Factions and Settlements

Your group isn’t the only bunch of ponies out in the wasteland. All of the races that survived the apocalypse have been busy rebuilding their numbers and re-establishing society pretty much as soon as the rads cleared enough to go topside without bursting into flame or melting into a puddle.

Society means the formation of groups and organizations – clans, governments, settlements, gangs, you name it. These organizations help facilitate trade or maintain protection over territories and settlements, many of which your group of characters will probably encounter and interact with over the course of their adventures. A large portion of getting by in the wasteland has to do with making friends or enemies with those already out there. Your group of intrepid adventurers, merchants or explorers should be aware that their actions have consequences beyond simple karma gain or loss – there are others watching.

Politics Within and Without the Party

Not all characters you run into, ponies inclusive, will want to be your friends. This includes those who share a similar short term goal with you. So if a character wants to do something that your character doesn’t think is right, or simply crosses a moral line, tell them so. Don’t be afraid to let it come to blows. Characters in the party can kill each other over things – it’s sad, but it does happen. At the same time, if a character in your party isn’t doing something wrong, there’s no reason to cause a fuss (unless your character’s goal is to cause a fuss…). Just be aware of the effect of killing a character on the player who that character belongs to. When a GM causes a player death, it tends to be more acceptable than when a fellow player does the same.

Dangers of the Wasteland

Things will try to kill you out there. Many of them won’t have to try very hard. Ponies and all may have survived the war, but here are a few of the real power players out there in the wasteland:

Radiation

Invisible and deadly, radiation is a constant danger for those surviving day to day outside of any major settlement. The majority of water in and around Equestria is irradiated, after all, and most unicorns aren’t capable of purging it. (Hell, most of those that can clean it out of water have trouble cleaning up enough to keep one pony alive, let alone a whole settlement.)

Much of the radiation around Equestria is intermingled with necromantic energies, infused into it in the process of creating a balefire egg, the magical explosive that served as a basis for the balefire megaspells. This can lead to some interesting complications, not the least of which is the existence of ghouls.

Depending on the radiation level in an area, a character will absorb more or less radiation over time. For the purposes of simplification, radiation levels are listed below in ascending order. The actual amount of magical radiation absorbed by a character in any radiation level may vary depending on radiation resistance.

This table is mostly just a suggestion of ranges made for simplification. In-game, it’s totally reasonable for a GM to pick any level of ambient radiation they feel is appropriate (though personally we recommend using something divisible by 4, 20, or 100 over whatever time period is being used because of how radiation resistance comes in 5% increments).

If a character has suffered severe radiation exposure (more than 400 rads) within a short time period and goes without having that radiation removed for an extended period of time (anything more than 6 hours), they must roll endurance MFD ¼. If they succeed, nothing happens. Failures suffer a mutation as a result of their exposure, as per the hindrance of the same name. See “They were ponies, once” for more information on mutations.

Critical failures begin dying of radiation poisoning, and suffer penalties to endurance, agility, strength, and linked skills as though they were at 800 rads. They will die within 24 hours if they do not receive treatment (anything that reduces a character’s radiation count will do).

Penalties to attributes (and their corresponding skills) resulting from radiation exposure are displayed on the character sheet below the level of absorbed radiation that they correspond to.

When a character has absorbed 1000 rads, they must immediately roll endurance, MFD 1/10. The results of this roll are discussed more in depth in “They Were Ponies, Once.”

Failures die immediately of severe radiation poisoning. Remember to have your next character take Radaway with them when they go out adventuring!

Table XXXV: Radiation exposure levels, by intensity.

