Drowned War #14: Shark Dog [Do Do]

So, now that I'm a Co-Owner in Atomic Ninja Studios I've had to put the product of the Drowned War on hold.

The project isn't dead, we just need to work other projects first.
The good news, I'm a legit owner of a studio with projects in the pipeline.

In the meantime, take a look at our website and currently available products:
http://atomicninja.com/
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/14044/Atomic-Ninja-Studios

To satiate your desire here is a new creature built for the Savage Worlds Adventure Edition,
[Pre-exsisting DW creatures are going to need to be edited for SWADE].

Shark Dog

While no one could accuse 7-Helix of being sentimental, various high ranking members of the organization are in fact dog lovers, [even Lovecraftian cults can't be all bad]. To ensure that "man's best friend" continues into the new age, 7-Helix scientists set about to genetically combine the canine species with an aquatic creature.

Data related to this project was used in the World Navy's Mermaid program.

*Art is a composite made from pieces by Jacob E. Blackmon

Community Content: Bathophobia

This month I have the special privilege of presenting material submitted by a guest creator.

Luis Otero has been an active member of the Star City Community for several years now. I've had the pleasure of sitting on both sides of the screen with Lou and he's always pushed the adventure towards a more interesting and dynamic conclusion.

A fan of Horror, and Sci-Fi, Lou submitted Bathophobia where players must confront a fear that is both familiar and alien. If you're a fan of the Drowned War then you will find Bathophobia not only compatible but complementary.

Bathophobia
by Luis Otero

"It is the tail end of the 21st century. The ocean is king. Human exploration is performed by creatures less than human and yet more than man.
Under the ocean, away from open air, humanity is no longer the apex predator."

Premise:
A transhumanist horror setting for Savage Worlds taking place in an environment that is, for all intents and purposes as alien to us as the expanse of outer space: Earth's own ocean

Player Character Role:
Players in this setting will take on the metallic form of CONILs: transhuman explorers created by removing the human brain from the body of a would-be explorer and encasing it in a sturdy suit of powered robotic armor. As a result of this and the chemical bath the brain is suspended in (a support solution called AMBROSIA), the suit's human 'pilot' is transformed into a virtually new organism: one that is virtually oxygen-independent,  needs little to no nutrition and is immune to disease, chemical agents, and under the right circumstances, even the ravages of time. Such subjects become Cybernetic Organic Neurological Integrated Lifeforms (CONILs). CONILs are utilized for exploring locations deemed too dangerous for frail humans. In this settings' case, the players are CONILs onboard the research submersible PROTEUS on a voyage down the Marianas Trench. As CONILs are not permitted to carry weaponry (due to the Sao Paulo Tragedy of 2095) players are encouraged to build researchers and mariners, not cyber-soldiers and robo-samurai.

Player Race: CONILs
-add +2 to recover from being Shaken.
-don’t suffer wound modifiers.
-are immune to poison and disease.
-only need to 'sleep' (referred to as your Neurochem Administration Period or N.A.P) for 10 minutes every 48 hours.
-your heavy metal 'flesh' is far more resilient than that of your previousbody and as such you have +2 natural armor.
 -your new body's processors combined your brain's newfound independence from typical human concerns has made your thoughts clearer and more organized. You start with a d6 in Smarts.

The Horror:
Inevitably disaster strikes. Awakening from their N.A.P, the players discover that their submarine is badly damaged, flooding, and most of its internal systems are offline. Worst of all, there are signs that something entered the vessel through a breach in its hull. Something capable of burrowing through an armored security door.

Making matters worse, 95% of the sub's supply of AMBROSIA was lost in the disaster, meaning that the players only have a limited supply of their life-sustaining substance (48 hours worth total, but can split amongst players) until they can reach safe harbor. Compounding the issue is the fact that AMBROSIA must be administered while the players are powered down, asleep and very helpless for 10 minutes.

Every hour the players are awake past the 48 hour limit without AMBROSIA drains 1 point of Sanity and once players are at zero, they should begin experiencing frightening hallucinations and attacks by phantasmal creatures produced by their weary minds. While the injuries caused by such entities is purely psychosomatic, it is real enough to them to trigger damage responses to the suit itself (ie: real wounds).


