1KM1KT Free RPG Community

The skies have blackened with volcanic ash and savage storms, an electromagnetic pulse has wiped out anything with technology more advanced than crude integrated circuits or transistors. The beliefs of the masses have awakened their worst nightmares in the shadows. It's going to be a rough couple of months until the skies clear, and daylight shines back on the surface of the world.

Where do you live? What creatures are awakened in the shadows near you? How are people learning to survive?

Give me a few quick sentences about where you are and how things develop during the apocalypse in your part of the world.

Reading, Berkshire, UK. A town of 200,000 tech workers.

The shadows in Reading stride from the river, the souls of those that have been drowned there over the millenia. They only come out when the storms are thickest. People have retreated toward the wind turbine and huddle in florescent tube lit office buildings, the souls hate the light.

Phoenix metropolitan area, AZ, US.

A city of roughly 4.62 million people; a good chunk of whom enjoy the state's lax firearms legislation. Stuff around here goes bad quick when we run out of water, so the main people who survive have knowledge of the desert plants that can be used as a water source and must always be on the move going from place to place; the lucky find a section of river that can be accessed easily and still has water flowing through it (which is not impossible), but if the dam bursts they're going to have troubles.

The worst part of the apocalypse, though, after figuring out how to stay alive, are the monsters; scorpions and lizards larger than men prey on those who once considered their lesser brethren nothing more than a pest or at worst an easily avoided threat. These venomous creatures become legends in the eyes of the survivors, terrors of the night coming to destroy those who stray outside of the safety of campfires and heavy rifles.

Of all the groups I've sent this out to...you guys are the only ones doing it in the way I had intended.

Thankyou.

Of course my problem is that I live on the outskirts of Sydney, a city with four million souls, that's a lot of collective belief...and when hundreds of thousands of devout Christians and Muslims all expected to see choirs of angels, legions of demons and the return of their respective prophets, spiritual warfare obliterated the darkened lands. Those who survived the initial onslaught fled along the motorways hoping to find something better but only clogged up the arterial roads with traffic.

Those of us on the edges of the cities simply wait for things to pass. The blood red skies of the cities glow from the savage fires that still burn weeks after the great darkening. We're thankful that we have enough home grown foods to survive for a few more days, but we dread the time when we'll have to head into the cities to see the true face of the shattered urban nightmare.

But maybe the cities will be safer than surviving where we are...Jacko didn't come back from his hunting trip to gather meat a few days back...and that howling seems to get louder as it echoes through the trees when the wind dies down. Some of us are thinking of gathering the cars fueled by LPG and taking to the road, the rest are thinking about barricading the town against the last refugees from the cities and the howling things from the bush.

Celaya, Guanajuato, México.

The Aztecs (not the Mayans!) were right. When the sky darkened, the dormant , star-goddesses, descended to devour mankind. Taking by surprise thousands of people, in a few hours the population was decimated.

You can hide from them inside your house, locking yourself, but sooner or later you'll have to leave to search food. And the swift Tzitzimime will be waiting.



Edited: because I hit "Submit" intead of "Preview".

Now that's awesome. I know a bit of Aztec myth, but I didn't know about these dark goddesses. Thanks, they'll make a great addition to the mythos.

Middle TN, USA

Collective area has roughly 2 or so million people. While downtown Nashville suffered greatly, most of the less populated areas recovered some semblance of civilization. Some remote towns didn't notice much of a difference. The abundant farmland, water, and game keeps most towns fed. While the capital is a wasteland, people recollected into the major suburbs and created small cities that cooperate enough with each other to survive. Many of the industrial areas, military bases, and universities are home to organizations trying to get humanity back on top again.

Trouble is... History has decided to come back to haunt the present. The forgotten sons of the south have risen to drive off the fallen northern invaders that still curse the land. Civil War reenactment has taken on a whole new meaning. Whole platoons of the risen soldiers roam the forests from battlefield to battlefield searching for Yankees to kill and drafting any able bodied men they encounter. Their echoing Rebel Yells chilling the bones of any within ear shot.

If the dead wasn't enough, the living provide just as much of a problem. Many remote communities are not exactly on the best terms with each other... or anyone else for that matter.