Thank you for reading the post ladies and gents. I am proud to say that Sojourner has finally come to fruition and almost every change to the game files that follows will be reformatting or cosmetic changes rather than mechanical changes (aside from maybe minor tweaking). So, let's get started! Sojourner is a game that is NOT for the feint of heart. It's a true apocalypse. Gangs, criminals and the like are not going to take it easy on your character because the character is uncomfortable with something and your enemies are not D&D monsters; they will fight to win and press every advantage to achieve that objective. Often times, it is a better idea to run than to fight. As I tell all of my players; combat is a plan that has gone really wrong unless your plan was to go fight. It's typically a zero sum game. That said the system does put a heavy emphasis on roleplay and survival over going in guns blazing. Each character is an average person. There are no 'tank' classes, nor DPS or the like. There is only your skills... the weapon in your hands and your will to survive against impossible odds. Unfortunately, this is a game that is not on roll20's list of many things. So anything you have will have to be put in manually and it requires a fair deal of trust between GMs and players. The world overview explains a lot but it leaves a little lacking as it attempts to remove any potential spoilers for players that prefer to keep themselves immersed fully in the game. But the world of Sojourner can best be described with the following bullet points: 1) The city-states are -relatively- safe. 2) The world is not lawless in entirety. Human beings are pretty good at establishing law and order. 3) Aliens are dangerous and somewhat rare. One can likely wipe out your entire party if you're not well equipped. 4) You NEED to have a PLAN to survive. Especially in combat. 5) The wastelands are nuclear wastelands around the central city-state. Other wastelands, no one is sure why they appeared or how. 6) The information to make technology is not completely gone. Many people know how to fix a car or how to rig up solar panels. These materials, however, are stupidly rare. 7) The world is an unstable place; the city-states have their own politics. And even the lowest thug has an agenda. That said, it's not doom and gloom everywhere. The world simply 'is'. It is neither dystopia nor utopia. We play this game in an MMO style; letting players freely roam the vast wastelands and jungles of the continental United States. There are no major story lines if you do not wish to pursue them. There are NPCs but their roles are limited. YOU are the story. YOU make the drive to make things happen. The world's overview follows.
The World Before
The path of a cosmonaut
is not an easy, triumphant march to glory. You have to get to know the meaning
not just of joy but also of grief, before being allowed in the spacecraft
cabin. – Yuri Gargarin
When humanity began to enter its golden years as a species,
the world came across a sudden and desperate realization that war was no longer
something that could continue if the human race wanted to survive. Treaties
began to form between the nations that were and superpowers that had once
dominated the world through their military strength began to slowly fade away
in the back of everyone's mind as relics of an era long past.
Those super powers, so ancient and old like the United
States, Russia and China, saw themselves as the great protectors of the human
race despite their differences and thus began the talks of how to form a
government to rule over all present nations so that humanity could take into
the stars. Drones, robots, medical technology; everything advanced under the
banner of peace, prosperity and order amongst an endless sea of stars that
promised humanity a brand new golden era that would amount to exponential times
more heavenly than their current reign over Earth. They, for a time, believed
themselves to be alone... alone to march triumphantly into the stars.
Humanity had been foolish to believe that they were alone.
When the alien menace known as the Nell came, they came with the blinding fury
of a blitzkrieg and swept aside much of humanity's defenses in the first ninety-six
hours of the war that would drag on for decades. Their tanks obliterated the
most powerful weapons and emplacements that humanity had, their infantry seemed
nigh endless and terrors and panics swept the streets; rampant and unchecked.
Many from the more religious communities believed it to be the End Times. Many
others believed it themselves and humanity found itself united in a new way.
Where they had once been united in hope, prosperity and freedom they were
instead united in mutual fear, ruin and slavery.
Soldiers eventually ditched their rifles and advanced pulse
weaponry for simpler black powder muskets and revolvers when the factories no
longer made ammunition. By large and far; the manufacturing and quality control
necessary to field modern weaponry had fallen to the point that modern weapons
were often just as dangerous to their user as they were the enemies. Pilots
withdrew from their jets and instead took solace in becoming once more the
Knights of the Skies as they took to old biplanes that the alien missiles could
not lock onto. Vehicles were discarded in favor of horses when fuel drew away
at an all-time low once the alien threat began to bomb their fuel supplies. An
all but broken world... and yet still... humanity fought on.
