Another land for Invisible Hands, inspired by Primeumaton's Lone Star State.
The shitfuture caught up with us like an unpaid credit card bill, crashing the stock-market as the earth cracked and the sky burned with nuclear wind. The New God Flood took a great big messy bite out the state once called Florida, leaving an archipelago of lumpy islands sweltering under an indifferent sun. When they're not rain-soaked and miserable, they're ransacked by yet another ULTRA-HURRICANE full of misplaced marine-life, gnashing their mutant teeth.
To the west is the Gulf, an oil-chocked midden where Flood's hoary leviathans frolic in the shade of rusted rigs and shipwrecks congealed. To the north is Dixieland, Salvation's stronghold, a place where the shadows run deep, rumbling with tortured memories. Somewhere further north is the Maul of America, but it might as well be the ends of the earth.
Right here are the Leftovers, Sunken Florida, the Flowered Sea, haven to runaways, fugitives, weirdos, and the Florida Men.
They live in trailers-parks cloaked by tarpaulin, in moldering plantations, on houseboats, in the storm-leveled corpses of beach towns and cruise ships run aground. Many are hermits or homesteaders, but all gather on Sundays to cheer on their favorite sportsball team, joined in communion via barbecues and beer.
The airwaves radiate Zeitgeist's influence, the televisions glow with Economy's mind-reading ads. It matters not to the Florida Man. They say they didn't notice when everything went south.
Florida Men characters start out 100% corrupted by a special kind of influence called Sunshine Law. If any of your Sunshine Law would be converted into a New God's influence, you get an extra XHA Check to stave it off. When under tremendous stress, Sunshine Law makes them behave like someone who's after a one-of-a-kind headline. "Florida Man kills friends, self, via pipebomb." "Florida Man found naked, crying, talking to fish." And so on.
The sages of these latter days theorize that Florida Men have long been inoculated against corruptive forces, exposed to an otherworldly presence long before the shitfuture came to pass.
Yet make no mistake, Flood rules these forsaken coasts. Shark fins fill the bays. Giant octopi lurk in the shade of forgotten overpasses. Mermaids crave your flesh. Legally Distinct Davey Jones (TM) sails the high seas on his be-barnacled nuclear sub, raining cruise missiles full of saltwater upon his foes.
But if you can brave these seas, there is much booty to be had, and many horrible attractions to bear witness to, including even legendary Orlando, where the avatars of the New Gods engage in combat without end.
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| From the Fleet Science Center |
Merchandise For the Rainy Seas
1: Orange Juice. Served at every table, from margarita-joints to survivalist's lean-tos. Excellent at staving off scurvy. Restores 1d4 HP, or 1d6 if consumed alongside a substantive breakfast. Removes all Flood influence, but only if you have less than 5%. $5 a bottle, 1/3rd of a slot.
2: Q-Cumber Blast. A refreshing bottle of spritzed-up cucumber water. You'll hardly believe it isn't not soda. Clears 1 Drunkenness via rehydration. $5 a bottle, 1/3rd of a slot.
3: Salt Life Tattoo. A mark given by the Florida Men to tourists who've proven their mettle. Grants +1 to reactions with Florida Men, but they'll know if you have a fake. Priceless, no slot.
4: Crystal Meth. The origin of much madness. Gives you 1d6! points of Rage and heals 2d6! HP, while also obliterating 1 XHA, INT, or WIS (your choice, buckaroo). Favored battle-drug of the isles. $20 per dose. 1/3rd of a slot.
5: Hermit Crab Shells. An alternative currency used in the remotest islands, thanks to its resistance to moisture. Converts 1:1 with the Almighty Dollar ($$$), but when trading with Florida Men you have a 1 in 20 chance to posses a shell they covet, which they will pay $50 or more for (or else, kill you for it).
6: Folding Knife. A durable, hard-edged solution to the many shells that must be prized open at sea. A light weapon, which seasoned sailors oft customize with dangles, engravings, and names like "Lucille" or "Mr. Handy." $10, 1/3rd of a slot.
