monstertruckers: (Default)
monstertruckers ([personal profile] monstertruckers) wrote in [community profile] route666rp2025-05-06 05:39 pm

MAY EVENT LOG




Out of the thorn brush, the land still looks twisted and broken. And it turns a lot more jagged as rocks burst up and out of the ground like teeth… And keep reaching upwards, in defiance of all the gravity that should be pulling them down. The further up the rock spires reach, the more they splinter until the stones are free floating. The same happens to the threadbare trees, their branches and leaves breaking off and hovering in empty air. The nature of this place becomes clear: reach too high, and eventually gravity gives up.


















01: BATTLE GROUND


The ground grows rougher, pockmarked with craters and rents, like the landscape is scarred. A little further up the road is the source of those wounds. Curious Drifters will find a tangle of rock and metal reaching high up to the sky. It’s a snarl of wrecked vehicles, rock spires… And bodies.

Robotic hunters are half melted into the bones of a giant monster, and the lights have long since gone out of their lens eyes. Many of them still clutch weapons; swords, guns, and bullets by the bag-full. The hunters and weapons remain locked with the corpse of a horn crowned monster with arm length teeth, and it’s clear this tangle is the only thing that keeps the hunters or their weapons from floating off. Drifters can potentially loot the weapons… They just have to be careful about not floating off while they salvage equipment. The footing here is uneven, and the ground looks ready to break with a wrong step.

These hunters also carry prayer screen beads, but the data on them is horribly scrambled. Any attempts to tamper with them cause them to repeat a single message: “I STILL LIVE” before shorting out and shutting down.
02: HEALTH INVERSION
A building grows out of the valley; a hospital that has been turned upside down, and its foundations reach for the sky like weird tree branches. The hallways inside are all sorts of twisted up, and the building can’t seem to decide if Drifters should walk on the ceiling or the floors.

Twisted as the building is, ruins gutted by time and overgrown with vegetation… There is salvage available. Medical supplies, healing potions, healing herbs, all of it is bountiful in the hospital. The hospital is also rife with Husks, but all of them are inert… Or have already been broken apart long ago.

Then there’s the matter of the hospital screens flickering on in the wake of the Drifters. Warning lights try to flicker on, as old electronics try to scan the Drifters. The machines give up flickers of data, declaring Drifters to be “infected.” The old restraining systems of the hospital are still active, as manacles and straps alike shoot out, trying to restrain Drifters. The bonds keep them inert until they can be sedated and enclosed in what look like holding pens for violent patients. Best hope there’s someone around to help break a Drifter out.


03: SHARED THOUGHTS
The valley is overgrown with strange plants that glow with eerie light. Sometimes in camp stray glowing tumbleweeds roll through… And any contact has interesting side effects. Drifters will find they’re more aware and capable of picking up on unsaid things. These powers can the month. Each glow confers different abilities:

Blue Glow: Makes Drifters more empathetic in a psychic sense. They can register the emotions of those nearby, and may start to feel those same emotions.
Green Glow: Makes Drifters capable of projecting their emotions to other people.
Purple Glow: Gives Drifters telepathy, to hear and send thoughts to others.
Orange Glow: Grants Drifters limited psychometry. (Object reading.) Using it in the hospital or the battleground will yield unique visions and messages. Please comment to the mod/NPC thread below if your character wishes to do so!

