It was the 22nd Century. The Sol system was a vast collection of megacities, colonies, orbital habitats and stations. Interstellar travel was attained with nuclear fusion and many companies and chartered expeditions ventured out beyond the solar system. Most of the worlds discovered were uninhabitable, so in response, many companies stook up terraformation and atmospheric conditioning to mold new paradises.
The Frin-Eden Company were on the cutting edge of terraformation technology; going far enough to experiment with dangerous wormhole travel to find suitable worlds. One of these worlds was Bastion, a barren, arid planet with a promising future as a garden world. After some twenty five years in development, terraformation was scrapped. Frin-Eden filed for bankruptcy and many of it's terraformation projects were abandoned, including Bastion. Over a century went past for Bastion, it's life sustaining itself in a handful of craters over it's scarred surface. While far across the galaxy, humanity was in a losing war.
The frontier colony of Pilgrim's Rest was attacked by immense monsters, capable of hopping between planets and even solar systems in pursuit of nuclear energy to consume. Besides wanton destruction of colonies and cities, they also brought with them ravenous offspring, fed on human flesh. Along with noxious diseases that swept through refugee camps and aboard fleeing ships. For their deranged pursuit of nuclear sustinence, they were named, Vacuum-Kaiju.
As year after year went past, the number of humans dwindled, their ships engines the very thing drawing the Vacuum-Kaiju to each new haven. Nowhere was safe for the humans, if they returned to worlds left behind by the Kaiju, they would encounter swarming masses of their offspring that took many years to develop. It seemed with each world that was lost, a slither of everyone's hope was lost with it.
One promising hope remained however. Vacuum-Kaiju naturally avoid wormholes, from either primal fear or a past lesson learned. A radical plan was formed, that a collection of ships plunge through a wormhole to a system where a suitable planet lingered. They would cut off their fusion engines and by refraining from utilising nuclear energy, the colony could effectively go into hiding and be undiscovered by the vacuum-kaiju. This of course would mean that the colonists would be condemning themselves to an existence of pre-nuclear energy. At least for a few centuries. Big dangers offered bigger rewards however, as many volunteer colonists made preperations for the journey while a suitable wormhole was looked for.
The Sekelj, the Vlamingh, the Gagarin and numerous smaller vessels were assembled into a ragtag fleet by the time a wormhole was found. With the vacuum-kaiju breathing down their neck, the fleet dipped one by one into the wormhole. The first stroke of luck came up for them as soon as they popped through, as no Kaiju came after them through the wormhole. The second was that they arrived near the planet of Bastion. Unfortunately there good luck was the exception and not the rule.
Not only did the wormhole destabilise and collapse, but sabotage of the fleet sent many of the ships crashing down onto Bastion. Those that survived the crashes were fortunate to have fallen into the habitable region of Bastion simply called the Crater. Just about a thousand five hundred kilometers in diameter, the Crater was an ideal location for the colonists with flowing rivers, great lakes and lush forests.
The Crater was inhabited by animals both familiar and strange. Generally of the North American variety of flora and fauna, they are joined by cloned versions of previously extinct species, such as mammoths and smilodons. While also competing with bastion native species such as the Water-Wyverns. As time went on, the peoples of the different crash sites banded into settlements to survive, united only in their proclamation to not use nuclear energy or technology. Eventually the territories were marked out and various groups and organisations ruled them with open palms or closed fists.
Eighty years after the crashes, the Crater is still a dangerous place, despite the efforts of the territories. There is no shortage of bandits along the roads and people still turn on each other for many reasons both noble and vile. The territories have made alliances with one another and wars have been fought. Technologies once prevelant to the original colonists are vanishing and minds capable of replacing them are few and far between. Less munitions are being produced than spent in the Crater and violence is carried out by swords and bows as well as pistols and artillery.
Talk of uniting the territories is rife among the settlements, it's the 'how' that diversifies that talk however.
