J
Jeran Korak
Guest
Original poster
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|Introduction|
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A cold wind blows through the empty streets of London. It is a city in decay; abandoned by its residents and given over to the rats, crows and packs of feral dogs. Some would say that the British Isles were lucky; they didn't have to deal with the pollution clouds, the tidal waves, the wars, refugees and plagues. In the end, though, none of that truly mattered. England might have been spared the cataclysms that have ravaged the rest of Europe, but those were just symptoms of a larger problem. Nearly eight years without the lifeblood of modern society has reduced the once-proud civilization to ashes. With no imported food and no means of transporting native crops to population centers, cities like London have been effectively uninhabited for years. The noisy bustle of pedestrians has been replaced by the cawing of crows and ravens, their mournful sounds echoing in the empty streets and decaying buildings.
The only remaining tenants of this former capital city are opportunistic scavengers or tiny communities that have somehow managed to eke out a meager existence in their own ways. With the rural regions home to bands of militant survivalists, disease-infested refugee shanties and the odd wandering cannibal, London has become an attractive prospect in recent months for those seeking asylum from the chaos that perpetuates across the rest of England. The vast city offers many hiding places for those that don't wish to be found, not to mention offering ever-valuable knowledge and supplies to those who know where to find it. The ruins of the past may yet hold the keys to the future. With the vicious winters of the past two years behind it and the summer of 2028 on the horizon, the city of London may yet find itself the center of a community that may one day change the world for the better... or worse.
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|Setting History|
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///It is the seventh anniversary of the Saudi Arabian oil field bombings, when a coordinated strike by unknown forces ignited multiple high-yield incendiary bombs in rigs across the Middle East. The fire raged for years, leaving large sections of Israel and northern Africa uninhabitable due to air pollution. The immediate repercussions of this attack drove oil prices to their highest point in decades. War between nations was all but inevitable as reserves were depleted and cities descended into anarchy. What follows is a basic timeline of the events leading up to today.\\\
|Introduction|
|---~~~---|
A cold wind blows through the empty streets of London. It is a city in decay; abandoned by its residents and given over to the rats, crows and packs of feral dogs. Some would say that the British Isles were lucky; they didn't have to deal with the pollution clouds, the tidal waves, the wars, refugees and plagues. In the end, though, none of that truly mattered. England might have been spared the cataclysms that have ravaged the rest of Europe, but those were just symptoms of a larger problem. Nearly eight years without the lifeblood of modern society has reduced the once-proud civilization to ashes. With no imported food and no means of transporting native crops to population centers, cities like London have been effectively uninhabited for years. The noisy bustle of pedestrians has been replaced by the cawing of crows and ravens, their mournful sounds echoing in the empty streets and decaying buildings.
The only remaining tenants of this former capital city are opportunistic scavengers or tiny communities that have somehow managed to eke out a meager existence in their own ways. With the rural regions home to bands of militant survivalists, disease-infested refugee shanties and the odd wandering cannibal, London has become an attractive prospect in recent months for those seeking asylum from the chaos that perpetuates across the rest of England. The vast city offers many hiding places for those that don't wish to be found, not to mention offering ever-valuable knowledge and supplies to those who know where to find it. The ruins of the past may yet hold the keys to the future. With the vicious winters of the past two years behind it and the summer of 2028 on the horizon, the city of London may yet find itself the center of a community that may one day change the world for the better... or worse.
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|Setting History|
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///It is the seventh anniversary of the Saudi Arabian oil field bombings, when a coordinated strike by unknown forces ignited multiple high-yield incendiary bombs in rigs across the Middle East. The fire raged for years, leaving large sections of Israel and northern Africa uninhabitable due to air pollution. The immediate repercussions of this attack drove oil prices to their highest point in decades. War between nations was all but inevitable as reserves were depleted and cities descended into anarchy. What follows is a basic timeline of the events leading up to today.\\\
-2021: The US annexes Canada after a lengthy series of legal battles fails to secure them an exclusive contract with Canadian petroleum companies. Oil production grinds to a halt for months as displaced civilian workers go on strike or are incompetently managed by untrained military overseers. Other oil-rich countries such as Venezuela begin to quietly stockpile armaments as political tensions rise.
