MAD MAX: My Conversion

Hi

Sometime ago, I started to work on a Savage Worlds Conversion for my own Mad Max setting. After lots of drafts and attempts to get the feeling of the game that I wanted, I ended up scraping the use of Savage Worlds.

Savage Worlds made a real easy conversion too. With Hell On Earth, Darwins World, and Broken Earth as source material I was able to get a good post apocalyptic setting. But I had some issues with the flavor of it. Mainly for me, it didn't capture the feeling of grit, diesel fumes and amalgamation of monster truck and roadsters.

I looked at a pile of other systems, one which I really liked.. Atomic Highway.. which looks fun and its FREE at DriveThruRPG. But again, not quite what I wanted. I wanted to use a system that I could have total control over, with out having to fudge or make up to many of my own rules to make it work and with out loosing any balance of the system.

I decided to go with GURPS. And I must say, its been a real pleasure to work with. I havent ran a GURPS game in years, its one of my favorites and is something I ran for a very long time in the 90s and early Y2K's. And its bringing back a lot of good memories.

Well I been busy the last week. I come up with several character templates to use if a player wanted to use. Here are the template ideas and my Waste Land Adventure Map made with Hex Kit (Bottom)


Road Warrior - Your wandering hero type

Imperator - A strong iron willed leader type

Organic Mechanic - Your Healer Type

Black Thumb - Your Mechanical Type

War Boy - Your crazy and fearless type

Raider - Your highly resourceful, and mobile warrior type

Wastelander - Jack of all trades survivor type

Ferrals - Your wild melee specialist type

And last but not least, my Wastelands Adventure Map..

Bloody Sands: A Four Game Adventure Recap

Bloody Sands

A Beasts and Barbarians Home Brew Adventure recap

Overview:

The Red Desert is a harsh place, hot winds and dry sands have caused many deaths over the years. What cities there are in this land are mainly walled, and serve as way stations for the many travelling caravans that follow the trade routes.

In the past 5 years, unknown to most people outside of the desert, a cult as slowly taken root, and is starting to displace the entrenched status quo of the Sun God. The Cult of Scorpios is growing, at a very fast rate. Its beliefs that all who enter this land are to serve and to obey, are tools to be used by the scorpion god. It promises power, and glory in exchange for souls and sacrifice.

Chapter one - Bloody Sands

The party starts off being captured and sent into slavery by a group known as the Red Nomads. Any travellers, with out the bronze seal of the scorpion are rounded up and enslaved. This just so happened to be our party.

After several weeks of harsh travel in a caged wagon, and several failed attempts to escape, the party arrived at the walled city of Nagnorish. Upon their arrival they are quickly escorted into a dungeon cell to await their fate. It doesn't take long for them to realize that they are to be sent to the arena to be sacrificed in honor of the new cult.

Sent upon the sands to be sacrificed, they do battle with other slaves and then the pit beast, a giant black desert scorpion. As they are fighting, a sudden sandstorm strikes the arena, and a lighting bolt strikes the stands, knocking the high priest into the arena floor and blowing a hole open in side walls. Seeing a chance to flee, the party kill the priest and use the cover of the storm to escape into the desert.

Chapter 2 - Tomb of Ilias

While being pursued into the desert, the party seek shelter in some standing stones which they discovered. While there, they meet a ancient lotusmaster who has been searching for the ancient tomb of Ilais, a great and powerful Lotusmaster from a time long ago. After a brief parlay, they agree to terms. If they enter the Tomb and retrieve the object that the old sage is looking for, in return they can keep anything else and the sage will direct them to a nearby city in which they may rest before they flee further north.

They enter the tomb, finding a large chamber with one single sarcophagus guarded by two large statues. Ancient magics was in place and one of the statues animated, attacking the party. After the defeat of the statue, they find a secret chamber, containing the treasures that the lotusmaster sought. Later that night, the party slept soundly and restfully in the walled city known as Thinthaius.

Chapter 3 Heart of the Scorpion

While in the city, they hear that the cult of the scorpion is rising to power faster than anyone could have expected and in this city, the ancient tower of the Sun God, was re dedicated to Scorpios. The ancient holy jewel known as the Soul of the Sun, corrupted by evil magics and renamed to the Heart of the Scorpion. Worth a kings ransom, the party decides to steal it.