Drifters can stack these effects, but this can overload their minds and force transformations. Those with Swarm traits will find it easier to handle psionic abilities. Additionally, ALL DRIFTERS who experience psionics will find themselves susceptible to Events 4 and 5.
04: MONSTER SHIFT, HIVE-MIND
Worryingly, extra contact with the glowing plants can not only stack mind abilities, but also force Swarm traits. The more a Drifter is overwhelmed by psionics, the more likely this is. Drifters will have access to all Swarm traits for this event, and the following:
+Psi Hunger. A need to eat psychic energy in the form of dreams, psi-infused objects (like sage brush) or even psychic minds.
+Psi Senses: luckily, Drifters can glimpse heavy psychic energy in the brush through enhanced senses, and pick out strange brain monsters. These are good eating for Swarm monsters… And there’s an unnervingly high number of them.
+Group Mind: compelled to link thoughts with other Drifters, to share emotions, memories, and achieve cohesion.
+An increasing reliance on telepathy/empathy/etc in place of speech.
+Increasing collectivist mindset. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few; this becomes more evident during high stress situations.
+Compelled to spend more time in the wilds, absorbing power from plants and hunting prey in wilderness. May also be compelled to share this prey with others.
+Gravity Affinity: If possessing wings or the ability to wall climb, may freely hunt/traverse corrupted gravity areas.
05: WHAT DREAMS MAY COME
On several nights the wind picks up, and sage brush is uprooted and sent tumbling into camp. The plants trade their prior glow to something more baleful and crimson. With the wind whipping through the camp, it’s almost impossible to avoid unless a Drifter is already secure in the Convoy.

The effects aren’t immediately obvious, until the Convoy sleeps for the night… And that sleep is different. Namely the sleep is connected, showing both memories and dreams from other Drifters.

Memories from their pasts can blend together to form a strange dreamscape, that connected Drifters can travel through. But those dreams can easily turn into nightmares. Those who were exposed to the fear toxin in February will trend towards nightmares and may have their old fears make a reappearance.
If those nightmares are vivid and unsettling enough, they can force a transformation. (This may be either current monster traits, or a Swarm monster!) And then…



06: BRAIN ATTACK
It happens just before dawn, during the blue hour… Or perhaps it might be more apt to call it the red hour, with how the sky is stained crimson. It’s just bright enough to distinguish something moving in the hills. Drifters can pick out a rustling in the brush; something that isn’t wind. There’s something moving, crawling on claw tipped legs… And looking less like sage brush and more like a brain.

The Intellect Devourers numbers in the hundreds. Their claws scour the ground as they race towards the Convoy and smash into the shield. Numbers start to overwhelm the generator, along with the chaos the brain brush has sown with their psychic echoes.

The psychic echoes increase as they swarm the campsite, trying to drive Drifters into a frenzy with nightmares, fears, and strange visions. The brains are also ready to use those long sharp claws to tear anyone disoriented enough into ribbons, and start feasting on them.

06-A: BRAIN BRAWL
Hallucinations: The Intellect Devourers try to whip up more terrifying visions. Anything to disorient the entire Convoy, or drive the Drifters into a madness that leaves them transformed and too wild to easily counterattack. These hallucinations may be past trauma, or something a Drifter fears happening; the ultimate goal is to leave Drifters panicking, changed, and vulnerable.

Rally: Still, there’s one thing the Devourers didn’t anticipate: and that is how sharing a mental link has given the Drifters an anchor with each other. With all the psychic echoes spreading through the camp, any and all mental links from before can easily flare back up. Drifters who have shared dreams or some form of mental connection may still transform, but their mental link can keep their minds stable and coherent instead of growing feral.

Scars: Whether through brute force battles or mental link resistance, eventually the Convoy is able to shrug off the attack… But there is still some damage done. The shield generator has shorted out, and the Convoy itself has taken a few gashes and gouges. Not to mention any transformed Drifters will still need to be talked down. Luckily the mental links are still in place to help with that, and there’s a truck full of medical supplies to help with patching up any hurts.
MICRO ENCOUNTERS:

PLEASE NOTE! These are small bits of set dressing for players to include in threads if they wish, rather than full fledged prompts or events. You may handwave your exploration of these areas, or thread them out.

Disorientation: When wandering through the brush, Drifters may experience a swarm of disorientation: their thoughts suddenly scramble, they forget where they were going or what they were doing. They may also come to with a set of gashes along their legs, and a sense that they may have seen something in the sage brush move… Or maybe it was just the wind.

