Wednesday, December 18, 2013

TRAILER: Dawn of the Planet of the Apes!



The trailer for the second part of the rebooted Planet of the Apes series is here! Here's the official description:
A growing nation of genetically evolved apes led by Caesar is threatened by a band of human survivors of the devastating virus unleashed a decade earlier. They reach a fragile peace, but it proves short-lived, as both sides are brought to the brink of a war that will determine who will emerge as Earth's dominant species.

Gary Oldman, Jason Clarke, and Judy Greer join the cast this time around. Look for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes sometime in July of 2014.


Chimp leader Caesar adorns the official poster for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes
Thoughts on the trailer?

Wednesday, December 4, 2013

Monster: Cyclosaur

Image: Jud Turner's Mortalcycle

Background

These wheeled, undead terrors can be found roaming city streets and open highways around major cities, preying on the living. They are nocturnal by nature and are more often seen during full moons, which has given the impression that they are the result of some form of lycanthropy. Living flesh seems to act as their fuel source.

Appearance/Physicality

Cyclosaurs are undead cyborgs made up of skeletal remains of carnivorous animals and wheeled vehicular components. They bark, snarl, and snap as wolves, roar as Harely Davidson motorcycles when agitated, and yet emit no visible combusion. Their eyes flicker red, shining out onto the their prey.

Methods of Attack

Cyclosaurs are wild and hunt in packs of 30 to 40, in search of the living to feast upon.  They employ typical biker gang behavior when pursuing prey--namely chasing or running down targets that they vastly outnumber, surrounding them, and then closing in for the kill, sometimes with a pouncing manuver.

Rumors

It's thought that cyclosaurs are some form of supercharged fossilgeist or the result of some dark necromancer's experiments with extinct animals gone awry. They've been around for centuries now, so it's unknown if their creator is still alive.

Since they seem to prefer open roads, they can't go off-road over uneven terrain...right?

The alpha leader is said to have horns like a ram, whose rings smoulder with a dim maroon glow.


STATS

FREQUENCY: Uncommon
NO. APPEARING: Packs of  30-40
ARMOR CLASS: 9
MOVE: 25
HIT DICE: 4d8
NO. OF ATTACKS: 1
DAMAGE/ATTACK: Afterburner - increases speed by 5 per round and blasts a fireball of 3d6 damage, Road Rash - attack with front wheel to flay victim at 2d8 damage, Roadbeast Roar - causes targets in a 10 meter radius to save vs. fear/paralysis, Bite - 2d4+2 damage
SPECIAL ABILITIES/SKILLS: Pop a wheelie using Afterburner as a leaping or pouncing manuver, instead of 5 move spaces add +5 to any attack damage should they land on target
SPECIAL DEFENSES: If cornered, Afterburner can be used as a special escape in the same manner that a pounce would manuver would be used to close in for kill.
MAGIC RESISTANCE: Cyclosaurs are resistant to any kind of binding magic and will break most energy barriers. They may, however, be turned as undead if eye contact can be made and they don't run you over first.
INTELLIGENCE: Average
ALIGNMENT: Chaotic evil
SIZE: M
PSIONIC ABILITY: None known.

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

Post-Apocalyptic Community Project: FROM THE ZONES!


Click image to learn how to participate! 

Prepare to Enter the Zones!

Madman of mutant mayhem John Till over at FateSF is leading the charge for new cross-blog extravaganza called FROM THE ZONE. This is an OSR community project to create material for a post-apocalyptic setting inspired in part by the Andrei Tarkovsky film Stalker (1979). 

If you've never heard of the film, he's written a great primer and set up some participation guidelines. This is open to anyone and you don't need a blog to participate. Best of all you can choose the rule system you love most, but it's perfect for that Mutant Future, X-plorers or old school Gamma World game you've got going.

It looks to be a blast so put on your thinking caps and get writing! 


