Campaign setting - Forgotten Legacies

B

BlueNinja

First time out of the vault
In my posts ahead, I will be detailing the cities, villages, and important random counters that players can travel to. Anything in the quotes should be read more-or-less verbatim to the players, and the rest is left up to the GM how to describe it.

As everyone knows, the Vaults were constructed as a grand social experiment, under the auspices of the carefully controlled VaultTek Corporation. Each Vault was designed to test a slightly different mix of people, under different circumstances. Vault 67 was slightly different than the rest, as it originally started construction under private ownership - a dozen billionaires got together, and pooled funds to construct a larger, more fortified, and more lavish Vault than the ones touted by VaultTek. Unfortunately to them, due to careful interference by the government, the corporation bought their Vault out from under them, and then began selling off spaces in the Vault for the low, low price of $25,000,000 per person.

So, numbered 67, the Vault became a haven for the rich and snobby who lived near the location in Rome, Georgia.

War. War never changes.

In the late twenty-first century, mankind finally ran out of room. As the steady pace of technology progressed, people began living longer and healthier, surviving and wiping out diseases that once killed millions. Advances in manufacturing, chemical production, helped everyone produce more with the resources they had available. But even these advances were not enough to help humanity keep pace with its own growth.

So history began to repeat itself. Whenever people have been forced to make do with less, they instinctively turn towards their neighbors, seeking to plunder and take everything for themselves. Looting and robberies started to rise, terrorists from dozens of countries attacked each other, and even the calmest and most civilized nations were forced to turn to armed force to quell the rebellions in their midst. As tempers flared, some seized the opportunity, riding to power by preaching hatred and intolerance against an enemy that existed largely in their heads.

When the first nuclear missles were launched, the entire world dissolved into a chaotic swarm of robbers and criminals, every person interested solely in seizing what little they could before life, as they knew it, was brought to a blazing halt. Your familes barely escaped the riots in Atlanta, fleeing to the underground Vault protected by a small army of hired thugs while the poor and downtrodden tried to enact vengeance on you for the sorry state of the world.

Those events left the Vault dwellers so scarred that when the all-clear signal sounded, ten years later, they all elected to stay in the Vault, waiting for further contact with the central command before risking their lives to the wastelands. And as the years slipped past, and only silence was heard, thoughts of the outside faded away, content to live in their self containted paradise and forget the awful past.

But the rest of the world has not forgotten them. And hatred has a legacy all its own.
Click to expand...
 
Please, don't hesitate to add criticism or suggestions or questions. I'm sure I'll leave something out.

Since the rich and powerful who flocked to Vault 67 had been so traumitized by the riots at the start of the war, they remained barricaded inside the Vault. They also instituted a security service, run by one of the hired guards who had slipped inside before they closed the door. He (and eventually, his son) chose a different group of people each month, drilling them on combat procedures and training in the shooting range. Since forty-five years have passed without incident, they are starting to grow a bit lax.

In appearance, Vault 67 should be very similar to the Vault 13 and Vault 8 (Vault City). There are some changes - to the west of the elevator are emergency stairs, also used as storage spaces by the time of the game. On the second floor should be a cafeteria in the SW corner, a gym in the SE corner, and more bedrooms in the NW and NE corners. The emergency stairs come down through the section of pipes west of the elevator. On the third floor, the stairs exit at the north end of the library. The shooting range was dug in between the Overseer's chair and the commin living area, reachable through the locked room. The stairs and elevator continue down to three more floors, filled with maintenance equipment and hydroponics bays to grow food. (For game purposes, those floors are mostly unimportant.)

After exiting the blast door into a small corridor, the exit is up a large metal staircase, then a ladder, that exits in the back room of a small police station. The station has been long since looted of anything worthwhile. Across the street to the south are some shops - a gun shop owned by a guy named Ian, age 30 (wink wink), and a more general store run by a woman named Margie, age 50. Margie hates Vault Dwellers with a passion, since the group fleeing for Vault 67 gunned down her parents in their panicked flight.

The neighborhood around the police station was mostly residential before the war, with a small strip mall to the west that has been deserted. Squatters live in the run-down houses, holding them together with shoddy repairs and using the lawns to farm just barely enough to feed themselves. Caravans almost never stop here, and the city has a look of someplace just barely holding on to life with a prayer.

OK, next post will be how the characters come into the picture. Any questions?
 
Come on, I can tell that other people are reading this. Chime in any time. :P

Due to the game starting in a Vault, all of the PCs should (of course) be human. Robots and dogs could be allowed, depending on the GM, but I frown on it.

The game should begin with the PCs being informed by Robert, the head of Vault security, that their names have been chosen for the month-long security detail, and ask them to report to the shooting range on the third floor at 0800 for target practice and refresher courses. When they arrive, Robert will have a 9mm Beretta laid out on the table for each PC, along with reusable ear plugs and an extra full clip. Depending on the number of PCs and the skills involved, the next section should be timed carefully - larger or highly gun-proficient groups should be left with fewer bullets.

A loud explosion will echo through the Vault, somewhat muffled. As Robert grabs up his combat shotgun and starts ordering the PCs, another explosion sounds and all the lights in the Vault go out. After about thirty seconds, emergency lighting will come on, and Robert will lead the PCs to the Vault entrance. The hallway leading inside from the blast door will be filled with smoke, and a half-dozen figures, armed with simple melee weapons, will charge through the smoke, shouting in seeming incoherance. (Again, depending on the skills and number of PCs, the GM can adjust the difficulty by adding or subtracting intruders and changing the weapons they are armed with.)