-January 10th 2022: A paramilitary organisation calling itself the CRMV (Canadian Reservist Militia & Volunteers) attacks US military forces stationed outside of Ottawa with an arsenal of homemade explosives and civilian firearms. Both sides suffer appalling casualties after an ammunition dump explodes. From 2022 to 2024, the CRMV will kill dozens of soldiers and hundreds of civilians in terrorist attacks all over Canada and the northern United States.
-July 2022: China attempts to invade Russia after failing to negotiate a so-called 'oil pact' with the country. The comparatively functional Russian military barely needs to respond as the oil-starved Chinese war machine grinds to a halt shortly after it crosses the border. Meanwhile The European Union disintegrates as oil reserves dry up and their economic futures collapse.
-December 23rd 2022: The president of the U.S.A declares Martial Law. This declaration remains in effect until the dissolution of the United States of America some years from now. The complete inability for American mechanized infantry divisions to mount any kind of successful offensive against the CRMV without air support (jets having been grounded due to fuel shortages)
-2023: Air pollution levels from the gigantic firestorms in Saudi Arabia reach lands as far away as Italy and France. Environmental experts now believe that Oman, Yemen, and Eritrea are unsuitable for human habitation and must be evacuated. Parts of Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Iran and Iraq are also facing similar problems. The international community generally ignores these warnings. England, Spain, France and Italy begin discussing plans for food rationing as supply lines between them and breadbasket countries becomes tenuous.
-January-March 2024: Millions of refugees from poisoned lands flee to West Africa, Asia and Europe, exacerbating economic collapse across the world. Greece descends into anarchy as air pollution devastates their annual harvests. Meanwhile, the worst famine since the Great Leap Forward is busy devastating China; tens of millions will die before the beginning of 2025.
-April-July 2024: Most of Europe is now on rationing. Contact between continental countries and island nations is at an all-time low as fuel shortages make overseas transport prohibitively expensive. A CRMV bomb destroys an emergency oil pipeline between Canada and the United States. Mexico attempts to invade Venezuela with a force consisting mostly of unsupported infantry and is repulsed by the comparatively operational Venezuelan army.
-August-December 2024: Global infrastructures collapses as machinery powered by alternate energy sources break down from overuse and lack of replacement parts. While local economies can still function at a sustenance level, the capitalist market effectively ceases to exist. Russia begins pre-emptively preparing for complete global anarchy. The Japanese plead with the rest of the international community to maintain shipments of food to their island nation, but these pleas go unheard by the rest of the world.
-January 2025: Political pressure is placed on Venezuela to increase its export of oil by a factor of five. The Venezuelan government claims this figure is unattainable but grudgingly agrees to increase production in exchange for extra food supplies. The US army initiates the Reservist Reforms, which emphasizes flexible small-unit infantry tactics over mechanized deployments. The CRMV detonates bombs in Seattle, destroying an oil convoy seeking to resupply the city. The ensuing fire devastates most of the inner city.
-February 2025: The suicide rate in the western world has quintupled since 2018 and is still on the rise. A psychological study conducted by several prominent universities across the United States concludes that well over half the population is suffering from depression in one form or another. Rationing in the western hemisphere is staving off full-scale famine for now, but reserves are dwindling and transport costs remain prohibitive. Refugees from the uninhabitable Middle Eastern zones are the hardest hit by famine, they die in their thousands. A starving Japan attempts to send a fleet south to raid island nations in the South China Sea for food, but most of the ships run out of fuel and drift helplessly at the mercy of the four winds.
-March 2nd 2025: An unidentified terrorist group sabotages the largest oil tanker in the world as it prepares to sail from mainland Europe to China. The Olympus Mons goes up in a fireball large enough to be observed from the International Space Station when a stolen military truck carrying more than fifteen tons of high explosive is detonated on the docks of Lisbon Harbour during the unloading process. The tanker had been scheduled to deliver an emergency petroleum reserve to every ocean-bordered country in Europe before continuing to China. Without it there is little chance of economic recovery for the west.
-April 8th 2025: The Russian oil pipelines are cut without warning, severing the last trickle of fuel to a dying Europe. On the same day, unmarked helicopters airlift Russian diplomats from embassy posts in Germany, Belgium and Denmark. All attempts by the other world powers to contact Russia after this date are rebuffed.
-April 10th 2025: A German convoy approaching a Russian border depot is fired upon by the garrison. Neither side sustains casualties, but the Germans are forced to retreat back towards Berlin.
