[DnD] Gamma World: Strange, yet symbolically compelling

As always, keep rules questions, strategy planning, and other out-of-character talk to the discussion thread.

Home is just a place to hang your head.






A little future history:

On October 22, 2012 at approximately 15:25, something happened within the Large Hadron Collider beneath the France/Switzerland border. The exact nature of the Big Mistake is unknown (and may remain unknown indefinitely), but the consequences are clear: the men and women of CERN had breached the barriers separating thousands of alternate realities, and each of these realities converged upon and merged with our own. The vast majority of alternate Earths were very much like ours in most superficial ways, but on some Earths the differences were much more dramatic. Indeed, some Earths seemingly operated under entirely different physical laws. There is a tremendously large creature (natives call it the trask) which survives only within a certain area of Death Valley. If a trask should wander out of this habitat, it is immediately crushed by its own weight.

Nearly all Earths which developed nuclear weapons of any kind had used them enthusiastically. There are only 3 known world-lines (as these alternate realities are called) where the Cold War remained cold. Some cities were replaced by their own bombed-out husks; others by primeval forests, jungles, deserts. Civilization did not long survive.

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

It's been almost 200 years since the big mistake. The year is 2205 (or, depending on your world-line and calendar, 1632, 5965, 0413, 13.9.15, or The Red Year of the Black Decade of the 2nd Century of the 8th Green Era). People recognizable as human are pretty rare these days; between a massive increase in background radiation and generations of crossbreeding with the denizens of other world-lines, mutants of all sorts are the norm. In fact, you're never seen a purestrain human in your entire life.

No one survives who remembers the world before the Big Mistake, but everyone is generally aware that the world was, not so long ago, much different from what it is today. Some people would like to return to what they imagine must have been a paradise; others see the Big Mistake as a punishment and a warning to avoid Ancient settlements and technology lest they be tainted somehow. Most folks, though, are indifferent to the lessons of the past.

You and nearly everyone you know lives in a cluster of mesas and arid prairie to the southwest of what was once Parker, Colorado (oral tradition calls the ruins Pakka; literacy is a rare gift these days). Parker was a sleepy suburban enclave and, so far as anyone could tell, was left unchanged by the Mistake. This did not prevent it being mercilessly razed in the aftermath. You've gone into Pakka quite a few times, mostly to gather building supplies and Ancient trinkets. You've been as far north as Stonegate and as far south as Castle Rock (neither of them, in your opinion, lived up to their names).

You know very little of the world beyond; what little you've heard about from passing caravans intimidates you. Two or three days to the south there's another old Ancient city called Rod Springs, and other day or two will get you to a place called Weblo. To the north (past Enver) there's a place called Shine which sounds sort of inviting, but rumor has it you have to get past some kind of fort. Some of the caravans went west over the mountains to a place called Salt Lick; it's not for you but it answers the question of where salt comes from. Hardly anyone seems to go east, but if they do they're usually heading to a town called Can Sit; it's apparently about a week's travel.

The vast metropolis of Enver is only half a day's travel to the north, but to get there would require crossing the old Ancient trade road everyone simply calls the 470. Nobody crosses the 470 as a matter of tradition, or superstition, or perhaps both. At any rate, no emissaries from Enver have ever visited, and nobody who's gone to Enver has ever come back. It's probably best left alone.

And it would continue to be left alone if not for the ugly fact that all the little Pakkas and Stonegates around your village are very nearly stripped of everything the tribe considers useable. Someone needs to visit richer hunting grounds and, to put it bluntly, you're expendable — you're all unmarried males with no particularly valuable talents. If you can fill your wagons with supplies for the coming winter, excellent. If you get slaughtered by marauding porkers, well, that's a shame, but everyone else will get a bigger share of the turnip harvest.

Well, Enver's probably going to kill you, but at least your last days will be exciting.

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

Now: The five of you are in downtown Pakka, standing outside a misshapen beige building with a placard identifying it as the Parker Academy of Martial Arts. It seemed like a good place to find a few weapons, maybe. There are a few old Ancient autowagons on the faded sfalt surrounding the Academy, but most of them look pretty busted up. Stonum's brought the mostly intact autowagon he found last month with him anyway, so you don't need these broken things. Of course, Stonum's rusty blue wagon doesn't actually have any fuel in it, but it rolls okay, especially downhill. There's a type of thing here you've never seen before: it might be some kind of autowagon but it has a very strange shape compared to the others. This rusty yellow thing only looks to have one seat, and there's a big metal.... what was the word? A spoon with teeth? It has one of those, anyway.

