Okay, so I was sitting in Geology, and we're discussing what-ifs. Specifically, what if something caused all the glaciers to melt. Now, glaciers hold like almost 3% of the earth's water, and that's a hell of a lot of aqua. So bye-bye New York. And that's when I got an Awesome Idea (tm).
Okay. The year's 2003, about now. The world's a nice place, but getting a little heavy. We're pushing six and a half billion.
Fast forward a hundred years. Six and a half billion has long since been pushed. So has 10 billion, and a lot of other billions, too. It is no longer a question of 'getting a little heavy.' This green globe's so damn heavy it would sink liquid uranium. We've run out of horizontal expanding room. You know what that means? Up we go!
No, not into space, NASA is still too underfunded for that. Oh sure, there's about twenty chaps in a test colony, but what's twenty out of, well, a fricking huge bunch? Not much. So we reinforce the bottoms of the buildings, take away the rooves, and a few more stories. We do this a bunch of times, through the decades. Suspended rodes five stories up become common, after a while. When we go a bit higher, they build roads ten stories up, and the bottom becomes a seedy place for the less sparkly side of humanity. Average building height reaches twenty stories. In big cities, the skyscrapers get to be more than a kilometer high, thanks to advanced reinforcement and construction techniques.
Skip a bit more. The year's now 2150. It's getting rather hot, here. Damn hot. Like, some bedhuin decided that a greenhouse was needed in the middle of the desert, and turned up the gas heater, electric heater, cookfire, metal stove, and those little things that keep your gloves warm while skiing. That kind of hot.
Okay, I'm exagerating. But the caps are melting. The glaciers are melting. Average global tempurature has skyrocketed. So the world floods. It's just like Noah and his little arc, except with taller buldings.
So, jump again, to 2235. Take a cruise out to New York. It's an awesome place. The sky scrapers poking out of the sea. The New York State History Museum, where you can descend through a glass structure to the ancient street street level city, mutated fish swimming around you. Stare out through glass walls at the duck pond in Central Park, reflect on the irony. Truly, its even more amazing than it was before the Flood.
But in big cities like this, there's a lot of pollution. So when the Flood happened, all that pollution got into the water. There was a lot of bruhaha for about a decade, much ranting, and words like carcenogen and saturation were used frequently. The feds struck up a sweet new clean up program, the world was givven a good scrubbing, and the mutated creatures were put in museums.
But some people drank that water. A lot of people. The purifiers weren't perfect. And now, in the next generation, some of these people's children are . . . strange. Odd powers. Like the ability to move a rock at ten paces, the fabled ESP, telepathy. Some had even stranger powers, like the ability to make electricity arc between people, or deconstruct objects on the molecular level.
Welcome to the new world, enjoy sea view, and don't get killed by a psion.
-- -- -- -- --- ---- ----- ----------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
I haven't really thought much about politics or whatever, the whole point of the setting being skyscrapers poling out above the waves. I'd assume it's kinda like it is now, but with a Central American Combine, environmentalist hippies ruling South America and saving the rainforrests, and Europe united under the EU. The UN would be dissolved, natch; maybe NATO would have broadened it's scope and replaced it or whatever. Oh yeah, and Japan/China would be major powers, cause I think they're pretty neat places, and deserve an honorable mention.
And the environment would be nice, with some wierd species (good adventure hooks) leftover from the dirty industrial toxic radioactive days, before the world got all cleaned up.
-- -- -- -- --- ---- ----- ----------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
Okay. This would obviously use the d20 Modern system. For Psionics, I plan on using Ken Hood's stuff (email me at jeph88@mindspring.com if you want the .pdf), since I like it a lot better than the PsiHb/d20M rules. The PCs would be psionic, and apply have a special template:
Psionic
Abilities: Psionic creatures always have an Intelligence and Wisdom score of 9 or higher, and a Charisma of 5 or higher.
Skills: A Psionic creature gains two bonus skill points per hit die. They may only spend these skill points on basic or advanced psionic skills. All rules for psionic skills, including cross-calss skill rules, still apply.
Feats: Psionic creatures gain Psychic Talent and Meditation as bonus feats. If they advance in levels of Smart or Dedicated hero, they may take a Psionic or Metapsionic feat as a class bonus feat.
ECL: +1
In addition, I've played Feng Shui too much, and liked it too much, not to throw in a few rules on Mooks. Just use them to throw at your PCs when the game starts slowing down, and let the players decide how they die if they're out of the fight. Okay, here goes.
::The GM may split 60 points between their ability scores, evenly. Usually they'll have a penalty to Intelligence and Charisma in exchange for a bit of extra muscle.
::Mooks have no hit dice or hit points. Just follow this rule: If they ever take five or more damage from a single attack, they're out. Otherwise, they keep going.
::They have no class or levels, no base attack bonus, no nothing. Just assign them a score of zero or higher. Add this to AC, Attack rolls, initiative, and saves. Typically, Mooks should have a score of zero, plus one per three levels of the PCs.
::30' speed.
::When a mook hits with an attack, they deal d6 plus 2x Rating damage.
::Equipment is just color. Ignore its affects on weapon stats, ac, whatever. It only matters if the PCs loot it off them.
::No skills/feats.
::Feel free to break any/all of the above rules.
::Use a brief notation, like this.
St 12/Dx 10/Cn 11/Iq 8/Ws 10/Ca 9
Init +3
AC 13
Attack (ranged) +3 damage 1d6+6
Attack (melee) +4 damage 1d6+7
Fort +3 Ref +3 Will +3
-- -- -- -- --- ---- ----- ----------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
So, uh, whaddaya think (about any/all of it)? Oh, and help on demographics projections for the era (2235) would be nice, and about where the shoreline would be.
