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That is a wonderful shot at summarizing the setting - even I have trouble keeping my description concise. In fact, I've started working on other settings so players can choose how much complexity and back story they start with. I am trying to come up with some new description, and making most of the AZ stuff a companion book (or series of) to the main D&B rules.

The shortest I've come up with is "Cyberpunk wild west settlements, with the most of the tech removed, aliens replacing Indians, and zombies as an environmental hazard. (Possible amendment - cyberpunk Grecian City States, though that might be a cool game in and of itself.)

One note that should be rather important - the setting generally picks up five years after The Event. Player Characters would be somewhat familiar with the world as it has became, and stocks of canned food have run out. In turn, focus is on long term survival issues - repairing farms, establishing stable government, restoring power plants. A good analogy might be US Westward expansion rather than the initial colonization period.


The aliens are a wild card. Their FTL systems are no longer functional, and the populace is tired of decades stuck in the ships anyway, so they are not going to be leaving. However, there is a great degree of internal conflict amongst the Planetary Citizens as to what to do now that they are on Earth. Some want to be just left alone, others to settle old grudges that followed them from the home world. Whether the humans are equals, sub-citizen, or targeted for extermination is the subject of intense debate, or occasional civil-war. Being a colony rather than an invasion fleet (and there probably aren't war fleets - no other alien civilizations are known to exist) their arms are limited, so the aim at the moment is much the same as the humans go from survival to industry.

From the average human's perspective - they know the world went to hell about the time the aliens showed up. Rumors abound of the aliens razing old towns, or asking humans to vacate an area while reacting laser towers that attack anything that gets too close. However, most people have also heard from a friend of a friend that there are some nice ones that saved their lives/traded for goods/swapped yo-moma jokes, etc. The first one or two encounters with an alien are probably going to set the tone of your campaign - highly intelligent antagonists with demonic looking exo-suits, or fellow survivors.

Another analogy I like is that the aliens are World War One submarine captains, and reanimates the wrath of an angry sea while players are merchantmen. Some give you a chance to surrender, some have mercy, and others attack without warning.


I've intentionally left the means of reanimate infection rather unknown - though some degree of bites/infection is part of it. Reanimates tend to operate like a super-organism (ie - ant colony) with the basic types as workers, and advance types like warriors. The rumored but never seen type four might be something akin to the queen. What is known - they collect the dead - yours and theirs, If you leave a body behind - the next day it won't be there. So you need to mutilate/cremate bodies to be sure they don't join the ranks.