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Area around Wayun |
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Gamma World®
Wayun - (
Fort Wayne, Indiana) 2471 A.D.
Campaign Material & Information
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The Huron Event left in its
wake several huge areas of devastation. In a zone to the southwest
of Lake Erie, detritus had destroyed the artificial drainage. This
area, the Great Black Swamp, began to revert to its pre-pioneer condition:
a vast fen. Action was swiftly taken, however, and cleanup efforts
began. Robot labor was sent to remove the dead trees and other organic
debris. Several individuals decided that more was needed to protect
the natural potential of the area. They used gene splicing techniques
on common oaks and maples, adding mangrove features to allow them to survive
in a swampy environment. These tailor-made trees were seeded at locations
around and within the Swamp so as to encourage their spread. As with
the rest of life during and after the Final War, the trees mutated beyond
the original conceptions.
The Black Swamp today is a
vast area of almost flat terrain. The area is much like the Everglades:
a shallow, slowly moving sheet of water lies upon the ground. In
the worst places there can be a meter of water over another two meters
of mud, the whole behaving like quicksand. Great trees stand on exposed
roots, like southern mangroves. Fish as well as land animals can
be found throughout. In a number of places, low hills rise above
the general level of the land. These higher places are dry enough
to support artificial construction. Note though that the water table
always lies within two meters of the surface of the ground. Rarely,
a higher ridge interrupts the horizontal tableau. Shallow lakes,
sluggish streams, a few really flowing rivers characterise the water bodies
to be found here. The rivers have a wide floodplain, waist-deep in
water, on both sides of the river proper. Much of the area should
be treated as if it were seaside - a strange mix of land and water, not
quite either, with a combination of traits from both. Amphibious
creatures, fish-based mutants, hoppers, swimmers, and fliers / gliders
predominate. There are very few walkers here. Light reaches
the surface (the branches are not that thick) but line-of-sight is short,
so most sounds and calls come from unseen sources. This effect can
be played for mystery or for horror, if desired. Even where the view
opens up - say at a lake shore - the only thing to see is more trees and
hanging vines.
Water covers the surface for
most of the year, save for the height of summer (about two weeks in early
August). Then a deep layer of mud replaces the shallow layer of water
on the ground. The only time there is a reliable solid surface is
in the depths of winter. Most seasons, travel in the swamp is almost
impossible.
In spring, an epic amount of
water and mud appears, generated by the snowmelt and rainstorms.
The thaw usually comes at the beginning of March. The total depth
of mud and water can be enough that a packbeast is drenched up to its saddle
skirts. Tales are told that, after a day in the Swamp, a pair of
pants will be so caked with mud that they will stand up with nobody inside
'em.
Summer means swarming hordes
of mosquitos. To ward them off you have to perspire in thick clothing,
mittens, and headwraps. Or pay for mosquito netting and a beekeeper's
suit. Near buildings, smoke hugs the ground from smudge pots, lit
to keep away mosquitos, but still making people into hams in a smokehouse.
At night, the sound of millions of insects is joined by that of thousands
of frogs, and a few Gator, Terl, or Parn. The most prevalent summer
affliction is the dreaded ague, or swamp fever, which flattens its victims
with soaring fever, deep chills, and violent shaking. Oddly, it is
rarely fatal.
Occasionally, cholera raises
its ugly head. This is an acute disease. The victim suffers
from uncontrolled vomiting and diarrhea and his skin color changes.
Usually the victim takes a few days to die, but severe cases have seemed
healthy in the morning and died before sundown. The disease is highly
contagious and apparently water-borne. Healers report that in a town
of about 5000 inhabitants, it was killing 30 sentients per day at its worst,
and eventually claimed the lives of 3000. This epidemic began in
summer and raged unabated until the first winter freeze. Needless
to say, the survivors fled, and the town was abandoned permanently.
Winter brings the only time
a solid surface forms in the swamp - the mud and water eventually (early
January) freeze. Even then, the unwary may fall through thin ice
and discover themselves waist- to chest-deep in water (or mud) underneath.
