Observatory of the Beyond: A Dungeon for GAMMA WORLD

I set a goal for myself of making at least one post a month every month this summer. It's now the tail end of September, and I've got one post to show for it. Shameful! My RPG juices have been really not flowing, busy with personal life events (moved in with my girlfriend which is lovely!) and NOT running or playing in anything has really done a number on my creative output. I'm still plugging away on MORTUARY ON MOTH MOUNTAIN, an adventure location zine for King of Kings that I announced last year; a few months ago I lost all of the image files I used in doing the graphic design, so I've had to start over on that. BUT I will not naysay overmuch. Below is an adventure location for GAMMA WORLD and other post-apocalyptic type roleplaying games that I put together just to get something to go from brain to paper to computer screen, so to speak. Hope you like it!

 

OBSERVATORY OF THE BEYOND

Sitting atop a grassy hill, looming from between the sickly copses of trees that dot the landscape, is a concrete construction that, from afar, looks almost like a slate grey flying saucer, or perhaps a faceless turtle. Once a traveler ventures closer, however, they begin to hear it: the awful, awful buzzing. This is a place of no honor.

Far from any village, mutant or otherwise, this uncanny brutalist structure is a strange type of observatory, built for inscrutable reasons by the ancients. It is not a typical telescope observatory, not like the kind that Amish astrologers use. It was instead a radio observatory, its sensors and dishes tuned into a particular frequency, in this case the frequency that all other observatories do their best to ignore, drown out, and go past: the staticky sound of cosmic background radiation. It is said that the ancients that built this unseemly place wished to meditate on the waveforms of the very sounds of the universe itself, and on the impacts that this sound has on the minds of mortal men. What impact that is, from whispered rumors, is one that surely nobody would like to experience for themselves. It's no wonder the grand civilization of the ancients collapsed into ruin and ash, if they were such perverts who fixated on the evil noise between the stars.

But, perhaps that sound could be put to better use today. Or perhaps the technological wonders rumored to be on the other end of the uncanny sound entice you. Or maybe you just want to be the first to push past superstition and get all the copper wiring out of the walls of the place. The Observatory of the Beyond buzzes uncaringly atop that wretched hill all the same.

 

 

 

Room Key

The Main Facility

1: After entering through the still-operating airlock (marked with a set of two doors ('D') on the map above), this room was originally storage for personal items and hazmat suits worn outside the facility. There are 12 hooks for suits on the walls, all but two of which are empty. One of the hooks has a filthy rag on which is written a confession, while another has a hazmat suit sized for an unmutated human (resistance to toxins and radiation).

2: The main hub of the facility. A short desk faces the doorway leading to room 1, while a circular table set in the center of the room served as a dining table, complete with skeletons seated in the chairs. Ffarad Ssef, Hisser scholar, has set up camp in this room. He has a circular tent pitched off to the north side of the room, between the doors that open to rooms 8 and 14. He has an electric stove, battery-powered, as well as a cassette recorder (also battery-powered).

3: Supply closet. Full of brooms, mechano-mops, rusted hypertechnological vacuums, etc. One hypervacuum is in working order (complexity C, can be operated to suck in 1 human-sized opponent within range or blow air to knock over 1 human-sized opponent).

4: Kitchen. Full of (now long broken) stoves, ovens, microwaves, refrigerators, and dirty plates.

5: Hallway. Lights are flickering on low power in this room, as well as rooms 6 and 7. Visible damage to the walls, caused by Jeb Gorn.

6: Electrical and HVAC room, door locked (this isn't noted on the map above). Any damage done to the electrical system will knock out all of the lights in the entire facility (the speaker system and radio array will be unaffected, since they are on a separate electrical grid). Jeb Gorn really wants to get in here. Hidden in a ventilation pipe is a human skeleton wearing a set of ultraviolet goggles (complexity A).

7: Large pantry. Food is all rotted away, turned to dust, or eaten long ago by now. One crate is full to the brim with 16 stargazing rats.

8: Bathroom with four stalls, no urinals. There is a skeleton seated on one of the toilets. A doorway leads to room 9, while a small tube (only smaller-than-human-sized characters can fit) out the back wall (not noted on the above map) leads to rooms 10 and 11.

9: Multi-purpose room that once did double duty as a shower and storage room. The water still functions just barely.

10: Hydroponic self-cycling garden under a set of fluorescent lights. The garden beds are overflowing with cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, bell peppers, and watermelons. The watermelons explode when agitated, dealing 4d6 damage to those in range and possibly setting off a chain reaction. Living amongst the plants are 24 moldlings with large eyes, who hate the moldlings that live in room 11.

11: Another garden room. The garden beds are overflowing with squat stalks of corn, beans, oversized squashes, and potatoes. Living amongst the plants are 32 moldlings with large eyes, who hate the moldlings that live in room 10. There is a water pump and hose attached to the wall (complexity D) which when operated and placed into a source of liquid can issue forth a blast of water.

12: Office/laboratory. Rows of desks, desktop computers and word processors, knickknacks. Door north leads to room 13, the radio array control room. The narrow passage to room 13 is monitored by the Securitron, a mobile robotic security unit that will not leave room 12 but will attempt to destroy any who attempt to enter room 13.

13: Radio array control room. Door is locked and reinforced. This is the only room in the facility that can turn on and off the radio array, lower or raise the volume of the loudspeakers, etc. A skeleton sits in the command chair, wearing a pair of headphones. Ffarad Ssef really wants to get in here.

14: Sitting room. A skeleton sits in an armchair, holding a rusted knife.

15: Men's sleeping quarters. The ancient mystic-scientists who lived here were gender segregationists for some reason. Some of the 12 beds have skeletons in them. One bed has a single stun ray (complexity C) hidden under perfectly tucked in sheets.

16: Preparation room for the maze. Boots and pairs of goggles left strewn across the floor and benches.

17: Women's sleeping quarters. Some of the 10 beds have skeletons in them. One bed has keys to a hover car stashed under the pillow (whereabouts of the car itself unknown).

18: Secondary bathroom. No shower. Visible damage to the walls caused by Jeb Gorn.

 

The Hypno-Maze

The Hypno-Maze was originally used by the ancient mystic-scientists to study the effects of the cosmic background radiation signal on addled minds. Test subjects (usually volunteers) would be sent through the dimly lit maze, sometimes drugged, made to wander the winding halls until they became confused, and the signal would be played over the loudspeakers to add to their confusion. When wandering the Hypno-Maze, when you roll for a random encounter, roll 1d6:

1: Sources of light go out.

2-3: The players are confused and have been twisted around. Turn them to walk in the opposite direction without their knowledge.

4-5: Hallucination (see below).

6: Exhaustion.

