Savage Shadows Description

Savage Shadows is the setting for the role playing campaign I am planning on running for my role playing group.  The title is derived from the fact that it is using the Savage Worlds  rules set and that it is in a similar setting to Shadowrun.  I am putting a significant amount of work into this campaign, more so than I usually do.  My campaigns are normally short run affairs, 1-2 night runs.  But I want this one to actually last a while.  Because I want to prove that I can create a sustaining campaign.  And I want to give our normal GM an extended rest.

The Set Up

The characters will all start as a working SWAT team in our current day & age etc.  This gives them all a base line for skills and attributes.  They are piloting their police helicopter to a training session when they run into a freak microburst storm.  This leads to a crash, with all of the players going unconscious.  This is an intentional maneuver on my part to get the group into the proper setting.

Often players and GM's have a hard time getting things started.  In particular our group, because we have players who will stretch the backgrounds of the players in order to create interesting characters.  Which is ordinarily good, but can be extremely hard for the GM to find an excuse for everyone to be in the same place at the same time, and get them to cooperate.  Because it is one thing for a bunch of human fighters and thieves to all be in the stereotypical bar at the same time.  But why would the Priest or studious Mage or Paladin be there? And once a fight starts what motivates a disparate group to stay together?  

In our current game this problem was solved by forcing us all to be members of a university club, with at least one common skill.  Which works in a setting which everyone is more or less familiar with, like our Victorian Horror setting.  However, I am putting together a setting that is a patchwork of a number of other game worlds, but not enough like any one so that players can really create something that is native.  So I have to set them up.  Have them create characters with a similar purpose and common skill set, then drop them into this game world.  It's a little contrived, and after they have been playing long enough, if a player wants, then they might create a character native to the setting, but that is far into the future.  

One thing I will do, just before they start is have each player draw some cards, this will represent the chance that their character has of transforming or gaining special abilities once they awaken in the new world.  This is something Forrest did in a game a long long time ago.  And we never really got a chance to role play the transformation.  But I think it makes for an interesting element of randomness and will encourage some better on the fly role playing.  It could be all kinds of fun to have the player who is normally known for playing the straight laced super smart characters wake up to realize he has been transformed into a Troll.  Or have the player who normally just plays the dumb brute wake up to find they are forced to play an Elf.  

The Setting

The players characters will wake up on the eastern plains, with no transportation other than their feet.  Although they will have their basic equipment (providing it fits).  As they make their way west they will come across some deserted farms and ranches, in some places they might even find signs of destruction and fighting, although any bodies will have been picked clean.  Eventually they will be picked up by one of 3 groups: Metro Police, UCAS military or Nomads.  Each of the groups will give a slightly different version of the history and current situation.  

To sum up what happened: The Awakening was starting, people were transforming into Elves, Dwarves, Orks or Trolls.  The world was having a hard time adjusting but it was doing so, up until the Zombie invasion occurred.  For a description of the Zombie war read World War Z, which is as good a description of the events in this setting, minus the Awakened Races.  However the ending was not quite as final.  There were more stories of the zombies being around, and being under control of Wizards from Aztlan (formerly Mexico).  And Magic came into play as a weapon at the end of the war.  

Soon after the end of the War the first Randoms appeared.  Randoms are beings or people from other worlds or time frames that appear in the world in seemingly random places and times.  The player characters are Randoms.  The first recorded appearance of Randoms was the arrival of the Great Dragons.  Huge flying creatures out of legend, filled with awesome power and magical talent.  

When the players appear it will have been a few years after the conclusion of the Zombie war.  Life is sort of settling down.  Although most third world nations are still in chaos.  The United States and Canada have merged their governments as the populations of the 2 countries became completely mixed together in the chaos of the initial invasion.  The combined populations is roughly 25% of what it was pre-war.  Although exact numbers are not known yet as there are a numbers of undocumented people living in the open areas between the urban centers, as well as who knows how many squatters in the deserted suburban areas.  The majority of the population lives in semi-fortified urban areas with heavily patrolled security areas around them.  

Agriculture and farming in general is mostly handled through automation in vast corporate farms.  Transportation between the cities is either handled via aircraft or heavy armored bullet trains.  The Interstate highway system has fallen into despair in most areas and is really only used within the metro areas.  Most areas between the cities are lawless outlaw territories.  Controlled by gangs in the eastern half of the country, with some of them being given near legal entity status.  The parts of Texas that haven't been swallowed back up by Aztlan is patrolled by the Texas Rangers.  The Southwest has fallen under the control of a resurrected Native American Nation, comprised of many tribal councils.  The NAN patrols the area and handles most of the border patrols with Aztlan, in exchange for extended sovereignty.  The NAN forces are rumored to be heavy users of combat magic.

The South is mostly controlled by the government however the coastal areas were hit very hard by the zombie invasion which was followed by 3 years of record breaking Hurricane seasons.  Florida is a war zone between the UCAS forces and the Aztlan-Carribean League.  Louisiana, and especially New Orleans, is essentially a swampy Necropolis, ostensibly governed by a shadowy warlord who plays the Aztlan league against the UCAS.  

So the world the players will be dropped in has very much of a wild west atmosphere.  With a wild and woolly ethos ruling the areas between the  cities.  And the cities themselves are still sorting out the chaos of post war, emerging races, and new and frightening powers being wielded by all manner of people and beings.