Cannibals
Covered in blood and driven mad by their consumption of human flesh. The remaining cannibals have relegated themselves to tribes surrounded by vicious traps and deranged totems. On occasion, if no poor travellers had been caught, they will venture out to nearby settlements and take people for imminent consumption or servitude/sacrifice later.
Corsairs
Though seen often up the rivers and lakes of the crater, their danger comes from their unpredictability and their opportunism. As likely to put silver in your hand as they are to put lead in your stomach. With the right attitude and with enough weapons, they will be a helpful trader, without either and they will come as a dreaded pirate.
Raiders
More organised than your common bandits, the raiders of Kindlers Reach and Frosthold are led by iron-fisted warlords and trained by cunning deserters. They build their walls and fill their stomachs with slave labor, poor souls captured and forced to work for their cruel masters. Raiders boast of their strong war-convoys, designed to drive down into the settlements of the crater and drive slaves and loot back up the slopes to their strongholds.
Red Sun Hussars
Started with the best intentions, this company of cavalrymen set out initially to protect travellers and fighting back both monsters and men. Over the years though, the hussars ethos collapsed on itself and became reborn as a cult, dedicated to serving their sun spirits and attracting converts rather than protecting the innocent. People in the lands surrounding their keeps are extorted and their children are taken to be brainwashed and trained to be hussars.
Water-Wyverns
When the Frin-Eden company first arrived on Bastion, they found an arid wasteland with a limited number of oasis and harsh natural wildlife. The apex predator was the water-wyvern. Reliant on water sources to lure in prey and nest their eggs in wetlands, when Frin-Eden created the lakes and restarted the rivers of the Crater, the wyvern population exploded. Capable of limited flight and with razor sharp teeth and claws, wyvern's are prone to migrate to find new nesting grounds near waterways an in wetlands., often coming to conflict with corsairs and nearby settlements.
Cannibal Camp Premeditating a cannibal camp are various traps wedged between blood covered totems and bone decorated trees. Very few escape a cannibal camp, though those who do speak of tents made out of human leather and great fire pits to roast men whole.
Cave System The Rim Mountains are filled iwth many cave systems, some empty tunnels, others filled with hidden treasures or horrors best left unawoken.
Farmland* Fields and pastures, irrigation trenches and barns. Farmland can produce enough food not only for the resident farmers but also for nearby settlements.
Mine* Regardless of what is dug or extracted out of the ground, ore or oils, working in a mine is tough work with well earned rewards. Mines also have the facilities to refine new materials from the raw resource they mine.
Raider Stronghold With thick ramparts and filled with garages and barracks, Raider Strongholds are the nerve center of raider activites across the crater. Slaves are kept to usually outside of the walls in labour camps, though the more prized slaves are imprisoned in the stronghold itself.
Red Sun Keep Similar with Raider Strongholds, a keep is designed with buildings to house and supply both hussars and travellers. Now though, the travellers have been replaced with shrines and food extorted from nearby farms. While the keep lacks outer defenses, the keep is designed to go into a lockdown in the event of an attack.
Ruins Left behind by the Frin-Eden company, scavengers and treasure hunters are just scratching the surface of the ruins with the numerous tunnels and facilites covered in foliage and worn down by the years.
Settlement Settlements are the main hubs of the territories. (This is the symbol for your settlement, it'll be coloured in your colony's colours)
Stockade* A fortification, with layers of ditches and killzones up against it's walls and in view of it's towers, a stockade is a sizeable and intimidating place to attack for anyone. Settlement's usually build them to ward off nearby threats or protect borders with other territories.
Village* Smaller than settlements, they usually provide enough food to sustain themselves. Generally though, settlements tend to dedicate themselves to providing a single certain resource such as horses, beers, spirits, cotton, wool etc. They don't produce enough food to be considered farms but can't produce manufactured materials that settlement facturies do.
