New Apocalypse World Campaign, Toronto Ontario

I shouldn't have forgotten Sigur Ros

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqJ8hFgYwVg&ob=av2e

We were in the rubble of last session:


***********************************

_____/        \______ <------The Hot Gates

Bikers

     * * *
       * *    Wreckage

       []     Sarcophagus + Heroes


The Flock               The Dwellers

************************************


Pre-game rolls
* Quarantine rolls bad: he had to give a horrible detail of the fall -- cannibalism onboard space stations in their degenerating orbit
* Chopper: rolled to see if he concerved supplies in the last battle -- he did not.  Is now short on ammo

Challenge: 2 players gone (Battlebabe and Savvyhead): how to keep pushing foreward without doing injustice to them?
* Savyhead "volunteers" to track down one of the cryptic automated Behemoths that were escorting the flock back towards Fort Scott, but after Ethan deployed his signal disruptor, went wild.
* Dust agrees to accompany Quarantine on expidition into Hudson's Basin to check on his Pod.


Chopper pulls The Widow from the Sarcophagus.  His crossdressing disgusts the puritanical Flock and Dwellers.  Chopper beheads The Widow and claims that Hagar was trying to use this demon.  Flock is confused by Chopper who persuades them to believe him.  He promises to confront Hagar with his accusations.
Quarantine is more sure of his role as a leader.  Maneuvers to get Chopper to watch the Flock and the Dwellers while he goes into desert.  Sarah agrees to stay behind and help while she and Quarantine go check out the Pods.

Ethan volunteers for his mission.
A quiet meal of slaughtered "Please" birds provides a moment of peace amidst the deadly mayhem.
Quarantine heads to the desert to check pods.  On his way, a pillar of fire erupts behind him.  Dust pressures him to go on and continue the mission.  They come to the pod: excavator machines have bared its top, and the stasis pod was pulled out of its slot.  Other than the cylender from which the stasis chamber was removed, the hull is unbreached.  Dust and Quarantine explore the pod, find some oddments and some high-tech armour.  Someone comes down to investigate the pod.  Dust and Quarantine throw some explosives and kill them.  They are the representatives of Hengelo, warlord of The Eye.  They recover a beat up VW bug in which is a supply of highly concentrated does of the maelstrom-conducting drug that was being peddled by Fuse at Fort Scott, and which the Chopper is using to corrupt the Flock.  The 2 decide to wait for Ethan.
Chopper tries to get a good night's sleep.  But a jet of fire errupts from Fort Scott, which torments the drug-addled Flock and Dwellers.  In the groggy dawn, Big Dog acts quickly: Sarah is nabbed by the gang and Big Dog begins his own preaching.  He tells the followers that Hagar's ambitions are bringing wrack and ruin to her followers.  He commands them to nab the remainder of Fort Scott's s-millet planting and take to the hills.  He then plans to set out for The Eye.

Last bit:
A cargo tanker of petrol pulls up to the Hot Gates.  It is Majorca, a representative of The Pumps.  He is ticked off that someone -- by the name of "Quarantine" has been going around claiming that he is a member of their holding and speaks in their name.  He makes it very clear to Big Dog that if he grabs the Quarantine, he will be richly rewarded.

A lot of "scheming" and only one little firefight.  But satisfying nonetheless.

Nice!

This is coming together nicely

Terms to Describe Apocalypse (based on revelations so far)
* Fascism
* Space satellites
* psychic power
* mini nuclear generators
* resistance was in "The South" and Authority scientists leaked data
* weather
* cannibalism
* secret facilities in the arctic

This is all old news

Questions Answered to My Satisfaction
* will Newton give ammo?
* what is Hagar's prophecy?
* what is the storm?
* will scavenger dudes return? (they did, you wasted them and stole an ATV)
* how did a digi-cam survive?
* what are the effects of the drug that Flare has been feeding to Big Dog's pack? (highly addictive, withdrawal causes painful nausea and vomiting & sluggishness)
* what will Putrid's revenge be? violence and kidnapping!
* where did Flare get the drug? the eye
* how Bloodhound perceives what happened to him (the resurrection): he believes that he resurrected himself!

Questions Recently Answered

* how do the Pumps/petro work? Steam pressure injected into coal shale underground
* how will Dust interact with the Savvyhead?
* Will Mounties raid Ft. Scott or Hagar's Tribe?: I know, you don't
* Will Newton pursue Dust for alleged betrayal?: No, way more important things on her mind.
* How does Gnarly plan to handle the snipers and the rest of Hagar's Tribe?  Too late, point is moot
* What creepiness with the creepy militiaman Corbet do next: I have a very awful idea
* How will the methane system get repaired?: It won't, it didn't, it blew up.
* Is there a battery for the artificial life support? Yes, and they are running out?


