or out on a table, plugged in or on battery - all factored into its survival. While most of the subsystems that ran modern society did shut down, or at least popped their breakers temporarily, large areas with working technology still exist.
7. 1880's All Over Again
• Communication and delivery are a booming business in the zone. So too is setting up canals or clearing routes between villages. Judges and lawyers ride circuits from town to town, town hall meetings are as much about being social as simple votes. Gas-lamps and kerosene have returned in force. Nothing so fanciful as steampunk, but in many ways it is like the industrial revolution.
8. Press Gangs and Patrols
• One of the larger threats in the zone is City-State forces. They are always looking for experienced guides, couriers, or soldiers. Good mechanics and knowledgeable farmers are also in high demand. At best they accept volunteers temporarily. But all too often they will take people away by force as necessary to serve.
9. Predator Explosion
• With the end of human extermination campaigns both planned and incidental, the population of vermin and seasonally hunted animals exploded. It takes a few years for the population of predators to catch up, and it often overshoots the mark. Although few are man-eaters or desperate yet, the chance of encountering wolves, bears, coyotes, lions and other creatures is quite high.
10. New Creatures
• The most Northern dwelling primate is of course, Human beings, but the second is the Japanese Snow Macaque monkey. You might not find alligators in Chicago, nor polar bears in the deep South, but creatures from another continent can be found here and there, in some exotic places there are even breeding populations. Although rumors abound, the Citizens haven't begun cloning any of their larger fauna, so for the time being, it is only terrestrial creatures of note.

10 Things about Planetary Citizens

1. Glass and Carbon Without Steel
• Citizen technology progressed in a different order than human industry. They always had less easily accessible metal and less hydrocarbons. (Rather like Japan, without the stagnation of the Shogunate.) Most of their constructs are far more reliant of materials like ceramics, fiberglass, and carbon composite laminates than on metal or plastic.
2. Individual Personalities
• It is hard to get a sense of the individual when they are only encountered in combat situations, but Citizens do show as much variability as humans. Some do mark their vehicles with family, guild, or national marks or other distinct paint patterns, and can easily become reoccurring friends or enemies.
3. Making Friends
• There are places where the live and let live mentality goes on to mutual cooperation. Usually this takes the form of Citizens delivering messages, or using their helicopters as sky cranes in recovery and building projects. Mutual defense, scouting, bartering salvage,or hunting bandits are also possibilities.
4. Start Simple
• Despite the obvious use of Faster-Than-Light travel to get to Earth, the Planetary Citizens show very little in the way of technology beyond human understanding. Part of it is because the colony was a mostly civilian effort, and thus the most advanced shielding mechanisms were unavailable. Mostly, however, is that there would be no factories waiting for them when they landed, so everything needed to be simple to maintain until an actual infrastructure could be set up.
5.  Lacking Strongholds
•  Hard rock mines, power plants, aircraft factories - all of these are long term projects that the citizens have had trouble setting up so far. Human attacks, reanimates, and scattered landing sites continue to push back completion dates.
6. Parliament by the Numbers
•  Unlike the various human social experiments throughout the zone, Citizens have maintained a respect for their parliamentary democracy, even with the inefficiency that come with it.
7. Outnumbered, but no Outgunned
• The human population is still close to a billion people, PC numbers are barely ten percent of that. On the other hand, they still have aircraft and beam weaponry that requires recharging rather than reloading. Extended conflicts are far more in their favor.
8. Military Intelligence
• Citizens have some capability of maintaining satellite surveillance, and have far greater access to aircraft than all but the biggest human factions. The orbiting machines move in predictable patterns, and the flying ones are not up constantly. But generally, they can see everything that isn't painstakingly hidden from them.
9. Hit and Run
• Humans have familiarity with the terrain, and anti-armor weapons. A long fight might go their way, but not a big one. Thus they are unwilling to attack large enclaves (and certainly not a city-state) directly.
10. Separate and Unequal
• Most zones controlled by the aliens are no larger than a city - ten or twenty square miles of terrain, and patrols or laser towers set up at farther intervals. These territories can be dozens or even hundreds of miles apart, effectively making them states to themselves. Available resources and presence of human civilization mean that actual claimed size and power can vary wildly.

