Category: In-Character

Twilight Tangents 2.0 – ZOMBI

So, we decided to change some things.

  1. Twilight Tangents is by far our best selling book. People just love zombies in Twilight: 2000. It’s probably been tempered by the release of The Walking Dead but it’s still a solid seller.
  2. I had a load of writing for Zombi stuff that I wanted to use but it seemed out of place in with the psychic powers stuff.
  3. Twilight Tangents is also my oldest supplement by a country mile. It was the first thing I put together for the Free League Workshop so its update was well overdue. I mean it’s been up there for about four years!

We’re splitting Twilight Tangents into two separate books – so if you previously got it you won’t lose access to anything Zombi-like or even the rules for Psychic Abilities. You’re getting the Twilight Tangents upgraded Zombi content for free and retaining all of the previous book.

Twilight Tangents: Zombi warps the cold realism of Twilight: 2000 into a fungal nightmare of paranoid aggression, plague-scarred survivors, and walking corpses born not of mysticism, but bioweapons. Set in a world where Agent INFERNO, an engineered mould, has twisted fear into fury and death into zombification, players navigate a crumbling civilisation where trust is deadlier than bullets and infection is only a breath away.

This sourcebook reimagines the apocalypse with horrifying biological plausibility: zombis driven by neural-hyphae infestations, panicked survivors clutching to faith, violence, or denial, and institutions turning to the dead as weapons of control. It’s not survival horror. It’s a war against your own instincts, played out across ruined cities, quarantined zones, and overrun compounds. With new campaign options, adversaries, factions, life paths, and grim narrative hooks, Zombi doesn’t ask if you’ll survive, only how much of your humanity you’ll lose before the end.

We will be following this up later this year with two new books. Twilight Tangents: Espers and Twilight Tangents: Lycanthropes. I’ve not started writing them yet but the summer is coming up and I’ll have plenty of time to put stuff together.
​
Twilight Tangents: Espers

The Mind Is a Weapon – But Who Pulled the Trigger?

Twilight Tangents: Espers tears back the veil on a secret war fought not with bullets, but with thoughts sharp enough to kill. Born from classified experiments and the shattered psy-ops of The 23rd Letter, these are the invisible soldiers of the Twilight War; remote viewers, psychic assassins, telepaths embedded in command bunkers, and precognitive assets burned out before their twentieth birthday.

The Twilight War didn’t just scorch the Earth. It ruptured the human psyche. This supplement brings full psychic warfare to Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, revealing how nations cultivated Espers to manipulate battlefields, undermine leadership, and rewrite reality one mind at a time. Players step into a world of neural blacksites, psionic backlash, mental conditioning, and conspiracies so deep they were never meant to be remembered.

​
Twilight Tangents: Lycanthrope

We didn’t create them. We just stopped giving them a reason to hide.

In the smoke and chaos of the Twilight War, something older than humanity emerged from the forests, the mountains, and the ruins. Not a bioweapon. Not a myth. Something that had always been there, watching. Waiting.

Twilight Tangents: Lycanthrope is a savage expansion for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, introducing werewolves not as fairy tale monsters, but as apex predators whose packs have turned warzones into hunting grounds. These aren’t cursed peasants or Hollywood beasts. They are strategic, feral, and organized and they remember what humanity has forgotten: how to stalk, how to kill, and how to survive.

From black-ops werewolf handling units to insurgent packs tearing through the last enclaves of civilisation, this sourcebook explores lycanthropy as a battlefield reality. Inside: new lifepaths, rules for transformation, hunting instincts, and feral politics. The beasts are real. And they’re not hiding anymore.

The Crossing

The Wanderer rocked violently, a fragile speck in the vast, storm-beaten waters. Spicer, the captain, stood barefoot at the helm, his wiry frame braced against the ship’s shuddering frame as waves slapped mercilessly at the hull. A deep-set grin carved into his face despite the danger, he looked more at ease here, at the edge of disaster, than he would lounging in a courtly bed.
“Wizards,” he muttered under his breath, eyeing his three passengers who clung to the mast in various states of distress. “Fools, more like.”
Makaira, the once-was court wizard, clutched the tail of a line in a white-knuckled grip, his cloak pulled tight against the biting spray of seawater. He had wrapped this line three times around his waist. He was a tall, fussy man, ill-suited to the hard edges of the Wanderer and already regretting every boast he’d made. “I tell you,” he had declared to King Frey, “I shall find a dragon, speak with it, perhaps even bend its will to serve you.” And now, barely a day out of Saaland, he feared it would be the waves he’d bow to instead.
Beside him, Joy—a newly appointed wizard who had only recently left the comforts of her study—wavered on her feet, clinging to the mast with one hand and her hat with the other. The wind had whipped her dark hair into a frenzy, and her face was pale, her eyes darting between Spicer and the horizon, as if uncertain which held more danger.
And then there was Shei, a bard whose life of small misdeeds and worse luck had somehow landed him on this ill-advised voyage. Lounging near the prow, he had hooked a leg under a plank, securing his weight. Even as waves broke over the sides, he hummed with a half-hearted bravado, masking his own unease with a forced grin.
“We’ll be fine, Makaira,” he said, though his voice shook. “Spicer knows these waters, don’t you, Captain?”
Spicer chuckled darkly, his eyes fixed on the storm-laden sky. “Know of them, aye. But that don’t mean they’re kind. The Crescent Isle’s just beyond this fury,” he added, as if that knowledge alone would steady the groaning timbers of his ship.
Makaira shifted uneasily, his pride deflating with every lurch of the boat. “You assured me this crossing was… challenging, but manageable. I had no notion it was—”
“I didn’t reckon you’d care to know just how many bones lie beneath this stretch.” Spicer’s gaze was unforgiving. “These waters don’t welcome travelers lightly, wizard.”
As if summoned by his words, the waves grew fiercer, rolling over the Wanderer and crashing against the deck. Joy lost her grip and stumbled forward, barely catching herself before falling overboard. Shei lunged, grabbing her arm with a quickness that betrayed his deftness.
“We’ve made it too far to drown here,” Shei muttered, helping her steady herself. “And Makaira’s got dragons to charm, remember?”
Joy gave him a weak smile. “If we make it to the Crescent Isle in one piece, it’ll be a miracle, let alone finding a dragon.”
Spicer’s laughter cut through the howling wind. “If dragons hear you coming, they’ll laugh just as hard, I’ll wager.” He pointed to the horizon, where a shadowed line of cliffs was barely visible through the mist. “There it is—the Crescent Isle.”
Makaira’s eyes brightened. “At last! There, do you see it?” But his excitement faded as the waves grew more chaotic, as if some unseen force stirred them into a frenzy. “Captain, are we safe to approach?”
“Safe?” Spicer snorted. “No one’s ever ‘safe’ here, wizard. The Crescent Isle’s got a hunger for men and ships alike.” He glanced at Shei, who had gone back to picking his fingernails, his expression tight. “Shei, best play a tune for luck, if you know one.”
Shei shook his head but began to sing, the faltering notes wavering over the chaos of the sea. Makaira muttered incantations under his breath, his fingers tracing symbols in the air. The wind shifted, and for a brief moment, the storm seemed to calm.
But then, as if mocking their efforts, a monstrous wave rose, its peak foaming with rage. It crashed into the Wanderer, sending Joy tumbling and nearly knocking Makaira from his seat, though the line held fast. Shei was drenched, the notes silenced, and even Spicer looked grim as he fought to keep the boat on course.
Makaira clung to his staff, his eyes wild. “Can’t you do something, Captain?”
“Against the sea?” Spicer barked a laugh, though his knuckles whitened on the wheel. “Not even your dragons could tame these waters.”
As if in response, the shadow of a cliff loomed closer, jagged and unforgiving. Crescent Isle had them in its grip, pulling them forward with an invisible hand. And then, as they drew near, the waters abruptly stilled, the fury of the storm falling away into an eerie calm.
Joy looked up, her face pale. “Did… did we make it?”
The Wanderer drifted forward, its timbers creaking in the silence. The air was thick, almost oppressive, and the island loomed ahead, dark and foreboding. On the shore, shadows shifted, half-seen shapes flitting between the twisted trees.
Makaira’s voice was barely a whisper. “This is… Crescent Isle.” He shivered, feeling the weight of the island’s silent watchfulness. “Captain, I… I thought there would be… people.”
“People?” Spicer’s grin returned, sharper than before. “This isn’t Saaland, wizard. The Crescent Isle’s folk don’t welcome strangers. You wanted dragons, did you not?”
Makaira’s bravado faltered, his gaze flicking to Joy and Shei, both as uneasy as he was. But he forced himself to nod. “Yes. We’ve come to parley with dragons. To serve the King.”
Spicer’s laugh was hollow, echoing over the silent waters. “Then you’d best be prepared, wizard. For the Crescent Isle holds no love for fools, nor for those who seek to stir its ancient spirits. Remember,” he said, as they began their slow approach to the shadowed shore, “dragons don’t bargain. They devour.”
The Wanderer drifted closer to the land, the shadows deepening, and the ship slipped silently into the protected lagoon of the Crescent Isle. The air thickened with a silence that held not just menace, but an ancient promise of ruin for those foolish enough to seek what should never be disturbed.
Spicer set an anchor and then collapsed onto a pile of nets. “Now we wait,” he warned, “No-one sets foot on this Isle without invitation.” The other three peered at the silhouette of the land before them and there was no-one to be seen.

