Bad Weather after Judgment Day

The world has ended and the weather is fucking terrible.

Oh it's not as bad as a decade ago, when the poison storm of a Gas Front would sweep through and turn your body into even more poison, but you still don't want to be caught out in this new weather. It sucks.

These are 6D weather tables a la WWCD.
Roll a d6 and move the weather in that direction. If it would go back, go forward.
If you reach the edge, stop if you hit an X. Otherwise reverse course.

Weather can have Outfield effects (ie. what happens during each 4 hour Watch of travel) and/or Encounter effects that kick in during smaller timescale activities like chats or fights.

And so -

There's very little white Clear weather in the Spring, so you're usually looking at green Haze or purple Rain with a chance of intermittent brown Sporestorms.

Spring

Clear: Rare but occasionally occurs after the rains. Clear skies and clear sinuses. A mercy.
Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion.

Hayfever Haze: Sneezing and coughing and trying not to rub your tired red eyes because the pollen is everywhere. Nevertheless this is generally the best you've got for travelling weather.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion

Metamorphic Rain: Like a nice warm shower which is lovely until you see what it's doing to your skin and your clothes. Absolutely do not get it in your eyes. Whorls in your flesh where the droplets pulled your skin with them, your axe-haft is growing leaves, your axe-head is looking at you.

Outfield: Exposed equipment gains a Notch.

Spore Storm: Fat chunks of fungal matter bloom across the landscape, soon bursting to release a choking fog thick with spores. You can barely see through the smog, but that's ok because the hallucinogenic visions are really starting to kick in.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion and Save vs Doom to avoid taking 1 Wisdom damage.

Encounter: Slowed, and crit/fumble range increased by +4.

Thorn Warning: The air fizzes with static and the sky is covered with a low ceiling of unbroken cloud. The Growth is coming. Animals flee only to be snatched into the sky by the thing (things?) that live up there.

Encounter: Within a few minutes of killing something it's lifted into the clouds by sticky threads. If you stop to loot or butcher a corpse, 1d10 Cloudfinger tendrils soon follow.

The Growth: Feel the soil, feel the loam, let yourself go to heal the world with the blood that is turning to sap inside your veins. Kneel down and kiss the Earth and take it into you. Heal the world with your soft embrace.
Outfield: Take 1 Constitution damage per Watch as your body converts to plant life.

Goblins are not immune, but they become big mushrooms instead and retain their consciousness within the fungal mycelia.

Real life example! The weather was Clear then went through the Warning and a brief Summer Storm. Luckily for them, they were in a dungeon when The Hive occurred.
Summer has plenty of white Clear hexes, which leads to cloudless summer skies which can last for days at a time..

Summer

Clear: Warm and bright, silver clouds covering the worst of the sun. In the summer these warm days can stretch for weeks.
Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion

Insect Heat: Hot days buzzing with lazy insects and bumbling bees. Comfortable long days of sunshine and joy and strolling by the hedgerows and falling asleep only to find that you've got a whole day left. Too hot for heavy armour though, I'll tell you that much.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if wearing Heavy gear.

Encounter: Clouds of biting flies are attracted to any bloodshed. Dead creatures attract a cloud of flies that Slows anybody nearby. Take Bleed damage even if you Stay Down.

Summer Storm: After the sticky days, a smell of petrichor followed by the lashing rain. Cool and fresh and so very beloved by plants, you could swear that the grass is growing high and lush before your very eyes.

Outfield: Half Overland speed.
Encounter: Ranged attacks at -4

Heatwave: Absolutely stinking hot. Too hot to think, practically too hot to breathe. A real bastard of a day, but the bugs don't seem to mind.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion, 2 if wearing Heavy gear.

Encounter: Anyone in Medium or Heavy gear is Slowed.

Swarm Warning: Wispy cirrus clouds high overhead and a subtle crackle as metal zaps against metal. Flying insects fizz and pop, flash-fried by the electricity that makes your hair stand on end, only to be devoured by the smarter kind of beetle who knows to stay in contact with the ground.

Encounter: Hitting metal with metal causes a spasm of static, making the victim(s) Dazed for a round and making them drop held objects.

The Hive: They're inside you you can see them under the skin crawling inside you where did they come from why are your pores getting larger and larger and the glimmer inside is shiny and they're all so shiny and crawling and scuttling and they are nice they are friends they are part of you this is how it should be

Outfield: Take 1 Strength damage per Watch as your flesh becomes home to thousands of insects.

Goblins become hollowed out with seeds, and beloved by pollinating birds.

Autumn is very changeable and very rarely Clear, but at least the red doom weather is always preceded by a Warning, and so often swings away.

Autumn

Special: In Autumn the weather brings abundant Forage, trivially gathered. Every traveller gets one ration of the appropriate Forage per Watch if they want it, and falls deeper into the dreary malaise of Autumn if they eat it.

Clear: Damp moist air and clear bright skies. Rare but beloved. A welcome but short-lived respite.

Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion

Melancholy Mists: You sigh and you yearn for purpose. There are better things beyond the mists. Lives lived with meaning. Unlike yours. Your goals and dreams are a bit silly really, not the sort of things that other people would care about. Still, travelling weather if you care to try.

Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion.

Forage: Fat berries grow on the thorny bushes, eating them sustains you but makes you lose yourself in painful memories. Eating them deals 1 Cha damage.

Forgetful Rain:  A sustained drizzle that falls with a white noise susurration that makes your mind wander. At least the rain-fruits are out, withered but tasty, and they make you think about other things.