From FateSF:

FROM THE ZONES is a cross-blog project. Here are the details:

  1. Write something about the Zones for the system of your choice. Describe a specific Zone, or an artifact, or a location within the Zone, a strange threat or phenomenon found in the Zone, a Zone scenario, a table of encounters, a Stalker character class, or something else.
  2. This project is cross-system. Write for a system you love. I'll be writing for Fate Core/FAE, but you may want to write for a different system, such as Labyrinth Lord/Mutant Future, X-plorers, Diaspora, Stars Without Numbers, WaRP, Open D6,  or something else. System-neutral is also fine!
  3. Post your content to your own blog. You own whatever you write and post to your own blog.
  4. If you don't have a blog you can write a document in Google docs. 
  5. Download the Hereticwerks Zones logo; use it in your blog post or Google doc! We will post the link to download the logo HERE as soon as it is up and ready.
  6. Leave a comment in the comments section of this post (see below) with a link to your blog post or Google doc
  7. We will create a table with all the links and a brief/title description of each item here at FATE SF
We'll start the table collecting the links as Thursday's FATE SF post. This will be an ongoing project, so share a link to your blog post or Google doc whenever it is ready.

Note: This is a re-post from Exonauts, with a few minor tweaks. Seemed appropriate since this is a post-apoc blog, after all...

Friday, October 4, 2013

Try this setting for your next Gamma World game...

Every recipe begins with a good base...
Click image for publication info

Mix in some Mars Attacks miniatures from this upcoming game on Kickstarter...



Then add in a dash of background reading...

This post (skip to the bit on WW Doom)

...the first volume of the newly revived Mars Attacks comics.....

Click image for publication info

....a little pinch of the also newly revived Dinosaurs Attack! comic from IDW....

Click image for publication info

....plus a heap of James Stokoe's incredible Godzilla The Half Century War...

Click image for publication info

Then top it off with a little video* preview for your players:



Voila! A feast of post-apocalyptic mayhem--just in time for the weekend!


UPDATE: Gah! Apologies, that last clip has been yanked by WB. As soon as--I guess--the official one pops up I'll revise. Until then, here's a little something to tide you and your players over:




*Clip is a trailer for a movie coming out May 16, 2014 ;)

Classic Fallout games on sale at GOG

 

Gog.com is having a weekend sale (actually goes through Monday) on all their Fallout titles for a measly $4.99 each.

Wednesday, July 17, 2013

WAR MACHINE: Zodanga, Predator City!

"Zodanga, the predator city. Moving, devouring, draining Barsoom of energy and life." --Tars Tarkas
The city of Zodanga as portrayed in the film John Carter makes for one hella huge war machine! The John Carter wiki calls it a "walking refinery" which is a good start if you want to make a carnivorous metal monster.
 
In the movie, the city moves in an undulating, centipedal fashion atop dozens of enormous fingered-foot gear. Every mile, it's stirring up a dust cloud as it claws its way across Mars' arid landscape. With the Martian surface being marred with craters, canyons, and canals, the city's tapdancing spine could also act as a land bridge, allowing it virtually limitless passage. I imagine anything that lies in it's path is summarily rendered to rubble--including enemy settlements.

"Nothing speaks more powerfully than pictures and to see a city moving across the landscape, leaving a scar in its wake--it's ugly, and nothing says 'bad guy' faster than that."
--Andrew Stanton (Director, John Carter)
While the city doesn't seem to have any sort of (giant) primary weapon (unless you count it's feet, which is more like force of nature!) but it does carry a formidable complement of airships atop it's launch deck.
John Carter: "That doesn't look like a fair fight."
Tars Tarkas: "Zodanga never fights fair."
Airships are armed with a variety of short-range radium cannons for ship-to-ship, broadsides-style combat. According to the film there's also a fairly healthy number of soldiers (air marines?) aboard for when things get dicey and they need to overtake a captured vessel.

I'd wager there's probablly plenty of radium cannons (short-and long-range) mounted to the city itself, turning it into a mobile fortress of sorts.

Funny thing--after seeing Zodanga on the big screen last year, I was instantly reminded of the cover of Epsilon Cyborgs:


Though that looks a little like an evil cruise ship with giant tank treads, it's still pretty badass! For a Gamma World or Mutant Future campaign, Zodanga would make one awesome hideout for an evil sorcerer or a formidable clan of wasteland thugs.

Learn more:

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Mutants of the Musical Wasteland



Great commercial from the 80s for GE. I really think the height of post-apocalyptic cheese was the decade of excess. So much to love.

Via Boing Boing