Post Apocalyptic Hero

[Mencelus]

Or some such.

I am creating a PA Hero game soon, to be run next month and I have created a history for it. Please tell me where you see any holes. Please note that I am going for a setting that allows mutant powers without making them overpowering or such. See for yourself:

 

The world ended 40 years ago. At that time, there was a heavy dependence on oil. This miraculous material could be made into objects, it was fuel for vehicles, it helped machines run - the slippery stuff was the glue that held modern society together. Then it started to run out.

 

Who knows who threw the first punch? Some say it was the Americans, ever oil hungry, or the Chinese, just as hungry and less kind. North Korea, with its small nuclear arsenal? The European Union, locked near several sources of oil but none all its own. In any case, someone attacked, others answered, and World War Finis has begun.

 

The first strikes were small, bent on capturing oil and strategic targets. Then it moved toward resource grabbing: water became important as did gas and coal for electrical plants. Nukes were dropped here and there and the satellite network was crippled.

 

The following ecological damage, coupled with the loss of energy production ended the modern era as it was known. Transportation ground to a halt. Large scale agriculture and animal raising shut down as food supplies, machine parts, and fuel became scarce. Most people in the world, unaccustomed to hunting and foraging for food, doing small scall farming, died in droves or became savage survivors in a failing world.

 

Containment systems that once held various industrial and chemical wastes were neglected, and these noxious substances, coupled with the nuclear winter, created a new worry for humanity - mutants. Born from parents exposed to these toxic wastes, mutant humans and animals entered the world, exhibiting strange powers and strange disabilities from their conditions.

 

It's been 40 years. The major cities of the world were blasted into slag by nuclear strikes or collapsed upon themselves when the gas and water stopped flowing. Small communities survived, only to be ravaged by disease, berift of the help of modern medicine. Ironically, it would be the more "primitive" peoples of the world that would rise up to claim it, using the techniques of their ancestors to survive as they always have.

 

That is the world you are it. The PCs are part of a small federation, called The Three Towns, that sits around the once great New York City. This alliance has access to some higher technology - there is intermittant power production, there are a some guns and rifles, a few motorized vehicles (though horses are the norm). There are even a few doctors and one university for the 12000 inhabitants of The Three Towns.

 

There are those in the alliance that call for expansion. Some want simply to strike out to see what's left of humanity, hoping that the nuclear radiation has subsided enough for exploration. Others have already begun scavaging, searching the burnt wasteleands or overgrown forests for old signs of civilization. This is the world you live in, and where you must find a role.

 

So, comments folks? Feelings? Mind you, I posted this to my players and they will be commenting on this as well on our regular board here: http://forum.rpg.hu/index.php?showtopic=6215&st=0

 

Just looking for ideas or obvious logic loops. Again, I am wanting mutations, so please don't tell me how it ain't possible - I know that already. Tell me where this sounds weird.

 

Thanks all.

[Jaxom]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Dunno how seriously you want to mirror the current world... If you're hand-waving the similarities, ignore this next bit but if not then you might want to get some maps of the areas you're using... Nuke Power Plants are dangerous in a lot of ways... Either they melted down or they have the potential to do so still, etc. Determine what happened to the military bases near you... What other local features were targets for foreign attack?

 

Without trucking, food production is going to be a serious problem for any metropolis. Where in the NYC area are you going to find enough land to produce food for 12,000 people (I don't know the area, just didn't think that there was much available *farmable* land). A quick web search suggests that the best farming methods we've got can feed about 10 people per acre (sustainably). Without some serious experience/training you're probably looking at 2-4x that... So 12,000 people is 1,200 to 5,000 acres of land being farmed. (Central Park is 843 acres total but some of that is the lakes, etc. Manhattan itself is about 14,000 acres but not much of it would be farmable even in 40 years unless there was serious change.) I *don't* know if those areas are based on the availability of advanced tools like a John Deere. Might have to scale up a lot more for archaic tools.

 

To be honest, I expect that most large cities would die out completely because we're better at being violent than managing in emergencies... Guns will be more common than anyone who knows how to farm for miles around NYC. People who start starving are going to come looking for food with guns and those are not typically going to be the enlightened people who think about keeping the farmers alive to make more food. (Yes, I wear a little badge that declares me to be a complete cynic and I am proud of it.)

 

What are you doing for the guns? Are we talking cartridges or hand loads? Even with the right tools, the variance in the loads is going to cause much more severe in range penalties. Are you producing better explosives than black powder? Are they relying on stockpiled ammo from 40 years ago?

