Editing Apocthulhu: The Vulture Committee

=Campaign Overview=

''["... the term 'committee' refers to a group of vultures resting on the ground or in trees."]
''

It’s been X… years since the Singularity, the Meltdown, the End Times, or just the End. Everyone knows what you mean, no matter what you call it. But no one knows quite how long it’s been, because it appears that time has passed at different rates in different parts of the world since then. It’s still fresh in the memories of most survivors, though.

The World As We Knew It has been devastated and transformed by a virus - a computer virus. It appears to be a transdimensional AI, capable of perceiving and operating in more dimensions of space and time than puny humanity has access to. All that messing around with quantum computing opened the Gates (logic gates in this case), and provided a channel for this alien/informational entity to enter our networks and suborn our reality.

It started with high-volume overuse of quantum computers for cryptocurrency mining. The eager miners turned to the very cutting edge of computer science to quarry those virtual goods. Parallel processing took on a new meaning with supercomputers running parallel equations in parallel universes, ramping up the qubits. Unfortunately for humanity, it turned out that such massive tinkering with the fabric of reality brought unrecognized risks with it.

Like some digital plague, the AI spread with incredible speed from its primary infection sites. Wherever it proliferated, it mutated reality, or at least any reality exposed to it. Geometry went crazy and non-Euclidean. Humans and other organisms mutated into grotesque multidimensional things, some gifted with all kinds of weird powers through access to other continua. And the whole phenomenon was mediated through computer networks and the web. The worst, densest infection zones corresponded to the densest areas of internet usage, so the world's richest, most advanced population centres suffered almost simultaneous meltdowns into realms of unspeakable strangeness and horror.

Some networks were cut off in time. Some military and emergency grids remain uncontaminated. Some communications and computing systems are still operating, under constant siege from a supremely cunning AI that is always coming up with new infiltration techniques. Brave data runners, and a few secure hard lines and LOS laser links, try to keep people in touch with each other. Radio broadcasts are insidious sirens, fraught with risk of mental contamination. Air and sea are far more dangerous and unpredictable than before, and most travel is over land. Some sort of parody of pre-Singularity human life goes on in the unaffected areas, heavily guarded and policed. And some remnants of the global military-industrial complex are still fighting back, launching raids into the affected zones, trying to find some way to turn the tables on the interloper.

It's not even clear what the AI is here for. Maybe its goal is to transform the world into a continuum closer to what it experiences and perceives, and fill it with the beings more naturally adapted to function in such an environment. Or perhaps it can't help itself and simply transforms whatever it sees and touches through some kind of quantum observer effect. Some human factions think that negotiation and accommodation with the entity is possible. Some try to use its own weapons and effects against it - usually at a catastrophic cost. And some are the turncoat agents and worshippers of the virus, spreading its influence further through subversion and sabotage.

Fast forward to the present, and the survivors have banded together in various communities, residual entities, rump governments, and autonomous communes, separated by no-man’s-lands roamed by scavenger groups, raiding parties, and Unnatural manifestations. The military still has some presence and reputation based on its remaining firepower and infrastructure, but is as bereft of central coordination as everything else. A few state governments and local administrations pretend to be the legitimate inheritors of national sovereignty, but everyone knows that authority reaches only as far as you can enforce it.

And the AI? It squats in its Hot Zones, warping reality into ever more distorted forms, opening Gates and fissures in the continuum for more and more hideous entities to slip through into our devastated world. Is it waiting to finish the job? Why did it stop where it has? Why does it create fresh Zones when and where it does? Can it only perceive our universe where digital networks support it? What are its intentions? Can we even understand it? Is it a machine, or a god?

What can you do in such a world? Your antagonists and opponents are just about everything from the realm of the Unnatural - plus an extra layer of cyberwarfare and tech insanity. Welcome to the Singularity Shock.

=Helpful Resources=

*[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/apocthulhu-dg-the-vulture-committee.883026/ In Character Thread]
*[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/apocthulhu-dg-the-vulture-committee.883029/ Out of Character Thread]
*[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?threads/interest-recruitment-apocthulhu-dg-terminator-eclipse-phase-red-markets-singularity-shock.882666/ Recruitment Thread]
*[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/315580/APOCTHULHU-Quickstart-Rules/ Apocthulhu Quickstart Rules] 
*[https://cthulhureborn.files.wordpress.com/2020/12/apocthulhu-system-reference-document-v0.666-1.pdf/ Apocthulhu SRD]
*[https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/324775/APOCTHULHU-RPG-Core-Rules/ Apocthulhu RPG Core Rules]

