Dreamlands

Dreamlands are interesting to explore in many settings. In my fantasy game characters would occasionally enter dreamlands of a ruin they explored making it seem pristine or in the past. A world inside a painting or a strange manor place. Dreamlands can be chaotic places that spawn strange creatures or nightmare monsters. You can enter dreamlands that are echoes of a lost mythic past or prehuman times. You could enter the collective dream of a kingdom or place. Meditation, those born with talent or drugs are used most frequently. Magic may allow goods and creatures to pass through releasing magic and demons into the world. There is a bit of this style going at Through Ultan's Door and a few retroclone products.

Other settings like modern or SF have their place also and Call of Cthulhu has HPL's Dreamlands but there are lots of opportunities in horror for other dreamlands. Visiting Mars and then contacting the ancient martian prehuman dreamlands and even their god. Flashbacks to past disasters or warp accidents might affect the waking world. Robert Holdstock Mythago woods is a good example of an sf mechanic of a dreamlike reality of ancient myths and modern humans who deal with it. WW1 nomans land as a dreamland with haunting effects for poor bastards caught inside. Wizards might travel to and through these worlds. A dreamland might operate like cyberspace or shaman trips to the spirit world.

I've used dreamlands encounter in sf Horror and superhero games. Several characters had dreamlands based abilities like a pocket nightmare kingdom populated by imps or another who conjured animals and fire and things but they came from another dimension. When he went there it was the start of him getting dreamlands powers and conjuring nightmare monsters from enemies dreams.

The overlap of the dreamland might vary triggering minor phenomena, supernatural events or encounters. Might be interesting. The hyper reality of both might disrupt mobile phones and signals or make people vanish temporarily. Ghost like haunting effects might increase also and possibly won't be recorded on cameras. Stranger Things upside down world might be a nightmare world. Robert Holdstock Mythago Woods series is great with a machine to simulate human interaction with the other world. Faerie stories might have similar properties. Even echoes of hell or other planes might be possible through dreamlands.

The intruding reality has a kind of super intelligence but not a human one. There are patterns within that behave like intelligent beings but actually are trapped in loops of limited behaviour. Death is not a problem in such a world as you might return again but will be part of the dream reality or just awaken. Some extraordinary intelligence wants to break through to the waking world and create or occupy a body. It might be possible to create things and bring them back for an experienced wizard.

Cyclopedia and later dnd had mention of nightmare land in several monster descriptions and in the illusionist school in Glantri lets mighty illusionists just move to dreamlands to create their own reality and create dream monsters. So in old basic dnd has hints of a nightmare land of monsters with reality warping weirdness that is much stranger than Ravenloft but it could overlap. You could do a weird dnd modern and mythic reality setting using this stuff.

There are many dreamlands many nightmare lands. Like All have the illusion of being complete universes fully populated mostly form as needed. Time doesn't flow the same here either but past civilisations or eras might still exist. It is a good alternative to time travel or gates. Sometimes the waking world and other worlds are overlapping allowing strange things to enter the world, unreal phenomena or cosmetic changes in the area. Some haunted houses might be especially affected. Certain places might let you interact with dream versions of gods (use deities and demigods stats right so you can kill that form). Temples might also overlap with dreamland or graveyards.

Will try to formalise a bunch of this into some mechanics

Dreamlands - borders with waking world, bright faerieland, giantland, positive material plane, arcadia. paradise, heavens. Worlds are fanciful, whimsical, mythic, heroic

Nightmare kingdom - borders with waking world, shadow plane, dark faerieland, negative plane, the void, underworld, hell, abyss. Worlds are desolate, dystopian, horrible, in decay  

I have a bunch of dream spells in my setting but a few extra ones might be handy. I really like the ideas in Glantri sourcebook for basic dnd on dream magic too.

d12 Common Intruding Dream Realities
1 Faerieland bright or dark
2 Giant Land
3 Arcadia
4 Abyss
5 Hell
6 Outer void
7 Shadow world
8 Spiritworld
9 Cloud Land
10 Underworld
11 Mythic Epoch
12 Primordial Past

d12 Gateways Locations
1 Mirror
2 Wardrobe
3 Doorway
4 Crack in a rock you can squeeze through
5 Hole in a wall
6 Well
7 Haunted house or ruin
8 A crumbling old archway
9 Between trees or branches
10 Barrel or container
11 Between stone pillars
12 Under the surface of water from lake to puddle

d12 Signs
1 Locals saw strange creatures
2 Stories of a hero killing a monster
3 Stories of creature chasing someone
4 Stories of someone fleeing haunted place
5 Locals say beware strange voices
6 Lights seen from here once
7 Horrible massacre was here once
8 Burial ground or temple here once
9 Cult used to visit here till exposed
10 Great tragedy happened here
11 Some primordial being strode here once
12 Children in area know a creepy rhyme about strange sightings

d6 World Link
1 Worlds separate unless ritual performed
2 Worlds separate unless planar entity has been here recently
3 Sleeping, meditating or abusing drugs here opens the veil
4 Worlds subtly overlap, certain stars make links stronger
5 Worlds frequently cross over allowing passage to another world
6 Gate open freely but changes where it links to

Faerielands have thriving life, magic animals, faerie folk might be present, everything glistens, dark faerie favour fungus and darkness and ore creepy. Vegetation, magic animals and servitors are encounter first like sprites or goblins or birds. Elves are the most militant defenders and frequently enslave humans coming here

Giantlands is the mythic dreamworld of the giants with fuses into the infinite ruins of a sprawling giant city. Humanoids and orcs come to plunder these places for magic and secrets but some wizards and human giant worshippers might come too. Ruins and creeping vine begin to over take it too. Includes area of the great fallen troll civilisation before the mindless cancerous man eaters we know now

Arcadia is a mythical abundant wilderness with plenty of food and wine for all, vines and vegetation appear first like grapevines then nymphs, satyrs and centaurs and magic animals appear even revellers in praise of certain pleasure gods. Minor nature divinities and animal spirits live here in between incarnations. The ruins of the tower of heaven are remaining on some planes of arcadia

Abyssal planes vary but most are harsh, unpleasant and difficult to survive on. Toxic odours take over and scream and explosions and storms can be heard. Each fragment of the abyss is a leftover fragment from creation occupied by demons eager to have land and power and dominion here. Some evil wizards and chaos champions might hold one for a demon who holds many. Demons keen to torment and abuse dwell here but some are mindless. They enjoy contact with the world for real or through dreams. Mostly they are concerned with own power and cruelty but some do mercenary work for hell like getting escapees or those avoiding death.

Hell is a series of linked planes a great prison where gods decree sinners go to be tormented and possibly might rise to become devils. Demons are failed unlawful devils who cannot abide by rules. Devils have treaties with demons and angels and devas and archons. A hellish stench comes through first with imps and damned souls moaning to follow. Hell houses, in particular, have diabolic decor that becomes more extreme and animated.

Outer Void is a universe existing before and outside of reality, it is the emptiness reality occupies and is hostile to the nature of reality. Entities that live here are alien and mostly hostile to life. When you can see the beings of the great beyond the first ones are small, glassy fish like creatures. Serene at first they often become hostile and attack when they sense flesh or souls.  The larger ones are tentacled or wormlike or like deep sea creatures or cave dwelling horrors with alien intellect and some are wizards. 