Float: Occasionally, parts of the road just give up their hold on the ground and go drifting skywards. Hopefully those chunks of road don’t take Drifters and their vehicles with them. Tough vehicles can likely survive the drop, while Fast vehicles can speed away before they float too far upwards. Drifters caught outside their vehicles will have to hope they have fast reflexes… Or are either good fliers or good jumpers for the leap back down.

Raining Down: On occasion, gravity will flicker and warp oddly… And that means that other odd things can fall where they used to float; rocks, plants, not to mention the odd bit of hardware and buildings. Watch for falling objects of various shapes and sizes!


NAVIGATION











purplexing: (of course I did...n't)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-22 04:11 am (UTC)(link)
"Huh." Donnie glanced over briefly before he considered the thing they were climbing on. Did he really want to find out just how potentially radioactive this area was?

"Well, no one's skin's falling off so that seems to be a good sign at least..."

Never mind that he could whip up something with his mystic-tech to check things out, but sometimes, you didn't really want to know some answers.

"Yeah, not like they're using it," he agreed, deciding to focus on other things.
wasteland_101: (Default)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-26 02:32 am (UTC)(link)
"With all the radiation I've delt with, I've never actually had my skin start to melt and I purposefully got radsick for a friend," She said absently.

She got back to focusing on being a scrounger. "Anything you really want?" She asked as she motioned to the area and all of the weapons and ammo. "I don't mind going and getting things."
purplexing: (uncertain)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-26 04:08 am (UTC)(link)
"...Yeah that does not inspire me with any reassurance."

Really. Was that supposed to make him feel better?

Donnie looks at the the strange jungle gym they've found themselves, frowning thoughtfully.

"Their heads," he says after a moment. "Or rather the memory cores. I can extract it myself, just keep an eye out for any that look intact."
wasteland_101: (Default)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-26 04:22 am (UTC)(link)
Look, she's done a lot of dumb things. She shrugs again and nods. She was thinking weapons and ammunition, but she could probably grab a couple of heads while she was out there.

"I can get you a head or two. Anything inside, you'll have to pull yourself. This stuff is way more advanced than what we have back home," she said. She could hack terminals back home and fight all kinds of robots, but anything advanced like this and she's lost.
purplexing: (dubious leo plans)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-26 04:38 am (UTC)(link)
"That was the plan. I can handle that much." He knows his way around tech, so picking apart robots is hardly an issue for him.

Weapons-wise, Donnie has no use for the ones available here, save to melt down for metal, but he's not taking any if people are able and willing to use them as-is.
wasteland_101: (Default)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-31 04:03 am (UTC)(link)
She simply nodded before stretching her arms above her head for a moment.

"This isn't much different than some of the buildings I've explored," she said before beginning to make her way to the closest robot. Her movements are calculated. She's used to crumbling buildings and not gravity being reversed so she is moving a bit slower than she usually would.
purplexing: (I have an app for that)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-31 04:55 am (UTC)(link)
Donnie angles himself for one of the bony segments, shoving himself off of his perch towards it. He gives a flap of his wings to help himself keep from drifting off target, grabbing onto whatever presents itself as a good enough handhold.

"Unfortunately the closest thing I can compare this to is when we were trying to infiltrate an alien ship that was floating in the sky above New York. It was messing up gravity pretty bad because it was so huge."
wasteland_101: (Default)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-31 05:05 am (UTC)(link)
"New York?" She had to think for a moment. "That's probably father north than even Danse has gone. I'm from the Capital Wasteland. What's left of Washington D.C.."

She wondered what a post War New York would be like and shook her head. She needed to focus. She didn't bat an eye at the mention of aliens. She's dealt with some before.

She managed to get to one of the dead robots and tugged at its head. Still pretty secure. She pulled the machete off of her back and hacked at the thing's neck a few times till the head came off.