Questions Still Open

* how is the storm linked to the Psychic Maelstrom?
* where do basic food staples (grain, sugar, salt, pepper, cooking oil, fundamental proteins, coffee) come from?
* Is Hagar really Lt. Tammy Jackson
* If not, what happened to Tammy?
* Is Ishmael really the child of Hagar and the Quarantine
* What was Ethan's ride from Wyoming like?
* What happened to Lucy, the Quarantine's child that he remembers?
* What kind of man has Nimkii become?
* What will the drug-addled break-off sect do?
* Where was the Leviathan going?
* Where is Ethan?
* Who will save Fort Scott's reactor?
* What is Bloodhound thinking?
* What does Hengelo (Maestro d' of The Eye) want?

My physics and engineering are really shoddy.  But I am not COMPLETELY out to lunch on the whole mini-nuke thing:

http://www.economist.com/node/17647651

TerraPower, an American firm backed by Bill Gates, thinks it has the solution. It is working with Toshiba to design a small reactor based on a “travelling wave” design. Once kick-started with a tiny amount of enriched uranium, it would run for decades on non-enriched, depleted uranium, a widely available material. This will be possible because the nuclear reaction, eating its way through the core at the rate of about one centimetre a year, would gradually convert the depleted uranium into fissionable plutonium—in effect “breeding” high-grade fuel and then consuming it.

Mr Gates points out that nuclear power has historically been dogged by five worries: safety, proliferation, waste, cost and fuel availability. “This thing is a miracle that solves all five,” he says. John Gilleland, TerraPower’s boss, says that a single enrichment plant would then suffice to produce all the enriched uranium needed to spark up the world’s mini-reactors.

The prospects for mini-reactors, like those for large reactors, depend on a combination of technical, commercial and regulatory factors. The stars do not seem to be aligning for large reactors. But they are no longer the only game in town.

http://www.physorg.com/news145561984.html

Because of their small size, the mini power plants can be assembled relatively quickly and transported by truck, rail or ship to remote locations, even places that currently do not have electricity. The power plants provide an alternative to current nuclear plants, which are large, expensive, and take about 10 years to build. Also, large-scale power plants don´t fit the needs of small populations or areas without available land. Hyperion´s modules can be connected together to provide energy for larger populations, as well.

In addition, the Hyperion modules have no moving parts to wear down, and never need to be opened on site. Even if opened, the small amount of enclosed fuel would immediately cool, alleviating safety concerns. "It is impossible for the module to go supercritical, ´melt down,´ or create any type of emergency situation," the company states on its Web site. Because the Hyperion plants would be buried underground and guarded by a security detail, the company explains that they´ll be out of sight and safe from illegitimate uses. Further, the material inside wouldn´t be appropriate for proliferation purposes.

"You would need nation-state resources in order to enrich our uranium," Deal said. "Temperature-wise it´s too hot to handle. It would be like stealing a barbecue with your bare hands."

The reactors need to be refueled about every seven to ten years. After five years of generating power, Hyperion says that the module produces a total waste of about the size of a softball, which could be a candidate for fuel recycling.

No Ethan

The session is a bit of reboot of the series.  I was attempting to do something like a first session exploratory operation.

A lot of apocalyptica was barfed (more on that later)

The characters are still separated: Quarantine & Dust are with the remnants of the Dwellers and the Goatherds, holed up in the cave complex.  Big Dog is further south with Hengelo and The Eye.

Dust: revising relationship with Niimki.  He is showing a violent streak, perhaps linked to the drug Big Dog smuggled into the Goatherds.  He is showing intense loyalty to Dust and is determined to have the crew of survivors follow her instructions.

Quarantine: trying to unify his flock and get a better vision on what the status of the infrastructure at Fort Scott is.

There are charged interactions between Dust and Quarantine.  Niimki is on Q's case, but because Dust sees a place for Q, Niimki is not overly aggressive.  Gimlet, a withered old Dweller, has had enough with Q's messianic bafflegab and rebels, only to be put in place by Niimki.  It appears as if the drug-enhanced orgy has not mellowed everyone out (pace Frank Herbert's Fremen and no disrespect offered to Yage and Mescaline cults around the world).

Up on top of the massif, Q enters two trances.  At the end of one a sinister voice suggests that if he were to jump from the highest tower, his tempter could save him from the fall.  At the end of the other, he feels serpentine tongues in his ear.  After a sex-and-drug flipout with her husband, Dust finds herself trudging in circles at the top of the massif.  She herself has had visions of various geographic points in the setting going up in atomic fireballs.

Dust, Q, Niimki, and Joe's Girl set off to explore the extent of the tunnel system.  It appears as if the massif is shielded against the intrusions of Brainers, like Quarantine's wife, Hagar.  The only "passkey" into the storage vaults of the complex is the DNA -- in the form of red blood corpuscles -- of Joe's Girl.  Inside the complex there are stores of food and water, what seems to be another functioning power core, some walkie-talkies, and an old photo.  It is a family, with the father in uniform, standing in front of some official-looking banner.  The faces of the mother and 2 children have been burnt out by cigarettes.  The man's face is that of the Quarantine.  Niimki sees Q take the photo but says nothing.

