Luke Gearing
Weird War - Mission Generation
For use with this
A soundtrack suggestion
Roll 1d6. On a 1-3, the mission is Behind the Lines. On a 4+, you are being sent to the Front. The Psychogeography haunts both.
Behind the Lines
The safety of trenches and occupied manors, barely haunted these days. The liberated villages and towns, filled with locals inured to grief, soldiers and bombs.
Trucks and bicycles.
Railways and guns.
Objectives
| 1d6 | Objectives |
|---|---|
| 1 | Gather 10d6 Provisions |
| 2 | Rescue a Friendly Group from Location or Local Group or Psychogeographical Feature |
| 3-4 | Investigate a Location, Local Group or Psychogeographical Feature |
| 5 | Infiltrate a Local Group, based in Location |
| 6 | Recruit 2d6 ‘Volunteers’ |
Friendly Groups
| 1d6 | Group |
|---|---|
| 1 | Royal Propaganda Core |
| 2 | Her Majesties Foreign Intelligence Service |
| 3 | High Command Catering and Hospitality Core |
| 4 | Ordinance Psychogeographical Survey, Minor Talents Division |
| 5 | Volunteer Battalion Under 16s |
| 6 | London Philharmonic Orchestra |
Locations Behind the Lines
| d6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Forgetting Club | Redeployed Factory | Inexplicable shipwreck | Ghost-trenches | Smuggler Cache | Finishing School |
| 2 | Bombed Out Druid Grove | Camouflaged Officers Club | Unharmed Church | Book-pile | Smuggler Route | Locked Orphanage |
| 3 | Bullet-holed Theatre | School for Debutantes and Female Companions | Ancient Fortification | Brothel of Poets | Race-track | Burial-Mounds |
| 4 | Town cinders | Onion Farm | Immobilised convoy-turned-settlement | Refugee Camp | Looted Aristocratic Tombs | Not-So-Ancient Guillotine |
| 5 | Dairy-turned-abattoir | Looted Orchard | Airfield | Crashed Enemy Plane | Empty Deserter Camp | Aristocratic Household |
| 6 | Druggists Office | Double-stacked Graveyard | Vineyard | Hidden Resistance Cache | Deserter Camp | Billeted Aristocratic Household |
Local Groups
Some are friendly.
Most are not. They appreciate liberation, but resent you for being the liberators.
| d6 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Piano-Farmers | Oilmouth Cult | Luxury Smugglers | Local Ruling Aristocratic Family | Wandering Penitent Band | Journalists |
| 2 | Plane Tamers | Ink-thief Band | Food Smugglers | Camp Followers | Literature Society | Nationalists |
| 3 | Art Brawlers | Belligerent Resistance Band | Clothes Smugglers | Rogue Vintner and Crew | Bullet-Chewers | Dog Collectors |
| 4 | Narrators Guild Chapter | Word Hunters | Sleep Smugglers | Defeated General and Entourage | Walking Dreamers | Barefoot Infantry |
| 5 | Nunnery | Psychogeographic Explorers | Book Smugglers | Urchin Gang | Contents of Asylum | Shadow Aristocracy |
| 6 | Monastery | Left-behind Enemy Soldiers | Hired Killers | Horse Thieves | Flour-Baron’s Men | Papal Agents |
Psychogeographical Features
Unless deliberately revisited, these should be replaced after use.
| d6 | Features |
|---|---|
| 1 | A snaking-snake legion slithers amongst the hills, in Southern Steel and iron and marked with Eagles and a crushing grip. A wake of fire follows, searing beyond this War. |
| 2 | The Old Palace, all crystal stained red, red, red, the soil all liberated heads singing the old songs. Perhaps the Royal Family are in, heads crowned and lap-borne. |
| 3 | A crawling plane, core burnt out, dead pilots pulled behind on ejector umbilicals. Smoke filled with the lethal bullets. |
| 4 | A maw in the earth filled with the soft soil of human history - barely a snack. The maw has forests for hair, dolmens for teeth. Kings once knew it’s name. |
| 5 | An impossible beach, wooden vessels hungry for soldiers. Smoke from a not-so distant shore. Home to you, perhaps. |
| 6 | A gloaming descending from above and bleeding out of the land. The wretched history of the continent reaching towards unimagined futures, echoes of the now forever. |
Encounters
To be checked once per reasonable unit of time. Roll d66 and consult the table below.