During most seasons, a primitive
road soon turns into a quagmire, mud as deep as a Brutorz's chest.
Taking a wagon into the Swamp is a fool's errand: these conditions cut
speed to an average of one day per kilometer. On more than one occasion,
a traveller has come to a shelter so covered with mud that, were he to
fall on the ground, he could not be distinguished from it. Animals
carrying loads (including riders) move as if 'Heavily Burdened' but may
not carry any more than 'Unburdened' loads. Trails can be indicated
by use of 'trailmarker trees' - a scout will bend a branch of a tree horizontal,
pointing in the direction to go from that point. Of course, staying
on such a trail requires the traveller to recognize the trees, rather than
go past them. He also must be able to maintain the proper direction.
The rare shelter-building is the only place where a traveller can be anything
other than cold, wet, and/or exhausted. For good measure, the Swamp
is a refuge for roughnecks and troublemakers, and stopping at a 'roadside
inn' could mean staying in a poor-quality building with a score of drunken
thugs who will just as soon kill or rob the traveller.
All in all, the Black Swamp earns the description, "the multiple marsh maladies of mosquitos, malaria, mud, and miasma"
Encounter Notes
The whole place is a low-level
health Hazard; each character suffers double the % chance to get ill if
mosquitoes did any HP within the last 24 hours. Check daily.
If the PCs fail their health checks they will get trench foot, malaria,
fever, ague, or other similar diseases. In the worst cases of failure,
the character has contracted cholera.
Every dawn and dusk (except in winter) there will be a 'miasma' - thick fog and bad smells - for 15 * 1d6 minutes. This is mostly harmless by itself, but adds atmosphere to the adventure. It smells vaguely like rotting vegetation, or spoiled eggs, or (rarely) like sulphur. As long as the miasma fills the air, all smell-based mutations cease to function.
Environment hazards
· "quicksand" - deep mud
under shallow water
· dry hillock
Event hazards
· thick tangle of plants
in the way
· have an Accident (as in
Omens)
· poison ivy, etc. are in
the way
· signs of passage of a Kamodo
- bit trees, foot prints, pathway in trees
Sentient Encounters
· some Eco-Freaks
· Fen (ex-carp)
· Hisser
· Grens
· Menarl
· some Vegetarians
Animal Encounters
· Arn
· Ber Lep (encounter takes
place at a small lake)
· Ert Teldon (in rivers)
· Fleshin - only near Lake
Erie, otherwise no encounter
· Gator
· Herkel (in rivers) - once
only per week
· Narl Ep
· Parn
· Seroon Lou
The Ancient's city of Fort Wayne was located at the shortest portage between the Mississippi River basin and the Great Lakes, where the Maumee River (which flowed into Lake Erie) and the Little Wabash (which led into the Wabash, the Ohio, and then the Mississippi Rivers) are only a few miles apart. The city was once a transportation hub, but it is now just a large area of ruined buildings and overgrown forest greenery. Most buildings have long since collapsed or burned; of the remainder most are covered with vines etc. A number of especially constructed fortress/shelters, called Flak Towers, still stand.
FORT
WAYNE MAP FEATURES
Floodplain: The rivers flood
once a year on average, as befits an area near the Black Swamp. Everything
within a half-kilometer of a river is considered to be a floodplain.
Buildings in the floodplain all have brown stains along the ground floor.
Any below-ground floors are usually filled with mud. At GM's option,
these buildings are water-damaged (and may collapse if entered).
A thick layer of mud covers all interior horizontal surfaces in these areas.
The high-water-mark varies with distance away from the rivers: places very
near the rivers may have watermarks up to three meters above ground level,
but farther out it is only a few centimeters above the ground. Characters
may fall and hurt themselves by tripping over half-buried obstructions
in these areas. There is a (50-DX)% chance per Search Turn that a
character moving at Fast Speed in these areas will find these hidden hazards
the hard way, taking 1d6 damage.
