Wastes Full Of Lightning

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An Apocalypse World game by Kagechikara

ChileVolcanoLightning.jpeg

Threads

Player Characters

Suv the Driver played by insomniac

Lockbox the Maestro'D played by Lorechaser

Kara the Battle Babe played by Valkyrja

Pallour the Brainer played by Baeraad

Rhyme the Touchstone played by Neopteryx

Non Player Characters

Need/Want

Lockbox's Crew

Tacoma: Tacoma is Lockbox's right hand man. He runs the details

Tyre: A server. Pretty and dangerous, occasionally stabs people.

The History

Gams: Games helped Lockbox found Need/Want and get it off the ground. He's gone now, though no one knows where or how.

Roflball: Roflball runs another place. He's rough and dangerous, and his place is deadly and ugly. He wants Need/Want taken out.

The Crowd

Been

Been wants in on Need/Want.

He's one of our best scavs, and he thinks that makes him Family, and gets him privileges. It doesn't. But he always brings us the very best History.... --Lockbox

Knob: Knob makes hooch for Need/Want, and probably others.

Lits: A regular at Need/Want. Probably insane.

Camo: Relative of Gams'. Pain in the ass.

Ba: Old-timer, one of Lockbox's favorites.

Lamprey: A cultist who shows up every night at Need/Want.

Toyota: A whore, but not at Need/Want.

Unaffiliated

Bill Pritty: A better than average thug. He's handsome, charming, and pretty good with a gun. Desperately in love with Kara.

Dezzy: His girlfriend. Wants Kara dead.

Jag: A Tripplay member and itinerant drifter, who's crossed paths with Need/Want and Suv in the past. They aren't a thing or anything.

Prospect: The organizer of a system of claims staked in the wastes, giving the discoverers rights (minus a tax).

Factions

The Anchorites

The Anchorites are an enigmatic group. They appear to be a religious sect, based out of a remote, pre-apocalyptic stronghold of some sort, and relatively little is known about their culture or beliefs. Despite their isolation, they are't entirely reclusive. Traders, scavengers, and others can often be seen outside of their hermitage, always clad head to toe in robes, masks, goggles, and other gear that protects them from the environment and conceals their identities.

They most often trade in life-sustaining goods: clean water, nutritious food, and medicine. Their doctors are among the most skilled in the wasteland and often sought out in cases of illness or injury that no one else knows how to treat. The cost for their services, however, is high: Anchorites are known to show up in communities they've helped before and claim one or more children, who are taken away and never seen again. Most assume the children become Anchorites themselves, and their loss is often rationalized as "well, they'll have a better life there." It's not always that easy, of course, and not everyone is willing to give up their children.

The Anchorites offer their goods and services to nearly everyone and otherwise keep to themselves, making them the closest thing the wasteland has to a truly neutral faction. But even those who won't treat with the Anchorites (or vice versa) avoid crossing them. It's said to be bad luck to harm an Anchorite and there are all kinds of rumors about what happens to those who do.

The Unwanted

The Unwanted are a band of wretches, many of them mutants or cripples, who stick to places too poisoned or otherwise inhospitable for most people to go there as long as they have any other choice. They are cautious and prefer to flee rather than fight if anyone attacks them, but they are also expert survivalists, and sometimes they get their hands on some rare salvage from searching through desolate areas.

Anyone who goes to them for help will receive it, but only by joining them permanently; anyone who leaves the Unwanted is pursued and watched, and while they will not attack large groups of people, they will always be waiting for a moment when the prodigal is alone and vulnerable. Should that moment come, his body will never be found, but some of the gnawed bones around Unwanted campsites have an unnerving look to them...

Dash and Dot's Traveling Circus

Dash and Dot's Traveling Circus is a combination supply run, entertainment center, biker gang, and all-around marauding group. They travel around the wastes, occasionally putting down to put on shows, get people drunk, wasted and';/ dead, stock up fuel and water supplies, and take the best of whatever a community has to offer and take it away with them, whether that be people or supplies or technology.

The Road Crew

A lot of people who travel alone or in small groups in vehicles, acting as scavengers and hoarding whatever they can find of real or imagined value to take with them, doing what they can to avoid drawing attention to themselves while not on the road. A lot of them exist basically in the niche of herd animals- well armed groups actually find it easier to rob them and leave them alive to continue scavenging than to scavenge for themselves. This has been taken to an almost civilized conclusion: Road Crews are well-armed gangs who establish small fortresses along roads that essentially act as toll booths where vehicles are stopped and shaken down, often by way of a large truck used to block the road. Usually they'll leave whatever they decide the driver absolutely needs, so that the relationship can continue.

