Some On the Ground events require danger and this danger can come in many forms but in three main groups. You can use one, two or all three but which one you use will depend on what purpose they serve. Monsters are for animalistic threats that cannot be reasoned with but could be deterred or killed. Magic is an environmental and unpredictable threat, it cannot be reasoned with or really killed but it can be contained or redirected. People are for when you want a threat with true intelligence, they could be reasoned with or they could even try to do the reasoning.
Monsters
We have been intentionally vague on the limits of the type of monster that exists in the world. Most people don’t know. There are sightings of many strange and fantastical things that could terrorize individuals. Monsters can follow different rules to pcs in combat, some could have far more armour, others only be able to be hurt by a specific type of weapon, some may have regeneration, others could explode upon death dealing damage to those around them. Have fun with it and be creative. You can draw from mythology from around the world for your monsters, we only ask that you do not include anything that could be labelled as a typical high fantasy dragon.
Perhaps the most recognisable threat at the current stage are Artificial Vampires.
Artificial Vampires are intentionally an incredibly scary threat so use them with caution in anything but a High Lethality game. Artificial Vampires don’t have armour but they cannot be easily killed due to their regenerative abilities. An Artificial Vampire will not die if hit while injured, it will just be incapacitated. It will recover from injury or incapacitation after thirty seconds if not hit again. To kill it, players must go through the clear effort of hacking one completely to pieces. Artificial Vampire hits do NOT bypass armour but if they injure someone, then there is a high likelihood of infection.
If a character is infected, take them to one side to inform them of this and work out the details. The infected player character may roleplay the transformation but cease to be a player character once the infection has fully set in.
The transformation goes as follows:
- Bulging blackened veins on the neck (this can be applied with makeup)
- Sudden hysteria and crying
- Sudden ravenous hunger
This can take place over a few hours or even from one day to the next for multi day events. Once the infection sets in, that character becomes an NPC until they are killed or driven off at which point the player may return as a different character.
Remember, Artificial Vampires can be deterred by fire! Be sure to find safe ways of allowing players to physrep this.
Magic
Some magic, a lot of magic, is incredibly dangerous. It can spread like a terrifying malaise or suffocating fog that harms everything that it comes in contact with. This can take many forms whether as a literal aura of harmful magic, terrifying magical plants or animals that attack everyone in sight, or even the rules of physics failing to work as they should. The easiest way to physrep this is to have an area that gives harmful rp effects and causes injuries (or even death) to anyone that spends too long inside it.
Many sources of this kind of harmful magic will be left over areas of radioarcanum from the weapons used during the collapse. Radioarcanum is unpredictable and can cause horrific, deadly mutations in those that it touches.
People
Many disaster movies enjoy making the point that man is the real monster, that can absolutely be true for your stories as well. People driven to desperate measures can do truly horrific things if they believe that it will defend themselves or their loved ones.
Adversarial people can come from any faction or even be raiders or other non-factioned individuals eking out an existence in the dangerous outskirts. An easy source of adversarial people is from the Purists who will almost always be hostile to anyone not from their faction (though, they might be slightly more willing to listen to Traditionalists and humans).
As much about the Purists is currently unknown to the general playerbase, at this stage it would be impractical to have anything but scouts and scavengers who are willing to use lethal measures against anyone they see as a threat. Which is basically everyone. Stat them up as regular humans and ensure that they do not use magic unless forced to. Any purist that uses magic will likely commit suicide once the mission is complete so as not to ‘tarnish’ their home.