A Challenge Is Issued!

That eternal question of "What do I run?" seems to be developing an answer.

 Thinking of how to speed up and streamline the adventure/scenario-generation process, I'm drawn to Ashes Without Number. The way it lays out the prospective campaign structure and provides adventure design tools feel like something that can generate something gameable fairly quickly. So I've been trying to put a bit more effort into fleshing out that setting and making it even more robust.

I realized that my home base needed more fleshing out. There's a temptation to treat the home location as rather generic to make it easier for the players to relate to. But I rolled Enclave tags for it just like the other Enclaves, and it would give the location a nice bit of flavor.

Those tags are Splinter Group and Evangelist. For a long time, I wasn't sure where they splintered from, but I think I've got it figured out. Part of that was the desire to keep it generic, but once I fought down that impulse, I took a look at the candidates.

Because the area is so rural and out of the way, there are only 2 other Enclaves for them to splinter from, Ferndale and Squatch-ville. While there is the possibility of them splintering from a more remote faction, let's take a look at the local situation first.

Ferndale feels somewhat obvious as the radioactive environment is likely to result in an exodus, but the description of the Splinter Group tag describes a level of animosity involved in the splinter and I can't see the people of Ferndale treated with anything but a sad empathy. They have made the decision to be resigned to their doom.

But Squatch-ville has more potential for internal splintering. We've already established that there's a noble class of Sasquatch ruling over the human settlers and that there are problems under the surface that are being ignored. If those problems have been brewing long enough, there could be groups splintering for periods of time.

This does mean that the people living in Eureka may or may not be related to the pre-apocalypse inhabitants of Eureka, which does make things interesting. Since part of the old city is designated as a Ruin, my thought is that the entire city had previously fallen to ruin (or at least occupation by ratfolk) and the arriving splinter proceeded to establish themselves there.

Though now I feel like I need to know more of Squatch-ville's deal. The people of Eureka didn't splinter recently (there's a separate Enclave tag for that), so whatever problems they have have been brewing for a long time, at least a generation. That might also offer clues as to what the Evangelist tag is about.

As part of my efforts to flesh out the setting, I will be attempting to participate in Barking Alien's Campaign Tour Challenge.  I know my history with completing these blogging challenges is not great, but it seems like a good challenge at a fortuitous time.