War. War never changes…

I just wanted to start with that. Except that war changes everything, tabarnac. It changed me, and mautadit, it changed my travelling companions.

The war, she started and finished in the blink of an eye. Nine years ago the whole place went up with nukes and crazy bioweapon shit that fucked everything. Me, my name is ‘tit Jean l’Ours. In English that would be “Little John the Bear”. I got the Little John part back before the war because, obviously, I’m not that little. I’m 6’2″ and weigh in at 370 pounds. It helps that I don’t care what I eat, as long as it stops moving long enough to get it into my mouth. Well, that was the case before the war, but I’ve met a couple of guys who can one-up me now – some guys can eat anything now… even toilet seats somehow provide a modicum of nutrition for the bastards.

The whole place is pretty much permanently winter now – nuclear winter type deal I guess. Never been my strong point. Anyways, means skidoos run year-round now, if you can maintain one and find gas for it. I walk.

Anyways, you’ll have to excuse the accent, I was born and raised in Gatineau, the French side of the river from Ottawa, the capital of Canada. I was a punk, fuck, I’m still a punk. I was 23 when the bombs dropped, so I must be 32 now. The war though, she changed me… The fur? That showed up in the last five years. I like it, means I don’t have to bundle up like everyone else to survive this nuclear winter wonderland. I’m also a lot more aware of my surroundings than ever before, paranoia’ll do that to ya. I’m big, I’m strong, I’m covered in hair, and every now and then, somehow things work out in my favour for no good reason at all, like god is on my side or something.

‘tit Jean was rolled up using the deadEarth rules along with the 400 additional radiation manipulations from the supplements.

Moves: 9
Resilience: 11
Strength: 3

Age: 32
Height: 74” (6′ 2”)
Weight: 370 lbs

Stuff:
Hard Plastic Helmet (5 Stress, 1 Shock)
Leather Jacket (2 Shock)
Flashlight
Rope (50’)
Grappling Hook
Regional Map
342 $tandards

• [604] Mammal – Cross-mutate with a polar bear. Can survive in very cold weather due to fur and fat. +2 Resilience. Cumulative
• [221] Athletically Inclined – Gain +1D6 Weight Training, Running and Acrobatics. Cumulative
• [292] Act of God – As the DM for a do-over once per game session. 35% of success. Binary
• [RTS2-88] Progressive Mutation – +1 Shielding every week. -20 Shielding every time John rolls on the Radiation Manipulation table. Permanent
• [650] Nil. +1 skill point.
• [TT-127] Courier – Drive Sailcar is a natural ability. +1D6 Running. Add [142] Punk. Permanent
• [142] Punk – Escape, Hide, Jimmy Lock, and Running are natural abilities. Stealth, Brawling, Reason and Senses are natural inabilities. Binary
• [848] Sentinel – +2d6 Senses and Intuition. Binary

Skills

• Acrobatics – 3D6
• Appraise – 4D6
• (-) Brawling – 6D6
• (-) Charisma – 2D6
• (-) Domestics – 2D6
• (+) Drive Railed – 4D6
• (+) Drive Sailcar – 2D6
• (+) Escape – 2D6
• Haggle – 5D6
• (+) Hide – 2D6
• Intuition – 6D6
• (+) Jimmy Lock – 2D6
• Math – 4D6
• (-) Reason – 2D6
• (+) Running – 6D6
• (-) Senses – 6D6
• (-) Stealth – 2D6
• (+) Streetwise – 7D6
• Weight Training – 3D6

I woke up in the smoldering wreckage of some ol’ truck, covered in blood. Wasn’t mine though, looks like we were all covered in bits of the driver.

All?

Yeah, four of us. Me, some old creepy guy who looks more like an earwig than a human, some crazy chick in her 40’s with a fucking shield and sword like this is a game of dungeons & dragons (the crazy will manifest shortly, trust me), and the ugliest mo-fo I’ve seen in ages with lumps crawling around under his skin, eyes on the sides of his head, and this permanent rictus grin that is just damn creepy.

Anyways, so we’re lying there recovering from what seems to have been a nasty explosion. No clue how I got here. There’s footprints leading off out of the crater into the snow. But what woke me up was a pair of wolves dragging away a young woman from the wreckage. She looked real familiar, but I dunno where from.

Then the crazy chick starts.

“Onion Rings! Onion Rings! Sultanate of Kangaroo Sugar! Longjohns motherfucker!”

The rest of us look at her, kinda stunned.

“Onion Rings!”