7: Pub Sub. A nautical-themed sandwich with enough preservatives to last through the end-times. A kind of ration that can be found everywhere, thanks to the discovery of an old cargo ship full of the things. $5, 1/3rd of a slot.
8: Fishing Rod. Provides you enough rations to survive at sea, so long as you have a day with nothing else to do. XHA Save or accidentally consume a mutant fish, giving you +5% Aphotic influence. $30, 1 slot.
9: Chemical Flare. Emits bright light for 20', and an outer 30' rim of dim light. Waterproof, and can be used to signal to distant ships. $10, 1/3rd of a slot.
10: Imitation Katana. Much more popular a weapon than you might think, thanks to the proliferation of malls here, long ago. A medium weapon which breaks on dealing maximum damage. $30, 1 slot.
11: Scuba Diving Gear. A respirator, oxygen tank, and flippers, which all together take up 2 slots, but allow you to swim around all fish-like for one hour. May prove fatal to the un-initiated. $100, 2 slots.
12: Harpoon Gun. Works underwater, 1d8 damage. The harpoon automatically grapples anything it hits, and is attached to the gun by a sturdy 10' line. $50, 2 slots.
13: Wetsuit. Protects from the deathly cold of the deep sea, and cuts cold damage in half on land. $50, 1 slot.
14: Killer Sunglasses. Make you look like a real-life movie-star WOW! Protects you from bright lights, most of all the sun. Once per session you can reroll a failed XHA Check. $20, 1/3rd of a slot.
15: Rain Poncho. Staves off the ever-present wet, and do a passable job of breaking up your silhouette at a distance. Come in two kinds of camouflage: olive for the swamps, and a matte grey for the sea. $30, 1 slot.
16: Pressure Gun. A favorite among scavengers. Uses anything as ammunition, spitting it out in a haphazard spray which deals 2d4 damage. Its useless against armored foes, and takes a full round of pumping between salvos, but it functions just fine when wet, which should not be underestimated. $50, 1 slot.
17: Mossberg 500. A shotgun thing which lets you do the classic "shick-chick!" thing where you cycle a round menacingly. Deals 3d4! damage at spitting range, 2d4 at throwing, and can't hit a damn thing beyond that. Carries 9 rounds. $100, 2 slots.
18: Springfield M2020. A passable bolt-action hunting rifle. Deals 1d10! damage and carries 5 rounds. A trained marksman could easily pop the heads of the unsuspecting with this bad boy, should he have a sight. $150, 2 slots.
19: Gas Station Weed. A terrible yet universally enjoyed substance, thanks to the preservatives which keep it potent long after the extinction of the gas stations themselves. Heals 1d6 Stress. WIS Save or green out, and take 1d6! Stress.
20: Kayak. Seats two, which is incidentally how many people you'll need to carry it over land. Novices can paddle at 5mph, while experienced kayakers can reach double that. Great for navigating marshes and shallows, will be the death of you in the open sea. $500.
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| Art by Shubham Parte |
What's Our Heading, Captain?
The Forgotten Coast looks glumly upon Flood's endless waves, every tentacle a reminder that this broken panhandle suffers the brunt of each Ultra Hurricane. The Florida Men here are itinerant scavengers and hunters, who travel as far inland as they can get by ATV or kayak as soon as the their weathermen start speaking in tongues. They believe that tourists (i.e., you) are blessed by Economy, and serve as eager guides or hired muscle, or else try to kill you and suck the New God's favor out of your spine.
In the Ruins of Panama Beach, Flood's cultists seek shelter in crumpled condominiums. They wrap their sacrificial victims in tangled red flags before casting them into the eternal riptides.
The National High Magnetic Field Laboratory stands defiant of the storms, having attracted a shantytown of Florida Men in the haven of its weather-deflecting super-tech, all of whom bear obedience to the lab's Opus-science-monks.