Many surrendered to their fates at the hands of their
overlords. Many suffered fates worse than death when they did not surrender.
Many more chose instead to take their own lives rather than be subjected to the
experiments upon their DNA that left so many others little more than broken
husks that once were. And yet still... some chose to fight even long after the
battles seemed fruitless while the enemy fleet taunted them so high above their
heads where their gaze could not go. But liberty or death... that was the
mantra of the Americans. And they lived up to their mantra even when the fire
consumed almost their all...
From the ashes arose many city-states that fell and fought
over the course of seventy years. Those born before the war were either sealed
away in cryogenic pods, hidden in bunkers or otherwise removed from the field
of play in a desperate attempt to retain humanity. Some hoped against hope that
the war was a passing moment or misunderstanding. Others hoped that the war was
but a test of their religious might and yet more insisted that the war was
nothing more than invasion though they knew not the end goals of the monsters
that plagued them.
When other civilizations found their militaries obliterated;
they had no hope other than to surrender to their new overlords. The Americans,
Canadians and a few smaller bands around the globe fought on with their
civilian owned firearms and with scavenged military weapons for a time before
they too eventually fell to the onslaught. Others took these supplies and ran
away from the conflicts as far as they could.
However, humanity is always so far from perilously flailing
in the dark for some sign of an answer. A brave three hundred souls strapped
themselves against weather balloons and waited for the day that their enemy
made a grave mistake; breaching the atmosphere with their vessels. Because of
the simplicity of the vehicles used against them their defense systems were
found incapable of locking onto the weather balloons and instead found
themselves watching as the pilots of those balloons boarded their vessels.
Those volunteers fought bravely and pushed back the aliens inside the vessels
inch by inch with their own blood and lives until eventually they managed to
secure the ship’s reactor room. They detonated a portable nuclear device;
sacrificing themselves in a blazing inferno that was so large it was nearly
visible in all corners of the globe as a distant glow.
As a result of their actions others rose up and began to
take the fight back to the alien menace in the form of biplanes that got close
enough to allow passengers to walk across the wings to the ships when they flew
too low, more weather balloons, what few jets remained and even a few barely
functioning nuclear missiles. When the last ship fell… they thought they were
safe at last… and in desperation for seventy years humanity once again turned
on one another to fight for supplies, food, water, land and ideology.
The World Now
“Now, I am become
Death, the destroyer of worlds.” ― Robert Oppenheimer
It has been almost seventy years since the bombs first fell
from the skies. It has been seventy years since humanity fell under siege and
the world turned to fire. Blackened ashes remain in many parts of the North
American continent. Cities are merely skeletons without the people to run them.
Cars have broken down and lay in ruins and new city-states are constantly
warring and fighting for the fragile amount of resources that they use to
sustain themselves. With the alien menace all but defeated, its drones of the
eusocial hierarchy now roam in dazed confusion; searching the wastelands and
jungles that are arising for new prey to kill and consume.
The oceans are once more an impassible barrier save for a
very select few that dare venture into their depths. The Panama is almost still
entirely overrun by the invaders and fragile peace and war come and go between
the arising city-states that dominate the continent. What remains of Europe
from so long ago is still unknown. What fate befell Africa; myths and legends.
The continent of Australia remains but an urban legend to those that have never
seen it; a legend which must never be encroached upon should the Nell demons
arise and steal the souls of its visitors. Asia... is all but wasteland.
Horses are the primary method of transportation and work
that humans cannot perform. Cows have become, once more, beasts of burden in
addition to food supplies. Muskets and revolvers dominate the battlefield once
more as the creation of smokeless powder is all but eliminated when the
laboratories that were made to synthesize it fell to the bombs. But life goes
on in this world that is nearly fallen. Life continues to find a way to
surmount impossible odds and keep its fragile heart beating when the armies of
Rione and Demshrin go to war. Life finds a way to continue on when the Hub
challenges the right of the people to be free. Life continues to find a way
when Anchor delivers the sad, heart breaking news that their herd of cattle were
hit by a Nell raid and were all but eliminated. Life... finds a way.
“Extinction is the rule. Survival is
the exception.” ― Carl Sagan