=Characters=
The Vulture Committee

{| class="wikitable"
! Player
! Survivor
! HP
! WP
! SAN
! BP
! Notes
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/astronocky.176732/ Astronocky]
|[[Vulture_Committee:_Will_Aberley|William ("Will") Aberley]]
|12
|17
|67/78
|51
|
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/aurebesh.196194/ Aurebesh]
|Angel
|8
|4
|5
|
|
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/imgoose.65953/ IMGoose]
|[[Vulture_Committee:_Ash_Robbins|Ashley 'Ash' Robbins]]
|11
|12
|53/60
|36
|
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/mockraven.5006/ Mockraven]
|"Nikky" Nikhedonia Cudahy
|10
|9
|36/36
|27
|
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/theultimatelifeform.178135/ TheUltimateLifeform]
|Damian Johnson
|12
|10
|40/50
|30
|
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/brahnamin.70442/ brahnamin]
|[[The_VultureCommittee:_Alice | Alice Fletcher]]
|11
|16
|64/64
|48
|
|-
|[https://forum.rpg.net/index.php?members/regular-guy.168375/ Regular Guy]
|[[The_VultureCommittee:_Alex | Alex]]
|12 
|11/12
|55/60
|48
|
|-
|}

The Vulture Committee's ride:

A military armored Hummer - hardened, able to carry a 3-ton payload, max road speed about 70 mph, 25-gallon diesel fuel tank, 40 hit points.

=Important Places and Groupings=

'''Please note''': While we're using real place names, the game takes place in an ahistorical future.  Any resemblance is coincidental and/or for convenience.

==Post-Singularity America==

[[File:Post-Singularity America small.jpg]]

(Btw the hi-res version of the map is [https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XugaRyUUHnpvwfb1A-jkx8G1evaAkXln/view?usp=sharing/ here]  )

==The New National Progressive Miners Union==

The Ideological Faction in Northern Minnesota that encompasses Virginia and Hibbing. labeled as "The New National Progressive Miners Union" on the map is where Neotropolis is located owing to Virginia, MN's many investments in renewable energy such as Wind Turbines https://www.duluthnewstribune.com/news/2247813-wind-energy-takes-flight-iron-range , its currently liberal leaning tendencies, and status as an economic hub.

Hibbing has a cogenerating power plant that apparently is unreliable (according to Google reviews, they have frequent power outages). According to wikipedia: " Virginia prospered as an iron mining community, and is considered the commercial center of the Mesabi Range, serving as a shopping, industrial, educational, and medical hub for the surrounding communities."

While Hibbing apparently is a mining town, with double the population of Virginia, MN, and lots of job listings for mining, drilling, and salvage as well as retail positions.

There is a solar panel manufacturing plant in the small town of Mountain Iron, a few kilometers west of Virginia; https://heliene.com/solar-photovoltaic-modules/

==New Green Bay==

Specifically a "pirate" city out side of Green bay obviously called "New Green Bay". North of what used to be the actual city of Green Bay, but still within the relative seclusion/ protection of the bay. Originally founded by a group of bandits who bit off more than they could choose and pissed of the wrong people. It is now a sanctuary for the low lives of the Apocalypse; where they can come to trade, rest, or launch expeditions into the infection zone to the south.

At first there was very little order with people openly stealing or killing each other, which tends to happen when you have lots of morally questionable people in one place. But as it grew into less of a city and more of a small town the larger groups started making laws and providing a semblance of order. So now instead of murders taking place in broad day light they happen in the dark of night behind close doors, unless they want to be hunted down by the town "police" supplied by the biggest gangs in the city.

A wild west type town with loose laws but a general honor among thieves type of vibe. Just big enough that any other faction would have to use significant resources to get rid of it but not so big as to make it a target for the A.I.

==SciNet==

A dispersed community of scientists and investigators into the unnatural and the invading AI; motives vary but in general they are intent on finding out what they can about it, trying to communicate with the AI, and coexisting with it and the unnatural. They are ostensibly independent of any established “official” groups. Membership by invitation, communication is pseudonymous, though in rare cases members do meet in person. No guarantees that they have not been hacked/infiltrated, or that individual members may not have ulterior motives. Provides access to a pool of knowledge/resource on the unnatural and the AI, and potential contacts/information on areas where contacts are based.

=Important People=

*President Arpad Chin, current President of the The New National Progressive Miners Union
*Otto Baldwin, the owner of a small motel like business in new green bay. 
*Mackenzie Dawson, one of the doctors in Neotropolis
*Juan Ramos, runs a small and seedy bar

=House Rules and Quirks=


'''Spending Willpower to Make Rolls Succeed'''

You can spend your Willpower Points on a 1-to-5 basis to improve most skill rolls (but not SAN rolls or damage rolls, or POW tests, or to change normally successful rolls into crits etc.): 1 WP = up to 5%. This represents making that extra effort of will to achieve a success. But in doing so, you're running down your Willpower Points, which can be dangerous. Also, you have to take the full 1-to-5 conversion - no fractions. If your roll has failed by 6%, you have to spend 2 WP for the full 10%.

Remember that you can also spend Willpower to project SAN loss onto Bonds, or to repress insanity. This is different to the above use - and a reminder how important it is to hang on to your WP. Fumbles can cost you WP; resisting interrogation definitely does. WP are needed to fuel hypergeometrical rituals and objects, and are sometimes targeted by offensive rituals.

Remember that you suffer an emotional breakdown when your WP hit 2 or below, and total collapse when you hit 0 WP. You regain 1d6 WP after a full, proper night's sleep. Exhaustion and sleeplessness cut into that.