Long after The End descended upon the Old World... humanity started to rebuild itself, albeit wretched and forlorn. Survivors salvaged what they could of government in the form of the American Lands. They rebuilt roads, though in fewer numbers and inferior quality, and they reclaimed the skeletons of buildings. Nowhere does humankind rebuild so desperately as in the humid swamps of the Backwater, where humanity battles itself and the natural elements to survive. You are a warden here—a roaming peace keeper in the American Lands—protecting order at civilization’s southern reach. You travel the Old World’s crumbling roadways among mosquitoes and snakes. You tend to every small town’s big secret, and you quell strife between old families in a new era. Here in the bogs, you keep mutation at bay, ever-watchful for the wretched cousins of ancient humanity. You protect mankind from supernatural horrors that have only started to emerge.
Your journeys have brought you to the Lowcountry, the shattered sea islands haunted by pirates, old money, superstition and, of course, ghosts. They're used to the supernatural here, they've lived beside it since before The End--it had been here since the first peopling of the land and perhaps even before that. But...but something is stirring the pot. Old spirits are being roused. The newly dead refuse to sleep. There is a storm on the horizon, felt in your soul rather than being seen by your eyes.
One of three contacts in the region have requested your aide
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Mx X.- A spy from the Unified Government and nominally your direct superior as a Warden, Mx X is under cover as Miss Amelia Brown, a secretary for the captain overseeing the local garrison. X is concerned that these supernatural events might be the rumblings of some sort of uprising or invasion from unknown forces--right now X needs people on the ground to investigate and be plausible deniability should anything untoward occur.
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Reverend Yates- A priest from The Holy City of Charleston who is fearful after a number of exorcists sent to purge the spirits have instead vanished or killed by something beyond mortal ken. Yates is concerned that the rise in supernatural activity is a sign that his flock have been led astray by something sinister prowling the Sea Islands
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Doc Possum- A root doctor and local, her ancestors have been been a part of the Sea Islands since before The First Founding-- what the idealized written records have forgotten, the oral tradition of the Gullah Geechee have remembered. Possum knows that some sort of evil witchery is at play here, angering the spirits that she and her fellows have long worked to keep at bay. Her first and foremost concern is for the people of the Islands and their safety.
Expectations
We're still deciding on the rules here. Might use a prototype system based on the Ghost Wax Podcast, might use the Backbone system originally developed for Backwater, CoC, or might use something else entirely. We're mostly interested in doing something light and focused more on playing out the scenario over mechanics.
Characters are expected to have approximately the sort of know-how that a late 19th century American might with the exception that late 21st century ruins have provided occasional Technological Marvels (and Horrors.) You likely have no idea what a computer is, much less how to use one, but you may have heard that the butler at the Beauregard estate is rumored to be a Machine Man. You've never held a weapon more advanced than a 1887 Winchester rifle, but your great grandmother said she once saw a man turned to dust after being shot with a "queer bright light."
One way or another, however, you are a professional at dealing with...problems. Maybe you are a professional soldier or a paid mercenary, a priest from one of the New or Old Religions, a doctor with their trusty bone-saw and whiskey , an "inventor" rediscovering what the Old World took for granted, a hunter whose trophies include two headed alligators and a set of rougarou teeth , or perhaps an occultist versed in one of the many facets of the supernatural.
The Wards (what's left of the American states, reorganized into larger, less densely populated regions) are largely self governed, though nominally unified from the Capital at Providence-- the mysterious blasted ruins of Washington DC exist only as a source of fear and rumor or as a sacred lost holy land for the delusional Cult of the Founders. You don't need to know much about the state of the world beyond the local Backwater ward to play-- a place of feuding old families, pirates, and religion still hold sway while the rest of us just try to get on with our lives.
spyrosbaldr
The_Butler
baldin.stonecrusher
TheDude2371
ulyth
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prophane
Guyblue
Anthr4xus
Guldbrandsen
thelawfulneutral
Varon777
iantruesilver
Casual Viking
ripleycat
Eric
Llyarden
Morphling
horrizon
myth_tales
CharmingSatyr
NickNameless
fabulist
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