Parks: Every time the PCs enter a park (green areas on the map), they have an automatic encounter with Zeethh.
Rivers: These are only two or three meters deep, with a few spots of up to five meters depth. During a flood, the rivers can rise by three meters throughout their length. The rivers are partially canalized; they are in a natural trough below the general land level, and levees had been built (usually 2 meters tall) above that. The levees have suffered the ravages of time, and breaks can be found every kilometer or so. The rivers abound with odd mutated life forms. Many of the creatures listed in the 'Water' Encounter Table live in the rivers, with 1d4 additional mutations. Industrial chemicals, radioactives, and other concoctions leak into the river from the ruined buildings. As a result, anybody swimming in, drinking from, or eating the dwellers within the rivers is exposed to Intensity 3d6 Poison AND Intensity 2d4 Radiation (unless they do something to purify it first). There are no bridges spanning the rivers. An improvised raft may be used to cross the water where there is no bridge, or the traveler may wade through. Under normal conditions, only rafts and canoes can float on the rivers.
Roads: Marked on the map are a number of important roads through the city. They were controlled-access, four-wide-lane divided highway (barricade medians, not grass strips) which should be familiar to players and GMs. Outside the built-up areas these roads are interstate-quality and construction. Movement on a road is at 150% of normal Speed. At GM's option, roads in the floodplain may be covered in mud and weeds; this negates the movement bonus. Players will be very interested to know that, every hour they spend inside the Taboo Road (I-469), they are exposed to Intensity +1 Paralytic poison. To apply this, count the number of hours in a day the players were in town; the poison has that Intensity. If the players were in the town all day and all night, it is Intensity 24. Only creatures with IN 8+ are affected. The poison is a residue from the powerful nerve gasses that were spread over the city during the Final War.
Rubble: Vast parts of the city
now consists of vine-and hedge- filled fields of rubble. Often this
is of recent origin and is the result of fires that have burned part of
the forest. There will be nothing of value in these areas since everything
will be melted, smashed, or otherwise damaged beyond recognition.
(Generous GMs may allow the PC's to find 1d6 Curiosities or Baubles per
March Turn searching rubble.) There are obstructions in the rubble.
The players have a (40-DX)% chance of getting hurt, as under Floodplain.
Ruins: A few small areas and
buildings survive in fair condition. These include the whole gamut
of building types; residential, factory, university, and commercial.
Though the city has been looted repeatedly, there remain rich treasure
troves of Artifacts and knowledge about the Ancients.
Subway: Scattered about near
the Flak Towers (usually along a road) are stairways leading down underground.
These are access points to the subway, called the Metro, which is the only
way in or out of most Flak Towers. These entrances lead to a security
checkpoint, a 180 degree turn, another stairway down, a second checkpoint,
another 180 degree turn, and then a subway station. (This does not
apply in the floodplain, where the upper entrances are choked with mud.)
GMs may use any subway with which they are familiar to supply needed details.
The checkpoints look like a cross between a watertight compartment and
an elevator; a person walks into a small opaque cubicle, and the door closes
behind him. He is expected to present his ID (by whatever method
the GM uses in his campaign) and, if it is cleared, another door in front
of him opens, allowing him to continue. Failing to pass the ID check
usually results in a shot of sleepy gas filling the cubicle and a summons
for the nearest policebot.
These subways all connect
downtown at a large underground Transfer Station. There are three
major subway lines; one runs north-south; one runs east-west; the other
line is configured like a loop and links the other towers in town.
The subway tunnels are sealed against the elements (including floods).
Trains still run, one every 15 minutes in most places. In the Transfer
Station there is a train coming from somewhere or other every five minutes.
Trails: Travel inside the former built-up area is at half speed, as characters must pick their way over, between, and around obstacles such as fire hydrants, houses collapsed into their basements, trees, tangle vines, thickets, and fallen poles. Players may look for a street and follow it (this allows travel at normal speed); there is a 25% chance per hour that the street will be rubble-blocked.
