Two Hundred Scenario Ideas

Back in December 2004, gordyzx9r posted a list of 100 quick scenario ideas in the TMNT/AtB Forums at Palladium Books. And while the list was pretty dry, it could be used by GM's to provide a spark for an idea that could be built into a fleshed out game.

Examples:
1. A barbarian horde bent on conquest bleeds the lands in it’s path of wanton destruction
17. Act as an official emissary
62. Inadvertently trigger a thought to be defunct, rogue sleeper-cell like order that sets into motion the overthrow of the local government
99. Word reaches Smoketown that an old decrepit Pre-Death ballistic submarine has washed ashore a Cardanian beach, the race is on to secure &/or destroy it to keep it from falling into enemy hands

In January of 2006, gordyzx9r posted another list of 100 scenarios. This time however, the list mostly included ideas that were more fleshed out than the previous 100.

So now if you are facing a weekend with friends who wanted to play After the Bomb, and had a bad case of writers block, you could quickly roll a D% to pull up a quick adventure idea. Please note though: NPCs are not included.

Examples:
2. A Cardanian research team has been attempting to decipher the program of a strange pre-death communication device when they unintentionally activate some sort of beacon. They learn that the beacon is transmitting a signal for a device to hone in and kill every living creature within a certain radius of the broadcast. Scientists are able to ascertain that there is only a few days time until this “thing” reaches the city. Cardania doesn’t want to cause mass pandemonium so the PCs are contracted to intercept whatever it is that is enroute to the city and destroy it…if they can.
49. It’s dead of winter and the PCs have been dispatched to a remote radio relay station that retransmits radio traffic. While monitoring the radio during a snow storm, they hear an EoH transmission between someone on the ground and EoH fighter-bombers. The person on the ground is evidently a forward controller as he makes a call for fire and as he’s relaying the coordinates, the PCs realize that the coordinates are for their relay station. They have just seconds to escape the attack and will be left with very little of their equipment. The EoH forward controller is part of an elite EoH commando team who will try to hunt down and capture or kill the PCs.
96. While on an existing mission, roll again on this table as an event occurs that may force more responsibilities upon the PCs.

To get a copy of the full list of two hundred scenarios you can find them in Palladuims forums [here and here], send gordyzx9r a PM to get a copy in word, or you can download a plain text copy with the link below.

Download: 200 Scenarios (text format), by gordyzx9r.

Larger Map of Cardania

Here's a larger scale map of Cardania.

[click for larger image]

This map shows the largest Cardanian cities that appear in my games: Smoketown, Portsmouth, Petersburg, Patux, Cambridge, Camden, Port Pocomo, and Paradise. Also shown are the locations of the D.C. Ruins, and Baltimore Ruins.

LOCATION NOTES:

Smoketown: Cardanian Capitol

Portsmouth: Carnadia's main port (Largest city)

Petersburg: Main hub of trade with scouts and inland salvage operators.

Patux: Industrial town, frequented by those heading to the ruins of DC and Baltimore. Frequent ferry service with Cambridge.

Cambridge: Peninsula's northern port. Home of the Academic Underground's first secret university.

Camden: Home to Cardania's single largest mill works, and largest city on the peninsula.

Port Pocomo: Peninsula's busiest lumber port. Controled by Camden.

Paradise: Gateway to the North. Those who don't want to travel around the ruins of DC or Baltimore enter Cardania through this city. Large Elite Militia presence. Heavy into trade with the Rodent Cartel of Filly. Quickly becoming Cardania's largest city due to a growing shanty town north of the "accepted" Cardanian boarder (suspected to be haven for many New Kennel and Empire Spies).

D.C. Ruins: Washington D.C., capitol of the former United States, was hit by a nuclear weapon at the time of the Death. Radiation levels have dropped over the past 75 years, but it still remains a dangerous place to visit due to strange mutant that live in the ruins as well as crumbling buildings, and pockets of leathal radiation.

Baltimore Ruins: Baltimore was swallowed by the Chesapeake Bay shortly after the Death as the sea level rose. Buildings that survived the flood have been known to colapse without warning and pose a hazard to any scavengers that venture into these ruins.

Colorized East Coast Map

I colorized the old east coast AtB map for one of my older adventures. There are a couple extra locations noted on the map that you can ignore. If I can find the time, I'll try to edit them out.

Still I think it's a nice map to use.

[click to enlarge]

Northern Lights

Written by: Mechanurgist

Author: I've written a short adventure for After the Bomb. It's called Northern Lights and features a foray into the Great Lakes region, which to my knowledge has not been described in any AtB sources (though I don't have all the books).

