[HoE] Howdy 'Gin, Folks...

[Poe336@aol.com]

Hiya.  I used to be a regular on the list back in the days when we were all 
straining to get our first peek behind those glowing green covers.  I left 
the list quite some time ago mainly due to time constraints (the list was 
going 300+ messages/day for a while there...).  anyways, more to the point, 
I'm back.  Hiya. <grin>  

Ok, now that that's over with:  Here's my thing:

    I am in the early stages of drafting a campaign for HoE.  I plan on 
making it open-ended...I haven't decided who the ultimate villians are yet, 
etc...I figure I'll mess around with quite a few of them, find out which ones 
the posse gets a real mad-on for, and then suddenly BANG!  We've got the main 
villian.  

    So.  My basic beginning is this:  Borrowing (very heavily) from the CRPG 
Fallout (which I know has been discussed on here more times than Shane's 
allegiance to the Reckoners), I have created a basic background:

Warning...there probably are quite a few HoE spoilers in this section, so if 
you're a posse tpye, don't read, or we'll have to sick "Kill 'Em All Goff" on 
ya.  












During the Last War, just after President Bates began to threaten Nuclear 
War, high-ranking military officials saw the end of their beloved country 
coming.  Not that the US wouldn't, of course, be the victors...just that even 
the victors' home soil would be a pile of radiated rubble.  They began to 
retro-fit old Agency's installions from the 1960s mind control projects 
(mostly underground bases) with heavy sheilding (some of which, it is 
rumored, was "invented" by a Doctor who used to work in SLC....), and began 
to equip them to hold survivors.  However, the size of the installions and 
availablilty of space hampered their efforts...they couldn't ever hope to 
save enough people to insure that the great United States would be rebuilt 
from the ashes by those the government deemed worthy.  Then, along came a 
brilliant young scientist (isn't that how it always works?) who had finally 
managed to solve them mysteries of cryogenics (which had been used before - 
MMM (head cases)  They immediately fit the installions with 200 cryo-chambers 
each, and enough supplies to last a fully-awake skeleton crew (4 people per 
installion) to monitor the facilities.  

    My posse will have all been recruits for Project: Legacy, and happen to 
have all been put in the same Vault.  Well, unfortunately, the shielding used 
on the Vaults was only half-effective: it kept out the radiation, but the 
tortured manitous released swept right past and killed the living crew.  Due 
to the extremely slow body functions of the sleepers, the manitous passed 
them over.  

So now, no one's there to wake the posse up.  Cut ahead 13 years, to 2094.  A 
biker gang near Iowa City (which happens to be near the Vault site) stumbles 
upon the Vault, and manages to open it.  They loot the place, but not before 
wrecking it.  Their meddling has destroyed life support to all but a few of 
the chambers.  The few left, however, unlatch.  It takes a few hours for the 
Sleepers to finally come to, and by the time they do, the biker gang is long 
gone, figuring the Sleepers are all dead.

So here's my posse, with no original outside knowledge of the Wasted West, or 
even the events after July, 2081 (they went into the Vaults on Independence 
Day, 2081 - Real patriotic types, these ones) are forced to emerge and try to 
contact some of the other Vault installions, to see if any of the other 
Sleeper Recruits survived - and meanwhile, survive on the surface world.  

(Note:  My games often have slightly higher-than-average character turnover 
rates.  This will allow my posse the options later, should their original 
characters die, to choose HoE-specific character types (Mutants, Doomsayers, 
etc).  Should they live long enough, their first characters may even develop 
these traits themselves.)

Now, back to the point:  I can find nearly NO references to ANYTHING in Iowa 
in any of the Hell on Earth books.  The only thing I can find is in the 
background of one Doomsayer in COTA:

 In Cleon Bishop's history, it talks of how Famine rode through Iowa city and 
he stared her down.  Now, not counting the fact that Famine shouldn't have 
been riding at all (the Steed was killed in Lost Angels, right?), does anyone 
else know ANYTHING further about Iowa?  Or, any suggestions on ideas?  My 
original plan was to get the posse out chasing the biker gang that raided the 
Vault (I left a red herring - it seems to the posse as if the gang took the 
"Garden of Eden Creation Kit", which their training told them was absolutely 
essential to rebuilding the US), but have them get distracted with a small 
settlement of norms dealing with mutie attacks.  They'll learn some of the 
West's history from these locals, and learn about the norm/mutie way of life. 
 However, after they agree to help the town from the raiding mutie, the town 
will abandon them for fear of its own safety (much like the story of Jenny 
Hise and the Combine).  This is intended to teach my posse a harsh lesson of 
the Wasted West early on - nothing in life is free anymore.

    So, now that I've rambled for an eternity, I throw the bone out to you 
all:  Suggestions?  Ideas?  I've got basic skeletal idea for quite a few 
random adventures as well that I'd like to ask for feedback or suggestions 
about too....I'll put 'em out later.


Poe
(formerly the King In Yellow)