Wednesday, October 11, 2017

MCC: Assembling an Apocalypse

Welcome to Terra AD.  While Dungeon Crawl Classics had a lot of implied setting baked into it, Mutant Crawl Classics has gone further and explicitly named and presented some facts about the base setting.  The great disaster the resulted in its current state is left unanswered, but a hothouse climate and a world of overgrown jungles filled with mega-fauna and glowing deserts beset by raging storms is described in brief.
Aside from the bestiary, which includes mutated dinosaurs, intelligent cyborgs, alien dimensional travelers, and enough other weirdness to populate your world, the Archaic Alignments probably offer the most setting information.  These alignments are factions operating in the world of Terra with their own rules for joining and their own conflicting goals.  The Gene Police work to eliminate mutations from Terra while the Children of the Glow actively seek out radioactive areas in order to accelerate their mutations.  The Curators worship ancient technology, the Chosen of Zuu believe manimals to be the next stage in evolution and humanity to be a dying breed, while the Clan of Cog - the default starting faction - believes in respect and cooperation between all sentient beings.
Patron AIs also provide a lot of insight into the world of Terra AD, both past and present.  The AI descriptions give the original intent of each entry - including a security protocol for gaming networks, monitoring weather systems, galactic invasion surveillance - as well as their current goals in the post-apocalypse world.  These entries actually give the most firm view of the world prior to the Great Disaster and generally describe a world not unlike our own in some sci-fi future.
Outside of the MCC rulebook, backers of the Kickstarter have already received 8 supplements - mostly adventures - which give additional information about the setting.  I intend to run through all of these adventures with my game group (we ran through Hive of the Overmind recently and have begun A Fallen Star For All).  I wanted to craft my starting village to be consistent from the start.

Spoilers follow.

Village Description and Inhabitants

The best source for a description of a starting village so far is in Incursion of the Ultradimension.  This begins in a small village which doesn't necessarily have to be the PCs starting village, but I see no reason not to.
Glazhaus is described as a small village in a jungle clearing, comprised of primitive huts and ancient ruins of glass and metal.  There is a sacred fire and totems kept burning in the center of the ruins, and fishing from the nearby sea is the primary source of food.
Incursion also introduces a village elder, the Exalted Crone, who is responsible for tending the sacred fires and so probably serves a religious, shamanistic function for the village.  She is described as a female mutant with blue skin and vine-like dreadlocks.  Her assistants are young girls who do not speak, but likely are training in the same shaman traditions.
In A Fallen Star for all, a hunter by the name of Trev-gar is introduced.  Trev-gar journeys respectably far from the village and operates alone, so he is probably fairly competent and could provide information on the surrounding regions.  There are also vague "elders" spoken of in the introduction, but no individuals are introduced.  The elders are expanded on in Warlords of Atoz however.  Here we meet the chieftan, Mangarr the Mighty, who is said to have mutant, manimal, and plantient sub-chiefs.  No other information is given on the sub-chiefs, so I would use the Exalted Crone as the mutant sub-chief.
Blessings of the Vile Brotherhood takes place entirely away from the village, but it does offer a hook that the village's functioning medibot has broken, so having an AI in the village from the start can give useful healing to starting PCs and provide investment in seeing it repaired once you take that away.

Surrounding Regions

We know from Incursion that there is a large body of water called the Monster Ocean near the village, only about an hour walk through the jungle.  It is a large enough body of water to produce tsunamis.  Direction is not stated, but I'd put it to the south as none of the other modules feature anything in that direction.
A Fallen Star for all describes the volcanic Crater Country beginning about 10 miles northeast of the village.  Warlords of ATOZ gives a contradictory direction of northwest.  However, ATOZ also describes the Blood Grass Savannas as three days march north, and ends with a possible journey to the southeast to arrive at Crater Country, which would confirm its location to the northeast of the PCs village.
Blessings of the Vile Brotherhood is set in a mountainous, forested environment.  Arriving at the start of this module is not described, but the map travels from east to west, so I'd put the mountains west of the jungle.
The Apocalypse Ark describes a nearby village, the Village of Sorrow.  It is a dangerous and inhospitable place sharing the jungle with the Clan of Cog.  Rumors of raiders and cannibals could be sprinkled in early.  There is a valley and rivers mentioned briefly and the path of the Ark is to the south.  I would have the valley lie to the southwest, between the mountains of Blessings and the Monster Ocean of Incursion, with the river flowing down from the mountains, and the Village of Sorrow along the river.
We can also glean some of the neighbors of the region from A Fallen Star For All.  There are members of the Blessed Brotherhood, an offshoot of the Curators, and some former Children of the Glow members.  Attracted by the sight of the star falling, all of these factions must be within a few days journey of Crater Country.
Lastly, the Hive of the Overmind lies to the north somewhere, but very far off, and the adventure begins with the PCs already there.  It does say that the ant devils occasionally travel to the southern edge of the continent, further supporting placing the Monster Ocean to the south of the village.  Otherwise, it says there is a great radiation barrier preventing general travel between the south and the north, so the Blood Grass Savannas and Crater Country must be closer than the Hive.

Final Thoughts

I'm sure that I'm missing some stuff in there, but I think this provides a really nice starting region, a few NPCs, a few rumors, and a great environment to begin playing in.  We spent some time Monday evening leveling up surviving 0s from Hive of the Overmind and my players arrived at the crater, but it'll probably be another session or two to explore the crater.  We're loving the game though and I look forward to seeing what else comes along.  If you see anything I've missed, let me know.

1 comment: