Nations From Ashes

[Remus117]

It is the year 2168, approximately 100 years since the cataclysm of nuclear warfare enveloped the world. Although most of the fallout has cleared, many of the natural resources were ruined, and the devestating conflicts have shattered the infrastructures of the old world, meaning rebuilding it as it was is certainly out of the picture... At the moment. Now, the basics of civilization will have to be restored, and new nations will have to be formed. Will you conquer all others, to bring the world under you despotic guidance? Will you strive for peace, and hope to build a society that will never repeat the mistakes of those who came before? Or will you finish your ancestor's work, and burn away all that remains?


What happens next, is up to you, as we emerge from the ashes.


Write here to express interest, and please choose a home city! You can change it's name to whatever you want, just say the original to let us know where your at.

 

[Axel The Englishman]

HHHHHMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM.

 

[KamiKahzy]

This sounds interesting, but I have some questions about it. (Fair warning, most of my presumptions will be following a Fallout mindset)

1. 1) What's the tech level at within the world setting? Have all electronics been burned out from radiation and latent EMP blasts from the bombs, or do computers, satellites, and even robots still function? If robots exist have they achieved sentience or are they still relatively simple things with nuanced but straightforward programming? Were traditional bullets still the best weapon for soldiers before the bombs dropped, or were laser weapons and other marvels of military engineering common enough to relegate firearms to antiquity? Did mechs (read: em-effin gundams man) exist before/during the war, and if they did would they still be viable tools given resource deficits and lack of readily available fuel sources?
    
   
2. Now that the tech level of the world has been established, what's the tech level we can expect to have access to as players?
    
   
3. What's the geographical layout of the land look like these days? Are we talking Mad Max deserts, a nuclear winter scenario, Fallout style wastelands of mummified forests and other anomalies, or is there still some legitimate green kicking around in defiance of the apocalypse? If there is widespread natural devastation was it all solely caused by the bombs or was man slowly destroying the earth even before the war got hot and the bombs just tipped things over the edge?
    
   
4. How far are we taking the 'nuclear mutation' stereotype? Are we going with the pulp-science idea that radiation gives you horrible mutations and/or super powers? Or are we working within a real-life situation where radiation is really only good for causing cancer and death? What are some of the extreme examples we might see in-game that would be caused by the fallout? Will we see zombies? Will we see mutated people, animals, or even plants?
    
   
5. Who are the major players that operate in the area? What happened to the old US government, and do they still have a local presence in whatever manifestation they've currently taken? Are there other major groups that managed to survive the fallout and have made themselves powerful due to their access to resources? Examples could include organized crime families, prolific street/biker gangs, prepper colonies, religious colonies, and localized law enforcement. Also, which major cities still live and have populations that have managed to survive throughout these end times? (My guess would be Astoria and Portland at the very least, assuming neither were directly targeted by the bombs)
    
   
6. What kind of resources can we expect to have access to as players? Will we be leading a group the size of a small town, or will it be much more intimate with only a handful of survivors? Will we have transportation or will we be on foot? Are we starting in our chosen city because we've just migrated there, or because we've been living there since the war ended and are just now trying to create a sustainable lifestyle? Will we start with minimal resources or enough of a surplus that we could survive a few months assuming there are no major incidents?
    
   
7. How will gameplay move forward? Will we submit actions for the projected week and await the results, or will we be presented with issues day-by-day that we must overcome in order to progress?
    
   
8. What kind of interface will we be working with as players? Will we have to micro-manage our resources down to individual items, or will it be done in more broad strokes? Will we know the names of all our survivors or only a select few specialists?
    
   
9. How will PVP be handled? Will we have access to other players threads and be able to metagame (but trusted not to, of course), or will we be kept in the dark about what the other players are doing?
   

 

[Remus117]

Alright, good questions! I like the cut of your jib. I'd like to borrow some direction from Fallout, but I'd prefer to keep it a bit more grounded than that. This is my first role-play to create, so I'm not certain about some aspects, and I'm completely open to suggestions that will help make a better story and help everyone enjoy.


1. For the most part, I'd like it to be relatively low tech. Most electronic devices have either broken down or were destroyed, but there should be a few extremely important and valuable exceptions, which should be fought over. Lasers would primarily be vehicle mounted, perhaps there are still functioning railguns, but once again either stationary or only on vehicles. Robots, perhaps a few jury rigged in the occasional settlement, still very simple programming. more advanced ones in the hands of certain groups... Which shall be discussed later. Mecha were incredibly rare, developmental, and now they are basically priceless, though limited by their massive resource consumption.


