Great American Road Trip

[mir]

I’ve got this campaign seed geminating in my head, but I’d like to throw it to you guys and see what your fertile imaginations can come up with. The set up is this, more or less…

For the past few months there has been a rash of strange events like these:

http://www.thewbalchannel.com/news/3545312/detail.html?z=dp&dpswid=1946268&dppid=68757

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3039102.stm

http://blogging.la/archives/2006/02/best_headline_ever.phtml

Except unlike reality there haven’t been any convent explanations. They are complete mysteries and those in the public who pay attention to such things were getting worried.
These events have been occurring with more and more regularity until they culminate with the mysterious destruction of New York! No sold information has come out of the city, and rumors are flying, nuclear explosion, massive unexpected earthquake, meteor strike. But there are also rumors far darker than those that the town simply swallowed itself up in an orgy of madness and death leaving behind only smoking ruins.

The players start off as evacuees flying over Maine when there plane suddenly looses power and crashes. The only survivors are the PC’s and a mysterious dieing man. With his last breaths he gives them a dingus, and begs them to take it to the muguffin in LA. He also warns them of agents who will do anything to retrieve the dingus and kill the PCs.

To further complicate matters, the players will soon discover that a world wide EMP has knocked out nearly all electronics, which means that nearly all planes, boats and most new cars are out of commission. So the PCs must find an older car which can fit all of the players and take them to LA. All while fighting off looters, mutants and monsters.

Behind the scenes, the stars are right and horrible Lovecraftian horrors are beginning to awaken across the world. These creatures are responsible for the recent weirdness, the destruction of New York and the EMP. The mysterious man belonged to an order of mystics who’ve sworn to keep these creatures imprisoned. But for reasons unknown, they’ve found a weakness in their prison and are beginning to free themselves.

So what I’d like is: Ideas about the dingus and the muguffin, ideas about what the PCs might find between Maine and LA, possible problems in a travel heavy campaign, resources I might be able to use (I’m thinking Google maps will be my friend here), books I may want to checkout and any cool ideas people may have.

Thanks in advance!

 

[HeavenShallBurn]

Maps Are Good

Since this is a route based campaign you should definitely go out to a bookstore and get a detailed map folio of the US. I've been roadtripping for a very long time and they're invaluable no different here, the players need to know where they're going and it's better if you can actually pull out real locations for them along the way. Back it up with google earth or other satellite images of locations if you can find something that'll work but they're more a close-up snapshot over a town than everything along the way.

Problems along the way aren't that difficult but they'll be improvised. Many of the things in the monster manual can be ad-hocked into a completely different creature if you change the flavor. Otherwise there used to be books full of those sort of pop-culture oddities reported around the world. There's a novel "Footprints of Thunder" that could give you some good ideas. I used to have several but I haven't seen them for a while. Dig through conspiracy theory sites, paranormal new stuff, basically go wild with every piece of modern mythology or monster stories you've heard. Mostly just look at the off-the-wall stuff that regularly shows up on paranormal discussion boards and you'll have enough material for a dozen campaigns.

Resources will be a trouble, in fact they can turn into one of the focuses of the campaign. Getting the gas, spare part, whatever you need to keep going. Foraging for food, stealing vehicles, weapons, ammo. The danger from mobs of desperate refugees trying to take what they have or protect their resources from the PCs. Also the impersonal dangers empty cities where all the industrial facility kept running until they broke without supervision and left fires, chemicals. waste spills, cut off transportation routes, etc. The plains might look like one giant scar constantly raked from tornadoes run wierdly amuk like those 90s twister movies. Creatures from the outer planes leaking onto the Material and trying to make it over in the image of their homes.