This is the intro I wrote for my first Genesys campaign setting: Marshal Law. It will be a sci-fi/fantasy/horror mix of Deadlands, Dark Tower, and assorted other ingredients. My players are fans of all of the above, so it should be a pretty cool way to launch a new system!

Marshal Law

A Chronicle of A Time Yet to Come

So much has been lost...

And yet we must preserve what we know, and pass it on, so that the lessons of the past are not lost to the future. Hear now the tale of what has passed, as we know it, though it is not all there is to know.

There was, long ago, a great age, a golden age, of Mankind: a time of balance, in which man, nature, and technology coexisted in harmony, to the betterment of all the world. Wonders of science brought forth miles of green fields where before there was only brown earth. No one wanted for food, water, shelter, or companionship. Mankind, having fulfilled its potential on Earth, began to reach for the stars in earnest.

Then came the Bug.

Some believe it was created by man. Others believe it came down from the sky. Still others believe that it came from the ancient past, unearthed and unleashed in the Golden Age. We will likely never know the truth of it. But the Bug came, and ravaged every nation on the globe. There was no cure, there was no hope of survival for those infected: in the space of three years, nearly six billion humans perished. Only a small fraction of all mankind proved immune to the scourge. The Golden Age ended in screaming and chaos.

Then came the Dead.

The terror of the Bug was not limited to its extraordinary virulence and lethality. As many as one in four victims of the Bug did not simply die... they returned to a terrible semblance of life, with no memory of themselves or the world, driven only by a voracious, endless hunger to consume living beings. The hungering Dead turned a worldwide catastrophe into an apocalypse.

Millions more died in the war against the Dead. The cities were surrendered and abandoned, for against the sheer numbers of the Dead in those places, there could be no victory. In time, the survivors were able to rally, and to establish themselves in towns and colonies far from the cities. In the forsaken cities, with no prey left to pursue, the Dead gradually slowed, and eventually stopped... but only until someone was foolish enough to disturb their torpor once more. The remnants of mankind, exiled from the great cities of the Golden Age, began anew: a simpler, quieter existence, but a relatively safe one.

Then came the Others.

We do not know if the Others came from another place or time, or if they had always been here, in the shadows of the world. They were beings of myth and legend, known by many names, feared by many cultures, throughout history: Werewolves. Vampires. Wraiths. Wendigo. Terrible beings, drawn to the lights of civilization, to hunt and feast upon what was left of mankind. Only now, there were no wonders of technology to guard against the terrors of the night, no mighty armies to call upon when a threat appeared. It seemed as if the final dagger was poised over the heart of humanity, ready to end our story once and for all.

Then came the Marshals.

We all know the revered names of those who first stood against the Others, and restored hope when all seemed lost: Cantwell. Lowery. Harker. Longstreet. Mathers. Valance. Those men and women, the first Marshals, who took up arms against the Others, and swore on the Silver Star to defend humankind from all enemies... we owe them a debt that can only be repaid by living the life they won for us. And though they have all gone into legend now, the legacy of the Marshals lives on.

Now that legacy falls to you. You have earned your arms; you have sworn the oath. You wear the Silver Star. You are a Marshal. Your word is law. You are the bulwark standing between mankind and the Others. Your brothers and sisters stand with you, and together, you shall bring peace, order, and justice to this world.

The Golden Age is over.

Now is the time of Marshal Law.

Very evocative... I'm in... good stuff.

Where do I sign up and play? =)

I will ditto Hexnwolf ... VERY evocative! Well done!

Nice writeup. So a little zombie apocalypse with some Deadlands mixed in? So what's the tech level like? Is my Marshall ( McLuhan obviously... ) carrying a Phased Plasma Rifle in the 40w range, an Uzi 9mm, or a colt Peacemaker?

More likely a Peacemaker. There is not much functional "Pre-Tech" weaponry left... either it has run out of ammo, or failed from lack of specialized maintenance. The setting is fairly low tech overall, although there are some functioning Pre-Tech machines (a few vehicles, agriculture drones, military robots, stuff that was originally built for harsh conditions or for long-term heavy use). The premise is that, in the golden age, tech advanced to a very high level, and stayed at that level long enough for most of the "old ways" of doing things to go completely obsolete... then when everything fell apart, there wasn't much left to reconstruct those older methods. So a lot of things need to be rediscovered. They know how automatic firearms were made, for example, but there are no factories that can machine the parts, or printed instruction manuals to show how to build the machines (since paper and print had long since disappeared in favour of gel tablets and memory storage). Simpler weapons are more frequent.

