Setting

[begin_again_mods]

LOCATION: THE VILLA
This map is the Sierra Madre Casino Villa. The Villa was built for the rich patrons of the Sierra Madre to come and spend vacation time, so they're mostly townhouses and condos. The problem is, for all the money Frederick Sinclair spent to have the casino built, almost all of the funds went to the construction of the casino building, and very little of it went to the Villa. In fact, there are records scattered about that tell of the shortcuts, cheap materials, and shoddy construction practices that went into the Villa and, basically, made it more or less beneath building code. Somehow, some of the buildings have survived, but the whole place is run-down and slowly falling apart even as the Casino sits proud and tall atop its hill, flawless.

Directly in the center - that round part - is the only truly 'safe' haven of the entire Villa - the main fountain. It does not spit out water, but, instead, has a woman's holographic figure standing atop it, staring to the south. Sounds play from it - the same voice, the same message your character heard that made them decide they wanted a chance to begin again, and wound up here. The enemies here do not go to, or anywhere near the fountain; they're afraid of the holograms, and with good reason. To the north of the fountain, just across the little courtyard, there is the gate to the Sierra Madre Casino itself; however, for now, the gate seems to be rusted, or corroded, or even locked shut. Whatever it may be, it's not opening, and it's too big to climb over. To the south side, directly where the hologram always seems to be looking, is the exit gate. Yes, it's right there, to taunt everyone. There's a message marked on it though: 'BOOM if you go through here'. The gate is closed and heavily locked, and attempting to force it, go through it, fly over it, or anything of the sort, will result in that thick metal slab around their neck blowing your character's head off.

The Villa is the main, central area. It's probably the safest, and easiest place to navigate, and the Cloud doesn't seem to gather thickly here. To the northwest of the fountain is a door marked 'Medical District'. Traveling further north and west will lead to the door to Puesta Del Sol North. Traveling further south and west from the Medical District door, you will find the Police Station, where your character first woke up. Traveling east from the fountain, you will first find the entrance to the Residential District on the south side of the road. Much further down the road to the east is the entrance to Salida del Sol South. All of these places are accessible from the get-go.

Where it differs is that a lot more of the buildings seem to have been 'opened up' from when the Courier last visited - in fact, closer to 60 or 70% of the buildings in total, in all areas, are accessible in some way. Now, most of them are in a questionable state of repair, but it seems as though someone has gone through with the mind of reopening the place to be a residential area, once again...

LOCATION: THE POLICE STATION
Situated in the far southwestern part of the Villa proper is the Police Station. Your character wakes up here, in one of the many prison cells. There may be other people here, in their or other cells, they may wake up alone. That is up to the players. There's a regular radio here, as well as a few overhead speakers, but they're all turned off and disabled. No use blowing a character's head off from the get-go, after all. The Station has been completely looted except for that radio - there are no weapons, no supplies, no nothing here except a couple rotted old bed frames, some jammed desks, and a lot of dust and dirt (even the computers that were 'originally' here are gone). The path from the Police Station to the Fountain has been cleared of enemies, though one or two may pop up from time to time. The enemies seem to be learning to avoid that particular route, though, so it should be mostly safe for everyone.

LOCATION: MEDICAL DISTRICT
This is probably the third place characters will see, other than the Villa and Police Station. The door is very close to the Villa center, and so it should be an easy jump to make. Inside... well. The first thing they'll notice is the Cloud has settled into some of the places here - it's sparse, but be careful of the few concentrations of it. There's not many enemies, this being a more highly used area like the Villa itself, but there's lots of traps, and remnants of traps still lying about: Many already triggered bear traps, some tripwire traps like heavy falling objects on chains (also mostly already either disabled or tripped), and even a couple of shotgun trigger traps that one could probably steal the gun out of - just be warned, the guns tend to be in bad states of repair and ammo is very difficult to come by.

There's actually a gate right in front of your character as they come into the area that leads directly to the Clinic (and thus, the Auto-Docs), but it appears to be shut and locked up, so to begin with, they'll have to take the long way around. However, it also appears as though someone has attempted to dig out the gate and get it to work, so, perhaps, with a little teamwork, a shortcut to the clinic will be accessible.

The Clinic is here - that's where a character will probably want to go. It's also a safe haven of a room, with all the radio emitters disabled. There's beds here that are safe to sleep on, as the toxic Cloud has not invaded the place, there's medical supplies that are rarely dropped from the Auto-Docs, so if one needs a patching up, this place will provide. Just be careful - the Auto-Docs are all faulty.

