Post-apacaloft

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Post-apacaloft

Post by Manofevil »

I've been tossing this idea around in my head for years now. I've asked people here about it and received mixed responses. Today I've just decided to go with it and damn the consequences. Many RL purists will condemn what I'm about to do, but some ideas just don't let go. I've decided, for reasons of brevity, to not change the names from those from the original properties. I also feel that using the original names creates a certain image in the minds of the reader, though it will make it easier for certain among you to dismiss this as an act of mass plagiarism. Keep in mind that my adaptation of the following properties are meant to incorporate only certain aspects of RavenLoft- Specifically, the structure of each realm is the same as that of the RavenLoft realms: Each has a DarkLord, a curse, and a misty border. Each DarKlord is a prisoner of his/her/its realm and each Darklord can close the border trapping all within. I will refer to this hereafter as the lord/curse/border structure if I refer to it at all. Here the similarities will end.

I have added one more element to the structure. I call it an Adversary. I didn't feel I was doing justice to the adapted properties if I kept only the evil overlords and the nightmarish landscapes. I didn't like the term hero and I didn't want anyone thinking that they were somehow meant to be sainted champions. The Adversary is meant to be a Robin Hood to the Darklord's Sheriff of Nottingham. Someone the DarkLord just can't seem to kill or control in any meaningful way. A constant affront to the DarkLords authority and power... and belief in themselves. Conversely, the Adversary is incapable of killing or even toppling the DarkLord. They are, however, capable of crossing an open border, though something always draws them back to that particular realm, DarkLord, and conflict. The conflict between these two individuals is a very large part of each realms curse and like all conflicts, each one is different from the others in a thousand ways just as there are many similarities. The people of each realm are very much caught in the middle, though any deaths can clearly be laid at the feet of the Darklord. Also, like RavenLoft, the position of DarkLord or Adversary can be inherited by another person in much the same way as we have seen in RavenLoft.

Another thing that will be different from RavenLoft will be the time it takes for a realm to coalesce into the model that has become so familiar to us in RavenLoft. In RavenLoft, An individual who has proven deserving of becoming a DarkLord immediately has a realm bestowed upon them. This realm can be an already existing part of the demiplane or it can be a land taken from another world. It might even be created out of whole cloth specificly for the DarkLord. In Post-apocaloft, one of two things will happen: either a group of people prove themselves deserving of living under a DarKlord and one rises to serve the purpose, or an individual proves deserving of being a DarkLord and a section of the land is bordered off by the Dark Powers and all trapped within are immediately under the DarkLords dominion. This means that neither land nor people can be brought from other worlds. The DPs have only earth, its people, and its alternate timelines to work with.
Now, to set the stage...

The Nature of Earth
The planet Earth, as it's natives have come to call it, has proven to be a crossroads of many disparate forces. Alien invasion, demonic outbreaks, cosmic phenomena, machine uprisings, chemical and biological warfare, and nuclear conflagrations are just some of the events that were only just barely avoided during the last two decades of the twentieth century and the first two decades of the twenty-first. Or were they avoided? It is believed by some physicists that there is a fundamental instability surrounding the planet. Something they can't quite explain. Most people dismiss these scientists as fringe elements with no validity, like communists or religious extremists, people suffering from the tragic combination of undereducation and paranoia. Sadly, however, there is some truth to it. What none of them know is that some of the aforementioned events were NOT avoided. They just proved to be so disruptive that the very fabric of reality was compromised and forced to repair itself by eliminating these events. These dead end branches of time had to go somewhere and the state of reality surrounding the planet Earth is still fragile.