The Dead are only part of the threat; there are a lot of other dangers out in the world. For example, in the golden age, many zoos featured "Jurassic Park" style exhibits of genetically engineered dinosaurs (not the real thing, but built from the DNA up to look like what people wanted to see). Many of those creatures escaped when the world fell apart, and now roam the wilderness. Likewise, fanciful genetech creatures called chimerae, reserved for the very wealthy in the golden age, have also survived and thrived, so you might encounter griffons, unicorns, wyverns, dragons, owlbears, or even more exotic creatures. They were never meant to reproduce with each other, but life finds a way...

Oh my, I like it even more! Genetic Engineering gone amok! Marshalls running about with Peacemakers and Winchesters! And the justification that information was made fragile by ebook tech... Nicely done. Seriously, top marks!

I'll add more stuff over time, I'm still ironing out a lot of the details. Plus I gotta be careful of my players sniffing out my trail here and learning stuff they're not supposed to know yet. I appreciate the kind words, everyone! I'm glad you like it so far!

The Golden Age

The “Golden Age” of human civilization was a long period of time preceding the devastating arrival of the Bug. It was a time of advanced technology and enlightenment, in which mankind was largely at peace with itself, and the natural world was respected and nurtured. It is believed this period lasted at least 100 years, possibly as long as 300, and began somewhere towards the end of the 21 ^st century of the old calendar.

Most of what is known of the Golden Age comes from stories handed down over generations from the survivors of the Bug. During the peak of the Golden Age, old methods of information storage had almost completely fallen out of use: there was no need to write anything down when information could be easily recorded, stored in, and retrieved from the decentralized storage medium of “the Clouds”. Some few people did still keep handwritten records, but those are vanishingly scarce today, and rarely well preserved. In hindsight, the greatest flaw of the people of the Golden Age was their innocent arrogance: that their technology would preserve the great knowledge of the world for all time, safe in the Clouds. Perhaps that knowledge is out there, somewhere, but it is no longer accessible.

Still, some facts are commonly known about human civilization during the Golden Age. War had been largely eliminated, as had poverty and famine as large-scale concerns. The environment, badly damaged by centuries of human abuse, was being healed by human ingenuity. Many of those restorative machines continue to function even today, having been built to endure hurricanes, earthquakes, and nearly any other calamity. Most humans lived in or near the sprawling super-cities along the coastlines of the world's continents, while the interior lands of those nations were given time to heal and replenish. These great cities were ingeniously designed to allow vast numbers of humans to live together in comfort, without overcrowding or privation. Those who wished to live more secluded or rural lives were allowed to do so; it was from these populations that most of the Bug survivors came.

Of all the wonders of the Golden Age, none was more pervasive or significant than nanotechnology. Using microscopic machines, invisible to the eye, it became possible to reconstruct the world in ways that brought out the best in everything: barren swaths of land could be treated at a molecular level to become fertile farmland; the oceans could be altered to decrease harmful algae and destroy pollutants while encouraging the growth of life-sustaining food chain elements; and humans themselves could be altered, even before birth, to be as close to physically perfect as possible. Genetic diseases and birth defects were entirely eliminated. The vast majority of bacterial and viral diseases were likewise eradicated or fully controlled. Individually-tailored nanotech could be bonded to adults to restore health and vitality, by altering their body chemistry to conform to an optimally healthy baseline. It was not unusual for a human to live a healthy, active life into their 100's, before time inevitably began to take its toll.

One unusual and indulgent use of nanotech was in the recreation of extinct animals for display in zoological exhibits. This trend, while initially frowned upon, was eventually embraced, and “dinosaur parks” became very popular attractions worldwide. These creatures were not truly dinosaurs or other extinct species: they were built from the DNA up to resemble the giant animals of old, or at least appear the way people expected them to appear. The creatures were created sterile, and their production was carefully monitored and controlled.

An even more fanciful, and more questionably ethical, use of nanotech was to create creatures generally known as “chimerae”. These were creatures that never existed in the natural world, and could not exist without human intervention: unicorns, griffons, manticores, dragons, and similar hybrid beasts. Chimerae were mostly custom-made for wealthy collectors and private interests, and like the dinosaurs, were created sterile. They represented an enormous investment of effort and craftsmanship, as the very disparate biological elements of these creatures required a tremendous amount of maintenance to keep them healthy.

