If guns are supposed to be this very rare weapon that few people use then why are knights with automatic rifles posted in every single OP pic?

>>68056499
Here’s the current map of the Isles.
Purple is generally unsafe land, yellow through red are the larger more active Zones. I’m going to update northern situation with Northumbria later

Link to the Doc: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cDqaDJykx2hYP3gO3wNrknAajH5yyWKePk47ZFdkKqw/edit?usp=drivesdk

File: 36AB6BD9-BC27-46E4-85FF-9(...).png (851 KB, 2912x1920)

851 KB PNG

>>68056542
And now the damn image as I’m blind
>>68056514
I suppose it’s a little more indicative of what it is than entirely normal men at arms, especially if knights themselves can hopefully get hold of a decent gun

>>68056499
Wire-weed creeping out of the industrial zones creates an annoying but manageable problem, typically teams are sent out to cut it up and prevent it from spreading until it reroots itself again, whilst another will cover this team to protect them from any of the less than friendly inhabitants of the zone

>>68057033
>Wire-weed
>Wire Man
Some crazy Radical Turingist, who even other Radical Turingists believe is batshit insane, manages to make a Wire Man from living Wire-weed. What would this monstrosity be capable of?

>>68058435
The thing about wire-weed was that you essentially had barbed wire that grows and keep growing whilst rooting into stuff
I’m not really sure how a wireman made if the stuff would work, but intentional use of wireweed as a weapon could be interesting

>>68056499
The industrial zones are also the largest source of useable zone-metals in the isles, though it must typically be ripped from the corpse of a slain zone-beast before it can be sold on or used

The first few threads had a decent amount of focus on mercenaries and gleaners, along with their expeditions into zones seeking treasure and salvage
It could be nice to take another look at that sort of stuff again, since it’s what parties could often find themselves being hired to do

>>68058435
It looks like a scarecrow made of barbed wire and razor wire. It can move very quickely and doesn't weigh very much so it can jump over very tall walls. It was supposed to be a new breed of super soldier or weapon, the long term hope was to find a reasonably powerful regime that was sympathetic to their cause and would support them, give them a few dozen Wire Men and have them conquer The Isles. If it would have worked everything would have been fine and The Isles would have been unified 80 years ago. And it did look like everything was going to be fine.

Then for no reason Wire Man went nuts, killed three lay-brothers and a nun and bolted for the hills.

>>68060685
well, we've established that London is the DANGER ZONE, so looking at the other industrial zones and what their conditions are like would be next, being as that's where the phat lewts are, as they said in my day.
The easiest place to start would probably the Northern conurb, obviously as it includes Manchester some sort of devolved ape-man is in there somewhere, hooting about t'football and hurling their shit at the Gleaners.
Bah, I've wanted to nuke weatherfield for twenty years and i've let the opportunity slip by me.
As for liverpool, it's probably a warzone almost as much as anything, I don't knôw what relations actually are between the Lancs-Manx-Taffies, but i'm pretty sure that their gleaners will have wound up taking a distinctly buccaneering approach to scavenging the old city and its docks and warehouses.

>>68061542
Gleaning parties bumping into each other inside of a zone could be interesting, especially if they or their employers aren’t on the best terms
Or if they’re carrying an incredibly valuable find.

>>68062450
Or if it's them this time the day after tomorrow on their way back out.

>>68062521
>You see yourself, maybe a day or two older staring right at you with a look of confusion
>Your right hand man is wounded and Tom is nowhere to be seen

Would most gleaners have some respect for others in the trade or can things get rather violent between groups?

>>68060934
Someone did mention one in Jodrell Bank at one point
Are there a few of these just loose in the zones now?

>>68060934
Isn’t that just the Shrike?

>>68066690
The Shrike was acting for a reason. It was a pretty odd reason but there was one. Wire Man just spazes around doing stupid shit for no reason. Maybe it will pretend to be a scarecrow and stand in a field for six months completely ignoring birds shiting on it and the rain. Maybe it's going to skin your children alive for no reason.

You can't out run it but if you run you might buy enough time for it to loose interest. How accute it's senses are is anyone's guess, it seems to be very short sighted but how a collection of wire can see is anyone's guess.

It's gota bounty on it in just about every kingdom, it seems that physical damage can work but it's made of wire so it tends to bend around damage a lot of the time. It seems to "need" in some way to maintain a man shape and it won't deform itself.

It's a high level encounter that can be beaten head on but should be better beaten via using the environment.

>>68067225
Sounds like a sort of boogeyman figure for many, a sort of infamous legend a people pray does not come upon them next

>>68062521
So what happens if something like this occurs and they all get out of the zone together and alive, or the younger version manage to leave so that the future ones can’t exist?
This could lead into all sorts of fuckery, including people chasing down and killing themselves

>>68061542
Well, the entire midlands industrial zone is one massive Zone, so there probably aren't enough people FOR a war, but I like the idea of football hooligan-derivate Zone Beast.
>>68065257
I expect that in most cases, Gleaners have enough to worry about regarding the environment they work on to have the time or energy to fight among each other. Things might get a little fractious if one group has a particularly exotic find, while another is struggling, and there always be a few bad eggs but generally I expect a degree of professional pride would exist between teams.
Friendly-ish rivalries between particular bands could be cool.
>>68067523
>"Eat your greens of the Wire Man will skin you alive!"

>>68068714
One on the loose is scary enough, but are there any more?
More than one without people really knowing could lead to even more mysticism over the thing tearing up a farm on one side of the isles and popping up somewhere on the other in mere days
The real horror would be seeing two in one place

>>68068714
It could be similar to some of the more famous mercenary bands feuding for the worse off relations, though gleaners seem generally smaller scale than mercs
Also, do any sorts of holy orders exist aside from possibly the Turingist Knights of the Faith who use the monks intricately maintained old-age weapons to protect the monasteries and further turingist interests

>>68068714
the midlands zone is further south & is a giant time looped forest that melts tech & is filled with mutant/extinct beastes, i'm talking about the liverpool end of oop north's zone, the coastal one.

>>68056499
Industrial zones are prime habitat for Pale Abhumans, and Morlocks. Morlocks avoid daylight and only surface at night, Pale Abhumans move about by day and by night.

Pale Abhumans wear hazardous material laborer garb as body armor and don't use dialog or facial expressions. They wield terrifying mental powers in combat, but also more conventional weaponry such as swords knives clubs etc. They are not however always hostile when they appear, sometimes they pass by without doing anything to more normal humans. It's clear from their body shape and appearance (humans with abnormally big heads that are bald) that they were once humans of some kind. Additionally sometimes they know enough about machines that a machine or two will be intact and turned on in buildings they reside in.

Morlocks are hairy brown to black-tone skinned beasts with reddish eyes, large mandibles like a mandrill, and a brutish, boorishly hostile temperament. They have gold to red hair like a yeti and 2 arms 2 legs 1 head. Despite their obvious stupidity, they know how to correctly use axes, saws, hammers, wrenches, fuels (but not make it) and oils (but not make them). Some, known as Morlock savages, have made weapons of stone/wood/bone, but they are very infrequently encountered. Underground areas they reside in usually have some steadily degrading but operational machinery.

>>68056499
I'm not sure if the numbers stations were ever explicitly placed anywhere on the map but I do recall that there was a group that was inland, given the midlands area's location it's likely that one of the inland-group numbers stations is located in or near an industrial zone.

>>68073580
Good stuff!
We could try and stat a few of these whilst were at it

>>68073580
It's speculated that the Morlocks that we see are just the soldier/heavy lifting caste of a more diverse group and that somewhere in their subterranean kingdoms are the thinkers and the tool makers. This is pure speculation but it's not outside the realms of possibility considering that nobody knows how far their tunnels go.

>>68077302
They are often found alone though in their small dens littered around sewers and tunnels

>>68078764
The ones in Switzerland are far more organized. It's possible that the ones in The Isles are stranded without a real leader.

>>68073757
Don’t forget that some might be little more than rubble, even if the signals are still coming out of them

>>68056514
>knights with automatic rifles posted in every single OP pic?
They're the only ones that can afford to have 'em.

>>68080905
Aside from the EM-2 as the most modern rifle and the common stuff that has been started before, which other guns could be around in the isles, along with anything that didn’t previously exist from the few talented gunsmiths there are?

>>68082123
*statted before

>>68076473
The Pale Abhumans mental powers. Every member of a Pale Abhuman group regardless of age of condition (Pale Abhumans who are very young or visibly old have been seen), has at least 2 of these powers.

Illusion of Terror - change setting to illusion landscape based on 1 target's fears and horrors, only the 1 target experiences the change, the user of the ability does not experience the change.

Illusion of Pain - Small but agonizing injuries seem to appear all over the victim. The illusion is realistic enough that some real injuries appear when this happens, but relatively few.