Level	Effect
	Negligible magical background count – 200 years after the balefire blasts made the surface of the world all-but totally uninhabitable, most of the equestrian wasteland and its surrounding territories have settled down to this level. Depending on wind conditions, you can expect to absorb less than 5 rads per day at this level.
	Residual magical background count – 5-10 rads absorbed per minute (less than 1 rad per second, about 1 per combat round). More than 25% radiation protection will render a character totally protected. Fillydelphia has large areas inside the wall that are at this level.
	Extremely low magical background count – 1-2 rads absorbed per combat round (less than 1 rad per second, 20 per minute). The Geiger counter on a pipbuck isn’t calibrated to register radiation below this level.
	Low magical background count – 5-10 (≈8) rads absorbed per combat round (less than 1 rad per second, 40 per minute). This is the background count of most water sources around the wasteland.
	Medium magical background count – 10-20 (≈16) rads absorbed per combat round (about 1.5 rads per second, 100 per minute). This is the radiation level you might expect to encounter around radioactive waste dumps, recently-detonated balefire eggs or sky wagons, or similar sites. Over-irradiated ghouls and alicorns also emit radiation at this level.
	High magical background count – 30-40 (≈32) rads absorbed per combat round (about 3.5 rads per second, 200 per minute). Active spark generators with partially damaged or incomplete shielding will create a magical background count of this magnitude.
	Extremely high magical background count – 60-70 (≈64) rads absorbed per combat round (about 10.5 rads per second, 640 per minute). This is roughly the ambient radiation you might expect to experience inside an active spark reactor or within a half-mile of a balefire bomb that has exploded in the last day or so. You would be hard pressed to find radiation levels higher than this.
	Deadly magical background count – 120+ rads absorbed per combat round (more than 20 rads per second, over 1200 rads per minute. Less than a minute’s exposure at this level will kill any character that isn’t hardened against radiation. Damaged balefire bombs and areas with enormous amounts of magical waste byproducts could conceivably throw off this much radiation. You might also see this much radiation within less than 100 yards of a balefire bomb’s detonation, if you weren’t blinded and/or incinerated by it.

Taint

Taint is at the same time more and less subtle then most of the other deadly effects listed in this section. It isn’t really an ambient effect; only direct contact with the shimmering, rainbow-hued sludge will have any effect on a character. This doesn’t seem so bad until you consider that in many areas taint is in a large percentage of the water supply, making it into any food grown there. On top of that, taint, under the name “biomagical flux” was a major ingredient in quite a large amount of processed foods and in many industrial manufacturing processes before the war. It’s even a major ingredient in flamer fuel.

Taint exposure works in stages, a fact mirrored by the taint slider on the character sheet. Each distance between markers represents a minor exposure to the substance – drinking enough river water in Hoofington to survive for a week or two, or eating visibly tainted fish or seaweed a few times might bump you up one of these steps. So might getting a few droplets of the shimmering rainbow-colored fluid on your hooves or skin, or inhaling a bit of flux that’s been vaporized. Larger exposures might bump you up more steps on this slider – falling face first into a puddle of taint, for example, would probably bump you up at least six tick marks. Having a large globule of it fall on your from a leak in the ceiling might bump you up anywhere from two to four depending on its size. Characters that skip one or more stages are automatically considered to fail any dice rolls associated with determining that step’s results.

Highly tainted creatures like floaters or centaurs may even expose targets to taint via their attacks.

Taint is dangerous because it is a mutagenic and transformative agent; it magically alters and destabilizes the genetic makeup of those who are exposed to it, generally not in a way that is beneficial to them. At the same time, the effects of taint are inherently random (SPOILER: TAINT IS LITERALLY DERIVED FROM THE BLOOD OF DISCORD, AND IS THUS 100 % REFINED LIQUID CHAOS)); it is occasionally beneficial to its victims, especially if administered in controlled doses over an extended period of time. Both alicorns and hellhounds are the end result of relatively-positive outcomes of taint exposure. Falling into a pool of taint can turn an adorable filly into a horrific monster in ten seconds flat, but it might also turn her into an Alicorn. The trouble with the whole business is that uncontrolled taint exposure is easily a hundred times more likely to kill or horrifically mutate a character than it is to give them a positive benefit.

GMs should be careful when dealing with taint. I know I’ve said ‘be careful with x’ quite a bit, but I mean it here more than any other place in the book. Because its effects are inherently random, it is difficult to use as a tool or as part of a campaign. Characters should always be aware that it’s a dangerous substance, but if they do become exposed to small doses of it they should be able to remain hopeful that they won’t suffer the negative effects (at least until after they begin suffering from said negative effects). After all, Little Pip came out of it alright, didn’t she? Blackjack, on the other hand… well, you can’t be lucky 100% of the time.