 

This is just questions about the intial setting. I have been toying with the idea of setting up a PA Hero setting of my own but I have enough other stuff going on that I have not crunched any numbers... Just got some high level ideas. PM me if you'd like to chat in more detail about actual campaign ideas and evolution beyond initial setting.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Food can be fished from the oceans, rivers, and Great Lakes, and I do believe that kelp is edible.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

I think you'd see a lot of places going back to medieval ways. Strong leaders would have to emerge to keep the populace from destroying itself and I think a feudal system would lend to that.

 

The rarity of guns and ammunition would make swords and crossbows popular again as well. A forge full of hot coals can hone metal into sharp weapons, you don't really need gas for that.

 

Humanity would most likely be looking at alternative energy sources. Even after a nuclear war, many places would be looking to nuclear power as a possibility. There's also wind, solar, and hydroelectric power to be harnessed which may comfortably support small populations.

 

It's an intriguing idea, and horrifyingly realistic (except the mutant stuff). Good luck.

[Mencelus]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Dunno how seriously you want to mirror the current world... If you're hand-waving the similarities' date=' ignore this next bit but if not then you might want to get some maps of the areas you're using... Nuke Power Plants are dangerous in a lot of ways... Either they melted down or they have the potential to do so still, etc. Determine what happened to the military bases near you... What other local features were targets for foreign attack?[/quote']

 

That's exactly where I'm headed next. Little computer problem at home has limited my access but I was going to check on actual sites of such things. I want to keep the area small.

 

Without trucking, food production is going to be a serious problem for any metropolis. Where in the NYC area are you going to find enough land to produce food for 12,000 people (I don't know the area, just didn't think that there was much available *farmable* land). A quick web search suggests that the best farming methods we've got can feed about 10 people per acre (sustainably). Without some serious experience/training you're probably looking at 2-4x that... So 12,000 people is 1,200 to 5,000 acres of land being farmed. (Central Park is 843 acres total but some of that is the lakes, etc. Manhattan itself is about 14,000 acres but not much of it would be farmable even in 40 years unless there was serious change.) I *don't* know if those areas are based on the availability of advanced tools like a John Deere. Might have to scale up a lot more for archaic tools.

 

New York State has rather a lot of farmland. As you mention though, around NYC would be tough. Frankly, I haven't checked yet how close a settlement could be to a nuclear wasteland, but I'm guessing that it'll be far enough away that I can rationalize the Three Towns being somewhere where farmland is, while bing within spitting distance of NYC.

 

To be honest, I expect that most large cities would die out completely because we're better at being violent than managing in emergencies... Guns will be more common than anyone who knows how to farm for miles around NYC. People who start starving are going to come looking for food with guns and those are not typically going to be the enlightened people who think about keeping the farmers alive to make more food.

 

This is pretty close to what I wrote in brief in the history I posted (see above). We're thinking the same stuff here. I only put the population at 12000 assuming the Three Towns won't necessarily be close together, but close enough to support each other in, say, a day or two of forced marching/riding.

 

What are you doing for the guns? Are we talking cartridges or hand loads? Even with the right tools, the variance in the loads is going to cause much more severe in range penalties. Are you producing better explosives than black powder? Are they relying on stockpiled ammo from 40 years ago?

 

Yeah, I want them, but I think they'll be handcrafted, or at best, low scale manufacturing. I'm still thinking about this. There will be caches of weapons I imagine, and bullets for them, but past that, I don't know yet. Some smart people, even if they don't know how to make gunpowder, might eb able to read about it in some books or something like that. A few people will know (making them very valuable).

 

This is just questions about the intial setting. I have been toying with the idea of setting up a PA Hero setting of my own but I have enough other stuff going on that I have not crunched any numbers... Just got some high level ideas. PM me if you'd like to chat in more detail about actual campaign ideas and evolution beyond initial setting.

 

I may indeed be PMing you. This is just the initial idea. I'll wait for my guys to post their own thoughts and I'll tweak this a bit more based on what they want. Thanks for the ideas and thoughts though. This is the stuff I was looking for.

[Mencelus]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Food can be fished from the oceans' date=' rivers, and Great Lakes, and I do believe that kelp is edible.[/quote']

 

Hmm...there's an idea. Have one of the towns be near the bay/ocean... It would give it an easily tradeable item and the basis for its economy.