Outfield: Double chance of getting lost and/or crashing your vehicle.
Encounter: Ranged attacks at -4. Those in the rain are Slowed.

Forage: Trees bear withered fruits, which fill your belly and fill your mind with fog. Eating them deals 1 Int damage.

Unmaking Rain: Proper rain, this. Sheeting down with a wild wind that tears at clothes and hair and rips the seams and unties the bindings and shivers the nails out of the shingles. Get caught out in this and you'll get home naked, your clothes in rags.

Outfield: Half overland speed. Exposed equipment gains 1 Notch.

Tired Warning: The sort of sustained drizzle that doesn't get you wet but somehow soaks through your clothes. The grey sky overhead flickers with cloud lightning, the low rumbling warning of what's to come.

Encounter: All creatures are Slowed.
Forage: Tubers and ground fruit swell from the soil, which fill you up yet leave you hollow. Eating them deals 1 Wis damage.

The Soft: The clouds are soft and inviting. Childhood home. A parent's arms. Skin like crepe paper. Older better times. Crinkling fingers. Times before. No worries at all. You wobble. Bones like cartilage. A soft fall. So much to be done. What were you doing? Oh yes, that.

Outfield: Take 1 Dexterity damage per Watch as your body becomes unmoored from your mind. Eventually your body moves on its own, your skin feels soft and crinkles like paper, your joints bend strangely around your rubbery bones. You will spend the Autumn tending the plants in calm harmony, until your body softly shuffs to the floor, a bag of loam. Goblins instead merge onto the side of a tree, and tend the area with tentacle-vines with goblin minds.

Winter has snowfall broken up by Mushroom Slush or Clear days.
It's very possible to get caught in an interminable Blizzard at the bottom of the table though.

Winter

Special: Snow builds up over time, so several types of weather only affect you if the previous weather was marked as Snow.
You also need Cold Weather Gear, which counts as an Oversized item and can be broken like a splintered shield to cancel damage from one attack. If you don't have it, take the Frostbite effect.

Clear: Bright and cold, the air cool in your lungs without stealing your breath. Clean and fresh and sparkling, you can see for miles.

Outfield: Travel +1 Hex and remove any Exhaustion

Snowfall: Long nights leading to little days of calm white snowdrifts. By the time you leave your house it's starting to get dark, snowflakes following behind to fill your footsteps.

Snow.
Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if the last weather was Snow.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Mushroom Slush: Sleet that melts the snow to black ice and cakes you with a thin layer of slush, not soaking in so much as piling on, making you feel shivery and clammy at once. Worse, the fungus. A hardy strain of swift-growing mycelium lives under the warm snowy blanket. Exposed by the sleet, it will try to evade the slush by climbing the closest tall warm thing and making a home there, filling pockets and bags with uninvited slime.
Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if the last weather was Snow. Gain an Oversized item called "Slush Fungus" - getting rid of it requires a wash in warm water or chucking affected gear out into Snow to kill the slime.

Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Blizzard: Complete whiteout. A death sentence to travel through.
Snow.
Outfield: Gain 2 Exhaustion if you're not resting in Comfortable conditions. Food cannot heal you or remove Exhaustion during the Blizzard.

Encounter: Slowed. Ranged attacks at -8.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage and Save vs Doom or freeze to death.

Thundersnow: Hail and snow, flickering with flashbulb lightning. The dense white blanket surrounds you and gently softens the faint sounds of thunder.

Snow.
Outfield: Gain 1 Exhaustion if the last weather was Snow.
Encounter: Hitting metal on metal causes a lightning strike! Victim(s) must Save vs Blast or be blasted back and take 1d6 lightning damage.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Mirror-Vine Sunshine: The winter snow tamps down the growth waves and the warnings, allowing the most tenacious mutant plants to shoot up over the winter. Foremost of these are the Mirror Vines which emerge from the snow covered in their searingly bright silver-leaved new growth, reflecting extra light onto their leaves while they've got the chance.

Outfield: Double chance of getting lost/crashing in daylight.

Encounter: Increase fumble range by +2.
Frostbite: Take 1 Dex damage.

Mechanics

How to use:
At noon and midnight, roll 1d6 and move the weather in that direction. If it would go backwards, go forwards instead.
If you're at the edge, stop if you hit an X. Otherwise reverse course.

Simple right?

If you've got a Ranger equivalent, let them roll weather in advance so they can be all "hmm the rain will turn to fog by midday". In my game this can be a group Bushcraft roll.

The main penalty for walking around in the nasty weather is Exhaustion.
Each point of Exhaustion gives you -1 AC and +1 Encumbrance, but you can get rid of it all by having a break with food. An army marches on its stomach after all!

Sometimes the weather rots your gear, giving a Notch.
A Notch decreases a weapon's damage die, or reduces AC by 1. This generally only affects armour when hiking around because I assume weapons are sheathed.
Notching other gear is on a case by case basis but I assume that most stuff is in a bag if you're not using it.

Weather effects are on this spreadsheet too -
Post-Apoc Weather

Daylight:

One last thing - daylight is based on season, which is another reason why winter travel is grueling.

A day is 6 Watches long, with each Watch being 4 hours.
In Spring and Autumn there are 3 Watches of Day, 3 of Night.
In Summer there are 4 Watches of Day, 2 of Night.

In Winter there are only 2 Watches of Day, 4 of Night.

I absolutely cannot be bothered to make it more granular.