 

Room 19: The only actual room in the Hypno-Maze. Octagonal, with an opening that connects to two passageways in the Hypno-Maze, this served as a resting area and meditation room for those who completed one round of traversing the maze. A ratty rug has a single skeleton in a crumbled lotus pose leaning against the wall. Inside the area where the skeleton's stomach would have been is a keycard to room 13. There is a pile of bottles of purified water on the floor against one of the walls.

 

Random Encounters (for the Main Facility)

Roll 1d6:

1-2: 2d6 Stargazing rats

3: 1 confused and agitated Soul besh

4: Ffarad Ssef, psychic Hisser scholar

5: Jeb Gorn, mutated human copper-burglar

6: Rogue soundwave

Ffarad Ssef and Jeb Gorn are unique characters, and killing them removes them from the encounter table. There are 2 soul beshes total in the observatory; killing both removes them from the encounter table. Replace any removed entries with another result for 2d6 stargazing rats.

A rogue soundwave is a sudden glitch and power surge in the observatory's radio array and internal speaker system which sends out a surprise blast of cosmic background radiation signal through the area the players are currently in. Track the number of rogue soundwaves rolled; after 3 rogue soundwaves, each subsequent one prompts a save vs. mental effects (or a roll against a character's MS score) or else each character experiences a randomly determined hallucination:

Hallucinations from Beyond the Stars (Main Facility)

Roll 1d6:

1: A piercing migraine roils through your skull, as the world around you plunges into the darkest night. Pinpricks of light, stars off in the far, far distance, stab through your eyes like porcupine quills. Collapse to the ground in pain.

2: A looming planet hangs over you, casting a terrible shadow as you fall to your knees in awe and majesty.

3: You feel your skin begin to burn to a crisp. It's only a sensation, not the real thing, but the pain is debilitating until something snaps you out of it.

4: You don't see anything, but you hear the unmistakable rustling sounds of something whooshing past you, the unshakable feeling that you are being watched that won't go away until you leave the room.

5: Rhythmic beeping in your ears that keeps going even after the rogue soundwave falls away, growing louder and louder and louder until you can't function.

6: The walls fall away, revealing a faceless crowd of silhouetted figures just outside of your field of vision. The anxiety caused by this revelations prompts you to flee at high speeds, even though you can't see your surroundings; 3-in-6 chance you hit a wall.

 

hallucinatory horror from between the stars

 

Hallucinations from Beyond the Stars (Hypno-Maze) 

All hallucination rolls on the random encounter table when in the Hypno-Maze prompt a roll on the table below. 

Roll 1d6:

1: A shuddering hallucinatory horror from between the stars melts out from the wall, or suddenly appears when you turn a corner! A pile of shivering visceral tendrils and uncertain limbs, this star vampire lunges at you, you feel its teeth digging into your flesh, but the whole experience never occurred.

2: Suddenly, you collapse to the floor under the weight of gravity on a world you've never set foot on, crushing you, pushing all the air out of your lungs, pinning you down, practically breaking your bones. Once the hallucination is dispelled, it becomes apparent this never occurred.

3: The maze itself falls away, leaving you floating in a formless void. It isn't exactly pure darkness. You are floating among the cosmic background radiation signal, visual noise so dense and confusing it leaves your brain unable to process any of it.

4: You see a large-headed, wide-eyed humanoid peering at you from behind the nearest corner in the maze. A feeling of complete and terrible dread sinks into your body. You are unable to progress further until the feeling has been shaken.

5: There is no air around you. You are in a vacuum. Your body begins to burst at the seams, depressurizing, expanding, exploding, so painful, so excruciatingly painful. You cannot move until the feeling has been shaken, when it becomes apparent this never occurred.

6: An eerie floating light silently hovers at high speed through the maze, colliding with you or flying so close overhead that the sudden whoosh of air painfully explodes in your ears. The heat put off by this floating light blinds and burns you, leaving no real marks.

 

(One possible way to run some of the physically damaging hallucinations could be tracking damage on player characters but making them return to their previous HP upon leaving the maze or the hallucination being dispelled).

 

Stargazing Rat

No. Encountered: 2d6

Hit Dice: 1d6

Attacks: 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: none, but fast reflexes (AC 9 or ascending AC 11)

Morale: (6 for 2d6 morale, 4 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 2d6    IN: 1d4

DX: 2d6    CH: 1d4

CN: 3d6    PS: 1d4

Mutations: none (see below)

Stargazing rats are an isolated population of rodents that have been living isolated within the observatory of the beyond for centuries. The cosmic background radiation signal has directed their evolution. They have large, upward-facing eyes tinted pink, coarse black-haired bodies that splay flat on the ground, and long wormlike tails. They are immune to all psychic effects and mental mutations, but radio transmissions tuned to the wavelength of the cosmic background radiation signal can control their movements. They attack all at once as a swarm with 2d6x1d6 HP and 2d6 bite attacks per combat round.

(Doing a new statblock format for these GW posts that mixes the stuff in my typical D&D statblock with info from the GW 1e and 2e statblocks, to make it essentially edition neutral for Gamma World)

 

I'll always love the GW7e monster art... for comparison, the GW2e Soul Besh below (they're both good in different ways!)

Adapted from GW1e and 2e:

Soul Besh (Skeeters)

No. Appearing: 1

Hit Dice: 10(d6)

Attacks: see description

Armor: 8 (ascending AC 12)

Morale: (7 for 2d6 morale, 1d4+1 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 1d4        IN: 1d4

DX: 3d6        CH: 1d4

CN: 1d10+2  PS: 1d10+2

Mutations: Chameleon powers, intuition

From GW1e: "This is a flightless, mutated mosquito with chameleon powers. It often attains a length of over 1.3 meters and inhabits swamps, marshes, grasslands, and forests, where its powers of concealment enable it to ambush prey. It has a 2 meter long coiled proboscis, which is inserts (preferably into a sleeping victim) causing an immediate 1d6 damage and, in the same melee round, the soul besh begins sucking blood at a rate of 12 hit points per melee turn. The exoskeleton of the soul besh, when boiled down in a large cauldron, will yield 150 cc of syrupy antidote to intensity 18 poison. 10 cc is the required dose for humans."

(The two soul besh in the observatory of the beyond became trapped in the facility when Ffarad Ssef entered some time previous. They are agitated (disadvantage on reaction rolls) because they haven't been able to escape the facility. They will react positively to being ushered out through the facility's front door.)

