Moe Lane

Not-coincidentally, I was in the vicinity of Altoona last weekend.

Haunters of Altoona – Google Docs

The Haunters of Altoona

[The Day After Ragnarok]

City: Altoona, Pennsylvania

Population: 20,000

Controls: Altoona Works, portion of Pennsylvania Railroad

Government: Strongman

Problem: Serpent Cultists

Heroic Opportunity:Technology

City Aspect: Tense and Foreboding

Altoona is a company city.  It became the effective headquarters of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) after the Serpentfall, and PRR President Martin Clement is the ruler of not only Altoona, but all of Blair County and the railway from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg, although Pittsburgh increasingly disputes this (there aren’t enough people left in Harrisburg to meaningfully dispute anything). The massive rail manufacturing complex of Altoona Works still operates, salvaging, maintaining, and converting train locomotives to burn whatever the engineers can get their hands on; the city itself is a haven for mechanics and engineers, including the ones willing to experiment with Ophi-tech.

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I wish that this game line would come back.  There’s a lot of fun to be had in WWII meets Conan.

Santo (Location) – Google Docs

Santo (Location)

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Santo – more properly, ‘Espiritu Santo’ is an island in the New Hebrides archipelago which was the site of a truly massive American military buildup during World War II.  Engineering teams built camps, Marine and Navy bases, airfields, hospitals, and artificial harbors and drydocks capable of repairing battleships. By post-Serpentfall standards, the island is an endless treasure trove of valuable, and possibly irreplaceable, military loot.

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Santo – Google Docs

Santo

[The Day After Ragnarok]

The masked folk hero Santo (b. 1917; real name Rodolfo Guzmán Huerta, but nobody knows this) had just begun what would have been a long and illustrious career as a luchador when the Serpentfall hit.  Santo rapidly fell afoul of the Almazan regime, once it overthrew the Mexican government: he has spent the last few years throwing the Sinarquistas out of southern Mexico, one fascist at a time.  He is loved by the common folk.  He is feared by every corrupt official from Tijuana to Tapachula.  The Sinarquistas are torn between hating him for his defiance, and desiring to convert him to their cause.

He is Santo.

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Soiled Doves – Google Docs

Soiled Doves [The Day After Ragnarok]

Well… they were various types of birds native to the American Southwest, before the Serpent Taint got into their bloodstreams and started reverting them back into four-winged, feathered microraptors (with what appears to be perpetually oil-stained plumage).  The relatively few paleontologists still alive in the post-Serpentfall world are baffled about the idea of feathered dinosaurs, and there isn’t an actual evolutionary descent from microraptors to birds anyway, but there they still are.  Unfortunately, Soiled Doves are mean-tempered, carnivorous, and spit poison (stats for a Venomous Snake with the fly and bolt powers).

But, yes, they can be tamed.  Maybe not domesticated, but tamed.  Just keep a lot of meat around.  And keep Soiled Doves away from others of its kind. When one of them swarms, the rest of them do, too.

Needed to practice my Savage Worlds crunchy bit writeup skills a bit.

Forjas Taurus “Arpão” Deck-Mounted Mechanical-Action Ballista – Google Docs

Forjas Taurus “Arpão” Deck-Mounted Mechanical-Action Ballista

[The Day After Ragnarok]

The Brazilian firearms company Forjas Taurus has been working on these monster-killers since just after 1945, thanks to a series of what turned out be prescient dreams suffered by the board of directors.  The Arpão is a fairly ingenious weapon: it’s basically a ship-mounted ballista that uses a small diesel motor to cock the swing arm that fires its forearm-thick bolts.  Interestingly, the Arpão is also designed to be cocked by hand – well, by using a hydraulic jack.  It’s obviously much slower to reload that way, but an experienced crew can still put out a decent rate of fire.

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the-lost-fleet-google-docs

The Lost Fleet
[The Day After Ragnarok]

Most of the post-Serpentfall world has more or less forgotten about the Battle for the Atlantic. There are several good reasons for this: first off, that particular battle had been effectively over prior to the sudden end of the world, which meant that most of the heavy ships of the Allies had been already diverted to the Pacific theater — and that the naval forces of the Axis had largely ceased to exist. What naval forces did remain in the Atlantic are generally assumed to have been lost in the mega-tsunami that destroyed the American East Coast; certainly almost none of them later reported in. And, of course, the North Atlantic is now a watery deathtrap of rogue icebergs, expanding ice cap, and bitter cold. If any ships did survive, they would now be crewed by ghosts. (more…)

winston-churchills-walking-cane-google-docs

Winston Churchill’s Walking Cane

This is the walking cane that Winston Churchill carried throughout World War II. As you might imagine, it can have a certain resonance, in the right hands. And if it ever ends up in the wrong ones, well, the pyrotechnics could be entertaining.  Also, messy.

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In case it isn’t obvious, I’m trying to finish up and clean up some stuff that’s been lurking in my hard drive for a while.  Way overdue, honestly.

the-ebony-tarn-of-alberta-google-docs

The Ebony Tarn of Alberta

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Not every effect of the Serpentfall was supernatural: in Alberta’s case, the mere shifting of tectonic plates was enough to bring its existing vast reserves of oil even closer to the surface. The countryside from wendigo-haunted Edmonton to new-walled Calgary has been transformed to a natural oil seepage, and the stubborn stay-behinds who refused to move after Alberta rang like a bell have discovered that the men in far-off, safe, warm Vancouver will pay good money for the suddenly accessible crude (and largely clean) oil while not asking too many questions. The province now has teams of wildcatters feverishly and roughly exploiting the new oil supplies, with whatever equipment they can find (or steal, or rob).  In exchange, back East comes survival goods, luxuries, and new immigrants.   (more…)

I hope that this game line comes back soon; the world is a heck of a lot of fun to write in.

the-louisiana-death-bayou-google-docs

The Louisiana Death Bayou

[The Day After Ragnarok]

Looking for adventure in this post-Serpentfall world?  Visit the romantic Louisiana Death Bayou!  

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The Blood Fiend of Toledo – Google Docs

The Blood Fiend of Toledo [The Day After Ragnarok]

Toledo, Ohio is a haunted ruin.  Just ask anybody.  There was a plague, and then there was a huge fire, and then the usual Things moved in – and now the city’s abandoned.  Except for the Things. Thankfully the Things keep to themselves, whatever they are, but smart people don’t go into the ruins.  Especially once the drained corpses of various animals and lesser monsters started showing up on the outskirts of the city.  The legend of the Blood Fiend of Toledo is already making the rounds of all the dives and pirate havens on the Great Lakes, and the tales get steadily taller. (more…)

Something that I’m playing around with in my spare time.  Based on the The Day After Ragnarok RPG, of course.

The Golden Horseshoe League

In the first years after the Serpent Fell, the lands of 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.

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Dull, even.  I spent a large portion of it trying to figure out how much of the Great Lakes a city-state alliance of Buffalo and Rochester, NY, and Hamilton and Toronto, Ontario could control.  Answer: quite a bit, although push it too far and Detroit and Cleveland would probably ally and invade The Golden Horseshoe League overland.  I really hope that The Day After Ragnarok RPG gets back on its feet, soon.: there’s a ton of things that you can do with the setting in the Northeast of North America alone.