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Old 07-24-2009, 05:50 AM   #1
Dangerious P. Cats
 
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Default When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

I'm working on a setting in which the Gulf Stream has collasped and europe has been plunged into a new ice age, leading to economic chaos and ultimatly a Europe wide war. The campaign is basically a war story but it will have some strong horror elements. For the horror bits I want the players to feel that the cold is the enemy, not just the Polar Bears that are stalking them. I trying to work out how get the most out of weather conditions in terms of building stress and fear amoung the players and was wondering if any one could offer ideas.

Beyound that I need help flshing out the setting and some advice on character creation.The players will be part of a military force but by no means professional soldiers since much of the Force's job is to try and help those afflicted by the environmental and social breakdown. I'm wondering what basic skills to give someone whose been made to go through military training because their assisting a military force, but aren't professional soldiers. I'm also wanting to include some martial arts elements in the campaign and was thinking of writing up an entrenching tool style, as well a style for any other melee weapons that might come to use. Can any one make suggestions on how I should go about it? Thus far all I can think of is look for soldiers accounts of how they used them.
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Old 07-24-2009, 06:00 AM   #2
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

Tectuctitlay's conversions has a Exit 23 conversion on it. That has a good feel for the cold being an enemy it also contains a winter demon if that would be of interest.
http://sites.google.com/site/tectuct...e/gurps-horror
worth a read through anyway.
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Old 07-24-2009, 06:21 AM   #3
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

I like the idea of the cold being the enemy. I'm just brainstorming a little bit, nothing necessarily pertinent, well thought out, or good. But let me take a crack at it.

The cold or the bad wind or something should seem to be sentient, that's for sure. How to do that? Make the worst of it seem to follow the group, or to pinpoint the group. Maybe the weather gets really bad at all the worst possible times, as if it knows when it can most hinder the PCs. And when it does so, they realize that it's not doing that in other places, that the storm is pinpointed on them.

Also, people should have weird theories about it. Throw a bunch of different ideas at them about what is happening, and let them sort it all out. Researchers looking into ancient prophecies, crazy homeless men, strange matter of fact mutterings of children, these are your friends. What do they say? I don't know. Maybe the poles were the prisons of ancient cthuloid monsters, maybe two of them at war with one another. Maybe it is time for Hades to claim his bride (isn't he considered god of not only death and the underworld but also winter?). Maybe horrors from an ancient forgotten war are being released. They don't even necessarily have to have been physically frozen solid in the ice. Maybe their essence was somehow trapped in the ice, and they are slowly coming closer to the physical world, slowly becoming more substantial. If so, the ice itself really can be thought to be malicious, as can water. Or those could just be crazy ideas of people who don't know any better.

Take a look at earthweek.com. It's a world map with the last week in news about the earth. Mostly stuff like volcanos, earthquakes, news on animal populations and glaciers, the highest and lowest temperatures of the week, hurricanes, stuff like that. Sometimes it's really interesting. This week we have a black "mystery blob" north of Alaska that turns out to be algae in a place algae shouldn't be and record highs in Antartica. Take a look at it, I think you'll find it useful.
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Old 07-24-2009, 08:41 AM   #4
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

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Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats View Post
I'm working on a setting in which the Gulf Stream has collasped and europe has been plunged into a new ice age, leading to economic chaos and ultimatly a Europe wide war. The campaign is basically a war story but it will have some strong horror elements. For the horror bits I want the players to feel that the cold is the enemy, not just the Polar Bears that are stalking them. I trying to work out how get the most out of weather conditions in terms of building stress and fear amoung the players and was wondering if any one could offer ideas..
The thing I'd be wondering as a player is "What are we fighting for?" I mean the logical thing for the Europeans do is to move south and fight to take land away from the inhabitants of the Middle East and Africa. If your problem is frozen land, the answer is not to fight for more frozen land.
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Old 07-24-2009, 12:15 PM   #5
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

There are not a few books about Artic and Antarctic adventures that do quite a good job portraying winter as an active adversary.