At night you'll want torches or something because you can't see very far and could get lost or crash your wagon.
For more, see -
Hexcrawl Rules

And a minor aside to that one last thing -
Initiative is side-by-side: At the start of each round, both sides roll initiative, highest goes first. Reroll each round.
If the PCs have enough light they win ties.
If they have not enough light they lose ties.
If they have no light they always lose.

So they'll always win ties in the day, but at night it's down to torchlight.

Weather-Based Encounters

And of course a last important thing - Encounters!

Each weather type has its own kind of monster that only shows up when it rains or whatever, hopefully setting up some foreshadowing from a wizened old crone saying "watch out when the summer storms sheet down, my boy, or the clicking eels will getcha..."

Example here:
Scoured Lands Overland Encounter Table

Roll 2d6 down and 1d6 across for a result.
You'll notice that it's the classic (?) array of Encounter - Lair - Spoor - etc.

Number 8 is a Weather Special which gives an Encounter with the relevant beastie, or more often some unique weather-based effect.
Number 5 is Weather Effect which is generic, but has a chance to change the weather! Woe betide the party who thought they could travel through the Warning and finds themselves caught in thorn weather.

What mysteries lie in the Drudge Wastes??

Discussion

The only change I've made to the gimmick since its inception is to make it player-facing and make the "forward" direction a bit more likely, to add a little more consistency and predictability for players looking at the weather sheet.

Mechanically I want weather to be a consideration but not onerous. Atmospheric in both senses of the word. Interesting but not a gotcha. But still, if you get caught out in it unprepared you'll have a bad time.

Same with predicting the weather - have it out on the table and let people plan for what's coming (although they will have to work out the colours, of course).

Originally I was all "he he he, they will have to learn that Doom Weather is guarded by a Warning" but honestly it's better to be player-facing when possible, especially since they can see the red next to the blue and go "hmm.. In wonder if red is bad".

Materially it also has to consider the fact that I'm always going to have PCs cycling in and out of the game each session, so it isn't going to be satisfying if you only missed a session and now you're taking 1d4 Drip damage per round because you missed your chance to buy an Umbrella from the Brollymen or whatever.

Plus I cycle to work every day and always have my wet weather gear on me just in case, so I imagine that someone whose only job is adventuring would at least have some sort of medieval festival poncho on them at all times.

Generally per season - 
Green is the Standard Weather, travelling weather but probably sucks shit.
Purple is Rain of various horrible sorts. Can you tell I'm a Brit?
Brown is the seasons's Storm, awful to be in but you can push through if you desperately need to.
Blue is an electrical Warning, heralding the arrival of the worst kind of weather. Tends to be good travel weather if you're willing to risk it.
Red is Thorn Weather. In the past this killed you instantly, today it merely takes your mind.
White is Clear. The only Good weather with a capital G. Straight up clear skies and far horizons.

One Last Thing

Don't forget to vote for Barkeep on the Borderlands!

Spherical Angels and the Gods They Serve

Angels are an enemy that my players have fought quite a few times over the years.

These angels are nakedly technological - basically Modrons with a slice of Evangelion - and they're sent down by the ASE-inspired orbital gods which orbit the planet.

Here are some facts about Angels.
- They are spherical with a single central eye, and roll around in ball form when they're not in combat mode. 
- They sing to each other in Angelic Binary so fighting them sounds like fighting a choir. 
- If you kill a higher-ranked angel, one of the lesser angels upgrades to replace them.

- A full choir of them numbers exactly 21, since they are arranged with a leader Ophanim who commands four Tacticians each of whom commands four Baseline angels.
- They are part of an ancient failsafe designed to prevent the end of the world, a task they only partially succeeded at back during the Apocalypse.
- The angels are ultimately controlled by whichever God is overhead that week, and each God has their own agenda and grants the angels a different special ability.

In gameplay terms they've got a fair few gimmicks, all ultimately predictable because Law is predictable.

Mostly they scare my players because they've got good armour, magic immunity, the ranged ones have armour piercing beam cannons, and killing the leader first is a bad idea because their minions just upgrade to take their place.
That plus they usually go for Chaotic characters first, so wizards feel very victimised.

Might as well start with the stats!

I have other drawings saved somewhere but can't find them so enjoy this quick scrawl!

Stats

Angels in General

Abilities
- Immunities: Immune to Chaotic magic and stasis weaponry.
- Patrol Mode: Roll around in spherical form, mostly used when on patrol or on standby.
- Flight Mode: Can transform into a ball with wings and fly around. Can't attack in this form.
- Scan: Detect Alignment at will.

Angel - Baseline

Baseline angels are the rank and file. Four Baselines are commanded by a single Tactician.
Baselines obey orders blindly, and have no executive function of their own.
They have little skinny legs and little skinny arms and little skinny wings and basically look just like a Modron.

Stats:

HD2. AC Chain. Morale 12.
Unarmed attack: 1d6.

Abilities:

- Weapon Swap: When commanded by their Tactician, they immediately generate any kind of melee weapon. (See "Weapon Types" in the house rules)
- Upgrade: When their commanding Tactician is destroyed or upgraded, one of its subsidiary Baseline angels transforms into a Tactician. It gains +2 HD immediately.

Angel - Tactician

Tactician Angels are a real-time calculating node in the angel network. Four Tacticians are commanded by a single Ophanim. 
They have some tactical reasoning but these are strictly limited to the present moment, they have no ability for long term strategy. Mostly this is calculating stuff like "enemies are in heavy armour, use hammers" and telling their Baselines to swap to hammers.