To the west there's a green-roofed building like a big barn; BOBCAT is printed on the exterior wall in barely-legible block letters. You don't hear any bobcats, but you've tangled with the furry bastards often enough to know discretion may be in order.

To the east there's an Ancient school building; the training gear juts out of the overgrown lawn.

To the north (across a wide Ancient road that the old signs only identify as "Pony Express": you feel a little nervous every time you cross it, as the ponies could be along any moment), there's a huge white cube of a building that calls itself a "Post Office". You don't know what you'd do with any more posts, but you'll keep it in mind.

To the south is another shapeless beige structure called the AMC Twenty Mile. You have no idea who the AMC are or, for that matter, what a mile is. At any rate the only "Coming Attraction" posted is "Sinister". Who would want to visit a place advertising itself as sinister?

Doc tightens the straps on his impressively shiny shield, and Skittles slides a disc labeled The Rock into his discthrower. It's quiet.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Squeeze struts over to the entrance of the Martial Arts academy. He strokes his pseudochin. "Comrades," he booms in his chocolate smooth baritone, "My membrane is tingling at the thought of going into this building. The sweet smell of ancient sweat and oiled bodies.. oh, it's enough to make a slime swoon, I'll tell you what."

He begins to hum a little. "One of my conquests was this sweet, handsome octopoid, mmmhmm. She taught me the martial arts, I taught her the marital arts. Oh, the memories." Squeeze's humming grows a touch louder, coming not just from his head-like appendage now, but from every part of his slowly undulating, roughly humanoid form.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Skittles shuddered with barely disguised revulsion at the thought of Squeeze's "conquests". Shaking his antennae, he asserted, "It would seem to me that we already have adequate weapons, and I doubt we're going to find anything useful inside. However, I have noticed that the picture on Stonum's autowagon matches the picture on that BOBCAT building over there. Perhaps we can find some fuel in there."

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Dr. Andesite's permanent frown breaks slightly, "don't be alarmed, my Dictyopteran friend. We have a long journey ahead of us, and I'm sure we'll have some time for discussing the beauty of meiosis and recombination of genetic material." His eyes sparkle with wonder. "It's really quite fascinating!"

He turns to address everyone, "Skittles is right, though. We would be remiss if we left on our quest without taking time to prepare diligently. Perhaps this 'bobcat' building retains spare wagon parts."

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Hearing no argument from his travel companions, Skittles leads the way west to the mysterious BOBCAT building. An encounter with a wild cat or two doesn't trouble him especially (most cats prefer human flesh to the taste of cockroach), but he holds his discthrower at the ready all the same. If The Rock didn't incapcitate a predator, the 2nd disc blooper reel would finish the job.

How ya doing, buddy?

Squeeze snaps out of his reverie, his hum fading out. "No love for the martial arts? Well, I suppose a cat is fine too, mmmm."

He makes his way to the BOBCAT buidling.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

Skittles cautiously approaches the imposing BOBCAT structure, his twitching antennae gradually relaxing when he doesn't hear the telltale yowling of the fearsome rocky mountain bobcat (which, post-Mistake, grew to roughly the size of a lion and sported a durable carapace).

After a few false starts ducking into pointless little nooks full of dead wagons, Skittles finds the front of the building and peers in through the shattered windows. Inside is a wide-open expanse of Ancient noleem floor, checkered red and black. Studded here and there inside the vast building are perhaps two dozen weird machines painted in various garish colors. They have different shapes, but all of them include the weird toothy shovel he'd just seen on the machine outside the Academy. Some of the shovels are attached directly to the body of the machine, but some of the shovels are on the end of an awkward-looking arm. Each of the machines has a few uncomfortable-looking plastic chairs scattered around it. On the right hand wall, perhaps a dozen meters from the front door, is a huge maroon slab of some kind with a plush (if tattered) chair behind it. A placard on the slab proclaims "PARTS - SERVICE - RENTAL".

What is rental? Perhaps the Ancients meant to write parental. Skittles isn't sure if he's ready for that kind of a commitment.