Thanks!
-Jeph
Okay. The year's 2003, about now. The world's a nice place, but getting a little heavy. We're pushing six and a half billion.
Fast forward a hundred years. Six and a half billion has long since been pushed. So has 10 billion, and a lot of other billions, too. It is no longer a question of 'getting a little heavy.' This green globe's so damn heavy it would sink liquid uranium. We've run out of horizontal expanding room. You know what that means? Up we go!
No, not into space, NASA is still too underfunded for that. Oh sure, there's about twenty chaps in a test colony, but what's twenty out of, well, a fricking huge bunch? Not much. So we reinforce the bottoms of the buildings, take away the rooves, and a few more stories. We do this a bunch of times, through the decades. Suspended rodes five stories up become common, after a while. When we go a bit higher, they build roads ten stories up, and the bottom becomes a seedy place for the less sparkly side of humanity. Average building height reaches twenty stories. In big cities, the skyscrapers get to be more than a kilometer high, thanks to advanced reinforcement and construction techniques.
Skip a bit more. The year's now 2150. It's getting rather hot, here. Damn hot. Like, some bedhuin decided that a greenhouse was needed in the middle of the desert, and turned up the gas heater, electric heater, cookfire, metal stove, and those little things that keep your gloves warm while skiing. That kind of hot.
Okay, I'm exagerating. But the caps are melting. The glaciers are melting. Average global tempurature has skyrocketed. So the world floods. It's just like Noah and his little arc, except with taller buldings.
So, jump again, to 2235. Take a cruise out to New York. It's an awesome place. The sky scrapers poking out of the sea. The New York State History Museum, where you can descend through a glass structure to the ancient street street level city, mutated fish swimming around you. Stare out through glass walls at the duck pond in Central Park, reflect on the irony. Truly, its even more amazing than it was before the Flood.
But in big cities like this, there's a lot of pollution. So when the Flood happened, all that pollution got into the water. There was a lot of bruhaha for about a decade, much ranting, and words like carcenogen and saturation were used frequently. The feds struck up a sweet new clean up program, the world was givven a good scrubbing, and the mutated creatures were put in museums.
But some people drank that water. A lot of people. The purifiers weren't perfect. And now, in the next generation, some of these people's children are . . . strange. Odd powers. Like the ability to move a rock at ten paces, the fabled ESP, telepathy. Some had even stranger powers, like the ability to make electricity arc between people, or deconstruct objects on the molecular level.
Welcome to the new world, enjoy sea view, and don't get killed by a psion.
-- -- -- -- --- ---- ----- ----------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
I haven't really thought much about politics or whatever, the whole point of the setting being skyscrapers poling out above the waves. I'd assume it's kinda like it is now, but with a Central American Combine, environmentalist hippies ruling South America and saving the rainforrests, and Europe united under the EU. The UN would be dissolved, natch; maybe NATO would have broadened it's scope and replaced it or whatever. Oh yeah, and Japan/China would be major powers, cause I think they're pretty neat places, and deserve an honorable mention.
And the environment would be nice, with some wierd species (good adventure hooks) leftover from the dirty industrial toxic radioactive days, before the world got all cleaned up.
-- -- -- -- --- ---- ----- ----------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
Okay. This would obviously use the d20 Modern system. For Psionics, I plan on using Ken Hood's stuff (email me at jeph88@mindspring.com if you want the .pdf), since I like it a lot better than the PsiHb/d20M rules. The PCs would be psionic, and apply have a special template:
Psionic
Abilities: Psionic creatures always have an Intelligence and Wisdom score of 9 or higher, and a Charisma of 5 or higher.
Skills: A Psionic creature gains two bonus skill points per hit die. They may only spend these skill points on basic or advanced psionic skills. All rules for psionic skills, including cross-calss skill rules, still apply.
Feats: Psionic creatures gain Psychic Talent and Meditation as bonus feats. If they advance in levels of Smart or Dedicated hero, they may take a Psionic or Metapsionic feat as a class bonus feat.
ECL: +1
In addition, I've played Feng Shui too much, and liked it too much, not to throw in a few rules on Mooks. Just use them to throw at your PCs when the game starts slowing down, and let the players decide how they die if they're out of the fight. Okay, here goes.
::The GM may split 60 points between their ability scores, evenly. Usually they'll have a penalty to Intelligence and Charisma in exchange for a bit of extra muscle.
::Mooks have no hit dice or hit points. Just follow this rule: If they ever take five or more damage from a single attack, they're out. Otherwise, they keep going.
::They have no class or levels, no base attack bonus, no nothing. Just assign them a score of zero or higher. Add this to AC, Attack rolls, initiative, and saves. Typically, Mooks should have a score of zero, plus one per three levels of the PCs.
::30' speed.
::When a mook hits with an attack, they deal d6 plus 2x Rating damage.
::Equipment is just color. Ignore its affects on weapon stats, ac, whatever. It only matters if the PCs loot it off them.
::No skills/feats.
::Feel free to break any/all of the above rules.
::Use a brief notation, like this.
St 12/Dx 10/Cn 11/Iq 8/Ws 10/Ca 9
Init +3
AC 13
Attack (ranged) +3 damage 1d6+6
Attack (melee) +4 damage 1d6+7
Fort +3 Ref +3 Will +3
-- -- -- -- --- ---- ----- ----------- ---------------------- -------------------------------
So, uh, whaddaya think (about any/all of it)? Oh, and help on demographics projections for the era (2235) would be nice, and about where the shoreline would be.
Thanks!
-Jeph
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And what amount of the 2.14% of our total h2o that is the water locked up in glaciers comes from the caps?
