Oliver Shead
First Post
Hey guys,
It's an exciting and slighly terrifying moment...after some five years of developing the Immersion RPG system, I've now got the first setting ready for a Kickstarter! As you might have guessed, it's been a heck of a ride. A lot of lessons learnt!
The setting is called Infected! and it's set in the wake of a global pandemic which didn't kill all its victims. Some of them woke up - alive, but ravenous, their minds gone. Several years of war, conflict and anarchy ravaged the world... and now here you are, squatting in the ruins of humanity, struggling to keep yourself and your community alive. Some people become just as bad as the infected out there - bandits, murderers, thieves, burners and cannibals prey on the survivors. But all dread the packs of Infected that roam the ruins like wolves.
The virus is still the main threat. Once you're infected, you rapidly display flu-like symptoms, which are highly contagious. A single contagious person, sneezing and coughing, could spread the sickness to a dozen people in the space of an hour - who then spread it on yet again. Survivors are constantly vigilant for signs of sickness, and ruthless in stamping it out.
Despite humanity being so ravaged, there is still much of it left. Within the mega cities of the past are tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, surviving in hardy townships, holdfasts and hamlets, with ruins stretching all around them. There are main roads where merchants, soldiers, couriers and farmers travel, going from one township to the next. Some settlements are even cities in their own right, with tens of thousands of people living there.
There are even governments left, desperate to cling to life, and willing to do whatever it takes to keep their authority.
The Infected aren't usually hordes. Hordes die out. They eat everything and then starve. No, the Infected are in relatively small numbers, surviving on the fringes of civilisation and living in a bizarrely parasitic way off of it. Without people, the Infected would die out. At the same time, survivors hunt down Infected where they can - and that's why they live in the dark, haunted places of the world. Subway tunnels, dark, gutted malls - places no one wants to go, and places that provide easy avenues of retreat, where they can lure attackers in to then ambush them.
The idea is to have the world a dynamic, interesting place. Not everything's wiped out. People and society still exists, albeit in a fragmented, desperate way - in fact, it's almost like the Dark Ages come again (just this time with packs of Infected lurking in the shadows). This gives you countless opportunities for cool adventures and storylines. You're not just trying to survive against the Infected (though that's certainly one plot line). But you could be couriers, ferrying vital information through dangerous territory, or soldiers trying to fend off bandits and protect all the people in a whole zone - or even merchants, bringing valuable supplies from settlement to settlement.
The book is going to be a full-colour, hard cover manual, with everything you need to play, and using the robust, dynamic Immersion RPG system. It's universal, classless and levelless, and allows you to play a character and person with all their quirks, foibles, weaknesses and strengths.
THE KICKSTARTER IS LAUNCHING AUGUST 16! I really do hope you check it out and back the project. There are a bunch of cool images below which not only show the setting (this is the quality of the art inside the book - it really is gorgeous) but also to show your interest and support!
A free sampler of the book is also available on Drive Thru RPG! 60+ pages of epic art, storyline, quick-start rules and even sample characters and an adventure! Check it out, and if you like what you see, remember to follow us on FB and/or Twitter and Google+! You can also check out the website for Infected RPG here (and even subscribe there... all bases are covered!).
Cheers again, and I hope you like it
~Oliver
It's an exciting and slighly terrifying moment...after some five years of developing the Immersion RPG system, I've now got the first setting ready for a Kickstarter! As you might have guessed, it's been a heck of a ride. A lot of lessons learnt!
The setting is called Infected! and it's set in the wake of a global pandemic which didn't kill all its victims. Some of them woke up - alive, but ravenous, their minds gone. Several years of war, conflict and anarchy ravaged the world... and now here you are, squatting in the ruins of humanity, struggling to keep yourself and your community alive. Some people become just as bad as the infected out there - bandits, murderers, thieves, burners and cannibals prey on the survivors. But all dread the packs of Infected that roam the ruins like wolves.
The virus is still the main threat. Once you're infected, you rapidly display flu-like symptoms, which are highly contagious. A single contagious person, sneezing and coughing, could spread the sickness to a dozen people in the space of an hour - who then spread it on yet again. Survivors are constantly vigilant for signs of sickness, and ruthless in stamping it out.
Despite humanity being so ravaged, there is still much of it left. Within the mega cities of the past are tens or even hundreds of thousands of people, surviving in hardy townships, holdfasts and hamlets, with ruins stretching all around them. There are main roads where merchants, soldiers, couriers and farmers travel, going from one township to the next. Some settlements are even cities in their own right, with tens of thousands of people living there.
There are even governments left, desperate to cling to life, and willing to do whatever it takes to keep their authority.
The Infected aren't usually hordes. Hordes die out. They eat everything and then starve. No, the Infected are in relatively small numbers, surviving on the fringes of civilisation and living in a bizarrely parasitic way off of it. Without people, the Infected would die out. At the same time, survivors hunt down Infected where they can - and that's why they live in the dark, haunted places of the world. Subway tunnels, dark, gutted malls - places no one wants to go, and places that provide easy avenues of retreat, where they can lure attackers in to then ambush them.
The idea is to have the world a dynamic, interesting place. Not everything's wiped out. People and society still exists, albeit in a fragmented, desperate way - in fact, it's almost like the Dark Ages come again (just this time with packs of Infected lurking in the shadows). This gives you countless opportunities for cool adventures and storylines. You're not just trying to survive against the Infected (though that's certainly one plot line). But you could be couriers, ferrying vital information through dangerous territory, or soldiers trying to fend off bandits and protect all the people in a whole zone - or even merchants, bringing valuable supplies from settlement to settlement.
The book is going to be a full-colour, hard cover manual, with everything you need to play, and using the robust, dynamic Immersion RPG system. It's universal, classless and levelless, and allows you to play a character and person with all their quirks, foibles, weaknesses and strengths.
THE KICKSTARTER IS LAUNCHING AUGUST 16! I really do hope you check it out and back the project. There are a bunch of cool images below which not only show the setting (this is the quality of the art inside the book - it really is gorgeous) but also to show your interest and support!
A free sampler of the book is also available on Drive Thru RPG! 60+ pages of epic art, storyline, quick-start rules and even sample characters and an adventure! Check it out, and if you like what you see, remember to follow us on FB and/or Twitter and Google+! You can also check out the website for Infected RPG here (and even subscribe there... all bases are covered!).
Cheers again, and I hope you like it
~Oliver
