On a Dead World Alone

The project commanding the most of my attention these days is a post-apocalyptic fantasy project called On a Dead World Alone (ODWA). The initial inspiration, as well as the name, comes from Nick Whelan's wonderful On a Red World Alone post-apocalyptic Mars setting/campaign, which you can find on his equally-fantastic blog, Papers & Pencils. I currently play ODWA using the Pathfinder RPG, but I've entertained using both Savage Worlds and Lamentations of the Flame Princess to run it at some point in the future.

ODWA was inspired by the wacky, sometimes gonzo post-apocalyptic fiction of the 1980s, particularly things like the Gamma World RPG, Thundarr the Barbarian, Gandahar, and the slightly-older movie Wizards.

Magic is alive and well in ODWA, and strange monsters, both magical and mutant, wander the wasteland. Powerful sorcerers and warrior priests battle robot armies and mutant abominations for control of the ruined cities of the ancients. Most people, player-characters included, are caught in the middle of the whole mess, and many are just trying to get by as best they can in a world that is at best a desolate, uncaring wasteland, and at worst is actively trying to kill them.

One of the things that separates ODWA from more "traditional" fantasy settings is its race list. While fantasy races are technically available, for the most part they are considered to be mutant humans rather than truly separate species. Most of these don't breed true, with each "race" simply representing a selection of mutations that an individual mutant has developed.

Like most of my settings, ODWA is what I like to call a "klepto-setting". I take bits and pieces of things from all over and meld them into a single, mostly-cohesive whole. For instance, ODWA features the ghouls of Fallout, heavily irradiated humans blessed with a sort of immortality and immunity to the ill effects of radiation, but cursed with horrible disfigurement and sloughing skin. It also features bits and pieces of a wide variety of other settings, post-apocalyptic and otherwise.

In the future, I plan to blog about particular aspects of the ODWA setting, from the cults and weirdness of the setting to how I deal with guns and other technology in Pathfinder.