To break into the holy temple, the party scale the walls and enter the temple gardens, and are attacked by a trio of roaming shadow lions, and then a group of guards came to investigate the noise. Dispatching the guards, the party then scales the walls into the tower. While inside they witness a gruesome discovery, the heart of the scorpion being bathed in a fountain of blood from wild eyes and dedicated followers of the scorpion. Breaking into the chamber, they slaughter the cult and its priest and steal the jewel. What ever wards were casts, as soon as the jewel was removed from the vile jars of blood, the temple started to shake and tremble, facing the full wrath of the now angered Sun God for defiling its home. The temple collapsed, but the party managed to escape the destruction.

Chapter 4. Road of the Gods

What ever battles were taking place in the spiritual realm was starting to flow over into the Red Desert. Since the destruction of the Temple, a violent sand storm as been scouring the walled cities, and anyone foolish enough to be caught outside. Using this time to mask their escape, the party flee north to the border of Kyros.

12 days of travel it took them, chased and hounded by servants of the Scorpion. Swarms, Giant Scorpions, Demonic Hounds and even a Singer Demon constantly on their trail, never giving the party a chance to fully relax. But tracked they were, and just prior to being able to enter the pass to Kryos, the party is attacked by a high sorcerer priest of the Scorpion, his followers , guards and many of the Scorpions minions.

After a large battle, the party forced the high priest to flee but not before wounding him in the process. With freedom in hand the party flee into Kyros and out of that accursed desert, but not before gaining a major enemy. The Cult of the Scorpion.

A Big Thank You!

I would like to say thank you to all of the players who were willing to give this a go, who all made this story fun and interesting no matter what I threw at them. From great creative insights to totally inappropriate rude and crude one liners! I had a lot of fun hosting this with you all, and I hope you all had fun being a part of it. 

Someday soon I hope to explore more of the Dread Sea Dominions and I hope you will come with me again!

The Brief Savage Battlestar Back Story: The Cestus

The Brief Savage Battlestar Back Story.

The Battlestar Universe is a great system to play in, great concept, great everything. But if you play it as if you are in the latest series, it is very linear. So, although it would be fun to play games with NPCs like Starbuck or Apollo, a GM may find it challenging to explore the setting if you want to be play that particular aspect of the story. (At least I find it difficult)

I wanted to play in the same time frame as the series, but away from Galactica. So like others I designed my own little step off point where players can jump into the action.  Yes, Galactica got away, saving 50,000 + people that day. Pegasus also fled, found survivors and eventually found Galactica. But there were millions, if not billions of people in the system. There had to be more survivors, resistance, maybe even some great last stand. Where, when and how that happens is up to you, the GM.

My setting takes place on Day 1 of the Cylon attack on the twelve colonies. The story begins with the Rapid Interdiction Cruiser “Cestus”. The RIC class cruisers were being designed to be a rapid response/strike craft to be used in response to any immediate warfare needs. Cetus is complemented with roughly 500 crew, can also handle one Company of Marines (130), 1 squadron of MK VII Vipers (20), 2 Raptors, and 1 Gunship Raptor.

The Cestus, still in the development/testing stage was performing space trials with an under strength crew of only 250 Crew, 1 ship security platoon of Marines (32), 12 Mk VII Vipers and 1 Raptor during the time of the attack.

The space trials were for testing all of the “off the net” systems, in case the CNP was ever lost during a conflict. The testing required that all CNP systems to be hard shut down and use secondary systems. It was mere chance; the Cestus did not suffer the same fate as the rest of the colonial fleet.  With the CNP systems offline and hard shut, the Cylon virus activated but could not interact with the main system controls as designed. This allowed ship techs to react quick enough to stop the virus from affecting the rest of the ship. After knowing what the virus could do, the techs kept the CNP systems turned off on their current compliment of fighters. Allowing them to perform as needed. *Game note* until the crew can find a more efficient way of keeping the CNP offline, all missile lock rolls/DRADIS rolls/Astrogation rolls are (-1)

Even while still understrength, the Cestus regrouped and immediately jumped to its closet military port, The Shipyards of Scorpio. When the FTL jump was completed, they found themselves in a hellish situation. Their jump into the system was masked by the sudden and unsuspected blind jump by the Pegasus which just that moment departed! This allowed Commander Tobias Whitney to witness the destruction of the remainder of the Scorpio shipyards. Then the Cylons noticed the Cestus.. This is where your story begins!

I have loads of my own notes, NPCs, back stories. But I save that for my games. At least for now, you have the Cestus, her Crew, Pilots, Fighter Craft, and Marines for your players to become a part of.

Welcome aboard the Cestus!