The diamonds and tick-marks on the taint slider represent different levels of transformation. These distances are described as “the distance between ticks,” or in terms relating to it (i.e. ‘markers’, ‘bars’, etc.), which is how taint effects are meted out by items in the system known to contain the substance. The effects of exposure at its different levels are outlined in the table on the next page. Negative and positive effects are not clearly described – this is done intentionally, as due to the inherently chaotic effects of taint they can vary widely. The most obvious common negative effect is the development of cancerous growths, but flux can do almost anything to a character, up to and including giving them eye-tentacle penises, turning them into a blind octopus, covering them in chitinous spines, warping their gender, or slowly randomly rearranging their anatomy.

Table XXXVI: Taint exposure and effects, by level of exposure. Color bars chosen at random.

Level	Effect
1^st Diamond	No taint exposure. Don’t you wish you could keep it this way?
1^st Tick	Low Exposure – Characters begin to feel distinctly itchy around the exposed areas. This itchy feeling continues into stage 1.
2^nd Diamond	Stage 1 – Minor transformations occur. Characters should roll Luck, MFD ¼. Successes mean that nothing substantive has happened yet. Failures or critical failures on this roll begin to develop negative effects (normally only internal or easily missed physical effects). Neither positive nor negative effects are overtly obvious at this stage.
2^nd Tick	Significant Exposure – Itching increases, to the point where characters not actively resisting the itch will begin to rub their skin raw. Discoloration of varicose veins in the area may occur, but otherwise no transformations progress further.
3^rd Diamond	Stage 2 – Visible transformations occur. Characters that have succeeded their luck roll should roll again at MFD 1/10. Successes continue to have positive effects, which at this stage may be more noticeable, such as an increased horn size or stature.
3^rd Tick	Noticeable Exposure – The negative effects of characters who have failed at least one luck roll are dramatically increased in magnitude. Cancerous growths should be visible beneath the skin, and reduction of appetite is noteworthy. All other transformations begin to become more pronounced.
4^th Diamond	Stage 3 – Extreme physical transformations are apparent. Characters that have succeeded both luck rolls at the previous stages must now make a staggering luck roll MFD Crit or will suffer mutations and other negative effects (though cancer is unlikely if they’ve made it to this stage). Characters that have made 3 luck rolls successfully do not need to roll.
4^th Tick	Deadly Exposure – Characters with exactly two successful luck rolls must roll luck MFD 1/10 immediately upon reaching this level. Failure reduces the number of their previously successful rolls by one for the purposes of future taint exposure. Critical failure reduces their successful luck roll count to 0. Critical success counts as a successful luck roll and grants them immunity to disease – including any cancer that was previously affecting them. All their malignant tumors become benign. Characters with three or more successful luck rolls at this stage also gain this benefit. Characters with less than two successful luck rolls must now make an END roll MFD ¼. Should they fail they are killed outright. Should they succeed, they’ll be slowly turned into an abomination. They must make an INT roll MFD ¼ to retain their intelligence (though they might not necessarily retain their speech). This state of being is highly inconvenient for them, (to say the least) but at least they’re still alive. Their life expectancy drops dramatically; without medical attention, their increasingly dramatic mutations will kill them within a month. Characters with three successful luck rolls begin to develop vestigial alicorn characteristics, such as an enlarged horn, wings, or an inadvertent telepathic link with the Goddess. They may also increase in size.
5^th Diamond	Stage 4 – Characters with taint exposure that have succeeded on at least 3 luck rolls immediately begin to transform into alicorns (or hellhounds), permanently and painfully changing their race (and possibly their gender) over the course of a 1-2 day transformation; they proceed immediately to stage five in the process of transformation (see “They Were Ponies Once”). Less successful characters must roll Luck MFD ¼. Successes transform into centaurs or other heavily tainted but survivable creatures. Failures are twisted so horribly that they slowly and painfully die. Critical successes complete their transformation into alicorns (or hellhounds).

Wherever a luck roll is mentioned, a critical success counts as two successes for the purpose of tallying luck rolls (except for the roll made in the 4^th diamond – there it only counts as one success). Critical failures remove all successful luck rolls.