10 Things about Las Vegas

1. Military HQ
• There are other places where a company to battalion sized group of soldiers can be found, but rarely do they have much - if any - equipment intact. At least some of them seek to rejoin at Vegas. It is a tough journey, and their units are often separated and reintegrated with others, making for a heartbreaking end. 
2. No More Area 51
• Although rumors persist of prototype weapons, secret caches of aircraft, or factories ready to pump out new rifles - no wasteland scav nor the government is going to find them. For now the US has the biggest and most impressive arsenal, but much of it can only be maintained through diligent labor, warehousing until absolutely necessary, or rampant cannibalization. Equipment recovery will often come before personnel, since they can recruit and train new soldiers easily.
3. The Gun Club
• This is the rumored cabal in charge of reintegrating settlements into the old United States. Publicly, they are known to offer the olive branch, funding, support, and arms to those who pay tithes to Vegas. Towns that refuse to cooperate tend to see food shortages, coups, raider attacks, plagues, and otherwise disappear...
4. Civ Gov and Mil Gov
• The military holds a lot of power in the day to day operations of the city, and some degree of veto power over who can enter or leave the city. (Usually in the form of no un-escorted people can leave, and we can't spare soldiers for such duty). However, the generals only make up a portion of the ruling council, which also includes presidential cabinet members, hospital staff, the city's mayor, and heads of the utility maintenance gangs. 
5. Experiment Rumors
• Vegas maintains the best health care and immunization rates of anywhere in the former US. However, the constant medical monitoring and monthly injections have made some people nervous. Tales of type five experimental reanimates, mind control, intentional sterilization and aphrodisiacs to control the next generation - few things are too wild to be dismissed out of hand.
6. Outside Allies
• Washington DC is mostly a burnt symbol, and many military centers were hit by orbital bombardment. However, the Planetary Citizens generally chose to hit transportation arteries to tie up supplies and divert attention from war fighting to relief efforts. Many capitals and government facilities remain intact, and at least nominally assisting the effort. Elements of the Canadian and Mexican governments also help where they can.
7. The Lights are Still On
• Food supplies can be rough at times, water usage limits constantly imposed, and curfews a way of life. Yet schools, buses, trains, casinos, and shops still run to some extent. Vegas continues to be very metropolitan, while the outlying areas usually exist in a state akin to the early 1940s during the wartime rationing. 
8. Wasteland Patrol
• Far more than any other city state, Las Vegas projects beyond its borders, and makes honest attempts at restoring the nation. A primitive postal service, new cellular towers, and traveling circuit judges are available to those who are willing to accept an agreement with the government. They are often rebuffed as relics, outsiders, or power hungry. 
9. President Grey is on Borrowed Time
• Legally, Grey is past the end of his second term as president, and while martial law is in effect, he is not a dictator and would like honest elections held soon. 
10. Old Habits Die Hard
• Even as the old US lies in ruins, there are still some within the government that longer term plans of how to stop others from rebuilding, and extend their dominion beyond the old national borders. 

Biopreparat Location A-112, “Conservatory”

Before I came to this place, it never really occurred to me that goats were edible. Now it seems that the few times we do get much meat, it's always some sort of sheep. Local herders far and wide across Azerbaijan. We get more stuff from as “nearby acquisition” than should be allowed in any modern army. If we could be called that anyway – most of our weapons are the same ones our grandfathers used thrifty-five years ago during the world war! You can get an AK-74 on the Chinese border, but we have PPSh submachineguns?

Someone knows we're here, and ships stuff constantly. Locked box cars and tankers full of unknown chemicals make their way to underground storage facilities.  A pair of An-12s sit in one of the hangers, a half dozen Mi-8s sit in shelters not far from the runway. They rarely move, yet always seem stocked and ready for combat. BMD-1 infantry fighting vehicles are loaded in their retro-rocket cradles ready to be drooped into a fight, and two of the helicopters are equipped with rockets and napalm tanks.  Yet this just a refueling stop airport, not home to a unit of desant nor air-transport. According to the official papers, we're just a border patrol and internal security unit – glorified riot police, subordinate to the KGB, not the army.

Pale scientist looking types occasionally bubble up from somewhere underneath the strip like an artisan spring. They wander around for a bit, sun their livid bodies, and then disappear into the siding where the trains go. I never see the trains leave. I wonder where the exit is.

Perhaps the direct opposites of the scientists are the odd soldiers we see around here. Not part of our group at least. Everyone of them has the stature and movement of an Olympic athlete – prime candidates for spetznaz troops. Yet a second glace makes it seem as if they are somewhere past dead. Their faces are usually dark – almost burned – black veins run close under the skin, eyes red, and every centimeter of their arms show injection scars. They sound like other soldiers, a few are even friendly on the rare chances the airport staff talk to them. Yet they also disappear into the train tunnel.

Overall, this is a pretty easy assignment. Its hot, but a dry heat. You're not going to get a promotion out of this, but you don't have to spit shine your boots daily either. Just keep in mind a few simple rules. Do not ask about what is on the trains. Do not ask what the numeral 2552 means. Do not ask about Biopreparat. And for gods sake – if anyone mentions the term “Manor House” avoid eye contact, do not speak, call attention to yourself, or volunteer!. Those who do go into the train tunnel.

Plenty of worse places to be than Azerbaijan. Very few quite as odd however.

October 2013

I haven't been having a great couple of months, and the materiel on this site is thinner that I would hope. Its been harder to keep my commitment to you than I'd like.

To make it up, let me show off some of the other work that I have produced.

A Teenage Texas Road Trip 
While still in draft form, is a longer piece of fiction set in the zone, and deals with a group of teenagers exploring the area outside of the Lone Star arcology. It contains an encounter with both the Planetary Citizens and Type One/Alpha reanimates. I think the story gives a good impression of entering a new town and dealing with the aliens.

The Last of Second Platoon, Charlie Company
This story is a fairly good example of how I want to eventually anthologize the sort of stories on this blog. While some of it should be recognizable from the archives, they are linked fairly well and the last section gives a good feeling for both operating a power armor and fighting Beta reanimates.