Woods: Much of the city is overgrown with a jungle-like forest that closes in around roads, trails, house-ruins, and the remaining walls of larger buildings. In large areas the (normally) taller trees look like a giant hand swung an axe through them at the twenty-meter level, cutting them off roughly flat. Below that height, they are jungle-like stands often hung with creepers and vines. Visibility is decreased to one-half (round up) of normal.
FLAK
TOWERS
Flak towers usually cover
four blocks by four blocks on the ground, and are ten stories tall plus
ten stories deep. Some were built with industrial or commercial purposes
in mind, but most contain small residential apartments. Each apartment,
should the GM need to generate one, is laid out like a typical two-bedroom
apartment or a mobile home interior. If the GM wants a low-rent neighborhood
he could use a hotel room for the standard apartment.
The Nazis built the first flak
towers as a response to Allied bombing raids. During the Social Wars,
the American Government decided to copy a good thing and added the latest
technology. Flak Towers are a measure to provide part of the population
with a place to escape attack from external enemies. (Later it was
decided to protect critical industrial plants as well.) They were
constructed of duralloy and other Ancient materials and protected by force
fields. Automated weapons were mounted on the roof. All possible
modes of attack, from truck bombs to cruise missiles to battle-armored
infantry, were taken into consideration. No weapon commonly available
to the PCs will allow them to blast their way in.
The next few paragraphs will
describe the effects of an atomic explosion, because that is something
with which the GM and players should be passingly familiar, and then will
follow a discussion of how a flak tower is built to protect its inhabitants.
Much of the technical material in this section was drawn from "The Effect
of Nuclear Weapons", published in 1957 by the U.S. Government. Remember,
however, that the A-bomb was a primitive, inefficient device when compared
to the weapons available in the Final War.
The largest component of damage
from an A-bomb is caused by blast. When an A-bomb is detonated, a
high-pressure air wave forms and moves outward at about the speed of sound.
This accounts for half the total energy of the bomb. This shock wave
has a very strong wind (tornado force) with it. After traveling a
certain distance (determined by the energy of the explosion and the height
above ground it was detonated), the blast wave near the ground will appear
to be solely horizontal. Inside this range, buildings will be crushed
down as well as yanked sideways by the blast wave; beyond it buildings
are only pushed sideways. The blast wave does its damage by placing
a sudden high load on the outside walls of the building, causing distortion
(bending) of the walls. While the blast wave is engulfing the building
there is a pressure difference between front and back walls, which causes
the building to move; after it has engulfed the building it will press
inwards equally from all directions. Naturally buildings with many
openings (windows) will not be crushed but will have force applied to interior
walls. The building is also subjected to high winds which tend to
make anything not tied down into a high-speed missile.
The second component of damage
is from thermal radiation, or heat. There is a brief burst of ultraviolet
radiation and a longer blast of infra-red. This accounts for a third
of the bomb's total energy. The damage (all in burns) can be divided
into flash burns (exposure to strong heat), and flame burns (where a fire
actually starts). Oddly, small A-bombs start fires better than big
ones, because the heat pulse is more concentrated in time. Since
the thermal radiation moves at the speed of light and blast moves at the
speed of sound, sometimes fires can be blown out or spread by the arrival
of the blast wave. Blast-damaged buildings, of course, will not resist
the spread of fire very well. Usually water mains are broken (where
they enter each destroyed building), so even if the fire stations and equipment
survived, the fire departments are helpless.
The third component of damage
is nuclear radiations. These comprise only about 3% of the total
energy of the explosion, but cause considerable problems. For our
purposes, only gamma rays and neutrons are of interest. Neutrons
are produced only within the atomic reaction (the explosion). It
is possible to shield against neutrons, but certain elements work better
than others. Alas, protecting against neutrons produces gamma rays.
Gamma rays are produced continuously by the process of radioactive decay.
They can be absorbed by almost any material; denser ones work better, and
thicker walls have more effect. Gamma rays cause radiation sickness.
Fallout is part of the radiation problem; it is best thought of as a long-term
source of gamma rays.