Perhaps the most important use of nanotech was in the semi-organic implants within the majority of humans. In the olden days, before the Golden Age, humans had to use manual interfaces in order to access and retrieve information from early computer systems. With the advent of implant technology, that barrier was removed: the implants allowed any human to connect directly to the Clouds, and access whatever information they sought. They could browse ancient books, listen to recordings of the great composers, even view plays and movies through their implants. They could easily keep in touch with friends and loved ones, even at great distances, just by reaching out through the Clouds.

Thanks to these innovations, along with the advent of remote-operated drones and autonomous robots, humans were largely freed from manual labour and exhausting, dispiriting jobs that bound them to one place, performing repetitive tasks. Humans could travel the world, see friends and family, enjoy new experiences, all while using the power of their implants to perform their jobs remotely. Instead of spending their lives desperately trying to make enough money to survive, humans could finally spend their lives enriching themselves, and the lives of those around them.

There were still many holdouts against these innovations. The so-called “Natural” movement eschewed genetic alteration and implant technology, wishing to live their lives as nature intended. The Naturals were strongly opposed to the creation and captivity of dinosaurs and chimerae as well, finding the concept absolutely repellent. There were regions all over the globe where like-minded Naturals could congregate and build their own communities. So long as their activities did not cause harm to the environment or to others, Naturals were encouraged to enjoy their lives in peace, and they were always welcome to join those dwelling in the Clouds if they changed their minds.

The prosperity ushered in by the advent of nanotech also paved the way for global peace. With the crises of hunger, overcrowding, pestilence, and social conflict largely eliminated, there was no more need for armies, no need for warfare and conquest. There were still holdouts: nations and warlords who irrationally wanted more, even when they had all they could want. But those occurrences lessened in frequency and scale over time, until eventually there was no more strife between nations. Weapons of war were mothballed, or recycled to serve more productive purposes. The terrible world-breaking bombs of the ancient times were at last entirely eradicated, removing the threat of nuclear destruction for all time.

When the enemy came, it was in a form no one anticipated, and against which no army or weapon could have stood.

The Quiet World

After the world fell apart, an uncanny stillness descended over the globe. The great transports no longer coursed over the lands, nor through the skies; the lights of the cities fell dark, and the air no longer hummed with billions of human minds communicating through the Clouds. The fields and forests continued to grow, the tides continued to roll in and out, the world turned... there were just far fewer humans to see any of it.

The world of today is a quiet world. There are few cities, and they pale in comparison to even the smallest Golden Age city. Most people live in small communities numbering a few thousand at most, and rarely close together. Settlement sites have to be carefully chosen for defensibility as well as productivity, for there are many dangers lurking in the wilderness now, and precious few ways to ward against them. Predators and the Dead can usually be kept at bay through vigilance and sturdy walls, but the Others are more insidious; walls and gates are no obstacles to such beings.

The nature of Golden Age civilization created many problems for those who were left after the Bug. There were many fewer roads than existed in the olden times, for there were many fewer personal vehicles than before. Those roads that still exist, which are not overgrown or shattered, are mainly those that connected the great cities to one another, and were used for mass transit or transportation of cargo from one city to another. As most human settlements are now far from the old cities, new roads and trails had to be blazed through the wilderness, and they are difficult to maintain.

The greatest problem is the loss of information. In the apocalypse of the Bug, with so many humans dying so quickly, the shared-information storage systems, the Clouds, were devastated. With every human that died, a little more information died with them. Without maintenance and monitoring, the great engines that maintained the Clouds themselves faltered and fell silent, and as they fell, centuries of knowledge were lost. That so little of this knowledge remained in written form only compounded the terrible loss.

In the quiet age of today, nearly everything has had to be re-learned or rediscovered. Some industry has returned, but only relatively recently. Paper mills can now produce writing paper in limited quantities, and many people have learned how to write once more. In a few cities, machined parts are available, so that important mechanical devices can be repaired or maintained, and structures can be built with more durable components. Commerce is slowly returning and spreading, as valuable goods in one place are traded for more scarce goods brought from elsewhere. But it is a slow, challenging process.