 

Ffarad Ssef, psychic Hisser scholar

HP: 66

Attacks: 1 sword (1d8, 1d12 vs large enemies) and 1 bite (1d6)

Armor: 3 (ascending AC 17)

Morale: (8 for 2d6 morale, 7 for 1d10 morale) 

MS:  14    IN: 14

DX: 9       CH: 9

CN: 16     PS: 26

Mutations: Mass Mind, Sonic Blast, Telepathy, Repulsion Field, and Multiple Body Parts (arms)

Ffarad Ssef is a scholar from a desert colony of Hissers, a psychic race of matriarchal colonial snake people. He is in the observatory to record the original cosmic radiation signal sound directly from the radio array, in order to amplify his glorious mother's sonic blast with cosmic super-signal. He has a bulging brain tumor that is the source of his psychic abilities, which he dresses up in a miniature set of ritual robes and refers to as his little sister. Like all Hissers, Ffarad Ssef is immune to lasers and sonic blasts.

 

Jeb Gorn, mutated human copper-burglar

HP: 39

Attacks: 1 knife (1d4) and 1 quill-throw (1d12) OR 1 quill strike (1d6)

Armor: none (AC 10)

Morale: (6 for 2d6 morale, 4 for 1d10 morale) 

MS: 9    IN: 9

DX: 14  CH: 13

CN: 13  PS: 13  

Mutations: Vision defect, Quills/spines, Body structure change (one eye), Weather manipulation, Life leech

Jeb Gorn is a wandering copper-burglar who ventures into ancient structures to strip them of their copper wiring and copper plating. She uses weather manipulation to, in the leadup to her expeditions, create stormclouds that dissuade other copper-burlgars from venturing into her chosen quarry. She has set up camp somewhere in the forests around the observatory of the beyond, but has been staying in the observatory for a couple days trying to get access to the insides of the walls. She does not get on well with Ffarad Ssef.

  

Moldlings

No. Appearing: 6d6

Hit Dice: 3(d6)

Attacks: 1 bludgeon (1d4) OR 1 fungal touch (see below)

Armor: 9 (ascending AC 11)

Morale: (9 for 2d6 morale, 8 for 1d10 morale)

MS: 2d6        IN: 1d6

DX: 3d6        CH: 2d6

CN: 1d8+2    PS: 1d6

Mutations: see below

The moldlings are mildly intelligent mutated soil mold that has lived for hundreds of mold-generations in the two hydroponic garden beds of the facility. The two moldling communities in each individual garden bed absolutely despise one another. They tend to be friendly to outsiders, unless they see you collaborating with the enemy. They are limited to areas with mold growth, confining them to the two garden rooms. Their touch communicates a sickening fungus that acts as a strength 6 poison. 

 

Securitron
Power source: Broadcast Power 
Sensors: Standard, infrared, ultraviolet

Control: Vocal (admin ID), programmed

Construction: 2 meters tall, radially symmetrical cylindrical upper body with three tri-jointed arms, two ambulatory lower limbs. Its three arms can lift and move up to 150 kilograms. Two arms end with metallic tentacle-fingered hands, while the third features a metallic claw.  The metallic tentacle-fingers are tipped with paralytic nodules, while the red nodule atop the unit's head is able to emit a high-temperature laser beam that deals 3d10 damage. 12 HD (72 HP), armor 3 (ascending 17).

Mnemovore Worms and Phantasmal Plants

In the year 1837, a short paper was read by me before the Geological Society of London, “On the Formation of Mould,” in which it was shown that small fragments of burnt marl, cinders, &c., which had been thickly strewed over the surface of several meadows, were found after a few years lying at the depth of some inches beneath the turf, but still forming a layer.  This apparent sinking of superficial bodies is due, as was first suggested to me by Mr. Wedgwood of Maer Hall in Staffordshire, to the large quantity of fine earth continually brought up to the surface by worms in the form of castings.  These castings are sooner or later spread out and cover up any object left on the surface.  I was thus led to conclude that all the vegetable mould over the whole country has passed many times through, and will again pass many times through, the intestinal canals of worms.  Hence the term “animal mould” would be in some respects more appropriate than that commonly used of “vegetable mould.”

-Charles Darwin, The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms, 1881

 

The world of the jinn is like a translucent layer atop mortal reality, where those made of smokeless fire and other spirits are always unhidden. But, if one with eyes unclouded were to peer into this layer, in addition to the monstrous forms of shimmering spirits, they would see something else: a thin and somewhat mushy layer of what looks like softly glowing dirt. A field of this substance, spirit dirt or memory mold, blankets the world of the jinn, a thin layer even abounding on human architecture and statuary, and on the shoulders of those who bathe (either with water or sand) very infrequently. This humus (not hummus!!) is the product of one of the perhaps most humble subjects of the realm of spirits, the mnemovore worm.

 

Mnemovore Worm

Number Encountered: 2d4 OR 1 swarm

Hit Dice: 1 hit point OR 1+1 HD for a swarm
Attacks: 1 mental bore OR 6 mental bores (when in a swarm) (see below)

Armor: none

Morale: 4 

Mental Bore: Mnemovore worms leap up from the spirit dirt and pass straight through their victim's skull in search of their quarry: memories. The target must save vs. wands or forget something, determined at random:

Roll 1d12:

1. A memory from their youth. 
2. An event from a month previous.
3. An event from a week previous.
4. An event from the day previous.
5. An NPC the party has worked with (this can include hirelings).
6. How to exit the dungeon or how to find their way back home.
7. How to use one of their weapons (disadvantage on to-hit rolls, removed after familiarity returns 1d6 attacks with the weapon later).
8. Ability with a skill or power other than spellcasting (disadvantage on rolls with said skill, removed after familiarity returns 1d10 attempts later).
9. 1 prepared spell (they don't forget the spell completely, they just no longer have it prepared that day; if a non-spellcaster, re-roll).
10. Knowledge of 1 spell entirely (would have to seek out a teacher to re-learn the spell; if a non-spellcaster, re-roll).
11. Ability with a language (bumped down from fluency (if they could write the language, they lose that completely); if rolled a second time (3rd if they could read and write), they no longer speak that language).
12. An aspect of their personality (re-roll INT, WIS, or CHA, determined at random). 

Psychic Attraction: Mnemovore worms are attracted to magic-users, especially higher-level magic-users, as well as charismatic leaders. If a character has 15+ CHA or 3+ spells memorized, roll 1 die size higher on the wandering monster table (so d8 instead of d6, etc.); any results above 6 will be encounters with mnemovore worms. If a character has 6+ spells memorized, roll 2 die sizes higher (so d10 instead of d6, etc.).

Spirit: As spirits, mnemovore worms are immune to damage from mundane weapons. They take damage from magic, heated up silver weapons, intelligent swords, and the attacks of jinn. They can pass through clothing, armor, and flesh as if it wasn't even there, but cannot pass through walls. They can only be seen by jinn or by those with eyes unclouded.