-June 2025: The Resource Wars begin. Germany and Italy declare war on Russia, giving the severance of diplomatic ties to Europe and the severing of the oil pipelines as reason for their invasion. The attackers end up doing more damage to their own countries then to Russia, using up the last of their gas reserves in a combined attack that succeeds in crossing into Russia, but is then utterly annihilated by a barrage of thermobaric warheads just north of the Russian/German border. The Russian government still refuses to contact the outside world.
-July 2025: The Resource Wars reach their second round as talks between European nations fail to establish equitable exchanges of vital goods. France invades Germany, Spain invades France, and England invades both countries soon afterwards. Belgium tries to remain neutral, but is dragged into the conflict when French and German soldiers clash within their borders. Most attacks consist of infantry raiding parties, as few military vehicles still operate. These skirmishes disrupt supply lines on an international scale and by July more than a thousand people will have starved to death across Europe. This number will rise geometrically throughout the rest of the 2020's.
-August-December 2025: Lack of adequate health care has given rise to epidemics of disease in parts of the United States and Europe. Typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis and pneumonia run rampant throughout the winter months. Bubonic plague breaks out in India, racing through the starving Chinese refugee communities and travelling west. Since disinfectants are rare and national garbage cleanup virtually nonexistent, flea-carrying vermin experience a population explosion. The Black Death devastates Europe and the Mediterranean for the first time in centuries, killing more people in a year than any other infectious disease in history besides the Spanish Flu. Global food production is 10% of what it was three years ago.
-Janurary 2026: The Saudi Arabian oil fields finally burn themselves out after consuming more than one hundred billion barrels worth of crude oil. The legacy of the fires is a gigantic smog cloud that blankets most of the southern hemisphere, reducing sunlight levels by as much as 50%. Most of the Middle-East and large swathes of eastern Africa are now completely uninhabitable. Toxic ash rains across Turkey and the surrounding lands. Climactic damage triggers has at this point begun triggering massive storm systems across the Mediterranean and Pacific oceans. While these will have mostly blown themselves out by 2028, they will have spread oil smog and (after July 3rd) radioactive contaminants across a region that stretches from northern Australia to southern France. Many Mediterranean coastal towns are unprepared for these storms, and are rapidly obliterated.
-February 2026: Holland is submerged as the dikes burst after years of neglect. Most of the population evacuates to nearby countries, which are already experiencing famines and anarchy. Only Russia and the USA still have governments capable of enforcing policy beyond their capital cities and the immediate surroundings. Survivalist enclaves and Mormon outposts are some of the few areas of stability left in the US by this point.
-March-June 2026: Most of South America declares war on Venezuela after collectively realising that whoever controls the Venezuelan oil fields is effectively in unchallenged control over most of the planet. The Venezuelan army fights off hastily-assembled militia from just about every military power on the continent. Refugees from the war swarm over the borders into the US. They bring cholera with them, adding another epidemic to the many already sweeping through the US. The conflict means that the very last reliable supply of crude oil to the intact western worlds has now been severed. Total anarchy is not far behind.
-July 3rd 2026: As their police force crumbles and their populace runs riot, North Korea decides to spite the rest of the world by launching nuclear and chemical warheads against cities in South Korea, China and Japan. Twelve warheads detonate on their targets. Automated silos in Japan and China retaliate. North Korean warheads fired: 20. Retaliation: 59 warheads. The total foreign casualties from the attack number around 1,600,000; roughly half of which die due to poison clouds spread by Korean chemical missiles. Seoul, Qingdao, Fukuoka and Tianjin are the only major population centers damaged by the Korean detonations. North Korea itself is reduced to a smoking, radioactive dustbowl.
-July 9th 2026: A radioactive dust cloud covers Korea, eastern China and parts of Japan, spreading fallout via a lethal black rain. It is estimated that a large percentage of the cloud is made up of ash from nearly twenty-four million corpses incinerated by the nuclear bombardment of North Korea. Thousands of Korean refugees flee the peninsula in a motley collection of seafaring vessels; the remnants of which will later form one of the few stable migrant communities of the late 2020's. Westerns who hear of the evacuation call it 'Dunkirk, but without the safe home across the channel.'
