: Review

Overview:

   10,000 years ago, science had made this nice little world populated by humans into a paradise. Of course, being humans, we promptly found something to argue about and had a war: genetically engineered post-humans vs. "natural" humans.

   As the war went on, it escalated, until "entropic" weapons were used, which in the tradition of good pseudo-scientific gobbledigook, break down reality, instantly vaporize their targets, and the fallout causes mutations. In addition, an AI virus that turns machines into berserkers, and a zombie plague were used... The Galactic Compact was horrified by our use of these forbidden weapons, and isolated the planet with huge death stars circling the planet and shooting down anything that tried to leave.

   By the time humanity was done, the air and water were toxic and most of the planet was a desert wasteland.

   The entire civilization uses a concentrated self-renewing nanotech fuel called "Drakonium", but they have to gather it in the deserts, and every year less and less of it grows... So the wars go on, until the Drak runs out for good, the air recyclers and factories stop running, civilization grinds to a halt, and everyone dies. Nary a happy ending in sight.

   Almost everyone lives in one of five huge "metrozones", endlessly huge cities, except for a few "Skavengers" who live in the wastelands and the really hard-core mutants and demons (humans who've used machines to turn themselves into energy beings in a search for immortality) of Kimera.

   The five metrozones:

Prometheus

Defender of "the old race" and machine intelligence, utterly hostile to all mutants, post-humans, and psychers. The Apokalypse Virus turned many of the controlling AIs ("Overminds") into killers, and drove the rest slightly mad; they now rule the humans as Machine Gods. The machinery of the city was damaged heavily in the wars, and much of it cannot be repaired, so humans now work as slaves for the machines in factories (think of Fritz Lang's _Metropolis_ or any other dystopia).

Shogunate

Feudal pseudo-Japanese culture, utterly superstitious - they believe the "Ultramundae" (the Net) is the spirit plane, Overminds are "Kami" and "Oni" (spirits and demons), etc. They have plenty of high-tech equipment but do not understand it, and don't want to. They also have proof of immortality and a karma system - they use Nekrochips (which record your memories at the moment of death) and cloning to get new lives, if they've been worthy. Not to mention weird martial arts powers (actually pyschic talents), robotic and mutant ninja, and fox ladies.

Hydra

Genetic engineers, utterly amoral, and divided into many politicking little genclans. They tinker with their gene-lines to produce specializations for each genclan, with those of animals and people to produce soldiers, workers, tools, and vehicles, and colonies out in the wastes.

Janus

The former spaceport, with a beanstalk tower reaching up into space (the station at the top was blown away by the Galactics when the planet was interdicted). Many xenogens (aliens) were trapped on Waste World then, and many still survive. There is no real law in Janus, just corporations and mercenary companies.

Ikarus

When the wars began, the Ikareans built giant space arks and tried to escape, only to be blocked by the interdiction. Afraid to land, they've stayed in the air for 10,000 years, raiding the other zones, taking the Drakonium they need to stay up. The Ikareans have not regressed at all technologically, but have morally - they're decadent, depraved, and brutal; think of the Roman Empire under Caligula.

   I did find that the standard damage system is far too random and produces too many instant deaths - using a d10 for crits instead of d20 seemed to fix that, but at this point (two playtest sessions) I can't be sure.