Stats:

HD 4. AC Chain. Morale 12.
Unarmed ram attack: 1d6
or 2 armour-piercing stasis beam cannons: 1d6 each

Abilities:
- Switch Up: As an action, can order their Baseline minions to swap weapons.
- Upgrade: When their commanding Ophanim is destroyed or upgraded, one of its subsidiary Tactician angels transforms into an Ophanim. It gains +4 HD immediately.

Angel - Ophanim

Ophanim angels are the commanders of their group. One Ophanim commands 4 Tacticians that each command 4 Baselines, for a total of 21 angels per Choir.
They have the capacity for longer term strategy and are hubs for the wider angel network.
They are ultimately overseen by the Seraphim dropship that hovers at the edge of the Stratosphere.
This plus they're a whirling array of metal and high-powered beam weapons that can encase a large area within an impenetrable stasis barrier.

Stats:

HD 8. AC Plate. Morale 12.

Whirling shard attack: Attack all in 10' for 1d6 damage.
or 2 armour-piercing stasis beam cannons: 1d12 each.

Abilities:
- Reactive Movement: If hit by an attack, may take a free move without triggering Opportunity Attacks.
- Stasis Shell: As an action, create a 50' diameter shell of frozen time impenetrable to almost all non-angels. Takes a round to spin up and lasts until the Ophanim stops maintaining it. Things can still move inside the barrier, but they can't cross out and any projectiles crossing the barrier get stuck. The Ophanim itself can't act while maintaining the field, so needs to rely on its minions to destroy anything that's in there with it.

One of my players rendered one of them!

Tactics

First off, Angels hate Chaos.
They'll always attack Chaotic entities first, and will abandon their other goals until they've chased down and destroyed Chaotic targets.
They attack Neutral entities if they get too close or get in the way of their goals, but won't chase too far.
Lawful entities are ignored unless they physically attack an Angel.

Secondly, Angels upgrade.
Each Ophanim controls 4 Tacticians.
Each Tactician controls 4 Baselines.
If an angel higher in the hierarchy dies, one of their underlings upgrades at the end of the round to take their place.

Thirdly, Angels don't care about firing into combat.
All angels are immune to Stasis Beam attacks, so they'll try to get the Baselines in to tie up foes, then blast the melee with beam-fire.

Fourthly, Ophanim can use their stasis bubble for offence and defense.
If it calculates that its Choir is unlikely to survive, it can put up its Stasis Shell to prevent further action. Angels can roll through Stasis zones unhindered, so they can roll back into the field until danger has passed.
On the other hand, if it can trap a lone foe inside the field and have the rest of the angels come murder it, so much the better! This is a potentially dangerous tactic since the Ophanim can't defend itself with the field up, but mobbing one poor fool with a bunch of angels is usually a winning technique.

Gods Above

A fun extra thing about Angels is that they have different abilities depending on which God is above that week.
I track this because I have a game calendar (so cool, I know) and each week the God closest to the zenith in the skies above influences the Angels below.

You could always roll a 1d9 if you don't care about calendars.

Name	Angel Mood	Angel Special
Dispater of the Subtle Knife	Elusive	All Angels gain a free move when hit. Baselines equip reach weapons.
Oberon of the Green Branch	Wary	Baselines can use 1d6 ranged bow
Minerva of the Burnished Shield	Defensive	Baselines equip shields
The Scorned of the Rusted Blade	Resolute	Tacticians can command a weapon swap as a free action
The Dead God of the Brittle Bone	Murderous	Mob individuals. 4 in 6 Backstab.
Alaunus of the Mailed Fist	Efficient	Target lowest HP first.
The Lady of the Silver Coin	Fickle	Immune to opportunity attacks, retarget foes every round.
The Allfather of the Filled Cup	Hard-hitting	Baselines deal +1 die size for damage.
Eris of the Spinning Wheel	Hateful	Reverse priorities - kill Lawful first.

God Lore

There are, or were, Nine High Gods orbiting the Earth.
Massive mechanical minds born from aeons-ancient ingenuity, long sent into space to allow them to grow beyond all earthly proportion.
Immortal, impossible space golems, each orbit another turn of the prayer wheel.

If the Gods need to affect the world they send forth their angels.
The Seraphim, huge brass spheres, descend from above and blossom forth, the lower hemisphere opening up into six huge wing-petals covered with eyes.
Each eye is an angel, deployed from the wings according to the unknowable yet fairly obvious tactics of the Gods.

One of the Nine, Eris, was shot down in an earlier age. This has the unfortunate effect of putting angels into their failsafe "scorched earth" mode when they detect no gods overhead.

Some Faiths claim that she lies below Dwimmermount even now. Some call her Queen Satan, others believe her a fallen God unjustly wrenched from the heavens, others still say she never entered heaven at all...

Post-Apoc Fantasy Hexcrawl Rules

The end of the world dragged my campaign kicking and screaming from a civilised network of roads and cities to a proper hexcrawl across the barren earth.

This is an awful, painful place to travel through. The air burns to breathe, the rain is acid, and the threat of a Gas Front rolling through and vapourising all organic life is ever-present.
It's harsh, it's slow, and it's draining, but looting the ruins of the old world is an extremely profitable line of work...