-August-November 2026: The European Resource War ends, not because of a peace treaty, but simply because there are no longer enough people left alive to continue them. England is the only surviving country with a functional government. Pollution and neglect have reduced world food production levels to less than 3% of what they were six years ago. The western world is now effectively 'dry'. Not only is there no oil production of any description taking place any longer, but remaining reserves from the early 2020's (those that still exist) are now too chemically degraded to be used in industrial machinery. In an ironic twist of fate, petrol and petrol derivatives are now more commonly used for their inflammatory properties (usually by rioters) than for their intended purpose as fuel sources for combustion engines.
-December 23rd 2026: The Whitehouse is burnt to the ground by rioters; it has been exactly four years after the declaration of martial law. The United States of America effectively ceases to exist from now on. The only stable communities are small, isolated survivalist groups. Most cities have been abandoned or devastated by storms caused by climatic variances. Those that remain are in the grip of self-styled warlords that have no connection to any civil government. The fate of the president is unknown, but at least three separate militia groups claim to have been responsible for his execution. Christmas day in Washington DC is celebrated by an inebriated mob of rioters, homeless people and military defectors. None of them are quite deluded enough to think their actions will solve anything, but nobody is guarding the liquor stores any longer.
-January-March 2027: The winter of 2026 has been one of the worst in living memory. Reduced sunlight levels have resulted in frigid temperatures across the entire northern hemisphere. More people die of exposure then in the Korean nuclear exchange. Some countries have been utterly depopulated, with the largest concentration of survivors being near Mexico and Northern America, which are comparatively untouched by the ecological damage of the past five years. Mexico in particular is experiencing something of a dilemma, faced with riots at home and the novel situation of having to deal with American refugees crossing into the country via the infamous Texan Border.
-April-November 2027: Refugee communities in the former USA around Utah begin coming down with a mysterious yet invariably fatal disease with symptoms that resemble those of the supposedly extinct Variola major virus (also known as European Smallpox). Poor sanitation in refugee camps contributes to the extremely rapid spread of the disease through a variety of infected vermin and parasites. Unbeknownst to the refugees, their camp is located near to the primary storage locations for US chemical & biological weapons. Years of neglect and weather damage have eroded the seals on several storage tanks, allowed mutated versions of diseases such as Smallpox, Ebola, Bubonic Plague and Anthrax to leak into the surrounding environment. The extreme cold of the previous winter has preserved most of the viral compounds, and allowed them to spread across a vast area. Most of these diseases are non-propagating, but two; Bubonic Plague and Smallpox, are. These invisible killers will go on to effectively exterminate the remaining human population of the continent, with some contaminants reaching as far as Mexico and Canada. Anthrax spores will render vast swathes of the American Midwest non-cultivatable for decades to come.
-December 2027: The complete lack of electronic communications across the globe causes survivors to start referring to this period of history as 'The Great Silence'. Industry and mechanised transportation is a thing of the past. Basic commodities like food and tools are valued at more than their weight in gold. Guns and ammunition are almost as sought after. Global food production levels are now at 0.2% of what they were seven years ago. There are, however, many less mouths to feed. Due to pollution and radiation, approximately 28% of the earth's total land mass has been rendered unfit for human habitation at any level. Most of this area is located in Asia, with some areas of China and Korea so badly irradiated that they are completely inhospitable to all life. Most of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa is swept by radioactive sandstorms on an almost routine basis.
-March 2028: The winter of 2027 has proven proportionately milder than that of 2026, and the dust clouds preventing sunlight from penetrating past the upper atmosphere are beginning to settle. The global climate is beginning to repair itself after the vast pollution waves of the early 2020's, though the average temperature is still several degrees lower than it should be for most regions. Crops are reliably growing again, and the fallout clouds drifting over Eastern Europe have dissipated sufficiently to allow the remaining native life to begin repopulating. Without major human interference, the earth is quickly reverting back to a wilderness state. The human population has roughly stabilized with existing food reserves, with many areas being totally depopulated. In some regions, less than one tenth of one percent of the pre-burn population remains alive. Modern civilization has effectively ceased to exist across most of the world, with the eventual fates of regions such as Russia and Venezuela left a mystery.
-January 10th 2022: A paramilitary organisation calling itself the CRMV (Canadian Reservist Militia & Volunteers) attacks US military forces stationed outside of Ottawa with an arsenal of homemade explosives and civilian firearms. Both sides suffer appalling casualties after an ammunition dump explodes. From 2022 to 2024, the CRMV will kill dozens of soldiers and hundreds of civilians in terrorist attacks all over Canada and the northern United States.