And under the tangled roots of the back-wood pine-forests, the Sinks trace their indeterminable paths, a dungeon-network of subterranean rivers and freshwater springs, where Radicarian's offspring slumber.
The First Coast clings to the Stub of upper Florida like an angry rash, the last remnant of firm ground before this long-suffering continent gives way to the Flowered Sea.
Salvation holds sway here as it does in Dixieland, from the battlements of ancient citadels overgrown with military-industrial hardware, overlooking acres of marshy no-man's land. Their defensive lines culminate at Fort Jackson, where the Department of Offense work ceaselessly on developing a naval weapon capable of ending Flood's dominance over the waves.
St. Augustine is a half-city, its drowned streets melting away into a belt of coastal swampland punctuated by piles of storm-debris and soggy second-stories topped by terracotta. The Florida Men here build ramshackle shelters in the remains, connected by gondolas and trash bridges, and they farm the myriad nameless sea-life that Flood has brought from the depths.
Further to the south lies Daytona, pilgrimage-site of the Florida Men, who come to race their tricked-out war-bikes on the hard-packed sand. Travelers pay tribute to Salvation's tax-collectors for safe-passage, but when the festival is in full sway, Economy trembles in delight with each purchased tchotchke, and each dollar lost to a bookie, gobbled up.
What was once Tampa Bay is now the fat and juicy island of Grande-Sol, which in this treacherous land passes for Civilization. Its strip-clubs and oyster-bars roil with commerce, each merchant-captain promising the finest results as they ply you with genuine Grande-Sol cigars. They've crossed the Flowered Seas a hundred times, no problem. Better yet, they're insured.
Power is wielded from the halls of the Hard Rock Hotel, palace of the Sausage King, a warlord-refugee who fled the chaos of Orlando with his legendary harem and a loyal army of steroid-orks. In his youth, he was a devotee of Kegare, but in his old age Economy offers a sweeter deal. The Sausage King keeps the desalination plant running, he keeps the slaves harvesting oranges, and the fairgrounds abuzz with trade, all with the threat of cocaine-fueled ultraviolence should his law be disobeyed.
They say he has a captive mermaid whom he plans to wed, and he maroons his most hated enemies to Monkey Prison Island (to have their face ripped off by monkeys). He would be an excellent person to pull a heist on, should you breach the defenses of the Hard Rock Hotel.
The Kennedies are a wreck of sunken highways and burst levees, held together by scaffolding, duct-tape and Opus's cold hard intelligence. The Space Center rises out of the muck and reeds like a titanium phallus, home of an astronaut-cult hellbent on discovering a way off this wacky rock, to found a pure, rational, Alchemical colony on the Moon.
Rumors persist of a schism among the scientist. There are those who look not to the stars, but to the deep. Should Flood be poisoned into brain-death, for instance, what would stop them of founding an equally pure colony, insulated from malign influences by the cold, still sea? These so-called baronauts, if they exist, are in a constant cold-war over funding with their astronaut brethren. Opus may not be so single-minded as it seems.
To the south of Grande-Sol, the Snowbird's Rise speckles the sea. This maze of sea-stacks and guano-cliffs is infested with Radicarian's influence, his sacred mysteries kept in the secluded retirement-complexes of the Centenarians, those who refuse to die. Plants grow swiftly on every surface. Those who linger here will find moss under their nails, flowers budding in their tear-ducts. It may have something to do with all the mineral springs, and the heated depths of the Lost World and its Fountain of Youth, hidden far below.
The Foreverglades float atop the Flowering Sea for mile after nautical mile, mangrove arms reaching out to reclaim ever-more of the sunken land they once lost. Radicarian's influence only deepens here, in the trackless depths of the swamps, in the stilt-villages of the Florida Men, and the maws of their meth-crazed war-alligators. The mosquitos are a malarial horror-show. The dreaded Skunk Ape lurks in the shadows. Yet for all that, many a Grande-Sol citrus slave has found liberation in these forsaken shallows, and many a tourist comes seeking the narcotic ghost-orchid's infamous high.