The Events
No one knows exactly how many factors contributed to what happened. No one even has an exact list of what precisely happened. All that's known for certain is that a certain series of apocalyptic events happened over a space of several decades which somehow did not destroy the world. These events would follow a certain cycle: after a long period of terrible tensions throughout the world, events would come to a terrible head and in the instant when armageddon seemed unavoidable, somehow the tensions would dissipate and people all around the world wonder if the whole thing hadn't been some sort of nightmare. Sadly, however, these events were no near misses or bad dreams. Somehow the powers released interacted with ... something else... to split the planet off into two separate but unequal ... places. The only factor common to each of these events seems to be a peculiar mist that was sighted in various places when the events came to a climax.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Post by Manofevil »

The First Event (Escape from New York)
In the early 1980's, the long simmering cold war between the United States and The Soviet Union came to a terrifying head. Both sides had suffered terrible public defeats in the many proxy wars being fought all around the world. So much so that both governments found themselves quietly co-opted by hardline elements. These shadow governments weren't completely insane, however. Both sides knew full well that the other had nuclear weapons in place poised to strike at a moments notice. Furthermore, China put forward a policy that if one side managed to launch on the other while the other was prevented from launching, then the Chinese would immediately launch their missiles against the survivor. The fact that this would lead only to mutually assured destruction was considered to be propaganda by many on all sides. Both sides concluded that if the other were to be toppled without unleashing nuclear armageddon, it would have to be done very carefully.

The plans the two sides concocted were later found to be strikingly similar. Saboteurs would disrupt communications between the central command and the actual launch sites of any missiles while black operations teams would be inserted into major population centers located nearby and plant chemical weapons which would poison the area and make repairing the sabotaged missiles impossible. These operations were carried out with varying degrees of success and somehow nuclear annihilation was avoided, barely. It was almost as if something had planned it that way.

The state of war between the sides fluxuated in various ways until the long term effects of some of the chemical weapons began to show on the populace. In 1988 the crime rate of the United States alone rose four hundred percent. Violent crimes and crimes of insanity were rampant. The shadow government of the United States had no trouble remaining in power on Law and Order platforms.

By 1992, New York City, which had been among the primary targets of the Soviet chemical attacks was all but lost to the criminal element which had exploded with the added element of chemically induced insanity. Rather than attempt to reclaim the city, a fifty foot containment wall was erected around the island of Manhattan and the entire island was turned into the nation's largest maximum security prison. All bridges and tunnels were mined. Violent criminals from all over the United States were shipped to New York and incarcerated within. There were no guards within the prison itself. Prisoners were left to fend for themselves. Perhaps the most tragic aspect was that no attempt was made to evacuate New Yorkers who had somehow not been affected by the chemical weapons. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of innocent people were trapped within the prison with the inmates and soon became a underclass of victims to them, especially the women. As more and more violent criminals were added to the prison population, some of whom had retained certain levels of ingenuity, intelligence, or both, the general bloody chaos began to coalesce into a quasi-tribal structure. The city was divided up into tribal regions with borders reinforced violently. Some of these tribes actually banded together while others were just groups of barely coherent lunatics who were forced into abandoned areas and left to their own devices, like parts of the Amazon river infested with pirhanna. Most of these lived in the subways. They became known collectively as The Crazies. They would come out at night to raid, so most sane residents are inside after dark.

The Duke of New York
As with all prisons where there are no guards, one particularly viscious specimen rose to the top of the pile. The man who would be the Duke was not just ruthless and cruel, he was also particularly ingenius and ambitious. After battling his way to the top of a particularly viscious prison gang, He began to recruit or kidnap prisoners of special value- Ones with particular knowledge or skills. Through threats, torture, or simple persuasion, The Duke, as he had come to be known, began to build an infrastructure around his gang. Prisoners with skills as mechanics got an entire fleet of vehicles running for him. Steam engines created electricity for the first time in years and Central Park became a large farm. Since life improved so much under the Duke, other gangs began to trade openly with the Duke's. Barter became as common as violence in the day-to-day life in Manhattan. Particularly capable prisoners were sent to the Duke to become part of the apparatus... for a price of course. It was in this way that one Harold Helmann came to the attention of the Duke. Helmann proved his genius by building steam engines small enough and powerful enough to propel a car. He also taught inmates how to set up greenhouses to grow food from seeds found in old gardening shops. He found an underground oil source and was able to formulate gasoline. Helmann, or Brain as he came to be known, quickly became an indispensable asset in the Duke's organization. His ability to read and understand engineering texts and architectural documents brought the Duke closer to his ultimate goal. Like every half-sane prisoner in New York, the Duke was intent on escape. More than escape, the Duke dreamed of one day leading a general prisoner uprising and destroying the prison he hated so. He would get his chance.