The back of the building is hidden in darkness; the light from the front windows is inadequate to illuminate the entirety of the building.

FELIPE NO

Assuming my flashlight comes with batteries (I wouldn't be surprised in this game to be given a flashlight that won't even work) I will turn that mother on and look around to see if there are any other windows we can expose for more light.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

1 Die Roll Stealth Check

Squeeze steps away from the phantom and his flashlight, and approaches a window. The daylight would make those opaque folk stand out if they try to slide through a window as Squeeze is attempting to do, but Squeeze is one smooth motherfucker, and more importantly, translucent.

As he enters through the window, Squeeze makes a note about teaching Dr. Andesite from the great and bountiful books of love sometime - specifically, the chapters pertaining to stealthy entry into a lover's bedroom with the concurrent evasion of parents/guardians/spouses/automated defense systems.

Stealth check: 3+8=11

Squeeze has a little difficulty going over the window frame; once again, thinking about a past conquest. She called herself Rapunzel; her head was shaved, but her beard was long and lustrous, allowing for certain interesting acts of passion. Hopefully, that has not alerted any potential denizens within.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Dr. Andesite leans on the windowsill, his rocky yet ethereal elbows unharmed by the jagged shards of brittle glass. The heavy-duty flashlight flicks on, flooding BOBCAT with harsh yellow light. What was revealed was largely more of the same (the building seemed devoid of windows other than those alongside the front door), save for a raised dais covered with a dingy tablecloth near the back of the building. Atop the dais was one of the shapeless machines the Ancients of BOBCAT had seemingly adored; this one seemed comparatively shiny and new, possibly because it was encased in a glass box, the box in turn festooned with a ribbon that had likely once been red but had been persuaded by dust and age to settle for a nice carnation pink. Only a few meters beyond the glass case was the back wall of BOBCAT's main chamber. Double doors potentially lead to deeper mysteries, but brass letters affixed to the doors sternly warn: E PLO S ON Y NO U LIC TH OOM.

Throwing caution not to the wind, but, at the very least, to a mild breeze, Squeeze oozes through the window into BOBCAT. His attempt at stealth and subtlety are stymied somewhat by the pile of ancient glass shards his blobulous form meets on the other side. There's not a whole lot to see that he couldn't see through the busted window, but he does get the honor of being the first person in 175 years to notice that Dave Sheldon had been awarded Salesman of the Year for 2011. The small glass trophy case on the far left wall was hanging askew but looked intact, and the pictures within were only moderately faded, being out of the line of direct sunlight. Dave looked awfully proud of his brass plaque. Nice work, Dave.

Despite Squeeze's abortive attempt at stealth, no guardians rush out to challenge him. The sinister machines don't even roar to life and attempt to crush him. It's a little disappointing.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

1 Die Roll Stealth Check!

Slim's eyes quickly blink open to the sensation of... light! It seems to be slowly flickering around the shiny noleem floor (he'd liked to keep a clean 'home', as it were), then back again as if the sun was dancing around. He knew he should've replaced the door with one of those solid 'mettle' things.

Slim stands up, stretches, and readies a throwing microwave. He slowly inches towards the door to peek out.

Intruders!

Stealth check: 10 + 2 = 12

"A Boy and His Blob," he muttered under his breath, as he stepped through the shattered glass door to face his (hopefully) unsuspecting victims.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Stealth attempt with penalty for moving: 7. Skittles' passive perception: 19. Nope.

Peering across the expansive showroom, Skittles notices a shaggy form skulking through the shadows. Could be a bobcat. Could be two bobcats stuck together with glue. The porkers got pretty experimental sometimes when they'd had too much to drink.

As Slim lunges out into the sunlight, he finds a translucent man-sized roach already leveling a weapon at his head.

That could have gone better.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

"Uh. 'lo." Slim grins sheepishly as he slowly puts down his Microwave.

I was speaking idiomatically.

1 Die Roll Mechanico-ayo

Barely noticing that his companions have entered a building, Stonum examines the autowagon in hopes of finding out what might be wrong with it. After all, what use are stacks and stacks of parts if you don't know which one you need?