Tales of Distant Lands Playtest: Group 2, Session 2 – AP

Once she was sure that everyone was asleep, Joy crept from her stuffed straw pallet and slipped out of the room. She was sure no-one would have heard her move because of the constant put-put-put from Makaira’s snoring. But even as she pulled the door closed, she wouldn’t have seen a pair of eyes flick open.

Once outside the room, she muttered some words and felt a flush of joy as the magic coursed in her, and she became invisible to the world, yet fully visible to herself. for not a moment did she consider if her spell had worked, she just was confident in its working.

She padded down the steps towards the open door and stepped out into the night. A cat hissed at her passing and she wondered at the strangeness of those creatures and their keen senses.

From an upper window, Shei gazed out upon the yard, wondering if Joy would be leaving but as nothing came into view, they curled up on the straw and listening to the rhythmic snoring of the older mage, fell back into their nightmare.

Joy could hear the last of the town revellers as she crept along the dirt streets, doing her best to stay in the shadows. One could never be sure if the invisibility was complete and she had seen too many pranks go awry at the Guild when an inexperienced apprentice had forgotten to mask their own shadow as well as their body. Joy would make no such mistake; she had practiced the art of invisibility for slipping off into the woods and watching nature for hours on end.

Finally she arrived at the strange fish-shrine in the town. Someone had left two burning candles there, to the fish-effigy was wreathed in an ethereal flickering light. The trapdoor was still secured.

Outside, across the square, one of the many porthole taverns were closing their trade. Porthole taverns represented the roughest of places – where the clientele wasn’t even trusted to enter the hearth but instead were passed drinks through a small window. She crept closer, careful not to disturb any stones and then she spotted the three unpleasant men she’d spoken to earlier. One, the ringleader, seemed very much the worse for wear and he coloured the air blue with his language.

All three sloped off into a small cul-de-sac and then parted ways, the leader shuffling into a one room shack. As she peered in the window, she could smell only man sweat and fish work and all she could see was a lone table and chair, a poorly tended fireplace with a pot hanging above it and poking out of a dark alcove, two grubby feet.

She debated whether to investigate further but was wary – these were rough people “of the knife” it was said. Feeling slightly defeated she returned to her lodgings and crept back inside.

As she opened the door to their room, she heard Shei hiss “and where have you been”

Shei questioned her at length, knowing the dangers of snooping around at night, and berated her for carelessness and how they’d be sick with worry if she did not return. Makaira made a loud snort that seemed to indicate he was still asleep but then he spoke “Do I have to lock fast your jaws to make you stop wittering through the night?”

Joy related her journey to them both and Makaira surprised her by standing up and starting to dress. Even moreso when he did not put on his ceremonial garb that he went everywhere with. Makaira was not the sort of Wizard to be seen about town so unadorned yet here he was, beard and hair uncombed, ready to step out into the night.

The three made their way in darkness, not bothering with invisibility or any form of camouflage until they arrived at the Shrine. It was now Deepnight and it seemed that anything that had occurred here had long since departed. The candles were burned down to their wicks.

Makaira nudged Shei towards the locked trapdoor and Shei, taking the meaning, obliged. The lock was simple, only two tumblers, and Shei picked it expertly but the mechanism wouldn’t release. “It’s held fast by magic”. Joy wondered at the implications of this when Makaira stood to his full height and uttered a single word “Haba”, which means Raze in the True Speech. Instantly the trapdoor itself was rendered to splinters which hung in the air for a moment as if surprised, and then fell into the darkness of whatever was below the door.

Clicking his fingers, Makaira summoned a magelight which he tossed into the blackness and then stepped into the hole.

Below, lit by the eerie magelight, was a small pontoon at the end of a long cave. There was some evidence it had been used due to the marks of feet on the greenish slime so common to caves and harbours but there was nothing else to be seen. The cavern waters carried the smell of the sea and they all surmised this must lead to some secluded opening on the coast. Joy recognised this a s smugglers hole, not uncommon when folks wanted to avoid taxes or move good unseen.

With nothing else to be gleaned here, they climbed out of the hole. Shei expressed some concern at the trapdoor which lay in fragments, but Makaira ignored them and bade Joy to lead them to the ringleader.

In this odorous little shack, standing above it’s owner, Makaira spoke quietly into the darkness. Both Joy and Shei recognised some of the words. Shei saw them form as certain musical notes which they had used many times in attempts to sway the minds of others. A reminder of the kinship between magic and song.

With his mind utterly enslaved, the ringleader confessed all. He was part of a clandestine gang who were moving people in and out of the lands unseen. He personally was responsible for the deaths of at least six people. Their motives were partly about money but there was a revolutionary aspect to it that left Makaira very uncomfortable. He sent the man back to sleep with no memory and then the three returned to their lodgings.

Rising fashionably late, they decided to inform the wizard Alaric of the goings-on. He again displayed considerable prepared relaxation but promised them he would take action. Uncertain of his sincerity, they made their way down to the port to find the ship they awaited.

The Wanderer was a sleek vessel, narrow of beam but quick on the wind. It’s master, Spicer, was a lean Osslan who inspired confidence and strength. He agreed to their haggling for the trip to round the top of Saaland and out to the West.

As they loaded their belongings aboard the Wanderer, Joy spotted a commotion in the square. A large crowd was gathered. Spying through the eyes of a seabird, she saw the ringleader being hoisted to a pillory. The Wizard Alaric must have made good on his promise. The Wanderer slipped it’s moorings and headed East out into the open sea before turning Northeast. After a day at sea, it rounded the northern horn and set a course due West for Alben.

Spicer took great delight in teaching anyone who would listen about the sails and lines. Makaira spend most of his time in silent meditation with only the occasional snore but Shei and Joy were quick to follow instructions and soon were able to tack and steer without supervision.

Alben came into view a day later, a town brightly lit by greenish magelight. It was clear the place was wealthy, maintained by the lucrative Ironworks in the region. The Wanderer slipped quietly into the dock with Shei and Joy securing her to the harbour wall and Spicer off to unload cargo and collect supplies for the next leg of the journey.

Languaging and the Naming of Things

One of the important things for the World is familiarity. I remember reading a great (and hefty) first RPG by a Scottish crowd and one of the things I remember most is not their evocative prose or the art which captured the sort of neo-victorian fantasy world, but that they took the time to use different names for things like “sword”.

You gotta makes changes where it matters but also remember that the language you’re using to write the game (British English in this case) is different to the language they’re using in the world (which I’ve named ilsien). Things will be translated if they’re common enough. It was one of the issues I had with Skyrealms of Jorune, which being one of my favourite games, I tried to foist on players a couple of times. And while they got to grips with Thriddles, Shanthas, Muadra, Dyshas…they struggled with Shenters, Iscins and Incleps.

So, language has to be “common” but there has to be rules for adding new words.

Below are a list of the words I’ve used so far and the meaning for them. This will be the start of the Lexicon.