Adventure Map

[download Northern Lights (.pdf)]

Review: This adventure opens up a new area of exploration and conflict in the AtB setting. In this adventure you'll find new Animal city (Buffalotown), and a surprisingly intact Human city (Anthrotopia) hidden beneath a glimering energy dome.

The adventure revolves around a Wolf Barbarian hoard that is hell-bent on invading the human city, but kept at bay by the cities protective dome. The player characters are quicly swept up in this drama and implored to help the inhabitants of Buffalotown who are caught in the middle.

No NPC stats are given, allowing GMs to modify them to their own liking and adjust them to fit with their group. The author has also stated that -quote- "If someone wishes to write them up, please go ahead and I'll add them to the file."

LINK: Mechanurgist's Palladium Board Profile.

The Death, The Present, and Beyond

[updated October 16, 2006]
It's always bothered me that Palladium never gave a date for the After the Bomb setting, not that it should really matter, but it would help to figure the tech level to the world before the human society fell (aka The Crash, The Death, The Big Death, The Bomb, The Flash, etc..), and how much time has passed for decay and rebirth to change the environments of the new Earth.

However, if you know where to look, you should be able to come up with dates to use. The most obvious being the year of The Death.

NOTE: I was able to track down a comment from Erick Wujcik (circa June 2004) [link] on Palladium's AtB Message Board that -quote- 'just sort of vaguely point into the future, and say, "it's up to the Game Master..."'. So what I write here are my own personal theories based on observations from the material that is presented in the books.

The oldest concrete date I've found in the new 2nd Edition After the Bomb (AtB2) manual is found under the Mechanic Apprenticeship in referencing a "2057 fuel-cell/electric communter bus."***

I should also note that Mutants in Orbit (MiO) makes mention that the "Orbit is crowded, filled with the debris of a hundred years of exploration and dumping", which also suggests that space exploration ended roughly 100 years after it began (Sputnik 1957) which suggests the year at the time of MiO was around 2057. However, MiO was written by James "Mutants in Avalon" Wallis and Kevin Siembieda, not Erick Wujcik.

So, I presume The Death to have taken place at some time in or around the year 2060.

Now to determine roughly how long after The Death it is, let's look at the ages of a few characters who know to have lived through that event...

Weschek the Wise: Age 84
Emperor Christian: Age 96
Doctor Wilbur Vincent: Age 136!

Let's use the youngest of these three, Weschek at 84 years of age and who is said to remember vividly the slavery he suffered under the humans. By that we can surmise that Weschek had to be more than a pony at the time of The Death, so let's set his age between 6 and 12-years-old, placing the AtB setting 72 to 78 years later or by todays standard, between 2132 and 2138 AD.

This would set Christian at between 24 to 30-years-old, and Doctor Wilbur between 64 and 70-years-old at the time of The Death.

For the sake of argument let's go with the year 2135 AD, 75 years after The Death.

In 1989, in the Trasdimentional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TDTMNT) sourcebook, you can find the date 2113 AD associated with the After the Bomb setting, but that could take place at anytime after The Death and should not neccessarily be taken as the benchmark date for AtB2.

But it doesn't end there!

AtB Book 5: Mutants in Avalon (MiA) notes that it is set "around 150 years" after the disaster (pg 4). However, this book was written by James Wallis, not Erick Wujcik, so he may have decided to set his sourcebook further along in the AtB history (nothing says all the sourcebooks have to take place in the same year or decade). So if we go by my calculations above, Mutants in Avalon would take place in, or around, 2200 AD, or roughly 75 years after the setting of AtB2.

Now you can see why I went with the year 2135 AD for AtB2. It places the main book and MiA at 75 year incriments after The Death. Very neat and tidy.

So, if you choose, here are the years that I would suggest for AtB2:

• ~2060: The Death
• ~2135: Current AtB2 setting
• 2200: Mutants in Avalon*
• 2260: Mutants in Orbit or All the remaining nations of the Earth evacuate into space (See TDTMNT, pg 80)**

---

* NOTE: The description of Europe in AtB2 (pg 166) could be seen to contradict the 75 year difference between the two books, but it could also be seen as history repeating itself.
** NOTE: Optional. TDTMNT is not technically an offical sourcebook to AtB2, although the AtB setting is a part of TDTMNT, and both are the work of Erick Wujcik, the AtB in TDTMNT could be seen as an alternate AtB universe.
***NOTE: In an earlier version of this article I had posted that the earliest date was found under the Random Scavenger Table: "Bomb Shelter or Survivalist Hoard" (AtB2, pg 191) as 2050. However, since finding the date 2057 in the mechanic apprenticeship, I have had to adjust my dates for The Death and the the current AtB2 setting.