Session 1 (Broken Lands)

WlfSamurai

WlfSamurai

Maelstrom Engineer
Welcome to Apocalypse World: Broken Lands


First, a little foundation:
 
Your job is to play your characters as though they were real people, in whatever circumstances they find themselves—cool, competent, dangerous people, but real.


My job as MC is to treat your characters as though they were real too, and act as though Apocalypse World were real.


Some things to remind you of:
    1. Your characters don’t have to be friends, but they do have to know each other and see each other all the time. They should be allies. They might become enemies in play, but they shouldn’t start out enemies.
    2. Your characters are unique in Apocalypse World. There are other medics, and they might even be called “angel” by their friends, but you’re the only angel. There are other compound bosses and warlords who might be called “hardholders,” but you’re the only hardholder.
    3. Some of you get to choose armor. 1-armor can be whatever, it can be bulletproof vests, bike leathers, armored corsets, whatever. 2-armor, though, is serious body armor. Riot gear. I mean, it might be low-tech, it might be made out of a car or something, but the point is that you’re walking around in armor.
    4. I’m not out to get you. If I were, you could just pack it in right now, right? I’d just be like “there’s an earthquake. You all take 10-harm and die. The end.” No, I’m here to find out what’s going to happen with all your cool, hot, fucking kick-ass characters. Same as you!
 
Now, let's highlight stats. You know the drill. Find the character with the highest Hx on your sheet and ask them to highlight a stat for you. I'll pick mine when you're all finished.



Stat highlights:
Arsenic: weird / cool
Hound: sharp / hard
Thorn: hard / sharp
Bright: cool / weird
 
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HOUND
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The Chopper
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​




"They call me Hound. Your prize for guessin' why won't be pretty."


With weathered face and weary eyes, Hound looks like a part of the waste came to life and developed a mean streak. Stumping around on a crude prosthetic leg, dressed in armour hammered out of broken chassis, he looks more comfortable, moves more easy on his bike. Beast of a thing that it is, a sleek piece of recovered machinery from the old world that howls like a demon when you gun the engine. You can hear Hound and his followers coming.


Won't save you.


"We're all dead," he says, breathing out a plume of smoke. Pipe's bone. Contents are crushed flowers from some weeds that grow near Arsenic's place, sold by the weird little mutant who grows 'em. "We're all dead and this is... it's a trial, unnerstand?"


He gazes out at the blasted horizon. "You leave here a hero, you go to Valhalla - there's real roads, and your bike never runs outta fuel."
 
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Bright
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The Hocus
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Bright looks terribly out of place in the wasteland. Wherever he is, he'll just stand out like a sore thumb because of his appearance. In a world where everybody is a dirty shade of brown or black, he's just white. First of all, he's huge. secondly, he's got white clothes with shiny grey paint sprayed on them, long, messy, bright blonde hair that reaches his shoulders, pale skin and a pair of ice-blue eyes. You'll always see him running around, like he's got something important to do and no time to waste. He always seems to want to talk with someone, and once he starts, there's no stopping him. Weirdly, Bright hasn't got any weapons on him. He prefers when others fight his battles.


Every day, when the sun gets up in the sky, at noon, Bright will always start one of his speeches. He'll climb up somewhere high, like a pile of boxes and set up many mirrors behind him, to reflect the sunlight and create a shining beacon of brightness. Then he will start rambling, and occasionally, someone may hear him and join his crazy group of Seekers.


"Only through perseverance, you may find the truth! Only through willpower, you may find enlightenment! Only through purity, you may transcend the matter! Dedicate your existence to the Seeker's way,
​


AND THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE!"
​
 
              Arsenic 


     The Water Bearer 


 All are beholden to thirst


Some of the last garments created by the Golden Age find themselves worn by the latest in line to hold the title of a poison. The thin sweater draped over her shoulders like a poncho, neckhanging enough to leave a soft shoulder bare to the horrors of the ruined world. Her eyes calm and face youthful but with the tight jaw of someone constantly clenching.  She looks clean in the sense that bathing in bleach makes you clean, sterilized with her fingers all bandaged up. 


Like a benevolent queen, she holds the Source now, the latest in her line. A golden age pumping facility atop a hill. Built into the earth and old world defenses merged with generations worth of apocalyptic engineering, it at least provides the image of safety for the Elderly and Children inside. 