Beyond these swamps lies the glistening jewel of the Flowered Sea: Miami, City of Pleasures. The Florida Men here view even riotious Grande-Sol as prudish and repressive. Miami is nocturnal, each day passed over in comatose and hungover depression. When the killing-sun sets, the streets come to life, an all-night block-party, carnival, neon lights, tequila fountains, Spring Break without-end. Prisma and Kegare are the gods of this city, of course. At a certain point in the night's festivities, they cannot be ignored.
The place is anarchic. Pirates hoist the Miami flag proudly. Drug-labs explode all the time.
Further south still, at the very ends of the old U.S-1, lies the Serene Conch Republic, the sole polity of the Florida Keys, and perhaps the sole functioning polity left alive. Ultra-Hurricanes swamp these measly islets again and again, but still the Florida Men cling fast. No tentacle-horror of Flood shall displace them, for on their side is the warrior-poet Hemingway, currently serving his third term as President of the Keys.
Strangeness has always been a part of life here, shitfuture and New Gods be damned. Whalers and monster-hunters sing shanties in its taverns. Those found guilty of serving green key lime pie are sentenced to death by keel-hauling.
And at the very edge of the world, beyond sight of true land, lies the Great Trash Reef. All life here is poisoned, yet lives. Turtles melded with plastic. Oil-blackened seabirds, burning in the sky.
It is an accursed place, lambasted by the miracles of Flood, killing-grounds of any ship who ventures through its razor-sharp banks. And yet, Economy whispers: what might you find? Many a forgotten treasure are lost to the sea. Swept away from the mainland, swept away to find rest here, among the doubloons, and the sailor's bones, under carpets of plastic bottles, in the coral skeleton of the reef.
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| From Badland Models |
The Horrors of Orlando
In the heart of it all lies the Orlando megadungeon. Once, it is said, there was a theme park here. Once there was a captive whale. There was Gatorland, and the Fun Park, Legoland and the Holy Land, and the Gods know what else. In the shitfuture its all melded together into an island of artificial exuberance, where the New God's influence reshapes the world into a psychotic Wunderkammer of the American mind; it's the battle-royal of the neo-divinities.
Zeitgeist has long held the lead through its Wonder Realm, headed by the avatar Randy Rat and his legion of Loveable Characters.
Economy brings up a close second, reigning from the Outlets Casino combined gambling-den/shopping-center managed by Seminole Jack, who's just as problematic as he seems, and his army of well-compensated Private Security.
Kegare rules Meat-o-Land. Everything's alive. Everything's made of meat. They can take each other apart, and build new, much more frightening meat-monsters. It's Meat-o-Land itself who's the avatar here, its consciousness dispersed through its many meat-products.
Prisma manages Cosmic Studios, which very much wishes to be the Wonder Realm, but simply lacks cohesion. Its hordes of Space-Dinosaurs are led by The Beautiful Orb and its glittering psychic rays.
Radicarian dwells in the Backcountry Experience. The alligators have been freed, woe betide us. If they have an avatar, it is whichever lizard is the most gargantuan at the moment, universally known as Great-Grandfather.
Flood World belongs to Flood, of course. All of the Flowered Sea is home to its offspring, but here they gather under the leadership of Free Wally, a killer whale with the intelligence of a godling, and the vengeance of a thousand asphyxiated fish.
Opus's realm is Yesterday, filled with the promise of a future that never came to pass. Things made much more sense back then. And through the efforts of its Raypunk Androids and their General AI (G.A.I.), things may make sense again.
And finally the Promised Land belongs to Salvation. This is what the world could be, if only you would fall in line. The Militiamen keep order here, as they are all armed to the teeth. The Real Vice President himself heads their war-effort from a mock-White House.
That's all of Sunken Florida. Point-style crawl map forthcoming if I decide I have time.