DREAD-ing the Rapture

[Zephrin the Lost]

Hey all,

I'm drafting a scenario for Dread that starts with the characters being 'Left Below" (to put in in Simpson's terms) on Judgment Day. I have the beginning and the end all planned out, but what kind of trouble should they have as they struggle across earth's shattered hellscape? I need suggestions for more peril!

Dread is deliciously rules-lite so no worries about mechanics or so on. The more descriptive the situation or encounter, the better.

Thanks for your help!

--Z

 

[wolfpunk]

You have to include an encounter with children, nothing freaks players out more than potentially having to harm children, well at least in my experience.

Ghosts of loved ones past. Perhaps a demon has possession of one of the player's loved ones bodies?

 

[MortalPlague]

The remake of "War of the Worlds" offers up some good scenarios which could be used.

 

[Theo R Cwithin]

Presumably there will be lots of folks "left below" who adamantly believe that they should have gone up. Maybe an especially powerful few (think televangelists or "pious" politicians types) trying to scrape together a vast new congregation to rule the Earth? Maybe these guys actually believe they are the ones who've "gone home", and post-apoc earth is heaven? Those folks will be certifiably c.r.a.z.y.

Fallen angels (unsuccessfully) aiming for redemption: perhaps they've become bounty hunters looking for way to get back into heaven. However they just don't get it: slaughtering "neutral" mortals really won't endear them to the guy upstairs.

Biker gangs and hillbillies always add a bit of flare to the End.

A few atheists might be irate. Maybe large numbers of philosophers, university profs, scientists and the like, go nuts and organize book-burnings of all scientific texts and anything sacrilegious in order to redeem themselves-- a "begging for a second chance" movement. Technology, secular literature, science texts, become illicit goods in their domains.

Don't the dead rise during the End Times? Gotta have a few zombies, vampires, ghosts, or something like that, depending. Perhaps ancient cities are repopulated by undead: spirits arise in ghost towns in the southwestern US, aztecs re-live sacrifices in the ruins of Mexico, the charred dead of Pompeii stir and take to the streets.

Demons, of course. Some might simply run rampant, reveling in terrorizing the mortals. Others might be bargaining with mortals for favors & power, trafficking in lost souls, or the like.

Nature starts going bass-ackwards. Lambs hunting down and devouring lions. Locust swarms. Geysers that periodically suck stuff into the earth. Ice volcanoes. Rivers of blood. Sticks turn to snakes. Three-headed dogs.

 

[Zephrin the Lost]

Thanks all, this is good stuff! The dead rising I had totally overlooked!

One concept I've hit upon is as this event marks the end of creation, anything not of the earth becomes extraneous. Stars, moon, sun all gone. The sky is blank and black because there is nothing up there anymore.

This will be my 2nd Dread scenario. I have the first one ready to go and will apply what i learn from running it to this concept.

Thanks again!

--Z