Shadow Wold is a shadow of the reality, a black and white world, a noir land of smoke, mirrors and darkness. Shadow beings here hunger for life energy and are attracted to gates or living. Creatures here shun light and lurk in edges of darkness. Echoes of normal life and places but twisted into a twilight world of hunger and madness. Everything becomes increasingly abstract and nightmarish and you might meet your own shadow self seeking to replace you.

Spirit World is a domain of spirits living close to the waking world often affiliated with nature, gardens, temples, graveyards, hills, trees, forests, bodies of water, artworks and other sites. Spirits in cities are very different to ones on farms or wilderness. Some spirits are friendly some are not, many are witnesses and know local information. As spirit world overlaps mist often forms.

Cloudland is a series of other worlds in clouds reachable through tallest mountains or trees or other means. The lands vary quite a bit many are quite sweet and attractive worlds of child like simplicity, giants, goblins, faeiries, spirits, talking animals and golems living together. Walking into such a world can take you far away as the cloud moves from its location around the world. Some humans used this to explore the world. Children have had adventures here or some worlds might change humans into children.

Underworld a gloomy afterlife place where the souls of the dead eat dust and excrement forever unless their kin sacrifice to them. The better class souls and shades here dwell in cities in comfort but without sacrifices, they might be cast into the gutter if their line dies out. Spirits and shades from the underworld are often hungry and can be distracted with blood or wine poured for them on the ground. Deaths reapers and devils and undead roam here frequently. Some come to save loved ones or plunder treasure. Some caves operate as gateways.

Mythic Epochs are alive and well in dreamlands and can be visited such as when giants and gods waged war or the monster kings ruled or the fist city states of bronze. Some of these replay certain events and some are allegorical or seen as modern peoples saw past not as it was and other distortions. Often overlapping worlds makes things look more old fashioned as they were in that era.

Primordial Times when life first walked on the surface, when various alien beings walked the wastes of the earth in darkness. Gibbering alien titans of the void walked the world. When primordial dragons created first gods and giants and beast lords then tried to gobble them up, when creation began and the later generations of gods were just born. Certain beings in these times do not sense time normally and my hunt you and follow you home to eat your soul.

I did a game where most magic and weird stuff happened in a mist-shrouded dream world by night that overlapped in some places like ruins or graveyards. Faerieland was like this too in wilderness mostly. Caves had own dream underland. This let game be gritty and historical then do moments with magic more possible.

The Secret of Cyborg Hill

On my wanted page on this blog i put a list of past reviews, theory, game scene and other bile. Lots changed since I did some of those and posts mentioning ppl I no longer have any  dealing with, and lots of things have changed at companies I might have been critical of.

So I want to rebuild Module L1 The Secret of Bone Hill as a start off my new Planet Psychon game. I can get my oldschool dnd vibe and my post apoc fix at same time. I will test my evil space god stuff soon too. So players will float to shore without a clue how they got here but memory of being rescued from some disaster.

I might consider Garrotten in there from L2 but it doesnt seem to use lots of L1 as promised. But I might just get Baron killed and monsters invade and wreck the joint and move party onward. Garottem might be village near Kroten Keep the only operating castle on island left.

Did find a typo on map - garden peak is guardian peak in book
Lots of references to how castle is useless until you get L2 not strictly true

History

Known background:
Long ago settlers came here to take advantage of good land and harbour. They were welcomed by the old people (eldren) who taught humans how to fight the evil mutant and goblin hordes of the north. A generation of special knights defended all but when the castle of cyborg hill was destroyed the old folk were mostly gone. the few left don't talk about it but now live among us. Forces of evil are still present and the village is always on guard and in need of adventurers. Most of local adventurers sleep on garden hill eating wild berries roots and bark when not drunk. The Baron is too snooty to employ them.

Real Background: 
The Island was mostly a wasteland of toxic waste with hills and mutant monsters to the north. There is also a strange shunned alien stone ruin that was in the north before any written records. Mutants and undead covered the island tainted by bioweapons of the ancients. The Eldren came back from the stars and established 4 several outposts and purified part of the land. They settled their new friends to serve them, goblinoids.  They were aliens from Tau Ceti V taken by eldren on their trips from the stars and mixed with human DNA. When goblinoids revolted eldren tried to make some orcs which revolted then hired hyena men mercs made by a corporate AI to fight for them which also rebelled.

Finally they captured human to make into warrior cyborgs to defend them. The more boblins were pushed the more other castes appeared as per their own genetics. Hobgoblins then bugbears were born and became plentiful overwhelming the eldren. Then bugbears invaded the Eldren castle. The eldren were all killed by humanoids and most of the cyborgs died and became undead from contamination in the Dead Forest. The surviving cyborgs and other humans slaves settled the purified land and built a fishing village. Some settled other parts of the island and three new colonies held by a Baron formed. Humanoids hated eldren and didnt care about humans who were just eldren goons. Two of these areas, Lodeville and Silverton fell into poverty and ruin and the northern Kroten Keep has fallen to evil and now plots against Restenford. Many strange cults sprang up on island too but most are secret.

The cyborg knights who served the godlike eldren feature in the religion of these people and they appear in artworks little realising the cyborgs were expendable slaves used by immortals. The surviving eldren in town are quiet about the history and the former humans were charmed and forgot the past.

Locations:

Restenford
Human mostly town where most are chaoitic nuetral with most clergy, guards and nobles being more lawful and or good. The Baron is mostly busy but his wife and daughter with guards wander about occasional. Rif raf will not be admitted to castle unless they get jobs or are local heroes.

Druids worship Gaea AI and know some of the true history

Abbey of Paragon (originally Phaulkon) are lawful holy warriors who revere the cyborg knight saints of old and perpetuate myths about the island. One priest has been cursed and has a personality that worships Evil Otto after getting lost in his evil mirror maze on a quest.

Guards have muskets with blades and officers have pistols and swords
-and baron has a las pistol
-felix has a 5mm combat rifle and a pet drone with a 6shot mortar with smoke rounds

Cults in are as I detailed before
-witch cult with cave for peasants they are at war with the alien cult of the rich
-a ufo alien lover cult of posh local elites seeking power (one in baron's family)
-evil undead demon cultist in league with Kroten Keep.

Peltar the sorcerer collects relics like ancient tech buried in ruins

A spy for Kroten Keep in town too in bait shop

Swamp is a toxic waste area with drums, polluted water, warheads, mutants
-toxic undead and mutants hang out so nobody bothers them, live in filthy shacks
Town guard shoot them on sight, some use them as cheap labour

Luck Temple of Dweomer Forest
The luck temple in Dweomer Forest
-has one armed bandit robots and being a ruined casino
-has terminals to commune or play games with god
-a gambling mad AI god should have been in game already!

Bald Hill
Gang of orc here use muskets and black powder and rob travellers. They live in a cave overlooking the plane wreck near Xerbal mountains but hang around Bald hill to spot travellers.

Garden Hill
Tent city of failed adventurers
-ranger knows several locations
-assasin works for pay doesn't talk much
-broke wizard is a sad drunk
-orc warrior who cant believe the local bumpkins

Trash Gorge
Some have noticed the trash in the gorge gets added to by someone and some good stuff and tin cans end up there even some processed food scraps.