The intruders cannot be reasoned with, and if knocked unconscious or crippled, they will continue to fight to the best of their ability. Their combat taunts have a great deal to do with some prophet and doing the holy work. After the battle, the PCs can have their wounds cared for in the medical wing by the ever grumpy Medbot* and search the bodies. Three of them carry pamphlets for some kind of church service, the front cover having only the image of a burning, upside-down cross. Another one has a damaged holodisk, which has audio-only from the service - some very charismatic speaker talking about a revelation he received during the Day of Burning.

From here, the PCs have several options - the Overseer, Lytha, will undoubtably want to know what has happened to shut down the Vault electrical systems. With the blast door now laying in three pieces on the floor of the exit corridor, the PCs can explore the city above, where Ian and the other squatters have killed another dozen of the religious raiders. Assuming the PCs were able to knock unconscious or otherwise subdue one of the intruders, they can attempt to interrogate them.

By the end of the day, Lytha will gather Robert and the PCs (as security staff) together. She will inform them that the explosions from C4, coupled with some kind of electrical device, has damaged the generators for the Vault. As a best case scenario, they will be completely without power in one year. She will assign the PCs to go out into the world and attempt to find a safe place for the Vault dwellers to move, and use their two GECKs to make a new home for themselves.

Questioning Ian and other squatters on the surface will give the PCs a few ideas of where they can start. Caravans occasionally come from a group called the Gulf Confederacy to the south-west. The fanatics have been coming out of the east, normally in small groups until the sudden attack on the Vault. If asked about their tactics, Ian will tell the PCs that the fanatics seemed to know exactly where the Vault's hidden entrance was.

Next post will include some stats and descriptions for Lytha, Robert, the Medbot, and all the intruders, as well as shop inventories and basic starting equipment for the PCs.

* - the Medbot was originally a PC in this campaign. After the player pestered me for several days to be allowed to play a non-human character, he then quit the game before anyone had left the town of Rome. So, being the evil GM I am, the Medbot shall forever be tormented as an NPC who everyone loves to hate.
 
I might be interested if I had the time. Unfortently, the three role plays I am already involved in suck up all my time as it is.
 
BlueNinja,

First, be welcome to our forum.
As I always say, ideas are appreciated, it is nice to see how you put effort in making a scenario inside the Fallout ambientation.
I think your scenario has potential. As you can see, however, you will need players to have this going.
I suggest:

1) That you join the First Mission thread since you are new here (and the thread is open)

2) That you tell your online friends about this forum. With a group of at least three players, including you, we can start thinking of puting that thread in motion.

Cheers,

Zoe
 
Albatross - nice avatar, evildoer. ;)

Zoe - this thread isn't intended to start a campaign - I'm already running this face-to-face with a group of players. I'm posting it here in case any GM is interested in using it themselves for a group.
 
Syphon I think Blue Ninja was clear on this. These are campaign notes for an adventure he is running on paper. I don't mind him posting his stuff here as it might be useful to him and his crew. The setting and story might be worthwhile to others who might use it as inspiration or to model their own stories.
 
Oh... I thought it was an introduction to an upcoming RPG... Then again, I'm high on marijuana and am baked off my ass. :lol:
 
Alright, to start off -

Lytha, the Vault Overseer, is about fifty years old, with completely silver hair, possibly dyed that way. She's old enough to remember the power and privelege that her family had before the War and the somewhat enforced equality of Vault life. She's an arrogant bitch who knows everything that's going on around the Vault, and also fancies herself an author. (Hey, Vault life is boring.) She takes no nonsense from anyone, and tends to yell loudly.

Robert is the son of the mercenary who snuck inside before the doors closed. His combat armor is still monogrammed with his father's initials, and he almost never takes it off. He still has the combat shotgun that was his father's as well, keeping it in perfect shape along with all the other weapons stored in the Vault. His Small Guns is at 85%, and he's almost too eager for combat.

Medbot is a standard humanoid-style robot, and his owners never made it to the Vault, after they crashed about two blocks away. Since the rioters were more interested in beating the human inhabitants to death, the robot simply walked to the Vault, past the mercenaries (who ignored him), and set up shop in the medical wing. After firty-five years of studying the Vault computers and their date files, he's become a passably decent doctor. He tends to become bothered at any interruption, almost going over the top with his genteel cursing.

The intruders to the Vault all have 25HP, and are armed with simple melee weapons - clubs, knives, one sledgehammer.

Ian, the squatter who runs the small gun shop on the surface, well ... make him look like everyone's favorite NPC from Fallout. ;-) He's not quite thirty. He carries a pump-action shotgun, and has a Small Guns of 75%. He has a barter of 75, and his store inventory is: 9mm Beretta x5, .44 Desert Eagle x1, leather armor x1, 9mm ball x200, 9mm JHP x40, .44 FMJ x20, $150.

----

When Lytha sends the PCs out of the Vault to look for a new place to settle, she will give them the following equipment:
Flares (x3 per player)
Stimpacks (x3 per player)
9mm Beretta (x1 per player, with full clip)
9mm ball (x60 per player)
Leather jacket (x1 per player)
Knife (x1 per player)
Pump-action shotgun (x1, players can fight over who gets it)
12 gauge buckshot (x20)
1st Aid Kit (x2)
Rope (10 feet)
Radaway (x3)
Louisville Slugger (x1)
Frag Grenade (x2)

Armed with all of this, the players have several directions they can go. The Gulf Confederacy lies somewhere to the south-west, and apparently quite some distance away. Closer, to the south-east, is the city of Atlanta, which will hopefully be their next destination. GMs who are confused to the location of any cities can get a US road map, and find the cities on there, since I drew my world map straight from a road map.

Next post will be the city of Atlanta, and the competing factions of ghouls and squatters.
 
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