Intent

Harsh
Travel in the post-apocalypse is dangerous due to the harsh environment and the toxic weather.
Almost everything is dead out there, so the classic travel danger of creature encounters is replaced with more impersonal forces like horrible rain or choking mists.
These rules are meant to refocus my campaign so that travel itself is part of the meat of the game, something players have to think about and plan around, rather than just a time tax between destinations.

Slow
Travel in the post-apocalypse is slow. Roads are old and ruined, towns have fallen into decay, and travel is physically exhausting. Gone are the days when you could zip across the regional map in less than a week by road, we're in the Post-Apocalypse now.
I like the idea that my well-used map effectively changes scale without changing size. Quick trips taken by road or by air in the past will now take several days, and it will be a logistical challenge to carry all you need to survive without slowing yourself down.

Exploratory
A game set in a relatively civilised area of towns linked by roads is tacitly a pointcrawl. You travel between destinations by road and rarely trudge through the wilderness.
Not so in the post-apocalypse. Now we're in a proper hexcrawl, and that means exploring!
Nobody really knows what's out there any more, but there are old maps and memories of the old world (even for the players, who have "lived" in this world for years).
The players are now explorers, pioneers, and treasure hunters in a world they once knew. It's pretty cool!

Extent of player exploration to date

Base Units

Distance
Distance is measured in Miles.
The world is divided into 1 mile Hexes.

Time
Overland time is divided into Watches.
Each Watch is approximately 4 hours of activity.
6 Watches per 24 hour period.

Basic Procedure

Each Watch follows these steps -

1. Group Up: If they wish, the party can form into separate groups.
2. Choose Activity: Each group decides what they're doing this Watch
3. Lost: If outfield, the DM secretly checks to see if each group is lost.
4. Encounters: Roll and resolve encounters per group. 1d6 if outfield, 1d12 if encamped.
5. Weather: Resolve weather effects.
6. Activity: Resolve the activity itself per group.

Where would we be without laminated gimmick sheets?

Previous laminated gimmick sheet in action. This is Winter, so the day only lasts 2 Watches / 8 hours.

Travel

This is the main thing with hexcrawl rules so I'm putting it first!

Maximum Travel Distance

On foot, your speed is limited by your Encumbrance.
I'd probably double these for pre-Apocalypse travel.

Encumbrance	Miles/Watch
Unencumbered	4
Lightly	3
Heavily	2
Morbidly	1
Over	0

Exhaustion
This is one of the main limiting mechanics to travel.
Each point of Exhaustion gives you a -1 penalty to all ability score modifiers and counts as an Oversized item (ie. +1 Encumbrance), slowing you down.
If it's been over 4 Watches (16 hours) since your last Rest, you take 1 Exhaustion per Watch.
Weather also commonly builds up Exhaustion, eventually forcing you to stop and rest.

Trails
You can intentionally leave a Trail as you travel.
This gets added to the map, making it easier to backtrack and easier to take the same route at a later date.
There might be times when you don't want to leave a Trail (like if someone's tracking you), but most of the time you'll want to leave one.

Travel by Vehicle
See the rules for Vehicles at the bottom of the post.
In short - vehicles are great for carrying stuff and protecting occupants from the weather, but they're liable to crash off-road. Wagon trains encouraged.

Watch Activities

Some examples of things you can do in one Watch.
Encounters are rolled on an encounter grid (see Encounters section below).
Encounter chances are effectively halved when you're encamped.

Outfield Activities
Basically any activity where you're moving around in the open exposed to the elements.
Encounter severity is rolled on 1d6.

Suggestions include:

• Travel: See Travel section above.
  Basically just move as far as you want up to your group's maximum travel distance.
• Explore: Search a hex for things of interest.
  No need to roll, you just find anything in the hex by the end of the Watch.
• Forage: Search for sustenance.
  See Foraging section below.

Encamped Activities

Basically anything you want to do that doesn't involve leaving an immediate area.
It probably goes without saying that anyone at the same campsite is in the same group for encounter purposes.
Encounter severity is rolled on 1d12, with results 7-12 as "nothing happens".

Suggestions include:

• Set Camp: Set up tents and organise the camp site, ie. draw the map of the camp.
  Important if some sort of post-apocalypse beast comes sniffing around.
  Shielded Camps: Some hexes have protected campsites that are good enough to resist deadly Gas Fronts and other dangers. Resist all weather effects, and when Encounters are rolled you can replace the result with "nothing happens" if you wish.
• Cook Food: As per the Dungeon Masterchef post.
  We've seen multiple cookoffs so far, which pleases me greatly!
• Forecast: Check to see where the weather's heading.
  Roll Bushcraft. On success, you can tell what the next weather change will be.
  On failure, you at least know the possibilities.
• Rest: See Getting Some Rest section below

Foraging

It might look like everything's dead out there... but if you know where to look you'll find some strange edible flora and fauna that's managed to adapt to the toxic atmosphere and frequent all-devouring Gas Fronts.

Forage
Roll a Bushcraft group check (ie. use highest Bushcraft score in the group).
On success, find 1d4 Ingredients +1 per additional forager.
The Ingredient you find is based on terrain. Roll 1d10 on the associated Forage table to see what you find!

***PLAYERS DON'T CLICK***
You can find my current (incomplete) Forage tables in this sheet. It's all weird stuff adapted to the post-apocalypse, so you'd want to change it to Nettles and Mushrooms and stuff for non-fucked settings.
***THANKS FOR BEING GOOD!***

Set Forage
The first time Forage is found in a hex it becomes easier to find that particular Ingredient there. Set Forage by adding the Ingredient to the hex description.
Any time that hex is successfully foraged in the future, the forager rolls the 1d10 and can choose between that and the Set Forage.
Really good if you know you need a certain foraged ingredient for a particular meal!

