Aftermath

[Drizztrocks]

WARNING: The below description only has to make sense to my friends, and is just to sum up what happened to the world to bring it to this point. North Korea is also seen as pretty much evil in the below description, and let me just say I don't really know anything about North Korea other than that it is very isolated from the rest of the world and something about the people fanatically following their leader. I do not mean to offend anyone by it, and my political veiws are most likely completely innacurate. But like I said, this is just meant for use with me and my friends so no harm done.

 [spoiler]
          In 2023, the world's water supply dropped exponentially, leaving roughly 80% of the population without water. Chaos ensued. The United States tried to seal itself off from the rest of the world. This was seen as a betrayal by allies of the US. A short war with Mexico ensued, in which the United States came out victorious but weakened. Millions of Americans became enraged when they discovered they had to ration water. A rebellion formed in the United States, and attacked their own government head on. The United Kingdom came to the US government's aid, but tensions rose between the UK and US. Early on during the crisis the United Kingdom had been generous with their abundance of water and given it to many countries in need. Now with their own supply running low, and rationing of it causing rioting and attacks within their own countries, they were desperate for help. The United States gave them minimum amounts of water, barely helping. While both major world powers were falling apart, they went to war with each other. Both governments fell apart from lack of resources and attacks from both riots and rebellions from within their own countries, made worse by their war with each other. When they fell into such horrible condition, the war faded out of existence.
   

              Elsewhere in the world it is no better. Millions are dying simply from lack of water, and fighting amongst themselves is killing millions more. It seems every country in the world is at war with themselves and everybody else. Some maintain peace just long enough to die of thirst. By 2031, the population that was once eleven billion has dropped to four billion, and still falling. Humans have adopted irrigation systems from older times, and some societies around the world begin to recover. The water that had become polluted and overused was beginning to be found all over the world. It seemed the human race was beginning to recover.

    However, one problem remained. North Korea had stayed absolutely silent throughout the entire crisis. They had sealed their borders even more effectively than before. Every person seen within ten miles of the border was shot down. After the ordeal had first started in 2023 they had zero communication with the outside world. And when it seemed that man was beginning to brush himself off and get back on his feet, North Korea showed themselves. They were now by far the most powerful country in the world, with seemingly limitless resources and millions of absolutely loyal citizens. When challenged by the United States and other world powers, they asserted themselves with nuclear holocaust.

   After North Korea threw the world into an apocalypse, they retreated back behind their walls and were never heard from again. The radiation around the world faded almost completely in only ten years, suggesting some kind of more advanced technology that North Korea was in possession of. After the radiation faded, humanity re-emerged from their various hiding places around the world. The new world they came into was beyond anything they could have previously accepted to be real.


   The year is 2073. Forests have re-grown, once great cities like New York and Moscow are now wilderness, and humans are just any other species fighting for survival. Although some strong points of human civilization have been established, the rest of the world is a dangerous wilderness.
   The strange radiation that came from North Korea caused many mutations in all living things, evolutionary advances that should have taken a million years. Groups of merciless bandits stalk the wilds pillaging towns and taking what they want, and gangs fight bloody wars in the hearts of decomposing cities. Trading caravans travel across hundreds of miles selling their goods to people truly in need of them. The world is in a new age, but many things remain the same as they have always been.
[/spoiler]

[Drizztrocks]

I'm designing this setting for use in a GURPS campaign. But this is all probably just going to be fluff so I'm not worrying about the technical aspect of it that much.

[Nomadic]

For verisimilitude's sake you may want to extrapolate on what caused the US to lose its nuclear deterrent. I'm guessing you are focusing on the lack of water and the warring screwing it up. You will want to point that out though or you will get players going "wait why didn't the US just retaliate and turn North Korea into a radioactive crater?"

Otherwise looks pretty interesting campaign wise

[Mason]

Nomadic check this out man.

[Nomadic]

Nomadic check this out man.

Woah that was fascinating. Is there a pt 2 and 3 up yet?

[Mason]

part 2
  part 3

  There ya go. I found the doc. on Liberia interesting as well. That is a great site.

[Drizztrocks]

Wow Sarisa that's a crazy video. Its just fascinating how seperate they are from the rest of the world....

[Drizztrocks]

Okay i'm waiting until I get my GURPS books to begin really working on the setting, but I have been thinking about it alot. I am trying to decide where the campaign will take place in the world. At first I was leading towards somewhere in Indonesia or Micronesia, as in the storyline in was not a major target for attacks by North Korea. And I do not know many stories, settings or movies that take place there so its kind of new and original.

    However, i'm having trouble coming up with any kind of plot line or even deciding on a specific location in Indonesia. If it does take place there, I think it would be cool if it was kind of sea travel focused, with some floating communities like in the movie Waterworld. Or I might have the characters doing something in the jungles of Borneo, perhaps finding a hidden vault full of food and supplies for a village just barely holding on.


  If I don't get anywhere with those ideas I might set the campaign somewhere in Europe. Maybe centered around the British Isles, which would be one of the places most effected by the apocalyptic war. Destroyed cities filled with gangs and raiders would definatly make for an interesting if not cliche campaign.
    I'm even thinking about maybe setting it in Nunuvat, Canada. Just an idea.

[Mason]

I really like the idea of putting a twist on the post-apocalyptic setting. Placing it in Borneo or somewhere unusual for the genre is a good start. When you mentioned the British Isles, all I could think of is 28 Days Later, with the point being that the characters really do not know much about what is going on in the outside world. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with.