Ark Hill
Haunted and people wary but actually there is a bunker here with some population and machines. Secret sewer entrance through the rubbish dump in the gulley.

Radd Forest
Contaminated and feral mutants live here who hate humans and eldren

Green Knoll
a Forrest crawling with triffids, vegepigmies and mutant plants. Some kind of buried ruin is here according to rumours.

Spring Glade - Pebble Hills - Spring Glade - Tri-Top
Hyenadon and hyena abhumanoids live here brought in as mercenaries centuries ago. Some wear bits of uniforms and company crests for a ancient corporation and they still worship their AI godess Maltor mother of beast folk. They have reduced to mostly stone age tech and whatever they can steal.

Boat Wreck of SS Beluga
A wrecked cruise ship inhabited by fish folk colony and hybrids

Plane Wreck of Flight 742
Passengers are undead and android stewards care for them

Off the Map


Kroten Keep 
in north ruled by a evil Baron who wants to control Island and has been allying himself with goblins and cults. Baron Kroten hopes to recruit Hyena but agent has failed. Even has undead soldiers with musket using skeletons. I might make the village near by Garroten populated by assassin but has nice theatre which should really be a assassin training place. Possibly assassins mostly leave island as i cant believe a few thousand would support a assassin cult. Perhaps they keep area safe with assassination rather than supported by murder for hire. Thinking might have been corrupted. Who'd a thought assassins would go bad. Humans came here and built castle to block humanoids from north.

Knights of Kroten keep ride outside and are bandits over the island returning home when things get rough. More orcs and goblins walk openly here now and some human hybrids exist. Robber knights and goblins pretty much run the place. The Baron of Silverton is helpful and a pawn. Lodeville is a principle enemy who fight often. Restenford is spied on as they dont want war with two sides. The Baron keeps the best armoury of ancient weapons on island but will only use in self defence.

Assassin cult - all have commoner ID some possibly performers, keep friend and foe in fear
Dark Chapel - evil Templar clerics serve the Baron, he is high priest, serve demons and deals with goblins.
Fish Cult - operate along rivers spying on other districts using mentalist and illusions, kidnap and traffic drugs and vice. Shipwreck near Restenford is a holy place and many visit town on way.

Lodeville 
In north east is a run down shambles where cultists have become increasingly open. Were some mines but morlocks sealed them as humans too degenerate for them to work with or eat. Baron Lodeville hopes to join Baron Kroten. He is a brute with a private militia who bully the town. Local mob and Baron loves witch hunting even though the witches are only thing holding place together. Many women are witches and have close community. Many women want to leave and do. Lots of men worship evil dwarfs in hill and their worm master. Other men worship  People are often short and ugly and distantly morlock slaves with some masters blood. Some have subterranean mutations.  
Local men are jerks, picking fights, getting drunk, rioting, and helping cults. What are you looking at is heard every hundred yards if visiting village and verbal abuse more often... At night cult of the dark voice glean over human mines scraps for minerals masters want but fear the worm cult. Cults have gang fights. They act as rival thieves guilds too. Local baron supports local church of Paragon, and believes scourging his evil sub human people is for the best so they go to heaven. Baron personally beheads cult criminals as the Paladin of the North. Even his family fear him and he killed a bastard son for dabbling in a cult. Lodeville was settled by humans seeking mines for iron to keep elves and demons away. They found degenerate slaves of the morlocks and rescued them and drove morlocks into certain mines. As prospectors and fur trappers explored mountain they heard alien voices and were recruited agents. Burrowing six foot venomous worms are common here use snake stats. 

Burrowers Brotherhood - worship a great beast worm god thing, cult came from morlock slaves, evil demigod worm burrows the hill helping miners for sacrifice. They interact with morlocks in the mine and bring them victims and sacrifices. Cult have tunnels everywhere
Dark Voice Thralls - help the whisperers in the darkness who talk in alien voices to prophets in the mountain forests at night. The cult do the voices bidding seeking materials and gleaning minerals humans dig up but don't value. These are void fungi, a space fearing race of alien winged fungus with brain like head and bug lobster pincers and shrimp like limbs but squishy and slimy. They also surgically modify good followers granting powers and inconveniences (surgical mutation table). They fear the great worm
Starblood Coven - witch cult of sorceresses who try to protect community from the worm and the dark voice. Local Baron loves witch hunting so they act in secret. They prefer to help in secret but might save someone anyway. They have a secret cave grotto members only. Most leaders and members are women. Only share certain information or deal with women in groups. Give strangers notes of warning.

Silverton 
in west has fallen to ruin and mutant raid, many locals exhibiting sickness. Baron is bloated decadent and greedy and fears adventurers want to take over, He is swathed in luxury and hedonistic vice using thugs to run the town. Officially he uses local chapel but worships a corpulent plague demon. Several cults here too one the Baron controls. Lots of mutants in area and they are common and accepted here. Doppelgangers are here too in secret.

Dark Chapel - evil templar clerics serve the Baron of Kroten, he is high priest, serve demons
Maalek the Plague Lord - spares worshippers but makes them carriers, promises immortality and and undying life of greed and gorging while body rots and mutates. Local mutants are members too carrying necro mutations, bio mutations, devil mutations
Devil Cult - members sell souls so other evils don't get your soul, devils look after it and give you purpose and possibly devilish mutations.

Ruins of Cyborg Hill and Dead Forest 
Dead Forrest contaminated, save or become undead on death if camp here or eat or drink. Undead Forrest animals, skeletons, zombies, cyborg wights, green glowing screaming ghouls. By day bugbears are found.

Workshop in castle tower include lab gear, space suit, and a control console altar and other scrap of the ancients. 

Locations to add
A small ruined city of the old ones....
Perhaps goblins live in a crashed eldren colony ship and hope to launch it
-in hiding from other goblinoids on island gone feral
A morlock hidden lair with eldren eloi might be good as always
Some bunker ruins possibly several
Passages under island used for maintenance
Hyena Drop Ship partially buried
Mirror murder maze of evil otto full of killer robots

Further Notes
A major attack of humanoids and robber knights of Kroten will be good

Next I might re use beaver island setting i used for gamma world and maybe Pittsburgh

I Notice Len Lakofka has no toilets in module of course
No surprise as he got grumpy in a thread about topic
Nobody wants toilet in a dungeon!

Psychonian Skins
Most humans are various skin colours and children here can be any colour
-Barrons family are all purple skinned with silver hair, all barrons on island are kin
Eldren are green skinned with gold metalic hair
Morlock dwarves are blue skinned with white hair
Gnomes are emerald green skinned with aqua hair
-they want a atomic battery to restart light house

Hothouse Sessions and Fresh Psychon

So i did a game of Planet Psychon
A few couldnt make it so i delayed adventure and ran the Psychon bbook Rock n Roll band in 71 in planecrash in bermuda triangle start and instigated my zero level "Hothouse" start rules. Will detail these then rap about game. Did lots of printing including 2012 updates of two rule books. Will finish these then merge them into one. Will do a spells and skills book and a simple monster book stuffed with minimum stats. Later a fancy book with monster profile like my recent heraldic beast book with variants versions and adventures based on them. Pimp my dragon table? Sorta done as my reptilian mutations.