He's had some luck with these types of things before. Somehow the intricate workings of the ancient machines seem more willing to yield their secrets to him than to others. Maybe it's just his tire iron hand that's more accurate due to its stumpiness (most folk have no idea how many things pop back into place after a good whack of the iron), or maybe it's just the radiation he emits that coaxes life back into the machines he touches. Like that one time, when he accidentally peed into the container of a multi-bladed feet-chopper, and it started towards him with a sputter, nearly making him a literal foot shorter in the process. As if he needed to be more vertically challenged.

What's certain is that if this thing can be fixed, he's probably the one who can perform the task.

Mechanics check on autowagon 14+10=24

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

"Friend cat, " says Squeeze, sliding over towards the bugbear, " I accept your, mmm, box, as a gesture of welcome. I assume you must be the guardian of the tomb of the illustrious Dave Sheldon. I am Squeeze Majello, which I must emphasize, is both a name and an invitation, but only if your motivations are pure. If not, I will strike you down where you stand, and possibly use your fur for a chest wig."

He glances around.

"Perhaps you can tell us a little more about this tomb? Those doors over there... 'Y U NO LICK THE OOM', was it? A fertility rite for the Dave Sheldon, maybe, mmmmmhmmmmm?"

FELIPE NO

Skittles lowers his weapon, as clearly the furry creature poses no immediate threat, other than stirring Squeeze's ravenous libido. One of these days, that creepy blob was going to proposition the wrong creature, and it would surely be the death of all of them. Putting that disturbing thought out of his head, Skittles walks over to the trophy case and gently removes the illustrious Dave's prize trophy. "Perhaps I can answer some of our questions about His Holiness through a more direct approach," he tells his comrades.

Skittles uses his Object Reading ability on Dave Sheldon's trophy.

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

"Squeeze!" Slim exclaims, whilst pressing his hands together tightly. "I would graciously give you the box, however... Well." He gestures towards it in invitation. "Chances are you won't be able to take it. It'll just automagically return to me. Except different. I honestly don't exactly know how it works."

"As for this Dave Sheldon man, I don't believe I've ever seen him. He might be from the Before Times. You know, the Ancients. I just hide out here in one of the rooms. Far as I know it's been abandoned for years. So it's quiet. I like it. Plus the noleem is nice."

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Stonum gives his old pickup a once-over while his companions from the village chat up some furry thing. None of his business. While it's tempting to hope that he'll find some more subtle mechanical issue with his wagon, what it comes down to is that it's straight-up out of fuel. He's had some luck with various different fluids but wagons generally liked what the Ancients called gas. Generally you found gas inside other wagons or in big reservoirs under weird little mechanical boxes standing in a row. In a pinch, though, he could probably get a wagon going with a few liters of anything liquid and flammable.

Carefully snapping off the corroded padlock, Skittles opens up the trophy case and tries to intuit the history of the Employee of the Year plaque (he'd only had this ability for a week or two, accidentally discovering it in passing when cleaning up some rubbish outside Squeeze's tent: never again). Oddly enough, the figure that comes to mind looks nothing like the picture of Dave in the case. The last creature to handle the plaque for an hour or more had been an Ancient engraver named Mathila Pjobjorn, who had exchanged it for two of those green papers with the number 20 on them. After Mathilda no one had paid the plaque too much attention, it seems. The Dave himself had, apparently, only touched the plaque long enough for the picture to be taken.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

2 Dice Rolls Probe that machine good

Keeping one eye on the cat and turning the rest of his face around, Squeeze peers out a window for his companions, and raises his voice. "Stonum! Dr. Andesite! You may want to come in here - we have found the Bobcat, and he may lead us to the site of an ancient orgy!"

To temper his excitement, Squeeze decides to examine the machinery in the room. Most folk tended to underestimate Squeeze's facility with all things mechanical, but his ability to divide his pseudopodia into smaller probe-like appendages for fine manipulation isn't useful only in the bedroom.

He is particularly intrigued by the machine on the dais surrounded by the glass box. It sure would be a shame to smash the box, and not particularly subtle, but the Ancients must have put the machine into the box somehow, so there must be a way to take it back out.

Try to access the machine without smashing the box, and then examine it.
Perception check if needed: 20+3=23
If this is not possible, examine the machine the best he can through the glass.
Mechanics check when/if applicable: 7+7=14

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

1 Die Roll Not sure which check

"well, it's all burnt up again, is it now?"