Weather Boost
Each type of Forage is more prevalent during certain weather (see Weather below).
During the right weather, boost the Ingredients roll twice - from 1d4 to 1d8.

Example for Hills areas. If you want Popjack, go out during a Haze!

Season
In Winter, find 1 Ingredient per forager in the group only.
I was considering having proper seasonal forage, but it's easier to just add some seasonal flavour to the description. Plus that'd be a lot of backend work to track forage per hex per season!

Getting Some Rest

Sleeping out in the wastes is hard when you're plagued by itches and your mate's coughing up a lung on the bedroll next to you. Luckily you're often so tired that you don't care.
Going more than 4 Watches without a rest gives you one point of Exhaustion per Watch.

Shelter
Scratch-built shelter won't do in the post-apocalypse. You need a proper Survival Tent!
Costs available here.

Rest
Resting for a single Watch heals 1 point of Exhaustion.

Long Rest
Resting for two Watches in a row cures all Exhaustion.
You get Overnight Healing rates as per the house rules.
In short:
- No Food and/or Shelter: If you're on 0HP, no healing. Else heal your Bushcraft score in HP.
- Food and Shelter: Heal up to the next step of Half HP, Full HP, or Full+1d6 HP.

Convalescence
Resting for a whole 24 hours (6 Watches in a row) with food and shelter heals ability scores.
Save vs Doom. On success, heal 1 point of stat damage in all affected ability scores.

Getting Lost

It's fairly easy to lose your way if you're not following a trail, especially with the terrible weather and the way the air stings your eyes. I cannot emphasise enough how much the post-apocalypse sucks.
The base chance of getting lost while outfield is 1 in 6, adjusted by the following modifiers:

Getting Lost	Modifier
Following Road/River	-3
To Visible Landmark	-2
Following Trail	-1
Following Map	-1
Clear Weather	-1
Hazy	+1
Rainy	+3
Foggy	+5
Night (Bright Moon)	+1
Night (Quarter Moon)	+3
Night (Dark Moon)	+5

If a group gets lost while travelling the DM secretly rolls on this chart to see which way they went. They leave their intended path at a random point in the journey.

If they get lost while exploring or foraging within a hex, they simply end up in a random hex nearby.

A lost group makes a Bushcraft group check (ie. use highest Bushcraft score).
On success, they know their bearing, how far off course they are, and the direction of their intended destination. On failure they've got no idea.
Groups that left a trail behind them could retrace their steps, those who don't might be in trouble.

A Stoneshell Crab, by our own Tom

Encounters

Overland encounters use an encounter grid as per that post.
Encounter severity roll depends on whether the group is Outfield or Encamped.
1d6 for Outfield.
1d12 for Encamped.

Encounters with actual creatures are rare, so they're on the low and high ends of the bell curve.

The special part is that there are common entries that change based on terrain, weather and hex.

***PLAYERS DO NOT CLICK***
You can check out the encounter grid I'm currently using here.
***PHEW THANK YOU THAT WAS CLOSE***

Base results are these, so I can explain the special non-creature ones.

Probability fiends will note that there's only a 33% chance of an encounter involving a creature.

The environmental "encounters" are these:

• Weather Effect: Doubles down on weather effects, no matter the weather.
• Terrain Special: Changes based on terrain, so Hills is different to Plains and so on. Sometimes cause something to be added to the map, like a new fissure appearing in a Hills area.
• Hex Special: Involves the current hex they're in.
• Weather Special: Changes based on weather, so Haze is different to Acid Rain and so on. Usually additional badness, but sometimes something nice happens like the rain lets up for a bit!
• Rogue Weather: The weather changes! This is temporary and the weather has turned back by the end of the Watch. If the party splits up and multiple groups get different Rogue Weather I guess the results are strangely localised.

The effects change with the severity roll. You can see the effects on the encounter grid linked above.

Weather

Since it's after the end of the world there is now a massive focus on environmental dangers, chiefly the weather. Plus complaining about the weather brings us together as Englishmen.
The stinging Haze leads onto Acid Rain or thick Chokestorms, and deadly Gas Fronts are an ever-present threat. Thank goodness the Gas Fronts are usually preceded by the crackling electrical storms of the Warning so people know when to get to cover. And all that's just in Spring!

***PLAYERS DO NOT CLICK***
Weather types as of right now can be found here.
***CHEERS!***

Survival Gear
It's awful out there. You need protective clothing and a breather mask to last long out in the wastes.
Survival Gear replaces normal armour and follows the same rules (see house rules).
Short version - Certain effects can Notch your armour, each Notch reducing its AC by 1. If this ever makes it worthless, it falls apart and is irreparable.
Filter Masks replace Helmets. They can be destroyed by certain Death and Dismemberment effects.

Prices here.

Six-Dimensional Weather
Invented by Daniel Sell at What Would Conan Do, this hex-based Six-Dimensional Weather is the foundation of this weather system. You can see how it works at that link. It's very clever!

Types of Weather
There are six types of weather. Each season has a variation on the theme.