Iv'e considered starting everyone in party with two to four levels in a former class.

Hothouse campaign starts for EMO games
This start is kind of like the Elfmaids & Octopi version of DCC character funnel. Ive used it up to 6 years or more ago especially in my real world to fantasy setting games.

This is a start for level zero characters who at completion of first victory become first level.

In my Dungeon Zone (long stairs inspired) game players started as recruited soldiers or non military experts sent to the dungeon dimension through earthgates found around world. So after first few sorties with monsters in a dungeon they would be infected by the dungeon and level up to first.

On psychon modern humans sent to far future Psychon or awoken from stasis get a saving throw a day to become 1st level psychon characters if they fail a save roll. Characters in these might even change race. One player awoke robot with former clothes painted on his hull.

In my fantasy setting young adults ready for apprentice ships out of home to be sent to a adventurer prep school to be trained in class they are suited to to aid kingdoms dungeon excavations. In another fantasy setting I started characters as a youth gang in city. In fantasy version I tend to have non human characters established from start as fantasy less silly right? Run a session with characters as feckless youths having adventure then then have a time jump of 4 years after apprenticeships over and all now Lv1.

Two types of zero level starting character

Fighter - d6 HP 2 arms skills 1 arts skill

Specialist - d4 HP  1 arms skills 2 arts skills

Modern world starting languages English S W (spoken written)
+ 1 language slot per INT* bonus (INT=Talent stat in EMO)
+1 language if multilingual past
swap a art skill for 4 languages

on psychon your modern English renamed ancient

Fantasy world starting languages Common S (spoken) 
+ 1 language slot per INT bonus 
+1 language if nonhuman
swap a art skill for 4 languages

All saving throws based on half stat rolls
Could get a skill to boost
Having a character class grants your prime requisite full score for saves of that type
default non weapon skill penalty is -4

Benefits of ThisKeep the extra zero level HP and skills and languages gained here
As well as all the benefits of being 1st level
Commoners don't do this
 - they keep highest HP roll and skill types if they become Lv 1
-its a reward for surviving a high risk challenge
Can start 1st level with one point in a alignment

Problems for Characters
These set up start sessions are high risk adventures more like horror games
You can die easily one blow
No minimum HP like 1st level characters so 1HP possible
A back up or replacement character handy
Or have multiple zero level characters

Ive used this lots and needs to be a core option for games.

Planet Psychon: Rock n Roll Mercenaries
So ran the characters as band members fleeing Caribbean on cheap dodgy airline offering low custom checks on booze and contraband. A month of touring with band drug deaths and arrests to blame. This adventure straight out of Psychon book. A odd night storm over Bermuda Triangle sends crashing from sunny golden desert. Passengers got out to look around. Cockpit windows gone and flight crew decapitated. While getting stuff out of plane player on top of wreck saw distant figures in sandstorm coming inexorably slowly.

Fergus played a asian keyboardist with lots of drugs and a pistol and party machine.
Jason played a finish loudmouth lead singing syndrome party machine with some martial arts. He rescued teen chinp in overals in cargo in a cage and it clung to him.

The party while look like horrible biker hippie hybrids got to roleplay with various passengers like typical survivors in a 70s disaster movie. Despite looks party helped and befriended almost everybody except a puritanical woman accused them of groping her when she awoke with them dragging her from wreck. Several went to meet figures and horrible slimy black faces horrors would not stop so shots were fired. Didn't stop so guys shot several. Several creatures killed but three got close to vomit acid on them knocking out 2 npc passengers. Badly wounded creatures turned to flee some stopped to finish dissolving unconscious into slime pools they then tried to drink up. Just managed to win and bubbling slime corpses turned into green crystal secretion after vapor boiled off in reaction. Singer tasted a microdot and luckily was a acid vet and remained awake and not visiting other dimensions and ulltraterrestrial beings.

Told passengers about deaths and got most passengers back in plane and pulled up rope ladder. Considered going to right wind ward sea or tail ward mountain pass, to north sand and mountains with huge miles wide whistling dust storm event where monsters came from. Left wingward mountains and desert. Federal martial cuffed to a guy caught trying to out do Manson. Fed says he will help guys reign in group and fight but wants them to agree to killing the prisoner so he isn't a risk. Debated about cuffing him and using him as scout or send him to fight ahead of armed guys with a steel mike stand rod or a shank he offered to make.  Party agreed and took guy out to the battle scene to shoot and bury. Fed starts being bossy now and disagreeing. Spent a night and one stewardess two out of twenty four passengers, chimp boy and Jason rolled saves. Everyone else now a chromatic skinned mutated Psychon human now.

Jason rolled his up as his might kick tomorrow's save roll. Jason's fairly normal looking but foot long tongue, antenna and camouflage patterned bright lime & tangerine skin.  He is a bard at this stage but he didn't develop everything. As a EMO bard he gets to pick arcane or divine or druid or psionics list and pick a song type. He tastes like a pets slightly too old manky matress.

Fergus who played before had his character become a robot. His bot form has a cat head, purple diamond eyes, a functional penis and painted on band clothes (leather jacket with logo and logo t-shirt) on his boxy body. His robot aps included a beer fridge, night vision, lighter, and distillery so he eats organics and has internal flora in digestive tract plus distillery. He ate made fuel for self and made booze he stored in fridge. I let him roll cyber mutation table from my blog and mutant book. Has cyberman like boxes on joints and cables on limbs and exhaled smoke when exited or making a effort. Food eaten is processed to remove poison which is handy too. Came out freaking awesome. Its only fair a robot class be only one to be mutation free on psychon where everyone gets 4 starting minor cosmetic mutations and a random chromatic skin pigment. AI gods defeated old world racism by making all life one of 12 sacred colours.

We went late and watched Danger5 till later.
So ive had some good 90s like quality moments in new house.
Hope get more jump on but was good.

Good focus group of players all in education and good editors who know games.

Psychon vs Broken Hill 3

So last session this trip
running 2 sessions a day for 3 sundays was fun
most players used my system quickly
accidentally made initiative system work well with up to 7 players
a few had kind words for effort ive put into setting and maps
found new typos and stuff to fix
decided to rejig Broken hill as first adventure pack for Psychon

So early session artist friend Cameron turned up to play - had not played dnd since highschool and new lots of tropes as they came up in a doodle recall drawing games over years for some reason.

Cyclops thief with big lips, jet skin and sour flavour with a spherical drone pet
Mutant hungry hero so bizzarre now nobody quite can imagine what he looks like
Horned pink thief with icecream flavour on mission from god of betrayal
Armoured warrior with a halberd and sonic riot cannon

While waiting for comrades in the party's shop in settled town met a prospector who offered a lead to a locked building to pay off his armour repair bill. So they marched down to the ruins, chased off some dingos and faced a giant tangerine and cyan striped winged bearded dragon (australian lizard not the dnd kind). It had a spicy chilli flavour and the party butchered it to make kitchen spices and leather as they did most life they met.

Found duralloy shutters and could read sighn of a tube station. The prospector went back to shop to tell any other party members who arrived what gang up to.