Big Dog had to see what was up with Hengelo.  He even put the captured Newton under H's guard.  While his biker boys were celebrating in Party Town, he had a very tense interaction with Arroy-D, one of the twins who runs the brothel.  Rejecting her advances, he seeks out his lieutenant Bloodhound.  He comes upon him engaged in some psycho-sexual-ritual freakout with Cock Brand, the other twin.  His mind is deranged.  He comes to to find his core of bikers following Bloodhound in some state of ecstatic elevation.  He tries to assert his authority and, after dealing with Bloodhound and his patron CB, finds himself repeatedly challenged to duels by every member of his gang.  Suspecting chemical or psychic derangement of his crew, Bloodhound presses on to Hengelo's place.  He and Newton pull a Chewbacca, shoot the place up.  The heavily wounded Big Dog resolves to stay and get his crew back under control.

As you can see, I have been in reactive or reflective or visionary mode for some time.

With the big fort abandoned, the entire scheme of power relations in the area is up for grabs.

So I have been riffing on apocalyptica.

Step one: the word means "revelation" or "rending of the veil."
- some comparative religion types look at apocalyptic or end-time prophecies as visions were the founding moments of a mythology are replayed in extremis as a world comes to an end
- I sent my mind back to a few foundational myths and replayed them in the context of a burnt-out planet

Step two: a few foundational moments
- The Epic of Gilgamesh: as a primal king one of the first moves of Gil is to tame the wildman Enkidu.  He does this by brewing beer and inaugurating sacred prostitution.  Centers of ecstasy can be cornerstones as much as fortresses or farms.  There is a place for Dionysus as well as Zeus, Ares, or Minerva.
- The messiah is tempted: Jesus on top of the temple with the tempter.  The foundation stones of the temple were sometimes said to be the omphalos or founding stones of the world.  Messiah is promised immense power if he trusts the tempter.
- Androgyne twins possessing unearthly powers.  Some kinda Gnostic thing, if I recall.
More specifically, Cock-Brand was inspired by a photo I saw of an indignant, impassioned hijra gesticulating at a camera.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hijra_%28South_Asia%29

In Hindu contexts, hijras belong to a special caste. They are usually devotees of the mother goddess Bahuchara Mata, Lord Shiva or both. Hijra culture draws upon the traditions of several religions.

Hijras and Bahuchara Mata

Bahuchara Mata is a Hindu goddess with two unrelated stories both associated with transgender behavior. One story is that she appeared in the avatar of a princess who castrated her husband because he would run in the woods and act like a woman rather than have sex with her. Another story is that a man tried to rape her so she cursed him with impotence. When the man begged her forgiveness to have the curse removed, she relented only after he agreed to run in the woods and act like a woman. The primary temple to this goddess is Gujarat[25] and it is a place of pilgrimage for hijras, who see Bahucahara Mata as a patroness.

Hijras and Lord Shiva

One of the forms of Lord Shiva is a merging with Parvati where together they are Ardhanari, a god that is half Shiva and Half Parvati. Ardhanari is especially worshipped in North India and has special significance as a patron of hijras, who identify with the gender ambiguity.[25]

Big Dog:
- your guys are drug addled and manipulated and tranced out
- I have taken your gang away from you TEMPORARILY: it's an MC move "take away their stuff" but does not represent a crippling of your character's effectiveness.

The Caves:
- I bobbled the description of the thing:
- They are not huge, super-fancy complexes, but more like the Taliban redoubts in the hills of Afghanistan:

- There is one main, downward slanting shaft with stairs to assist transit, and a few storage rooms off to the side:

- There is undoubtedly on of the mini-nukes powering the thing
- It is limited in extent.

Thanks, Erik!

Good stuff.

Particularly enjoying the religious info: very interesting!

As a point of game theory, I'd love to ask you one of these days what you would have done if I had decided to trust the voice and thrown myself off the edge of the cliff. (But it's probably too early for that, since the identity of the voice is still shrouded in mystery, and you might want to keep fooling around with that in the fiction.)

Cheers!

When I did that, I had no idea what the consequences would be.

I suppose because I have been reading different critical histories of the New Testament and different theories about how Christian worship started, I wanted a moment that defied all rational, scientific reality.  Or at least all participants were firmly convinced that such a moment had occurred.

There is a weird moment in Dorsai where the genetically-bred general Donal Graheme starts defying the law of gravity.  Some sort of triumph of the heroic will over the constraints of reality, a bit of magic in the middle of a bog-standard space opera.

But I made sure that Dust saw you levitate too.  There are group hallucinations, sure. 

But I really just barfed that apocalyptica out with no thought as to what would happen if you acted on it.

But, remember, JC did not act on the temptation either.

Excellent!

I like the Biblical vibe.

Although it is (from a game design/play advice perspective) very interesting to consider what the MC might do in this situation.

Assuming the order to jump is just a hallucination, the options are somewhat limited. I suppose giving the player a full "clock" of Harm is a decent option, since the player can choose to take a debility and thereby survive.

What else?

Introducing some more weirdness, though, of course, there are many other options.