-July 2022: China attempts to invade Russia after failing to negotiate a so-called 'oil pact' with the country. The comparatively functional Russian military barely needs to respond as the oil-starved Chinese war machine grinds to a halt shortly after it crosses the border. Meanwhile The European Union disintegrates as oil reserves dry up and their economic futures collapse.
-December 23rd 2022: The president of the U.S.A declares Martial Law. This declaration remains in effect until the dissolution of the United States of America some years from now. The complete inability for American mechanized infantry divisions to mount any kind of successful offensive against the CRMV without air support (jets having been grounded due to fuel shortages)
-2023: Air pollution levels from the gigantic firestorms in Saudi Arabia reach lands as far away as Italy and France. Environmental experts now believe that Oman, Yemen, and Eritrea are unsuitable for human habitation and must be evacuated. Parts of Sudan, Egypt, Jordan, Iran and Iraq are also facing similar problems. The international community generally ignores these warnings. England, Spain, France and Italy begin discussing plans for food rationing as supply lines between them and breadbasket countries becomes tenuous.
-January-March 2024: Millions of refugees from poisoned lands flee to West Africa, Asia and Europe, exacerbating economic collapse across the world. Greece descends into anarchy as air pollution devastates their annual harvests. Meanwhile, the worst famine since the Great Leap Forward is busy devastating China; tens of millions will die before the beginning of 2025.
-April-July 2024: Most of Europe is now on rationing. Contact between continental countries and island nations is at an all-time low as fuel shortages make overseas transport prohibitively expensive. A CRMV bomb destroys an emergency oil pipeline between Canada and the United States. Mexico attempts to invade Venezuela with a force consisting mostly of unsupported infantry and is repulsed by the comparatively operational Venezuelan army.
-August-December 2024: Global infrastructures collapses as machinery powered by alternate energy sources break down from overuse and lack of replacement parts. While local economies can still function at a sustenance level, the capitalist market effectively ceases to exist. Russia begins pre-emptively preparing for complete global anarchy. The Japanese plead with the rest of the international community to maintain shipments of food to their island nation, but these pleas go unheard by the rest of the world.
-January 2025: Political pressure is placed on Venezuela to increase its export of oil by a factor of five. The Venezuelan government claims this figure is unattainable but grudgingly agrees to increase production in exchange for extra food supplies. The US army initiates the Reservist Reforms, which emphasizes flexible small-unit infantry tactics over mechanized deployments. The CRMV detonates bombs in Seattle, destroying an oil convoy seeking to resupply the city. The ensuing fire devastates most of the inner city.
-February 2025: The suicide rate in the western world has quintupled since 2018 and is still on the rise. A psychological study conducted by several prominent universities across the United States concludes that well over half the population is suffering from depression in one form or another. Rationing in the western hemisphere is staving off full-scale famine for now, but reserves are dwindling and transport costs remain prohibitive. Refugees from the uninhabitable Middle Eastern zones are the hardest hit by famine, they die in their thousands. A starving Japan attempts to send a fleet south to raid island nations in the South China Sea for food, but most of the ships run out of fuel and drift helplessly at the mercy of the four winds.
-March 2nd 2025: An unidentified terrorist group sabotages the largest oil tanker in the world as it prepares to sail from mainland Europe to China. The Olympus Mons goes up in a fireball large enough to be observed from the International Space Station when a stolen military truck carrying more than fifteen tons of high explosive is detonated on the docks of Lisbon Harbour during the unloading process. The tanker had been scheduled to deliver an emergency petroleum reserve to every ocean-bordered country in Europe before continuing to China. Without it there is little chance of economic recovery for the west.
-April 8th 2025: The Russian oil pipelines are cut without warning, severing the last trickle of fuel to a dying Europe. On the same day, unmarked helicopters airlift Russian diplomats from embassy posts in Germany, Belgium and Denmark. All attempts by the other world powers to contact Russia after this date are rebuffed.
-April 10th 2025: A German convoy approaching a Russian border depot is fired upon by the garrison. Neither side sustains casualties, but the Germans are forced to retreat back towards Berlin.
-June 2025: The Resource Wars begin. Germany and Italy declare war on Russia, giving the severance of diplomatic ties to Europe and the severing of the oil pipelines as reason for their invasion. The attackers end up doing more damage to their own countries then to Russia, using up the last of their gas reserves in a combined attack that succeeds in crossing into Russia, but is then utterly annihilated by a barrage of thermobaric warheads just north of the Russian/German border. The Russian government still refuses to contact the outside world.