The world will survive, her family will survive, we aren't dead yet. 
 
Excellent.


Let'a highlight stats.


Just a reminder: find the character on you sheet that you know the best (have the highest Hx) and ask them to highlight a stat for you. When that's finished, I'll highlight one for you as well.
 
Yes! Goodness. Thanks for keeping me honest. Sorry, guys.


Okay! Hx!


Normally, we take turns doing Hx, but here we'll just make it a free-for-all. Go ahead and do what it says for Hx under "On You Turn". If someone gives you Hx and you want to modify it with what you have under "On Others' Turns", go ahead and do that at any time.


Make sense?
 
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Alrighty, i'll start.

  • Which of you are my followers? (I don't think i'll have any luck with this one)
  • One of you, i've seen your soul. Which one? (This should be interesting)
 
Bright has seen my soul, at least I think he has. It was the day he showed up and I came down to meet him. Now I try to stay clean, fighting to keep the wasteland outside of my small walls and away from my family but that man... It's like the dust and sweat avoid him.


I waited for him to say something when I came up but all he did was stare. I'm not one to avert or stand down but I couldn't meet that gaze long so I just stared back between his eyes. I knew he was looking though. Felt like someone went through my belongings without taking anything. Wonder what he saw. 


Now one of you lot, left me stranded out in the waste without something. Who was it? (Hx +2) 
 
I don't follow Bright, but I'm... sympathetic. He knows a path to enlightment as good as mine, and I can respect that. 


I left Arsenic stranded in the waste, long ago - without food, without transport, just some water. Protecting her and the Source is atonement for my cowardice, my failure, in that moment.


One of you stood up to me and my gang, once. Didn't come to violence - who was it?


One of you may have rode with my gang in the past. 


Which one of you thinks they can take me in a fight, if it came down to it?
 
Bright once stood up to Hound and his gang. Not for long, though. One day, soon after he had arrived near the Source, The Hocus went to them, and started rambling. The Seekers soon flocked to their leader's voice like vultures upon a fresh carcass. He yelled and yelled about how they were wretched souls, dirty beings soaked in blood and mud, never able to reach the one true light, how they were simple beasts, content with dancing around an effigy of putrid entrails, carved bones and vomit. He ranted about their lack of ambition, how they were content in having no purpose, and how their hunger of purpose would only be sated by their leader. Without him, they were no more than savages, with minds of animals and bodies of men. Once his and Hound's eyes crossed,though, Bright just stopped, and went away as quickly as he came. He never mentioned it again. When asked about it, he would mumble that ”The Dog did not deserve it. His pack is filled with scum.”


No, nobody knows where Bright came from, and nobody would even think of him riding with a gang. He does not stay in the past, where the light already passed. He looks at the future, where the light always shines.


Bright does not fight. Rage brings corruption, corruption blinds from the truth. Even if he did, he would never fight Hound. A man with a purpose is a man with a light guiding him.
 
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Okay. That does it then?


Let's highlight stats then. As above:


Just a reminder: find the character on you sheet that you know the best (have the highest Hx) and ask them to highlight a stat for you. When that's finished, I'll highlight one for you as well.
 
Thorn


The Gunlugger


Thorn's a giant, a walking mountain clad in battered, patched-up Golden Age armor. He's a mass of scar and muscle, of bone fractured and re-fractured. His stringy dark hair comes down into hard eyes; but his most distinctive quality is his hare lip, the lip pulled back from the gum in a permanent sneer. He's a vicious-looking son of a bitch.


As far as Thorn's concerned, life's just a never-ending dogfight. You struggle and bleed, you fight and you survive, and then you drink and eat and screw, because life's pushing toward pleasure and conquering pain -- none of this hocus-pocus. It's all in the moment, it's all about beating the world in its own game; screaming at a universe that doesn't care.


On my turn, I get to ask three questions of the group:


1) Which one of you sons-a-bitches left me for dead?


2) Which one of you fought by my side?


3) Which one of you is the smartest and/or prettiest?
 
Hound


I reckon Thorn & I fought side by side once. Wouldn't join the gang, though. Damn shame. 


Can Arsenic be any more Weird?
 