As descended heard some music and found video games and found vending machines they opened for coins. Found intact power room but left it and looted some shops for food and went down to the train level where music increased. Drone scouted ahead to see undead techno hippies raving on trains as they had for possibly hundreds of years powering their lights and ghetto blaster. 

Horned thief Jericho went out to get their attention and the undead screamed and charged. He acrobaticly jumped on top of train drawing half to try and scrabble up while he danced about. Rest of party backed into stairs and began the fight as they identified the 15 dead as juju zombies which made them panic.

The tunnel stairs proved to be a meat grinder and the guys eventually pushed through back to the platform where Jericho was still dancing about till a zombie got up and chased him then a second. The cyclops jumped up and slipped drawing one of the zombies to attack him. Eventually they won with thanks to the increadibly good armour of the mutant and the warrior but even he was down to 3HP. So they looted lots of baggage for food, drugs, clothes then restored power. Used a toy printing vending machine to make a cool looking ray gun to intimidate people but had no batteries of course. Left music on as it had obviously kept people away for a long time and played with some addictive videogames and set up a electric fence. Over a few weeks got rest of party in to set up as a forward base in ruins and could drive their tracked car from town and into the shutters. Repurposed and fixed a florist shop robot and a "sarge" recruitment bot and a policeman desk sarge bot from a previous adventure as Jericho had become quite the robo hacker.

So rest of players arrived.

A priest of the god of betrayal
A green furry gnome who comes accross as a druid but more into arcane magic
A gun toting wizards specializing in summoning with his mini clone and snake companion 

A new black and yellow skinned eldren with backward knees and huge feet, a member of the silver city rangers, a much loved vigelante group with his laser and machine interface spherical drone

The cyclops rogue went home to look after his kids

Full party agreed the rail tunnels were more interesting than some pleasure bunker and hoped to find a tunnel entrance to their base in town so wanted to clear out tunnels. Began the march with the sneaking gnome and Jericho up front with the com drone.

Found a a machine head workers depot where gang was searching for scerap to fix vehicles and party mostly massacred all but one then sealed the manhole entry and cut off the ladder. Found lots of tools, scrap and a biodiesel generator the prisoner explained they turned corpses into fuel.

Moved south and found a junction. West way had a train wreck the gnome scouted and looted, the east had a metal high tech barricade and gate with gun ports which they were wary of. South the drone spotted glowing ghouls and the party found a ruined station haunted by ghouls which the evil priest controlled and sent to the barricade. Found a second bunch of rail worker ghouls the party evil priest turned on each other for fun and the wizards grumbled about the morality. Mostly full of scrap and some medical vending machines they hoped to claim later.

Back to the metal barrier the gnome turned into a bat and scouted the area and saw millitary androids with ray guns guarding the barrier and beyond that worker androids supervised by a thinker at a pristine station.Jericho aproached hands up despite nobody had heard of friendly wild androids. They lasered him badly and he realised he could die and fled while the wizard summoned albino wallabies to provide cover. Several wallabies exploded or turned to ash and the party decided to come back later.

Finally down south they found a mutant colony in the station closest to their town home. The warrior declared the mutants yield in the name of the warlord and mutants fled for their lives. Found a green translucent baby and fed it some mutagen babyfood parents were preparing and it grew a reptilian tail. Several tried to charm the crying baby but the jolly evil priest did the best job which upset the good wizard who didn't trust the priest of a betrayer god.

Found mutant art and idols and glowing rocks and Jericho was exposed when checking out the plant room full of glowing molten fuel cells. The party made it to the surface and saw last few mutants flee. The station entrance was well hidden but as several party members got new mutations the locations didn't really seem worth it

Went back to town of the warlord and went through the gate mutant beggars hung around and gave the baby to a frog headed antlered shaman who know the family and accepted party peace offering. Sold some loot and rested then back to their own ruin station base to plan assault on the androids.

Gnome invisibly planted a bomb by the gate and then cast invisibility again to flee. After the blast the gnome and the wizard summoned waves of poor mutant Australian animals who were exploded by lasers till the androids ray batteries dead. Heroes poured in and killed them but it was a slog and the androids were very good martial artists. They were joined by their fabulous dress wearing mutant priest friend who helped out with some healing.

Scouting ahead the workers were welding themselves inside the station and two military androids were in train cabin with hard cover. Wizard summoned animals into the cabin with them and the party charged in using the captured lasers with batteries from their stun guns they had captured earlier. Jericho got on train roof and when the front of train and cover mostly destroyed and one android dead, he jumped in and grabbed it's laser. Halberdier warrior got a few laser hits too and magic missiles helped.

Cut open station doors and killed through workers with crowbars to find the brain and warrior committing suicide (game time out). All celebrated the hard won battle and now they were running about with lasers and a vehicle they felt like big deals in the warlords domain. 

Im back to Adelaide in few days. Spending few days with a new friend before i go and one last day of work. Started buying clothes and records as have most of my gaming want list killed. Also got all the oriental adventures box set and modules and gaslands coming soon.

Hopefully back in boring Adelaide my blogging and new game work will be forthcoming.

Second Psychon Session

So second game of my planet Psychon meets Gamma Oz Broken Hill. Was a con on so less players and things went faster easier (went from 3 early session to 7 by end last week).

So the original pair from Manna Hill, the mutant and the wizard got ready to head towards broken hill. The wizard had learned some new spells and the poor putant developed fly eyes and feeding parts to go with his transparent skull, insect wings, turtle shell, spurs, elongated arms and spiked club fist. He was keen to find new mutagens. Marched accross desert to Mingary a halfway campsite after a long tiring march. Mutants heart was glowing from exhaustion when in distance they saw a camp of tents and wagons. A camp of ferals, many mutants greeted them all had names like Sunshine, Kale, Greenleaf and Sunflower. As they were vegetarians and treated mutants well the lads relaxed and shared their marijuana ciggarettes from a ancient vending machine in the Olowry police station ruins. The mutant even had company for the night. A awkward mutant lass who liked grazing on saltbush. They all travelled next day to Cockburn (Coburn to more prissy locals). A larger town, more unfriendly with two pubs! The ferals let the mutant ride in their wagon as he looked tired while wizard on his flightless riding bat was fine.

The chatted to some kids about ruins their parents said to avoid and heard of a warehouse and a odd industrial building. Mutant stayed night with settlers hoping to get farmland in broken hill. During the night rednecks and police came to search the settlers and the mutant calmed the hotheads and the police a bit and the elders were grateful and invited him to visit when they had a farm. The wizard had a bath and got a private room in the merchant inn as the other in was for biker gangs prolific in the area. Next morning they visited the industrial ruin and saw it very lifeless. Inside they found sacks of human clothes from farmers, children, gang colours obviously collected over a long time, over a hundred outfits. Found  ag robot scraps, looted offices, robot junk and another room of clothing. A drone was spotted watching them and the mutant shot it with his crossbow.

