Sunday, August 24, 2025

Ashes Part 1

 As I expected, I wasn't able to get it together to get ideas for all 31 prompts for RPGaDay. What I didn't expect is that a whole new set of ideas did jump out at me.

 I've been a fan of Kevin Crawford and Sine Nomine Publishing for quite some time. I found Stars Without Number in a Bundle of Holding and was very excited by it. I've since backed Kickstarters for other games in the line, most recently Ashes Without Number, the post apocalyptic game.

 Once that Kickstarter fulfilled and I got that book in my hot little hands, which happened just a few weeks ago, my brain has been burning with the idea of building an AWN post apocalyptic sandbox setting based on my hometown, Eureka, California.

The first thing to do was assemble the map. I was able to put together a nice map of the area at https://www.map.army/ complete with 5 km hexes. The suggested map dimensions wound up covering all of Humboldt and Del Norte counties.

The second step was placing my Eclaves (communities) and Ruins (adventure locations). For the suggested map area, AWN recommends 4-6 Enclaves and 10 Ruins. This gave me some trouble. That area is distinctly rural, so there's just not enough "there" there for all that to fit into. I could make some stuff up, make some places more important than they really warrant, but I ultimately gave myself permission to do less. I cut those suggested values in half. 3 Enclaves and 5 Ruins. Much more doable.

 My Enclaves were:

1) Old Town Eureka (The city center, the oldest part of the city and home of one of the most photographed buildings in North America, the Carson Mansion

2) Ferndale (A farming community that felt very likely to continue into whatever apocalypse there might be.) 

3) Squatch-ville (This is the Pacific Northwest, which is Bigfoot Country. Are they atomic mutants, or did the apocalypse force them to reveal themselves? Who knows! This is located in Del Norte County, not far from Gasquet, just so there would be some bit of civilization.)

My Ruins were

1) The rest of Eureka (my map split the city between two hexes, so this felt very natural)

2) Arcata (home of Cal Poly Humboldt, pioneer in marine biology, eco-friendly technology and marijuana.)

3) McKinleyville (home of the Eureka-Arcata Airport)

4) Crescent City (As much as I was chagrined with how little there is to Humboldt County, Del Norte County has even less. This is the only city they have and it's right on the coast and it's easy to imagine it getting swept by a tsunami in just about any apocalypse.)

5) Hoopa (This was a stretch. Everyplace else of any note was already an Enclave or a Ruin. Also, everything else is very close to the coast, so putting something inland felt right.)

 More to come!

No comments:

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...