 

Mnemovore worms are a crucial part of the spiritual-magical-mental ecosystem. They are the primary cause for forgetfulness, saving human brains from being overloaded with too much information. And, though humble and small, these little worms are one of the things keeping wizards in check. There are more than a few stories of sorcerer-tyrants from ages past steaming themselves to death in specially constructed silver contraptions heated with boiling water in order to keep the mnemovores out.

 

Memories enter a mnemovore worm through the mouth, and exit as spirit dirt. This memory-based mass serves as the fertile ground for all sorts of phantasmal plants which populate the realm of the jinn. While jinn generally (hehe, jinnerally) eat the same grains and meats that humans do (albeit generally restricted only to what is left over uneaten by humankind), they supplement their diets with such spectral produce. Phantasmal plants are also used by the jinn as medicine, and a gift of ghost-root or invisible leaf (or even the intel to know where a copse of such plants grows) is a reward a jinn may give to an ally, friend, or master.

 

A selection of phantasmal plants from below: a fishroot, a crawling scaletree, some grasping fragrances, some thief's eyes, and a wilting faint

 

1d12 Phantasmal Plants

1. Crawling Scaletree: A race of ancient antediluvian tree with bark like reptile's scales and thin needles on its branches. Ever since going extinct their ghostly forms crawl across the spirit-dirt aimlessly. 
2. Fishroot: From the surface of the memory mold, appears as a mass of long pale fronds, but when uprooted, its wriggling eyeless fish form is revealed. The fronds can be eaten to cure stomach ailments, despite its astringent bitter taste. The fish-like root has a fatty liver that can be rubbed on weapons to make them temporarily phase between worlds. 
3. Ghost Ginkgo: Strangely enough, ginkgo trees span the divide between worlds. Their foul-smelling fruits have no uses, but their seeds and leaves can cure lung and kidney illness. These eastern trees are only known over here in the menageries of sorcerers and nobles. 
4. Ghostgrass: Tall stretches of softly glowing pale green grass, gently swaying in the nonexistent breeze. Causes mysterious feelings of cold when passed through, whether one can see the grass or not. 
5. Grasping Fragrance: Sprouting directly out of the spirit dirt, grasping fragrances reach for those who pass, hoping to attach onto them and spread their fragrance (the means by which they reproduce) far and wide. Smelling the wrist of a grasping fragrance cures paralysis. 
6. Hedgehog Herb: Only visible in the realm of men and beasts during the full moon, and very few even know what it looks like then. When its leaves are rubbed on metal locks, it corrodes them.
7. Pillarwife: About five-foot tall pale trunks that ooze a salty sap when cut. Very confused deer and goats gather around the sites of phantasmal pillarwives without being able to find where the salt lick actually is. 
8. Prickly Marid: A rebellious plant that does anything it can to not be cut, squirming out of the way of blades. Its stalks can be brewed into a tea: drinking it causes blindness, while pouring it on petrified flesh un-petrifies it (and the reverse for un-petrified flesh). 
9. Sprouting Id: A thorny bush with a single bright red flower at its apex. When picked and made into a tea, it brings out the worst, most base aspect in the drinker. 
10. Thief's Eyes: A plant that spans the jinn's world and the world of men and beasts, with eyes clouded it appears as thin stalks tipped by eye-shaped berries, while in the spirit world these eyes are surrounded by ghostly ghoulish faces. When eaten causes hidden gold to glow in one's vision for 1 hour. 
11. Vengeful Father: A sprouting bush that superficially looks like a laid-out dead body. It produces juicy brightly-colored fruit, sweet-smelling and sweet-tasting, that (when the skin is broken) painfully lash out with knife-sharp edges of its inside flesh. 
12. Wilting Faint: Its petals form a vaguely humanoid outline, one arm held across the "forehead" as if fainting. If eaten, induces fainting, but its scent breaks fevers.

-------------

It took everything in my power to not call them ectoplasmic worms a la Noroi or Senritsu Kaiki File Kowasugi (check those out if you're at all interested in Japanese horror films, Koji Shiraishi is the GOAT). While the above is written with King of Kings in mind, I intend on incorporating the mnemovore worms into other game settings, namely Gamma Ohio or modern horror like the short mini-campaign using Underneath that I made one post about a couple years back. I really gotta get around to cleaning up my notes from that campaign and putting them up here, modern horror TTRPGs is something I'd like to do more with! Anywho, keep your heated silver ready if you've got a lot of thoughts bangin' around up there, and see you next time!

The Taste Testers (A Monster for Gamma World)

Oozing along the crumbled alleyways of Gamma Ohio are the pitiful taste testers, half mobile and half intelligent, vaguely humanoid forms made from spewing vomit. They grasp at the air with the silhouettes of hands, dripping with sick, bubbling coughs that occasionally reach their permeable surfaces. They tend to congregate in small pitiful packs, huddling together in sewers and ruins, scraping every surface for food to sate their search for deliciousness that they can rarely find. They reach for interlopers' faces with their stinking puke paws, both to get an idea of what they look like since the taste testers lack eyes and to slurp up any dead skin cells or oils accumulated on a traveller's face. Unfortunately for the taste testers, however, most don't take kindly to having their faces fondled by living vomit.

Taste testers are unfortunately maligned and disgusting creatures born into the worst of circumstances. At their core they are ambulatory living entrails, a simple mouth, esophagus, stomach, and set of intestines to be exact, all perfectly human in genetics. Lacking a brain, the taste tester is instead animated by a neural net that it is able to extrude through its mouth in order to puppet objects, most often its own vomit. These accursed things were made this way by a long forgotten candy and chicken byproduct meal company, in house, in an effort to replace human taste testers for their product. Originally centered on the first production center in what was once Cincinnati, they later expanded in their use, including to companies bought up by the taste testers' parent firm. Thus, they were made as a genetically modified human clone, a hominid worm made up of the human digestive system and with the bare minimum of the rest of human anatomy, with the express intention of mass testing product for human consumption with simple binary outputs of acceptable or unacceptable, communicated through the only method left available: vomiting.

That was all before armageddon, of course. With the supply chains drying up and the factories collapsing in on themselves, the vermiform taste testers found themselves surprisingly resilient, fleeing into the sewers to proliferate. The unfortunate thing is, however, that what might be available to eat in sewers or post apocalyptic ruins is nothing compared to the mind numbingly delicious treats they were genetically engineered to taste test, leaving them constantly vomiting up whatever filth they ate. In time, however, the smarter of the taste testers figured out how to extrude their neural net to puppet around their puke, allowing them to venture further afield and be more discerning with what they put in their mouths. They do still have to eat awful things in order to produce the vomit that makes up their very own bodies, however; it is an awful cycle indeed.

Thus the taste tester of today is born: a squirming worm of guts controlling a puppet of puke vaguely shaped into a humanoid form by faint recollections of what their ancestors were and who they were around in the ancient factories. The product of the profit hungry hubris of ancient humanity clinging to existence as a blind pitiful gourmand of discerning taste and hazy memories.