-July 2025: The Resource Wars reach their second round as talks between European nations fail to establish equitable exchanges of vital goods. France invades Germany, Spain invades France, and England invades both countries soon afterwards. Belgium tries to remain neutral, but is dragged into the conflict when French and German soldiers clash within their borders. Most attacks consist of infantry raiding parties, as few military vehicles still operate. These skirmishes disrupt supply lines on an international scale and by July more than a thousand people will have starved to death across Europe. This number will rise geometrically throughout the rest of the 2020's.
-August-December 2025: Lack of adequate health care has given rise to epidemics of disease in parts of the United States and Europe. Typhoid, dysentery, tuberculosis and pneumonia run rampant throughout the winter months. Bubonic plague breaks out in India, racing through the starving Chinese refugee communities and travelling west. Since disinfectants are rare and national garbage cleanup virtually nonexistent, flea-carrying vermin experience a population explosion. The Black Death devastates Europe and the Mediterranean for the first time in centuries, killing more people in a year than any other infectious disease in history besides the Spanish Flu. Global food production is 10% of what it was three years ago.
-Janurary 2026: The Saudi Arabian oil fields finally burn themselves out after consuming more than one hundred billion barrels worth of crude oil. The legacy of the fires is a gigantic smog cloud that blankets most of the southern hemisphere, reducing sunlight levels by as much as 50%. Most of the Middle-East and large swathes of eastern Africa are now completely uninhabitable. Toxic ash rains across Turkey and the surrounding lands. Climactic damage triggers has at this point begun triggering massive storm systems across the Mediterranean and Pacific oceans. While these will have mostly blown themselves out by 2028, they will have spread oil smog and (after July 3rd) radioactive contaminants across a region that stretches from northern Australia to southern France. Many Mediterranean coastal towns are unprepared for these storms, and are rapidly obliterated.
-February 2026: Holland is submerged as the dikes burst after years of neglect. Most of the population evacuates to nearby countries, which are already experiencing famines and anarchy. Only Russia and the USA still have governments capable of enforcing policy beyond their capital cities and the immediate surroundings. Survivalist enclaves and Mormon outposts are some of the few areas of stability left in the US by this point.
-March-June 2026: Most of South America declares war on Venezuela after collectively realising that whoever controls the Venezuelan oil fields is effectively in unchallenged control over most of the planet. The Venezuelan army fights off hastily-assembled militia from just about every military power on the continent. Refugees from the war swarm over the borders into the US. They bring cholera with them, adding another epidemic to the many already sweeping through the US. The conflict means that the very last reliable supply of crude oil to the intact western worlds has now been severed. Total anarchy is not far behind.
-July 3rd 2026: As their police force crumbles and their populace runs riot, North Korea decides to spite the rest of the world by launching nuclear and chemical warheads against cities in South Korea, China and Japan. Twelve warheads detonate on their targets. Automated silos in Japan and China retaliate. North Korean warheads fired: 20. Retaliation: 59 warheads. The total foreign casualties from the attack number around 1,600,000; roughly half of which die due to poison clouds spread by Korean chemical missiles. Seoul, Qingdao, Fukuoka and Tianjin are the only major population centers damaged by the Korean detonations. North Korea itself is reduced to a smoking, radioactive dustbowl.
-July 9th 2026: A radioactive dust cloud covers Korea, eastern China and parts of Japan, spreading fallout via a lethal black rain. It is estimated that a large percentage of the cloud is made up of ash from nearly twenty-four million corpses incinerated by the nuclear bombardment of North Korea. Thousands of Korean refugees flee the peninsula in a motley collection of seafaring vessels; the remnants of which will later form one of the few stable migrant communities of the late 2020's. Westerns who hear of the evacuation call it 'Dunkirk, but without the safe home across the channel.'
-August-November 2026: The European Resource War ends, not because of a peace treaty, but simply because there are no longer enough people left alive to continue them. England is the only surviving country with a functional government. Pollution and neglect have reduced world food production levels to less than 3% of what they were six years ago. The western world is now effectively 'dry'. Not only is there no oil production of any description taking place any longer, but remaining reserves from the early 2020's (those that still exist) are now too chemically degraded to be used in industrial machinery. In an ironic twist of fate, petrol and petrol derivatives are now more commonly used for their inflammatory properties (usually by rioters) than for their intended purpose as fuel sources for combustion engines.