Most Road Crews are built around places of interest, but they move around with changes is traffic tendencies. They're particularly likely to close in and spring up overnight in a circle around a hold, shaking down people who come in or out. They have a weird impact on the areas they control, securing at the same time they terrorize, bringing trade into a hold at the same time they fleece people coming in or out. They tend to have an abundance of resources and know the comings and goings of survivors, but their prices are always painfully steep. Individuals or small groups on foot can often sneak around them unseen or just slip past unmolested, but large groups or anyone trying to use the road in a vehicle is automatically a target to them.

Tripplay

The open road of the Apocalypse World is a dangerous place. Dust storms, crumbling infrastructure, road crews, mutants, and stranger things give every reason not to leave the places where there is safety in numbers. Someone always has to, though; the salvage of the Old World is all that lets the townies eke out their living. The wanderers, people who make their living on the road without a gang or crew, form something of a fellowship. They hear, tell, and exchange stories of other motorists, as well as warnings and news from the road. This loose association of independent motorists--people who travel without a gang of vehicles--has become known as Tripplay.

Joining Tripplay is, mostly, a recognition by the 'community' of vehicle owners in the Apocalypse World, but also a bond of mutual assistance in the face of disaster. If a member of Tripplay find themselves stranded, either because of mechanical failure or running out of fuel, they can signal to passing Tripplay members with a simple flag by the side of the road or the top of the car. By convention, any passing members are obligated to provide a halfcan of gas, a jack and a spare (whatever mechanical assistance can be rendered on the spot), a mouthfull of water, and a lift into town. They are rarely free, but never refused (for, admittedly, a given value of 'never').

Besides roadside assistance, Tripplay members set roadsign to warn other drivers of hazards and road crew activity. Trading posts and road stops are designated 'neutral ground' where spare parts and fuel can be bartered at fair prices (for a given value of 'fair.') The conventions are enforced by mutual agreement, but the protection it offers is significant--everyone's heard stories of riders who didn't hold up their end, and at the next trade stop they visited, the holders gunned them down and looted their ride with impunity.

Of course, when violations mostly occur miles from any witnesses, the chances of enforcing them are slim. And more than one unscrupulous raider uses the distress signal to jump on the helplessly stranded or as bait for would be assistance. More often, there simply isn't another driver along the same route before the driver perishes. But there are no shortage of professional drivers who owe their lives to Tripplay roadside assistance.

Locations

Need/Want

Need/Want is a Bar, supported by Spectacle and Luxe food. It's a place that brings you to the Way it Was, beauty and history in a world that has neither and treats both as weakness. In Need/Want, no one comes armed (Unless you're on the list, and the list is short), and no one fights. All her People are armed or trained for beautiful violence (everybody's packing). It keeps her clientele slightly smaller, since some are so Hard and so Broken that they can't set it aside and just *be* but that's okay. There are places and places for them and theirs. The ones that come in Need/Want set it aside for a bit. Dance, look, watch, breathe. Beauty all around, clothed or not, some prosaic, some exotic and masked. Drinks, hash, sleep, brain-hacks. All are for clients depending on need and jingle. Tacoma runs them all - he's been her bouncer since the start, and he knows his biz. If someone is starting a scene, Tacoma is there with a hand on the arm and pain in his hand, offering a pleasant relaxation or a painful removal.

Things you'll see there are Wonders of the age, dug from places beyond. Beautiful, confounding, heartening, crushing, it's all there. A constant rotation of History means you'll see at least one thing new each time. And if you have a thing you can't figure, bring it to Lockbox, and she'll find a person and a place for it.

Old Harpersfield

A small town built around one of the few successful farms up north. They had an untainted water supply and grew crops that were healthy, if meager. The Harpers, who all but ran the town, were good people and took in anyone who was willing to put in a good day's work. She knew the town was bound to attract negative attention someday, whether she was there or not, and at least if she was there, she could help protect it.

Destroyed by a mysterious plague.

Resources

Playbooks

Basic Reference Books

Invisible Castle Campaign