Places

L-ilsien – the name for the archipelago, containing all of the domains who are enjoined to the Shining City and the Court.

Inis – a city on the northmost coast of the island of Erea

The Shining City – city on the eastern coast of Plattesaal, home of the Court

The Court – political centre of the isles, where all Princeps and Families attend

Privetch – city on the North coast of Prive, an island south of the Saaland

Saaland – a large island with the most important cities

Plattesaal – the flatlands on the eastern side of the Saal range

Hindersaal – the rural western side of the Saal range.

The Saal – a mountain range reaching across Saaland

Lenut – a small village on the western side of the Saal located in a dense and lush forest

Alben – port town on the north coast of Saaland

Erea – a large crescent-shaped island east of Saaland.

Losung – a volacanic island south of Erea and East of Saaland

Terona – a small island between Erea and Prive

Wizardry

Wizards – the spellcasting caste of L-Ilsien society

Wizards Staff – symbol of a Wizards craft

Charms – small, usually non-magical tokens, necklaces or bracelets. May be imbued with wizardry to provide protection or other small advantage.

Runes – written language representing concepts in the True Speech which may accompany a small instance of wizardry. If used with actual wizardry, the roll gets a +1 boon (not stackable)

  • Shoth – the rune for Courage
  • Lir – the rune for Freedom
  • Sakkin – the rune for Sharpness
  • Seher – the run for Protection

Signs – these are like charms, but used by simpler folk. These can be enhanced by wizardry and provide a +1 boon (not stackable)

  • Hold – this movement of an open palm to close the tips of the fingers is used to evoke silence among those who see it.
  • Ward – the open palm with the thumb tucked to the centre, pointed at whatever offends you – this operates as a shield. Reflexively used when people don’t like something, it can act as a magical defence.
  • Calm – placing your left hand, palm to their right, fingers pointing to your right on the head of someone else can help, if they are willing, bring them into a meditative state.
  • Spit – spitting at a person is a surrogate for a curse. Used along with a rhyme by children.
  • – thumb and first finger, held aloft is a sign of defiance and resistance. The meaning is lost to time, but it is most often used by disobedient children when called to bed.

The Guild – the organisation responsible for training, certifying and policing wizards

The Hall of Scrolls – a large library of papers, scrolls and books

The Questioner – one of several mentors within the Guild

Ilsien – the language and the people of L-ilsien (the speakers)

True Name – the secret name given to every person at their majority

True Speech – the language by which the world was made, the root language of all

The Balance – the metaphysical representation of how much change a Wizard can make in the world before there are consequences

Becoming – the simple ceremony of giving someone their True Name at their majority

Unbinding – the Last Rite given to the dying where their name is taken back and their spirit is set free to be reincarnated from the Sunless Lands

Handfasting – the non-magical rite where a couple bind themselves together (with symbolic string or rope) as a form of marriage. This rite is renewed after 1 year, after 3 years and after 7 years.

Bane – any wizardry used to harm another.

Things That Go Bump

Dragons – older than writing or speech, the Dragons are forces for the Balance, attracted to Imbalance, representing air and fire. Millennia old, knowledgeable and fearful of their True Names being discovered.

Old Ones – older than writing or speech, the Old Ones represent darkness and earth. They are ravenous for worshippers (who become their agents in the world) but despise light. They can invade the dreams of those close to their temples, creating nightmares of tentacles and unbound malleable flesh.

Kobalos – creatures of darkness who service the Old Ones in their dark places. Smaller than humans but capable of dark wizardry. They despise the light but can cloak themselves in the flesh of others.

The Silver Lake – the metaphysical representation for the barrier between the Living and the Sunless Lands (this was the Black Gate but I’m rethinking it.)

Sunless Lands – the realm of the dead, a static and unchanging place of eternal twilight with no sunshine or stars where the spirits of the dead wait to be reincarnated

Shades – spirits who, for whatever reason, retained their name after they entered the Sunless Lands. They roam these lands, retaining their memory, oftimes resenting the living.

Revenants – a shade which has managed to return through the Black Gate. They often re-inhabit their previous body but can also occupy the bodies of others.

Here Be Dragons – a new enemy for Twilight 2000

Here Be Dragons – A new Enemy for Twilight 2000
[Scenario][Game Aid][Paid]

Here Be Dragons is a different look at the post-apocalyptic world after a awakening of an ancient enemy brings our civilisation to ruin. This reign of Draconic Rulers brings down a Rain of Fire and destruction by tooth and fang.

Smoke fills the air, the taste of burning is on your tongue and in your nose. Your belly rumbles as you’ve not had enough food these last three days and forever you have one eye on the horizon and one ear listening out for the beat of wings.

On Monday, the 24th of August, 2000, the world ended.

An enemy that had laid dormant for over a thousand years, clawed its way out of deep pits and took to the air. Their time had returned, their world for the taking.
With claw and tooth and fire, they razed entire cities to embers, picked off the thousands who ran and created vast nests in the high places.

The Earth had brought forth Dragons.

Get it at DTRPG

New and Shiny: Enhanced: Super Soldiers in the Twilight War

We just released Enhanced.

This one has been a long time in the making and, due to the amount of art (all done by humans), the most expensive book we have produced to date. Remembering that all of our books are about recouping costs so we can pay more artists!

Enhanced is a supplement for Twilight: 2000 4th Edition.

Enhanced provides a framework for super soldiers in the Twilight War, based on alien particles discovered in the aftermath of the Tunguska Event. From these mutagenic agents, the Americans build heroes at their secret base in Raven Rock and the Soviets build monsters which roam the forests of the Urals.

In the light from a hundred artillery explosions, I could see the rain lashing off Skipper’s helmet as she peered out of our foxhole.
“I can’t see shit”, she spat.
Somewhere out there, among the ruined trees and scarred fields was the Enemy. Cloaked in an unseasonable storm that seemed as if the elements were angrily punching their fists to the air in protest against our intrusions.
A barrage of rounds whizzed above our heads and we ducked reflexively, too late of course. If they had been on target, we wouldn’t have heard them, only felt them as they thudded into us and tumbled turbulently through our slippery innards.
“We’re pinned here. If they have armour…” She didn’t need to finish the sentence. If they had armour, they’d roll those tanks right up over us and we could do nothing about it. What was worse was I knew they had armour, I’d seen the menacing blocky shapes in the fog earlier. I decided not to mention it, fearful of ruining the optimistic mood.
We settled into a sullen silence, just waiting for something to happen because inevitably it would.
Maybe it was an hour, maybe two, when we first heard something, Footsteps. Quiet footsteps.
I hissed “Red?”
A moment later I heard a confidently spoken “Rum!” and a slightly built young woman dropped into our little foxhole. She said her name was Malt.
For the next hour, Malt kept us company. Her humour was infectious, her confidence like a gentle breeze. She made us breathe again, right until we heard the rumbling of heavy machines. Armour, I realised with dread.
Malt stood up, all 160 cm of her, and faced the mechanical monster as it trundled towards us.
“Time to earn my crust.”
She smiled and we were immediately blinded by a baleful light that came from her body. Refracted a million times by raindrops, I could feel the peril from it. The light sliced through the tank, like a hot knife through butter, and the air was rent with screams of dying men and machines.
When our vision returned, she was standing alone and half-melted tanks steamed and stank around us.
“Let’s go!” Malt sang as she skipped forward. Like an elf she raced across the battlefield towards the enemy, When something reared up to spit death, that terrible light would appear once more leaving only smoking ruins.
We hit their trenches like a hammer; Skipper’s uncanny accuracy found its mark every time. I followed, mopping up as we went.
We collapsed into a shelter and wiped the sweat and rain from our faces.
“We just made 100 metres.” Malt grinned.
She stepped back out into the rain and beckoned us.
“We can do a hundred more.”
I strapped my helmet back on and grabbed my weapon just as Malt’s left eyeball exploded and I heard a single shot ring out, showering us in gore and skull fragments. Skipper swore. I was speechless.
Malt’s body fell, in slowed motion, to the bottom of the trench and the chalice of her brain pan started to collect muddy rainwater. We could hear voices now, speaking in short, staccato bursts, in a foreign language. We’d come too far.
“We gotta run,” Skipper shrieked. She leapt to the top of the trench and sprinted back towards our lines. Even through the rain I could see her ducking and diving as fast as her Enhancement would permit! And me, I couldn’t move. I wasn’t as fast as Skipper. Didn’t have Malt’s light to clear the way.
As the voices closed in on me, I remembered a line from a book or movie. I spoke steadily into my radio, giving coordinates as accurately as I could and finished with that line as I called in the artillery.
“Let it rain. Danger close.”

