Pete, Anthony, Sarah...seriously, you don't want to read this. Its more fun if you discover this stuff through play.
STOP READING.
Thoughts and suggestions are appreciated, particularly with the mechanical stuff.
Fundamental Scarcity: Fear (of the dark)
Warlord - Collector
The Engineer-in-Chief is the third generation in a long line of engineers who have kept Hoover Dam running. The dam's electricity has made it a bustling marketplace and a hub of the rim towns, including Las Vegas, which has no electricity of its own.
She rules over the wire-sheriffs or wire-knights who look after the connections that run to the towns and holds her power through the engineers with their steel monkey wrenches they carry on the hips of their overalls. If a rim town disobeys her, she sends them into the black, turning off their power, a sign to every jackal in the desert that it is open season on that town and its inhabitants.
Her contribution to the dam is figuring out how to capture the brainwaves of the dead who are drawn to hoover due to its odd engines. She uses the knowledge of the dead to know more about local politics, uncover goods and more. If someone's knowledge is valuable and she can't control them, she will order them killed so that she can hold their brain's electrical activity in a cell deep within Hoover.
Countdown Clock
1 - The Engineer in Chief is gathering tribute, feuding with Vegas and all's well.
3 - She discovers how to store the ghost-brainwaves in still-living people.
6 - She discovers how to use Hoover's batteries to spy on people she has marked.
9 - She discovers how to use Hoover's batteries to contact Brainers all over the world.
12 - She gains information from dead person's brainwaves that is really fucking big...I dunno, maybe a nuke or someone with game-changing old world info or something huge. We'll see.
Custom Move
When you attempt to anchor someone's brainwaves who is drifting towards Hoover, roll Weird:
10+, you anchor them to a spot and they will haunt it unless someone willfully breaks the tether.
7-9, you must either take them into your own mind or put them into someone else's...if you don't, they're gone to Hoover.
5, MC's choice...they're gone to Hoover or they're hitch-hiking in your own brain or their in an animal or they've becoming something else within the psychic maelstrom...
Warlord - Dictator
The Chemist is the drug dealer who runs Vegas. He constantly feuds with Hoover but has enough pull within the city that she can't quite make war on him or put him into the dark just yet.
The Chemist not only makes highly addictive drugs but also some medicine.
I have some ideas of the Chemist being a Breaking Bad-inspired family man but they haven't quite come together in my brain just yet. His soldiers are a mix of slick, market-savvy drug dealers and desperate addicts.
Countdown Clock
1 - Steady slingin'
3 - There is rumbling discontent in Hoover about the Engineer's leadership
6 - An engineer turns traitor.
9 - There are anti-engineer riots in the market.
12 - The Chemist has an army gathered and is ready to take Hoover.
Designer Drug (I have an idea for one that sends the user into the psychic maelstrom in search of answers to dep mysteries but it isn't right yet.)
Babalicious (Obviously, I wouldn't use this if a Battlebabe was in play)
When you take Babalicious in order to do violence, roll Hard
10+ You do violence with efficacy and brutality. In the coming fight. choose one person who lives and one person who dies.
7-9 You only get to choose either one person who lives or one person who dies and you now crave this drug...Take an XP if the next time you get into any kind of trouble you decide that it would be best solved with a hit of Babalicious.
Miss, you wake up after a violence-fueled orgy of death, covered in blood, having gone way overboard and in deep trouble and you crave another hit of this drug.
Landscape - Breeding Pit
Some assholes in Vegas had a show with Ligers back in the day. When the world ended, they released them into the grand canyon and they've spawned a pride of the monsters.
Countdown Clock
1 - There is the occasional liger sighting outside of the canyon.
3 - Liger are reported outside of a rim town but it ran away when a shot was fired.
6 - A child or loner is snatched up by a liger.
9 - A known gang is ripped to shreds by the pride.
12 - A rim town is wiped off of the map.
Custom Move
When the pride is hunting you, roll Cool...
10+ You read the signs, know what's up and get a +1 on your counter-ambush or on simply GTFU of dodge.
7-9 You panic a bit, choose 2:
You lead the pride to more people.
You wedge yourself in a place where they can't immediately get at you but you also can't get out and can't get away. You're trapped.
You run away, frantic and lose something.
You run straight into it and deal out +1 harm but also take +1 harm in that first exchange.
On a miss, they are going to get you good...
Brutes - Family
The rim towns around Hoover pay their tribute to the Engineer-in-chief for their electricity. No one wants to be left out in the dark. There are too many burned out graveyards where rim towns used to be for that.
They aren't a united family but each town closes ranks and protects its own. Its more of a system of brutes than the rim towns being one united brute.
Countdown Clock
1 - Paying tribute, it could be worse, at least we're in the light.
3 - A town has a catastrophe and won't be able to make a payment for the coming month.
6 - A known town goes dark.
9 - Rim towns have a meeting to discuss going to the engineer-in-chief and asking for more say in how things work in Hoover.
12 - Is there anyone to gather them? Does a leader rise up? Is there revolution or are they put back in their place?