Campaign Toybox
The Story: We all knew we were due for a meteor hit, and this time there was no Bruce Willis or rockets to save us. It came fast and it hit hard, plowing into the Atlantic Ocean with the force of a thousand nuclear bombs. The fifty-story high wave obliterated Manhattan like tissue paper and sunk 80% of the US under water. The boiling heat melted what was left of the ice-caps and made sure the submergence was permanent. In the wake of so much death, the Belowers had to act. The fish-men that had spent so long hiding beneath the sea, practising non-intervention to save themselves, acted to save the remnants of humanity from extinction. They grabbed what survivors they could and took them to their undersea cities, housing us in air-filled bubbles, streaming the nitrogen from our blood and forcing oxygen back into our lungs.
At first, we thought we were prisoners or refugees, but soon we realised we were honoured guests. They gave us all the food we needed (even if it tasted funny) and made us suits so we could walk around in their coral cities. But after a while we noticed that we did nothing but eat and sleep and play, and that outside our air-bubbles, the Belowers would gather, and laugh and point at our funny costumes and alien rituals. Crowds gathered and bigger toys were provided. We weren’t guests. We were pets.
Escape isn’easy: getting to the surface without tech is impossible. And the surface isn’t safe: the sky has been black out by the dust the meteor threw up, and all life extinguished as a result. Or almost – strange white-skinned worms slide across the remaining lands and starving sharks prowl the upper-seas, tearing apart the whale corpses. When the choice is utopia or a death-world, few choose the hellish freedom above. After all, our new masters aren’t cruel, at all. They make great owners, and we really do make great pets.
Style and Structure: Being a pet doesn’t sound like much fun, but there are two RPGs coming out soon (FreeMarket and Eclipse Phase) based on the transhuman fun of what they call post-scarcity cultures – where everything is available in abundance. In a world where we no longer have to compete for resources and death and danger are all but unheard of, humans measure status by what they know, say or create, and how many fans they have. And that can be a fun playground, one unlike any other setting. It may not fit the frame of wandering adventurers, but the great thing about RPGs is exploring new settings from within them, and SF fans should be mad-keen to explore this one. And that goes for the worlds inside the tank – the mysterious glass and holographic landscapes the Belowers think we find inspiring – as well as the one outside it, because their alien world is full of mystery and secrets, and unique science and technology.
And if you do want to have some adventure or mystery of a more traditional form, there are plenty of Belowers who want to explore the world above the surfface, or those parts of it now slightly less above, and nobody knows it like the humans. Courageous Belowers seeking to discover new lands and find adventure wrangle up herds of pet humans (typically the strongest and bravest) and head into the wilderness. Of course, the humans are usually kept on a tight leash (literally) unless they prove themselves trustworthy or appear particularly intelligent (such as learning the Belower language). This is a different kind of exploration, with plenty of beasts to slay and treasure to find – even if the treasure is just a pigeon to eat (plankton gets old) or few items of human clothing to help you reconnect with your past.
PCs and NPCs: A quick look around our world reveals a whole spectrum of pets. No doubt some of the smarter humans will assist the Belower scientists in their research. Some will be gifted with theatrical gifts or acrobatic talents and will perform. The strong may be put to work – after all, plankton and air-bubble repairs aren’t cheap and the Belowers DID save all our lives. In a post-scarcity bubble there will likely be jobs for painters and singers, or even roleplayers, moving through the adventure playgrounds provided, pretending to be wizards or warriors. Viewpoints will be varied, too, and humans being what they are will likely form political movements based on them, developing over time into primitive governments to nominate spokesmen to negotiate rights and treatment with the Belowers – or into underground resistance groups or terrorist armies. Some will be very keen to bite the hand that feeds.
Exotic PCs can of course be Belowers themselves: skilled handlers, trainers and biologists who have learnt to speak some of our language and are good at making us follow instructions. There may also be other pets the Belowers have in their terrariums, like the last of the dinosaurs, evolved into something cuter but still recognisable, or the aliens who crash-landed a few millennia before the pyramids. There may also be modern humans who escaped the flood, living as scavengers in accidental air-bubbles on the surface (would Madison Square Garden be water proof?) or manufactured ones below (bathyscopes and underwater research modules built for exploration, mining or by those who saw the waters coming). All of these also make good NPCs, and even enemies, without even meaning to be.
Plots and Villains: Like a lot of SF campaigns, the fun here is exploration, and the challenge for the GM is not coming up with arcs but coming up with a sufficiently complex, alien and somehow also logical world for his players to poke at and over-turn. That’s where any good GM needs to focus his time, not designing up cool mysteries, nasty beasts or brilliant plot-arcs. Finding enemies isn’t difficult; one could argue that every Belower is a human’s enemy, as long as they continue to regard humans as lesser creatures. Such attitudes cannot help but cause suffering, and that needs to be fought and healed.
The other enemy that abounds is the environment. First there’s an alien world with alien science – the tiniest mistake by them about our biology, or by a human about their technology could be deadly. A dog doesn’t know not to eat from the garbage bin, because he doesn’t even know what a bin is. Even without the aliens, though, there’s the eternally alien world of the undersea. Remember: it’s dark. Humans are effectively blind, while the Belowers can see fine in ultraviolet. It’s also heavy. Humans can barely shuffle around, while Belowers flit back and forth in three dimensions like leaves on the wind. Belowers can talk with colour and phosphorescence, we need radios inside our helmets. Anyone wanting to bite the hand that feeds will be biting off a whole feast of pain and suffering. The question therefore isn’t finding enemies, it’s finding friends.
Soruces: For the craziness of post-scarcity life, go directly to Cory Doctorow’s Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and do not pass Go or collect two hundred dollars. Ian M. Banks’ Culture books are also perfect for whole civilisations of humans post-scarcity, looking for new things to motivate them. I’m also assured that Neal Stephenson and Charles Stross are good sources, and once you find them, your local library or Amazon referral system should direct you the rest of the way. For life in the deeps you’ll need a few good books (or even better, superb documentaries) on deep oceanography which you can get from any reference library. Alternatively, visit your local aquarium and spend a few hours staring at the stingrays and the octopods. If you don’t come home with ideas (and a shiver down your spine), you should try playing parcheesi instead.
RPGs: As mentioned above, both Eclipse Phase and FreeMarket deal with transhumanism and post-scarcity worlds and are also two fantastic RPGs. They aren’t out yet but when they are, you should punch nuns in the face to get a hold of these. More transuhumanism appears in (of course) Transhuman Space and Blue Planet. And for a wonderful underwater sentient life-form, detailed in beautiful depth and with plenty of horrific strangeness, you must check out Blue Planet’s Aborigines. Blue Planet also has plenty of good rules about pressure and other underwater issues. God knows how you’d find it but the French also have a cool underwater RPG called Polaris (not the indie one). Any game where mortals are outclassed by supernaturals will also be a good template – a OWoD mortals game, with the fast and strong Werewolves or Vampires providing stats for the Belowers, could work, for example - and anything with a high “whiff” factor for average humans also fits (Dark Heresy, for example). For a game that really looks at what it’s like to be seen as nothing more than a beast of burden, cut nuns up with saws to get Steal Over Jordan. You might not want your pets game to get as deep as to deal with the past sins of American slavery, but you should read this fantastic game anyway.