The Escape
In 1997, the President of The United States was on his way to a summit meeting between the three nuclear powers in Hartford Conneticutt. Unknown to anyone, the stewardess on Air Force One was a member of a leftist guerilla group who was bent on the revolutionary overthrow of the US Government. As the plane approached New Jersey, she entered the cockpit, murdered the pilots, locked the cockpit door, and pressurised the cabin. The Secret Service was incapable of entering to prevent what happened next. Shouting a leftist diatribe over the plane radio, the woman crashed the plane into the skyline of New York. The President had been ejected in an escape pod, but he landed in the middle of the worst prison in the world.
Witness to all of this was one Bob Hauk, New York City Police Commissioner and Chief Warden of the prison. Hauk, a former soldier in the American Special Forces, was in action almost immediately. Within twenty minutes he was leading a rescue mission in a helicopter over the South Side. Sadly, twenty minutes had been all the inmates needed. The pod had been breached and the President taken. A particularly bold inmate stepped forward and showed Hauk the President's severed finger with his ring on it. Hauk offered to negociate but was informed that if he was not in the air in thirty seconds and if he came back in, the President would be murdered. Hauk wisely retreated.
As the one responsible for the prison, Hauk was confronted with a hailstorm of problems. Firstly, the President had been about to present the outline of a new and more powerful nuclear fusion weapon to the Hartford Summit, one that might have made the powers consider peace. If the President failed to arrive at the conference, this important opportunity would be lost with the likely result being nuclear annihilation. The Vice-President was unable to take his place because the President had the only copy of the relevant data with him in the form of a cassette tape. The President was wearing a locating device, so they could find him, but Hauk lacked people with the necessary skills to rescue the President. The forces under his command could take the prison, but they would never successfully rescue the President before he was killed and the President was the only one who could present the weapon at the conference. In addition, the higher-ups in Washington were already demanding results. They wanted the President and the cassette back immediately and were prepared to take rash action if only to get immediate results. Only Hauks reasoned arguments and his assurances that he had a plan worth trying stayed their hands.

Snake Plissken
Hauk did, in fact have the makings of a plan. By coincidence, a prisoner with possibly the necessary skills to save the President had fallen into Hauk's hands that very day. S. D. "Snake" Plissken had a very distinguished record. He had risen to the rank of Lieutenant in the American Special Forces. During the attacks on the Soviet Union, his unit, SFU Black Flight, had been instrumental in the infiltration of enemy territory. Using special gliders called Gulf Fires, they had been able to slip beneath Soviet radar and accomplish their missions with minimal resistance. Plissken had distinguished himself with both his courage and his capability. He earned two purple hearts, one in Leningrad and one in Siberia. He became the youngest man ever decorated by the President.
It's unknown what became of him after his discharge from the military. It's unclear whether drifted into crime out of general misanthropy or exposure to the chemical weapons. Whatever the case, by 1997, "Snake" Plissken, as he had come to be known, had become as famous for his criminal exploits as for his military ones. He was caught after he robbed the federal reserve depository and sentenced to life.

Hauk's Plan
Police Commissioner Hauk had managed to aquire a Gulf Fire ultralight military aircraft and had been planning to set up an infiltration unit for the prison. He hadn't had a chance to get anyone properly trained and he didn't have anyone who could get in quiet. Plissken could do both, so Hauk had to convince Plissken to accept the mission and to accomplish it in 21 hours. Hauk met with Plissken in his own office. He informed Plissken of the circumstances and offered him a writ of full pardon for every criminal action committed in the United States. Plissken figured he'd be going in one way or another, so he accepted. Plissken was to land on the top of the World Trade Center, ride the elevator (which they had somehow managed to maintain) down to the fiftieth floor and infiltrate from there. Before he was sent in, Hauk had a medical tech inject two microscopic capsules into both sides of Plissken's neck under the guise of a vaccination. After twenty-two hours the capsules would be completely dissolved by the bloodstream. Inside the capsules were two microscopic heat sensitive charges- tiny explosions, maybe as big as a pinhead, just big enough to open both of the arteries, killing him in seconds- so Plissken would NOT be turning the Gulf Fire around and flying off to Canada. Plissken was also outfitted with a tracking device that would lead Hauk's men to him if he activated it.

