Moe Lane

Russell Johnson and the Cult of John Frum

[The Day After Ragnarok]

The Cargo Cult religious movement is not very well known outside of its home base of Melanesia; anthropology is one of those disciplines that has become horribly underfunded since the Serpentfall.  To sum it all up very briefly, there is a religious movement running through much of Oceania that believes that a god or culture hero named ‘John Frum’ would appear and provide Western goods to the faithful in the form of ‘cargo.’  This belief was reinforced during World War II; the American military funnelled vast amounts of equipment and materials through that part of the world, giving credence to the belief system. Many adherents went so far as to build replica airstrips and bases out of local materials, in hopes that this would result in ‘cargo’ deliveries.

Hershey World

[The Day After Ragnarok]

City: Hershey, PA

Population: 5,000

Controls: Hershey Industrial School, Hershey Park, Hershey Plant

Government: Strongman

Problem: Food Shortages

Heroic Opportunity: Legendary Treasure

City Aspect: Wary

Hershey almost did not survive the destruction of Harrisburg during the Great Collapse. The town survived, ironically, because of the plagues that ripped through Pennsylvania; while most of the town died, including Milton Hershey himself, they did considerably better than their neighbors.  Hershey and Derry Township reorganized itself under Hershey President William Murray’s rule, and strove to hang on.

I don’t often come up with scenarios where the players are going to hate all their options, but I seem to have done so here. Happy Halloween!

Marietta, Village of the Damned

[The Day After Ragnarok]

City: Marietta, Georgia

Population: 4,000

Controls: Marietta, GA

Government: Machine

Problem: Monsters

Heroic Opportunity: Bounty

City Aspect: Doomed, probably

Theoretically, Marietta should be in better shape than it is.  For a few years after the Serpentfall, it was: Atlanta lay just to its Southeast, and there’s a lot of loot in a major dead city, especially if it didn’t burn too badly.  The Konfederacy in particular was and is interested in Atlanta’s remaining industrial salvage, and has invested in the town accordingly. Marietta is not quite ruled by Birmingham, but the Klan openly operates there, and non-whites are routinely harassed on the streets, or worse.  Even the salvage camps have strict racial and religious restrictions.

Camp Springs Army Air Base

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Location: Camp Springs, Maryland

Camp Springs AAB would be remembered as being the place from where President Harry S Truman fled from the Serpentfall, if only anyone had survived the evacuation attempt.   But nobody did, no report of Truman’s flight made it to the West, and it’s widely assumed in what’s left of the USA that the President and his Cabinet died when Washington, DC drowned.  In reality, Truman did make it to Camp Springs and was in the process of taking off when the tsunami hit. While the air base was technically high enough to not be inundated, it didn’t matter in the slightest; the President’s plane and escorts were either all batted out of the sky, or smashed on the ground.

The Dam Legion

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Type: Mercenary group

Location: The Wood Fort, Missouri

Strength: 450 soldier-engineers, in three companies of 150 troops each.

Total Population, including support staff: 30,000.

Rates: High.  Legionnaires are typically hired on the company or platoon level.

Reputation: Excellent, both on a professional and ethical level.

Finally got around to finishing this. More or less

The Golden Horseshoe League 

[The Day After Ragnarok]

In the first years after the Serpent Fell, the lands of the Canadians and the Americans were wracked by fire and war and poisoned rain.  New nations were forged in the broken-backed forge of the Middle West: Chicago, with its desperados and Aldermen; blood-soaked Iowa, where the very grain itself called out for human gore; haunted Birmingham, grim Bone-lands, home of the Ghost-men, eternally damned yet more afraid of the shadows; and many others.  But in the North there was a League of cities: proud Toronto, subtle Buffalo, fierce Hamilton, and clever Rochester. United, the League of the Golden Horseshoe kept peace along the Eerie Lake and the Sea of Shining Ice.  

Well… a sort of peace.  For the freebooters and privateers of Hamilton and Buffalo would admit to having no masters but themselves, and gloried in the strength of their arms, their ice-ships, and their crews.  Their Lucky Skull flag struck fear in the hearts of slavers and pirates from Oswego to New Toledo; and yea, indeed, at times in far-foreign lands of the Green Bay and even dour Chicago itself.  Those were great voyages indeed! It was a time for heroes, villains, warriors, and poets; the birth of an Age that would last through the ages.

Or so men hoped.

Naglfari

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Description: a mixed-construction powered ship about the size and capacity of a largish tramp steamer: the superstructure is steel, but the hull is carved from a single scale of the World-Serpent (and glistens unpleasantly, of course). The metal parts of a Naglfari quickly and permanently acquire a covering of rust.  Oddly, there’s no smell of snake about a Naglfari. There’s definitely a certain odor of old blood, but no snake.  

Vigilant Ship at Britton Hill

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Britton Hill (in what used to be Florida) is unique for two reasons: first, it is the only part of Florida that was not inundated by the mega-tsunami during the Serpentfall.  Secondly, it is the final resting site of what appears to be a Royal Navy submarine (the HMS Oberon).  Assuming anyone checks, the Oberon is thoroughly incapable of sailing again; there are gaping holes in the hull and the keel has been thoroughly shattered.

There were no obvious survivors, and the entire area was thoroughly scoured of human life by the implacable waves.  To this day nothing human lives within twenty miles of the place — and, for that matter, very little that is monstrous does, either.  Britton Hill has a Serpent Taint of 2 generally, and 0 inside the Oberon itself.  The aura of calm that surrounds the broken submarine is pretty much palpable.

Wizards of the Elektron Tower

[The Day After Ragnarok]

City: Fort Wayne, Indiana

Population: 1,100

Controls: The area around the Elektron Tower

Government: Machine

Problem: Serpent Cultists

Heroic Opportunity: Arcana

City Aspect: Arcane

Fort Evansville

[The Day After Ragnarok]

City: Evansville, Indiana

Population: 25,000/150,000

Controls: Vanderburgh County and portions of the Ohio river

Government: Despotism

Problem: Serpent Cult

Heroic Opportunity: Mercenary Work

City Aspect:  Militaristic.