Delirium - Target experiences a condition similar to delirium tremens.

Mind Entry - "possess" a target, user's body falls asleep.

Unison - All pale abhumans present visibly glow, they use all their powers as if 1 big mind.

Horror Blaster - Instant horrible flashback. This is catered to the victims specific fears and horrors and is not necessarily something that actually happened.

Fear Blaster - instant terrifying flashback. Catered, specific, and not necessarily something that actually happened.

>>68080891
>Audible signal sweep
>Bork bork bork crinkle bork crinkle-crinkle-crinkle

"Just what the fuck is this? Sure as hell ain't music."

>"SOMBER, IS, THE, HOUSE, THE, LORD, PROVIDETH, FOR, THE, DEAD, BUT, EVEN, FROM, THERE, SHALL, I, PRAISE, HIM."
>Kaboom, an explosion louder than an earthquake
>18.5 seconds of silence
>Crinkle-bork-crinkly-bork-bork
>a repeat

The most damaging of the numbers station signals to hear very much at all is that of the Somber House, which is a very remote station near Independence Fjord Greenland, and part of the old UK's arctic defense strategy.

In those who do not know the meaning of the message, it creates an unhealthily persistent feeling of impending doom known as 'Number station sickness'. This is universal to all numbers stations.

Those who know the meaning of the somber house's signal experience a similar illness, but they experience it at such intensity that without a long period of supervised rehabilitation they invariably commit suicide. This only affects who know the meaning of the somber house's signal, and knowing the meaning of other signals causes different outcomes.

>>68083241
Interestingly and perhaps paradoxically, the meaning of the somber house's message is well documented & quite generic, it means 'a missile is going to hit us, there is nothing we can do'. The crinkles are Geiger counters going bananas and the borks are fleeing seals.

>>68083241
I really like this
Number stations doing some dodgy supernatural stuff is cool, I remember someone posting about some lunatic wandering a zone and continuously reciting a number station message, but if you tuned in you would see it’s not just a recital but perfectly timed, as if in sync

>>68083311
Very early on it was mentioned that some of them were either unmanned stations on auto-repeat, manned stations that survived, or obliterated rubble that shouldn't be able to send a signal, yet somehow is sending a signal.

Seem to remember theres 3 offshore ones that are called the 3 wise men, 5 inland ones called heptagon, 1 off the coast of france called Message Electronique, and the Greenland one called Somber House.

That's all I immediately remember.

>>68083417
We could develop the rest of these with similar stuff to the above, and whilst radios would generally be in the hands of the wealthy there could be some superstition over them

>>68058435
Wire-weed only grows while rooted. They might be able to use the weed to grow the men in large numbers, but they won’t get much larger once they start moving.

>>68084975
I can't find anything very specific about what the other one's actually do to you.

I did find that there were actually a few others, there was also Strangers calling (famous male Hollywood voices), The Gypsy Dame (famous female lead voices), and the House of Laughs (cartoon soundtracks used).

>>68086219
I think it would be up to the GM as to which radios lead to something. With the Zone’s ability to mess with time the party could find a ruin then go back an hour later and find an intact broadcasting tower.

>>68083417
There are also some that seem to broadcast from areas they shouldn’t be capable of being broadcast crime.

One of the most important stations is the one in Cheyenne that the USKS overhear.

>>68083080
I think the Illusion of Terror should be an effect of the Zone itself rather than something cast. The Abhumans can just use them as boobytraps.

>>68084975
Assuming a peasant had no idea how a radio works, one hearing voices and sounds coming from one could lead to any number of ideas

>>68083080
So we’ve got psychic mutants on the loose now too?
Cool stuff, are they normally found alone? Multiple of these sound like they could incapacitate a whole party

>>68089840
They are rare. Really rare. The problem is that because of the large head size the women have a lot of trouble giving birth to the point where surgery is very often needed, and that comes with it's own risks. More often than not they are born via a male Pallid impregnating a female Normal. This has a 50% chance of resulting in another Pallid, the Pallid child survives even if the mother dies more often than is statistically likely. If the resulting child is a Pallid then they are taken by the Pallid regardless of the desires of the Normal family. This is why they are hated.

A Pallid you meet might be a perfectly nice person, civil and polite and good natured, but they are often a product of rape and their fathers knew that their child would be likely to kill the mother. They can't escape that.

There's also the problem of their psychic powers. It's typically quite low level with only occasional high level. They know what you want, they know if you lie, they might be able to share pictures with you with some effort but usually that's as it goes. The problem is that to get into the beds of Normal women they often appear as Normal men and say all the exactly right things as they can see what all the right things are or just disguise themselves as their husbands. In a similar manner you can never be sure if the person you are talking to is a genuinely good person or if they're just faking it as they can see what all your values and beliefs are and act accordingly.

Their existence is tolerated, barely, by the kingdoms because in groups they can cause mass hallucinations that makes invading their enclaves a costly and unproductive exercise. You can trade with them for high tech goods but you'll feel dirty about it afterwards.

>>68089975
Sounds like a rather funky sort of Changed One
Them throwing their weight around in cities would probably get them quite a lot of ire, could get pogrom’d if people get pissed off enough

>>68090012
They survive by being not quite hated enough to be exterminated even though they absolutely and objectively should be genocided one way or another. And they know exactly how much they can be hated due to their abilities so all of this is fully calculated. It's not even as if they are ignorant of the suffering that they cause, they can't be, but they don't care enough to give a shit.

A mass mob action is the only way that they could be removed as their abilities work on skilled warriors equally to plebs, so it's a numbers game. As actual combatant's they're not great once the illusions are removed. Their skill is ensuring that nobody realizes this.

>>68085194
Wait, get this -
>Wire Man requires a human sacrifice at the center of it
>Wire-weed needs somewhere to root to be able to grow
>What if the crazy RadTuringist managed to make the Wire-weed grow on the sacrifice?
Maybe the process didn't kill the sacrifice, or maybe it's supposed to but the sacrifice somehow still lived.
But the specifics don't really matter. All we know now is that the entity that was a Wire-weed-man that is Thorn now roams the countryside, terrorizing peasants and nobles alike.

>>68089975
That would s getting a bit close to the Goblins of Goblin slayer.

>>68090048
Could make for some good stuff with parties trying to dislodge a bunch of angry pallids from their home city

>>68091068
There is an old story that tinfoil over and around the head grants some resistance to their abilities. Nobody is sure where this rumour started.

>>68092203
You would first need to locate some of this legendary “tin paper” of the old world

>>68092610
It doesn't work. If it worked metal helmets would work. This does not stop the rumours because tinfoil is not common enough to extensively test.

>>68089975
See I like this because it adds dimensions to the Pale Abhumans (slightly confused if that's who you're speaking of).

But, when the pale abhumans were originally made, it was stated that they don't use facial expressions or dialog, and that their means of communication was unknown but possibly telepathy.

So while I can see it working to an extent, the fact that they use neither dialog or facial expressions puts a crimp on how often it works or when it works.

I'd imagine it'd be like a classic terrifying UFO visitation event, bright lights, a lot of weird beings, some stuff you barely remember, waking up a long way in space and time later, etc.

>>68094781
>There are ayys squatting in cities and people are too scared to remove them

>>68095750
I didn't set up the part about them visiting people or how they reproduced, I set them up originally as being really rare but possible to encounter.

>>68095866
I think both the rare encounters and squatting Changed Ones ideas are nice, could split the two things apart?

>>68096107
That sounds feasible, but, I'm the wrong person to ask abut this, as I've been out of these threads all the way out since thread 3 or 4, so I don't really know what's going on more generally in the world.

>>68094781
They don't use spoken language or facial expressions amongst their own kind. A heated debate or screaming row between two of them to outsiders looks like two of them just standing and looking at each other with blank expresions for an extended amount of time.

All facial expressions and verbal comunication is learned to deal with outsiders and isn't instinctive to them. It's just what they use to get people to do what they want because they are manipulative cunts by nature.

>>68096152
Nice to have you back!
Just ask if you want to know about something that’s been made or what’s been made since those threads

>>68096212
>>68096242
I'm about to have to exit the thread, but I'll leave it up. I'll see responses to my post but won't be able to respond until much later.

>>68090089
Would be a tad concerning to see a skeleton inside of one

>>68084975
>aristocrats with occult radio rituals

>>68084975
A lot of it's less superstition and more substition. It's shit that is but either nobody believes or just wouldn't be suprised to find out.

Like the radio chanel that seems to be just some dude reciting a random facts about the people in the city of York. He's been doing it for at least 50 years n the same calm manner without taking a break at any point. It's jsut random shit about random people in the city bounds, all true so far as anyone can tell. It only gets weird when he starts telling things that nobody could possibly know, like someone has cancer before the doctor has even looked at them or that someone has caught lycanthropy or tetanus before any symptns show.

