Fallout: Texas (The Great Wastes)

[Hardboiled Android]

The basic idea so far is that they're based around HADES-ONE, the Poseidon central nexus for fracking to desperately squeeze whatever they could out of Texas. A big ground based Oil Rig style facility on the verge of the Deadlands, the first of its kind in the state and the subsequent command nexus for the rest.

They're descended from the Posideon Energy staff (attractively employed with the on-site services due to food shortages in the rest of the state) and PMC security.

There's a gigantic eternal flame pit ala Burham Springs or the real life one in Turkmenistan that has adverse mental effects and has cultivated a minor religion. In effect they think they are destined to prevent the flame (which is human evil) from spreading beyond their barriers. They're kinda like the Nights Watch from Game of Thrones. Thematically it's meant to tie into the shared view of the Great War as a grand psychological sin amongst all the religions.

The location is meant to be a jumping off point into the Deadlands

I know I say this a lot* but it sounds fantastic and I can't wait to hear more.

I had a vaguely similiar idea for a settlement, though only insofar as its based around a Poseidon burning Turkmenistan style whole. In my case, it would be in the far north, north of the Alaskan mountain range, and one of the only oases of normal human settled life due to the expansion of the glaciers during the nuclear winter.

*I really hope one of these days you post something dog shit so i don't come across as so sycophantic

 

[Atomic Postman]

I really hope one of these days you post something dog shit so i don't come across as so sycophantic

All you have to do is wait until I pitch a main story arc to actually link these together. Those are universally bangers of mine. The one in my last campaign was a straight rip of No Country For Old Men and resulted in a TPK.

 

[Atomic Postman]

And now for the thing nobody asked for: this setting in meme format

(There was a thread on /tg/ where people were posting their settings as meme compasses)

 

[Hardboiled Android]

This absolutely rules. And it gives me more content to dig through!

• Firstly, and this is more of a meta commentary on the meme and therefore does not matter, but I feel like the Dome characters are on the whole more Auth-Left than Auth-Right. Afterall, its an ultra-progressive technocratic arguably transhumanist society organized around a single commune, whereas the Deluge Remnants are ultra-traditionalists. But the problem there would be that if you put the Fifth Living Saint in the top right than that displaces Clarke, who is basically perfect there already, though I could maybe see him Lib-Right since he owns recreational nukes.
• I guess that one of the early big quests will center around finding BBQ sauce?
• Cool to see that you've adopted my "braindrain" terminology
• Super interesting to learn that Clarke was a missile scientist - makes total sense in context of everything, and sets him up great as an antagonist, confirms the deepest fears of the Church, a corrupted Old World thing that seeks to finish what it started until the whole world is as putrid and mutant as him.
• Smiling gleefully to see that Sgt. Granite and friends will be present. I guess they've sort of filled the role of the Brotherhood here.
• I could see the treasure hunter being the major antagonist of the campaign, competing with the players to find the Box first... or alternatively waiting for them to do all the hard work and then just filling 'em full of lead.
• This is a minor quibble and comes purely out of a very specific personal autism, but I'd prefer you don't use the terms Mirelurks - I don't like the universality of all mutants, even if (actually especially if) they're different species with the same name. In my opinion, the terminology and species of Mirelurk should be limited to the Atlantic Seaboard. Gulf is its own biome, should have its own diverse array of wildlife.
• For some reason I'd assumed that the New Plague plot would be dropped from Tibbets, because I couldn't see a way to integrate it into all of the other spinning plates you have.

• Moon stuff sounds interesting. Since its in a trailer park, I assume this is an early-game Podunk enemy.
• I may be reading far too much into this, but the presence/appearance of the Muto would imply that the Mutos were formerly human in some way... which makes sense, considering their being based on the Xenomorph, and I guess what they're doing at those Flesh-Nests is somehow converting hapless victims.

Cool stuff.

 

[Atomic Postman]

• Firstly, and this is more of a meta commentary on the meme and therefore does not matter, but I feel like the Dome characters are on the whole more Auth-Left than Auth-Right. Afterall, its an ultra-progressive technocratic arguably transhumanist society organized around a single commune, whereas the Deluge Remnants are ultra-traditionalists. But the problem there would be that if you put the Fifth Living Saint in the top right than that displaces Clarke, who is basically perfect there already, though I could maybe see him Lib-Right since he owns recreational nukes.

I put the Church in Auth-Left because of their views on materialism and their opposition to mercantile trade. Their participation with Boomtown is more of a result of Absolution, a settlement that is moreso branching away from traditional church doctrine. Whereas Kallos has zero issue with mercantilism, has no real ideology and is basically about following their figurehead and holding onto stability of their hierarchy at all costs, which is more fascistic. Either way, the actual political alignments are kind of arbitrary and not something I care for.