The Flak Towers have a number
of defences against these effects. First and foremost, they have
weapons emplacements on the roof, to shoot down delivery vehicles (missiles,
planes, etc.) before the weapons they carry can detonate. The buildings
have only energy weapons, chosen so as not to interfere with a force field.
Primary weapons include VL Lasers and Gravity guns; there are also Mark
VII Blasters and Black Ray cannon. The weapons' programming has decayed
over the years and they will shoot down EVERY flying object in line-of-sight.
So there are no birds, or other flying creatures, within 10 kilometers
of town. The towers also shoot at nearby branches swaying in the
breeze, so the trees are cut off flat on a level with the top of each Tower
for a kilometer or so in every direction. Towers do not shoot at
immobile objects (such as other buildings).
A force field bubble normally surrounds each building. This offers immunity to gamma rays and neutrons and protection from flying debris. It was recognized that force fields can be overwhelmed, however, so backup systems were built in to protect against the various damage effects.
The walls are made of a composite
material, which cannot be duplicated by any GAMMA WORLD manufacturing plant.
It has a boron-iron alloy in it to absorb neutrons. It includes a
duralloy mesh for strength and protection against energy attacks.
It also contains a mesh of superconducting threads. This protects
against heat and fires because superconductors are always the same temperature
everywhere; the threads run underground and out into the bedrock, where
the heat is transferred safely away from any people. The outside
wall is very thick and massive to stop gamma rays. This material
has a high ductility (a fancy term meaning the ability to bend and flex
back into shape without permanently becoming bent or breaking). The
outside surface is mirrored and reflects almost the entire electromagnetic
spectrum with very high efficiency. As a side-effect, the towers
can be seen for miles on a sunny day since they reflect the sunlight.
The outside surface also has a mesh of wire-thin solar power collectors.
There is enough total collector area to power the exterior defences and
keep basic lights and temperature control running inside the building.
Each tower is composed of many
"blast-tight compartments"; in case the outside wall if it is breached,
damage will be limited to part of the interior. The joints, and bracings
are carefully crafted to distribute all forces down to the bedrock, thereby
increasing the strength of the building. There are no windows to
the outside, and walls facing the outside are plain and unadorned.
The building itself is cylindrical rather than square as cylinders better
distribute horizontal forces than do flat sides. The roof is dome-shaped
for the same reason; the weapons are mounted on top and have a 360-degree
view of the area. The material of the outside wall gets stronger
when it is squeezed, but an internal explosion can literally take the material
apart.
The Tower has one floor underground
dedicated to life support. A recycling system, worthy of a spaceship,
insures that fallout dust, airborne poisons, or germs released outside
will not be inhaled. The Towers have food and water recycling systems
also; this features a hydroponics garden to deal with€sewage.
The Ancients had found ways to stop radioactive decay (including fallout). Each Tower has several modified Disaster Robots which could clean up the area nearby (say 20 meters radius). Often the robots were stored in a nearby Metro entrance until needed. The robots also were programmed to clear firebreaks if necessary, 30 meters wide across the path of the fire.
There was one feature of the Flak
Towers that was not maximum-safety, but (because of the propaganda utility)
was included anyway: the interior walls (not load-bearing or blast-resistant
walls) were made up in neo-Federal architecture. Inside, public spaces
in a tower look similar to a Courthouse, Congress' Capitol Building, or
the Lincoln Memorial (to give just a few examples). This was to emphasize
the presence of the American Government. The false fronts were usually
constructed of a styrofoam-like material that would crumble if damaged,
and not shatter into harmful missiles to wound bystanders.
POINTS OF INTEREST
Listed in this section are separate
points of interest around which the GM may wish to build separate adventures
within Wayun. No attempt has been made to list all the interesting
buildings or areas in the city and an inventive GM will find many potential
additional places not covered here. Points of interest include:
Adams Center Landfill - The
area bounded by the river and the three roads used to be a hazardous waste
disposal site. The management of the facility had no desire to be
a good neighbor, nor did they act in any semblance of good faith; they
did NOT use the normal cleanup methods of which the Ancients were capable.