LOCATION: PUESTA DEL SOL NORTH
This is one of the more dangerous areas, located on the west side of the map. This is the area in the worst state of disrepair at the moment, and thus, has the fewest domiciles open for residence (in actuality, this is the area with the least amount of finished construction). It actually appears to be a more maintenance-oriented area, and as such the Switching Station and Service Routes are located here. The Switching Station is located behind a locked gate; the computer that once controlled the ventilation system next to the gate is gone, and while those who have gained their flight abilities can get over the gate without problem, they'll find that the switches are stuck in place - enough so that attempting to force them will simply break the entire box. There's other wires and accesses to some of the systems here but... do be careful about playing with them.

The Service Routes all appear to be locked up and barred for the moment. Even trying to force the doors won't help, but it might rile up whatever's behind them...

There will be a lot more encounters with hostile forces in this area than any other as of yet described. Traps are still present, but are easily avoidable, and not as common as in other places - it's really the enemies one will have to look out for. And patches of areas where the Cloud is, for it's fairly common here.

LOCATION: PUESTA DEL SOL SOUTH
This area is currently closed and locked. All routes in or out of it are inaccessible, aside from physically climbing or flying over the walls - though it seems to be absolutely infested with Cloud, so be careful if you do decide to have your character do it. They may open in the future.

LOCATION: RESIDENTIAL DISTRICT
This is another area with relatively few enemies. This is also the area with the greatest concentration of Cloud. Yes, it's most places here, though it mostly lays low, near the first floors of most settlements. Therefore, the Residential District is not the place for Acrophobics, as most traversing between areas needs to be done via walking across catwalks and rooftops - of which there have been plenty of platforms already set up. The first floor doors of most of the houses are locked and sealed up, and thus only second-floor doors and windows (and holes) are the ways in - making this one of the more easily defensible areas to set up housing.

Except... someone or something already thought up using the place as a defense area, and so the place is littered with traps. It's a pretty even split as to those that are or are not already tripped or triggered, unlike the Medical District, so characters should keep their wits about them. Some can be disabled and repurposed for one's own use. Some can be cannibalized for parts for other things. Regardless, there are plenty of them lying about.

LOCATION: SALIDA DEL SOL SOUTH
This is probably the most dangerous area of the map, currently. Enemies and traps are most abundant here, and pockets of the Cloud are thick and plentiful, making navigating hard. Only the very brave... or very stupid... will attempt to set up residence here, but, if your character can carve out a pocket for themself, they may have the most isolated and quietest area of residence as of yet. And, if we go by 'hiding in plain sight' perhaps one of the safest, as well.

LOCATION: SALIDA DEL SOL NORTH
Salida Del Sol North, like Puesta Del Sol South, is currently closed and locked up. The gate almost looks as though someone tried to pry their way through it at one point, but it didn't quite work, and the house that was once the original opening to Salida Del Sol North is currently boarded and closed up. But with good reason - one can hear the grunting and shuffling and hissing of the Ghost People, in large numbers, from beyond the gate. It almost seems as though they were mostly purposefully chased and locked up there... or, perhaps, they ran there, scared themselves, and locked themselves up. Regardless, through traditional means, the area is currently inaccessible.

LOCATION: SIERRA MADRE CASINO
It's closed for the moment. Going through the same steps as the game did won't get you in, either.

That said, you can see it, in places where the Cloud is thinnest. A huge, imposing, grandiose building on a hill, looming over the Villa. It looks glorious. It looks expensive. It looks like it has treasures just ripe for the taking.



BOMB COLLARS
Every character wakes up with one of these on. Attempting to remove them causes them to blow up and your character to wake up in an Auto-Doc with a likely nasty scar around their neck. They provide the microphones for audio communication, and their own radio frequencies, so even if a character loses their wrist computer, they can send out a distress signal for help - provided they can speak, they can even give better instructions how to get to their current location.

There's two other things to note about them: One, with enough exposure to the radio waves given off by the villa's built-in comm system, as well as from the occasional tabletop radio that lies around, they will be set off. The other radio waves interfere with the communication between the collars and... whatever, or whoever, is controlling them, and once the signal is lost they are set off automatically. Therefore, if a character hears a radio active somewhere in the vicinity, it would be wisest to shut it off immediately; if the collar starts beeping, that means it's going to blow up soon. The 'shielding' on all of the radios is currently deactivated, so they may be disable fairly easily with a well placed hit or shot - only those in the furthest reaches and corners of the Villa and its many side-areas are still fully active, so exploration becomes even more dangerous... and also potentially more rewarding.

WRIST COMPUTERS
Either what used to be standard Pip Boys, but gutted... or just a really good recreation thereof, the wrist computers are there to help the collars and are more or less the main means of communication in the Villa. They can access the many radio waves given off by the other collars, and therefore, that is how one will communicate with others. Making 'private' entries is difficult, because the collars are always active, and always transmitting. There's not much by means of privacy on this network, because all it takes is someone tuning in to your collar's frequency to hear you and what's going on around you. That even means having private meetings in dark corners is difficult without some creative blocking of the microphone. There's also a 'broadcast all' frequency that goes between all characters. For some reason, the person who kidnapped everyone allows access to at least that station...