This rule set is compatible with Twilight: 2000 4th Edition, Blade Runner, ExSanguine, De Occulta, The 23rd Letter 3rd Edition and Rise of R’lyeh. It is directly compatible with other Year Zero Engine (Step Dice) games.

A Hopeful Ending and a New Beginning

We played our final session of The 23rd Letter play test this week, and wrapped up the story of Poppy and her baby.

After recuperating overnight (under Joy’s watchful care, and a handy saline drip), Poppy recovered enough from her ordeal to tell the group about what had happened, which really just confirmed all their suspicions from the previous sessions.

She was a telepath, recruited to be part of The Third Project, a government organisation that worked to keep the public safe from Espers. At first she had thought she was doing the right thing and using her talent for the good of her fellow countryment, but she came to realise that the folks running the Project (or at least her field office in Topeka) were actually working against the best interests of Espers in general, and about a year prior she had started working with a couple of Cells in the Network to supply them with Psilence so that they could avoid capture or detection by the Project.

While pregnant, Poppy realised that the double agent thing really was too much for her to handle along with a baby, so she decided to get out of the Project altogether and slip away into the Network. Her last act was to grab the entire stockpile of Psilence that her office had and bring it with her, but before she could get away, she went into labour. She had the baby, whose name is Anna, but the missing Psilence was noticed and questions started being asked. As soon as she was able, she slipped away. Leaving the Psilence where she’d stashed it, she traveled to St Louis where she was supposed to drop the drugs. Instead, she tried to meet up with the Cell, but the Third Project tracked her down and snatched her. She was able to hide the baby, knowing that help was on the way (and wanting to keep her obviously psychic child out of government hands).

The media was filled with accounts of the ‘Terror Attack’ on the highway from the day before, and Jenny had a meeting arranged for her with Internal Affairs the next week. However, at this point I asked the group if we could go into Downtime to test out those rules, which we did. I’ll handle the open plot points narratively at the start of next session (i.e. what happened in the Internal Affairs meeting, any developments on the location of Clark, etc.)

During Downtime, everyone has the opportunity to spend the Experiences they earned during play, adding new Qualities or Talents, or improving existing Skills, Talents or Attributes. Each member of the group got 12 XP (2 for each session, which is the middle of the road for our guidelines of 1-3). This led to some interesting discussions and changes in how we structure both XP and character creation, so I’m really glad we got a chance to do this part. For example, we discovered that the two very powerful Espers in the group had no real way to improve their Talents, which felt a little disappointing. Both players said they’d rather start a bit less powerful and become better through play. We also discovered that the costs of things was off, so glad we got to address that too.

The Cell used their downtime to shore up their Hideout, choosing to make it large enough for four people to rest in (it starts only large enough for 1, but luckily Bryce has the Builder Quality, allowing him to make an extra upgrade during Downtime). Stress and Heat were reduced for the group (another mechanics discussion and improvement resulted from that!).

A big thank you to my five players and their characters:

  • Stefan – the precog hippie and Cell namesake Richard Moonglow
  • Ellie – the nurse (and Cell mom) Joy Mary Smith
  • Fintan – the pyrokinetic cook/builder Bryce Collins
  • Eve – the mind-reading ‘medium’ and con-artist Vonbella Alexander
  • Sarah – the overworked and overlooked Detective Jenny Blake

The Moonglow Cell will continue to function after a couple weeks break (giving me time to write some more story hooks!) and now has a channel on our Discord to help track actual play.

Venting Pyrokinetics

Our fourth and fifth in-game sessions of the 23rd Letter saw quite a lot of action! I’ll give a brief summary, and then talk about some of the rules that I think were interesting. I’ll put a * and a number on some rules I’m going to talk about at the end.

Everybody woke up in the morning after not having slept very well, and discovered that they had had similar dreams … after some discussion, they determined that maybe the baby’s mother was being held captive somewhere near the Gateway Arch and a McDonalds. Richard (the precog) had an inkling that something big was going to go down, and made a few preparations[*1]. Meanwhile, Vonbella (the telepath) was able to remotely connect to Poppy, the woman in their dreams and the presumed mother of the baby, and find out that she was going to be moved out of the city later today!

Richard (backed up by Jenny the detective) met up with Royal, the Cell’s command and control contact, and got some info that helped fill in some gaps: Poppy had been a double agent within a government Project, secretly working for the Network to help supply them with Psilence (a necessary drug to help reduce Stress). The group pieced together that she’d been compromised and had tried to escape but had been caught, succeeding only in smuggling out her baby (and hiding a stash of Psilence somewhere also). Just as Richard finished up chatting with Royal, Vonbella got an urgent telepathic message from Poppy – she was being moved now!

Luckily, it turned out that she was halfway between Richard/Jenny in one car and Vonbella/Bryce (the pyrokinetic) in another[*1]. Joy (the nurse) had decided to take the baby back to her apartment … thankfully! Both pairs got into their car and tried to use Poppy’s weak telepathic messages to help triangulate her position. They eventually caught up to the SUV that the agents were transporting her in, but by this stage they were all on the freeway and heading out of the city.

Bryce used his powers[*2] to burn out one of the tyres on the government vehicle, causing it pull over onto the shoulder. He and Vonbella pulled in front, and Jenny/Richard pulled in behind. Everyone put on on their clown masks and got ready to for action (well, Vonbella kinda cowered in her seat, but she was there!) (end of session 4)

Two armed and armoured soldiers got out of the vehicle and drew a bead on each car, while a third agent tried to radio for help. Bryce and Vonbella, despite their antagonism, worked together for the greater good by creating a Gestalt[*3] and using Vonbella’s telepathic powers to see through Poppy’s eyes and allow Bryce to target his pyrokinesis to superheat the soldiers’ weapons and the radio, causing everything to be dropped (although bullets were sprayed wildly). The attempt was successful, but given all the Stress that Bryce and Vonbella had, it caused Bryce to Vent[*4] creating a massive pyrokinetic explosion which destroyed the car they were sitting in and sent fiery debris flying across the freeway. Several cars crashed into each other on the other shoulder, and one went spinning wildly out of control and did several flips, killing everyone inside thankfully nobody was killed.[*1] The explosion was enough to kill one of the soldiers, and set a second one on fire. Jenny quickly finished off that one and the third with some skilled shooting, while Richard hustled up to the SUV and helped the heavily sedated Poppy back to Jenny’s car.

Bryce and Vonbella left their “car” (by this stage it was just the two seats they were sitting in, and a large, blackened crater) and hustled into Jenny’s car. They took off before backup could arrive, and found a safe spot to wait for Joy to come pick them up in her minivan–Richard took Jenny’s car and ditched it in the Missisippi, while Jenny reported it stolen, in an attempt to cover their trail.[*5] They got back to Joy’s apartment, fixed Poppy up with a saline drip to help her recover in bed, and that’s where we wrapped session 5.

OK, let’s look at the rules that helped this story move along.

1. Richard is a precog, which means when he wants to see the future, he makes a roll with his ability and each success gives him one ‘preparation’–a secret thing his character has done ahead of time, but that he as a player doesn’t have to think of until the action is actually happening. Richard’s player rolled 3 successes. Where did everyone get clown masks? That was one of his preparations. How come the bad guys were halfway between Richard/Jenny and Bryce/Vonbella? A second preparation (which in Richard’s case is part of his ‘things just happen the way they are meant to’ view on life). The third preparation went on saving the lives of the folks in the car that flipped: Richard had seen it coming and had called the cops to report *that* car stolen earlier that morning. Those poor folks had been hassled by the cops and never made it onto the freeway, but hey–at least they were still alive!