Water-Wyvern Nesting Grounds The bodies of unfortunate souls after a wyvern attack usually end up in nesting grounds. Often left rotting in the sun for their younglings to consume, their bones mixed in with reeds and branches of various nests. Regardless of the danger water-wyvern's present, all the rotting flesh attracts other smaller predators and can be centers for disease to spring up. Eggs can be stolen for either consumption or for attempts at capturing and domestication, but at great peril and personal risk.
- This is a post-apocalyptic, Sci-Fi nation Rp - 18+ - High-Casual to Advanced please. - Don't be a knobhead. - I'm looking for a Co-Gm, 'Cus this is my first GMing of an Rp in... literally years. All you have to do is be willing and able.
Colony Name: Colony Symbol: (An image or a description of your colony's flag/symbol etc) VIPs: (Names, roles etc) Population: (Anywhere <5000 people)
Settlement (You have 10 points to spend on your settlement, the more points in a category the better it is) Food and Water production: (How do you get food and water for your colonists, farming? ranching? nearby water source? wells?) Main production: (What do your colonists make a lot of i.e. medicine, steel, armaments, horses, vehicles, petroleum etc) Health: (How good is sanitation? what is the general health of the pop? Is disease common?) Settlement Defenses: (How does your settlement defend itself, preferably a mix between past and present fortifications)
Perks: (Choose two perks from the perk list, only two perks though. Will take suggestions for additional perks) Friends and Enemies: (Pick one danger of the Crater to be friendly with and one to be bitter enemies with) History and Culture: (Rather self explanitary)
Outposts: (See the Points of Interest chart and look for the *. Only two per colony and outposts add 1 point each to your settlement catagories) Outpost 1) + Outpost 2)
Military: Infantry = (Number of and ratio of Ranged/Melee combat) Vehicles = (Number of and ratio of Fast/Armoured vehicles) Unique units = (Whatever unique you have at your disposal and number of)
Arsenal = Manufacturing plant of munitions and arms. (Good for producing arms and munitions, longer to besiege settlement) Blockhouse = With an overlooking reach over the settlement, a blockhouse can rain artillery and other projectiles on targets in and around the settlement (+1 defenses point, anti-air capabilities) Catacombes = Good for storing dead bodies, also useful for getting around the city discretely. (+1 Health point, underground tunnels of the settlement) Drone assembly line = The precious knowledge of building and programming drones has been passed down the generations. The designs vary, but are small and specialised, with limited intelligence. (Unique military/labor units) Foresters = In the dense forests and between tall trees, the people are at their best amongst the trees (Suited for forest combat, improved lumber production) Gagarin remnants = The Gagarin was a greenhouse ship, crewed with biologists and horticulturalists (+2 Food, -1 health) Horse Lords = A good horse can get you around quickly and to places that a war buggy or a tank can't, whilest also remaining almost undetected (Unique military/labor units) Hospital = A hospital in the truest sense of the word, where surgeries can be performed with loss of life is at a minimum. It is also a suitable spot to produce medicine and other pharmacuticals to keep a healthy populace. (Maintain a pop of <6000, +1 point to health) Hydroponics = A delicately maintained system of water and plants in a settlement can create blooming gardens, good for maintaining a food supply for a burgeoning population. (Maintain a pop of <7500, +1 food) Railgun battery = A floating Railgun, towed by a barge, for easy access to it's coolant. A railgun is a fearsome piece of artillery (Unique military unit, only travels by water) Secret Police = A handful of loyalists with certain skills for maintaining public order and sniffing out spies. (Improved public order, investigate for spies) Sekelj remnants = The Sekelj was a hospital ship, moving between worlds with a crew of aid workers and midical professionals (+2 health, -1 main production) Shipyard = Building a boat is neccessary for utilising the waterways and lakes of the Crater, thus any settlement on the banks of such can have facilities to build galleys or xebecs. Both of which are powerful means of controlling the waters through either guns or trade. (Unique military units, capable of water trade) Spy Network = A ring of infiltrators and agents that keep their eyes and ears across the crater. (Intelligence gathering available across the crater) Tank Factory = A heavily armoured vehicle, it's good for protecting precious people or attacking formidable enemies. (Unique military units) Underground Reserviour = A fresh water lake sits calmly in a cave beneath the settlement, good for a nearby water supply. (+1 Health, longer to besiege settlement) Working Aircraft = A mix between a bomber and a dropship, how it has been kept in working order for eighty years is due to a dedicated maintenance team and a refurbished engine run on petroleum. As a weapon of war or as a means of transport and diplomacy, it is a useful tool to any territory or faction. (Unique military/diplomatic unit) Vlamingh remnants = The Vlamingh was an engineering vessel, crewed by skilled technicians and manufacturing specialists (+2 main production, -1 food) Wyvern Tamers = By building a unique water paddock and through years of training from birth, a dozen wyvern's have been trained and ready to use as mounts in battle. Their mounts either dropping grenades or a manner of small arms, they make fiercesome opponents. (Unique military unit)
If you have any questions or suggestions, just ask.