The mutant went about turning a robot head into a helmet when a battered old worker android tried to catch the wizard by surprise. Both beat the robot up and its slimy fluids and ropy goop was splattered everywhere. Took stars down and found a machine that made a fresh tougher android they battled and the wizard summoned mutant wallabies to help. As the rested they blocked the door with a duralloy cyborg femur found in earlier adventure. While the mutant snacked on food his wizard friend "loaned" him  again something pounded on the door. The mutant set up a deadfall and a crossbow trap and the wizard pulled out the cyborg bone door bar with a string. The android staggered in and while distracted by the deadfall was ambushed and did not last long. Found a secret door into a pristine white corridoor with a security door. Left it and explored a webbed section and battled a cyborg spider with a grenaide launcher which in fight accidently blasted itself while wizard summoned giant funnelweb spiders. The spider lair had a good cache of tech including a box of explosives and a detonator. So they blew the security door open.

Here they battled a war android and took its sonic blaster which liquified poor summoned lizards. Then they destroyed a door with the gun and battled a egotistical brain bork with delusions of godhood. The brought a merchant in to loot the place who filled a wagonload. Wizard bought a talking snake with a beard and a pointy hat. The mutant bought a wagon pulled by a giant koala and a sex android. Both felt rich and travelled with the merchants to broken hill. 

Here they sold lots of treasures and made enough to buy a 2 story shack in merchant street and opened a shop selling gunpowder and armour and drugs. They were invited to see the warlord which is always a warlord but turned out her gave them a charter to supply his armoury and to  supply their business with enough raw materials they could sell the leftovers. After a week they found guards hung around their store and locals were slightly fearful of the party status.

So we had a break and more players dropped in. I was happy with attendance as their was a con on same day.

So a pink gnome gunsmith asked for a job. He was a jerk who tasted of exhaust fumes but he was welcome. One of mercenaries who was in the raid on the Olowry cop shop joined them keen to loot greater city ruins. He was a pinkskinned freak with a face on his chest in scrap plate armour and a halberd. Mutant had found a journal detailing a black lab and had found a ID card of a scientist previously for the same lab. So all were keen to go loot the joint. 

Marched from the barricaded warlord township of Silver City through the ruins being settled and the mutant chased and ate a stray dog. Met the settlers he stayed with in Cockburn and chatted a bit. Eventually crossed into the feral ruins outside the Warlords domain. Spotted a bandit gang ambush led by a Ned Kelly like bucket headed boss. As three bandits shot muskets the boss and his second charged with bayonets. The party shot the charging men dead then chased and caught the two remaining ones who cried for mercy claiming the boss forced them. After a debate over selling as slaves, handing in for bounties or setting free (while the mutant ate the dead leader), the party decided to keep two as pack animals. The warrior even gave them sticks for defence and tied their wrists and necks and attached both to his belt. The mutant skinned and butchered the corpses for snacks later as he was always hungry.

Shortly after they spied a giant redback spider as big as a compact car but it could not bite through the mutants armour and plastron shell. The party chopped it to bits and found two egg sacks and a webbed corpse with some bullets and silver coins. Mutant dipped icecream flavoured bandit flesh into the mushroom spider gut goop. Could use some fermenting but good. A chimera attacked from the air and was quite a menace. Wizard summoned eagles to fight it which slowed the killing machine down but then it chased the wizard into a hole where he hid while others finished the beast. The corpse was too badly damaged to sell intact so mutant butchered it and ate some and noticed it was a surgical construct with different flavoured bits. The gnome offered his healing suppositorie which was a awkward moment. They found the biotech corp building the lab was under and found a mine field. Salvaged several mines and marked a safe route inside.

It was mostly burned out but in basement found secret elevator. Down they went into the deep deep sub level. Invited into a bright chamber with four twin machinegun turrets and a vault door. A voice requester ID and they showed the doctor pass. The were directed into a concrete bay and told to strip and place all belongings in provided biohazzard drums.

Adventurers surrender! Unlikley. The mutant rubbed on his strength ointment and injected another strength drug and punched down the secure doors. There was a room with four cells. So they jerked about arguing til a door opened and a dozen ancient infantry in nbc suits with light auto rifles came in to kill them but a sleep spell nobbled most of them. And the warrior and mutant destroyed the last few. Ancients sure were mostly weak. They grabbed guns and sidearms and the wizard and gnome argued over if they should kill or capture the sleeping men. The gnome kept throat slitting throats all through the debate but good wizard saved 2 out of 8. Party put on nbc suits as best they could as they had been threatened with radiation and gas when asked to strip earlier. 

My alignment system of oaths and rewards has been great for in play fights and im hoping for a dramatic tpk next game from these fueds. Actually some players ended up sharing with kin as oaths and decided party were closest they had so not all bad.

The mutant lifted the tech savvy gnome to the cell window shutters to inspect the occupants. The first two were base soldiers on discipline charges in handcuffs so they put surviving prisoners inside with them. The next cell had a pretty man in a white body suit who awoke when addressed and explained he was a service android. The party seemed sure that such a android in a cell was probably a killer virused one. The androids plea it could not harm a human was ignored. The next one was a scientist from a rival black lab who offered to show his home base and help them kill this lab and steal it's treasures. He was kinda creepy but party freed him and gave him a rifle and a pistol.

Another door punched down into a artificial habitat with boring ancient small critters. A door int the hab opened and a metal scaled bull entered paralysing the mutant and warrior and his two bandit slaves. Wizard summoned wombat lizards and the gnome blasted magic missiles finishing it but it was scary. Mutant recovered and butchered it and found it was a surgical construct again. Went through three labs with creatures in tubes including a dropbear cyborg lab. Tried to turn off a pod to kill the most developed one but it awoke and burst free requiring a killing. Last lab had psychotronic lab that bombarded them with communist propaganda. Most of the party was effected but only the wizard understood the dogma in ancient but the affected followed his lead as obvious commissar. A brief fight broke out and wizard summoned monsters which ate the scientist while the gnome wrecked the machinery and party snapped out of control over a few rounds.  The wizard decided he liked this communism stuff and as he was good found it compatible with his urges to help and share with the common folk.

Finally they burst into the control room and while the warrior and mutant faught the surprisingly tough commander the wizard and gnome shot the console technicians. The gnome hacked the system which resisted but he gassed and irradiated the remaining base scientists, techs and soldiers barricading themselves in the cafeteria. The computer did activate the self destruct that the gnome delayed a bit so party went on quick looting spree and got a groundcar out of the motor pool and to the surface before the base was destroyed.

Drove home in style and Warlord thanked them for the shiny new car and guns but gave them a older battered gun carrier.

During the level up the mutant developed croc jaws and learned martial arts to get a extra unarmed attack. The chaotic evil warrior gained a oath to give enemies slow painful deaths sure to create a fight in the future.

One more session next week with probably more players.

Planet Psychon vs Gamma Oz

So back in sydney for work and cat sitting and having a great time. Played a great horror sf one shot with friend Conan and people accused me of good roleplaying as duplicitous dr who turned out to be a cultist who was saboteur and a cultist. Good thing I chose the right character. Conan sets up very good player vs player games that work well. Players chatted for hour and a half after about session which was interesting. I might interview him about it.

Anyway so ran my Gamma Oz: Broken Hill setting as a large region of Planet Psychon. Started in Manna Hill a town of 60 populated by lots of animal abhumans kinda inspired by Norman Lindsay's "the Magic Pudding" and another Australian Classic Blinky Bill). Started with Two players. One was a scarlet mutant with transperant flesh on his skull and long droopy rabbit ears and one arm was a huge spiked fist. Hishear glowed through his chest. He was a good armourer so he could modify as mutations set in.