Nobody would believe it until they hear it, then they're not suprised. World is just fucked at this point.

>>68100052
Stuff like that is cool
By superstition, stuff like >>68097699 could apply
Some few actual proper broadcasts exist, but there are many things unnatural on the air

>>68100052
Less superstition and more substirion is actually a good way to put it for most of the effects of the Zones. A surprising amount of the stuff has taken the name and elements of the local myths. Giants, Wyrms, Nessie, Balor, even the Rad-wizards. Things that nobody believed in anymore that came to life anyway.

>>68070807
Well, the Theocracy of Cork is effectively one big holy order, so yeah! They have a militant order called the Electric Guardians who use chock-mauls and electro-lances, as well as rudimentary Gauss cannon to keep safe their territory, as well as expand it.
>>68072276
Yeah, that was the one I was talking about as well. The Industrial Dead Zone stretches from the mouth of the Mersey all the way to Sheffield. I'm sure the primeval forest, whatever we do with it, can fit in around it.
>>68073580
Sounds cool, we're about due an update to the doc
>>68082123
I can't remember exactly what's been statted, but Stens, Brens, Lee Enfieldds, Webleys, Garands and the Models 36 and 49 are probably the most common.
>>68090089
Fuck, I really like this. A LOT. Makes loads of sense for the Radical Turingists.
>>68089975
I think their level of tolerance should depend on the city or nation-York or Kernow would probably put up with them, Cork absolutely not.

>>68090089
Most radicals will inform you that their so called “sacrifices” are actually NOT supposed to die, and it’s annoyingly difficult to bring them back to life. So the human inside the Wire-weed Man staying alive is how the Wire-Men are supposed to function. It’s a Wire-Man working as intended.

>>68101199
Don't forget the Vigilant Ones, 9 beings who are motionless in the sea around the UK, waiting for a sign. They won't move until they receive a sign, but it is the absolute and final end of everyone and every society on earth when they do.

All of them are rad-wizards at experience level 'nearly-infinite' and all of them are Plot Device Exclusive level challenges. Meaning they are only present if the script explicitly calls for it and they do not act, period, unless the script calls for it.

Any attack on them by any number of player characters would result in all the player characters dying before they even rolled the dice once, it's a literal 'rocks fall you died, absolutely period the end, nice move throwing your character away on a completely impossible goal' type situation.

Any attack on them by any number of NPCs would end with a pile of dead npcs the first turn end of story, as well.

Some believe (correctly) that the Vigilant Ones are close followers of Balor. Most have no idea what the vigilant ones are or where they came from.

>>68104622
Also and just a brief further note; despite being firmly situated in open seas water, all 9 of the vigilant ones' locations are well documented, as a significant fraction of them is plainly visible above water.

>>68101634
Sounds good, a garand sounds worth statting for sure
>>68104622
Having some scary shit just poking out of the water at all times to remind people it’s there is cool, but why make them unkillable? For pretty much anything in the isles it’s been made clear that enough equipment and/or men could have a chance if they do it right

>>68100052
>Like the radio chanel that seems to be just some dude reciting a random facts about the people in the city of York. He's been doing it for at least 50 years n the same calm manner without taking a break at any point. It's jsut random shit about random people in the city bounds, all true so far as anyone can tell. It only gets weird when he starts telling things that nobody could possibly know, like someone has cancer before the doctor has even looked at them or that someone has caught lycanthropy or tetanus before any symptns show.

Pretty sure this was borrowed from Tales from the Gas Station.

>>68107321
Not the same anon, and not familiar with that but could still be pretty neat

>>68107433
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7HblU4fmtIY

I found it entertaining.

>>68104622
>>68104664
>>68106632
The Vigilant Ones are very old Fomorians surrounding Balor’s cooling lake. They’re massive and powerful, just a few steps down from Balor himself. You give a good description of their power and habits, but are a bit off in their location.

>>68100995
The most coherent group across all of The Isles are the Weathermen. It's mostly elderly aristocrats who have palmed off many of their responsibilities to their heirs and need something to do in their twilight years. They use the radios to report on weather in their area allowing people tuning in to build up a picture of what's going on and how things are likely to turn out.

The odd thing about it is that it's spread across even mutually hostile nations, often made up of former leadership members of nations that had they met 20 or 30 years ago would have tried to kill each other. And they make their reports and listen politely, exchange the occasion pleasantry with former enemies and it's all very, very civil and polite.

The network of Weathermen includes a few of the Irish. It's suspected (but might not be the case) that one or two are Formorians of the more bright variety. The senior advisor and former commander of Kernow's Britany coastal fortress outpost is part of it as is the Icelandic base on Greenland.

There is nothing supernatural about any of this, it's just a hopeful international cooperation.

>>68106632
They do fight, they just do it in very mystical very indirect ways, such as lending power to fomor who call on them. They're meant to be the guaranteed and definite unavoidable apocalypse, however, as I originally designed them, they don't start moving until balor starts moving, and that's not for a while-while-WHILE yet.

>>68109038
That must have been decided in a thread I wasn't part of, I designed a lot of things and then drop out of these threads for 10 or more threads.

>>68110127
Does the Iceland-base know anything special or important about the Somber House base? (numbers station, located near independence fjord).

>>68110127
Cool stuff, though Greenland must be an interesting situation given Iceland fell and the oceans are so perilous to cross even short distances
Perhaps the group could have some links to the lightkeepers, those penitent who serve their time manning the remote lighthouses of the isles and defending them from beasts attracted to those great beacons

>>68110633
the fomor/balor stuff got crazy busy for a while, he almost ended up being the lurking end of the world but that got pushed back.
>>68101634
primeval forest zone, aka ARDEN is the one next to Warwickshire covering what used to be Birmingham, the northern industrial one is the one further north stretching from what used to be Liverpool to Manchester etc.
This makes me feel the major zones need names of their own, London has generally been 'the Swamp' but i'm partial to 'the Smoke' or 'the Smog' personally, the Irish one is 'the Fog' or 'the Paranoia' and ex-Birmingham is 'the Arden'.
The others?

>>68111091
The ones next to Kernow are the Death Road due to the likelihood of beasts and radiation attacking you while it’s being traversed.

>>68110818
They need the radio, if reminds them that there's something beyond the few hundred people living in and around Nuuk. They can't get out. The Americas are dead or too hostile for them to live on and they won't risk more ships trying to bypass Iceland again.

>>68108582
I like it.

>>68109038
Fomorians just keep getting bigger and nastier and gnarlier the older they get.

>>68114805
Yeah, and the Vigilant Ones are the end result for those that survive that long. They are kept on their posts due to their loyalty to Balor.

>>68112491
It would sure be a shame if some shapeshifting monster got on the loose around that freezing radio base

>>68111091
I’d say Smog works best, though it might be a tad similar to the fog for Ireland, could change that to something like the mist

>>68110818
The lightkeepers have maintained a neutrality much like that of the weathermen, accepting the penitent of all nations of the isles to man the fortress-lighthouses

>>68080905
Why? Guns are fairly simple to make.

>>68116402
The base's sole inhabitant is a blob of body horror wrapped around the radio set, speaking with multiple mouths in the voices of the supposed human inhabitants. It isn't assimilatory. If it ever encounters actual humans, it'll converse with them, seeming confused as to why they think it's a single monster rather than a community of people.
http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1227

>>68119300
We've had this debate a dozen times in these threads. The raw materials, infrastructure and skilled labour required to produce complicated weaponry and the ammunition to keep automatic weapons fed in any field-able amount just isn't available.

>>68119300
Not the automatic ones. Single-shots are easy.
Also, it has been two centuries since the War. Even the simplest guns still need maintenance.

>>68119727
Why? So long as you have the know-how on manufactoring arms it shouldn't be a problem. In fact the development of firearms predates industrialization by roughly 600 years, probably even more.

>>68119853
Sorry chief, too tired to tell you why. Look back though the threads for the listed reasons, there's usually something like this every 5 or so

>>68120010
>le tired excuse
Sorry your setting is shit dude, there really is no reason for this technology not to be accessible to common people, especially if knights are running around with automatics

>>68120020
The main reasons for their lack is combination of manufacturing ability, time, and being Britain.
The War happened in the mid 1950’s (I forget the specific date at the moment) and eight Generations (about 200 years) have passed since then. The professional ability to create guns has lessened in that time with those skilled charging a higher price.

>>68120475
Gun laws weren't enacted until much later, like in the 1990's. Did everyone just forget how to read, write, and comprehend instructions laid out in blueprints? If anything shouldn't this sort of hostile environment encourage this as a trade? A lot of what you guys written seems to be born out of ignorance rather than an artistic decision.

>>68120475
I also have to ask how anyone at all is able to access firearms, much less knights if it's such an illusive trade.

