📜 SURVIVOR'S ARCHIVE
> TRANSMISSION INCOMING...
Welcome to the official campaign archive for THE WASTELAND — a post-apocalyptic tabletop adventure.
DATE: UNKNOWN
STATUS: CAMPAIGN ACTIVE
LOCATION: DUSTHAVEN SETTLEMENT
The Fall
Nobody alive remembers exactly what happened. The elders call it The Scorching — a cataclysm that came fast and left the world broken. Some say it was war. Others say it was the machines turning against us. A few claim it was something from beyond the stars.
What's certain: the old world is gone. Its corpse remains — rusted towers, dead highways, bunkers full of wonders and horrors.
That was generations ago. Maybe a hundred years. Maybe two hundred. Time is slippery when calendars burn.
The strange part: The destruction was... selective. Some cities were vaporized. Others were left standing, emptied of people but otherwise intact. Almost like something was managing the collapse. Optimizing it.
Old terminals, when they can be activated, sometimes display the same message: AWAITING AUTHORIZATION. Nobody knows what it means.
The World Now
The Wastes — Irradiated deserts, toxic storms, mutated wildlife. Travel is dangerous. Water is precious. Trust is earned.
The Settlements — Scattered communities built from salvage. Some trade, some raid. Politics is survival.
The Ruins — Cities of the Old Ones. Treasure troves of pre-war tech, but also death traps — automated defenses, structural collapse, things that didn't stay dead.
⚠ CAMPAIGN TONE
Dungeon Crawler Carl energy. The apocalypse is brutal, absurd, and darkly hilarious. Nothing is off-limits — gallows humor, cosmic unfairness played for laughs. The world wants to kill you, but it's also deeply stupid in ways that make dying almost funny.
👤 SURVIVOR ROSTER
> LOADING PERSONNEL FILES...
STATUS: 0 SURVIVORS REGISTERED
📖 SESSION LOG
> CHRONICLE OF EVENTS
Recording all significant events in the wasteland...
🎭 KNOWN CONTACTS
> CONTACT DATABASE
STATUS: 0 INDIVIDUALS LOGGED
Tracking allies, enemies, and everyone in between...
🗺️ WORLD INTEL
> FACTION DATABASE
Known power structures in the wasteland...
📍 KEY LOCATIONS
⚙️ TECHNOLOGY
Pre-War Tech
Rare, valuable, and often dangerous:
- Weapons: Energy rifles, plasma grenades, powered armor (mostly non-functional)
- Medicine: Auto-docs, stimpacks, gene therapies
- Robots: Most are dormant or hostile. A friendly one is extremely unusual.
- Vehicles: Fuel is scarce. Most travel is on foot or mutant-beast.
- Communication: Radios work. The old network is dead, but local broadcasts exist.
Post-War Tech
Jury-rigged, steam-punk-adjacent:
- Scrap armor, crossbows, black powder weapons
- Solar stills, water purifiers
- Beast-drawn carts
📡 INTERCEPTED SIGNALS
> SIGNAL MONITORING ACTIVE
STATUS: SCANNING FREQUENCIES...
WARNING: Some signals predate The Scorching.
WARNING: Origin of several transmissions: UNKNOWN
⚠ CLASSIFIED DATA DETECTED ⚠
> ANALYST NOTES
These transmissions have been collected over generations. Some repeat endlessly. Others appear only once and never again.
The Chrome Collective believes they are messages from a benevolent Machine Mind.
The Covenant of Rust believes they are warnings we should heed.
The rest of us just try not to think about them too hard.
One thing everyone agrees on: whatever "authorization" they're waiting for...
...it hasn't come yet.