2. Bryce is a Major Pyrokinetic, with 2d12 in his Psychic Talent. However, he and Vonbella were both Stressed (mostly caused by each other!) – Bryce had 2 Stress and Vonbella had 3, so when he rolled to blow out the tyre, he had to roll 2d12 + 5d6 – 1d6 for each Stress in their shared pool: all psychics share their Stress pool when in close proximity. Luckly, he rolled 1 success and 1 bane, which was enough to blow out the tyre, but it also gave him another Stress (rolling a bane on a Psychic talent roll adds a Stress dice), bringing his total Stress up to 3 (and the shared pool to 6!)

3. Now Bryce and Vonbella are working together, they create a Gestalt – a unified effort to use both their powers in a single, combined psychic action. In this case, using Vonbella’s telepathy to view through Poppy’s eyes so that Bryce could easily see the guns and radio and superheat them. Vonbella is a Minor telepath with only 1d6 in her ability, but because the Stress pool is so high, she gets to roll an additional 6d6 and add those on. Each one has the chance of giving her a success, but of course, each one also has the chance of a bane … Bryce also has to roll 6d6 + his 2d12. After both players had rolled, they had 3 successes. They needed 1 success to heat 1 gun, and an extra 2 successes for the extra two targets, so they just made it! However, Bryce had rolled 3 banes, and rolling 2 banes (snake eyes!) on a Psychic Talent roll means that the Esper Vents!

4. What’s a Vent, you ask? Well, it’s those times when psychic stress builds up too much and explodes out of the Esper in a wild and uncontrolled fashion, wreaking havoc on the people and environment close by (but leaving the Esper intact, and now drained of Stress). Sometimes this is pure mental energy, and people around them might get nosebleeds, aneurysms, heart attacks … in Bryce’s case, it was a massive pyrokinetic explosion. To work out the size of the Vent, he adds on the additional Stress he just rolled (3) to the current Stress pool (6) and adding in his psychic power dice (2d12). So, he uses 2d12 + 9d6 to determine much damage is done – every success on that roll will do 1 damage to everything in close proximity! Bear in mind, 3 damage is usually enough to cause a critical injury, so this was a HUGE explosion! Luckily, because she was part of the Gestalt that resulted in the Vent, Vonbella is also unaffected by the explosion. However, the car was more or less vaporized, and the explosion rolled out in a huge fireball … one dice drops for every zone (10m), so there effects felt up to 100m away!

5. The Network Cell tracks a score called Heat, which is a measure of how much external observation and pressure there is on the group and their activities. The group’s Heat score went up by three over the course of this session, 1 for each crime they committed (the freeway shootings/explosion and then ditching a car in the river), and an extra 1 for the extravagance of the explosion–it was certainly newsworthy! The higher the Heat score, the more likely there will be some kind of external interference, in the form of police, feds or worse …

Anyway, we have one last session to do for our playtest, where we will wrap up the story line of Poppy and Baby Blue, and then have some Downtime–more on that in my next write up.

A precog walks into a bar …

Now a few weeks into the first play-test of the 3rd edition of The 23rd Letter, I wanted to post some updates on what’s been going in the game, and a few reflections as both Referee and game designer. First off, let’s talk about the party, which in this edition is by default a Cell in the Network. If you’ve never player T23L before, the Network is the psychic underground, a loosely connected group of people (some psychic, some not) who help each other to survive, and to keep off the government radar. This game is set in St. Louis, Missouri, chosen because it’s a big city, in the middle of the USA, which none of my players have been to.

  • Richard Moonglow – in his mid-50s, Richard lives out of his old VW camper van and would’ve been a hippie if he hadn’t been born two decades late. He is a powerful Precog, but in his worldview “everything just happens the way it was meant to, man.”
  • Clark (NPC) – Clark is a Cryokinetic, an unusual psychic power which allows him to reduce the temperature of things around him. However, just before the start of our game, Clark went missing.
  • Joy Mary Smith – Joy is a nurse in her late 30s working at a local hospital. She first encountered psychics while treating Clark after he was in a car accident–when he regained consciousness, he froze his saline drip! She’s been helping the Cell ever since.
  • Detective Jenny Blake – Jenny works for St. Louis Metro PD, in their Domestic department. She has a chip on her shoulder about being overlooked for promotion or better roles, and helps the Cell partially out of spite for her job. She and Joy are close friends, having met because they are neighbors in their apartment block.
  • Vonbella Alexander – Young, blonde and classically beautiful, Vonbella is a medium, talking to the spirits of the dead to help her clients. In reality, she’s a minor Telepath, who reads her clients’ minds and makes up stories to fleece them of their hard-earned cash. Hey, everyone’s gotta make a living, right?
  • Bryce – Bryce is Clark’s brother and is traveling to St. Louis to find him. He works as a chef, mostly to help cover up the fact that he is Pyrokinetic.

Each player decided for themselves whether to be a psychic (or Esper, as they’re also known) without really talking to anyone else, so we ended up with an interesting mix of three Espers, and two regular folks (or Nulls, as they are sometimes called). We’ve had three sessions after character creation. Our first two sessions were played without Bryce, because his player was unavailable, and Bryce just arrived in the third session.

Session 1

Richard receives a message from Royal, one of his Network contacts. The group meets up at their favourite Waffle House to discuss the message. Clark’s brother is coming to town, which is when the group realizes that they haven’t seen Clark in over a week. The message also instructs the group to collect a package from a drop location. “Blue Monday, 3C, location Bravo.”

Jenny stops by the motel where Clark has been staying, only to discover he checked out a week ago. Some questioning of the staff led her to the lost and found box, where she discovered his copy of Call of Duty for the Xbox, which had been left behind under the bed. Why wouldn’t he pack that?

The group scopes out location Bravo: it’s a warehouse out in the suburbs, and it’s closed (it’s a Sunday). They decide they’ll come back when it’s open, because the message is a little on the cryptic side. Maybe they can just go in and ask for Blue Monday?

Notes: there wasn’t much in the way of psychic activity in this session, although Richard did attempt (and failed) to see if his precognition was telling him anything about Clark or location Bravo. This is when we realized (as game designers) that even though Richard was a Major precog, he was not any likelier to succeed than a Minor precog on the dice roll, and we decided that Major powers should get to roll two dice for their powers rather than just one. This is now so fundamental to how the game works that it was definitely a good call!

Session 2

Richard received a precognitive vision in his dreams, and decided that the right time to visit location Bravo was actually later that night. (As the Referee, having both a Telepath and Precog in the group gives me a lot of opportunity to help shape the story without being railroading too much. I realised I hadn’t given enough info in my cryptic message to be truly useful, so I added this bit in).

The group arrived at the location only to discover that someone had been there before them. Tire tracks in the ground were the first hint, and then the door to the warehouse being broken open was the dead giveaway! They went inside all the same, and in location 3C in the warehouse, in one of shipping company’s cardboard boxes, was a baby, wrapped in a blanket. A hastily scribbled note in the box read “Blue Monday.” The group decided they should smash up the warehouse a bit, figuring that vandalism would be less likely to draw attention than a break-in where nothing was taken. (The Cell received 1 Heat for this, bringing them to 6, enough for the Referee to roll at the end of the session to see if anyone takes an interest in their activities).

Joy and Jenny took the baby to the hospital to check it over for its health, while Richard and Vonbella went to a 24-hour Walmart to buy some baby supplies. They all met back at Joy’s apartment and deliberated about what to do. Eventually they decided to send a message back to Royal to ask for further instructions. While waiting for an answer, they tried to figure out what had happened to Clark, and eventually worked their way into his email account (passwords aren’t as secure as you think, when you have a Telepath for a friend). They discovered he’d posted a personals ad and had been arranged to meet a woman about a week prior. He’d sent no further emails since that date. Jenny took note of the location they were meant to meet for later reference.

The answer came back from Royal by the end of the session. “Split in half. Keep half and drop the other half at location Echo.”

Notes: Joy’s player spent most of the session holding a make-believe baby and trying to keep it soothed. I think there was maybe one or two dice rolls the whole session, and virtually no NPC interaction (apart from the Walmart staff) – the group just roleplayed everything out among themselves and had a blast. As both Referee and game designer, this was very positive feedback! The players know their characters and how their relationships and are happy just acting them out.