Thankfully with the way gravity was here she didn't have to worry about it falling to the ground. She did have to worry about it floating off. She quickly grabbed it before it could.
purplexing: (uncertain)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-31 06:18 am (UTC)(link)
"The farthest I've ever been away from New York is Fiji, and that was by accident," Donnie says. He tries not to think too much about home, but all too easy to do so, and he misses it deeply.

At least the reminder of where the woman's from is one way of getting his thoughts off of home. Right. Post-apocalyptic mess.

For all the dismantling Donnie had been doing, he still can't help but grimace as he catches her hacking off he cyborg's head. Well, that's one way to do it, he supposes.
wasteland_101: (Default)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-31 06:31 am (UTC)(link)
"As far as I know, no one's been outside of the United States in 200 years," she said as she double checked things. Her methods were rough, but the job was done and the head was in one piece.

She needed some more rope, or a bag. Then she could carry a few more heads, but for now she's just looking the body over.

"I've fought all kinds of robots. Protectrons, Gutsys, Robobrains, Eyebots, but nothing like this before," she said. "They all seem so simple compared to these guys."
purplexing: (mmhmm)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-31 06:40 am (UTC)(link)
"Probably hard to do so if methods of traveling across sea is hard to come by... For the record we didn't go by conventional methods. My brother hadn't gotten a handle of his teleporting and accidentally sent us over there somehow." He supposes he could be grateful that Leo had managed to get them back, even at the time they'd been less enthusiastic about their impromptu vacation being disrupted.

"I...have fought against surprisingly little robots, but I guess it'd be hard to have a whole bunch of them anywhere without someone noticing. I'd only say that these guys are complicated by way of design, but at least they're still beatable."

Not like the Krang...
wasteland_101: (Gunna need more caps)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-31 06:53 am (UTC)(link)
"There were a few big companies before the war that developed all kinds of robots. Robco and General Atomics being the biggest names. Robco designed my Pip-Boy," she didn't know the full history of the companies, but she knew the basics.

"How many brothers do you have? I met another that kinda looks like you," she asked. She had met Leo briefly when they were at the oasis.
purplexing: (it's not a nerd thing)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-31 06:58 am (UTC)(link)
"Huh, before the war, how convenient. Did they factor a lot into said war?"

Donnie holds up...all his fingers. "Three. Leo's the only one out of them that's here, the one I said we had a slight variation between our timeframes." And yet still a drastic enough one to make such a difference.
wasteland_101: (Consider this...)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-31 07:06 am (UTC)(link)
"I can only guess. A lot of information was lost when the bombs dropped and everything went to hell."

"From what I can figure out, the resource wars were faught with men and power armor. I did find one simulation about the battle of Anchorage. It was...interesting." To say the least. It was so full of propaganda that it was almost funny.

When he talked about Leo she nodded. She remembered their talks about the time differences. "At least you've got family you can rely on."
purplexing: (i know things i wish i didn't)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-31 07:22 am (UTC)(link)
"Kind of wish people would figure things were a bad idea before they go and make everything a mess for everyone else," Donnie sighs.

He looks off into the distance, like he could spot Leo from where they are. He supposes if he really wanted to, he could probably pull his location up from his tracker, but he hasn't made use of that since he'd gotten here.

"...yeah. I guess that's true."
wasteland_101: (After Battle)

[personal profile] wasteland_101 2025-05-31 07:39 am (UTC)(link)
"Good leaders are hard to find. I've...dealt with a few bad ones in the short time I've been out of the Vault. They only care about their own power and what it can do for them." She wasn't proud of killing the Overseer, but she didn't regret it. President Eden and Colonel Autumn? Those she was proud of.

"The good ones are never in power for long. Bad ones will always find a way to take control."
purplexing: (scoff)

[personal profile] purplexing 2025-05-31 04:50 pm (UTC)(link)
"That seems to be the trend. Power gets to their heads." That doesn't just go for leaders, but bad people in general. It's just a pity that the bad people end up being in such positions a lot of the time.

"Way to be inspirational," Donnie mutters. "I don't think that'd make it on a greeting card."