The Escape
Plissken's infiltration of New York in the Gulf Fire went off without a hitch. He managed to land on the World Trade Center and find his way to the street without incident. He had been given a tracer that was tuned to the President's tracking device. He followed this signal to a theatre where some of the prisoners were putting on a show for some others. He moved quietly through the building and found his way to a staircase down. Only one person spotted him and recognised him, an affable old man who warned him not to enter the underground. Plissken went below and quietly found his way closer to the signal, beating down anyone who attacked him. He found the tracking device on the wrist of an crazed old man who had been set up as a decoy. When Plissken informed Hauk over the radio of this and that the President was probably dead, Hauk informed him that if he tried to come back out without the President, Hauk would have him killed. He would come back with the President, or not at all.
Plissken made his way to the place where the escape pod had landed. Unfortunately the sun had gone down and the Crazies were coming out to hunt. Plissken fled them as best he could but he was surrounded by them. He was rescued, strangely enough, by the same affable old man he'd met before, who rolled up in a cab that he'd driven for twenty years and offered a ride. Cabbie, as the old man was known, was the one who informed Plissken that the President was currently in the hands of the Duke of New York. When Plissken demanded to meet the Duke, Cabby took him to Brain, The only man who could arrange a meeting.
It happened that Plissken had crossed paths with, and been betrayed by, Brain in the past. Plissken was ready to kill him but Brain had the President's location to trade. He also had a map of the mines laid on the 69th street bridge which the Duke had chosen that moment to come and collect. Plissken, Brain, and Brain's girl, Maggie, managed to steal a car from the Duke's entourage and get to the railyard where the President was being held. They almost managed to free the President but were captured. Hauk looked out across a mist covered east river that following morning with no idea what was happening inside the prison.
Brain was established with the Duke and needed anyway to effect the planned escape and Maggie belonged to Him so they were spared, but Plissken, like the President, was now at the mercy of the Duke of New York. While a group of prisoners waved down a police helicopter and delivered their demands locked in the President's empty briefcase along with a piece of Plissken's equipment, Plissken was put into a crude gladitorial arena that the prisoners had long ago set up. After a tremendous fight with a huge man who was the prisoners' champion, Plissken managed to kill his opponent and gain a massive following among the prisoners. Plissken noticed that one of them was wearing his tracking device and managed to get close enough to activate it. This signal informed Hauk that he was still alive and Hauk was allowed to stand down the choppers he had prepared to use to take the prison, which would have doomed them all.
While Plissken had been fighting for his life, Brain and Maggie had figured out where he'd landed the Gulf Fire and managed to kill the the guards and free the President. Plissken caught up with them at the top of the World Trade Center just in time to see a group of Crazies push the glider off the edge of the building much to everyone's chagrin. The only way out now, was over the 69th st bridge.
Sadly the group found themselves surrounded by the Duke and his tribe when they reached the lobby of the World Trade Center. Plissken was able to trigger a diversion and lead the group out the side door where the were rescued, yet again, by Cabbie in his cab. Plissken took the wheel and headed for the bridge. The Duke chased after them in his own car.
By singular coincidence, Cabbie had traded another prisoner his hat for the tape from the president's briefcase, he was one of the few people in New York with a tape player, so there would be no stops along the way. Plissken kept the tape rather than returning it to the President. Plissken managed to get the cab halfway across the bridge before a mine destroyed the cab. The only casualty, sadly, was Cabbie, who died in the cab that had been his only friend for many years.
A bit further down the bridge, Brain, too, triggered a mine and was killed. Maggie was so devastated by his death that she took Plissken's gun and made a stand right there. The Duke drove his car straight into her gunfire and smashed her against one of the junkers on the bridge, killing her, but destroying his car. he had to proceed on foot from there.
The cars on the bridge had been sighted by the guards and Hauk sent a jeep with a winch to bring up the fugitives. Plissken managed to get the President to the wall and the rope was lowered. The President was successfully retrieved but before the rope could be lowered again. The Duke showed up with one of Plissken's own guns and began shooting. Plissken managed to find cover beneath the barricade at the end of the bridge but the guards at the top of the wall were killed. While the winch lowered the rope to bottom of the wall, Plissken was able to ambush the Duke and separate him from the gun. When the rope reached the bottom of the wall. Plissken stopped fighting and ran for it. When he was halfway up the wall, the winch stopped for some reason. Plissken turned around to see the Duke had retrieved the gun. The Duke ran forward to shoot Plissken but was suddenly riddled with bullets from above. Plissken looked up to see the President emptying one of the dead guards guns into the Duke shouting the phrase the Duke had tortured him into saying during his long hours of captivity: YOU'RE THE DUKE! YOU'RE A-NUMBER-ONE!
The President turned the winch back on and Plissken was brought in. The med tech was not allowed to neutralise the charges in Plissken's neck until Plissken surrendered the tape. Later, as the President was being prepared to address the Hartford summit over the television, Snake Plissken approached the President and asked for moment of his time. The President agreed. Plissken asked the President what his thoughts were on all the people who had died in his extraction. All the President had to say was the politician's usual lip service paid to fallen soldiers. Plissken walked away. Later, when the President played the for the summit meeting the tape that Plissken had surrendered, The only thing played was big band jazz. If anyone noticed Snake Plissken ripping something apart while he was walking across the police compound, no one felt the need to see what it was. Fewer still noticed the mist that had rolled in from the river.