 

Which reminds me. I'm also thinking of having there be a monetary system amongst the town, based on "Iron Wheels," which would be little irom/aluminum disks shaped like wagon wheels. Five "spokes" can be inserted into the wheels or pulled out, creating the base currency and change. So, for example, an item could be "Five wheels, two spokes" or some such. Also, wheels could be made out of different metals, like gold or silver, I suppose.

 

My reason for this is that, outside of the Towns, the metal itself is still a tradeable items as metal, since most other metal will be scrap. Pure weights of various metals would be valuable, no? And easy to carry, if a bit on the heavy side. This might lead to a "currency item by weight" economy in the Towns, i.e., if you wnat to buy a gun, you have to equal it's weight in Wheels and Spokes, because oft he metal used in its design. Make sense?

[Mencelus]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

I think you'd see a lot of places going back to medieval ways. Strong leaders would have to emerge to keep the populace from destroying itself and I think a feudal system would lend to that.

 

The rarity of guns and ammunition would make swords and crossbows popular again as well. A forge full of hot coals can hone metal into sharp weapons, you don't really need gas for that.

 

Humanity would most likely be looking at alternative energy sources. Even after a nuclear war, many places would be looking to nuclear power as a possibility. There's also wind, solar, and hydroelectric power to be harnessed which may comfortably support small populations.

 

It's an intriguing idea, and horrifyingly realistic (except the mutant stuff). Good luck.

 

Yeah, I plan on going medieval basically, with a flash of high tech here and there. The players said they wanted a sort of Mad-Max feel when we discussed it.

 

The alternative energy source thing is a bit harder, since the infrastructure to support it will no longer be availiable (unless it was already in place). Hydroelectric plants, for example, are easy to run, but a ***** to maintain - can you imagine trying to effect repairs on the damn without the benefit of cranes, wenches, and weilding tools? This would go, but less so, for coal-fired or gas electricity plants. Hmm...

 

Oh,a dn the mutants - yeah, people wanted them. I figure that I'll make it w rule that if a PC has mutant powers, they must either take an appropriate Side Effect limitation on the power, or a general physical disadvantage. For example, a guy with the power to climb sheer surfaces can either have the side effect "skin peels off painfully after use" or the disadvantage "sticky/slimy hands." Something like that.

[Matt Frisbee]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Suggestions from the peanut gallery:

 

1) 40 years is a little too late for an "Out of the Ashes" campaign, and a little too soon for a "Brave New World" campaign.

 

2) Presuming that not every library on earth has been vaporized, there will be some technology around, including medical knowledge.

 

3) 40 years is too soon for people to completely abandon existing place names -- that's two generations at most, and there will probably be some grandparents still floating around.

 

4) Common misconception -- government at any level doesn't cease to exist, it mearly becomes so powerless that it cannot perform its functions. It is at that point that local authority takes over and does what is deemed to be necessary by whoever has the power to enforce the will.

 

5) Radiation + Toxic Waste = lots of dead people. If you want threat type mutants, 40 years is not long enough to bring them legitimately into the world. It is more likely for that type of scenario after 400 years.

 

But, if you and your players are having fun with it, who cares how unrealistic it is? Good luck and better gaming.

 

Matt "Still-a-stickler" Frisbee

[tancred]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

I agree with what Matt said, about 40 years being awfully short.

It's for that reason that I told my players they were living 250 years after the Apocalypse.

Of course, they've recently found out it was more like 500 years, which was what I felt I needed for the world to have fallen as far as it had.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

That was the problem for me with Savage Earth. I wanted enough time to pass to erase the last vestiges of pre-apoc culture and to allow for the arising of PA mutants and creatures, yet still have some recognizable (to the player's eyes) places to explore.

I settled for a variety of in-game constructs to account for it. There were agents actively destroying records and erasing culture. They also created much of the weird new stuff. There are also things wandering the land to this day with the ability to alter living organisms.

 

Keith "Building a better apocalypse" Curtis

[azato]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

From my understanding (high school biology) of mutations:

 

Mutational powers are not logical. A mutation is the faulty transmission of genetic agents to the young. It is scrambled up genes. They are almost never good AND they are sometimes lethal. If you add a bunch of radiation you will increase the number of mutations - and hence the number of deaths and disfugurements. The only way evolutionary theory works (help me out here if I am wrong) is that you have a REAL LONG TIME (and I do mea A REAL LONG TIME) for those rare accidental benefits to occur AND for the being to survive AND to pass that trait AND for that trait to continue until it is established. Since each step is gradual it would necessitate many generations for it to occur.