@Lucidnonsense I'm cool with the whole tech traders thing, but I'm not sure what you mean by Wormhole factory. This isn't like SG-1 where you have a ring and you dial in a code. Regardless, creating let alone controlling wormholes would require a massive amount of power. Probably something in the nuclear energy area. Also it's a bit OP isn't it.
@Gendarme Vohemians I'd imagine would looked upon as barbarians domesticated by the church. Serfs are generally considered to be dirty and simple minded and their nobility is stuck up. Border barons are seen as exploitive, only lauding their loyalty to Vohemia when it suits them and being nothing more than jumped up raiders. King Zikmund 3rd is a sado-masochist. He's also very cruel to prisoners and is a proponent of torture in times of "national concern". Anything around that really is ample fodder for all sorts of talk and names.
@Hygswitch If you want the city to have a southern half on the south bank of the river, then sure. I'd say though that we should make the city wall the actual border itself. I think it'd just be easier if we had a clear definition between our states, either natural or man-made, rather than a nebulous stretch of land. I'm sure the city could provide itself with enough food on the northern bank of the river without having any farmland on the southern side.
Nation Overview Though not a backwater, Vohemia is certainly a seldom thought corner of the Fiorentian world. More concerned with petty conflicts between mountain clans than the political apparatus of the continent. It is more of a nation kept on it's toes and with an opportunistic mindset, away from legal or religious prying eyes on the edge of the world. Even though Vohemia is an absolute monarchy, the titles of the King not only include the Obsidian Crown of Vohemia, but also Lord of the Kretz Valley, Lord-Patron of the Damolong Marches and Paramount of the Southern Snow.
King Zikmund III is a cruel young man. Having lost his right eye in an assassination attempt, he hung all his father's bastards from the bridge to his keep in Radobyl. The Queen-Consort Sabina is a headstong woman prone to arguing with the king on a regular basis. Though they have produced an heir, Stepan, and a princess, Noemi, the two spend as much time apart as possible.
Geography
The lands that range from the boreal mountains of the south and the Kretz Valley to the more temperate lands north, towards the Damolong Estury. The mountains of the Kretz Valley are populated with tall peaks and a pair of active volcanos, lined and wrapped in blankets of pines and firs. The Beaches and cliffs of the coasts are bulkwards to thin layers of farmland and pastures, dotted with villages and keeps of various sorts between the larger towns and connected with veins of paths and roads. The course of the Damolong is seated with marches and border barons on the eastern banks and the kingdom proper on the west. There is more autonomy on the border baron side, though that lasts for the bare few leagues thoses lands penetrate eastwards. Along the coast and in the interior of the kingdom, the rule of thumb is the further south you are, the less farmers and the more loggers.
The port cities of Bystre, on the estury, and Dehylov are more dedicated to trade and shipyards than for fishing. Valkerice built along the banks of Lake Giz, famous for being surrounded by layers of canals and irrigation. Lisen is a mountain keep where eventually all plunder of border barons ends up. Their ventures into the barren lands or against mountain clans on occasion vecome profitable. Radobyl is the ancestral fortress of the Vin Casomir family for some three centuries. It's castle and palace kept at arms length above the city, with the Svatlava Bridge seperating the two.