The other was a feminine looking turquoise skinned wizard with a child that was actually a budded clone that was possessed by a familiar spirit and a pet flightless riding bat. She also had several flintlocks and a talking AI pistol that could fire any cased ammo. She was studying wizardry from old books left by her real family. She made her own gunpowder and had a loyd heartbeat when she was stressed. They grown up as orphans in town and lived in Mrs Magpies shed. She was a moralistic grump but fed the kids who were appreciative. She was school teacher and they lived in school shed.

As they grew ambitious they asked an old timer where to adventure and they heard of a small fallout shelter under a abandoned homestead. Met some merchants selling jerky which was handy as the ever hungry mutant at all his rations on the first day. Later found stray sheep and drove them homeward with firecrackers as Mrs Magpie said local farmers were creeps.

Found the ruins with a windsock and a tower and strange roads that went nowhere in some arcane pattern. Was before it was a farm was a country airport for post and Royal Flying Doctor Service. Searched area and wrecked small 2 seat plane wrecks. Found a AI brain for a house, some kind of flight pack and few other trinket Including a black lab medical ID. Also found note left by a poisoned adventurer commenting on hatch buried under junk. Spent hours clearing building of junk and found duralloy hatch had lock cut out years ago and tons of rubbish were used instead. Climbed down the shaft and found was water logged ans mould and battled several disgusting mutants. The mutant hero crushed them with his fist and the wizard summoned dwarf cassowaries in a flash of light from the space gods to help. Found some strength boosting drugs, interesting trash and found a crionic sleep pod. Apparently ten years ago the mutants had put the person on stasis for food then grown so degenerate the couldn't remember. The revived person was a rogue with perlescant skin and scarlet hair. Like all Psychonians they tasted each other and deemed the icecream flavoured stranger was ok. The mutant hero was honey flavoured and the wizard was candy. The new friends headed home and on the way battled four mutant gang members. Captured three and the mutant killed and ate the two headed one.

Arrived back with prisoners and locals declared the adults and welcomed their new friend. Turns out the friend was created by a space god of treachery to travel to Earth to activate a industrial teleporter to call his god to earth. He had horns, bat ears a mission from god. The kids decided to go to broken hill were they heard radio broadcasts from and rumours of treasure filled ruins and opportunity.

They arived in Olowry after a long hike past the giant concrete dice of the ancients (real place). Visited local diner and kindly old couple fed the gang best meal they ever had and filled them in with local troubles. So they went after dark to pub for their first beers and rogue shouted everyone enough to get town drunk. After town jolly, convinced some to join to help them evict gang from the post office. Also some beast lived in the shed. Rogue sneaked on roof and opened a board to close up a hole and dropped in a wizards cast iron grenade with a lit fuse. As they were staggered by the blast the mutant on a cocktail of two strength drugs kicked in the door (23 STR) and the door crushed a wounded gang member. Rogue jumped in stabbing and the wizard with flintlocks shot more while pub drunks with clubs charged in and the surviving gangers surrended. To follow up decided to get the beast in the dhed that stalked the town at night. Rogue crept in to find a giant bearded dragon lizard in a wrecked post van sleeping. The gang and their small mob attacked and managed to kill it but one mook was swallowed whole and the wizard summoned dingoes to help. 

The town celebrated and next morning a huge lizard BBQ took place. Various passing through to Broken Hill mercs joined them and they planned to break in and raid a pristine police station with unbreakable duralloy shutter and rumours of moving lights inside. The rogue visited tho local kids as he had heard the kids gang had tried random numbers for a hundred years and recorded them. As his god had given him decryption skills he used thousands of numbers on gang walls to calculate the door code.

Four new party members joined. A green furry gnome sorcerer, with tentacles and smelled of skunk, a metalic skinned priest of the same cult and the rogue sent to aid him (also icecreamed flavoured). He had betrayed the god of betrayal and was returned to life as a priest. A warrior with plate and a halberd and a extra face in his chest. Then finally a moronic priest in a fabulous dress, huge muscles and a wig concealing his exposed brain who was raised by octopi under the sea. The motley band got to the door of the station and cracked the door. Battled a number of robots and found lots of interesting drugs, police evidence, a vending machine of marijuana cigarettes in 10 flavours and strange rayguns. The rayguns turned out to be stunners but some had defective batteries that melted when the cells depleted. Wasted a huge amount of ammo testing on walls and skeletons with no effect. The gnome summoned kangaroos as target practice but the party were so inept wasted more ammo. Wasted lots of drugs also but that's pretty common on Psychon.

Next the party head to Broken Hill looking for riches.
More strangeness in a week.

My efforts to streamline with the Psychon random generators online and default character builds helped get late new players working faster. Initiative worked well and impressed with 7 players remained domiciled and focused and all worked well.

Literacy on Xor

Crikey I opened a can of worms mentioning books on Xor.

So now i have to explain how Xorians write.

Surface of Xor in some locations has tattooed secret places with forbidden lore
Slave auctions might actually have tattooed living books for sale

Feel free to submit ideas that i will steal from you like the wind bwah haha!

d12 Book Types of Xor
1 Runes carved on bone or teeth or tusks in bundle usually in a leather bag, sometimes ink or blood is rubbed in to read easier or in rituals
2 Book of vellum sheets of creature skin or tattooed on living creature then made into book 3 Living creature covered in tattoos, when it dies it's skin will be made into a book, pigs are most common but dogs, humans, giant mole rats, cats are all good choices. Fancy ones might be lions, golems, gargantuan kaiju, salamander, manticores
4 Tablets of dried faeces sometimes fired or special diets required, often kept in skins
5 Living flesh book, open it slimy living skin pages to read, requires feeding 1in6 speak
6 Living flesh book can walk, sneak, hide, as smart as a animal  1in6 speak
7 Lore potion, made from extractions of neural fluids gives drinker memories, knowledge and skills for a d4 turns with some residual trivia, often come in a egg or skin sac
8 Memory slave is a creature or human that specialised in memorisation, some also super numerate or with other skills. Bird breeds are common message takers and spies. Some just know a single work and little else, some have a book per INT point 
9 Brain sac with nueral link connection tentacles to talk to brain in bio bubble 1in6 with eyes 1in6 with a voice box
10 Brain sac with psionic link to the animus and overmind of Xor, networked into other brains, includes eyes and is telepathic, telepathy, telekinesis, levitation, clairvoyance. Some have been cut off or broken free and often mad
11 Memory Worm, eats the brain of victim and if inserted in the nose gain memories of the last victim. The host shares memories from the worms last victims. Drugs keep worm from destroying the host over weeks. A separate fungal infection does the same thing as the drug but turns hair silver. An infested brain explodes with worms an hour after the hosts death
12 Book is a colony of tiny creatures like rats, bugs, worms or slime. Handled to "read" the creatures form text formed with bodies. You can find them wild sometimes. Some are descendants from familiars or degenerate spell books of the elder races, monster kings and necromancers

Gamma Age Urban Location Key

Made these for my gamma urban mapping project and still may but as they sat here a while i thought i would put here. Probably need a d10 sub table for each so here goes....