Sometimes, taste testers are kept as an unusual pet by certain distasteful types, or they are taken in by the more well meaning cults and secret societies. They are unlikely to seriously hurt anyone individually, but some warlords and crime lords keep taste testers as torture devices, putting people in a room with an especially stinky vomitoid or keeping a well fed one as a mockery to prisoners they keep starving.

Taste Tester

Number Encountered: 2d6

Hit Dice: 1

Attacks: 1 vomit swipe (1d6)

Armor: none

Morale: 4

Reticent: Taste testers will never initiate combat, although they may approach the players and even touch them without realizing any problems with that.

Stench: Taste testers smell so bad. Those with sensitive senses of smell must save or puke themselves when close to them.

Oozing Body: Attacks to the main body of a taste tester deal no damage; all you're attacking is congealed vomit! To damage it, the worm like digestive system "true body" must be targeted, giving disadvantage to most attacks. When submerged in water or blasted with water, the vomit body dissipates.

Vomit Swipe: Taste testers can attack with a swipe of a pukey tentacle dripping with stomach acid. This weakens armor; for every 2 hits, -1 AC.

Taste Tester for GW 1e

No. Appearing: 2d6

Armor Class: 10

Movement: 5

Hit Dice: 2

These slimy humanoids are the half sapient pitiful result of corporate genetic engineering, now abandoned. They have worm like "true" body made of a stomach and intestines, and a false body made of vomit. They are constantly in search of good tasting food, and rarely find it. They are timid creatures and will never initiate combat. Their vomit bodies take no damage, but dissipate in water; their "true" body is hard to hit due to its relatively smaller size, giving you disadvantage on attempts to hit it. Their acidic swipe gives -1 to AC for every 2 hits.

Taste Tester for GW 2e

Number: 2d6

Morale: 3

Hit Dice: 2d6

Armor: 10

Speed: 5/300/2

MS: 1d6            IN: 1d4

DX: 1d6            CH: 1d4

CN: 1d10+8      PS: 1d6

Attacks: Vomit swipe

Mutations: N/A

Description: see description above

I also do realize that the above drawing takes a lot of cues from Sickly Stomach from Awful Hospital but I'm pretty sure I drew my original doodle of these guys before AH even started, I've had Gamma World vomit oozes kicking around in my head for a while

Elden Ring's Land Squirts for Old School Roleplaying Games

(I actually started writing this post like a month ago but then I got busy n distracted, so I'm finishing it now and posting it!!! Oh, and I have a personal website now, so check that out!) 

So everyone has been talking about that Elden Ring game huh? It looks fantastic, amazing vibes, great open world, lots of opportunities for adventure, the whole nine yards, but uh, I actually can't play it. Woops! My computer wouldn't be able to run the dang thing, so I've been watching playthroughs of it to get a peek into that lovely little lands between that From Software gave to us. And while most people are talking about the bosses, how there's like a hundred of them, and I will admit Elden Ring's bosses do look fantastic, there is something else that has caught my attention...

THE LAND SQUIRT!!!!!!!

Yeah, maybe they're not the most important enemy encounter in the game, but I really love them. The land squirts are found along the shores of the starting area of the game, Limgrave, as well as in a few other watery areas. They gather in clusters and are basically immobile, their only real defense mechanism being releasing a cloud of poisonous liquid from ports on one side of their body. If they are themselves poisoned then they explode into a cloud of poisonous liquid that can poison the other squirts near them, triggering a chain reaction that can kill them all. And that's basically it; these aren't a very story important enemy, they aren't very active, they're basically just a hazard to deal with when traveling through swamps and coastal regions.

But what is so special about the land squirts is that this is the first time I have ever seen anything in any form of media that referenced the sea squirt, one of the most fascinatingly weird animals, and a group of animals that I love. 

Sea squirts, or more accurately ascidians, are a type of tunicate that live in relatively shallow seawater. Tunicates are super fascinating animals, both for their sessile, filter feeding lifestyle, and because they are actually chordates! Yeah, the lumpy, eyeless, boneless, multicolored creatures you see before you are closer relatives to you and me than an octopus or a beetle, despite the latter two sharing more superficially similar structures with us! Tunicates are the only invertebrate chordates, meaning that despite the presence of a notochord (the structure that forms the spine in vertebrates), they lack a bony spine or any bony skeleton at all. In fact, when they are adults, sea squirts and other tunicates even lack the very notochord that defines the phylum Chordata! They have a distinct nervous notochord in their larval form (seen below), but when they metamorphose into the adult stage of their lives they digest the notochord, leaving them without a central nervous system. Isn't that just so cool?? The closest boneless relatives of humans, frogs, lizards, birds, sharks, and fish DIGESTS its own nervous system to transition to adulthood. I just think that is sick as hell.

A larval sea squirt in all its flagellate glory!

Tunicates do this because they actually don't need a central nervous system as an adult. That's because sea squirts and other tunicates live lives where an energy-hungry brain would actually be somewhere between worthless and an actual detriment. To be precise, there are three types of life patterns that different species of sea squirts employ. On the one hand are the completely sessile solitary sea squirts that take root on the seafloor and filter out nutrients from the water; there is also a more socially organized form of sea squirt, where they are still sessile but form larger sea floor conglomerations, several squirts all rooting in more or less the same spot. And then, going in a completely different direction, are the much more mobile colonial sea squirts, considerably smaller than their sessile cousins, who form larger organism-esque colonies that can float and swim around the ocean, each individual squirt contributing to the whole. They're still filter feeders though, just ones that can move around. While I find colonial tunicates super cool and fascinating, the land squirts in Elden Ring are very obviously from the second type of sessile squirt, forming small communities rooted in close proximity to one another. Maybe a colonial tunicate monster would be a good opportunity for a post in the future?

A super cool free floating colonial tunicate... not relevant to today's post, but very cool nonetheless!

Additionally, sea squirts in real life are actually not uncommonly used as food! And I don't just mean by animals, though of course the sessile sea squirt is a perfect prey item for many predators who don't really want to bother chasing something around the ocean (and, as an aside, the presence of tunicates on land has fascinating implications for what eats them). But it is also human food in many parts of the world! In Korea and Japan, for instance, a species of sea squirt known as sea pineapple (Halocynthia roretzi) is actually cultivated in captivity and served raw, sashimi-style, or as part of bibimbap! Sea figs or grooved sea squirts (Microcosmus sabatieri) are eaten in France, Italy, and Greece, served raw with lemon or as part of salads! In Chile, the piure (Pyura chilensis) is served as an ingredient in seafood soups! There's more examples of sea squirt based cuisine around the world, but I just wanted to share these as inspiration for potentially more creative applications of squirt based creatures in your elf games!