I guess that one of the early big quests will center around finding BBQ sauce?

The idea I have for the introductory King Colt quest is moreso one of his subordinates going rogue and the party pulling a Seven Samurai to collect the bounty against him. The BBQ sauce is a hook to go to the Twin Graves because the pre-war fast-food company that kept such sauce in hyper-refigerated food-tubes as part of their completely automated robotic fast-food chain was based there. The high price on it would be their driving goal. Potentially. As you know, no plan survives meeting the party.

Cool to see that you've adopted my "braindrain" terminology

"Adopted" is a kind word for blatantly stolen, but thank you.

Super interesting to learn that Clarke was a missile scientist - makes total sense in context of everything, and sets him up great as an antagonist, confirms the deepest fears of the Church, a corrupted Old World thing that seeks to finish what it started until the whole world is as putrid and mutant as him.

Yeah, I've got big plans for Clarke. Hopefully, anyway. As I said I'm not great at main stories.

Smiling gleefully to see that Sgt. Granite and friends will be present. I guess they've sort of filled the role of the Brotherhood here.

Granite and his squad are moreso thrill-seeking adventurers rather than men with a purpose. Well, they do have a purpose but it was to reach the Bahamas and try to recreate the Martini. Before their Veritbird went down that is. Now they're more of an A-Team type group.

Creating a creepy, suspenseful build up of mysterious metal figures in a sandstorm that ended up being a band of bickering Enclave squaddies with this music and my best R. Lee Ermey impression was an absolute player favourite of last campaign so I plan to rehash it and turn it into an actual story-arc.

I could see the treasure hunter being the major antagonist of the campaign, competing with the players to find the Box first... or alternatively waiting for them to do all the hard work and then just filling 'em full of lead.

I mainly put him in to fill a box, but also partially because he was a villain of my prior campaign that I won't repeat, however rivals to the party in hunting the Box are 100% going to be a thing.

This is a minor quibble and comes purely out of a very specific personal autism, but I'd prefer you don't use the terms Mirelurks - I don't like the universality of all mutants, even if (actually especially if) they're different species with the same name. In my opinion, the terminology and species of Mirelurk should be limited to the Atlantic Seaboard. Gulf is its own biome, should have its own diverse array of wildlife.

I actually agree. I put it in there because it's a basic reference for random 4channers reading a Fallout setting post. In my mind they were Crawdads. There's something identical to Mirelurks in the Bayou, but they have different, creepier names.

For some reason I'd assumed that the New Plague plot would be dropped from Tibbets, because I couldn't see a way to integrate it into all of the other spinning plates you have.

It is dropped. I put it in there to fill a space, aha. I don't think it's a great plot and in a post-COVID world I think it'd come off as hokey as fuck.

Moon stuff sounds interesting. Since its in a trailer park, I assume this is an early-game Podunk enemy.

The Moon stuff will be my attempt at reinventing Hecate whilst also giving some background lore to the Bayou. As for placement, Podunk it may be.

I may be reading far too much into this, but the presence/appearance of the Muto would imply that the Mutos were formerly human in some way... which makes sense, considering their being based on the Xenomorph, and I guess what they're doing at those Flesh-Nests is somehow converting hapless victims.

Yep you got it on the money. Though they're mostly their own thing, they do carry people off and turn them into horrible cronenberg monsters via the goonest.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The idea I have for the introductory King Colt quest is moreso one of his subordinates going rogue and the party pulling a Seven Samurai to collect the bounty against him. The BBQ sauce is a hook to go to the Twin Graves because the pre-war fast-food company that kept such sauce in hyper-refigerated food-tubes as part of their completely automated robotic fast-food chain was based there. The high price on it would be their driving goal. Potentially. As you know, no plan survives meeting the party.

Maybe as a dissapointment nad to keep them from getting super-OP, you could have them find that most of the tubes are infested with those freezer bugs as foreshadowing for *Fort Hood, with maybe only a hanfdull of food-tubes intact. That way, you keep the players from getting obscenely rich so early on.

"Adopted" is a kind word for blatantly stolen, but thank you.

Hey man, I don't have the patience to ever run a PNP campaign, so all of my ideas ultimately amount to fan fiction. Its good to see someone getting some use out of them, because I do think some of them are pretty good. Take my ideas - please!

Granite and his squad are moreso thrill-seeking adventurers rather than men with a purpose. Well, they do have a purpose but it was to reach the Bahamas and try to recreate the Martini. Before their Veritbird went down that is. Now they're more of an A-Team type group.