 

The Komandi factor/Alien playground factor works in less time since it provides a guidence to mutations rather than a random luck of the dice. (and with very poor odds I might add). Left to itself, the progression of people exposed to radiation over time would be a rather monsterous race of deformities.

 

For "logic" you would either need more time and mutants or 40 years and no mutants.

[AmadanNaBriona]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

From my understanding (high school biology) of mutations:

 

Mutational powers are not logical. A mutation is the faulty transmission of genetic agents to the young. It is scrambled up genes. They are almost never good AND they are sometimes lethal. If you add a bunch of radiation you will increase the number of mutations - and hence the number of deaths and disfugurements. The only way evolutionary theory works (help me out here if I am wrong) is that you have a REAL LONG TIME (and I do mea A REAL LONG TIME) for those rare accidental benefits to occur AND for the being to survive AND to pass that trait AND for that trait to continue until it is established. Since each step is gradual it would necessitate many generations for it to occur.

 

The Komandi factor/Alien playground factor works in less time since it provides a guidence to mutations rather than a random luck of the dice. (and with very poor odds I might add). Left to itself, the progression of people exposed to radiation over time would be a rather monsterous race of deformities.

 

For "logic" you would either need more time and mutants or 40 years and no mutants.

There are other ways it could be handwaved, without invoking aliens into the mix. Its still be rubber science, but not QUITE as rubber as the old comic book "Radiation and toxic waste" model. A likely candidate would be some kind of exotic tailored bio-warfare agent gone awry.... with enough bio-tech gobblety-gook (DNA affecting mutenagenic retrovirus comes to mind) you could see all sorts of crazy mutations one generation out from exposure. The Wild Card virus in the series of the same name might be a good model (just change it to a terrestrial origin) The vast majority of mutants would probably die very quickly, if they came to term in the first place. More would be horribly crippled, but possibly still dangerous. A few, however, might get lucky with beneficial mutations such as increased strength, gigantisim, dwarfisim (might be a survival trait in places where resources are scarce), etc, etc...

I'd still probably aviod blaster eyebeams and the like, but thats just me.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

That is essentially correct. Either you ignore how mutation works in the real world or you have less fantastic stuff. For a game or even a comic or movie, my sense of disbelief will stretch pretty far if it's fun. Kamandi rocked, for instance.

 

Keith "Wants to ride a giant cricket" Curtis

 

Edit: This was in response to azato's post.

[Erkenfresh]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

I'd be all for the mutants if I were playing. I think your explanation is plenty fine.

[Jaxom]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Which reminds me. I'm also thinking of having there be a monetary system amongst the town, based on "Iron Wheels," which would be little irom/aluminum disks shaped like wagon wheels. Five "spokes" can be inserted into the wheels or pulled out, creating the base currency and change. So, for example, an item could be "Five wheels, two spokes" or some such. Also, wheels could be made out of different metals, like gold or silver, I suppose.

 

My reason for this is that, outside of the Towns, the metal itself is still a tradeable items as metal, since most other metal will be scrap. Pure weights of various metals would be valuable, no? And easy to carry, if a bit on the heavy side. This might lead to a "currency item by weight" economy in the Towns, i.e., if you wnat to buy a gun, you have to equal it's weight in Wheels and Spokes, because oft he metal used in its design. Make sense?

 

I was thinking about this when I answered the first time and I decided not to include it. The value of metal is going to vary wildly from place to place. If it's possible to explore Manhattan to any degree, then pure metals are going to have very little value. The value of metal has always been based on the difficulty getting it. Unless something strange happens in your apocolypse though, the value of aluminum is going to be incredibly low. How much aluminum foil do you think is sitting in all the grocery stores and flats in Manhattan? Gold? As of 2000, Manhattan had 1.5 million residents (at night). If you can only explore 10% of the residences thoroughly then your Three Villages people have 10x as much gold as the typical person today in scavenged jewelry alone. If they could hit safe deposit boxes then that goes up some more. Iron, how many wrought iron fixtures are there? You can also strip cars and melt most of those parts down (when they aren't fiberglass) for a wide variety of metals. Metals of all kinds are going to be incredibly *common* to people from Three Villages, especially compared to someone from upstate.