New York currently
Since that night, New York has become even more isolated. Prisoners are still sent but very little else comes near New York. Planes never fly near it anymore. Bob Hauk still runs the prison, but as always his authority ends at the wall. He got his Gulf Fire infiltration unit but the only thing they're able to do is gather intelligence from within the prison. Any ideas Hauk might have had for controlling what happens in there were clearly impractical. One of the first things this squad was able to ascertain, however, was the survival of the Duke of New York. He had somehow survived his wounds and made it back across the bridge. How is anyone's guess, as is how he managed to hold on to power afterward.
Unlike the other realms that would come to form Postapocaloft, It really isn't much difference between the DarkLord and the Adversary. Both are ruthless men who make others suffer. The only thing that really marks Hauk as the Adversary is his ability to leave the realm.

Closing the borders.
The borders or New York are perpetually closed. Once you go in, you don't come out.
Last edited by Manofevil on Thu Nov 14, 2019 12:23 am, edited 4 times in total.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Post by ewancummins »

I would never use it, but it's an interesting take on Escape From New York.
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Post by Manofevil »

I eventually intend for Post-Apcaloft to include, at the very least, the following properties. If no one else does them, I shall do them myself tho I probably couldn't finish them in five years. :roll:

Terminator

Nightmare on Elm Street

Robocop

The Crow

Max Headroom

If you have an idea for a realm you think would work here, by all means add it. Movies, TV shows, Video Games, Comic Books anything at all, so long as it keep the post-apacalyptic feel to it. No medeval or renaissance or even steampunk realms here. Some of you may think that Nightmare on Elm Street really doesn't belong but I like the idea of it being a little out of the way town tucked away in the midwest where armageddon doesn't quite reach it. This America will have its small towns, too.
Well, there it is people. you may expect more eventually. :?
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Post by jules »

don't forget friday the 13th!
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Post by The Lesser Evil »

My main questions are about the overall cosmological structures. Some apocalypse scenarioes would rule each other out. (For example, if nukes land anywhere, it's likely they're going to be everywhere). That would make it difficult for you to keep a post nuclear apoc theme limited to only a single domain.

Do the "domains" exist on the same "Earth"- ie, connect to and aware of each other directly like on a map? Or are they more like floating Islands of Terror?

Also, what about "unclaimed" territory, ie. without a darklord? Does every piece of land have a lord?