Things the Pip-Boy has in the Fallout Games like the targeting system (VATS), inventory management, and the like, are stripped out of these computers' programming. The only thing that's left over are the communications systems, a clock showing a date that doesn't make any sense, but an accurate time, amazingly enough, a map screen, a geiger counter, and with a flip of a switch, the tuner for the radio collars. The map is just like it is at the top of the settings page: It says nothing about where you are or what is near you, so you have to use visual cues to try to figure out where on the map you are and which way you want to go. The screen's brightness can also be turned up to provide light in low-light situations, but be careful...

... They're attracted to the light.

AUTO-DOCS
These are only located in the Clinic as of right now. They're big, cylindrical things with... horrifying looking machinery inside. To use, simply input what needs to be healed, and step inside. However, the computers are long since corrupted; and their programming was never very solid to begin with, so they are just as prone to thinking you meant 'full frontal lobotomy' as you meant 'please heal my broken leg'. For major, life-threatening injuries, it may be worth risking it as surgical supplies are found a bit wanting, and general anesthetic is practically nonexistent outside of the machines (aside from stocking up on the old fashioned anesthetic - alcohol, or what Med-X is around), and besides, if a character dies, they wake up in an Auto-Doc anyway. But for more minor injuries... they might want to hope there's a doctor on-site that can make use out of the supplies given.

Reprogramming them isn't possible - there's really no way to access the hard drive of the computers from the Auto-Doc system itself, and attempting to hack it just results in a fail-safe shutting down the entire thing for three days. So everyone's going to have to live with them being faulty.

They have an additional ability, and that is something known as 'implants'. Every so often, your character may come into the possession of an 'Implant Code' - these are, essentially, surgical procedures that 'unlock' or 'restore' your characters' powers back to what they were before. There's a downside; first off, it can only do one thing at a time. So for those with ten special abilities, you would only be able to get one of them back at a time. For instance, say a character has the ability to both fly... and toss giant fireballs: they'd only be able to gain back either the fireballs or the flying for the time being. The other would have to be implanted separately, as it needs an entirely different program. There is no IC way for your character to know what is going to happen to them, so if someone ends up getting mutilated by an Auto-Doc first off, it might just make everyone too afraid to use them. OOCly, just pick the one thing you want your character to get back, and have them step inside.

Also, the Auto-Docs have more basic functions that can be programmed for implants. These things include: Cloud Resistance, which allows your character to walk into the Cloud to retrieve rarer items, or simply stay in the Cloud longer than would be normal: the effect essentially doubles the amount of time they have to be in there - what that means specifically, is up to the mun. The effect is not stackable. Sensory Enhancements, which include things like better hearing, better vision, or being able to see in low-light situations slightly above and beyond what a normal human would be able to. For characters that already have, or have regained those things, the effect is possible, but negligible. Physical Enhancements which would be useless for things that are stronger than humans anyway, but for the average human character, can be used to make them slightly physically stronger than normal without bulking up their form, allowing them to lift heavier debris out of the way, or climb buildings to get to higher ground better. You can also use it to make them slightly more dexterous and able to balance, scale, free-run better, or survive further falls without breaking both their legs. There's also Survival Enhancements: these make your character able to eat and drink irradiated, expired, or dirty items with dramatically reduced or negated effect - they won't get sick so easily, they won't get radiation poisoning so easily.

Again, however, the Auto-Docs are faulty; and so, as a mun, you can, instead of getting their abilities back, have something terrible, brutal, scarring, and debilitating done to them instead!

THE CLOUD
At its core, The Cloud was developed as part of a greater experiment that was slated to be carried out at the Sierra Madre Casino to test the new Auto-Doc program. Rather, it was going to be used to force people to use the Auto-Docs as they were slowly made sicker and sicker by it. It's not poisonous - it's corrosive. How it preserves things is unknown: it will corrode and rust metal to nothing, but seems to have an opposite, preserving effect on stone. It may be why the holograms and vending machines are offline, but that's unknown, currently.

For the most part it's thin and only somewhat irritating to breathe; there are some lasting effects from the Courier's time in the Villa - after a while, a character may even get used to the burning sensation. However, it does make them feel weak and sluggish.

Because of its toxic nature, it means attempting to lay down and sleep outside - or in an area that is wide open to the outside, such as one with an open hole, will lead to the character becoming very sick or even dying in their sleep.