The land that was Vohemia was a imperial frontier populated by small settlements and forts. Local history is dominated by the conflict between the imperial settlers and the Mountain clans. The Vohemians were initially a cultural and ethnic group that lived further east. The Vohemians were forced out by the Kessites who uprooted them from their steppes and forced them westward. They conquered and settled the lands of modern Voheima from both the imperials and the clans of the mountains, eventually making an alliance between the Red Griffinmen and consolidating their hold. The first king of Vohemia have since worn the obsidian crown, having taken the very land as their prize.
The Vin Casomirs however, are descendants of the hetman who overthrew his newly appointed king and married his daughter shortly after. Thus sealing the line of Vin Casomir as the sole rulers of Vohemia.
Conversion to the Ambrusian church came in the Kessite Wars. Not a century after the formation of Vohemia, the Kessites, soon followed them to the banks of the Damolong. In exchange for crusader swords and monetary aid, King Stepan II became the first ambusian King of Vohemia. With the eastern Damolong purged of Kessites, the crusaders would later become the first border barons and set up their own baronies in liege to the Vohemian kings. Though their numbers fluctuate, a strong hundred or so barons still patrol and maintain their lands. Border barons are known to make ventures up the tributaries of the Damolong, though not without charter from the king or ducal sponsorship.
Though unassuming, an invasion of Rehabe, in conjunction with one of the islander kings, saw a parcel of land given to the Vohemian invaders. The Vohemian's control however was eroded over time as economic pressure and intimidation saw a diaspora of the migrants back to the mainland in the reign of King Ripand 1st. The southern mountain clans have often been home to covens and camps of heretics and witchcraft inclined. Often having to be surpressed by local lords and their Plukovniks (colonels) to put down efforts of uniting or rebellion.
In more recent history, the eruption of Mount Tizana has devastated the lands of the eastern Kretz Valley, forcing many of the landed gentry and lords north to the Radobyl and to Dehylov in the west.
The Vohemian calendar is full of both Fiorentian holidays and national festivals, such as Wenceslaus Day and the Reindeer festival. The peoples themselves are divided in the commons between serfs and freemen, then onto gentry, both landed and not. Finally you have the nobility ending with the king at the top.
Vohemians are devout Ambrusians as part of their national identity. It's what separates them from the heathen mountain clans and the kessites before them. The Vohemians of the migratory period were known for their horsemanship, thought that has declined with the introduction of knights and heavy cavalry. The resurgence of Uhlan cavalry regiments have only reinvigorated this stereotype a little and even then only amongst landed gentry and aristocrats.
Most cultural carvings and decorations are made from the various woods that are available in the Kretz Valley mountains. It is not uncommon of clergy of Vohemian to where icons of various saints and martyrs made of wood, nor is it to pass wayshrines carved into hollowed out trees beside roads.
Despite logging and subsistence farming dominating most rural economies, it is mining of raw materials such as iron, copper, tin and sulfur that is the real business and fillers of coffers in Vohemia.
With limited manufacturing in cities, the only manufactured exports are either merchant ships produced with native lumber and gunpowder from nitratries and sulfur of nearby volcanos. It is other manufactured goods, such a cloth, silk and artillery, along with spices and exotic luxuries that are in high demand in Vohemian ports.
The Vohemian army is divided between plukovniks each in charge of a regiment of roughly five hundred men. Most plukovniks are chartered by lords, it's not uncommon for the lords to make themselves their own plukovniks for direct control of their own regiment. The higher the rank of a soldier, the more armour they can probably afford generally, as very few plukovniks pay for extra armour for their troops.