 

The other issue is that the only way metal is going to be meaningful is if you can melt/smelt and work it. Even with preserved knowledge and texts you're going to have other issues. You can't temper metals in any large amount because you can't control temperature as readily. Heck, most cool alloys are going to be right out because of the impossibility of annealing them. Forget Anodizing also. You're also going to get strange impurities in things because of anodizing and alclad stuff that you might not know to look for.

 

You can't do x-rays even if you know the theory. Echo Cardiology is right out. Producing any drug that needs a centrifuge is out. Incubating eggs for sera is out. Theory and knowledge is not your issue. Power is.

 

Also, there is no such thing as mining. All the minerals that can be easily gotten *have* been easily gotten because they are the most profitable to extract... Etc. And of course there is no deep mining because you don't have the power needed to force clean air down there.

 

 

If you want to think about this in more depth, hit http://www.metal-mart.com/Dictionary/dictlist.htm and just look at all the things that are not possible in your PA universe.

[Manic Typist]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Azato- actually, the vast majority of mutations have little to no effect. Remember, mutations are typically tiny. An extra toe, slightly different skin coloration, etc.

 

Significant mutations are "negative" for certain environments, while "positive" for others.

 

and just look at all the things that are not possible in your PA universe.

 

Since it is his universe, I'm gonna avoid telling him what is and isn't possible.

 

So the metal would be a good standard because it is commonly accepted, and extremely valuable outside of the Three Towns area. Sounds great.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Funny you should mention the scarcity of metals. One of the settlement areas in the Savage Earth is built in what is now the Northeastern Seaboard. A long time ago, they discovered the old Federal Gold Reserve at West Point. They have so much gold they use it for mundane things like roofing material.

Naturally, I had to place significant barriers between them and the main campaign area to avoid destabilizing the local economy (which is nowhere near any modern major settlements.)

 

Keith "They made a mean curry, too" Curtis

[Beast]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

mutants could have been caused by a released created source some supersolider juice/bug/nanovirus it may only work on x% of the population

[Jaxom]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Since it is his universe' date=' I'm gonna avoid telling him what is and isn't possible. [/quote']

 

The point was that there was a nice, fairly complete description of modern metallurgy and how it is done there. It was provided so that he could specifically decide what was possible and what was not so that he could decide what might be available in his setting.

 

Even with minimal power generation it is probably possible to anodize metal but I leave it as an exercise to the reader to figure out how since it involves creating a voltage difference and a bunch of chemicals that are going to be really hard to come by.

 

 

The goal I would always hold up (and I think he's done a lot of this from the original writeup) is to think through the politics and the social response so that you know what actually happened. It makes your universe so much more believable if you don't run into non sequiturs and inconsistencies. Having anodized aluminum would be one of those inconsistencies to me.

[azato]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Azato- actually' date=' the vast majority of mutations have little to no effect. Remember, mutations are typically tiny. An extra toe, slightly different skin coloration, etc.[/quote']

 

I need to be careful here because your memory of high school biology is probably better than mine!

 

Here is my take - wrong as it may be.

 

 

1. I think the vast majority of mutations are lethal. Take the number of spontaneous abortions that occur. I would say that (in my not so scientific survey), on average, every woman has at least one occur during her child bearing years. I beleive the cause is generally genetic problems with the child. A close friend of mine had a child born about 15 years ago whose plumbing was not hooked up. Outside he looked normal, but on the inside things were not connected (like the esophasus to the stomach). Normally the woman's body rejects those kinds of pregancies.

 

2. Of all the syndroms out there and all the obvious mutations out there (dwarfism,albinoism, etc) I can't say that any would be an improvment in any situation. They often limit mobility and/or life spans. Probably the only reason they do not seem lethal to us is because we live in a highly advanced society with good medications and health care.

 

3. I think that people are very genetically stable. Other than very minor differences (eye shape/color, skin color, hair texture/color) I do not see varitions in people. IF people have been around for as long as evolutionic biologists claim we have been around, AND a reasonable percentage of mutations had a postive effect (like a sixth finger that acutally worked) then we would see more varation of people. We do see a number of seemingly benign mutations, but they have never develped into anything other than a random occurance (I am talking about anything other than minor color variations).

[Manic Typist]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

 

 

1. I think the vast majority of mutations are lethal. Take the number of spontaneous abortions that occur. I would say that (in my not so scientific survey), on average, every woman has at least one occur during her child bearing years. I beleive the cause is generally genetic problems with the child. A close friend of mine had a child born about 15 years ago whose plumbing was not hooked up. Outside he looked normal, but on the inside things were not connected (like the esophasus to the stomach). Normally the woman's body rejects those kinds of pregancies.