Then, there's the thicker concentrations of it. This is where it actually looks like a 'cloud' properly. Walking into it? Is like walking into a cloud of gaseous acid. It almost immediately begins to eat at the skin, the eyes, and, especially, the lungs, until it feels like a thousand needles are being poked into every area of soft tissue imaginable. It doesn't take long before a character will die after stepping into the Cloud, so be careful.

There's another, curious side to it, though. Near the edges of the Cloud, one may be able to find some concentrated residue on the walls. It is actually possible to scrape it off the walls... and eat it. With no ill-effects. In fact, if combined properly, it can even do things like provide Ghost Vision (a sort of night-vision), among other curious effects.

WEAPONS
Weapons are scarce. It seems most of the Villa has been looted, and thus, many of the weapons are gone. Occasionally, one may be able to find an old, police-style handgun among the rubble or suitcases, a shotgun set into a trap, or other scattered, small weapons, but they are very rare; and ammunition is even more uncommon. Sometimes your character will find mines or grenades, but those are usually traps themselves and have to be carefully retrieved. The slightly more common weapons your characters will find will be melee-style weapons - there are still a decent number of those things called 'Cosmic Knives' hanging around. Though, as they are dirty and old, they don't quite cut as well as they used to without being cleaned up. You can also superheat them but... that's a more difficult prospect and requires a specific way of doing things that your character will have to find as the game progresses. It's also possible to tape the Cosmic Knives to the ends of broomsticks or metal rods to make makeshift spears and lances. There are oxygen tanks around that can be used for bombs, though, outside of the collars, other forms of explosives are almost nonexistent. It's possible to even cannibalize some of the other traps, like the bear traps, to make unique weapons, if so necessary.

The best, and easiest way, to get weapons? Is to kill Ghost People. As difficult as they are to kill - and your characters will likely all find that out first-hand, they have already made knife-spears and knife-lances for your characters to use, and even some of them have rigged bear traps into glove-type weapons, or oxygen tanks into impromptu grenades.

ARMOR
You show up in flimsy clothing and want better defense? Well, it's just as rare to find armor as it is to find weapons - perhaps even moreso. The most common things lying about are those heavy plastic construction hats - though those are mostly located in Puesta Del Sol, and thus, exploration may be needed to find them. Kneepads from construction workers, as well as heavy gloves may also be found, as well. Otherwise, old, rotted police kevlar vests may be found rarely in nooks and crannies. Just keep in mind, they're like the guns - rare and hard to get to.

You want a change of clothes instead? Well, many of the guests that were originally in the villa came with a few changes of clothes; try looting the wardrobes for the fifties style suits and dresses. They aren't much more cover than the flimsy outfit your character wakes up in, but at least they look better.

ITEMS/VENDORS
There used to be holographic vendors that manned the stores - but they all seem to be gone at the moment, and have taken most of their inventories with them. There are strange looking devices that are called 'vending machines' about, but trying to access them just has them display that they are currently offline, or have no items you can trade in money for. These may be restored at a future date.

So where do you get your food/water/medicine? Scrounging, of course. It almost looks like someone specifically went around and restocked some of the houses in the Residential and a few other Districts, as even though things look freshly rifled-through, there is food around.

MEDICINES
Those familiar with Fallout will know of things called 'Chems' that can enhance one's abilities. Well, the standard Chems are all looted out and are not able to be found currently. What's left of the medicine is a substance called Med-X - which is an injectable painkiller and light anesthetic (something like Vicodin), that can be addicting, and Stimpacks, which function as part adrenaline shot, and part natural repair accelerator. They're most often found in the Clinic, though Stimpacks tend to be scattered around most places. They're uncommon, but not ridiculously rare, and can quickly speed up the process of healing broken bones, lacerations, and the like. If you inject the Stimpack locally, it will speed up healing of the damage in that area, quite effectively, though it won't spread to other areas, whereas if you inject it, usually into your upper arm veins or torso, and it has to travel, it'll heal most all of your injuries, but only a little bit.

Otherwise, if you need to dull the pain, there's plenty of whiskey, and wine around.

FOOD AND WATER
The food is mostly non-perishable canned or dried goods from about 200 years ago, bottles of water that are usually irradiated or dirty, and occasionally stuff like radroach meat, though it's of questionable freshness. Still, there isn't really anything or anywhere to restock from, so what you see is what you get, and squandering all your good food and water from the get-go will just lead everyone to problems later on.

If everyone is good, occasionally the mysterious kidnapper will leave a few boxes of fresher supplies near the gate when no one is around. But that's not very common.

Fresh, clean water is actually probably the hardest thing to come by. There's plenty of dirty, irradiated water, but cleaner water might take some extra scrounging, and hoarding it is recommended.