• Haze: Common travelling weather. Fair visibility, but exhausting to walk in.
• Acid Rain:
  Heavy rain that eats away at your gear. Bad visibility.
• The Warning:
  Precedes Gas Fronts. Lightning storms that are safe to walk in unless you clash metal on metal.
• Gas Front:
  Lethal fog of Omnipoison converts all organic life it touches into more Omnipoison. If you're lucky you die instantly.
• Clear:
  A rare reprieve from the weather!
• Storm:
  Seasonal variation, always terrible. Usually a worse version of the Haze with bad visibility.

Weather Change
Weather moves around the hex map every dawn and dusk.
When the weather changes, roll the next change in advance so players can Forecast it.

Weather Effects
Each type of weather has an associated Effect.
If you're not wearing survival gear and a breather helm, you also take the Exposure effect. Somehow despite wearing practically nothing, Barbarians always count as wearing survival gear and breather helm.
If combat occurs, Encounter Conditions apply.
For example these are the Weather possibilities for Spring. You'll notice pretty much everything sucks. That's the post-apocalypse for you!

Forecasting
An Encamped activity.
Roll Bushcraft.
On success, you know what the weather will be next time it changes.
On failure, you at least know the potential options.

Fast Forwarding
If you ever need to fast forward the weather, like if players are resting up safely in town for a while, just roll a weather change twice per week.
It's assumed that the random walk did a completely average return-to-origin loop for 6 days, then went somewhere else on the 7th day.
If I had a computer program that could do it for me I'd use that though!

Seasons

Seasons change over the course of the campaign, especially since I'm intentionally pushing the timeline forward by limiting the PCs to one Expedition or Downtime activity per in-game month.

Weather
Each Season has a different spin on the basic weather types (see that section above) and a different feel.

• Spring sets the standard. Variable levels of crap weather. Relatively rare Gas Fronts but potentially interminable Chokestorms might stop travel for days.
• Summer has long stretches of clear days, but if it gets bad it tends to stick. Hot weather is exhausting for anyone in heavier gear.
• Autumn is all wet and miserable. Rain tends to last, alternating between acid rainstorms and an interminable hissing rain that makes it easy to get lost.
• Winter is brutally cold. Travelling requires you to have Cold Weather Gear - an Oversized item - lest you freeze to death. At least Gas Fronts freeze into the ground in winter.

Day Length
The day gets longer and shorter over the course of the year.
Your chance of getting lost increases at night (see Getting Lost section above).
Watches from dawn until dusk:

• Summer: 4 Watches
• Spring/Autumn: 3 Watches
• Winter: 2 Watches

Travel by Vehicle

Finally, travel by Vehicle!

This ties in better to the roads in the seasonal Rebuild Phase (to come) but the travel stuff is relevant.
While vehicles have the potential to be slightly faster than a party on foot, they're mostly about carrying supplies and/or protecting occupants from the weather.

I'm pretty pleased with the speedometer gimmick!

Compartments
Vehicles have 6 Compartments - numbered 1-6 in the image above.
A compartment can fit one person and all their equipment, or 20 encumbrance slots-worth of items.
If you got a good treasure haul you might have to walk because your wagon's full of stuff.

Speed
When you Travel with a vehicle, choose how fast you're going.
Higher speeds increase your chance of crashing, as per the image above.
You'll notice that this is slow, but that's because the roads are real bad. If you were driving down a maintained and paved road you'd go at double speed, but no roads are that good just yet!

Crash Chance
Base 1 in 6 with the following modifiers.

Crash Chance	Modifier
On road	-3
On trail	-1
Off-road (flat)	+2
Off-road (rough)	+4
Clear Weather	-1
Hazy	+1
Rainy	+3
Fog	+5
Night (Bright)	+1
Night (Quarter)	+3
Night (Dark)	+5

If you crash, the driver will roll on the Vehicle Crash Table.
They make a Piloting check.
On success they roll a 1d6 on that table. On failure they roll 1d12.

Kneel Before the Apocalypse Dragons!

The Apocalypse Dragons!

Five are they.

Ninhursag, Clathrate Dragon. It is of Earth, of Poison, of Secrets.
Atrahasis, Deluvial Dragon. It is of Cold, of Ice, of Stasis.
Ereshkigal, Singularity Dragon. It is of Mass, of Gravity, of Despair.
Shamash, Bolide Dragon. It is of Heat, of Fire, of Rage.
Mardūk, Gamma Burst Dragon. It is of Light, of Electricity, of Power.

Each is the size of mountains.
Each has upon its eyeless face a Rune.
They have tried, in their own ways, to prevent the emergence of Shub-Niggurath.
Each attempt has caused an extinction event.
Each attempt has failed.

The Beast in the Core of the Earth is still here.

Why Worship Such Atrocities?

Why indeed? These Apocalypse Dragons care not for man. They care not for life itself. 

Their only goal, the only goal that matters, is to prevent Shub-Niggurath from cracking the world like an egg and spreading its star-seed to infest other planets.
Terrestrial life is nothing to them. Sacrificing the earth to save the universe is a akin to us sacrificing an ant to save a city.
They do not speak. They do not care. They live and think on timescales too vast for us to comprehend, and far too vast for them to comprehend the short non-events of human lives.

So why, then? Why worship them?

Dragon powers! 

Those who obey the whims of a Dragon gain access to potent abilities. 

Claws, breath, scales, wings, Rune control, a whole host of fantastical abilities.

And the price? Merely abide by the Observances that you must obey or avoid to gain favour, and avoid breaking Taboos.