>>68120638
What blueprints? Where would they be held?
You seem to be under the mistaken belief that nobody but the knights have guns whatsoever. It’s just the automatics and machine guns that are exclusive to them.
It all comes down to cost and effectiveness. People need to be paid to make/reload bullets, so automatics are a waste of money since they’re impractical outside of a battle scenario, which knights would find themselves in more often.
Your average peasant can get their hands on a rifle or shotgun with ease. It’s just that the more dangerous uncommon beasts can shrug off a single bullet or shell before being killed, and close the distance before a reload. So melee has come back.

>>68120877
So with monsters around automatics are practical to have outside of battle? This seems like really contrived reasoning just to have plate armor which makes no sense. And seeing as these creatures can just shrug off rounds I'm not sure what you expect a sword to do.

>>68121014
Okay, this amount of complaining brings me to believe that you have an idea as to how this should work, but have yet to reveal what that idea is. So, can you tell us your idea without it completely uprooting the idea of a post-apocalyptic Knights and Gleaners Britain?

>>68121696
Your problem is that you have a pre-determined destination for how this setting should look with no regards to whether or not it makes sense, there's a reason your type is stuck writing on /tg/, you're trying your damnedest to make the square block fit in the round hole. The premise is stupid, and only works so long as you don't think about it for more than a minute.

>>68121014
They can ignore getting holes poked in them by bullets, but if someone backs off a limb with a blade, that’s going to seriously inconvenient them.

>>68122021
There's ammunition specifically for that, something tells me you aren't very familiar with firearms

>>68122429
Hollowpoints are trickier to build that simple lumps of lead for flintlocks.

>>68122594
So people get flintlocks, but knights somehow get automatics with no in-between?

oh look it's the gun argument again.
the problem is not guns, it is ammunition manufacture, the expenditure of ammo by modern forces is gargantuan and relies on massive arsenal production and an extensive supply chain to keep pace.
With the demise of most of the UK's manufacturing centres and the complete halt of international trade this production slowed to a trickle, reloading is possible, but it, and the use of pre-Ruin magazines is not going to keep pace with expenditure in a major war, in addition to this the distribution of dumps and what manufacturing remains is uneven, the North and the Midlands ave enough subcentres to keep production alive, but the south, west and scotland have lost their industry and therefore need trade, an iffy prospect, or reconstructed factories which have all the above problems + having to scrounge materials and machinery from zones to even start.
I've suggested therefore that the prevalence of melee weapons is a regional thing and where lots of guns are present they tend to be mainly used for human versus human fights.
Example is Warwick, which retains more industry than almost anywhere.
Local Defence Volunteers are village militia, billhooks and Lee Enfields, chainmail, half armour which can be privately supplied.
County Regiments are the regular army, essentially Korean War era infantry, but with no smgs, some artillery and armour. Fight other statelets, not monsters, gambesons & sapper-type leather jerkins.
Long Range Patrol Battalion is the SF, EM-2s and 50s era NBC gear.
The mix of full knightly armour and automatics is much more prevalent in knightly orders, where the richer sort can afford prestige in every aspect of equipment.

>>68123396
>Barely enough ammo to get by
>Let's give our armored guys automatics!
There cannot possibly be more than a double digit IQ dwelling in this thread

>>68123396
When it comes to armour, most beasts are going to try and slash you open and a Knight is going to feel rather silly if he is caught reloading or with a jam when someone runs at him with a billhook
In terms of any surviving protection from back in the day, there’s mostly just steel helmets but I guess you could try and combine a flak vest with a gambeson but I’m not sure how effective that would really be

>>68124153
>implying that most automatic weaponry hasn't been retrofitted with manual fire or 3-round burst options in this setting

>>68095866
>>68096107
>Some dodgy Changed Ones have squatted in cities as described, abusing powers like telepathy and far worse to pacify potential ousters
>Pallids supposedly exist and abduct people, and whilst most “abductees” sound like raving madmen every story has featured the same uncannily human beings with expressionless, unblinking faces

>>68123148
Depends on the workshop.

>>68088553
There's also some radio chatter coming from the Urals.

>>68125761
Given the time fuckery happening over there it’s often hard to tell when the broadcasts are coming from, if they describe current happenings or events long passed

>>68126557
How much radiation protection does plate provide?

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>>68124179
i had it as most monster hunting is either conducted by guys with Boys AT rifles (or some elephant gun equivalent) or by heavily armoured melee cavalry/foot, rather than relying on bullets.
Incidentally those leather jerkins I mentioned weren't body armour per se, just overwear that added a bit of extra durability and load-carrying ability, pic related.

Also, a note.
Limited ammo in a large scale war =/= an inability for a well-heeled individual and his peers to keep themselves in .303 or 9mm or even .416 rigby.

>>68127968
A suit of steel armour is going to be better than nothing or just a gambeson, but I don’t think it will be that effective
Someone has probably tried covering themselves in lead before to better handle the zones, but you could guess how that ends

>>68121910
Alright there gary 'the gargoyle' gygax, you have access to all the threads, so make the changes you want to make and get back to me with a compelling storyline.

And no, 'I don't want to do this' / 'the only change I made is throwing the whole setting in the trash' isn't going to work for me.

You have an idea of how to fix this setting up, so instead of bitching like a troll, how about you actually do some fix-up work?

>>68120020
Okay friend, I'm back. The setting changes from real history in the 50's, and is set in Britain, where the call for-and accessibility to-military grade weaponry is pretty slim. As stated on multiple occasions (though I doubt you've bothered to read the threads), shotguns and bolt action rifles are relatively common, but heavy duty weaponry isn't. On top of this, since it's been 200+ years since the second world war ended, stocks of old world weapons are severely depleted, so what people can dig up is highly valuable.
>"Why can't you make more?" Well, almost every industrial zone and mineral deposit in the country has been filled with monsters and mind-warping terrors, so the infrastructure and sheer material resources required to build guns, and, more to the point, enough bullets to make them useful, are scarce.
On top of this, the British population took a MASSIVE population hit when the zones began springing up, with almost 90% dying. Since the biggest zones are in London and the Midlands, where the vast majority of the armories are based, almost every old world gunsmith would have died as well, so the technical knowledge just isn't there.

Now this isn't to say guns *aren't* available, but as stated before they would be expensive to produce and feed in large quantities, so only elite units, such as the Bluehelms, or the best Gleaners teams and the like, could field automatic weaponry to any major degree. More rudimentary weaponry such as shotguns or rifles are made in workshops by skilled craftsmen, with apprentices producing the bullets, but you'd still have the process taking a week or so to make even one working gun and enough rounds to keep it firing for extended periods. As a result, only the rich can afford to commission such expensive projects. The majority of the peasants have to make do with, as I said, the cheaper options.
I hope that answers your question?

>>68121910
>>68122429
>>68124153
I think your problem is you enjoy making the same argument over and over and over again in a thread that has already explained their reasons for doing something.

>>68128142
Yeah, specialized weapons will absolutely be employed, which is why war hammers to deal with gargoyles, and silvered blades for Were-Francs are carried by most gleaner bands.
As for your final point, you are correct, the elite groups have always been able to keep themselves stocked in ammunition, it's just the majority of soldiers who couldn't afford them.
>>68129381
Damn, I fucked up the meme arrows on this one eh?

>>68127896
Those Teutons can look pretty fancy

>>68119652
http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1227

Well that's horrible. Lets adopt it.

>>68129493
The lads around Cork also have some of that fancy shock-stuff, however well that might work against men or beasts

We also had the thing with the Stenners, hedge gunsmiths that make relatively cheap submachine guns and ammo for peasant and raider alike

>>68132066
Some of the Guardians specialise in Formorian killing, though their shock-weapons are as effective as you'd expect highly electrified crushing weaponry to be on animals!

>>68133732
They do seem to be the most common threat in Ireland, what with the noticeable peace between nations there

>>68134989
That has resulted in the Fomorians with the Turingists being cautious of people outside the order.

>>68134989
Ireland also has the Radical Turingists, though their threat is more isolated than the Fomorians in the Paranoid Fog.

>>68138126
Even they might be behind some of the disappearances spreading across the island like wildfire
There has been little proper fighting so far

>>68119652
>http://www.scp-wiki.net/scp-1227
>USSR

I could see it

Did we mention something about new islands or old islands re-emerging?

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>>68122021
>>68122429

>>68142121
Most I remember is some vague mentions of part of Dogerland emerging, but nothing ever game of that so I think we can say no new islands appeared.
Besides, with the time/space warping of the Zones there’s a small chance of you crashing into the Gobi desert when sailing into the Atlantic. New islands could just be a similar warp.

>>68142563
The island was uninhabited but there were ruins. People don't want to settle there. At all.

there is another island west of Ireland. It's small. The recently dead can sometimes be found there for a brief time before they pass on.