Most travel is limited to horseback, wagons, or walking. The few Golden Age vehicles that remain are rarely functional, and those that are require constant care. There are some vehicles even older than that, relics of the time when internal combustion held sway, that have been converted to run on available fuel stores, like ethanol. There are stories of airships from the Golden Age, but no one living has seen one fly. Likewise, the great railships that once crossed the continents in minutes are silent and immobile, slumbering in their ancient cradles for want of power and guidance.

Many craftsmen have relearned ancient trades, including carpentry, leatherworking, and smithing. Engineers use their ingenuity, along with trial and error, to recreate the successes of the distant past. Miners and loggers brave the perils of the wilderness to bring back the raw materials needed to sustain and grow their communities, and to trade with others for needed supplies.

As commerce slowly grows between the disparate communities, so has the need for a new form of currency. This has proven very challenging to introduce, as it is an unfamiliar concept to most. Physical currency had disappeared during the Golden Age, replaced by a global standard virtual currency called the “unicoin”. The unicoins all vanished when the Bug hit and civilization fell, leaving behind survivors with little clue of what anything was actually worth, and how to acquire things they desperately needed.

Today, barter is the most common way by which goods are exchanged, but currency has started to appear in many places. Coins, typically in the form of silver discs, are often used to purchase goods in place of barter. Silver is universally valued for its protective properties against the Others, and thus is an excellent baseline for currency. However, there is no standardization or regulation of this currency, and its value can fluctuate considerably depending on where it is used. In some remote towns and settlements, and among the First Folk, no coin is accepted; barter is the only way to do business.

Even more than most forms of technology, weapon technology is incredibly rare. There were very few personal weapons in the Golden Age, as there was no need for them. Those that existed are almost entirely nonfunctional today, due to lack of maintenance, power, ammunition, or all three. Examples of chemical-powered ballistic weapons from the olden times are very valuable, especially to the Marshals. The sixguns and rifles of the Marshals are all derived from these ancient designs, meticulously reverse-engineered from the originals, and handcrafted by skilled gunsmiths. There are even some working weapons from the bygone era, before the Golden Age: these are regarded with a reverent awe by those who know of them, and treasured by those who carry them.

There are two important commodities left over from the Golden Age which are highly prized: power cells, and StemGel. Power cells are exactly what they sound like: extraordinarily efficient, rechargeable power cells that can be used to provide electrical power to many systems, both old and new. These units range greatly in size and capacity, from as small as a coin to huge cubes used to power transports and harvesters. By accident of design, power cells proved to be highly adaptable to even very simple electrical systems, and are used in a wide variety of applications. In addition, they are rechargeable by even the crudest generator, and have very long lifespans. As such, power cells are eagerly sought after, especially in the larger towns.

StemGel is a miraculous substance with amazing healing properties. It is most often found in sealed containers and single-use packs from the Golden Age, but recently it has been discovered that nanobees produce a “honey” that can be used to create a very effective StemGel substitute. With the loss of nearly all significant medical knowledge, and the myriad of dangers threatening mankind, any means by which to heal injuries and save lives is incredibly valuable. StemGel is even more sought after than power cells, but is much harder to come by, as it is perishable and not reusable.

The Wilderness

Centuries of abuse by humans had left the forests and wild places of the world badly damaged prior to the Golden Age. Fortunately, with the advent of nanotechnology, the shift from using wood as a construction and paper material, as well as strictly enforced preservation efforts, most of the world's forests rebounded in a relatively short space of time. By the heyday of the Golden Age, nearly all the world's forests had been restored to, or close to, pre-settlement levels. Some areas were opened up for recreation and tourism, but for the most part, the natural places of the world were allowed to return to their original, unspoiled condition.

In the current era, the wild places of the world are wilder than ever. Almost no maps remain from the olden times, and most people don't travel far from their home towns, so the world beyond their walls is largely unknown, and frequently deadly. Animal populations have had nothing to fear from man for many generations, so humans in the wild are typically regarded as curiosities at best, and prey at worst.

When the world fell apart, many of the animals that had been confined to zoological parks and preserves escaped into the wild, often far from their natural environments. Some perished, but many thrived, leading to wildly diverse populations of animals on every continent. The escaped recreations of prehistoric beasts found this new, larger world particularly to their liking, and spread quickly through the trackless reaches. The area that was once called Southern California, for example, is now home to over 500 species of prehistoric fauna, along with countless plants engineered to mimic those of primordial times. Great herds of buffalo and bison once again roam the central plains of several continents, and Ice Age megafauna like mammoths, mastodons, gylptodons, baluchitherium, and megatherium walk the earth once more.