-December 23rd 2026: The Whitehouse is burnt to the ground by rioters; it has been exactly four years after the declaration of martial law. The United States of America effectively ceases to exist from now on. The only stable communities are small, isolated survivalist groups. Most cities have been abandoned or devastated by storms caused by climatic variances. Those that remain are in the grip of self-styled warlords that have no connection to any civil government. The fate of the president is unknown, but at least three separate militia groups claim to have been responsible for his execution. Christmas day in Washington DC is celebrated by an inebriated mob of rioters, homeless people and military defectors. None of them are quite deluded enough to think their actions will solve anything, but nobody is guarding the liquor stores any longer.
-January-March 2027: The winter of 2026 has been one of the worst in living memory. Reduced sunlight levels have resulted in frigid temperatures across the entire northern hemisphere. More people die of exposure then in the Korean nuclear exchange. Some countries have been utterly depopulated, with the largest concentration of survivors being near Mexico and Northern America, which are comparatively untouched by the ecological damage of the past five years. Mexico in particular is experiencing something of a dilemma, faced with riots at home and the novel situation of having to deal with American refugees crossing into the country via the infamous Texan Border.
-April-November 2027: Refugee communities in the former USA around Utah begin coming down with a mysterious yet invariably fatal disease with symptoms that resemble those of the supposedly extinct Variola major virus (also known as European Smallpox). Poor sanitation in refugee camps contributes to the extremely rapid spread of the disease through a variety of infected vermin and parasites. Unbeknownst to the refugees, their camp is located near to the primary storage locations for US chemical & biological weapons. Years of neglect and weather damage have eroded the seals on several storage tanks, allowed mutated versions of diseases such as Smallpox, Ebola, Bubonic Plague and Anthrax to leak into the surrounding environment. The extreme cold of the previous winter has preserved most of the viral compounds, and allowed them to spread across a vast area. Most of these diseases are non-propagating, but two; Bubonic Plague and Smallpox, are. These invisible killers will go on to effectively exterminate the remaining human population of the continent, with some contaminants reaching as far as Mexico and Canada. Anthrax spores will render vast swathes of the American Midwest non-cultivatable for decades to come.
-December 2027: The complete lack of electronic communications across the globe causes survivors to start referring to this period of history as 'The Great Silence'. Industry and mechanised transportation is a thing of the past. Basic commodities like food and tools are valued at more than their weight in gold. Guns and ammunition are almost as sought after. Global food production levels are now at 0.2% of what they were seven years ago. There are, however, many less mouths to feed. Due to pollution and radiation, approximately 28% of the earth's total land mass has been rendered unfit for human habitation at any level. Most of this area is located in Asia, with some areas of China and Korea so badly irradiated that they are completely inhospitable to all life. Most of Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa is swept by radioactive sandstorms on an almost routine basis.
-March 2028: The winter of 2027 has proven proportionately milder than that of 2026, and the dust clouds preventing sunlight from penetrating past the upper atmosphere are beginning to settle. The global climate is beginning to repair itself after the vast pollution waves of the early 2020's, though the average temperature is still several degrees lower than it should be for most regions. Crops are reliably growing again, and the fallout clouds drifting over Eastern Europe have dissipated sufficiently to allow the remaining native life to begin repopulating. Without major human interference, the earth is quickly reverting back to a wilderness state. The human population has roughly stabilized with existing food reserves, with many areas being totally depopulated. In some regions, less than one tenth of one percent of the pre-burn population remains alive. Modern civilization has effectively ceased to exist across most of the world, with the eventual fates of regions such as Russia and Venezuela left a mystery.
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|The Rules|
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|The Rules|
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1: Be Realistic.
The primary goal of Ashes to Ashes is to be realistic. If you roll in and try to play some kind of Nietzschian
superman who can walk ten days without a bite to eat and laugh off a rifle bullet to the torso, then this isn't the roleplay for you. Hardship is a major part of Ashes to Ashes, and rising to the challenge of survival as a flawed human being with access to strictly limited resources is what the game is all about. If you aren't sure how to accurately represent such things as starvation, injury, illness or disability, then you can ask for help from others or look up such conditions online. I have great respect for anybody willing to go that extra mile and faithfully depict circumstances that may not be favorable to their characters.
superman who can walk ten days without a bite to eat and laugh off a rifle bullet to the torso, then this isn't the roleplay for you. Hardship is a major part of Ashes to Ashes, and rising to the challenge of survival as a flawed human being with access to strictly limited resources is what the game is all about. If you aren't sure how to accurately represent such things as starvation, injury, illness or disability, then you can ask for help from others or look up such conditions online. I have great respect for anybody willing to go that extra mile and faithfully depict circumstances that may not be favorable to their characters.