As a result, any creature which crosses this area is exposed to Intensity
5d6 Poison and Intensity 2d6 Radiation. Roll for every 10 minutes
or fraction thereof spent in the indicated area. The river also has
these contaminants (Intensity 1d6 each) for a kilometer downstream.
This area is one huge artificial hill; it slopes up steeply to a crest
in the middle. It has a number of runoff gulleys carved into the
surface. These gulleys cut into the hazardous wastes which compose
most of the mound. The normal forest is not found in this area; instead
some sickly weeds (and some stage bushes, if the GM has that material)
are the only plants to be seen. The GM may wish to place some plants
that are Immune to chemicals, poisons and/or radiation in the area also.
Baer City - commercial/office
This Flak Tower has only five stories above ground. The bottom floor
requires extra security clearance to get in; this is the management and
control area for the Airport.
Bloomingdale - The Metro station
to this Flak Tower has been sealed beyond the PC's ability to enter.
The walls and doors show an amount of bump, blast, and burn damage.
Most of the bumps seem to have come from inside the building. If
the players spend a lot of time near the building (sleeping overnight in
the station) they will hear eerie thumps coming from inside it. The
thumping can be heard from the outside world.
CityGov - This former Flak Tower
was blown up from inside. The interior is a rubble-filled crater;
the walls are shredded, and the roof is gone. This building truly
deserves the name "Bones of the Giants". Anybody dumb enough to climb
into the crater will find that the bottom is quicksand. Metro riders
can use the station to change trains, but the station is cut off from the
rest of the building by huge chunks of concrete.
East End - Each floor in this industrial
Flak Tower is 2 stories tall. Five extra floors are dug into the
ground (giving a total of ten going down and five going up). Each
floor has 16 sections with machinery and assembly lines inside. Each
section was for a different company, each making different products.
There is not enough power inside this building to start the machinery.
In the basement is one huge room of machinery; this was the Magnavox Superconductor
Wire plant.
Fort Wayne Country Club - recreation
This building is opulently furnished and features every type of exercise
facility imaginable (including an Olympic-sized pool in the basement).
This building is two stories tall with a basement. It is, in essence,
a mansion built for dozens. Holograms cover the exterior walls, which
give the illusion the walls are not even there. There are no weapons
to be found inside.
Glenbrook - When your shopping mall
is the busiest in northeast Indiana, you can afford to armor-plate it yourself.
It has the tough outside wall of a flak tower, but not the other attributes.
This building is two stories tall with one floor of basement; it is irregularly
shaped (GMs should use any interior-hall shopping mall he is familiar with).
The Metro station is connected by escalator to any convienent large open
space in the lowest floor. The interior has been looted before, but
not on any systematic plan, so a vast quantity of stuff still remains.
La Rez - This Flak Tower was a low-rent
district. It is covered, inside and out, with grafitti. It
has bullet (and other weapon) holes in the interior walls. Portions
were burnt; some areas have collapsed floors and ceilings. Holes
have been made in all levels. There are no working Artifacts in here.
The bottom five floors are so rubble-filled as to be impassable.
Lakeside - residential The
lower parts of this Flak Tower (and the Metro station) are in the same
shape as La Rez. The floors above ground were not damaged.
Lincoln Tower - This building used
to house one of the most important banks in the Midwest. The lobby
fills the ground floor; it is both roomy and ornate , and decorated in
1920's art deco style. Inside, everything above the third floor is
typical offices. The top two stories are weather-damaged empty framework;
there is an outdoor balcony with a great view of town on the top floor.
The building looks like a small version of the Empire State Building; it
is 20 stories tall. Flak Towers will not fire at anything on the
balcony.
May Gravel - This area has no buildings
(any more), but is occupied by a number of huge forest-covered hills.
The hills rise perhaps 30 meters above the normal ground level. The
sides are steep and made of loose gravel. The hilltops are a vantage
point and (fairly) secure place to encamp.