A bunch of wild sea pineapples all rooted in place!

Before I get into the actual game stats, there is one question that has to be asked regarding the very existence of the land squirt. In real life, sea squirts are filter feeders, they subsist on the floating particulates of the ocean, with orifices open for water currents to just flow through, almost like a sponge. Elden Ring's land squirts are, rather obviously, on land, where last I checked there weren't any ocean currents carrying nutrient particles (maybe small grains of dust or floating seeds caught on the wind?), but they still have the distinctive openings characteristic of real sea squirts. I don't really know how they eat! They still live in wet environments, swamps and on shallow coastlines, so perhaps they have openings that are lower to the ground to pick up food from the water? The openings on the top are where they release poison in-game, so maybe those are waste openings? The poison is also a bit out of nowhere since, rather obviously, real life sea squirts don't spit poison out of their orifices, but I don't care!!! I like the weird lumpy poison shooting swamp dwelling giant invertebrate chordates!!!

The "land squirt ashes" that let you summon spectral squirts in Elden Ring

Land Squirt

Number Encountered: 2d6+1

Hit Dice: 3

Attacks: poisonous liquid (see below)

Armor: as leather

Morale: N/A (they can't flee!)

Cluster: Land squirts gather together in closely packed clusters.

Poisonous Liquid: Land squirts can spew a toxic liquid from their anterior openings. Those in the spray's range and on the front of the land squirt must save or take 1d8 damage.

Sessile: Land squirts are completely immobile, rooted in place by a fleshy stalk. They are reliant on water to survive.

Toxic Overload: Despite being poisonous themselves, if they are poisoned they explode and release all of their toxins in a wide radius. Those within the radius take 2d6 damage. If there are any other land squirts within range, they are also poisoned and thus also explode.

I thought about trying to model their poison ability off of the Dark Souls/Elden Ring poison mechanic, but I think that may have to wait for another day. Also, because I think larval sea squirts are so cool and weird, here's a stat block for a larval land squirt despite those not appearing in game.

Larval Land Squirt

Number Encountered: 3d6+1

Hit Dice: 1-1

Attacks: bite (1d4)

Armor: none

Morale: 6

Self Digest: Larval land squirts can begin to digest their stiff notochord and other inner organs, typically three days after they hatch. Touching a larval land squirt while it is self digesting deals 1d6 damage due to the creature's acid.

Slippery: Larval land squirts are incredibly difficult to grab, and they will always slip out of attempts to grapple them.

Perhaps I exaggerated the metamorphosis process... well it's whatever, hyperbolic monstrous presentations of real life animals is what fantasy games are all about!

Also, since I think land squirts would fit super well in a Gamma World or GW esque game, here are stats for them for use with 1e and 2e Gamma World. I can very easily see myself putting them in the Great Black Swamp of my Gamma Ohio or on the shores of Lake Erie!

Land Squirt for GW 1e

No. Appearing: 2d6+1

Armor Class: 8

Movement: N/A

Hit Dice: 6

These swamp and coastal creatures are the gargantuan mutated descendants of sea squirts, filter feeding sessile invertebrates. They are reliant on water to survive, but the openings once used for filtering water now spew noxious poison. The poisonous liquid of a land squirt is a contact poison with a poison strength of 9. If a land squirt is poisoned, they will explode and release a large cloud of poison, and they can be poisoned by the poison of another land squirt. Land squirts cluster together in large sessile groups.

Land Squirt for GW 2e

Number: 2d6+1

Morale: N/A

Hit Dice: 6d6

Armor: 8

Speed: Does not move

MS: 1d4          IN: 1d4

DX: 1d4          CH: 1d4

CN: 1d12+9    PS: 1d12+6

Attacks: Poison spray

Mutations: Poison Susceptibility, Water Dependency

Description: See GW 1e description above.

The Janissary Deserter (A Class for the Gamma GLOG)

 I actually first wrote this class roughly two months ago, but I have since revised it somewhat and have been meaning to post it for a while. It was the first class I wrote up in my haphazard messy GLOGhack based on Gamma World and similar post-apocalyptic science fantasy games (or other forms of media). Colloquially I'm calling it the Gamma GLOG, but its full name is building on a game I made many years ago: Mutants and Machines of the Baffling Badlands. Technically, this makes this abortive attempting at a rules hack a second edition to that game, even though the rules are essentially nothing alike. Oh also, you should check out my previous posts about Gamma Ohio, since this class (and Gamma GLOG more generally) are set within that world.

CLASS: JANISSARY DESERTER

You are a stranger in a strange land, brought here to fight enemies you've never seen before on the orders of a king you've never seen the face of. You have no lot in this futile battle, so you left. The generals of the Amish King do not take kindly to deserters.

Each template of Janissary Deserter you have gives you +1 to hit +1 to rolls for stealth.

Skills: Animal Husbandry, Lying, and Foreign Customs

Starting Equipment: A polearm of some sort (1d8), a submachine gun (no bullets), a tall silken hat emblazoned with pheasant feathers, an ill-fitting ostentatious uniform, a slip of paper guaranteeing pay (now null and void) (all of the above are stolen). A small thing to remind you of home, fear (the only things that are truly yours).

A Piercing Pressure, Anxious Aura, Hunted

B Run for your Lives

C Faceless Enemy

D Auspicious Incident

Piercing Pressure

All ranged and reach attacks that you make pierce through armor, even if the weapon is not listed as armor-piercing.

Anxious Aura

You are never surprised. The rest of your group may be unable to act due to a surprise round, but you will be able to act. However, because of your intense anxiety, you are always able to be detected by psychics or creatures that can smell fear. You lose anxious aura when you are no longer being hunted.

Hunted

You are being hunted. You know that you are being hunted, but by what you don't yet know. The general you deserted, a bounty hunter he hired, an executioner-droid, just the feeling of guilt weighing down on you?

Run for your Lives

You have advantage on rolls when fleeing during a chase. You are also able to give advantage on rolls when fleeing to a number of other people equal to your number of Janissary templates minus 1.

Faceless Enemy

If you do not know the name of the enemy you are fighting, then any damage you deal in excess of how much it takes to kill them goes to the nearest creature. This continues until you hit an enemy you know the name of.

Auspicious Incident

If you would be killed by a physical attack (this does not apply to psychic attacks or nuclear radiation), you can declare that you slipped out of the way in the nick of time. This is only possible once. The fear from that near-death experience allows you to have a new start. Once the auspicious incident occurs, you may take the A template of another class as if you never had Janissary Deserter's D template.