Then Mr butt-ugly pulls out this handgun from under his cammo green parka and blows the fucking head right off one of the wolves. Brains and chunks spray over the bunch of us, and the other wolf lets go of the mystery body.

Combat “begins” – and everything slows down to a crawl.

Everyone rolls Senses + Moves for Initiative. The wolf has 6D6 senses (it’s a wolf, damnit) and gets an initiative of 29.

• Earwig Max (4d6+3): 19
• Crazy Abidibidoo (3D6+8): 17
• ‘tit Jean (6D6+9): 36
• Private Idaho (9D6+22): 56

• Abidibidoo: “Score sixteen for the Kobold in green leotards!” (ducking and covering)
• Max: “I flic my bic, but it’ll take me until next turn to light this dynamite, so I’ll just do like we used to back in the 90’s and hold it as a threat – because wolves can smell trinitrotoluene and it makes them nervous, at least according to my uncle Jed who used to go hunting…”
• Wolf: will rush forward and try to bite Abidibidoo who is showing definite weakness
• ‘tit Jean: “Intercept the wolf with my 300 pounds of bulk and squash la maudite flat, Tabarnac!”
• Idaho: “Bang”

So no one actually takes a first action that is faster than the wolf’s 2 move bite attack on Abidibidoo. She tries desperately to defend against it, and her shield skill makes the wolf’s attack DC 36, which it just can’t beat with it’s brawling of 7D6. It leaps at her and clamps down on her shield.

Idaho fires off a shot, hitting the wolf in the leg and damn near tearing the leg off. The stun damage ends up taking away the rest of the wolf’s actions for the turn.

Finally, ‘tit Jean steps in flailing with a double hammerfist at the wolf. His 6D6 Brawling should be fine for this, but we see a natural inability at work right off the bat – he rolls 4 sixes on the attack roll, and has to re-roll them. His end roll is a pitiful 12, and the wolf spends actions from next round and his defense is enough to prevent the hit. ‘tit Jean then fails an Acrobatics roll and flails into Abidibidoo, who manages to smack him aside with her shield before she is forced to adversely cross-mutate with him.

Another shot from Idaho and the wolf is out.

The earwig guy rushes up to the body of the girl and checks her out. Looks like she’s dead to me from over here, with her head on that weird angle and everything.

Max – “Seems that this here real purty girl didn’t get ‘erself blowed up like us and the driver, she’s been mangled by someone else – dunno if it was before or after the ‘splosion though. Don’t likely reckon it’ll be easy to tell either way. By the way, don’t mind the big ass tail I got, name’s Max, but some call me Earwig Max on account of these here deformities. Please don’t hurt me.”

Crazy Girl  “Az zuboo Bazooka Joe daheeb da pork sausage with a side order of dump truck!”

Max “I had an aunt Betty who used to make no sense at all much like this one does. I think we’ll call her Betty… unless someone prefers dump truck. Personally I’m not a fan of dump trucks, on account of my cousin Vincent who had hot tarmac pour out of a dumptruck all over him and he suffocated and cooked to death, mind you, this was before the war and everything, but it was still a dump truck and I still really don’t trust those things further than…”

Crazy Betty (shaking her head sadly) “Flat porridge shotgun doorknob.”

Idaho stands silently by, checking out the area for more wolves or other trouble, and then looking through the wreckage. I don’t think he talks – dunno if he can’t, or just likes being the silent type. His parka has “PVT IDAHO” on the front of it, so I figure that’s his name.

‘tit Jean “Sorry about almost falling into you, miss Betty. Want a hand up?”

Crazy Betty “Broccoli! Broccoli in cheese sauce!” (signaling for me to step back and not to touch her)

Max “Most crazy people I’ve met either want to touch everyone and everything, or hate being touched. I remember this one guy back in Waterloo, he had bright orange hair that was always all over the place and horrible teeth. And he was nuts. Joseph would poke him with a stick whenever he could just to get a rise out of …”

Finally, I notice that Idaho is waving frantically for our attention… I guess he really doesn’t talk. I hush the other two and everyone looks around, noticing a dozen forms at the edge of our vision, humanoid and swathed in heavy clothes, barely visible through the falling snow and darkening skies…

This was our first “session” of deadOttawa. We finished character generation and had an hour left for a quick introduction to the skill and combat systems. ‘tit Jean is one of the PCs in the game, and we’re collaborating to bring the game sessions to you from his point of view (assuming that he’ll be the longest lived of the four characters – while Private Idaho is pretty awesome, he’s also a ticking time bomb with a one week fuse).