Session 3

Vonbella wakes up from some awful dreams, where she’s being interrogated, somewhere near to the Gateway Arch (the big landmark in downtown St. Louis). She tells the group some of it, but it’s pretty vague and the group decides not to take any action.

Bryce arrived in from Florida, after a long bus ride on a Greyhound. Richard picked him up and brought him back to Joy’s apartment, where a very suspicious Vonbella and Jenny interrogated him. At one point, Jenny pulled her gun on him, trying to provoke a reaction (when she did this with Clark, he accidentally froze his coffee!) Bryce, however, was not as easily triggered as his little brother, so Vonbella tried to read his mind, which led to some Pyschic Friction (this is a new mechanic, and basically the Espers push against each other psychically until one of them backs down … or explodes). Both Bryce and Vonbella came off badly from this incident, nursing some aches and pains and generally disliking each other intensely, but Jenny was happy that they’d proven Bryce was an Esper at least.

To help calm things down, Richard takes Bryce to go help in the local soup kitchen, and on the way they send a message to Royal asking for a face-to-face meeting – surely there must be some mistake, nobody could really be suggesting to split the baby in half?! Jenny spends some time during her working day to look at footage of the park where Clark was meant to meet his date, and discovers that Clark was grabbed by two men who injected him with something and tossed him into the back of a van! She immediately panics, and worried that everyone is at equal risk of being grabbed, sends the bug out signal to everyone (which the group agreed would be a picture of a Quokka). Everybody gets their emergency bags and heads out of town to a log cabin near the commune where Richard used to live. On the way, Richard picks up the reply from Royal, with a location for a meeting the next day.

Out in the cabin, Jenny brings the group up to speed. She may have overreacted, but everybody thinks its better safe than sorry. Bryce talks a bit about he and his brother’s past, how his parents were killed because they wouldn’t let Clark be taken by “some guys in suits”, and how Bryce’s talent literally exploded out of him that night. Vonbella makes some off-colour comments about his history, and pisses Bryce off even more, but Richard plays the peacekeeper. Everyone settles in to try to get a night’s sleep before they go back to the city tomorrow.

Notes: Bryce and Vonbella generated a lot of Stress dice on themselves and each other with their Pyschic Friction, so they are tense and angry. This also spills onto Richard because when Espers are close together, they feel each other’s stress. It’s going to be difficult for the group to get any sleep at all tonight …

Watchtower SF: August 4th

Bergs in the Bay!

San Francisco Chronicle

Meteorologists were shocked today when a massive iceberg several miles long appeared off the coast of Marin County, seemingly on a collision course for the Golden Gate Bridge! “This iceberg cannot be a natural occurrence,” said Dr. Karl Limewall, Professor of Climatology at Caltech. “Nothing that large could have traveled from either pole to San Francisco without being spotted.”

Indeed, the Watchtower seemed to agree, dispatching six agents out to the iceberg as soon as it was spotted. It became clear why Windrunner was added to the team recently, as all team members were transported directly through the air rather than via a helicopter as might be more customary. The Chronicle was able to confirm that a combination of extreme digging and strategically placed explosives were able to reduce the iceberg to smaller and more manageable pieces, which were then destroyed or redirected away from the bridge.

Conga-line … of Doom!

San Francisco Examiner, Op. Ed.

Icebergs are one thing, but why is nobody talking about the impromptu parade today that took place in the north of San Francisco? Over 100,000 people “just felt like dancing” and danced all the way up Highway 101 and onto the Golden Gate bridge, completely halting traffic and putting themselves directly into harm’s way. And where was the Watchtower during all this? 110 year old Dr “I’m not a robot” Automaton landed in front of the crowd and shot a few people off into the water, including fellow teammate and old-timer, Captain Crackshot! Seriously, why are our lives in the hands of these geriatrics?

Not that the youngsters were much to be seen, seemingly having to spend all their time flying back and forth to the city to get instructions from the Overmind, Jack Whyte, before blowing up the looming iceberg. Great, happy we didn’t ‘berg the bridge, but are we going to get any answers as to who is controlling the minds of all the so-called Bridge Boogie Brigade? And what is Watchtower doing about it?

Power Outage in Western San Joaquin County

The San Joaquin Valley Sun

Around 800 homes and farms are still without power, following an outage at a local substation earlier this morning. Local officials are working to get power up and running, and they are confident everything will be back to normal within 24 hours. The cause of the outage is being put down to a freak storm, which blew up out of nowhere, dumped a load of rain and lightning and dissipated as quickly as it came. County Sheriff John Watson stated in a press conference earlier today that there was no cause for alarm, and that Watchtower had been alerted as part of standard procedure.

Watchtower SF: some recent headlines

Whyte Buys Watchtower SF

San Francisco Chronicle, July 1st 2022

Jack Whyte, exotic and indestructible billionaire, adds Watchtower SF to his stable of Watchtower franchises. This brings his franchise total to four, starting in 2013 with the NYC franchise, and adding the Twin Cities in ’15 and Miami in ’19. “The San Francisco franchise of the Watchtower has a long history, with many beloved legends on the national and international stage,” said Whyte at press conference today. “I will bring the same level of oversight and investment as at my other franchises, and will work with local law enforcement to help keep the Bay Area and northern California safe from exotic crime.” He was joined at the press conference by several existing Watchtower members, all of whom confirmed they will be staying under the new management. This includes old-timers such as Captain Brian “Crackshot” Thomson, the bulletproof ex-cop; Dr Automaton, the robotic-bodied, long-standing leader of the Watchtower’s primary team; as well as some of the more recent additions like Tyrannus, our first visitor from another galaxy; and the shapeshifting, duplicating Primordial. No other personnel changes were announced. This correspondent hopes that Whyte’s experience, discipline and deep pockets can help prevent another tragedy like we suffered in ’99, when then-Watchtower leader Atomic III turned on the people he was sworn to protect and devastated the downtown area by using a commuter train like a missile. Maybe the new management will finally be able to determine what happened to that team back in the day? Either way, there’s a new sheriff in town.

Tower of Teens?

San Francisco Examiner, July 15th 2022, Op. Ed.

After buying his fourth Watchtower franchise in what is clearly a bid to control the whole company, Jack Whyte today announced that two local teenagers have been added to the roster. One who can control gravity, codenamed Windrunner, and the other who can control time, codenamed Kairos. Seriously, Jack? Are there not enough adult exotics to choose from that you have to employ kids? And do these kids’ parents even know what they are being exposed to? It’s long past time that we introduced laws preventing the exploitation of exotic abilities in people under the age of 21. What’s next, babies who can shoot lasers out of their eyes being used as mobile weapons platforms? The safety of our civilians shouldn’t come at the cost of our youth!

T2000: Andriy and Alexei

Andriy turned the key in the ignition and the engine spluttered into life.

….

Four days earlier they’d been slogging along the road, close to Srem. Both of them were so bearlike they could be mistaken for brothers, but while Alexei kept his dark hair closely cropped and his nose looked like it had seen too many fists, Andriy’s scalp was hairless and leathery and his features pinched and hawkish.

The moon hung low that night, with a large lone tree casting dark shadows over a heavily frosted field. In the distance to the North was a copse of evergreens. Andriy focused on them, he had a bad feeling; one that was confirmed by a hiss from Alexei who crept up beside him.

“T-72. Six men.”

Andriy squinted trying to discern flora from human and machine but sure enough, the hunting shape of a T72 tank rumbled out of one copse and into another flanked by six human forms.

It’s not that Alexei and Andriy were deserters; their units had been completely destroyed to a man and they found each other at opposite ends of a makeshift trench. They’d become friends over the few weeks since and Andriy shared his intention to return home to Kyiv Alexei grunted back; he had nowhere to go anyway so Kyiv was as good as anywhere. The last thing either of them wanted was to bump into someone who still thought the war was on; that one last (possibly fatal) push was needed.

As the T72 disappeared among the trees, the pair moved deliberately more south. They were heading to a town called Srem at first, maybe to secure some transport and then east towards the Ukraine border.