All may be spies - on a d66 roll of 11, they are working for the Enemy. They may be dangerous agents, view themselves as patriots, mercenaries or just simply hate you.
| d6 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 11 | 2d6 Civilian Refugees, looking for lost animals/children/wealth. |
| 12 | 1d6 Friendly Soldiers, on assignment/dodging an assignment/off-duty. |
| 13 | 1d6 Local Civilians, seemingly very interested in you and your mission. |
| 14 | 1d6 Local Civilians, interested in you but trying not to show it. |
| 15 | 4d6 Wounded Soldiers, moving away from the front. |
| 16 | Rogue farm animals, huddled together as if for protection. They smell like fear. |
| 21 | Officers car on the prowl. |
| 22 | Newspaper crew, plying soldiers with liquor and cigarettes. |
| 23 | A Civilian Witch. |
| 24 | Smell of vinegar - overturned wine cart, left in the heat and rain. |
| 25 | Planes sluggishly crawl across the sky - friendly, by the lack of munitions. |
| 26 | Wild artillery shell explosion near enough to deafen. No way to tell where it came from. |
| 31+ | No notable encounter. |
The Front
Fire has scraped clean the earth. The soil bleeds only poison - our weapons have left the wound infected.
You have already seen scores of friends die, limbs dangling from barbed wire.
Safety is a dark hole and a mask.
| 1d6 | Objectives |
|---|---|
| 1 | Trench Duty. 12 Days. |
| 2 | Rescuing someone from no-mans land. |
| 3 | Moving to cut enemy telephone lines. |
| 4 | Called up to support as we go Over the Top. Wait for the whistle. |
| 5 | Night raid against an enemy trench. |
| 6 | Rebuilding trenches and defences. |
Encounters
To be checked once a day when waiting, hourly during active movement. Roll a d66 and consult the table below.
Where Soldiers are not specified as Friendly, they may be in the employ of the Other Powers.
| d66 | Encounter |
|---|---|
| 11-12 | 1d6 Dying Soldiers, gassed. |
| 13-14 | 1d6 Dying Soldiers, shot. |
| 15-16 | 1d6 Dying Soldiers, shelled. |
| 21 | Sniper fire - player with least Luck tests it to avoid. |
| 22 | Screaming of Shells - test Luck or relevant Skill to get in cover in time. |
| 23 | Laughter of Machine-Guns - hit the deck or take 1d6 hits. |
| 24 | Animal-Whine of a plane - grenades dropped into the trench, elsewhere. |
| 25 | Broken rasp of a rattle - gas attack inbound. |
| 26 | Sergeant Inspection - challenging the troops to show some bravery - now. |
| 31 | Friendly Soldier, holding a boot to his chest. The boot still has his foot in it. |
| 32 | Starving mule, eyes wider than dinner plates, rampant amongst the trench. Kept alive as a good luck charm. |
| 33 | Friendly artillery falls short. Test Luck to avoid. |
| 34 | Soldiers sing for their dead friend. |
| 35 | 4d6 Enemy Soldiers on a trench-raid, crawling over the parapet right now. |
| 36 | Screams in no-mans land. Closer than usual. |
| 41-56 | Residual stink of rotting flesh, munitions. Distant cackle of gunfire. Low roar of shells. Dog-ends of cigarettes burning the lips of the soldiers. Whispered jokes. Stifled laughs. |
| 61-66 | The Psychogeography boils up from the ground, and drowns the trench. All are swept into this new landscape. |
The Psychogeography
The horrors of The Front are only amplified by in the Psychogeography.
| d6 | Psychogeographical Location |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Trench labyrinth, miles of wet earth packed with bodies, liberated hands grasping from the walls, poison gas snaking and moving - a predator on the hunt. Anything other than a half-crouch is death, bullets roaming in flocks, looking for any revealing themselves. |
| 3-4 | Blasted-ruin-splinters of a town eaten, consumed, turned to memory by the carnivorous no-mans-land. The War is the egg, and that blasted dead toxic earth is the Child, industry and nations the parents. |
| 5-6 | The open field. The killing ground. Behind are demon-officers, ready to execute, jeering. Ahead, machine-gunners. All must walk forward, regardless of nationality in the other world. |
The Deep Psychogeography
The shallows of the Psychogeography heighten and make the metaphorical literal.
The deep of the Psychogeography presents the alien vistas and wrinkles forgotten yet carried within. The obscene truth-trending-toward-fiction.
It can only be found with determined investigation and either the latest in para-scientific devices or the most ancient of religious practices.