Pyramid #3/90: After the End

[PK]

Sharp teeth, metal claws;
Why can't the wasteland ever
Be full of kittens?

— Last words of Cygnus Bright, nomad

If we're going to launch a new series, like GURPS After the End, it's only right to give it some support right out of the gate. That's why we kicked things off with Pyramid #3/88: The End Is Nigh -- which was both a preview of and support for GURPS After the End 1: Wastelanders and GURPS After the End 2: The New World -- and are now wrapping up this "quadrilogy" with Pyramid #3/90: After the End.

Those looking for new rules, dangers, and campaign settings for their After the End games will want this issue -- but even those who shun the wastes will find a lot to love: new robots for your ultra-tech games, freaky new powers to use in your supers campaign, expanded survival rules for your low-tech setting, tricks for reskinning the monsters from your dungeon crawl, and so on. There's something for everyone to enjoy:

• For some, the wasteland and mutants are indelibly linked. Whether caused by proteus nanotech, radiation plus latent genes, a cinematic disease, or some other technobabble, mutation offers a wide range of enemies . . . and an excuse to give your wastelanders kewl powerz! In Are We Not Men?, PK Levine significantly expands Chapter 3 of Wastelanders with 26 new mutations, three suggested "oddities" for every mutation (including existing ones), a random generation table, and several new rules, clarifications, and suggestions. Basically, it's GURPS After the End 1.5: Mutants -- enjoy!
  
  
• If you're looking for a detailed and exciting New World, you can't do much better than David Pulver's GURPS Reign of Steel. Robots rising up to wipe out humanity, a world divided into zones, strange creations and plots wherever you turn . . . it's easy to see why Roger Burton West brought it into Fourth Edition, first via GURPS Reign of Steel: Will to Live and now with Robots After the End. Learn about the hazards unique to each zone and enjoy the updated XAU-08 Tarantula stats.
  
  
• The Blue Moon virus wiped out most of humanity and changed a few of the survivors (not usually in a good way). From the ashes, two new nations rose: the technophobic Kingdom of Heaven and the Republic of Jude, home to The Mercy Dolls, Old World robots designed to counter Blue Moon by any means necessary. In this month's Eidetic Memory, David Pulver has crafted a complex setting in which no one side is "right" or "wrong"; everyone simply thinks they have the best answer for survival. Make your own choices: stand alone or with a nation; join the mutants or wipe them out; fight the Mercy Dolls or use the new racial and character template to play one. It's up to you.
  
  
• For as long as there have been multiple RPGs, GMs have been stealing monsters from Game A to throw at their players in Game B -- after making a few genre-based changes, of course. So if you find yourself craving an even longer wasteland bestiary, first consider Warping Monsters into Mutants. Peter Dell'Orto walks you through converting Dungeon Fantasy monsters to fit After the End, by examining and playing to the different genre assumptions. And if you're pressed for time, just pit your players against the three worked examples: the burning eye, toximan, and prisoner cyborg.
  
  
• But no matter what terrible, strange foes a wastelander faces, at the end of the day the greatest challenge may just be Survival at the End. Christopher Rice fleshes out the guidelines from The New World with detailed, realistic rules for gathering and cultivating plants (for more than just food!), trapping small game and fish, determining your prey and how it reacts when hunted, finding and filtering water, and starting a fire (which can be a life-or-death need). Use these, and the four new survival-oriented perks, to face the true challenge of a dangerous world: simply staying alive.
  
  
• And "after the end" of these articles you'll find our usual features, including a Random Thought Table that assumes that The Powers That Were saw the end coming and planned for it, in ways that will affect the entire campaign -- and a Short Bursts that combines a look into the future with nostalgia for its (but not our) past.

—

Store Link: http://www.warehouse23.com/products/SJG37-2690
Preview PDF: http://www.warehouse23.com/media/SJG37-2690_preview.pdf

[Christopher R. Rice]

I offer up some Designer's Notes on my blog and this coming Saturday I'll be releasing some more detailed rules for shelter-building in the vein of my fire-building rules on my Patreon page.

[PK]

And now that "Are We Not Men?" is up and out, my sample Mutated Hulk/Bruiser character doesn't need as much explanation. Basically, my friend Ben pointed out that Electrified Skin and Immolation could be pretty terrifying together and just barely fit into a single Mutated lens . . . and the rest, as they say, is char-build.

[RogerBW]

Also some further notes on robots here.

[(E)]

I'll have to skip writing up phytoremediation on the farming example thread now. Poplars can be added to the list though and bacterial filtration for heavy metals.

Edit
and geraniums

[Anders]

Too bad really. I had an idea for an AtE article, but I suppose it'll have to wait. The market is saturated for the moment.

Maybe I can Fast-Talk Ghostdancer into giving me a guest spot on his blog.

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Anders

Too bad really. I had an idea for an AtE article, but I suppose it'll have to wait. The market is saturated for the moment.

Maybe I can Fast-Talk Ghostdancer into giving me a guest spot on his blog.

I suspect that many bloggers would be amenable to hosting articles from those with opinions but no wish to start a blog themselves. I've done it before at least 2-3 time, as has Christopher.

[Christopher R. Rice]

Originally Posted by Anders

Too bad really. I had an idea for an AtE article, but I suppose it'll have to wait. The market is saturated for the moment.

Maybe I can Fast-Talk Ghostdancer into giving me a guest spot on his blog.

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I suspect that many bloggers would be amenable to hosting articles from those with opinions but no wish to start a blog themselves. I've done it before at least 2-3 time, as has Christopher.

As a general rule - anyone who wants to put up a blog topic on my blog is welcome to PM or email me and we can talk about it. I'm definitely open to it. For you, Anders? No Fast-Talk required. Send me what you want to do to my email and we'll go from there.

[PK]

So . . . any opinions on the issue? Feel free to say which articles you loved, which ones you liked, which ones were meh, and which were so terrible they made you struggle with the darkness of existence only to decide at the last moment to push on for one more day.

[RogerBW]

At the moment I'm not running or planning a post-apocalypse game, so Survival is the winner for me. Warping has some ideas on how to build threats for different flavours of PC challenge. When I get back to running Reign of Steel, particularly in less-developed zones, I'll probably get more use from this issue.