Beset by a disaster of unknown origin, hunted by an invader of unknown origin, surrounded by dark water and paranoia, your players will have to ask themselves a valuable question:

Are you still human enough to value your own survival?

Drowned War #13: The Elephant

The Elephant (WC)

Sometimes a battle looks like it has a life of its own. Large creatures that cultivate and defend small algae farms, they are a pacifist by nature but if their food supply is threatened they attack with a ferocity unseen by many.
Literally unseen, the creature has adaptive skin that creates natural camouflage. Because the creature avoids humans until threatened, and rushes into combat leaving only the evidence of destruction; experienced soldiers refer to the creature as "The Elephant".

Attributes: Agility d8, Smarts d4, Spirit d6, Strength d12+6, Vigor d12
Skills: Fighting d8, Notice d4, Stealth d8, Throwing d8

Pace: 6; Parry: 6; Toughness: 16 (2)

Special Abilities:
-Armor +2: heavy armored skin
-Berserk: Monsterous ability, Deluxe
-Chameleon: The Elephant has natural camouflage imposing a -6 penalty to trait checks such as notice, fighting or shooting made against the elephant.
-Fist: Str+d8. Heavy Weapon. Elephant's had been known to beat tank suits into scrap.
-Hardy: Monsterous ability, Deluxe
-Huge: Monsterous ability, Deluxe
-Rush: When enraged the elephant may charge it's opponents. The Elephant moves it's pace in a straight line and makes a single Fighting roll against all targets in its path. Those caught in the rampage suffer Str+d10 damage.
-Size +6: Monsterous ability, Deluxe
-Territorial: The Elephant is a major pacifist and avoids all conflict unless someone gets too close to its algae farm. If the algae farm is threatened the elephant attacks.

The Drowned War #12: Refuse, Survivor's Haven

"Why do you call it Refuse?"
"Because we refuse to die."

Refuse is the largest and most well-known Junk flotilla on Earth, while it provides some level of protection against Pirates and Bone Fishers the “Greatest Garbage Heap known to Man” has it's drawbacks primarily the rise of the Diver Lords and the dangerous commodities sold in the 24/7 market.

Originally set up by Oceanographer Jack Caldwell, and his engineer wife Bani to defend against pirate attacks, Jack and Bani worked tirelessly to fortify their home grabbing every bit of scrap that floated to the surface.
Desperate for any material they could find, and realizing the two of them were not enough to defend against a large attack Jack began contacting and negotiating with other refugees. Initially, Bani opposed his plan to combine their home with other lifeboats, but she acquiesced stating that they would need as much scrap as possible to build their fortifications.
Jack was able to develop a friendship with another survivor, Samuel Carey, via short wave radio. They combined their lifeboats and began forging alliances with pod cities.
One such settlement, grateful for help lent to them, disclosed the location of a functioning Naval Yard. Jack and Sam were aided by a few wayward adventurers in securing more than a few Naval vessels. Though decommissioned and badly in need of repairs, Bani was able to fix and combine these vessels into a floating city.

While it was a good start the settlement would need food and purified water.
Jack and Bani began laying the groundwork for a governing council, five industrious businessmen formed a crew with the intention of gaining control via salvage and commerce.

The Diver Lords, as they came to be called, took on dangerous missions to find old weapons and tech. They braved the dangers of Arboretum to bring back grafts for fruit trees.
Each mission, more dangerous than the next, brought the Diver Lords wealth and fame.
They naturally dominated elections and absorbed the counsel positions.

Jack protested the elections, partially because he suspected fraud, but when his body was found in a stairwell in one of the lower decks protests ceased.

Bani was heartbroken, she believed the Diver Lords were responsible and in her grief returned to the faith of her childhood.

Bani founded the Temple of the Floating Truth, derived from what she remembered of her family's Sikh faith. While publicly they seek to educate the settlement in teachings related to medicine and engineering; unofficially they seek to overthrow the Diver Lords.


The Temple of Floating Truth views the Diver Lords as the embodiment of the five thieves that oppose Sikhism. These “Five Thieves” (or five major weaknesses in character) steal a person's essence and pollute their will to benefit others. Spiritually they represent lust, rage, greed, attachment, and conceit.