A crisp set of footsteps disturbed them; up ahead, following a beaten path, was an old man, dreadfully thin and wrinkles upon his wrinkles. Wisps of white hair stuck to his chin below a thick brimmed hat and above a threadbare wooden cloak. A piece of string tied to his wrist led to a somewhat pitiful-looking goat and under his arm was a loaf of bread. The two soldiers stepped from cover and levelled their weapons at the old man who, with a little protest (Fucking Russians!) handed over both loaf and goat. They didn’t express any remorse as they walked down the path towards Srem, munching on slightly stake, ill-gotten Rye bread and what they couldn’t finish they tossed to the goat.

About three hours later they reached the outskirts of Srem. The town itself was mostly ruins but there was light from a large barn to the south of the ruins. The pair crept up quietly until they could hear muffled conversation in Polish. As Andriy readied his RPK-74, he caught it on a stick and in steadying himself let off a single round. The noise echoed around the empty buildings and the conversation inside the barn ceased. The door burst open and four men emerged; one with a shotgun and the other three with farm tools. They shouted something in Polish, Andriy shouted back in Russian. The standoff ended when Wieslaw, the man with the shotgun, lowered the barrel. There was no interest on either side in prolonging a firefight. The Poles were aware of the firepower outside and both Andriy and Alexei want to avoid making more noise and maybe attracting the attention of that T72, which was bound to have a nosy and dedicated officer aboard.

Inside the barn, the two found some warmth in both the air and the company. There didn’t seem to be any resentment here; just a thankfulness of no further violence. They were offered some soup and a place by the fire. Andriy explained about the T72 and troops nearby and the handful of men, woman and a child decided to evacuate. They led the soldiers to the shore where a shallow bottomed boat was moored and an hour later they were rowing upstream with Jerzy and Daniel providing the muscle at first and then Gustav and Waclaw taking over.

About an hour before dawn, the boat slipped in bedside a small dock beside a large boathouse and the crew and passengers clambered off. The head of this household was a fat man called Wojciech and his Russian was good enough to hold a proper conversation. Wojciech asked Andriy and Alexei to be a further escort to Daniel and Jolanta (his wife) and Wieslaw would come along as security. Jolanta was close to the end of her pregnancy and would need a doctor; the nearest doctor being in Jarocin. For this task, they could borrow Wojciech’s pickup truck and they’d get 4 days rations as a reward.

But as simple as this seemed; Alexei wasn’t comfortable and insisted on putting on a proper watch which turned out lucky as the building was approached in the night by two renegade Americans. These poor souls didn’t have much chance against the superior skills of Alexei’s Spetnatz training and Andriy’s marksmanship with the light machine gun. They quickly consigned Private Pete Ricketts and PFC Bobby Bell to their maker.

But noise travels – and it was decided that it would be safer to leave especially with that T72 still prowling. The pickup truck was loaded and the five ventured east towards Jarocin. The town was skeletal in appearance, once a thriving Polish market town but now with empty buildings with darkened windows looking like a row of skulls. They arrived as the sun began to climb into the middle of the day and unloaded their precious cargo outside a large townhouse that had been converted into a field hospital. A nurse checked them over for wounds, finding none, and didn’t seem to mind they were Soviets.

Wieslaw committed to helping them on the next leg of their journey. The first thing was getting them a pickup truck.

T2000: W+35 (Flashback)

My situation is that I’m on the outskirts of Prague and I’m separated from my unit; perhaps they were all destroyed. I had to be careful, there was definitely a French unit around and some Americans. I stole a ragged uniform from a dead Polish regular and buried my own. I figured it would be the best way to keep alive.

I heard a vehicle approaching and ignored them until they cam close. I appeared weaponless (my PSM hidden in my groin). I could hear brash exuberance through their unguarded words as they slowed beside me and jabbered their questions. I replied with a smattering of Polish and Hungarian word and their doctor, a middle-aged woman of perhaps Iranian descent checked me for wounds. They didn’t seem to suspect that only a few weeks earlier we would have been deadly enemies.

As luck would have it, they fed me, gave me their water and piled into the back of their UAZ. I would have to bide my time. As soon as I had the chance, I’d be away but until then I would watch and wait.

T2000: W+50

Necessity is the mother of invention. Yesterday I caught a rabbit with a snare I made from a bit of wire. I hid in the foot of a hedgerow and pulled the corpse from the wire. The rabbit had tried to gnaw itself from the wire but the gauge was too thick. It died trapped and in pain, suffocating itself. I couldn’t afford to make a fire, I’m terrified someone would see it. So, I ate it raw. With the blood and the stink of offal I must have looked like something inhuman. And maybe I was.

I fell asleep where I lay, face streaked with blood and dirt.

I woke in the dim light of a sunrise. Red streaked skies and the sound of footsteps. I could hear voices, but they weren’t speaking English. The same fear that gripped me the night they got Dal siezed me again. I watched as two men entered the clearing. Short hair. Wearing dirty sweatpants and heavy coats. They paused, one lit a cigarette and one of them locked eyes with me. He said something and the other turned. My blood froze, I felt the pressure of my bladder and cold sweat on my neck.

The second man turned, waved his cigarette and then said something in an excited manner. I recognised him. The lone soldier. He seemed a lot more lucid. The two of the grabbed me and dragged me from the hedgerow. I shouted, I clawed and I could feel panic rising and rising. That’s when the other one, the one I didn’t know, hit me. Red stars exploded into my vision. I shouted. He hit me again. Blood in my mouth. Twice more he hit me and everything went dark. I was dimly aware of more voices.

T2000: W+44

It’s all gone to shit.

It did get worse.

Two days after the Colonel died, I woke from a nightmare to find Monk and Doc packing up their gear. They said they were going and they didn’t want me to come. And so they left.

I spent the next two days eating what little food they left me and trying to continue south. I thought the end of the world was hard before, I hadn’t realised there were new horrors waiting for me.

I caught up with Monk and Doc just as I was about to give up all hope. From the looks of things they’d bumped into a Soviet patrol and hadn’t been much resistance. I felt numb as I searched around the ruins of my former friends, trying to scavenge anything that would quiet my grumbling innards but Ivan had been too thorough. I was just about to leave when I spotted a flash of red and blue near the gearbox well. Wrapped in a torn flag were two apples, a little distressed from their adventure. I remembered the Colonel hadn’t eaten his but wrapped them in a scrap of flag for later.

I ate one and pocketed the other. It would spoil soon but I felt renewed. This was a sign that I was going to make it, that just as I felt all hope was slipping away, something would step out of the darkness and save me.

Southward was still my destination and I left Monk and Doc to the crows.

T2000: W+36

You ever get the feeling that things are about to get worse?

As luck and dumb fate would have it, we weren’t able to escape the area as quickly as we hoped. A puncture on the UAZ and an alignment problem with the axle which Monk couldn’t explain in simple enough terms left us stranded about ten miles from our last camp. The Colonel put us to work immediately with getting some camp netting up and harvesting tree branches to make a proper hide.

Monk said he thought he could get the UAZ up and running but this was the last time. We were running on empty for gas and parts. So, we unloaded our patient and put him, Doc and Dal in there. Monk worked on the repairs and I prepped my weapon. I just knew the Colonel wasn’t going to sit and wait for us to be tracked.

And sadly, I wasn’t wrong.

We tracked back to our late night position, where the Colonel saw the hunters and not a word was said when we found where one had succumbed to the Colonel. Nothing but a damp patch of ground was left. The Colonel paced back and forward a little, biting on his thumbnail, and then he muttered something about there being no tracks. Which wasn’t uncommon for hunters of course, but the problem is that I could see plenty of tracks, but these were dogs or something.

When the sun was at its highest point, we started to track back to our new camp. Over a small ridge we came to a stone cottage, a single plume of smoke from its lonely chimney. Kneeling in the yard outside, grubbing around for roots was a white haired old lady with olive-brown skin and about two teeth in her head. The Colonel approached slowly, weapon on his shoulder, and the woman greeted him first in Polish and then in heavily accented German. It was all double dutch to me, I could barely keep up but she kept pointing at the direction we came and saying the same word again and again. The Doc later told me that it meant “werewolf”, which just goes to show that you shouldn’t listen to crazy old women in the middle of nowhere after the world has collapsed.

We gratefully accepted some eggs and turnips from her garden, freely offered, but the Colonel gave her his last cigarettes and a United States patch from his uniform which seemed to delight her. I was delighted with the thought of an omelette in the morning.