Taint is insidiously difficult to remove – it ignores all but the most magically intensive water filtration techniques. It does not break down over time when present in a water supply. Examined under a microscope, it acts almost as though it were alive. The only place in the wasteland capable of removing it is Tenpony Tower; other medical facilities can only treat the symptoms of exposure (and usually not with much success). Physical alterations, such as a character developing cancer or any other alteration of appearance, however minor or severe, are not removed when the taint itself is removed. Cleansing the body of taint merely lowers the bar back to zero and makes rolls to avoid negative effects easier to achieve.

Just like in the fictions, repeated smaller exposures and cleansings are much more likely to result in positive transformations than just repeated smaller exposures are. If a character passes three consecutive luck rolls at any level of exposure they will begin to take on alicorn traits (or hellhound traits if they’re a sand dog) instead of suffering from negative taint effects. Each further dose of taint after the first three successful rolls moves them up a stage on their progression towards becoming an alicorn or hellhound, whichever is appropriate.

NOTE! If a character progresses without ever being cleansed, the effects occur exactly as listed in the taint exposure effects table above. If they are cleansed of taint at any point, they retain any present physical transformations, good or bad, and may continue to acquire more as appropriate as they progress through the levels of contamination once more. If at any point they have three successful luck rolls (critical successes count as two luck rolls for all MFDs above MFD crit), they will begin transforming into an alicorn or hellhound and should see the corresponding rules in “They Were Ponies Once,” in the last chapter of this document. As previously noted, they progress to a new stage with every additional exposure. Transforming into an Alicorn or hellhounds does not necessarily mean that previous physical transformations will be reversed.

Characters whose race changes to alicorn (or hellhound) over the course of play level up as they would normally, and do not suffer the limitations placed on characters who begin play as members of those races; they’ve earned their increase in power by surviving the most deadly series of poisons the wasteland has to offer (and they’re not out of the woods yet!).

Transformed ponies gain the Large trait in either case (even if they already had it – Alicorns can be doubly large, after all), and newly-minted alicorns gain the Channeler trait as well as the increased magical strain reserve. Alicorn characters also have the goddess in their head, should she still live, who will very rapidly try to make them her pawn and completely assimilate their personality and knowledge. Hellhounds gain the enlarged, terrifyingly sharp claws of their new species.

Enervation

Enervation is a particularly nasty and deadly phenomenon that is thankfully local only to the areas around Hoofington. Very few ponies have any real understanding of what causes it, or why it is stronger in some areas than others. It can kill you as quickly as the static from a corrupted broadcaster, as painfully as radiation sickness, and as quietly as the cancerous growths of taint exposure. At low levels (such as most of the area around Hoofington) it can prevent natural healing and drain the magic out of healing potions, making them slowly toxic. In moderate fields such as the tunnels under Hoofington it can actually reverse the natural healing process, causing small cuts and bruises to turn into amputation-worthy cases of gangrene, horrific internal hemorrhaging and unprecedented decay. Exposure to strong fields of it can literally melt the skin off your bones, or cause organ failure and internal bleeding so severe that blood begins to seep out of every orifice.

GMs and players should consider the following four levels of enervation fields (five, counting the absence of a field) outlined in the proceeding table when determining effect.

Alicorns are severely adversely affected by the presence of enervation due to their passive telepathic abilities. Most alicorns begin taking mental penalties even at the lowest levels of enervation; those with the Forged in the Hoof perk do not suffer mental penalties unless experiencing fields of strength level 2 or higher.

Ghouls are also severely affected by enervation, due to their weakened ties to their mortal coil. In any level of enervation field, ghouls must make a willpower roll every five minutes to maintain their sanity and prevent their soul from being torn from their body!
This roll is MFD 1 in level 1 ‘light-strength’ fields, and increases in difficulty to ¾ MFD in level 2, ½ in level 3, and ¼ in level 4.

Enervation effects can be negated by the presence of moon rock. Moon rock is a rare substance in Equestria, and is worth five times the cost of a normal gemstone of the same weight.