If one person is deemed worthy of lordship status, what happens if the big event the candidate lord was involved in happens in another lord's territory?
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Post by Manofevil »

Eventually, this will come to resemble a post-apocalyptic 'core', if you will. Take, for example, the continent of North America. The 'Escape from New York' realm would take up a large part of the Northeast coast, possibly all of New England. The Robocop/OCP realm would take up most of the Great Lakes region. The 'Terminator' region, by far the largest, would take up all of the Pacific Northwest and much of Canada. It would probably extend as far south as LA. (tho not INTO LA as we may wish to do an 'Escape from LA' realm) It occurs to me that the desert of the southwest would be ideal for a 'Mad Max' realm. The south would probably be best for a realm based on the show 'Jericho', tho I don't watch. I think that would also be the best place for a domain based on 'The Crow'. I intend to define Max Headroom/Edison Carter/Network 23 as a sort of Van Richten. These are the only people able to get the stories of what's really out there to the public. At least, the ones with television. I think the best place for them would be on the east coast where all the big cities like Boston, Philidelphia, and Washington are. We might also include a 'Transmetropolitan' based realm with Spider Jerusalem as the Adversary and President Smiler as the DarkLord. Again, east coast based.
The 'Nigtmare on Elm Street' realm, again, would be just some forgotten little piece of land nestled away in the Midwest.
As far as the problems presented by a nuclear wasteland, I'll remind you that people were able to live in the post-nuclear wasteland ruled by Skynet in the 'Terminator' series, so the nuclear fallout had to have been cleared somehow. Perhaps Skynet's creations power themselves by gathering the fallout into their power cells thereby depleting it to tolerable levels. Also remember that the misty borders are capable of keeping in (or out) the Shadow Rift in RavenLoft. I have no doubt that it could prevent bleedover from nuclear fallout.
I hope this gives you a better idea of the vision I have for post-apocaloft. Also, I not claiming this as exclusively mine. Maybe one of you plays 'Resident Evil' and would like to create a realm based on that. Or maybe one of your favorite anime's would fit in. Give it a try.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Post by The Lesser Evil »

So I'm prepping a Mutants and Masterminds adventure for the Paragons campaign setting, and I just realize that it might fit into your world. It's called a More Perfect Union, and it's about (spoilers) sort of a psychic collective arising from the unconscious mind of a comatose car victim. The psychic collective (known as Unity) spreads from person to person contact like a disease. Individual thought is drowned out by the cacophony of the collective, but the Unity always hungers like a drug addict to add new sensations and new knowledge (i.e., assimilate more victims into its ranks). Unlike Ravenloft's Toben the Many, the Unity is not openly malicious but rather sees itself as doing a good thing for the human race. The adventure takes place in a small rural town, might make for nice contrast or neighboring domain to your Nightmare on Elm Street. Or Unity might be part of another domain like said Elm Street domain to diversify the threats a little bit. Or maybe a floating pocket of sorts. Although not highighted in the module, the idealistic nature of the Unity might make for a nice allegory to the communist threat often associated with gestalt minds.
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Post by Manofevil »

Great start!! Great DarkLord! All you needs a border and an adversary. This is exactly what I was hoping to spark here. Thank you.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Post by Hazgarn »

Watching The Midnight Meat Train, I couldn't help but think it would make a pretty neat modern domain, possibly a floating one like Scaena, since the train could show up in the subway of any city.
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Post by High Priest Mikhal »

I got your PM, MOE, and the only real thing I can say is keep going. I like what I'm reading.
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Re: Post-apacaloft

Post by The Lesser Evil »

Okay, so all of the recent hullaballo of post apoc in the rpg world (gamma world for 2e, Warlords of the Apocalypse for Pathfinder) as well as all of the genera hullabalo in popular culture (not to mention the new fallout game I've heard so much about) really has me jonesin' on a post apoc type game. Did this idea ever get further developed?

I had one idea for a pocket (possible floating) domain: the House of Tomorrow. Basically designed after all those retro-future '50s designs that were supposed to be terrifically convenient, orderly, and time saving. But in this one you have a possessive, control freak AI that went rogue. Kinda like the futuristic/modern equivalent of a haunted house or even the House of Lament. Its adversary would be possibly a former designer or guide who would bring more people back to it periodically but never get captured himself. And of course the House has various chemical and technological means of making sure people never leave its borders. More to come on this later.
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Re: Post-apacaloft

Post by Manofevil »

Another great, Great!, GREAT!!, idea TLE. I hope you'll further develop it and post a writeup here. As far as further developing this idea, Well, I'm currently in the midst of training for a new job and have been working at another the whole summer. I've got like six different unfinished projects floating in the background that need to be finished. I was just about ready to start the Nightmare on Elm Street writeup before life interrupted, but I'd been out of work for six years, so I think it's about time I started paying my own bills again. Still, I'm not dead yet, so I'm not done yet.
Last edited by Manofevil on Sat Oct 30, 2010 1:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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Saranka
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Re: Post-apacaloft

Post by Saranka »

Jules said:

don't forget friday the 13th!
The movies or the series? Either way, I like both in this universe.