Real world stories of the Dawson Patrol, the Franklin Expedition, and Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole are good for info and inspiration.

One of winter's nastiest tricks is to seem to slacken off. It'll lure you out further than you should go from shelter, then whack you. Or it'll rain on you, get your gear all wet, then whack you with real cold.

For less realistic inspiration, consider the mythologies of Russia and Finland.
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Old 07-24-2009, 04:18 PM   #6
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

This is based on a campaign wherein the Wendigo AKA Ithaqua is loosed on the world.

Snap Syndrome

Snap Syndrome is the vernacular for a variety of prion related disorders coming to surface after the Snap. Current theories hold that SS and kuru (a disease found in New Guinea cannibals) are part of the same pathology, the kuru prion having been partially denatured and altered by extreme cold. SS seems to be an endogenous disease - the potential is present in all human flesh, especially nerve tissue, requiring only a flash freeze to activate it, followed by cannibalism of the frozen body. SS is unique among prion diseases in that it is not fatal (unfortunately).

The disease comes in three manifestations, SS1-3. All are contagious via bodily fluids. Symptoms manifest within a month after exposure. There is no cure, but eventually, determining which proteins are needed and making them artificially might offer some hope.


SS1 is the most common form. The victims develop a profound need for human flesh - it seems that their bodies lose the ability to make certain proteins found in human neural tissue. Cognition remains normal, outside the bounds of the overwhelming compulsion. It should be noted that SS1 almost always is accompanied by profound post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental debilities. Victims often form limited communities that are superficially, even bizarrely, like that of their pre-Snap lives. These communities seem disinterested in preying on each other. Long term consequences of SS1 seem almost like devolution. It has been postulated that SS1 is an evolved response, present but unexpressed, waiting for climatic emergencies (this is very fringe). Long term effects include increased cold tolerance, greater strength, changes in dentition, growth of osteocranial abnormalities (ie, horns) and a range of other symptoms, most of them prosurvival in a frozen, hostile world.


SS2 is the "mildest" form, usually presenting as self-mutilation and autocannibalism. The victim is first afflicted with involuntary relentless chewing, which rapidly takes it's toll on the lips and tongue. Cognition is not directly affected, but few victims retain any form of sanity for long. In latter stages, usually a full month after first symptoms, the chewing will move on to fingers and even toes. At this point, it is most common for the afflicted to deliberately bite through the radial artery, effectively committing suicide. Strong sedatives and anti-psychotics lessen the symptoms, but the only real treatment is a bite guard, preferable tied in place. A combination of thorazine, bite guards, extinction therapy and lots of chew toys can restore a degree of normalcy in some cases.

SS3 was the last discovered and possibly most serious form of the disease. Although the effects on the victim are very limited, SS3 is profoundly dangerous to societies as a whole. SS3 has a year long dormancy, followed by the development of a vastly increased sex drive accompanied by spells of "slimy sweats". Both of these serve only to distribute the prion. More disturbingly, victims often develop a kind of paranoia, in which they dedicated hide their disease related activities. When SS3 was first discovered and symptoms were described, it was expected that most victims would seek care - but almost none did. They simply went further underground, and developed more effective techniques for spreading the disease. SS3 "marys" have been found in food services, water treatment (the prion is unaffected by chlorine) and even working as doctors and nurses. The development of a simple skin test has mostly stopped the spread of the disease. Note that those infected by SS3 carriers may develop any form of the disease.

I should note that prions are *very* difficult to disinfect. The modern protocol is to destroy any equipment that comes in contact with a prion infected individual's neural tissue, after several cases where in CJD was transmitted in hospitals via sterilized equipment. They are also very hard to detect and utterly incurable. Real prion diseases are not really infectious - you have to eat neural tissue of an infected individual to get the disease. SS is *very* infectious - this is the kind of this that epidemiologists have screaming nightmares about.

Finding the first cannibals, trying to save them, watching your team members start chewing their lips off, realizing the infection....great horror.