There are some significant human populations dwelling in the wilderness around the world. In the American Territories, they are collectively known as the First Folk. They are typically found in medium-sized tribes of a few hundred souls, and have great skill at surviving and thriving in the wilderness. The origins of the First Folk are mysterious: if asked, most will say they have always been there. Their cultures, legends, languages, and ways of doing things clearly predate the Golden Age. They have little interest in the affairs of town-dwellers, but by the same token, they bear them no ill will. If attacked, they will defend themselves, but for the most part, the First Folk seem content to live their lives away from the trappings of civilization, far from the ruins of the Golden Age.

The Lost Cities

The vast cities of the Golden Age are little more than cemeteries now, haunted by teeming hordes of the unquiet Dead. No known Golden Age city has been reclaimed from the Dead, and with good reason: while about one in four who died to the Bug rose as Dead, in the cities it was closer to 100%. Thankfully the Dead do not tend to wander far from the places that were familiar to them in life, but that also means that the cities are all but unsurvivable today.

Despite this, many adventurers, knowledge seekers, treasure hunters, and desperate madmen brave the haunted cities, trying to salvage Golden Age Pre-Tech, or to gain valuable knowledge from the old times. Museums are particularly desirable targets, with the possible rewards far outweighing the risks (until the Dead close in). Hospitals, large businesses, and construction sites are also excellent sources of Pre-Tech, most of which is in a dormant but functional state.

The ancient cities can be very dangerous to traverse on foot. Apart from the omnipresent threat of the Dead, the cities of the Golden Age were designed with the expectation that uninterrupted power would be available. With the eventual failure of all municipal power plants and emergency systems after the Collapse, there are no longer any moving walkways, public transit systems, skycabs, or multivators active to move one around the city. Most doorways are either sealed shut or locked open, depending on their emergency settings. Due to the largely open-air nature of Golden Age city design, it can be very difficult, or impossible, to find a safe place to hide if one attracts unwanted attention within a city.

I want to be a Marshal in this game!

Bravo Direach! Can't wait to read more!

Pdf files(s) please when done, great stuff....

8 minutes ago, gilbur said:

Pdf files(s) please when done, great stuff....

Yes indeed! I'm excited to hear more about this campaign!

Thanks, all! I appreciate the feedback! I haven't had much time to write lately, but I'm still coming up with ideas. I should have the section on the Marshals themselves written before too much longer.

Dunno if you've heard of it Direach, but your Marshals concept makes me think of Grayson's Grey Rangers from Shaintar, a Savage Worlds fantasy setting. They patrol the wildlands protecting the commonfolk from what goes bump in the night and are called upon to protect the realm from her enemies.

Figured I would toss that out there for inspiration for you ... not that you need it. =)

Kudos again! And I look forward to more!

Direach: So if you had to "spend a dollar" on why the current human civilization doesn't just brush off the dust and pick up the technology again, how much of that dollar goes to various reasons? Trying to get a feel whether it's based more on propaganda, natural fear of the unknown, or simply the ravages of time and lack of education bringing about a Dark Age.

It mostly has to do with the (still) small number of survivors, and the fact that very little of the Golden Age technology is still functional, or comprehensible, to them. Much of the old technology was operated through implants, and those implants are not present in the current population. The requirements of survival have necessitated returning to simple, reliable ways of doing things. In addition, the majority of people who survived the Bug were those who were already living "off the grid", and disinclined to use a lot of Pre-Tech in the first place.

There is also the extremely high risk associated with getting one's hands on Pre-Tech. The overwhelming majority of humans in the Golden Age lived in coastal super-cities, and that same majority is still lurking in those cities as fearsome Dead. The ancient tech is well-guarded, and in the eyes of most, not worth the risk.

There are other reasons (or Other reasons, if I may pun) as well, but I don't want to go into those just yet.

16 hours ago, Direach said:

There is also the extremely high risk associated with getting one's hands on Pre-Tech. The overwhelming majority of humans in the Golden Age lived in coastal super-cities, and that same majority is still lurking in those cities as fearsome Dead. The ancient tech is well-guarded, and in the eyes of most, not worth the risk.

Ah, so the theme here is a "lost contact" scenario from the perspective of the existing culture that was already living simple lives. It would create the same feeling of terror as M Night Shyamalan's "The Village" except with a little more tech (pistols and such) included on the inside, and a lot more on the outside.