New Haven - This building is a Flak
Tower. Skeletons and mummies can be found throughout inside, all
contorted as if in pain. Most of the basement was a grocery store.
The canned foods (only) are still edible - the climate control acted as
a preservative. Artifacts found inside will be in good condition.
There will be no weapons.
Parkview Hospital - medical
This building is a Healer's fantasy come true. There are faint traces
of a Red Cross painted on the roof (if anybody can get above the building
to see it). Every medical Artifact imaginable - from tongue depressors
and stethoscopes to a Life Chamber - can be found in here. In the
sections containing the most complex equipment, every bed has a PSH skeleton
in it. The patients in less-complex areas were able to get up and
leave, so these areas are corpseless. There is a storage area (in
the basement) with huge amounts of every Artifact drug known, and thousands
of Medikits. The computers running the various life extending machines
were sabotaged with a 'cyberbomb' - a super computer virus. The computerized
items in the hospital cannot be repaired due to the cyberbomb's effects.
Note that connecting a cyberbombed item to a functioning computer will
cyberbomb it, too, and render it also useless.
St. Joe - This residential Flak Tower
had shoddy construction; it leaks. Any day it rains, there is a base
50% chance that all powered defenses (force field and weapons) stop working
until the rain stops. There are molds and mildews and a few mobile
mutated plants inside. The biggest encounter inside is a huge mutated
millipede. (It will try to taste PC's as if they were a new variety
of plant; if they fight back it will turn around and scuttle away.
GMs must invent further details.) All Artifacts found here will be
in bad condition. Naturally this Tower will not protect its contents
against attack any more.
Southtown Mall - the mall building
has been destroyed by fire. The parking lot (grey on the map) is
intact; this huge flat space is not overgrown.
Waynedale - This Flak Tower is in
mint condition, inside and out. The GM should increase the normal
quality and quantities of Artifact rolls made in here. One upper-floor
apartment (and the hallway outside) has a golden-hued light, rather than
the normal white lights. A bookcase in one bedroom contains items
(books, computer disks, loose sheets of paper, etc.) which look much like
the GM's GAMMA WORLD materials. Any examiner who looks the materials
over will find a rough draft of this city description, and character sheets
that describe the PC's as they were when newly„generated.
West Side - This industrial Flak
Tower is in the same shape as La Rez. Signs indicate that American
Electric's force field manufacturing plant used to be in the basement.
University - The students rioted
because "the poor" were, but they forgot to provide themselves with real
weapons. Everything breakable has been, but this Flak Tower suffered
no serious damage. Bullet holes and shrapnel marks can be found in
most walls. This building's exterior is intact but the interior is
a mess. Half of this building is lecture halls, and a quarter (mostly
the top levels) is laboratories for various physical sciences.
Ft Wayne Childrens' Zoo - This area is a park. It does NOT have Zeethh. The robots in charge of maintenance still move about the grounds. They will try to capture any Mutated Animal characters they encounter. If the GM has the "All Animals are Equal" module, he may place it here, instead of using the normal park descriptions
In addition to the campaigns and attacks of the Final War, several catastrophic Events also marked its course. All these Events were man-made, and quite intentional. Each being a part of carefully prepared plans, the perpetrators maximized destruction and confusion on the target, while minimizing their own expenditure of effort. One such Event was the Huron Event, named for its location.
Following the pioneering work of Charles Hapgood, who theorized the whole crust of the Earth could be made to move over the core, the Ancients had invented a powerful mechanism which could create stresses within bedrock, deforming or breaking it over a large area. The theory said that this could loosen the crust and displace it, but the results were not entirely predictable in advance. This device was found to be very useful when detonated on asteroids or other similar uninhabited astronomical bodies where the Ancients wished to mine minerals. It was usually called a "geology bomb".