2. You'll have a few jury rigged generators, perhaps a robot. Don't expect functioning pre-war tech unless you want to fight for it, and expect it to be quite a bit of trouble, though surely worth it. You'll have guns, perhaps a car/truck/motorcycle/other, but no advanced tech until you've really gotten things going as settlements.


3. Fallout is a good look, heavily devastated radiating outwards from the cities, greenery starting to recover the further away you get. Pollution is always a factor, but luckily the near-complete destruction of civilization gave some respite. Unluckily, there was also nuclear winter. Resources are scarce, water is worth killing for, gasoline is also very valuable, for vehicles and your generators.


4. For the most part, radiation kills you dead. You've never seen a mutant, but drunks will have claimed to, and they're used as stories to scare children.


There may be some truth to those stories. (This is foreshadowing. It will be bad.)


5. Some remnants of various sate and national government organizations, but most people will be unaware of them. Keep in mind, imagine almost a Metro scenario, people are literally just leaving their shelter's to try and restart civilization, nothing will be set up yet. Further in, however, there will be plenty of weird cults, raiders, and whatever else your heart desires. People didn't stay in the cities, but now they are habitable, and prime real estate. Expect to fight for them, because they may have goodies.


(This is also foreshadowing.)


6. This can vary, I'd like everyone to make reasonable starts for themselves. Maybe your just one family trying to get by, maybe your a small town, maybe you start as one dude, but get creative with it! The only real limit is I ask to try to keep a sense of balance, just keep it interesting! You'll have just arrived at your location, likely from whatever hole you've been hiding in, be it a fallout shelter or whatever you can come up with, within reason. Once again, you can decide, but more resources also makes you a bigger target, which will be a problem. Give yourself some flavor!


7. I wasn't sure about this part actually, thanks fro mentioning it! I guess it can come down to what works for everyone, and what people would prefer. I'd prefer a mix, sometimes simple action plans but with the occasional crisis scenario.


8. I hadn't thought about it honestly, you'll be working with broad strokes, but what you have access to will matter. You can decide if you want to name everyone or treat them as disposable drones, that will come down to how you prefer to work.


9. I have no idea here, but I'd prefer everyone to start out completely isolated and slowly make contact, until everyone's linked up. Think of it almost like civ.

 

[KamiKahzy]

So looking at the story as you have it set now I have a question about the initial setup. So is the setting is 100 years after the bombs dropped, or 100 years after the war started? I think it's important to establish when the bombs fell and ended civilization as we knew it, that way we can predict how people survived since that turning point. More importantly, it will be useful to establish backstories for our characters. Because 100 years is a LONG time to survive, and it means that the characters we play will be at least 3-4 generations removed from that point. We'll need to establish if they were part of some underground society like the Vaults, or if they're just surface dwellers that happened to scrape by on their own initiative. If they were ground dwellers then it's likely they were tied to the government in some fashion since those kinds of large-scale bunkers can only be funded by either the government or rich private companies. Smaller personal bunkers could survive, but those would have been the brain children of preppers and other cataclysm wary individuals, and those would have met with limited success given the intelligence level and resource access of the builder. Plus, even with a fully stocked bunker, preserved foods don't last forever. On average your store-quality preserved goods will last 20 years, and the high-end goods will last about 50 (if you believe the adverts for those things). Some can last longer but, odds are, food stores will run out at some point which will require the ground dwellers to either surface for new food or provide their own means of replenishing food underground.


I think it would be best to establish when exactly the bombs were launched and which cities were targeted. That way we'll know which cities are irradiated dead-zones and which were only touched by residual radiation and nuclear fire.

 

[Pat]

I would like to claim Grants Pass, Oregon.


I think it would be a good idea for some cities to be able to write up some history, not just randomly settling a place right around when the RP starts, but obviously still not being incredibly built up or notable yet. It would be odd for everyone to underground/nomadic until now. Given this is a pretty big state and there's a lot of things that could influence whether or not people surfaced.

 

[KamiKahzy]

I think it would be a good idea for some cities to be able to write up some history, not just randomly settling a place right around when the RP starts, but obviously still not being incredibly built up or notable yet. It would be odd for everyone to underground/nomadic until now. Given this is a pretty big state and there's a lot of things that could influence whether or not people surfaced.

I agree, I think that if we're starting in an established city that the city itself should have some history. Rather than starting a brand new settlement, our characters could be taking over the already established settlement and, through new leadership and youthful vigor, are able to build that settlement up into something more than what it currently is.


Of course this would just be one avenue of thought, wandering nomads and ground dwellers emerging could also be viable introductions to this setting.