>>68119652
I'd go with that but he/it knows what it is and has come to accept it.

>>68144695
>One day people may finally come to see those who have survived in Greenland and kept radio contact
>It will be waiting

>>68144873
That's just Radio Dude. The other citizens of Greenland are mostly unaware of what Radio Dude is.

>>68145046
>Some guy has been broadcasting about the community for several years
>Never leaves the radio shed

>>68142121
>>68142563
There's that island with the knockoff remembering machines which was thought to be in the distant future.

>>68146502
Does it speak of moving cities?

>>68146881
Nobody knows. The few undead that haven't broken down god knows how long ago don't speak any recognizable language.

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>>68147647

>>68147647
Considering that most of these “undead” are just corpses crudely puppeteered by some force in the Zone, it’s remarkable they can vocalize at all.

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>>68056499

Is there a name for junk/improvised knights such as Solitaire and modern/tactical knights such as the Black Knight?

>>68149018
There’s not really a solid name, but there’s a good number of now-landless knights heading north and south from old Northumbrian territory and the many petty kingdoms to its west, all overrun by zone expansion

>>68150284

No, no. I'm not talking about in-universe. I just couldn't find a more relevant thread on the board. I'm asking for terms I could look up on google images.

>>68148197
Is that fanart or concept art or something? Where'd you get it?

>>68148197
>if only you knew how bad things are

>>68150798
Google. Shrike Mortal Engines. It's either an edited still from the film or something very like it. Shrike was the only good part of that film.

>>68149018
The junk Knight would likely fall under the mantle of Gleaner, as they likely got their money through expeditions into the Zones.

>>68149018
>Black Knight
The Arthurs are collecting Named Knights that at least sound as if they could be part of a mythical Round table. Both want the support of as many of the masses as they can get as neither is confident that they have a meaningful advantage as things stand.

>>68151556
>Black Knight
Well, there's the radical turingist creation. Looks like a bloke in full blackened plate armor, save for the joints being sealed and a green glow through the visor.

>>68151614
Probably a tad more pleasant than the Knight of the Faith leaking liquid out of his suit
I’m sure he’s fine and perfectly human under that

>>68127968
A successful knight often has a sealed undersuit on beneath their armour, so that when they must, they can quickly cut out all the harmful air from their bodies, depending instead on air tubes to a safer area, a filter to breathe through, or a personal supply of air. The second is the most common, for ease of finding the artifacts needed, and comfortable use, while the third is only useable by wealthy lords, and the first can make a useful stopgap for the less wealthy explorer.

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I know I'm days late with this but would there be a local legend about Radicals making a giant wire-man with dozens of sacrifices inside? From what was said before, a wire-man is just a single person with wire-weed growing from them

>>68154310
There can be a legend, but it would be one of the few that isn’t true. After all, the wireman is grafted out of the human, and they weren’t supposed to die in the first place.
There are only a couple of these constructs in existence. Two were manufactured in the Ireland Monastery, but were deemed failures due to killing the subjects. They were resurrected and kept around as a form of trump card. There is only one Wire-weed man, it being an experiment to see if the living metal would keep the subject alive. Seen as a possible success, so long as the next one can be controlled.

>>68154310
Well, previous threads said that they're big ones, Wicker Man but made of wire and electricity. So this 'man-sized' Wire Man is a new and novel concept, I think.

>>68150836
If he's from the future that could be fucking horrifying.

>>68127896
Looks like something from E.Y.E. Divine Cybermancy.

>>68158729
He could be from the future. The zones can mess with time, so you can exit one a week before you entered.

>>68157261
>>68154310
Stopping some lunatics from kidnapping enough people and gathering enough wire-weed to make a huge one could be fun

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>>68152880
That sort of stuff does sound very useful for experienced gleaners and any others with a a need to venture into a zone
We haven’t really covered on the potential for dangerous gases and the like before

>>68126534
Didn’t we have some stuff on a small number of people surviving an expedition east and coming back with treasure?

>>68165405
The farthest east I’ve heard of an expedition going is reaching Russia. There was one group who met a man who might have been Chinese, but overall the searches have been limited to Europe.

>>68117966
>>68111091
The Smoke is/was literally a nickname for london (not used too much nowadays), it's perfect for a resurgence

>>68163181
i did place some emphasis on london requiring that level of gear because of how toxic the water is and how poisonous the air is.
Suggestions for areas that might get into this aspect:
Porton Down, which is in unclaimed territory in Wiltshire
RAF Portreath, which is inside the Kernow League
Sutton Oak, which is in the Northern zone
Gruinard Island, which is in the far NW of Scotland
All these were active CBW sites in the PoD period, so they're presumably minor zones now at least, Gruinard Island is not a storage site per se, merely a testing site heavily contaminated with anthrax.
Good luck with your chemical warfare airbase Kernow.

>>68165964
>Good luck with your chemical warfare airbase Kernow.
Huh, Nancekuke (RAF Portreath) had Sarin and VX in the 50s

It's been ages since I've been to one of these threads, are there still a couple of tanks (or tank-knights) clanking around? Seems to have moved ahead in time a bit since the first discussions

>>68165891
that's why i used it to begin with. *taps the side of his nose*
>>68165774
there was some incredibly strenuous trade along the old silk road, but it stopped decades in the 'past' because of something to do with how they make silk in the east now.

At a meta level we do know the British forces in Hong Kong built themselves an empire in Southern China post-war, but they can't get in contact with anything further north because of whatever the fuck happened to the silk merchants and beyond them the Red Army.

I'd say about the furtherest place in semi-regular contact is Switzerland, the UnderCantons at least, I don't imagine the Morlocks or goblins really care about the outside world.

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>>68154310
Wasn't that basically what the original Wire Man was before we even came up with Wire Weed? Just an enormous Wicker Man, but made of old-world junk and the sacrifice gets electrocuted rather than set on fire.
>>68148197
>>68150798
>>68150837
Found it.

>>68166067
the deserts rats merc group had a lot of armour but they got fucked up in ROTW2, what tgey have left i don't know.
Salvaged/preserved ones are around and some places can produce new builds at very, very low production rates.

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>>68149018

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>>68142121
"emerging" no, "moving" yes

>>68166089

It also stopped becasue the market had completely dried up.

There has also been some contact with Novgorod. Enough to know it's there and know that the name of the man in charge is called Rasputin. But he doens't have anything anyone wants that would be worth the trip. It's not so much that people can't get to Novgorod so much as they have no reason to go there.

This isn't entierly true. They have useful knowlege about the paranormal (or at least their leader does), but nobody knows this.

>>68166067
Desert Rats really had quite a number done on them but are repairing with Yorkist support as a more permanent force in their army, and the Ironsides and cavaliers are still around somewhere
Time-wise I think it’s still the same sort of point for the “present”, some things have just been fleshed out more than before and the Icelandic invasion has already taken a decent chunk of Scottish land and might have hit a speedbump depending on what a gm wants to do with it

>>68151556
Black Knight
>Sir Shrike
Green Knight
>possibly Tolkien and has quantum immortality
Do we have any others yet?

>>68163181
In a practical sense, while being exposed to radiation is bad, breathing in the air nearby is worse.
There are tiers of lethality depending on what kind of radiation, and what levels are present.
The one you're thinking of is Beta radiation. It can bypass most shielding except metals, and still interacts enough with the body.
Gamma radiation just passes through everything, but doesn't impart enough energy to form free radicals in the body, the main source of radiation damage and mutation.
Alpha radiation is extremely harmful, but that's because it's so big and reacts so easily, so it can only penetrate a few centimetres through air, and is blocked by baking paper. The main issue I'd say is breathing in air with free radicals.
I think that this kind of thing would be particularly good for London, with all the smoke and ruins giving off alpha radiation. Anywhere else, it's negligible because it reacts away, but through london, it will be close enough to react with the person, requiring extensive shielding by way of closed environmental suits and metal armour. [Spoiler] Except for the few who somehow defy this entirely, like the few prisioners who make it out, or the Pith helmet man[Spoiler/].
Most people do not understand why exactly this is, but those in the business understand that you need some kind of protection like this.

The immense radiation could be what feeds the dragon, the spitfire and all the truly monstrous London beasts.

>>68169405
Everyone avoiding the monsters along the road has a way of destroying long-distance trade.
Much of the outside world might as well not exist to a non-gleaner, since a peasant’s major concern is growing or hunting enough food to last the winter, or enough money to buy same. The radiation and beasts are only relevant in how much they impede that ability.