The walk back to the camp was slow, our return route was over much rougher terrain than the way there and it was dusk as we arrived back. I was starting to jog back, holding the eggs in my hand triumphantly when the Colonel again hissed at me to be quiet. He pointed out two shapes in the camp and I have to say, my blood froze. It was those damn hunters again.

As my eyes got used to the twilight light, I could see that they had Doc and Dal on the ground and were shouting something at the lone soldier. There was no sign of Monk. With the practiced grace of a man who’s gotten in and out of stickier situations, I could only watch as the Colonel crept forwards. He was about thirty yards from the hunters when one of them pulled out a large knife and plunged it into Dal’s chest. I couldn’t breathe, I didn’t think it was even happening. Dal crumpled like a scarecrow untied from a pole and then I saw the Colonel move; he rushed the first hunter and football tackled him into the dirt. The other one looked around and started to circle, looking for an opportunity to strike at the Colonel’s back. I heard a shout and the Colonel collapsed, the same blade that had ended Dal was now embedded in the Colonels leg. I scrambled with my weapon, fingers numbed by shock, trying to find the safety. The hunters rounded on the Colonel who was now shouting my name. I could barely move.

The first hunter pulled the knife out of the Colonels leg and licked the blade. I still couldn’t move. The Colonel cursed at me and I could do nothing. They killed him then. Just put the knife in and out until he stopped cursing me. And I felt grateful as I couldn’t bear to hear any more.

What shocked me from my terror was a staccato burst of gunfire and the two hunters went down. Monk had been hiding under the UAZ and witnessed everything. He’d had a machine pistol we’d salvaged earlier as his main sidearm and it made short work of the hunters. He ran to free the Doc and see what they could do for the Colonel and Dal, but it was too late for both of them. I plucked up the courage to come in from my hiding place and Monk didn’t say anything to me. I lied to the Doc that I’d been too far to do anything and she seemed to accept it.

Everything has changed now. Earlier we had leadership, direction. Now we are just three lost souls somewhere in Poland. And the lone soldier? Doc says he’s getting better, but he’s still no use to us.

Useless. Just like me.

T2000: W+35

I still have my shopping list. We didn’t make it to Prague.

The forests here are a little threadbare. I think they might have taken some shelling but everything just looked unhealthy. Along an old road weaving through a forest clearing, we bumped into a soldier with a torn uniform heading the opposite direction. As we drew nearer, we could see his face was caked with blood and he was talking to himself. Doc insisted we stop and so the UAZ was stopped and the Doc administered to him while the rest of us covered him with our rifles. The Colonel was silent and kept watching the tree edges for an ambush. I could feel his tension.

Between Doc and Dal, they managed to get a few sentences out of the soldier – something about a local warlord ahead and his entire unit being massacred. Again, we didn’t have the ammunition or the numbers for a conflict so Colonel got out the map and compass and we routed a path which would avoid anything looking like a settlement or a crossroads.

It would add a day to our journey but what’s a day compared with the rest of your life.

The soldier was heaped in the cramped back of the UAZ and I ended up on top, presenting a very tempting target for sniper fire. I guess God was with me that day as I made it through the first day without dying. Small achievement I know.

As night fell, we made camp and the Colonel took first watch. I had closed my eyes for what felt like ten seconds when the Colonel was rousing me. He had Monk on watch and he pushed a weapon into my hands and hissed at me to be quiet. And then, under the baleful moon, we headed out of the camp and into the wilderness.

I was still half asleep as I tramped through the forest but the Colonel woke me from my dazed stroll with an elbow to the ribs. He made signals to look ahead and that’s when I saw them. Two burly figures dressed in deer skins, making their way towards the camp. I readied my weapon but the Colonel froze me with a steely stare – his eyes were focused behind me though. I felt the hot breath of something close, a stink of offal and the Colonel lunged, blade in hand and plunged it into the heart of whatever monster was behind me. He stabbed it a dozen times as it swore at him, before resting and then, bloodied and panting, grabbed me by the arm and made for the camp. I looked back and it was a hunter, like the two before, but this one a bloody steaming mess in the night, the moonlight glistening off the blood pooling on his wounds. He’d barely had time to make a cry before the Colonel had ended him.

We ran. We ran until our lungs were aflame and Monk was there, looking terrified as we burst into camp. Colonel roused everyone and everyone was issued a weapon, even Dal. We established the perimeter and Colonel was in the centre, making sure everyone stayed frosty. The only noise I could hear was the faint moaning and chattering of the soldier in the back of the UAZ. There wasn’t a mouse or a barn owl that was fit to entertain us.

A stillness descended on the camp and the moon burned round black holes into our night vision. We watched and waited for something to approach. I don’t know how long it was, but I know that I didn’t sleep the rest of the night.

As the dawn broke, the Colonel got us all moving again. The tension of the night before evident in the drawn faces and red eyes of everyone. Doc made sure the lone soldier was comfortable and we got the UAZ cranked up. We were still going to make the detour but I thought that was a bad night. I was sadly mistaken. We’d pissed off some pretty horrible people and we weren’t going to be rid of them easily.

T2000: W+27

According to the Colonel, strong sergeants make strong soldiers.

I can believe that. Our CSM was a soldiers soldier. You cut him open and he bled red, white and blue. He was just as you read about – moral, principled, heroic, stoic, and a role model for folks like me. During the Fall I saw a different side to him. As the shells burst around us, he was like the rest of us, cowering and screaming. Knowing that this was within him, that he was only human, was somewhat inspiring. It meant that I could be as good as him one day. He was only human so what’s my excuse?

The Colonel is a guy like that. Larger than life but ultimately human. I’ve never met a commander like him – and I probably never will again. He’s got the right kind of authority; the sort that makes you want to please him. Like every shitty task he’s telling you to do is him placing trust in you that you’ll do it right. It would break my heart to see him cowering in a foxhole.

Food has been particularly scarce in the last week. We have rations but we are doing our best to conserve them. Eating the perishables before they perish is obviously sensible. So today we had apples. The Doc knew how many apples we had and she said she noticed the Colonel wasn’t eating. She finds him exasperating – when she confronted him, he said he was saving them until he found some really nice pasty crust. Some sugar. A little cinnamon.

We’d need an oven too. Or a fryer. I prefer fried pies but Monk thinks I’m crazy. Beside’s he says we only have engine oil to fry them in.

Tomorrow we should be near Prague. And I have a shopping list.

T2000: W+26

Monk is a strange fish. He doesn’t talk much, isn’t prone to fits of emotion but it’s plain to me that he’s suffering, you can see it in his eyes. When I think about it; we are all a bit cold. I think that you have to be cold or detached from things to cope with what’s happening. We’ve been on the road for nearly four weeks since the Fall and I’ve not seen a single American other than the ones we brought with us. Where did they all go? Did we miss the extraction?

Yesterday we hooked up with a French NATO outfit on their way westwards. They’re all heading home and they’re a damn sight closer than the rest of us. The Colonel scrounged some gas from them and tried to get some ammunition but they weren’t about to give it up. I think we were very lucky they were so nice – they had superior numbers and firepower. On the other hand, we don’t have much they can loot so maybe that’s why we are still breathing. The Doc managed to get a bag of apples the French had pilfered from a orchard a few days earlier. She speaks fluent French, surprise surprise. The French commander saluted all of us as they pulled out this morning. He shouted Bon Chance as they rounded the corner and then we just could hear their engines in the distance and we felt even more alone.

His full name is Malcolm Clarence Onkel. When he was in Basic at Fort Leonard Wood, he was given a sticky name badge with his first initial and surname and from there the nickname stuck. He says he was involved in electrical stuff but we have him fixing up an old Russian off-roader. He carries around this tool kit wrapped in cloth that must weigh about forty pounds which has been put together from anything and everything he could lay his hands on. The way he treasures the tools makes me think he’d save them first from a burning building.

Monk says the first thing we will need to build is new tools. With new tools we can build just about anything. Cell phones, electric guitars, toaster ovens. We just need the right tools. I’m glad we have him with us to fix the UAZ. I’ve never felt more glad that we have an Army Engineer on the team.