The Age of Ice. (Frostpunk, survival. Seekign GM/Players)

[Lustful Bride]

(as always I seem to have ideas and desires for games that I just have no skill in running. This game is heavily inspired by the new city builder/survivor colony game Frostpunk but adds onto the setting and opens the world up mode. I cannot run this but would gladly be a co gm or such for anyone who wants to run it.)

No one knows what caused the end. How it began, how the entire world turned against mankind with plagues, flood, storms, fire, and then finally ice. Some say mother earth could no longer handle the abuse we had put it through, others say that we used weapons of terrible destruction to bring it about, even things such as aliens or acts of ancient gods. But for most the secrets of the past are far more important than just learning about how we arrived at our current destination. The devices, the medicines, and the stories of the past are far more important. Devices to keep us warm and alive, medicines to heal the sick and injured, stories to give us hope and remind of warmer times, and to give us hope for what might be.

Very few settlements survive now, all depending upon geothermal energy, or burning coal, or using the energy of nuclear power. Those with the more advanced systems guard their secrets greatly, from fear of other settlements taking what is theirs and already stretched resources being pushed further. Survivor settlements are built into crevasses or in craters, caves, or underground. Its all to defend against the harsh winds and blizzards that hit the surface almost daily. The larger settlements are where most humans now are born, live, die, and where many things are manufactured. They carry with them great influence over the remaining smaller settlements.

The generators at the heart of settlements take priority over all else. If the generator, which provides power and more importantly, heat, to the settlement were to fail, then all would be lost. Within days the people would be back to freezing temperatures and inevitably death. 

Ruins of cities carry with them tribes, who eek out an existence feeding upon fish below the ice, insects scuttling through the ruins, or rats in the sewers and subways. Many useful objects can still be found in cities and they are visited by many scavengers and scribes who seek to use the gifts of the past to survive the future. But just as they are places for workers, they are also home to raider groups, who would rather take then build and to eat the flesh of man just as much as any animal. But despite the risk many still go to them.

There are many dangers out in the Frost, and many things both known and unknown. Humans have huddled close to their warm settlements and hideouts, while the rest of the world has changed, and things out there have begun to shift, making the world less of a place that welcomes mankind. But this is not the first ice age mankind has survived. Not even the first apocalyptic event. We have survived 8 extinction events. If we hold together and pull through we can reassume the mantle of the dominant species on this planet, and maybe even make it home once more.


Of the seven main settlements that remain, New Jack's town is the last to be built. It runs off a combination of Geothermal and coal. Some even speak of some insane idea of using wind power to generate energy. This is where our story will take place, eventually moving out to discover the other six main settlements and various smaller ones hidden about our world. There is no limit to the things that could be discovered and learned, and no end to the plots the players can be involved in.



The world and its details:

The Code



You go, We go!

Out in the frost, there are very few things one can depend on. The governments of old are gone. The faiths are drying up. The men of science couldn't stop what came. And the world is unforgiving, and uncaring to our suffering. The only thing we can really depend on sometimes is one another. Our brothers and sisters, fighting alongside us against the cruelness of the world. Together we can survive off the sweat of our brow and we carve a path for ourselves in the ice.

The code is an unspoken set of rules that vary from settlement to settlement and group to group. But some parts are near universal among all.

1: You go, we go. Never leave someone behind or let them fall from an ice climb if they are your climbing buddy. 

2:Only eat the flesh of the animal.

3:The generator above all else.

4: The city must survive.

Types of jobs/roles. (Not complete, feel free to add ones that fit/make sense.

Exterminators. Fishermen, hunters.

Evolution is in essence an eternal war between species. A war for dominance of the planet. The Formics, the insects, have long been looked down upon by mankind since we first discovered the joys of stepping upon them. But in the many years since the end came, insect life has not died out. It has evolved and changed, digging tunnels down beneath the ice and snow. They survive off of wildlife they are able to capture, or from fungus that grows deep in their hives or in underground tunnels such as sewers and subways. If a hive is hungry it will even take to raiding human settlements or digging into human cemeteries and eating the flesh of the dead.

In order to deal with these new threats, some choose to become Exterminators, brandishing weapons of various types and killing the enlarged formics or insects of other types. They don't appear often, but when they do people will offer whatever it takes in trade to send what is skittering away. When there are no insects around exterminators use their skills as hunters, either killing animals to feed others, or killing raiders for extra cash.

While most of the world has frozen over, several sections of it remain liquid and allow fishermen (and fisherwomen) to travel the sea and rivers to hunt the wildlife within it and below. Some also try to use the openings as ways to hunt where the water level has risen and scavenge for what lies below. It is hard work and not all are cut out for it, but fish sells well and it tastes better than potatoes.

Scribes/Record Keepers.

The secrets of the past are the key to the future. Countless sciences long lost, devices needed and stories forgotten. The past cannot be allowed to simply fade away like a candle. The torch of knowledge must be passed on. Every book has value, every story from the greatest of epics, to the simplest of fairy tales, has a place. The Scribes hold this value of knowledge above many things and strive to educate the members of their order well, to keep the secrets of the page alive and ready for when the world warms itself one day. 

Some scribes write down the words of books over and over again, copying countless tomes by hand, even fi they do not understand what they mean. Others venture out to learn about the world and discover new things to be added to mankind's collective knowledge. Others go to find lost tomes and bring them back to safety. A final group tries to protect the knowledge that they have gathered, to the point of fanaticism. 

Lawmen, Gunslingers, Judges.

They go by many names. The cold wastes and the ruins of the old world are dangerous and lawless places. Raiders go about raping, killing, eating, the innocent. After enough time they eventually meet those who wont run away, who do not fear death.

Evil will learn to fear those who wear the badge.

Many take up the act of establishing law and punishing the guilty after an event that took someone they loved away from them. Turning these victims into lawbringers, who set out with steel and valor into the frost and ruins to hunt down the guilty and protect the innocent. Sometimes their personal quests for justice bring them into conflict with the sherrifs and police of other settlements, and sometimes they freeze to death or die in battle. But the law is eternal and there is always another ready to take up the mantle.

Scavengers, Scavs, archeologists. Stalkers.

If it can be bought, snorted, smoked, drank, shot up, fucked or broken, someone out there wants it! Sure, going out there is dangerous, but think of the rewards! The council members of the big settlements will pay top dollar (whatever a dollar is) for new energy sources! Those scribes love getting books, even if they cant read them. And gunslingers need bullets.

Everyone wants something and someone out there in the world is willing to pay for it, all you have to do is find it and offer it to the person with the most money. The world might have grown cold, and frozen in the last century. But money still makes it go round!

[IrishWolf]

I'll bookmark this

[Backdraft]

You know, it's funny, I came up with an idea that was fairly similar to this a few years ago with a couple of friends of mine. At the time, I was going to make it into an RPG Maker game or a novel, but I never went through with it. I still think it's a fun concept, and I would be willing to GM this. I'd tweak the setting and probably run it off a heavily modified version of D&D 5E, but I think it'd be fun if anybody's interested.

[Hamadryad]

I would be interested :)

[TheVillain]

Also interested, but can't DM it either. Marking!