Creating a creepy, suspenseful build up of mysterious metal figures in a sandstorm that ended up being a band of bickering Enclave squaddies with this music and my best R. Lee Ermey impression was an absolute player favourite of last campaign so I plan to rehash it and turn it into an actual story-arc.

It's almost as if you set out to make my gleeful smile wider, this absolutely rules.

There's something identical to Mirelurks in the Bayou, but they have different, creepier names.

Hopefully Fo3-style Mirelurks and not over-sized Mudcrabs.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Maybe as a dissapointment nad to keep them from getting super-OP, you could have them find that most of the tubes are infested with those freezer bugs as foreshadowing for *Fort Hood, with maybe only a hanfdull of food-tubes intact. That way, you keep the players from getting obscenely rich so early on.

Something like that. Or, one of their competitors for the Box already got there first to give them a simple reason for dislike out of the gate. I could have a more overtly villainous rival, and one that just really gets on their nerves. The latter wouldn't be evil in any sense, just smug. Maybe even a rival party.

Hey man, I don't have the patience to ever run a PNP campaign, so all of my ideas ultimately amount to fan fiction. Its good to see someone getting some use out of them, because I do think some of them are pretty good. Take my ideas - please!

If I ever ran a Four Corners campaign I'd 100% port over Sienna, just so you know beforehand.

It's almost as if you set out to make my gleeful smile wider, this absolutely rules.

Pin that one on Avellone in the FO Bible, Granite "going on adventures with his squad that would fill many pulp comics" always stuck out to me.

Hopefully Fo3-style Mirelurks and not over-sized Mudcrabs.

Oversized crabs, man-crabs, strange bulbuous masses of pale flesh, writhing tentacles. The Bayou is a strange place, boy.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Ruminating on trains. I love the western railways and to me big red boxcars are a sign of Americana - something I'll chalk up to my childhood. I always thought Van Buren's introduction of railways would have been pretty cool - so why not try and do it in the PnP?

Originally I had the idea for the "starting town" being called Junction and much like Van Buren's circle junction being based around a disused railyard inhabited by a primitive tribal type people. Except they would be a bit more Klamath esque and just low-technology rather than a straight rip of the Iron Lines (Who are canon out there somewhere anyway). Just because I think having a podunk village where the townsfolk live in converted, bohemian/rustic boxcars and a saloon converted out of a station building whilst they use spears and football armor is quite a good establishment of Fallout's Wasteland style.

However, that got me thinking about a revised vision of Boomtown instead. I keep thinking about it as this gigantic railyard that is now a sprawling bazaar - countless boxcars that have been converted into shops, market stalls, houses, whatever - with post-war "second-stories" added to them. Lots of ladders, wooden platforms connecting them and bustling "streets" between the cars.

What if trains, instead of buses, were the heart of Lonestar Trading Company's power? They've managed to get one or two freight trains working which has basically quadroupled their effectiveness - perhaps it was always this way, and this was how Boomtown became relevant in the first place?

The implications I guess would be you'd have several "trading posts" out there where the train comes to a stop at somewhere convieniently located nearby larger settlements (barring the Junk Union, which I imagine roots straight in), the Lonestar crew open up the boxcars, set up stalls and pop-up tents and get to work - presumably then Brahma caravans from other settlements would come to pick up. It would certainly give more credence to Lonestar as middlemen. It also could give some nice storylines about expanding the railways (i.e to build new ones directly into the major settlements rather than these stopgap trading posts using pre-war lines) but that might retread NCR ground too much. I also love the idea of an encounter of players fighting off oncoming raider bikes and cars trying to attack the train Old West style.

I think there's a lot to think about with this dynamic and I am not entirely sure if it's better or will work, but food for thought.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Personally not a big train guy, so that biases me a bit. But I'm not crazy about it - in such a lawless settinh as Fallout train tracks are way too vulnerable. You know for a fact which way the caravan will come, and they have to real opportunity to maneuver. All a band of raiders have to do is set up a dynamite stick a day before the train is scheduled and then they can pick through the ruins left over. Plus, rails take maintenance, and sandscarred rails are a no-go for travel by locomotives.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Personally not a big train guy, so that biases me a bit. But I'm not crazy about it - in such a lawless settinh as Fallout train tracks are way too vulnerable. You know for a fact which way the caravan will come, and they have to real opportunity to maneuver. All a band of raiders have to do is set up a dynamite stick a day before the train is scheduled and then they can pick through the ruins left over. Plus, rails take maintenance, and sandscarred rails are a no-go for travel by locomotives.