Before the Final War, the Mid-America Industrial Zone was a designated area for important war manufacturing plants. The American Government had noticed that it was easier to defend Ontario, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Ohio - which are in the middle of the continent - than it was to defend the manufacturing region of the Northeast. The Great Lakes would provide cheap transportation and an uncluttered view to detect incoming attacks.
A geology bomb was placed and triggered near Sault St. Marie, Michigan, targeted at the Mid-America Industrial Zone. The Earth's crust did not displace, but the results of the detonation were still catastrophic.
The first result was a 700-kilometer long fracture of the Canadian Shield, running north-northwest along the Canadian coast of Lake Superior. The rock to the east side of this fault rose, forming a low, difficult mountain chain. The movement of the ground also formed a depression in northern Ontario, into which flooded waters from Hudson Bay.
The second result of the bomb was a crumpling of the bedrock in southern Ontario. This took place over a 120 kilometer zone. It was accompanied by earthquakes and has led to some geothermal activity.
The third result was a depressing of the ground from Grand Rapids, Michigan to Gary, Indiana. This area, near the Lake Michigan shoreline, sank below the level of the lake.
The fourth result of the Event was less dramatic, but far more widespread. Earthquakes associated with the bedrock movements reverberated across the region. Another geologic result was the recharging of mineral ores in the areas that were most disturbed. Iron, copper, and other such minerals were forced up from deep within the Earth to points near the surface. Once located, the veins can be used as a source of raw materials.
The most deadly result, however, was the creation of a number of water-mounds, great bodies of displaced lake water. There was no wave crest, such as a tsunami would have (so far as can be known). But a huge mass of water, tens of meters high and moving as fast as a man could run, inundated everything in its path. The victims would have seen ever-rising floodwaters (rising at several inches per minute) stretching back to a blue horizon of water which quickly rose into the tree-tops.
A small water-mound moved westwards across Lake Superior and drowned Duluth, Minnesota. It was minimal - at least compared to the others. In Lake Michigan, another small water-mound flowed from the Mackinac area to Green Bay and over the city beyond; it rebounded and headed south-south-east. It drenched the lower levels of Chicago and also flooded the Grand Rapids-to-Gary sunken area, mentioned above.
The greatest water mound was in Lake Huron. A hundred-kilometer-square area of lake bottom was raised well above water level. All the water over it moved downhill; it poured southward from the northwestern part of the lake. This formed a water-mound hundreds of meters high. Some of this mass of water washed into Saginaw Bay and changed the shoreline, redirecting the bay from south to southwest. Much of the mound washed over southern Ontario. More went through the straits of Saint Clair (dredging away Windsor, Ontario and its hinterland) and into Lake Erie. Upon reaching the Ohio (south) shore, it pushed inland, drowning every living thing in its path. This area was one of the population centers of North America, and may have held 50 million people.
A special situation was created in northwest Ohio, the former "Black Swamp". The water here washed up to the farthest extremities of the old swampland - across the Indiana border - and left debris behind to clog the drainage ditches so laboriously dug over 50 years (1830-1880) and carefully maintained ever since. The swamp promptly returned.
Successive waves poured into Lake Erie. The lake rose and covered Erie, Pennsylvania and Buffalo, New York. It then went over the Niagara Escarpment on a 40-kilometer front. In this area, the enormous flood was slow enough that individuals had an opportunity to flee to high ground and save their lives. Niagara Falls was eroded back several kilometers by the water. The falls now are colored blue, not white, because of the huge volume of water falling over them.
All the Great Lakes still show the after-effects of this Event. The bed of Lake Huron has less volume than before the Event (obviously). What used to be northwest Lake Huron is dry land, connecting Lower Michigan directly to Ontario. Lake Erie is nearly level with Lake Huron. Lake Ontario may, due to subsoil changes, eventually flow into the Hudson River instead of the St. Lawrence. Lake Superior lost some area to the new mountains along its east edge. It now flows into Lake Michigan. This Lake is now land-locked, and has become slightly salty. The water level has risen from its previous norm, and has reached a point where evaporation equals intake. So the lake is surrounded by swampy ground, but it will flood no further land.