>>68170373
Thanks anon!
Makes sense that people understand it’s necessary to survive even if they don't really understand why, could leave some decent room for superstition over radiation with some
As for the last part, seems like the more fantastical/mythical parts and the radiation are linked. Way someone put it ages ago was that neither the radiation or magical approach could explain all of what was happening, it was a sort of blurred line between the two

>>68171125
Which is why there are a few cases of the laws of physics as the few scientists know them, being completely ignored, such as how people can go into an Alpha radiation cloud in only fatigues and survive, or how the mutations never do what they should statistically of radiation poisoning, but change a person instead in more fantastic ways.
Never enough to cause all but the most radical to change beliefs, but they exist in plenty to the less scientific peasant or explorer.

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>>68151614
>>68151958
We have radical turingist creations going haywire and turning on their creators>>68154827.
Maybe there's a link?

>>68172531
Knights of the Faith have been staunchly loyal to the cause so far, helps that they were and to some extent still are radicalists from that monastery like the others and went into it happily
Wiremen have been a bit more touch and go in terms of going awol and fleeing into the countryside to fuck with people

>>68172531
Not really. The Green Knight has been around longer than the Radicals have. While that might not mean much considering how the Zone can warp time, it at least casts some doubt.

>>68173870
More knights, not more turingist creations.

>>68171121
In terms of the isles, getting around between major areas should be possible as the roads are either going through safe land or the uninhabited lands dotted with smaller zones, which would demand more caution but isn’t the same as the death road down south that squeezes between two large zones

>>68111091
>>68165891
Any names or specifics for the main zone by Northumbria? Aside from being pretty fresh and spewing beasts out there isnt much on it

>>68177771
I believe it is fairly new. Hasn’t had much time to establish an identity.

>>68179209
It’s definitely left it’s mark on the north though, and all those beasts are causing a growing problem for the Scots further north and what remains of Northumbria

>>68180121
The ones in Scotland are more specialized in forming space or time warps. They can make a möbius loop in a forest so you can wander in literal circles until you die but never leave an area the size of a football field, or have a trail up a mountain suddenly turn into a penrose stairway.

>>68180253
Yeah, this is a new big zone though, could take a different approach with it to the main ones further north

>>68177771
So going from top down I'd name them thusly
- Loch Ness?
- Strathclyde/Hadrian's Wall
- Northumbrian (I'm not sure where this one correlates to.)
- Merseyside (Liverpool-Manchester)
- Arden (Birmingham)
- the Smoke (London)
then there's
- Cardiff
- Bristol
- Plymouth (the Death Road)
- Weymouth (I think? It doesn't seem to be anywhere important.)
For naming purposes for the as-yet untagged, I suggest we dig around in county histories for medieval or earlier region names etc.

>>68183074
oh and the Isle of Wights and the Irish Mist (the Paranoia) which is a word I would pay money to hear an irish person say now that i think of it.

>>68183111
Does the Isle of Wight have wights?

>>68184764
It certainly does!
The Isle of Wight’s is crawling with them, smarter, craftier and more organised than your average ghoul in a zone.
The castle there is said to hold treasure but to reach it would prove a challenge, and on top of the infestation of Wights the Fiefdom of Howitzer have made habit of shelling it for fun when they have the shells on hand

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>>68170307
>possibly Tolkien

Possibly. All we know is that people say it clawed it's way out of the soil of the Somme decades after the fighting was over. How true this is is unknowable.

How alive it is is unknown.

How human it is is unknown.

If it can die is unknown.

What is wants is unknown.

Even the nature of it's quantum immortality is speculation.

All that is known is that it dresses in drab green of a WW1 soldiercomplete with gas mask and answers to the name Tommy Atkins. It fights and marches to war and has marched to war for a very long time. War weighs it down heavier than it's pack. It has never spoken of glory or honour in war, it has seen too much maybe. It sings sometimes.

>>68186669
>It has never spoken of glory or honour in war, it has seen too much maybe. It sings sometimes.
/watch?v=YdXQJS3Yv0Y

As far as mercenaries go given the emphasis they got in the early threads, any other ideas for them or old parts of the army that could make for nice predecessors?

>>68186669
Even their garb is uncertain. There are several times where they appear in plate armor, itself the same army green. The only reason it was known to be the same Knight is that it responded to the name of Tommy Atkins.

>>68188236
Whilst some big ones like the Desert Rats, Men of Stirling and Highlanders are caught up in the War of the Roses, many others are unaccounted for entirely
Keeping them as such could work well for GMs to use them as needed in different places for different stuff

>>68183074
The Merseyside Zone was initially the Industrial Dead Zone. The historical relations to each zone would be the best way to stress the mythological nature of their effects.
>>68188910
>>68186669
Retro-causality causes the Knight to appear sometimes as the original "source material" and sometimes as the more modern legend. If the witness believes more strongly in the idea of a Tommy coming back from the Great War, then it appears as such, and vice versa.
>>68189593
Even if we keep them open-ended, naming a few bigger groups would be worth doing. I know a couple of anons posted a bunch of ideas a few threads back, I'll try and dredge them up tomorrow.

>>68190426
Retro-causality is a running theme with several of the Zones. Some of the beasts look exactly as one would expect for a creature of myth, or just something as mundane as a big cat mutated by radiation.

>>68056499
Overarching agenda question; when the british isles is fully set up, do you want to hop over to Australia and start setting it up or not?

I chose Australia simply because it had relatively few priority nuclear attack targets at the time and has been stated at times to be an area that would 'likely survive' any nuclear exchange between USSR and USA.

>>68163181
>>68186669
Looks to me like these two could be the same Green Knight.

>>68193469
The Zones, beasts, and people of that place would be so radically different in style and tone that it would be its own setting in itself.

>>68193469
Dreamtime is a wholly different beast than the Zones of Europe. Sometimes, literally.

>>68193469
Australia would be very far away, but people have talked about pretty distant places before a bit for fun, we could do the same with Australia

>>68196542
Most damage was done by the zones themselves, few nukes were used but they mainly just made even more fucked up zones, so whilst Australia will have gone by nuke-free they’ll still have the zones sprouting up all over to deal with
How was Australia in the 50s? All I really know about the time was that Slim became governor-general there early in the 50s

>>68188910
It's also possible that Tommy changes depending on his mental state. On good days he is like the knights in the stories of the days of yore, going forth to lay down the law, uphold the truth, defending justice and offering aid to those in need. On those days his armour gleams, his sword is a shining silver that cuts the unworthy down with ease and he is a bulwark against the darkness. On those days he is a light in the darkness.

On other days the memories of a past life come back. The mud and the weeping of the dying. The tang of mustard gas residue in the drizzle, the ruined earth and the Earth Made Hell. He hears the thunder of the artillery and the laughter of the rifles and machine guns. On those days his sword is and rifle with a bayonet attached, his armour is cloth and canvas and he goes over the top and marches forward into the horror, waiting for death. Hoping for death. Death will not stop for him. He hasn't earned respite yet.

>>68198188
Or he's like Nessie. Different people see him as different things at the same time.
>>68170307
No matter his appearance otherwise, he's always wearing a ring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMhY59n7X-Y

>>68198700
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=am-piARxy4U

>>68198700
>>68199025
>>68199025
It isn't magical, just the last thing he's got to remember Edith by. He'll still hunt you to the ends of the earth if you somehow take it though.

>>68199032
This link works pretty well. I'd suggest a different name from Edith, it would give credence to the "Tommy" aspect but not the "Knight" aspect. I was trying to find the name of the Green Knight's wife in the legends, but no mention is made of her name.
Either way, something that could fit into both settings/origins would be ideal in my opinion.

>>68200246
Edith was Tolkien's wife.

>>68186669
One interesting detail to note, however, is that the being is not the only ww1 soldier who has re-appeared.

At a place called Osowiec (Poland), a group of beings re-enacts the attack of the dead men, (ww1 era), on a certain day of each year, beings appearing to be both sides of the attack. It is very unclear if they can see or hear outsiders.

In a deserted area of York (city) a giant bomb falls from no-where and explodes in an illusion-explosion that doesn't do any damage on a certain date each year.

Biplanes that weave, wobble, flutter and sputter along slowly have been seen at times, they always randomly vanish suddenly at a certain point in flight, and they always do the same flight path.

The general theory is that ancient events are repeating for unknown reasons, but only certain events, and only during very specific times at very specific places.

>>68200901
Yeah, but we're still divided on the whole Tolkien aspect, and as before it doesn't make much sense for a supposedly dark-age warrior of myth to have a wife or leman called Edith.

>>68201733
Well to be fair Edith is still a semi-common name in certain parts of the UK, and was even more popular name in the 50's

>>68202074
Considering how long it’s been, I think it would be best if the the only thing eligible on the ring would be the letter E.

>>68202074
Oh true, but someone from the 1400's (or 500's, depending on which explanation you take), likely wouldn't be called Edith.
>>68202838
This is nicely ambiguous, and creates a healthy air of mystery! Leaves the finer details down to whatever direction the GM chooses.

