Scavenging and What it Means

It doesn’t mean just taking stuff out of the trash, you dolt, though that’s certainly a large part of it. The trash of 200 years past may seem like quite a treasure to a wastelander trying to make ends meet. Nor does it necessarily mean stealing. Scavenging is what happens when ponies die and leave stuff behind, and others – the scavengers – come along and rifle through it, taking what they need or want.

Scavenging is a major source of income for quite a few ponies still rooting around in the wasteland, but it’s often extremely dangerous. It’s been over 200 years since the bombs fell, ladies and gentlecolts, and more than 150 of those years saw ponies out and about, trying to rebuild society and, more importantly, picking clean the skeletons of ages gone by. That means that most areas that were safe to scavenge are picked clean. Don’t expect to find valuable items lying around in areas that are safe and frequently travelled! Expect to find trash, and lots of it – many, many items that others passed over as junk.

If an area is inhabited, the only salvage and other scavenging you should expect to find should be the stuff owned or picked up by the inhabitants. That goes for raider camps as well as the nicer settlements. Recently ruined settlements or abandoned raider camps might have some scraps, but that’s more in line with trash than anything worthy of scavenging – empty whiskey bottles and the like.

The only areas you should expect to be able to scavenge that aren’t picked over at all are where there has been something actively keeping scavengers away – infestations of creatures that eat ponies, like Manticores or giant radscorpions, for example. Security systems – both magical and mechanical – and defense robots can also have this effect. Areas that are simply out of the way or difficult to access, like subway tunnels or old sewer access areas, might also have some interesting things left in them, especially if there are locked doors or terminals. Finally, expect to see lots of intact salvage, and maybe even completely pristine gear, in areas full of enervation, high radiation, or pink cloud. Alicorns don’t generally scavenge much, and ghouls make up such a small percentage of the wasteland’s inhabitants that non-ferals don’t significantly impact the amount of salvage available in most such areas.

Karma

When it isn’t working in your favor, karma can be a real bitch. This is especially true for ponies like raiders, who go around raping and pillaging and quite frequently get raped and pillaged right back by their neighboring tribes.

In this system, a character’s karma represents their morality. Doing good deeds and committing selfless acts will increase your karma, and committing acts of needless violence, cruelty and debauchery will decrease it. That’s a bit of an oversimplification, of course – inaction can sometimes speak louder than action in many cases , and oftentimes characters will be forced to make decisions that may not have a clear “good” or “bad” outcome.

Morality is tricky business, and GMs should take care to make sure that both the intent and the actions taken are considered when awarding karma to characters. For specifics on how to handle this (or at least a more lengthy set of guidelines) check out the “Giving out Karma” header in the GM’s Guide to the Equestrian Wastes, later on.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 861