Last edited by tantric; 07-24-2009 at 04:37 PM.
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Old 07-26-2009, 09:42 AM   #7
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

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The thing I'd be wondering as a player is "What are we fighting for?" I mean the logical thing for the Europeans do is to move south and fight to take land away from the inhabitants of the Middle East and Africa. If your problem is frozen land, the answer is not to fight for more frozen land.
Europe is highliy reliant on international support to rebuild. Beyond the problems of the war it's economy is in tatters (as is the rest of the world's mind you). I'm pretty skeptical that the international community would look kindly on Europe invading soverign territory of another nation. Europe's politicians set about the goal of rebuilding, seeking aid from the international community as well as pooling their own resources. As part of the initial responce many countries, including the Chinese and Americans, hired out private security firms to help restore order and facilitate rebuilding. Although this seemed benign at first it soon became apparent that the firms were a means of persuing foreign policy objectives. It was not long before the firms and the European secuirty forces came to blows in a sort of proxy war. Although nearly all powers stopped openy funding the security firms they still continued to pay subsiderary companies lucrative rebuilding contracts which the Europeans were powerless to stop due to reliance on foreign aid. Nor can they put presure on the suporting nations to remove the security firms, being content to turn a blind eye to the war and hope to come out the winner.
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Old 07-26-2009, 10:22 AM   #8
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

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Originally Posted by Dangerious P. Cats View Post
Europe is highliy reliant on international support to rebuild. Beyond the problems of the war it's economy is in tatters (as is the rest of the world's mind you). I'm pretty skeptical that the international community would look kindly on Europe invading soverign territory of another nation. Europe's politicians set about the goal of rebuilding, seeking aid from the international community as well as pooling their own resources. As part of the initial responce many countries, including the Chinese and Americans, hired out private security firms to help restore order and facilitate rebuilding. Although this seemed benign at first it soon became apparent that the firms were a means of persuing foreign policy objectives. It was not long before the firms and the European secuirty forces came to blows in a sort of proxy war. Although nearly all powers stopped openy funding the security firms they still continued to pay subsiderary companies lucrative rebuilding contracts which the Europeans were powerless to stop due to reliance on foreign aid. Nor can they put presure on the suporting nations to remove the security firms, being content to turn a blind eye to the war and hope to come out the winner.
Fair enough. But what are they going to do with the frozen land? It's not like there's a lot of farming north of the Arctic Circle now, and if the Gulf Stream went conditions likely would be similar to that in many places further south.

It's winter. There's lots of snow and it's cold. Even if the frost goes in the summer it's slow to do so, and in many places you have permafrost.
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Old 07-26-2009, 10:49 PM   #9
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

Don't forget the constant little annoyances the cold can bring. It should play havoc on the PCs' equipment, and be a constant nuisance. Bolt-action rifles are your friend in frigid weather, as automatics will tend to jam up due to the metal flexing caused by cold. Even then bolt-actions can still malfunction. This can be disconcerting when facing down that polar bear. On a less dramatic note, cold is really not good for batteries. Lead-acid (found in the starter systems of most vehicles) crap out in cold weather, and even hardier battery types have their lifespans shortened in cold weather. Having the camp generator fail in the middle of the night then finding out all the spare flashlight batteries are choking in the cold can be a great way to drive home the fact that cold is the enemy to the PCs.
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Old 07-27-2009, 07:19 AM   #10
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Default Re: When you're at war with winter itself, not just Polar bears and fascists

Just check all +/- for Artic survival ... = deadly problem.

Youll need to track food,fatigue..etc meticulously to "drag" PCs down.

Best character profiles would be Mountain rescue personnel(all European countries have them...just Google it..on some sites youll find their training regime).In majority of country's it is volunteer based(with very small core of professionals) a kin to volunteer fire-fighters but to much smaller extent.

They would have necessary skills to help/track misfortunates in such conditions.
Also such outfits are regularly based on paramilitary regime when out in the field.

Weapon skills would be a must in such campaign... so people can be cops,ex military,hunters...etc though I wouldnt give players templates ... Its always better to let them make their chars(You can always say that they know each others and are members of Mountain rescue or whatever with such/such set of skills/few points theyll need there).
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