2: Be Polite.
This ought to be standard etiquette for anybody who plays cooperative games like this, but I think it deserves a little extra emphasis none-the-less. This game is here for you; I put a lot of effort into it, and I appreciate it when players who have their differences make the effort to resolve those differences peaceably. If you wish to make an observation about the game or suggest any way that it might be improved, I will be delighted to hear your comments via PM.
3: Respect Situation Updates.
Situation Updates are posts that I will be making in response to certain events and actions undertaken by the players. They will contain additional details and feedback about the consequences of the actions in question. Players are free to do their own thing for the most part, but at certain points I will be using the Situation Update method to provide an interactive encounter for the players. When such events occur, please state your actions in a format that allows me to write up a response to them. For example; when fighting an NPC, do not simply say something along the lines of 'John shoots the thug in the head, then goes through his stuff for loot', but instead say 'John ducks behind cover and then quickly leans out to snap off a shot at the thug'. The first action assumes (indeed, forces) automatic success, while the second leaves room for either success or failure, as determined by the next situation update. Any questions regarding precisely how this system works can be directed to me. If you would like to know the outcome of an action or the viability of an action when in a situation that I am not directly overseeing (such as searching an abandoned house for loot), then feel free to ask me for a judgement on what it would be acceptable for you to gain from your initiative.
4: Character Creation.
Players may have as many characters as they like, so long as they can post with them at least once every 48 hours. Be sure to justify any skills or abilities you might wish to have in your backstory or other sections of your profile. Military characters are restricted; unless you can prove that you're a member of a real-life military organisation or display excellent knowledge of modern warfare and tactics, you won't be allowed to play such a character in this game. You may not start with a firearm without excellent justification in your back-story, and must take UK Gun Law into account when determining what make and model it is (you'll never see an automatic outside of the military, and you'll never see a pistol outside of the black market).
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|Useful Links|
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|Useful Links|
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|Character Sheet|
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[~-|Personal Details|-~]
Name: (Self-explanatory.)
Age: (Keep in mind that it is 2028, and it has been eight years since the oil fires.)
Height: (Again, self explanatory.)
Weight: (You might be a little on the lean side...)
Nationality: (English, Scottish, American, Inuit... you get the idea.)
Physical Description: (Tell us what your character looks like. This includes his current physical condition, I.E if he is starving, losing weight, well muscled or fat. It should be detailed enough to let players accurately visualize your character in the condition they are currently in, and include any hidden details such as scars covered by clothes. Note that details like 'he is currently very well muscled' or 'he is currently starving' also count as entries under advantages and disadvantages.)
[~-|Knowledge & Attributes|-~]
Skills: (Essentially what your character is good at. This category refers to knowledge gained by research or education, not what they are innately good at doing.)
Advantages: (This category refers to anything that makes your character stand out from others, I.E a strong intellect, good constitution, double joints, etc. Attributes are genetic and biological, not learned.)
Disadvantages: (Refers to anything that makes your character lag behind others in certain respects, such as a weak stomach, poor vision, a mental imbalance of some sort, etc. As with advantages, disadvantages are not learned but are either determined by genetics or the conditions in which a character is forced to exist in.)
[~-|Inventory|-~]
Worn Items: (What your character is wearing at the moment, or what he can be expected to be found wearing at any given day. This is an important section to keep updated.)
Owned Items: (Reserve this section for any items your character owns, but does not have on his person. If he has a stash somewhere, list where it is and what it contains.)
Personal Inventory: (Pretty self-explanatory; what your character is directly carrying at the moment. You should keep this updated.)
[~-|Past History|-~]
(No additional fields here; just give me a reasonably detailed description of the backstory your character possesses. Ideally, you should cover in at least moderate detail what he did before the fires, how he coped with the initial collapse of society, and how he ended up in the location he starts the game in. You don't have to go overboard, but I do genuinely appreciate attention to detail.)