I have no clue what this is from (if anything), and the fungus stuff has basically nothing to do with this post but I found it when looking for janissary art and thought it was cool

Also here are some SUPER SIMPLE CHASE RULES so that Run for your Lives makes more sense:

When a chase begins (I believe it would be rather obvious when a chase has begun), each individual person/creature involved in the chase (not counting hirelings/pets) roll 1d20+DEX modifier. If the chasers roll higher than the flee-ers (not exactly certain what the term for the would be), then the flee-ers are caught, and may be forced to fight, or be captured or eaten, depending on what sort of creature was doing the chasing. If the flee-ers roll higher, then they get away with little to no complications.

However, if some of the flee-ers fail the roll (roll lower than their pursuers) while some succeed (roll higher), then the ones who succeed can simply choose to abandon the ones who failed, allowing them to get away just fine, or they can try to help them up and get back to running away. This prompts another roll, with no modifier; at that point, whether you're able to get away is up to chance. Also, players who fail a roll can choose to sacrifice a hireling in order to succeed the roll; this lets them escape, but will invariably cause strife with whatever other hirelings the group has. This system assumes creatures that are roughly of normal human speed; creatures that are considerably faster than a person will always win out in a chase with a person on foot, and players who are so overburdened that they cannot run with agility will always be caught.

Summary:

Chase begins

All pursuers and all flee-ers roll 1d20+DEX modifier
Pursuers and flee-ers compare the results of that roll

If pursuers roll higher, they catch the flee-ers; if flee-ers roll higher, they get away

If some flee-ers fail while others succeed, the flee-ers who succeeded the roll choose whether to just keep running away or turn back to try and save their friend(s)

If they choose to turn back and help their friend(s) back up, they roll 1d20 with no modifier

If a player fails a chase roll, they can sacrifice a hireling to succeed it

Amish Characters for Gamma World

This is mostly just a post for my sake and to share a small aspect of the Gamma World game I previously posted about here. 

So traditionally in Gamma World, there are only three options for characters: Pure Strain Humans, Humanoids (sometimes rendered as Mutated/Mutant Humans), and Mutated/Mutant Animals. There have always been options for making plant-based characters since the first edition but there were also always strict "no players can be plants" stuff which honestly is kinda cringe; basically the mutant plant rules were there to make mutant plant NPCs. Not like the "players can't be plants" rule would really stop you, since NPCs/monsters basically function the same as player characters. Some later games inspired by Gamma World have expanded that to definitively include mutant plants and/or robotic beings (both of which are included in Mutant Future, the Gamma World-based ruleset put out by the folks over at Goblinoid Games).

 

The classic "Hopeless Character" from GW1e... sadly not very represented here in this mutationless post

I've always found it kinda interesting how Gamma World and other similar post-apocalyptic science fantasy rulesets rarely go beyond that. The biggest example I can think of is Gamma World 7e (the one that used D&D 4th edition rules), which completely did away with the character types from the older editions in favor of random combinations of "origins" that represented different kinds of mutants or groups in the game world. That mode of character creation is definitely cool, but its kind of incompatible with the way old school Gamma World works. I've been interested in potentially taking a Gamma World esque game in the opposite direction: instead of generalizing things into broad categories like GW7e's origins or even classic GW's character types, having something like D&D "races", more or less genetically stable populations of mutants that have a kind of community identity. Obviously I still love the weirdos too, but I think tying character options more directly into the world would be a really cool change.

This is kinda like that but not really, because this post isn't about mutants per se. The Amish are the unmutated overlords of an expansive empire stretching from just south of Gary, Indiana to the Hudson river valley in the world of my (hopeful) Gamma Ohio game, and thus I felt I wanted to make a distinction between Amish unmutated humans and other unmutated humans. With the character type described below, there would be four available: Amish, Pure Amerikan, Humanoid, Mutant Animal. Since I'm splitting PSH into two, I'll also include the modified form of that too below.

Hooligans of some lesser noble line, of course

AMISH CHARACTERS

• They can defend, but not attack in Mental Combat.
• They roll 4d6 for Intelligence and Constitution rather than 4d6 drop the lowest.
• They will be recognized (sometimes obeyed) by certain normally troublesome robots or security systems.
• They won't normally be attacked by robots except for those programmed to kill (such as military machines, securidroids, or crazed robots).
• They exert a level of social influence over all characters or intelligent creatures that rank below them. Mutant animals and humans give way when they approach, and a +3 is added to any reaction rolls with creatures that recognize the authority of the Amish.
• They can send for assistance from their family back in Amish Country. This is only possible if they still have a family, are on good terms with their family, and have access to a messenger/courier. The Amish character can request a specific need or type of assistance, and there is a base 2-in-6 chance that their request is granted. This roll is modified by the manner of the request and the relationship that the character has with their family. It will take a number of days for the request to be granted or for the character to be informed that they have been denied based upon where in Amish Country their family lives.
• They have good knowledge of architecture, ancient Merigan history, and agriculture. They speak the Deutsch language.
• When fighting unarmed, the fight as a character of half as many hit dice.
• They roll 1d8 for the figuring out of artifacts (same as Mutated Animals).
• They will receive a negative reaction if other Amish characters see them using ancient technology, with repeated instances of prominent technology usage resulting in them being anathemized. Other Amish characters in the party don't count for this (unless said Amish character's player wants to be mean).
• They do not mutate during play.

The archetypal Amish character is a young man or woman, an offshoot of some lesser noble line, out on Rumspringa in the wasteland. They're not completely cut off, able to send messages back home for help from Mama und Papa, and they have been prepared for adventure with their... rather academic knowledge base and almost ritualized refusal to use ancient technology.

GW7e's unmutated human illustration... pretty alright if I do say so myself, if not really the most inspiring or interesting.

Pure Amerikan Characters

• They can defend, but not attack in Mental Combat.
• They roll 4d6 for Dexterity, Constitution, and Charisma rather than 4d6 drop the lowest.
• They will be recognized (sometimes obeyed) by certain normally troublesome robots or security systems.
• They won't normally be attacked by robots except for those programmed to kill (such as military machines, securidroids, or crazed robots).
• They roll 1d12 for the figuring out of artifacts.
• They receive +1 when fighting with a weapon type of their choosing (must be mundane weapons, not ancient technology).
• They are compatible with all medical equipment and do not suffer social consequences for using advanced medical tech (or any other ancient tech for that matter).
• They fight unarmed as normal (unlike Amish characters).
• They do not mutate during play.
• They speak the Amerikan language.