[Drizztrocks]

Yeah the reason I was a little hesitant about the British Isles is because it doesn't seem very original, but I did have an idea to have some kind of giant fence or barrier or something around Britian, because at the beginning when the first strange mutations started coming from the radiation, people thought it was a disease and quaruntined them off.
     However, after so many decades of isolation, the inhabitants have not realized that the rest of the world has also fallen apart. So imagine the player's shock when they cross the barrier only to discover the rest of the world also a wasteland, and that the quarantine had been abandoned years ago.

  But that's just a thought, I still think i'm going to set it in Indonesia.

[sparkletwist]

So imagine the player's shock when they cross the barrier only to discover the rest of the world also a wasteland, and that the quarantine had been abandoned years ago.

To be fair, this is such a zombie/apocalypse/etc. genre staple it might not come as that much of a shock. ;)

[Drizztrocks]

So imagine the player's shock when they cross the barrier only to discover the rest of the world also a wasteland, and that the quarantine had been abandoned years ago.

To be fair, this is such a zombie/apocalypse/etc. genre staple it might not come as that much of a shock. ;)

 Haha really? I actually didn't know that. Oh well, i'm sticking with Indonesia anyway.

[Endless_Helix]

You know, it might be kinda neat to focus on what's grown up from the ground, per se, than to focus on the wasteland aspect of the post-apoc genre. Dessicated wastelands are pretty much the genre staple, because it's what Americans fear. I'd really like to see an apocalypse that is set in an overgrown jungle or something.  Also, how exactly did civilization fall due to a water shortage? I can believe that America would explode, but your scenario with North Korea being the last man standing doesn't quite work, because they would die of thirst, disease, and starvation just as fast as the Europeans, Chinese, and Russians. Even given that the population doubled, there are too many options, like refitting oil-tankers to store ice and water, using dew traps, desalinization plants, water creation/electricity plants (kinda like those hydro-electric cars), Canada's snow. It's easy to underestimate just how much water there is on this planet and exactly how little of it our population actually uses.

It really leaves me quite puzzled, where did all of this water go? If all this water just disappeared, sea-level would drop, the Icecaps would melt, because of all the CO2 being sent up into the atmosphere from the mass die-off of plants unable to get water, and things would eventually return to normal in about 50-100 years, once the water tables rebalanced.  

Micronesia is an interesting spot to pick, since  there are hundreds of small islands, exotic diseases, and play with the environs that we already know and love there.

[Drizztrocks]

You know, it might be kinda neat to focus on what's grown up from the ground, per se, than to focus on the wasteland aspect of the post-apoc genre. Dessicated wastelands are pretty much the genre staple, because it's what Americans fear. I'd really like to see an apocalypse that is set in an overgrown jungle or something.  Also, how exactly did civilization fall due to a water shortage? I can believe that America would explode, but your scenario with North Korea being the last man standing doesn't quite work, because they would die of thirst, disease, and starvation just as fast as the Europeans, Chinese, and Russians. Even given that the population doubled, there are too many options, like refitting oil-tankers to store ice and water, using dew traps, desalinization plants, water creation/electricity plants (kinda like those hydro-electric cars), Canada's snow. It's easy to underestimate just how much water there is on this planet and exactly how little of it our population actually uses.

It really leaves me quite puzzled, where did all of this water go? If all this water just disappeared, sea-level would drop, the Icecaps would melt, because of all the CO2 being sent up into the atmosphere from the mass die-off of plants unable to get water, and things would eventually return to normal in about 50-100 years, once the water tables rebalanced.  

Micronesia is an interesting spot to pick, since  there are hundreds of small islands, exotic diseases, and play with the environs that we already know and love there.

 That was actually the idea. Not to focus on a world that is a wasteland version of ours, but on what would become of the world after it recovered from the brink of destruction. I wouldn't even call it post apocalyptic, more pre-civilization or something. Starting from scratch in a world drastically changed.

 As for the water: the idea is based off of a real world crisis. Modern society is getting farther and farther away from more natural sources of water. Most major cities around the world reuse almost all of their water, even sewer water, toilet water, anything poured down the drain. The water is filtered and reused. But eventually the water gets to a point where it is too dirty to be reused. Of course this water is removed from the cities water cycle before it becomes a harm to people. This water that has become to dirty goes to the ocean. Right now this is not a problem at all, because there are still rivers to get fresh water from, along with springs, desalinization plants and a few other major producers of water.

  But the premise of the story is that much farther in the future, the governments of the world have turned a blind eye to the water cycles within cities. At this point most alternate sources of water have been forgotten, and few countries around the world still use the old methods. However, the water in the cities water cycles eventually becomes to dirty and has to be dumped into the ocean before it becomes a hazard. After many many years of this, you will run out of water. And by the time you realize there's a problem, you don't have as much time as you might think to turn it around. So much water is used constantly that making people ration it would cause huge problems. On top of this, you will completely run out of water eventually unless you resort back to the old methods. However, this costs money. Money you still need for other things.

  Well anyway, I just wanted to use a realistic end-of-the-world scenario that has never been used before, and then create a cool setting out of it.

[Endless_Helix]

Mm... You might want to make it more than 13 years in the future, maybe fifty, or at least sometime before we could really just mine ice from asteroids and whatnot. Another thought is that the water table dropped, right after we ran out of oil. All that space had to be filled with something, and sea water is as good a candidate as any. Sink holes formed, fresh water would have to be rationed, and civilization begins downward spiral.

One thing I would play with would be craft myths and legends around many of the things we take for granted, like the internet, cars, airplanes, electricity, indoor plumbing, running water, rebar. Also try to figure out what would survive the collapse, here's a couple to think about: gunpowder, revolvers, rifling, bicycles, smithing, concrete, cement, steel and steam power.