That's a great point, in a place that isn't stable like NCR running the trains would just be infeasible. You could just sabotage the tracks constantly. Yeah, I'll go with the original Junction idea.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

The idea for something like Junction is great, though.

 

[Atomic Postman]

The idea for something like Junction is great, though.

I figured it would either be that or I'd move Ag-Station over to the podunk region and have the village built around these decaying satellite dishes surrounded by crops. Just the immediate contrast of the primitive rural wasteland and the old world rust.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Did a little gumshoe work to try and find suitable train stations or yards in either of the potential podunk starting areas, north or west of DFW. Unfortunately, most of the major rail yards seem to be localized to either towns that don't fit in this area, or DFW itself, whcih is obviously not suitable for a starter town. So instead I pivoted to just looking for particularly nice train stations, and as it turns out nice train stations are fairly rare in Texas.

Luckily, I've found one candidate that I think actually fits quite well.

This little station is to be found in Paris, Texas. Paris, Texas is in the region north of DFW, and fits into what for me is the ideal locale for podunk, bound in the north by the Ouachita/Wichita mountain range. Its a little bit off to the east and somewhat close to Texarkana (which I presume is the start of the Bayou) but not too far. Plus, something about it being a quasi-tourist trap just makes it work really well for me as a starter town, similar to Goodsprings in that way. It just feels like it fits really well as a starter town, simultaneously interesting and crushingly boring.

Alternatively, you could go with Gainesville.

It's roughly dead-center in the north-of-DFW region that I favor for podunk, which seems convenient for the party, though maybe its a little too close to DFW compared to Paris. Plus, its on the National Regiser of Historic Places, so that's nice.

Finally, there's Texas & Pacific Station in Fort Worth.

I picked this one mainly because I found it so beautiful, and feel that its art deco aesthetic would be not out of place in Fallout. If you did opt for this one, it obviously would have to be rewritten from the starting settlement to one of the settlements of the Junker Union, possibly the prime settlement. The rail yard aesthetic would be in fitting with the junker aesthetic I feel.

 

[Atomic Postman]

Excellent work! Scouting real life spots is an inherent weakness of mine for this setting because of my unfamiliarity with Texas, so I always appreciate the picks.

Paris, Texas seems like a good spot (and also the namesake of an incredible film) although I would add that the benefit of working with Fallouts alt history setting is that to a degree (especially with infrastructure) you can invent spots. I was mostly thinking of a very rural railyard/spot explaining why they're living in the boxcars rather than the old world buildings.


Paris Texas seems like it could be a decent spot for the base of King Colts fiefdom. The gaudy fake Eiffel tower seems about right for an obscene warlord

 

[Hardboiled Android]

I was mostly thinking of a very rural railyard/spot explaining why they're living in the boxcars rather than the old world buildings.

I mean for the most part rail yards tend to be fairly close to settlements - after all, someone has to work them. But in any case, this can be justified by just handwaving rates of decay, which will always be somewhat up to chance.

 

[Atomic Postman]

I mean for the most part rail yards tend to be fairly close to settlements - after all, someone has to work them. But in any case, this can be justified by just handwaving rates of decay, which will always be somewhat up to chance.

Yeah you could have the buildings decayed down and they've converted them into crop farms ala the "Ruin farms" of Van Buren's New Canaan. The place could have been a podunk spot before the Great War too - since it's the Junction iteration the spot doesn't have to be hugely expansive as a railyard at all and can be quite small.

I am liking the idea of Paris for Colt though, just because King Colt out of Paris is a ludicrously absurd sentence.

 

[Hardboiled Android]

Yeah you could have the buildings decayed down and they've converted them into crop farms ala the "Ruin farms" of Van Buren's New Canaan. The place could have been a podunk spot before the Great War too - since it's the Junction iteration the spot doesn't have to be hugely expansive as a railyard at all and can be quite small.

I am liking the idea of Paris for Colt though, just because King Colt out of Paris is a ludicrously absurd sentence.

Maybe this means we'll be getting the King Colt post soon?

 

[Atomic Postman]

Maybe this means we'll be getting the King Colt post soon?

Yeah he's next up along with Junction and the basic first quest there. It'll be sometime tomorrow when I'm not planning my essay work.

 

[Dayglow Drifter]

There's some cool lore in Van Buren that you may be able to pull from for this

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Iron_Lines
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Circle_Junction

 

[Atomic Postman]

There's some cool lore in Van Buren that you may be able to pull from for this

https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Iron_Lines
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Circle_Junction

I'm going to stray away from copying the Iron Lines/Circle Junction beyond the "living amongst trains" thing just because both Circle Junction and the Iron Lines exist out there in the Fallout canon.