On My Way to Birobidzhan
This has no relation whatsoever to Dead... and Back, I just want to show I can write things that aren't related to zombies, and do so pretty well in fact.

Remington, IBM, Smith-Corona, and Underworld Typewriter Repair
Also unrelated to the game, but part of a different demon infested  cosmology I occasionally write about.

Let us not forget - its October 31st. Time for a music video to inspire your games. This time around, its scenes from "Hellsing"

There is no reason you can't replicate vampires in my game, and I certainly hope the above gives some good pointers on how to destroy ghouls with style.

Good luck with your gaming, and aim for the head!

Japan Tourist (Part One)

Japan just sounded like a neat place to visit. For all the energy shortages, social security problems, and rising sea levels there was still something to experience. Somehow it maintained or recreated that image from the late nineties - half samurai mysticism, half neon insanity. It seemed like a parody, like they were trying too hard to hold on to the days when economists talked of the coming war between the great economic powers. (No really, I've got a book "The Coming War With Japan"). You kind of just had to go and see what was real.

Well, I finally managed to find a tour group and uploaded translation software into a brand new set of headphones. It was going well - that perfect mid part of a trip when you're over jet lag, but still have some fresh clothes, and have not yet experienced stomach problems from the big shift in diet and eating street foods.

That is when The Event hit.

Everything in your life suddenly shutting down and states of national emergency are bad enough. When you don't know the language, your computer is wiped clean, outside communication is shut down, and all your currency records are wiped out?

I woke up in a hospital. Apparently it was just a panic attack, but bad enough I couldn't breath and passed out anyway. It didn't go full on movie cliche, fortunately. There was plenty of staff, they took excellent care, and even put me in contact with a girl who spoke fluent English. She's an otaku, but for Dungeons and Dragons of all things. Simply could not ask for a more perfect match.

Reanimates didn't show up immediately in the wake of the Citizens arrival, but things were in rationing and emergency mode pretty quickly. Probably comes from living with tsunamis, and the limited resources of the island. I imagine Israel got through it all pretty well too - albeit for less natural reasons.

I also imagine that the USA fared decently well due to the high per-capita gun ownership when reanimates really did show up. In a place where most of the police don't have firearms - it was hammers, kitchen knives, and table legs - the JSDF at one point was dropping loads of baseball bats and golf clubs onto rooftops to give people they couldn't get too a fighting chance!

The nation changed from the "land of the rising sun", to the "land of only sun". Reanimates have better night vision than humans, even if they can't see as well overall. Everything just shuts down and locks up a bit before sundown. I've been through orthodox Jewish neighborhoods on Friday night, and it still isn't as quiet as this. I swear the fog horn that sounds the all clear each morning is actually the nation's collected farts because they're that unwilling to make noise in the darkness.

Colonel Isaac Bradbury

Isaac felt old well before the The Event occurred. Fifty years as a first firefighter and national guard officer do that to a man. He even looks the part despite nano-medicine, bald, sagging jowls, lined face, and shifted weight. But his mind remains sharp, his will strong, and his sense of duty unshakable. If he could get out of the office long enough to march into hell, the other guardsmen would gladly follow him.

Unfortunately - many of the other residents want to send him there as soon as possible.

Colonel Bradbury maintains absolute devotion to the United States first, and to the NEST VIII outpost second. He does not show any great favor to leaving the NEST, and is cool to the notion of stretching the resources by inviting more in. The colonel stands by the military justice system, rather than the jury rigged one of the complex. This also makes him an impartial party in decisions and gains him a great deal of respect.

On the other hand, this makes him an impartial party in decisions where many of the other complex leaders would like to have support. There have already been a few attempts on his life in order to install a more favorable underling.

While none of the attempts have come particularly close to killing him, Isaac has become somewhat paranoid and withdrawn, avoiding contact with people outside the national guard or his hand-picked RATs. He is still one of the most powerful people in the NEST, however, being in charge of the military, most of the RATs and almost all of the armory. In total, he has nearly three hundred soldiers, a dozen light armored vehicles, and about 100 trained scavengers. (Of course, there are others in the complex to fill needs Bradbury will not commit to.)

Strength 4
Quick 4
Tech 4
Wits 4
Range 2
Close Combat 4

Animus: 10
Lucidity: 8
Deadening: 8
Up-Rise: 8 (16 kg in backpack)
Pack: 8 (8 slots/48 kg on hand)

Investigation (Very good at paperwork and logistics)
Access (Firefighter and Soldier)
SA: Rank/Society: National Guard

Equipment of note:
Col. Bradbury has an M-32 PDW in his office and a 9mm pistol on his belt, both of which he can use proficiently - even if his eyesight isn't what it used to be. His office is full of firefighter memorabilia, and he keeps his old turn out gear in his apartment - thought he acknowledges that its for the best to leave the job to younger people (as of 2055 he is 68).

Role in a Game:
Colonel Isaac Bradbury is a major figure in NEST VIII - and more likely than not, is going to be the player characters' boss. He is in charge of the RATs and Military.