 

[Remus117]

All right, so I wanted it to be exactly 100 years after the bombs dropped, perhaps the war was going on for 10 or more years before that. I do want it to be generations after, to have people be separated from the events. I wanted an image of an era "lost" so to speak, where the stories about before the war were passed down and distorted. On the other hand, I really want everyone to come up with their own stories for their nations! If you want your people to have been frozen ala Fallout 4 or something, please feel free to do so. I don't want one backstory for every settlement, maybe yours was just some very determined preppers, maybe someone had used hydroponics to survive underground, maybe they did go out and scavenge for supplies, I really don't want to restrict the stories you make. Please feel free to make it what you want!


Various areas were bombed, conventionally and with nukes, but  although devestation is rampant, radiation has passed, there are no completely toxic areas.


@KamiKahzy

 

[Axel The Englishman]

@Pat, my one-time enemy! We meet again!

 

[Remus117]

I agree, I think that if we're starting in an established city that the city itself should have some history. Rather than starting a brand new settlement, our characters could be taking over the already established settlement and, through new leadership and youthful vigor, are able to build that settlement up into something more than what it currently is.


Of course this would just be one avenue of thought, wandering nomads and ground dwellers emerging could also be viable introductions to this setting.

Absolutely, I want you guys to include your own history if you want, seriously, don't let me limit you here, write what you want. I just want to try to set a general background, I want you guys to make your settlements, and to have as much freedom to design them as you want!

 

[Pat]

@Pat, my one-time enemy! We meet again!

 

[Shireling]

I would like to claim Chemult, Oregon. Also, I will be the obligatory band of religious crazies. 

 

[HeckingHeck]

I would like to claim Eugene and be the obligatory dicatorship or something or claim Northbend.


Whichever fits for this RP, it seems really interesting!


@Remulus117

 

[Axel The Englishman]

I shall take Lakeview Oregon as my location. 


@Pat, looks like @Shireling beat ya to the religious fanatics.

 

[Remus117]

I would like to claim Chemult, Oregon. Also, I will be the obligatory band of religious crazies. 

Confirmed!

I shall take Lakeview Oregon as my location. 


@Pat, looks like @Shireling beat ya to the religious fanatics.

Confirmed!

I would like to claim Eugene and be the obligatory dicatorship or something or claim Northbend.


Whichever fits for this RP, it seems really interesting!

Confirmed, that will fit!

 

[Remus117]

I would like to claim Grants Pass, Oregon.


I think it would be a good idea for some cities to be able to write up some history, not just randomly settling a place right around when the RP starts, but obviously still not being incredibly built up or notable yet. It would be odd for everyone to underground/nomadic until now. Given this is a pretty big state and there's a lot of things that could influence whether or not people surfaced.

Confirmed!

 

[Axel The Englishman]

Confirmed!


Confirmed!


Confirmed, that will fit!

Dont suppose the surrounding lakes will retain radiation?

 

[Remus117]

Likely they'll still have some radiation, but the level of it I would prefer to leave up to you! Just remember try not to give yourself everything. (I.E, if you have clean water, perhaps be lacking in food, ammo, & such?)

 

[Axel The Englishman]

Likely they'll still have some radiation, but the level of it I would prefer to leave up to you! Just remember try not to give yourself everything. (I.E, if you have clean water, perhaps be lacking in food, ammo, & such?)

>Starts tossing irradiated water at everyone.


Say goodbye to your electrons!

 

[Remus117]

>Starts tossing irradiated water at everyone.


Say goodbye to your electrons!

I absolutely approve of this

 

[HeckingHeck]

>Starts tossing irradiated water at everyone.


Say goodbye to your electrons!

Heh, irradiated water? Ohhh you meant hose energy drinks everyone's talking about.


Delicious water, 10/10 water, all *natural* organic grass fed water.

 

[Pat]

Likely they'll still have some radiation, but the level of it I would prefer to leave up to you! Just remember try not to give yourself everything. (I.E, if you have clean water, perhaps be lacking in food, ammo, & such?)

To be honest a measly century isn't enough to make the surface habitable. Especially if nuclear weapons get even more damaging. Like cities wouldn't be recognizable. The sea might reclaim coastal areas. 

 

[Remus117]

To be honest a measly century isn't enough to make the surface habitable. Especially if nuclear weapons get even more damaging. Like cities wouldn't be recognizable. The sea might reclaim coastal areas. 

I thought so, but I tried to look it up and the estimates were like 30 or 40 years, so I bumped up to 100 but it still sounds too low :/

 

[KamiKahzy]

I'd like to claim Oakridge, Oregon then. Right on the river, deep in the woods with mountains nearby, close to the roads, seems ideal to me!

 

[Axel The Englishman]

Depends on whether a source of radiation is still present within the vicinity.