Thorn 


Poison and sharp things don't always mix right. I could have sent men to find you, water to keep you alive and food for comfort but I didn't. Thought you were dead and gone, didn't expect you to be so hard. 
 
Arsenic, I want to see you keep your cool.
Hound, show me how hard you can be.
Thorn, please stay sharp.
Bright, bring the weird.


(I added them to the first post and put mine in bold.)


Now, are there any beginning of session moves to be rolled?
 
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Okay. So, we have highlights and the beginning of session moves have been rolled.


So, as you know, in AW we start our first session slow. We peer into your lives. We see you in a typical day. This is the time I get to know you. See what you do and how you do it. Get a feel for what you care about. We'll also be establishing quite about the world around you the same time.


So, you're day begins.


What do you do?
 
Arsenic 


The day breaks through my window up in the tower. It must have been some old world radio room or something but it was stripped out and built into a cozy little room for the Gatekeeper. A bed, tapestries, clothes both golden age and post. It was a comfy sanctuary overlooking her little home. There were other benefits to sleeping high up, the way the Source is situated, I get hit by the light earliest. That harsh blinding sun wakes me each day and I get to go downstairs and wake up my family. The adults, the elders, the children. Even the outsiders we let in as husbands and wives learn to respect me waking them up. It's like a ritual. 


Everyone gets a move on, with me heading into the chamber to dole out water for the day. I can already feel my fingers hurting from the gate itself, some of my blood going to feed the machine. 


The gate itself is old but maintained. I know the basics but the details are passed down to the brewers who monitor the machine and keep the gate alive. If it breaks then not even the keeper gets in. Water sits and we all die. But that wouldn't happen. Not in her lifetime at least. They maintain it well and it's all hidden away, nothing exposed to the outside world. Going through the facility, I commit to the ritual, bleeding my thumb today before letting others manage the doling out.


The morning song starts, the hollow whistling of the Tankers filling up. The water was to be sent all over, the blood of the world here. I reach the inner gate, standing over my Domain and see smoke in the distance. 
 
Thorn


Thorn lies on the bar, hung over. Needs water. He has to get up; but the bar is comfy and his head aches. But water doesn't wait for men; he finally rises, the mountain moves, and he climbs to his feet. He pauses a moment to eye the ruins of last night's brawl. No table goes unbroken; no skin left unbruised. Comatose toughs litter the ground, hanging out of the windows, their blood long since dried on the ground. Thorn swipes a canteen from one. He takes the last few precious drops; then he tosses it aside and hits the streets.


Somebody always wants somebody else dead. Time to hit his contacts, find a way to earn his drink for the day. He has the tools of the trade.
 

Bright
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As the sun rised, Bright and his followers awoke from a night of sleep. They had rested outside the walls, in small tents and on bundles of blankets. Orders from Bright himself. Wasn't easy, sleeping with the fear of being eaten by the beasts that roamed the land, but some men managed to stay awake all night, to ensure that no wild animals got near their camp. All thanks to the brown powder- coffee, it was called, that they found the day before, while searching an old factory building from before the war. It helped greatly.


Because this is how Bright and The Seekers got their Barter. They were scavengers. They searched buildings, scrap piles, unoccupied camps,  cars from the Old World, or "The First World", how they called it, and took everything of value. 


And apparently these crates of coffee, when sold to the right person, were worth quite a lot. And of course, Bright got a share of the profits. Not that he specifically asked for it, but it was like an unspoken rule between The Seekers.


Soon enough, the brass pipes from the Waterbearer's facility came to life, and granted them the earth's life-blood: Water. Most of the men and women were just content with drinking, while others put the water in containers, for study. 


Then, when everyone was ready, they all started praying. Guided by Bright, they performed The Ritual of Awakening, to awake their souls from the slumber of night and see the world clearly as it is. The ritual consisted in looking straight at the light of a torch held in front of one's face, without closing the eyes.


When they are done, The Seekers start to work. A scouting party of two people was sent out, to find new locations to scavenge and make sure that the ones they had already found were safe. They returned with bad news. Smoke in the distance, and the house which they had planned to search next had red symbols painted on the walls. Raiders? Possibly. Or maybe someone occupied the house. They will have to keep a an eye on that place. Bright did not like it at all.
 
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