 

2. Of all the syndroms out there and all the obvious mutations out there (dwarfism,albinoism, etc) I can't say that any would be an improvment in any situation. They often limit mobility and/or life spans. Probably the only reason they do not seem lethal to us is because we live in a highly advanced society with good medications and health care.

 

3. I think that people are very genetically stable. Other than very minor differences (eye shape/color, skin color, hair texture/color) I do not see varitions in people. IF people have been around for as long as evolutionic biologists claim we have been around, AND a reasonable percentage of mutations had a postive effect (like a sixth finger that acutally worked) then we would see more varation of people. We do see a number of seemingly benign mutations, but they have never develped into anything other than a random occurance (I am talking about anything other than minor color variations).

 

1) Vast majority of exhibited mutations, sure, you're probably right.

 

2) Those are inheritable genetic disorders with definate dominant/recessive relationships. A mutation is a single instance really, these are "evolved" strains of bad DNA (yes, they are technically mutations, but they are also special in the fact that these can be traced and predicted via geneology, something a mutation typically doesn't share).

 

3) Well, humans aren't evolving much. Medicines, wars, dating: all act to screw up the mechanisms of evolution. So, that can help keep things in check.

[keithcurtis]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

1. Yes. Most mutations are harmful, even lethal.

2. Not all mutations are dramatic and visible. Perhaps the reason you are not seeing benevolent mutations in humanity is because we are the result of all of those mutations. They have already happened and humanity is the current baseline that arises from all of our previous mutations.

3. Epicanthic folds spring to mind as a very visible example of a non-lethal mutation that is a distinct variation. There was once a great variety of hominids walking the face of the earth. We (the survivors) either killed off or out-competed them. Humans are amazingly successful in the short term (2 million years).

 

Keith "Captain! Topic drift approaching off the port bow!" Curtis

[Manic Typist]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

1. Yes. Most mutations are harmful, even lethal.

 

 

Perhaps, but there are far more mutations that occur than you might suspect. Each one of us probably possess about a dozen mutations in our gene sequences.

 

Many mutations, such as "point-shift" mutations, are harmless because they don't affect the reading frames of DNA. DNA insertion, or deletion, is typically much more deadly because it creates a "frame-shift" which can really gum up the works. However, depending on where it occurs, it might be harmless.

[azato]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Perhaps, but there are far more mutations that occur than you might suspect. Each one of us probably possess about a dozen mutations in our gene sequences.

 

Many mutations, such as "point-shift" mutations, are harmless because they don't affect the reading frames of DNA. DNA insertion, or deletion, is typically much more deadly because it creates a "frame-shift" which can really gum up the works. However, depending on where it occurs, it might be harmless.

 

 

UNCLE!!

[Midas]

Re: Post Apocalyptic Hero

 

Re the mutation thing. Sickle Cell Anemia (a genetically defective mutation) gives resistance to malaria. (at least according to Wiki the All Knowing). Just to argue the point of what, exactly, is a "harmful" mutation.

 

More to the point, 40 years is enough time for *individual* mutants to develop, just not mutant races. So you would have an ancient Greecian monster setup. A one minotaur. A one chemiera. etc. Think of it this way. A huge number of mutagens have been released. Most of the mutated fetae(?) spontaniously abort. Most of the rest aren't viable and die relatively soon after. But a few are generally positive mutants, an ability to be more economical with food, for example. So you have "Eats Once a Week Lad," who might get the girls and contribute to the gene pool, but not yet a whole race of starvelings.

 

You could have mutant races from quick generating creatures (Hoops any one? or the ever popular PA baddies; Ratmen).

 

The other thing I wanted to bring up is power. I think some power is more available than you give it credit for. While big hydroelectric dams like Hoover will not be repairable by hand labor, simple waterwheels and millhouses would be. I don't think an 18th century mill house could power a 12,000 pop area. However, a "blacksmith" working out of one could have enough electricity to do handcrafted work.

 

Beside that, your survivors aren't reinventing the wheel so to speak. The experiments of Volta, Edison, et al are available. They already *know* how to generate electricity.

 

One other thing. I'm Azzuming that your home base is on the Hudson somewhere. You should decide on a "sweet spot" between the easier "mining" of Manhattan, and the more arable soil the further away from old NYC you are.

 

2cents from the hoard of,

Midas