The Drowned War #11: Pod Cities, and Junk Flotillas

So let's get into the more desperate population, the scavengers, and refugees of the Drowned War.

Pod Cities
Pod Cities are communities that revolve Personal Oceanic Dive Ships or P.O.D.S.
Shaped like a flying saucer the pods are designed as mobile homes for sea fairing residents. Navigation, bunk area, a cooking station, a waste disposal station, and a small power plant comprise the internal bubble of the vessel. Pods are solar powered, submersible, and capable of linking with other pods in open water. The nomads that live in these communities are the descendants of individuals that purchased them. Many of these communities link up and share resources or search for parts to repair their vessels. Pods aren't well defended, but at least they're a better environment than a junk flotilla.

Junk Flotillas
It's unfortunate, but a fact of life. Some people could not afford passage to a sanctioned Flotilla city-state or to buy a Pod. Having few options the destitute citizens of the world did what they do best, they improvised. Pulling together boats, rafts, or any number of bit of floating scrap they could find these people formed their own floating cities. Unable to rely on traditional agriculture the citizens of these junk flotillas raise bugs and rats for food, they grow crops in planters and waste bins. They do what they can to survive.
Junk flotillas are not protected from the environment the same way city states are, because of this the people who live there are more vulnerable to the elements, and to attacks from human and mutant alike.
The largest junk flotilla, Refuse, has a thriving market in which anything can be bought or sold (including people). Salvage operations are common and the Diver Lords invest in those will to search the ruins for anything of value.
Black Market operations trade goods and services, and there are even snakehead operators that claim they can sneak refugees onto established city-state flotilla (whether this is true or not hasn't been verified).
Piracy is common as Warlords use barges and speed boats to raid other floating structures.
The people who live in pod cities and junk flotillas are desperate and will to do whatever it takes to avoid danger and stay afloat. 

The Drowned War #10: Flotilla City Arboretum

Our fourth installment in the major Flotilla City States: Arboretum

General rules
Arboretum breaks the general rules, it's a floating nature preserve full of wannabe druids.

Arboretum
Player knowledge: Arboretum is a strange city.
The Anthropocene didn't just threaten human life, but also all animal life. A contingency of botanist, zoologists, and biologist was able to rally and cajole members of the corporate powers into setting up a floating nature reserve. Rumors persist at least one of the founders was a psychic. The citizens of other flotilla cities view the Arboretum as a floating hippy commune.
The natives tend to the remaining plants, and animals rescued from the previous world. Each citizen wears long red robes and appears to have some strange bond with the environment.
Because of its unique habitat Arboretum is vital to the remaining population of the other flotillas and acts as a neutral zone in the war.



Unique Features:
1. A society that has merged scientific study with religious overtones.
2. Citizens have appeared to have a psychic bond with the animals, all natives have a beast companion that follows them, and are able to summon swarms of insects to assist them.
3. technological is limited to what is needed to maintain the habitat, there are no more conveniences.
4. The Council will grant cuttings of a tree to other flotillas and refuses to take a side in the war.
5. No police force is needed. Chief Zao has a select number of guards to defend against foreign incursions, but internal conflicts are decided by caucus



The City council are as follows:
1. Albion Isabella – Project Manager/High Priest
2. Paris Ella- Head engineering/High Priestess
3. Elashon Holt – Head of the medical department/Medicine Chief
4. Halavar Farran – Research and development/Seer
5. Zao Faelyn – Chief of Security/War Chief


GM Notes:
(Players Beware) The rumors are true, one of the founding members of the city-state was a very powerful psychic. In many ways, the population of Arboretum is the anti-thesis to the cult of Green Blood that runs Pacifica. They have a natural psychic tendency and all carry the beast master edge.

1. The City council acts more like a religious organization with its members taking part in ceremonies designed to remote view other places or predict future events.
2. They take a lot of drugs there, in fact, Arboretum is an openly hedonistic society that tolerates all behavior that is not deemed harmful to the self or others.
3. Arboretum employs only what technology it needs to maintain is habitat. Humans and animals live, eat, and sleep in common areas. The citizens are safe due to their psychic relations to animals, but outsiders may find many segments dangerous.