Making these exposed me more to some of the rather obtuse and not so good rules of Gamma World 2e, which I think has spurred on thoughts of house rules and such in future... but for now I'm mostly happy with it! I hope these character options are interesting enough, even if you're not intending on playing with GW2e... Personally, I already see places where I want to change things (starting with that ability score generation system, I already wasn't the biggest fan of 4d6 drop the lowest and then GW2e throws in 4d6 just keeping it even if its over 18 when the game is just designed for stuff up to 18?? I kept some of that in here just to not muck with the number balance of the game but in making my own post apocalyptic game I would uhm... want to change that.) I've honestly always had a weird feeling about the "Pure Strain Human" character type in these post apocalyptic games... on the one hand yeah not everybody should be a mutant so the mutants stand out and it wouldn't make sense for Everyone to become so weird and monstrous, but on the other hand the unmutated human archetype I like the most is by far the isolated weak but intelligent Vault Dweller type, yknow what I'm talking about, and the Gamma World PSH just... isn't that. I've tried to keep closer to the Gamma World PSH but in future I might mix things around, who knows.

Have a lovely day!

Gamma Ohio: Preliminary Notes on a Gamma World Game

So y'all might not know this since I haven't made any posts about it thus far, but I actually love post apocalyptic science fantasy roleplaying almost as much as or just about as much as I do the kind of weird fantasy OSR play that most of my posts have been all about. Gamma World was actually the first RPG I was exposed to that I really understood as an RPG (I had read the 4e Monster Manual 2 beforehand but I just thought it was a cool monster book, not something for a game), and Gamma World was the first roleplaying game I ever ran! I've made myriad attempts at making my own post apocalyptic roleplaying game or setting throughout the years, but pretty much none of them ever saw the light of day, and barely any made contact with play. So I'm gonna try and fix that! I'm going to run some games using classic Gamma World (probably the second edition), in an original setting centered on my homeland: the great state of Ohio. To get started on this, below are some setting notes derived from a conversation I had about this idea.

It is the 32nd year of the reign of Balthazar the Young (not so young these days), scion of the line of Methuselah the Great, ancestral King of the Amish.

Northeast Meriga 500 Years Since Apocalypse

The Empire of the Amish is a looming hegemon over what remains of Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York state. Ruled by a long line of anabaptist kings, it is an edifice of military power built on a foundation of pacifism, a land of contradictions. The Amish form a ruling minority, separated by language (they speak a future descendant of Pennsylvania Dutch, the rest of the population speak a future descendant of English), religion (the Amish have de facto asserted themselves as a select group within a kind of American politics-Christianity fusion), and mutation (genetic mutations, even slight ones, are not uncommon, but the Amish seem to be consistently genetically unchanged). The Amish do not fight, instead hiring beastman mercenaries from Michigan and conscripting their subjects into wars with the heretic snake-handlers of West Virginia or the pagan merchant lords of the Great Lakes.

Ohio is a bare hinterland of Amish country. While a band in the north is settled with Amish lords and ladies, the southern fringe of Balthazar's state is permeable, its largest settlement being the shantytown of Syoto in the ruins of what was once Columbus. Just beyond that border is the wide floodplain known as the Emerald Expanse, the area that was once the Miami River Valley and the city of Dayton. During the great conflagration that engulfed the world long ago, Dayton was a target of nuclear armaments for its proximity to Wright Patterson Air Force Base, destroying not only the military base but also the dam that kept the city safe from flooding. Add onto that the extreme weather from global warming and nuclear armageddon, and you get a city completely flooded, downtown Dayton turned into a swamp pockmarked with what remains of its buildings. Surrounding the great marsh that forms the center of the Emerald Expanse are dozens of petty tyrannies, little fiefdoms ruled by monstrous mutant dictators, prophets, warlords, and sorcerers in what remains of the suburbs that surrounded Dayton.

Dayton has a lot of really cool art deco style buildings, sure the apocalypse happened in the future but I would want to maintain that unique aesthetic.

In the minds of just about everyone, whether mutant from Injunboli, Amish prince-scholar, or conspiracy theorist mud-scavenger, the greatest mystery is what is hiding beneath the terrible sky-base that seems to have been the reason the Emerald Expanse was targeted. Most people believe the collapse to have been the Ancients committing nuclear suicide, and many wonder at what might have been at the sky-base that the Ancients wanted to keep hidden. Delving into its depths is the dream of every mud-scavenger and steel cultist.

The steel cult is a political-religious movement that has emerged in what was once the steel/rust belt, a cult born out of labor unions, Larouchites, the remnants of the American socialist movement, and post-apocalyptic cargo cults that emerged at the edges of robo-factories that use automation to incessantly churn out resources. While its true heartland is in the holy city of Great Chikago, Birthplace of Steel, the two most significant representatives of this cult near Ohio are the High Bazaari of the Union State of Klevan and the Grand Fordist of the People's Republic of Motown. These two, and the followers of the steel cult more generally, have a fascination with the Emerald Expanse, and always have coin for any who can bring forth glorious Machine, the blessed product of Labor. Of course, Amish and Amerikan bishops will remind you that the steel cult is the worst sin, just the latest way that Jay-Eff-Kay and his foul masters Papa and Castro have their claws dug into the world. Even still, Amish kings make pilgrimage to holy Chikago even as it is ruled by heretics.

I honestly really do love the monster art from the WotC Gamma World 7e

Another reason to pass through the Emerald Expanse is to make your way to Gateway, a merchant republic on the Ohio river and the first stop on the way to the Mississipi Kingdoms of the south, the true heartland of east Meriga. Amish country is a backwater compared to the elegance and decadence of Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Though, even those places have their wastelands, beyond the shoreline.

So there we have three reasons to go to the Emerald Expanse: travel to Gateway for trade, scavenge for glorious Machines for the steel cult, or investigate the esoteric mysteries beneath the long-destroyed sky-base. Well, you could easily have lots of other reasons to explore and adventure, I just like having built in common motivations for settings. Also uh the Emerald Expanse is probably bigger than on the map, I just cobbled that together for a visualization.

Uhhhh other ideas for this:

In the conversation I had there was a parallel campaign idea where you would play as beastmen (mutant animal) mercenaries traveling from Michigan, buying up guns in Motown, crossing the Great Black Swamp (and contending with mutants from Toledo to Lima), getting in Amish country, and being carted on down to West Virginia to fight against the heretic snake-handler kings and whatever other petty tyrants hold sway over the valleys of Appalachia.

Extensive exaggerated Amazon fulfillment center inhabited by cannibalistic morlocks cowed by robotic task masters.

Peasant commune shining city on a hill style, inhabited by exile mutants building a better life for themselves, on top of the hill that was once Oakwood, while beneath the city-commune there is a vault of cryogenically frozen Ancient elites.

Opossum people curled up on trees, keeping watch with one eye open.

A mad sorcerer-queen of the fetid floodplain holding sway over fearful beaver-man serfs with reprogrammed gardening robots.

A free-for-all fight over the title of Mayor of Day Town when an Ancient polling location (a sacred temple to their glorious rulers) is uncovered.

Pale white squirrels swarming on vine-choked trees, acting as if by one mind. Albino rodents with thief-like cunning.