*SPOILERS AHEAD*

While almost no characters would know this fact, devices that produce an enervation field (by running an electrical or magical current through starmetal) create fields of differing strength and intensity depending on the number of ponies who have died in the area, and how close the area is to the fallen star beneath Hoofington. Enervation feeds off of the deaths of ponies without hope or with hearts full of sadness and despair, entrapping their souls to join in a glorious chorus of eternal screams and suffering that is caused inadvertently by the suffering of the fallen star. This otherworldly screaming is what resonates within the metal to create the effect known as enervation. Magical stimulation amplifies the effect.

*END SPOILERS*

Table XXXVII: Enervation Effects

Level	Effect
	None – Like most of Equestria, there isn’t any enervation here, thank Celestia. Areas full of living, non-cybernetic creatures, such as settlements, are almost all at this level.
	Light –Most of uninhabited areas around Hoofington are at this level. Natural healing takes three times as long per wound healed. Health potions that are not recharged with healing energies can go for up to 4 days at this level before becoming unusable (rejuvenation potions take twice as long, and restoration potions take four times as long); as their level of potency decreases, they shift from a vibrant purple (full) to a brackish, muddy brown (depleted). For every day of depletion at this level, they heal one less wound when used (minimum 1). Fully depleted potions cannot be restored, and burn like a mild acid if touched, healing nothing. They may occasionally become actually poisonous (though most are smart enough not to drink a potion that looks like mud). If a character is carrying health potions in any level of enervation field, those potions will be drained of their energies one at a time, but that character’s natural healing will be unimpaired by enervation. Magical bandages become depleted within a day if subjected to this level of field. This level of enervation is bearable for most alicorns, but they take -5 on all rolls unless they have the Forged in the Hoof perk.
	Moderate– Abandoned settlements and battle sites tend to be up around this level, particularly sites of recent battles. Natural healing rates are halted all-together, characters take a -20 penalty on all END-based rolls, and health potions drain twice as fast as in a level 1 field, going through their four stages of depletion in 2 days at a rate of one stage per 12 hours (stronger potions either double or quadruple this time frame). Health potions no longer shield the character from the diminished natural healing effect, but while in possession of non-depleted potions characters do not suffer the penalty to endurance rolls. Characters who have suffered wounds that have not been fully healed must roll END MFD ¾ every hour to avoid bleeding out and taking an additional wound to that location. Alicornstake a 1 MFD step penalty on all rolls due to the constant screaming they hear in their heads. All ponies who try to cast spells within a field of this intensity suffer a 1 MFD step penalty; when they try to channel energy they start to hear a screaming inside their heads.
	High –Many of the red-lit security tunnels that run beneath Hoofington are at this level. All characters suffer a -50 penalty to all END based rolls, a -25 penalty to STR and AGI based rolls, a reduction of pace by 5 feet per action, and take one wound to every location (except their horn if they have one) for every 5 minutes spent in a field of this strength. Those who become crippled in this way begin to bleed out of their orifices. Prolonged exposure to fields of this magnitude (more than 30 minutes) can cause permanent deformations such as loss of bone density, particularly in the limbs. Healing potions go from fully charged to totally depleted within 20 minutes, one stage every five minutes. Characters in possession of non-depleted healing potions do not begin to take wounds until their potions are depleted, but still suffer the attribute and related skill penalties. Alicorns exposed to this area for more than 5 minutes must make INT rolls at MFD ½ every minute or be rendered totally catatonic, capable only of forward movement and responding only to simple instruction. They cannot use magic.All unicorns that try to cast magic in a level 3 field suffer a whopping 3 MFD step penalty on their casting roll.
	Deadly – Levels of enervation this high are found only in the deepest tunnels or inside the Hoofington Core. Healing potions will deplete and become rancid and poisonous within 60 seconds; even restoration potions can go from full to totally depleted in four minutes. Alicorns and any unicorns with telepathy at any level suffer hemorrhaging of the brain, taking 1 wound to the head per 6 seconds spent in this field. All other characters take 1 wound to every location for every minute spent here. Surviving for five minutes in this dense of an enervation field will permanently deform almost any creature in body if not in mind – spending longer can reduce even bone to little more than viscous goo. Characters gain no benefit from having non-depleted healing potions on their person. Even those without magic can hear an unearthly screaming resonating within their skull, making all skill rolls 1 MFD step harder.

Date: 2015-12-11; view: 825

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