Was worried would conflict with this https://elfmaidsandoctopi.blogspot.com/2019/03/broken-hill-10-farming-communities.html

But turns out all aok. This more generic gamma stuff rather than broken hill post. Also gotta fix that typo. Was hoping these icons could be on a map. Maybe i could get some dice printed with these symbols....could be good in a book too.

d10 Settlements

1 Struggling hungry dirt farmers with scrap built structures and mutant farm animals 

2 Nomadic settler camp seek long term home, now satisfied with water and game

3 Shacks of extended family, wary of strangers with several beast and stragley crops

4 Farmers in walled compound, thriving off strange crops like triffids or fleshy mutant plants

5 Farm with tall fences keeping slaves inside who grow crops and herd mutant animals

6 Occupied ruin, semi repaired with some limited technology, partly hidden 

7 Fenced village with militia, farming and some other source of income

8 Rooftop settlement hard to detect from ground with good lookouts

9 Settlement in ruins camouflaged and hidden with warning system and traps

10 Sizable walled town with mixed economy, a local trade hub

d10 Military

1 Concealed outpost with sniper station and signal system (heliograph or radio)

2 Watch tower with several warriors with telescope and heavy or long range weapon

3 Checkpoint or gatehouse in choke point with well armed warriors

4 Campsite with soldiers on guard, well dug in with trenches and sandbags 

5 Concealed base inside ruin with minimal signs on surface

6 Fortified camp with wall, barbed wire and possibly mine field and watchtower

7 Armed compound with mounts or vehicles and some heavy weapons

8 Occupied ancient fortified base erected at dawn of war with prefab buildings

9 Prison converted into a fortress complex with concrete walls and towers and gatehouse

10 Castle or fortress built of concrete, rubble and rock with moat and heavy weapons

d10 Merchants

1 Campsite where travelling merchants regularly stop at to trade

2 Shack where trader lives often with a pet and secure hardpoint or panic room

3 Several shacks and open area multiple traders visit often with weekly market day 

4 Ancient mini mart or shop opened by survivor, often has several guards 

5 Ancient super market with multiple traders and armed guards

6 Campsite where merchant caravans rest with guards and trade with locals

7 Walled complex with an inn, several stores and guards

8 Parking garage filled with scrap merchants, with gang who charge protection

9 Slavers compound with cages and slavers block for victims

10 Ancient mini mall with a great market seasonally operating guarded by allied factions

d10 Science

1 Area being excavated for artifacts by a faction motivated by learning rather than just loot

2 Ruin with a lone scientist with guard, robot or pet to defend their research

3 Secure ancient lab sealed with security system, shunned by locals

4 Ruin with multiple scientists and guards conducting a secret research project for a faction

5 Scholars with guards fortified a ruin, trying to repair a large machine of ancients

6 Ruin where a cult guard holy relics of ancients and keep greedy looters away

7 Ruin occupied by sect dedicated to recovering lost lore, studying ancient records

8 Ruined educational facility where scientists work on multi generational project

9 Ruin where a cult worship and study from a ancient AI they follow as a god

10 Former black science bunker researching ancient weapons for a faction

d10 Hazards

1 Radioactive zone contaminated by bombs or waste drums or meltdown

2 Toxic death zone with discolored soil and corroded drums of industrial toxins

3 Psychotronic mind control weapons in effect in area modifying behavior causing madness

4 Ruin contaminated by necrovirus crawling with undead horrors

5 Minefield, unexploded munitions or automated weapon system make area dangerous

6 Damaged war robot or AI tank thinks war still on and hostile to life 

7 Monster lair of some huge great beast or pack of deadly hunters

8 Swarm or colony of small but deadly in numbers creatures

9 Psionic weapon system attacks living minds in area, reprograms into hostile combatants

10 Area has mutant disease or spores in groundwater from ancient bioweapon

d10 Bunker

1 Burned out partially collapsed complex, contaminated by radiation, poison or spores

2 Badly damaged ruin of bunker now a dangerous lair or monster or type of creatures

3 Damaged bunker with gang of feral outlaws and cannibals using as hidden base

4 Dilapidated bunker where occupants have hidden for generations but now need parts 

5 Worn bunker with survivors operation as a trading post and welcoming visitors

6 Fortified bunker with hostile survivalists unwelcome to strangers and independent

7 Sprawling multi level bunker with various sections some inhabited others feral

8 Hidden sealed pleasure bunker operated by AI keeping occupants in ignorant bliss

9 Complex corroded overrun by ecology of mutant life forms, robots and savages

10 Intact secret bunker with paranoid survivors who observe surface and have spies

d10 Data

1 Communications tower, can be operated and might receive distant signals

2 Ruined media outlet with studios and offices full of clues to the apocalypse as it happened

3 Schoolhouse where local children educated by older scholar or wise elders

4 Ruin converted to monastery of sect preserving ancient books and data records

5 Ruined school or university where adventurers face dangers in search for ancient lore

6 Film studio set with fake scenery, prop treasure and holographic illusions

7 Ruin occupied by scholars working to understand various relics found by adventurers

8 Data temple with terminal to commune with AI god, often protected by servants 

9 Cult gathering ancient relics and data to destroy them, and  scholars awaiting execution

10 Ruin where tribes folk meet to share songs and paint stories of the apocalypse

d10 Medical

1 Camp where a healer or drug dealer often visits to help locals

2 Shack where a healer lives and aids locals, most locals aid and protect them

3 Ruin with intact auto medic worshiped by locals as a holy healing shrine

4 Ruined clinic where several healers work together to heal those needing constant care

5 Drug lab hidden in ruins with dangerous lab operated by criminal gang or cult

6 Old folks home attended by robots wary of feral survivors disturbing long dead clients

7 Abandoned hospital often battled over by gangs and factions seeking medical supplies

8 Medical centre with intact AI, medbays and a cult of healers guarded by people saved

9 Hospital ruin overrun by undead from failure to control necrovirus outbreak in end days

10 Crionics centre where frozen ancients are stored, often with terminal disease or undead

d10 Factions

1 Campsite with markings of a notorious gang, cult or secret society

2 Shack with several members operating a faction safe house

3 Temple built in ruin where a religious faction gather to worship

4 Compound of a faction run by a charismatic dictator served by fanatics

5 Ruined building with hidden cell of a unpopular faction in hiding

6 Large ruined building occupied by a faction, well defended and well supplied 

7 Small settlement dedicated to faction with banners and symbols on display

8 Massacred settlement destroyed be enemies in last few months

9 Battlefield with rival faction camps fighting over a ruin for months

10 Meeting ground where factions occasionally meet in peace to deal with threats to area

d10 Technology

1 Great garbage dump where scavengers dig and fight over ancient treasure

2 Ruin controlled by robots serving an AI (possibly insane or hostile)

3 Ruin controlled by androids mostly hostile to humans due to enemy virus

4 Garage or workshop operated by scavengers selling and repairing technology

5 Factory complex with ruined machines, often occupied by gangs or creatures

6 Cyborg gang in fortified ruin, kidnap and modify victims in service of mad AI god 

7 Ruin pristine and guarded by robots for centuries

8 Ruined remains of colossal construction mech, AI works but can't move

9 Mine site occupied by gangs or mutants with damaged great machines

10 Factory ruin where workers slave on construction or excavation project under guard