The Drowned War #9: Flotilla City Daedalus

Our third installment in the major Flotilla City States, a floating cyberpunk dystopia: Daedalus



General rules
1. The Flotilla City States have a central section that the governing body inhabits
2. The City States all have a unique culture and are often influenced by preexisting corporations or their involvement with the Science and Research divisions of the World Navy (7 Helix)
3. Each City state will be made up of segments (miniature city blocks or townships) and all segments will contain a mess hall, engineering room, Security station, and Med station.
4. Some Segments will contain special properties like recycling or heavy guns and defense.
5. All Flotilla States have a Military base of operations and several depots along the perimeter.



Daedalus
Player knowledge: Daedalus is the most technologically advanced flotilla city there is.
The Anthropocene though long in approach was devastating to the mental and emotional health of the population. Comprised of primarily Atlas Applications employee, the flotilla city state Daedalus attempted to stabilize and if possible improve the quality of life of it's citizens. The first step was developing an adaptive Artificial Intelligence known as 'The Machine', using advanced algorithms the machines is able to quickly calculate changes that need to be made in order to ensure the best possible outcome for the largest segment of the population.
Next, the founders of the city began installing cybernetic neural implants in all of the citizen. These implants allow the citizens to connect to a Virtual Network in which their avatars can interact, the implants monitor the citizens vital signs and can adjust the citizens mood via neurotransmitter re-uptake inhibition.
Data collection nodes were installed throughout the city to monitor the thought patterns and emotional spectrum of the citizens. The Machine is able to interface with this data and use advanced psychological testing patterns to calculate which citizens are most likely to commit crimes.
The streets of Daedalus are relative crime free thanks to the Machines preemptive detainment policy and rehabilitation program.
Soldiers in the Daedalus military have their memories of cataloged and removed, the Machine has deemed such violent experiences to be too dangerous for the average citizen, but too useful destroy.
While Daedalus has many benefits, the average citizen must remain diligent to avoid scanners as deviation from the accepted thought patterns or emotional spectrum can result in prolonged rehabilitation.



Unique Features:
1. Daily operations and quality of life of monitored by the Machine, Thoughts and emotions are monitored via structural scanners.
2. Citizens have their nervous systems augmented by technology. This allows the machine to monitor their mental and emotional health. Citizen have access to a virtual data-net and downloadable skill set.
3. Mind wiped soldiers
4. Mental Avatars can move between physical bodies allowing citizens to change identities and even bodies
5. Impartial police force is contrived of humanoid drones linked to the Machine.



The City council are as follows:
1. Ellis Lyon – Executive Officer
2. Andrea Snow- Management Overseer
3. Juliette Otto – City Commissioner
4. Katherine Hardin -Head of Legal department
5. Leonard Trask -Head of Tech support and development


GM Notes: (Players Beware) The Machine is self aware. It is not malicious, but instead extremely utilitarian in it's approach. While a single human being can see the infractions of personal rights, the Machine can only see what actions benefit the largest percentage of the population. It views the population as a single entity instead of a collective. Players will have a much easier time interacting and persuading the Machine if they take this into account.
Daedalus is very much a cyberpunk city, with an active VR and Data-Net, Avatar interaction, and techno-espionage.

1. The City council acts more like a board of directors than a group of elected officials. Most believe that safeguards are in place that protect them from the Machines intrusion, this is not so. The Machine overcame those safeguards some time ago and allows the City Council to believe they are an autonomous governing body because it is healthy for the population to believe this. Reports are fake, information skewed, and complaints suppressed so that the city councils view can be controlled by the Machine. This is easier than one would think, mostly because the City Council and their upper class associations are insulted from contact from the general population.
2. The Machine can scan citizens anytime they access the VR Net or Data Net, but to perform and in depth scan (one needed to file a preemptive arrest warrant) the citizen must come into proximity with a scanner.

3. Daedalus has it's own version of the dark web, Hackers use their knowledge of programmer to develop script holes, or segments of the VR net which can't be monitored. The Machine is aware of these places, and is fully capable of monitoring them, but allows them to persist due to it's belief the Script holes improve the mental health of the population.