ManOfEvil, this idea of yours is very tantalizing.

How about a netbook on the agenda, when the child is more grown up?

Unless I didn't read well the posts above and thous didn't noticed, what are your intentions about the demihumans, the half-races and the gypsies of the original Ravenloft? Being our world, are you not going to use them?


These following quick little ideias came to mind.
They're yours to elaborate if you want to.


JAWS:
The film is in an island (in the mists?). The book is in a shore of New England (the core?). Your choice.

A monster of the deep - an almost supernatural beast - that no one knows where it is going to attack, who it is going to kill.
A man, or three, in an eternal search to destroy it.
The land must have something that keeps attracting people (aka tourists on the menu). The waters may have also treasures in their depths (survivals of the apocalypse?) to entice adventurers. And a mayor, with the rest of the town keeping the creature a secret, to the disgrace of the one man and his family.

Who's the darklord? Who's the adversary?
The beast? (the shark has a personality too.) The man/men? The mayor?
Who can go out of the realm and who is imprisoned in it?

You can also put a little Lovecraft's Innsmouth in there.

BLADE RUNNER:
In the city of smog and rain of Los Angeles/San Francisco, things that look human (constructed for the convenience of mankind and to be sold to other realms), feel that they are human and want to be treated as human... Including live as many years humans live.

But they are illegal in their city of origin. So, a special force has the right and the mission to ki... retire them.

Who's the darklord? Who's the adversary?
One man's job is to get these constructs - one or a band specifically - and retire it/them. He doesn't like doing it. He doesn't want to do it. Yet, he's forced to do it. And is the best doing it
One construct seeks deliverance for it's kind (or just for himself?). And for that, it needs...
...One man. The one responsible for the creation of these products, their construction and their use in the other realms. Does anyone knows he is also a construct? (that was originally intended to be in the film.)

Who's more human than human? Who is less?

The film is in Los Angeles. The book is in San Francisco (with its bridge and mists, get it?).
Flying cars over the mists - beautiful image -, but they cannot function outside the realm.
With adjustments, you can also put the constructs/company to be part of the Terminator/AI ideas. Also, Max Headroom would fit nicely invading the big screens of this city/realm.

THE FORBIDDEN PLANET:
The darklord of this isolated place (that can be an alien pocket in the mists or in the core) is a scientist who discovered a colossal underground relic of infinite energy belonging to a long gone extraterrestrial civilization. That relic could have the power to save all Apocaloft of its predicament.

But he cannot leave. For an invisible creature - an invisible power - killed all who came with him, sparing only is beloved daughter, and hunts and strikes at all who came to rescue or threatening them.
Does he ever imagine, and/or accept, that his greatest adversary is he himself?


Hope this helps to inspire you. And sorry for any error in the writting... English is not my native language.
For my part, I confess not being a fan of the Crow idea. More because of the character visual I'm affraid. How about a very dark Batman?... Or a regular Batman. It's almost the same (the two batmans, that is).
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Manofevil
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Re: Post-apacaloft

Post by Manofevil »

BRILLIANT, SIR!!! BRILLIANT!!! These are the sorts of things I was hoping to see here!! (must calm down before I sh-t myself) Anyway, re: demihumans, I'm afraid, as they do not exist in cyberpunk earth, they will not exist in Post-apocaloft, but if we want to go the non-human way, the movie to watch is District 9. Watch that one and see the Post-apacaloft possibilities just ERUPT in front of you.
Do us a favor Luv, Stick yer 'ead in a bucket a kick it!

So, gentlemen, that's how it is. Until Grissome.... resurfaces, I'm the acting president, and I say starting with this... anniversary festival, we run this city into the ground! :D
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