Each regiment of Pike is made up of five hundred pikemen, made up mostly of freemen and gentry. Each of the more uncommon regiments of horse are made up of five hundred uhlans, armed with lances and sabres. They are recruited from the landed gentry that descend from vohemian knights of old. Regiments of Axe are made up of the woodsmen and serfs. They combine arquebusers with axes as a combined ranged/melee unit. All of the Cannons of the Vohemian military are monopolized by the navy. Twenty carracks carry their pairs of sakers and handfuls of falconets on their forecastles and aftcastles.
Altogether, there are about twenty five thousand men available for service. Two thousand of which are dedicated crews of the Vohemian navy. The rest are divided between the three regiment types.
"How long has it been?" Abe asked the technician sitting opposite him. "About a hour..." the young technician said, turning his head to the clock on his personal device, reclining on the table beside them. A rumble of giggles and faint laughter echoed from the seats surrounding them. "No, in Alsibassi" Abe responded with frustration. Dumbfounded surprise wiped over the technician's dark face.
"Oh uh... Sek...mirconna... uh... majar tar?" The technician's accent became clunky and slurred with the foreign words tumbling out of his mouth. A device pinged itself and another person got out of their seat and left, treading between the curtains and crates of the research hanger. Half of Abe's drop in class on Alsibassi had to fit their education between work duties, thus the preference for a drop in class.
"That was... alright, though I can tell you haven't gotten far on the audio-guides I provided to you all" Abe swayed his head to tell the rest of the class and the empty seats. "I hadn't got the time this week, a dozen of our escort satellites were hauled in for repair and barely any are back out" the technician defended himself, Abe could see the scratches and scabs on his hands. "Okay well we'll leave it at that for today I guess" before Abe could finish, people already rose from their seats.
Soon all the chairs was empty, and Abe was regulated to packing up after his own classroom, folding and stacking chairs back into a sealant frame. "Class is quiet huh?" Wing commander Willow shouted, Abe quickly turned in surprise as was locking the frame. "They literally just left Commander" Abe told the officer pilot as he trapesed down to him.
"Well good, now that you've packed up, the Captain has called us up to the CIC" Willow retorted, picking up the papers on the table like he'd left them there himself. "Did the Captain say why?" Abe asked, moving to collect his things on the said table as if pushed into a rush. "We're heading into a new solar system and a nice little planet needs some boots on it's ground" Willow told Abe, leaning against the table.
"Okay well give me a second" Abe asked the commander. "I got yah, though I've been itching to get into a cockpit for weeks. There's only so much theory and manoeuvre plans you can write up, ya know?" the Wing Commander informed the envoy. "Yeah" Abe didn't, but the tedium was suitable for a tedious man.
-=-=-
The images lifted themselves from the holo-table and wrapped themselves around an invisible sphere. The blue haze of the sphere coated itself on everything surrounding it, on consoles and work stations, it glazed the faces of everyone present around the holo-table. "That's a rather soaked planet" Willow commented with a smirk to the captain and Abe.
"It's an entirely oceanic world. A dozen drones are already on the surface making sub-scans for life in it's depths. I'd like boots on the ground and set up an observation post, before we start investigating it's waters" The Captain said to the wing commander, the head researcher, the tactical envoy and Lieutenant Tethys.
"If I may Captain..." Abe started, the Captain's deep blue eyes slung up to match his. "Why do we require such a strong military presence?" A wing of strikecraft and teams of dispatchers seemed a bit too much for the envoy. "Well Mr Var Constavos, I'd prefer having too many people than too few" the Captain answered and got back to the briefing as if to quickly move on.
"You'll enter the atmosphere with the outpost foundations, probably on a near surface atoll or reef. Any other questions?" The Captain asked and scanned her vision around those at the holo-table. With a lack of further questions In the space between them, the Captain dismissed them all and Abe had a light fluttering in his stomach all of a sudden. It wouldn't be that bad, would it? Abe thought as he thought about what he needed to bring planetside.
@Voltus_Ventus We're getting a nice little party! I'll start an OOC regardless so that'll be fun!
Also, I'm adding to the Perk list constantly so that'll be fun at least! If any of you have any ideas, feel free to tell me. Give us something to do while we wait.