Stonum breathes a heavy sigh as he starts to walk towards the old BOBCAT yard, searching through the debris of old autowagons in hopes of finding a tank with that ancient gas liquid left. Once again, his companions were off having fun while he was taking care of their most important asset if they were ever getting to Enver.

Maybe this time he should find a way to bring extra stock with him. Hopefully one of the tanks would be in good enough shape to fill up and bring along in the wagon.

Search through the old machines in the yard for gas tanks with some content left
Some kind of check? 15+?=?

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

There don't seem to be any particularly subtle methods of opening the glass box, but Squeeze doesn't want to smash it either. Luckily the glass walls do not actually extend beneath the machine, and Squeeze is both strong and flexible enough to lift the heavy glass case an inch or three and then ooze on through.

There's a slightly brittle brochure sitting in the seat of the encased machine. "E45-E50-E55 COMPACT EXCAVATORS", it announces. There is a photograph of two of this same machine, both piloted by Ancients in some kind of bright yellow ceremonial armor. So far as Squeeze can tell, the object of the pictured contest is to scoop up dirt and dump it on your opponent. The Ancient in the foreground is probably winning.

The machine in the case is in far better condition than any other Ancient machine he's seen at all, let alone a wagon. There's no key, but there is a yellow button labelled "Enter Code".

The fuel indicator is in the green! Squeeze reflexively recoils away slightly. This was unheard of, and, frankly, a little spooky.

Stonum wanders round the lot, feeding a length of rope into the fuel reservoirs of various wagons in hope of finding some luck. No dice. Well, maybe pop open a few storage compartments, and... well, here's an empty plastic gas can. The Ancients are mocking him. At length, he finds himself rummaging under seats and it is then that he makes a discovery. "EVERCLEAR", asserts the bottle he finds under the passenger seat of a large, cubical wagon with missing wheels. "GRAIN ALCOHOL 95% ALC. BY VOL."

This would burn, but, as a dwarf, he had serious reservations about giving perfectly good alk to a machine. In the large, lightless back of the wagon he finds 3 more bottles of the stuff, adding up to about 3 liters in total. That might be enough to push his wagon to Enver. It might not.

If you're looking for something; that's Perception.

I was speaking idiomatically.

1 Die Roll Perception Check

"A code, eh? I'd wager there's some kind of riddle we need to solve in order to start up this machine. Perhaps if we search the inner sanctum, we'll find the resting place of the high priest of this temple, and the code."

Perception check on the main chamber, looking for the code, though I think Pang already took into account my passive check? Roll: 7+9=16

Squeeze pushes open the ominous doors and steps inside.

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?

2 Dice Rolls Luck

Slim stares and the numbered panel for a moment, thinking about things he may have seen during his time living in the office. He definitely gave the room a good cleaning, at the very least.

"I Think There's a Check For This™" Check: 7 + ?

[[This is Slim trying to remember if he's seen anything similar to a code, and remember said code itself. If that fails...]]

"I'm Incredibly Lucky™" Check: 7 + ?

Most amazing jew boots

2 Dice Rolls More fuel?

"Sniff Sniff...
...
...
Sweet Juice of the Gods!"

Upon finding the bottles of EVERCLEAR, Stonum's mood suddenly lightens. As he starts sipping on one of the bottles slowly, he pours the other two slowly into the gas tank of his blue Kumatsu autwagon.

As he starts staggering towards the BOBCAT building (after a few more swigs) in search of more fuel on the inside, he yells out to his band of bizzaros:

"Boys, tonight's gonna be a swell night!"

With that, he slams his Shield into the remains of the front doors of the building, in an attempt to get in without having to squeeze through the glass as his chums have.

Athletics to bust down remains of the door: 18+0=18
Perception check to locate more fuel on the inside of the building: 13+2=15

What, you don't want my bikini-clad body?

Squeeze exits the box in the same fashion that he entered. As he does so, he gets an eerie sensation... almost as though the cockroach had taken control of him. He shakes it off. Not an entirely unpleasant sensation. It's good to be the submissive one, sometimes.

Just as he is done squeezing through the glass, he hears a crash. Ah, it was the dwarf. At least slightly inebriated, which seemed to be customary.

"Friend Stonum! We may have a functional wagon thing under this glass box, I'll tell you what. You may like it, mmmmmm."

How ya doing, buddy?