Are these things the dragon actually wants from its followers? Or are they merely a shallow surface reading of the echoes of the thoughts of a creature far too powerful and ancient to comprehend, justified post-facto by desperate adherents clinging to a foolish hope that their Dragon will save them from the end of the world?

Either way, it seems to work.

How to Worship Such Atrocities.

These rules are basically cribbed and slightly adjusted from Perdition.
If you want a bunch of rad demon lords to worship instead of dragons, check it out!

In brief:
Your Bond to a dragon is a number between 1 and 12.
Each Bond level grants an ability, but applies a cumulative 5% penalty to earned exp.
New adherents start at Bond 2.
Maintaining your bond with a Dragon requires you to avoid breaking its Taboos.
Improving your bond with a Dragon requires you to abide by its Observances.

Initially bonding yourself to a Dragon is remarkably simple.
All you need to do is kneel before an Apocalypse Dragon, or be baptised with its Rune by someone who is already Bonded to the Dragon.
Strengthening your Bond is where it gets interesting.



Here's an example of the Taboos and Observances of one of the Dragons - Ninhursag.

Taboos must not be broken. Break a Taboo and you lose 1 Bond level.
So if you're at Bond 4 and break a taboo by letting someone cast Cure Disease on your friend, you drop down to Bond 3.

Observances are important for when you attempt to increase your Bond level with a Dragon.
You want to collect the positive modifiers while avoiding the negative modifiers.
Whenever you trigger an Observance, mark it.
You can attempt to improve your Bond level once per session.

Improving your Bond:
- Either kneel before your Dragon or listen to a sermon from a someone who has a higher Bond Level than you.
- Roll 2d6 and apply any modifiers from your Observances.
- If you roll over your current Bond Level, it increases by 1.
- Whether you succeed or fail your Observances reset, erase all marks.

Ninhursag's bond abilities

The abilities follow the track above for all Dragons, ie. you always get Eyes at Bond 3 and Wings at Bond 9. What the actual effects of those are differ by Dragon though.

The abilities remain unknown until someone unlocks them. I'll reveal the abilities in subsequent posts about the Dragons, but to illustrate, here's what my players have seen so far.
At the moment our current highest Bond character is POWERLAD.
He's at Bond 10 with Ninhursag so has unlocked the following abilities:

click to expand

You'll notice that at Bond 5 you have to choose one of the Dragon's Aspects.
These are based on Rune combinations. That's all over here if you're interested, but not directly relevant. All you need to know is that you can choose to worship the Dragon Undivided or one of its four derivative Aspects.

In this case, POWERLAD chose to worship the Aspect of Size, granting him a bunch of size-related abilities.
Coupled with his potent Muscle Wizard abilities, he's a real superhero!


It's possible to worship multiple dragons at once but it's hard to maintain since you've got to juggle a bunch of different and often mutually contradictory Taboos and Observances.
It's technically possible though!

Discussion

This is part worldbuilding, part faction play, part optional sub-quest, and part alternate leveling system.

Alternate Leveling

Characters in my campaign peak at the soft cap of Level 7.
Getting there is hard enough, the work of maybe a year of play, and after that exp requirements are so vast that they're practically unattainable.

This means alternate methods of gaining power and abilities are welcome. This is one result, a means of gaining cool new powers and abilities that isn't tied to class or level.

The players quickly grasped that optimal thing to do is to get to a high level then get into a dragon cult as a sort of prestige class thing. Hence why the Level 7 Muscle Wizard POWERLAD is the main Drakencultist in the group.
Since you're probably not going to level up anyway the exp penalty isn't such a big deal, and since you're not going to level up anyway you might as well go hard into Bonds!

Sub-Quest

It's kinda cool to have an optional extra thing you can be doing that doesn't disrupt the party's goals.
Sure, you might be incentivised by Taboos or Observances to do certain things or act in a certain way, but you're not trying to persuade your friends to come with you on some random sidequest that's got nothing to do with their actual goals.

It does make things interesting though.
There was a time when POWERLAD's player was frantically telling someone "don't come near me with that fucking healing!" so they didn't break their taboo against healing unnaturally. That was great.

Faction Play

Factions are a great way to drive player action, and since you've got to go back to the Dragon or one of its Drakencultists to level up your Bond it means you've got to deal with that faction a bunch.

If you piss off everyone in the cult, the only way you can strengthen your Bond is to fight or sneak your way to the Dragon itself. Dragon don't care about petty human squabbles.

Plus, since there are 5 different Aspects of each dragon that means there are going to be at least 5 sub-cults in each Drakencult, and that's ripe for faction play too!
We've just come off a month or so of gameplay involving internecine strife within Ninhursag's Drakencult, it went great. POWERLAD is a high priest now and everything.

Worldbuilding

Is there a better way to get my players in contact with the campaign lore around Apocalypse Dragons?
Dragon powers! Who could resist!
Now there's a fair amount of theorising around what the Dragons are, what they do, and how one might be exploited to juuuust about stop the end of the world without them kicking on to destroy the world in a whole other way.

Power Level

There's one more thing tied up in this - the power level of the abilities.

You might notice in that POWERLAD ability sheet thing further up the page that these abilities are actually real fucking strong. +4 Strength at will? Breath weapon deals your HP as damage?? Bond 10 lets you turn into an elemental dragon??? What the fuck?

This is a symptom of me letting go of that "low level play" dial as we get into the Apocalypse.

The world's totally fucked and there's a ton of stuff that's too big to be solved by stabbing it with sharp sticks, even dragon-powered sharp sticks. Might as well kick it into high gear!