>>68202921
I may be mis-remembering but I think 'Aedwith' or something similar is an early English name, and may have a relation to the more modern 'edith'.

>>68198188
>>68186669
When it sings it isn't in a language anyone knows. Most of the English think that it's some sort of Welsh and most of the Welsh think that it's some sort of Icelandic and the Icelandics think that it's English.

It's close to English, you can make out some of the words and sometimes even get the idea of what is sung even if the details are still hidden.

Nobody in The Isles speaks Saxon. Why does a revenant from the First World War sing old Saxon songs? One possibility is that it is Tolkien and Tolkien was as fluent in Saxon as anyone in that era or that like soldiers of Liechtenstein with the two headed eagle banner it is a creature drawn from more than one place in history.

He has never met Nimuë. Possibly she could answer him in that tongue.

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>>68198188

As far as any other action for mercenaries at the “present” goes, the situation around Northumbria and Hadrian’s Wall could work, since they would be taking any extra support they could gather

>>68206095
Mercs and such could also be hired for things like escorting traders through the death road to Cornwall and other unsafe passage, if they can afford it

>>68203345
Yeah, that sounds like it could work. Either way, I like the idea that only "E" remains

>>68183074
We also had some spots that were pretty nasty but not a proper zone, like that war-torn land from the fighting between Caerleon and Lancashire, now haunted by vengeful spirits that the locals go to good lengths to appease

>>68208983
Not Caerleon and Lancashire directly, the Welsh Kingdoms were getting funds from Lancashire as they expanded south, and Caerleon moved out to stop the expansion.

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>>68208484
>translate the saxon
>its a very confused and sad history of the past centuries
>blames the Zones on something called morgoth

>>68211020
The stuff in wales is a tad unclear, seemed like some fighting did happen a while ago, followed by both throwing their support into the Welsh Rail War to some degree

>>68203882
Possibly not. Nimuë speaks Welsh, ancient Welsh and heavily accented/broken English. Also Nimuë / Nessie might be a Zone reconstruction of an idea rather than a genuinely ancient being.

Bump until I have time to type stuff up

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>>68167692

>>68207605
Mercs could stand in for gleaners, but at that point they might just be gleaners

>>68197560
The big question

Crocodile Dundee: yes or no?

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>>68056564
>Horned Men never got placed in Shetland

Ouch, I tried

>>68220410
I think the shetlands are that colour to mark that they are held by the Horned Men, they’re just a bit small and splintered to try and fit a symbol onto

>>68220916
>>68220410
Speaking of the Horned Men, anything else to build upon with them as they are, in the act of showing up for the first time?
The Shetlands fell pretty fast but did anyone manage to get away or did any word from there just go silent one day and never return?

>>68221363
There are several groups named Horned Men. Some are just regular Raiders wearing Horned helmets, others are something else.

>>68222608
It was the something else that stormed the shetlands, just seeing if there’s anything more to cover from that or if anyone survived

>>68224067
i don't think it was a total wipeout (hurr hurr) so it's quite likely a lot of Shetlanders got away.

>>68224596
I think too many people are fought up with an idea that the Zone leaves no survivors. Many people have survived its worst. A man once got stuck in a loop while hunting and escaped by burning down the forest the loop was in. The Dragon has been sighted by multiple Gleaners. Expeditions are still sent into France despite the power of the Ghost city of Paris.

>>68226094
That is true, but those runs into France are still called suicidal by most and only for experts, same applies to anything fancy within zones, it can be done with the right people
With the shetlands it was less the severity of a zone and more Horned Men rocking in and slaughtering or enslaving everything, and from that sudden arrival and the Horned Men’s naval ability escaping might be hard

Bqmp

Could try and do some roll tables for stuff like mercenary companies or petty kingdoms, along with any more rules adapting

>>68230350
We’ve already got the kingdoms on the map. I think the mercenaries would be the only ones to be random.

>>68231014
Petty kingdoms are still about, they just dont tend to be shown on the map
There’s surviving ones by Northumbria and there’s lots of space for little groups
That could also include areas that make up a larger kingdom overall

>>68231113
>It's a guy in armor so that makes him a knight

>>68231786
In the post-apocalypse of The Isle of he says he's a knight then he's a knight unless you want to argue/fight about it. He's probably not a landed knight but that's not obligatory

>>68232594
Looks like a project for the Nimuë.

>>68142199
Why does this exist?

>>68231939
There would be a good number of landless ones going north and south of the Northumbrian zone now that it’s overrun all of that land

>>68079827
There's sme indication that they were there before the nukes. They would have taken longer than 200 years to dig as far as they have.

>>68235331
/k/

>>68213451
>Rumours and misinformation begin spreading about this "Morgoth" being the cause of the zones
>>68214120
Yeah, the majority of human on human fighting is between the WWS and the WK.
Carleon is still throwing out the odd raid, smaller scale versions of their initial crusades, into the surrounding zones and wastelands.
>>68219689
Yes. Though why or how, can't give you that yet.
>>68220410
They're there, we just haven't got a logo yet
>>68226663
>>68226094
There were almost certainly survivors; it's why there were defenders ready to try and stop the Horned Men spreading every further south. Their raids are still a persistent threat though.
>>68231014
Seconding the idea we need more merc groups

>>68238569
Much like Nessie and Champ, it would seem. Or some of the other Beasts and Changed Ones.

>>68240759
I don’t think the Horned Men really have a nation. They’re too fragmented and independent.

>>68240759
>the Green Knight seems to have a 'problem' with the Manx when encountered on his bad days, while on his good days he sings praises of the artisans of that industrious isle

>>68242969
chances are that they're overflow from a very violent and active population in the baltic and around Scandinavia. They're presumed to be a culture of heavily Changed mariners, and that would take time to develop, so it figures that they've come from the lands of the old norse. The mentions of lost forward scouts form the Red Army in their crews that joined up for a sense of purpose add to the impression that they come form the far northeast, as do their visits and raids the White Sea settlements.

The Horned Men are a dominant force that represents a sphere of influence at nearly as complex and varied as the Isles, with just the edge infringing on their british neighbor. Its a much more brutal one (more metal), but if gleaners can hack it they might even sail off with a crew of Horned Man Vikiners to adventure in the baltic.

>>68243961
Where on the Baltic should they have originated?

>>68243961
I like the general idea, Horned Men were meant to overall be a bit of an unknown at least as they had not jus seized the shetlands
I’m not sure islanders would want to go near them seeing how they invaded the Shetland and killed or enslaved every last person they could catch

>>68219689
Yes, but as a recurring NPC that acts as a sort of sheriff over a patch of land.

>>68246661
I would say that the Finland area would be reasonable.

>>68246661
where in particular, at least originally. Scandinavia didn't get nuked or if it did it was not a primary target and anything that hit it was a half-hearted afterthought. It was assumed that the Baltic sea would be the new Mare Nostrum of any empire that arose in the aftermath.

Sure there was shit blowing over on the breeze from the rest of mainland Europe and Russia but it was low enough level that society could survive. You would probably die of cancer, maybe, at some point but a drop in life expectancy from 70 to 60 is survivable for a society.

That was because they didn't, and nobody else did, understand the link between the radiation and the spread of The Zones. Scandinavia was essentially drowning in a low level Zone Effect. It was subtle at first, people just assumed that the occasional birth defect was an unexpected result of the radiation. But the defects got more common and more extreme as time went on and the mutations birthed more mutations that increased in instability both physical and mental.

It's a terrible thing but the people did try to raise their abomination children right, tried to make them people. But they were not and no amount of a mother's love could change their nature and by the mid 90s what large scale society and nationhood was left on the Baltic coast and the northern lands broke under the strain of the monsters it had raised.

Many fled to the east. Their fate is un-recorded although there are a lot of Novgorodians with Finnish and Nordic names. Some fled west and made it to either Iceland (this being in the days when it was still a good land to live on) or The Isles. many didn't survive the upheavals of the Rise of the Horned men and the collapse of civilization. Some acclimatized to the new era of barbarism, hence the raiders that are just dressed up and wear hoods with antlers.

What is the Baltic coast and Scandinavia like now? Nobody is quite sure and nobody wants to go look, but probably shit.

>>68249021
The more human looking ones sometimes can do "magic". A lot of them are employed as strategists due.to the poor attention span and overly aggressive nature of the true horned men.

>>68249355
That’s not a helmet. That’s a skull found in one of the Industrial Zone’s factories. Nobody has seen what it could have been alive, but other skulls have been found so they must come from somewhere.

>>68224596
Probably. when did the horned men invasion of Shetland happen anyway, was it before the Icelanders showed up? cause if so, I can only imagine how pissed off the Shetlanders would be, having first been forced to flee their homeland by monsters and then been conquered by foreigners.

