Tanks
By Not Quite Dead,
Not set in the canon universe
Indeterminate amount of time / events between the old gods leaving and the new one messing with the world
The inhabitants / PCs do not know about the old Koros, Toa Nuva and any gods. Old or new
The story is kind of light on purpose. The main focus on the RPG is on exploration, discovery and loot. I want to have an interesting and somewhat somber world that people are encouraged to explore and develop characters and relationships in. The story (and IC backstory) is more a way of setting that world up than the main focus
Yes, the main form of travel and combat is via tanks
Light on the back story
Plot Setup
In this world, is Destiny controlled by some transcendental entity or law? Is it like the hand of God, hovering above?
At least it is true that we have no control; not even over our own will.
The death of our world is a long and drawn out affair. The brother deities Mata-Nui and Makuta had tired of and abandoned us long ago, taking with them the live and color of the world. Without light and shadow only drear grey remains. Rust and entropy claiming the history of our world and the minds that once chronicled it.
On the island of Mata-Nui, the city-states Vingt and Seize have long had an unstable peace. Equal in resources, size, population and advancement. They long ago withdrew behind their walls, content to sit and rust. Seeing their plight and taking what he considered pity, the trickster god Gwydion took our world into his hands and breathed new life into it. Influencing individuals within to rediscover ancient technology and knowledge.
Even then, this did not incite the island into conflict. Ever cautious, the two nations remained in ceasefire. Unsatisfied with the results, Gwydion created seven objects of great power, hiding them in Nomansland and incarnating into the world as a simple merchant, spreading rumors and riddles of the six sources of power. One was enough to destroy whole legions, whoever possessed all six would have power beyond their wildest imagining. Now the gears began to turn once more. Both nations funding and building up large armies, faculties science and research and preparing to send off great expeditions into the wastes, fallen prey to the whim of Gods once more.
Mode of transport:
Tanks
The island of Mata-Nui measures 357 kio from west to east and 178 kio from north to south, Nomansland occupying nearly two thirds of the landmass. The cities of Vingt and Seize are located in the remaining fertile land in the north and south east respectively. Because of the size of the island, travel on foot is impractical. Large Rahi that once served as mounts have gone extinct.
Most travel is done in heavy armor, colloquially referred to as tanks. They are one of the lost technologies that Gwydion revealed with his influence, an archaeological dig by the small independent city of Treize unearthing several tanks buried in the ices of Mt Ihu or bogged in the Marais Swamp. They were painstakingly reverse engineered, branching into several classes and categories of vehicle.
Light Armor
Designed for speed and mobility, these are the smallest class of tanks. Vingt producing the Burnak and Seize the Kavinka. They require skilled pilots. The two stations being Driver and Gunner. The Driver must manage navigation via instruments and radio, the Gunner functions as optical navigator, loader and side-arm operator. This class of armor is equipped with a small coilgun and manual Kanoka-launcher, it is battery powered unlike it's larger cousins.
Medium Armor
Designed as a compromise between the light and heavy classes, medium armor forms the bulk of an armored division. Vingt produces the Kane-Ra and Seize the Manas. Able to function effectively either in close formation or as a member of a one to three vehicle unit for more mobile operations. Piloting one is less strenuous on any one person, featuring seats for a Gunner, Driver, Radio/Navigator role and an optional seat for a Loader. Powered by petrol (another recent discovery) they have longer range and better acceleration than their light cousins, but are beaten in speed over time. They feature a heavy Kanoka-launcher and a secondary gun that can amplify the user's elemental energies for longer range attacks. Intended for use by Toa or Skakdi.
Heavy Armor
Designed for stationary defense and fortress breaking. These models are rare and mostly kept to the cities as little actual fighting has occurred. They fill next to no role in the Nomansland expeditions because of their expense and lack of mobility. Vingt produces the Tahtorahk, Seize has plans for a larger Manas codenamed "Ash Bear", but has not put it into production as of yet. They require four pilots at minimum; Driver, Gunner, Loader and Radio/Navigator. With optional seats existing to split the Radio/Navigator roles or man the secondary weapons.
Being designed for city defense, they feature a larger variation of the coilgun found on light armor, powered by truly enormous batteries giving it a lethal range of several kio against other tank classes.
"Fikou"
An experimental class of armor. The tread of the other classes is replaced with six legs, allowing the tank to traverse a far wider range of terrain and find the best firing positions. None have seen field use as of yet, the first models tentatively planned for deployment with the expeditions, in expectation of terrain impassable for conventional armor. Weapons, size and armor are similar to Light class vehicles.
Quirks and locale
The World
Vingt
One of the two remaining fertile zones of the island, Vingt is built on land made rich by the ash and soot from a long dormant volcano at the east end of the Ihu Mountain range. The capital city is built far to the north, atop the ruins of lost Ta-Koro
Seize
The city-state of Seize was born in the other fertile zone, a natural jungle that stretches for dozens of kio. Thousands of years of working the land and native rahi taming the fierce environment. The capital stands over the remains of an ancient temple and the complex cave network below it. The catacombs are devoid of life, but spectres are said to haunt it's lowest levels
Treize
A small independent city, they were the last bastion of science and activity in the rusting eras. Now, due to the island's renewed interest in the sciences. Treize has become a much larger area. It is able to remain independent from the larger Seize due to it's more advanced Armor, which is *CLASSIFIED INFORMATION* based
Nomansland
The largest section of the island. It technically includes the Ihu Mountain Range, the subterranean city of the dead Ertrunken and Inselstein, a peninsula far to the northwest. The area commonly referred to as Nomansland is a vast stretch of urban rubble. Where the eastern third of the island features sparse vegetation, none grows here. Most of it is paved over with smooth rock and covered in buildings thought impossible to recreate. The knowledge of how it came to be has passed from living memory. Accurate maps no longer exist, once you cross from the mountains to the bizarre paved world, you are truly on your own
Subsections of Nomansland include the Ihu Mountain Range, a serious of peaks highest at the border between Seize and Vingt, crowned by a dormant volcano and a mountain tall enough to pierce the hazy clouds. An ancient observation facility is one of the last places you can see the stars on the island
Ertrunken is a vast network of caves. Many are filled with water or otherwise impassable, even less is explored here than Nomansland. The surface contains the remains of buildings similar to the northern wastes but the ground is covered in a curious glass-like green stone for kios at a time and the buildings melted and deformed, there are rumors of savages in some of the cave systems
Inselstein has no recorded maps or knowledge, it was not known of until one of the map-riddles contained crude directions and sketches of it
Okay, that is enough to write out for now, info on riddles, more maps, characters and rules are such are still tenuous. It looks a little worse on paper than in my head, but I'm confident that the basic idea of exploring a post-apocalyptic and mystery island with TANKS and searching for loot WILL work with enough hard work and guts.
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