>>68242969
Yeah, with all the different "types" they don't have much cohesive-ness.
>>68243961
Some Horned men may come from Scandinavia, some from the Baltic, and some from the Isles; some may welcome (to a degree) gleaners, and some may just eat them.
The name "Horned Men" itself is a broad term covering both the changed beasts of legend and the more feral of the Icelandic raiders.

>>68249021
the fall of the Baltic and Scandinavian remnant states was itself an intergenerational affair, taking place around the same time as the peak era of banditry on the isles. The main difference was that while the people who re-civilized the Isles were local warlords with all the problems therein, they and their heirs were physiologically stable (not counting the occasional 'cursed' noble house) and not incrementally succumbing to the Zones every generation. Some of the early Horned Men did great deeds of heroism in that time, one captain notably dove the baltic for days at a time with his crew and hauled up sea beasts as trophies, and many besides won renown hunting 'ogres' in Denmark and on the eastern coast of the Baltic. It was after the more changed second and third generation horned men came to dominate the leadership of Baltic society that things fell apart, as the chieftains and captains became more influential nobody could check the effects of their bestial tempers and rapacious appetites.

>>68252963
>The name "Horned Men" itself is a broad term covering both the changed beasts of legend and the more feral of the Icelandic raiders
Its that, but its also a play on how the historical British called all the various norse raiders that they were raided by "Danes", despite the wide area they came from.

>>68252022
The Shetlands fell practically within weeks of the “present”, they had just started to arrive and were fucking up both Scots and Icelanders along the coasts, some real feral lunatics

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAF_Rudloe_Manor

First excavated in the 30s. Has a complete aircraft factory and information processing centres among plenty of other things that are known. 2.2 million square feet of underground fun.

It's been believed since the 50s that there has been an alien space craft stored there and studied.

In this timeline it was probably the centre for Zone studies

>>68253440
Sounds like a possible third party the GM could bring in to blindside the Rose War conflict.

>>68255614
Seems like it’s main purpose was to blindside the Icelandic invasion around Scotland already

>>68249021
This seems like a cool set-up for them, we haven't looked at that part of Europe much. Could the mutation be passed on genetically? Even by their presence? If a slightly Touched person moved to Iceland, for example, would the simple fact that they carry the mutation spread the zone effect to the village?
>>68250760
Intermingling of groups could be cool, but maybe unrealistic depending on how feral the mutated Horned Men become. Maybe humans could mingle with the less monstrous versions?
>>68253172
Developing the other nations before they became fully uninhabitable could explain the diaspora of the remaining nations. At the current time there appears to be no-one living in Finland; gleaner expeditions across Scandinavia from the few and far between coastal bases have found Horned Men and worse across Sweden and Denmark. However, no-one has ever returned from Finland-perhaps the Horned Men mutation, when near it's source, Turns men even more terribly than the ones seen on Iceland and now the Isles.

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>>68256060
I'd have that the mutation can be passed on genetically but it's not present in the ones that look normal.

Two regular humans bone and have kid in the Scandinavian Zone and there is a small % chance that it is an early stage Horned One.

If an early stage Horned One has a child with a normal human there is a 50/50 that the child is also an early stage Horned One.

Two early stage Horned Ones have a child and it's 95 - 99% liekly to be a Horned One of some sort and 1/4 or some such likely to be a later stage Horned One.

Later stage Horned One and a normal human or an early stage have a child and it's 50/50 going to be either a later stage Horned One or whatever the other parent was.

Regualr humans among the Horned Ones, even those spawned from amilies that have been horned for generations are just regualr humans and if fucking another normal human in the Scandinavian Zone are no more likely to produce a Horned One than any other human. They can't produce a horned one at all if boneing outside the Scandinavia Zone with a normal human, where as the aforementioned rules still apply to the Horned Ones.

To that end it is best to fucking extermiante them before they can set up a viable and settled breeding population. The early stage Horned might still be capable of being real people if raised by good regular humans but they are easily led by the later stage Horned Ones and they are carriers of the problem, genocide of them is necessary for the survival of humanity.

>>68256319
Fair enough, seems dark enough for the setting. Good to get stuff quantified. Basically "Horned-ness" is the dominate allele, as it were. I agree the aura of Horned mutation was a little far-fetched.

>>68256319
On the other hand, if you can constrain them, later stage Horned ones are capable of Beowulf level feats in the name of honor and glory that seem to be alluded to by >>68253172
>Some of the early Horned Men did did great deeds of heroism in that time, one captain notably dove the baltic for days at a time with his crew and hauled up sea beasts as trophies, and many besides won renown hunting 'ogres' in Denmark and on the eastern coast of the Baltic.

Cool new stuff with the Horned Men
With that warband of them taking the Shetlands it seems to have turned the Icelandic invasion into a three-way fight unless the Scots and Icelanders were to cooperate at least until the Horned Men were repelled, something that could happen if a GM or party wanted to go in that direction

>>68258013
And if driven out of Scotland, they can go south and disrupt the Rose War.

>Whilst the Icelandic Raiders have been able to mount many raids on the Irish coasts with their men brave or mad enough to attack a Turingist Monastery, the Horned Men have so far been limited to the Scottish coasts with their base of operations in the Shetlands
>The new dangers of the eastern front of sea-raiding could drive more Icelanders back west towards the Irish, rejuvenating what are currently sparse raids

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>>68258954
Well one imagines the Shetlands' taking was something akin to Lindisfarne as the start of a Viking age, or it would be if the Icelanders hadn't beat the Horned Men of the Baltic and North seas to the first punch. In any case, there ought to be more warbands inbound, if one had success on the Isles then they're sure to send for their friends and allies.

>>68258984
Anyone going to Ireland or I’ll have to deal with the Paranoia fog, Balor’s Fomorians, and occasional lost Radical experiment. It would take a while to get used to those problems, and that learning period usually ends with death.

>>68258013
The Scots would almost always side with the Icelanders in such a three way war, they are all human and it's possible to live under Icelander rule.

>>68256319
How divergent are later stage Horned Men?

>>68264215
Physically or mentally?

>>68259645
That’s why only the brave and mad went there, though it is primarily coastal raids on monasteries rather than having to trudge into the fog and zones for extended periods
Attacking a monastery with a collection of machine guns and PIATs has its own obvious risks

>>68264790
>>68264215
Physically early stage are mostly like humans but with goat eyes and ram's horns but the horns usually just grow to be little nubs on the head rather than full on horns especially in women. Some degree of heightened aggression, slightly short sighted but slightly better hearing. If raised by good God fearing people they can turn out alright and live good and productive lives in a civilized society. IF raised by shitheads like other Horned or later stage Horned they act as bad as their nature implies.

Later stage Horned have a more stooped posture, more pronounced horns, goat eyes, are more hairy (but usually not full carpet levels), two robust fingers and a thumb on each hand ending in short stubby claws rather than nails and two broad toes on each foot with big, thick nails. They are far more aggressive and show no qualms with raping and/or killing normal people or other Horned if they have no reason not to. They aren't actually any more stupid than a normal human but their innate aggression, lack of inhibitions and poor impulse control are to their detriment and have stopped them building up anything like a coherent nation. They are also often slightly stronger than they would appear and have a high pain threshold and often end up in positions of authority by murdering those above them.

The normal humans in the Hordes of the Horned behave like worthless pieces of shit due to peer pressure.

Horned Men spread via exposure. They're all born apparently human, but metamorphosis as they age. However, if someone took a Horned Man pup and raised it among humans, it would stay human and if Horned Men abducted and raised human infants, the reverse would happen.

>>68267637
It would only work if the pup was taken out of their native Zone and the human taken to the Zone. Changed Ones mainly form to the extent they do due to their proximity to a certain Zone.

>>68266434
They also keep humans around because of rad-wizardry

We could build on this stuff some more next thread, and try to do some more rules/stat stuff

>>68270974
We should put down some stats for how much radiation can be absorbed before getting radiation sickness or the chance to become a Changed One.

>>68261777
>Bar
Basic
300m
Rof - /S/-/10/
Dam - 1d10+3I
Pen - 2
Clip - 20/40
Rld - full/2full
Special - none
Wt - 9kg

>>68273146
I think we had the general idea for radiation worked out using corruption points and some changes, we can go back over and finalise it next thread
In terms of players becoming changed, it was meant to only really happen from what should be fatal doses, very rare and typically producing Changed Ones over any other sorts of Turned that would likely just count as the character dying for good and a monster having come of their death

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>>68273192

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>>68275898
and another gadget to stat, would be cool to see on a suit of armor

>>68275930
A suit of armour with that stuck to it would be funny
We’ve hit 310 and I really need to get some sleep, would someone be able to start the next thread going? Got some good ideas to get the stats/rules ball rolling again in the morning

>>68275997
This thread is archived!