RQG Storyjam!

## Content Warnings

Part 1 Guns, post-apocalyptic world, tumours, body horror, teratomata, organ harvesting, hearing voices & talking with inanimate objects, bombs, mass murder, industrial accidents, use of terms 'mental' and 'crazy', sunstroke, death from exposure, toxic religion
Part 2 Guns, nuclear weapons, tumours, street warfare, body horror, bombs, mass death, mass murder, fire, snakes, cannibalism (including of tumours), blood, drug use (morphine, snake venom), trapped underground, toxic religion, death by: poisoning, being burned alive, being run over by a vehicle, weapons, morphine.

## Summary

Join Alex, James, Bryn, Lydia, and special guest Ed Croft as they try out the Beta for the RPG app Storyjam!

[**Editor's Note:** The Storyjam app no longer appears to be available.]

## Character summary

#### Nut McKenna (he/ him)

Nut is a mutant that kills people in Hubtown and harvests their body parts to improve his own.

#### Flash Blaze (he/ him)

A renegade 'scientist' that has been exiled from Hubtown due to their experiments, who is carrying the world's last Bounty bar.

#### Lock Coil (she/ her)

Lock is an anti-corruption gun-toting priest that travels the wasteland with her friendly gun named Snappy that talks to her and tells her where to go.

#### Regina O'Connor (she/ her)

Tech Shaman. A scrawny young tech shaman that preaches the religion of the hidden underground city with a cavern of technological gods.

#### Johnny Seconi (he/ him)

An *incredibly* withered old cult leader, trying to lead the desperate survivors of his 'eggsiled' cult in the desert.

## Synopsis

### Episode 1

This story takes place in HubTown, the only functioning town in this wasteland in a post-apocalyptic world in which rats are holy, and where each citizen is issued a mysterious egg to look after (if it cracks before hatching, the citizen is eggsecuted or eggsiled). Survivors move to Hubtown in particular because its abundant and possibly natural hot air vents provide shelter for eggs. [Character creation takes place- see the individual character pages for details.]

Regina O'Connor goes to a bar in the seedy part of town to meet the town hitman and slides over the money she's earned from selling knick-knacks for the past year as payment. She has arranged for the mole people to create a distraction so the hitman can get into the palace. A lookout shouts to alert the others of the mole people.

Johnny Seconi rallies the eggxiles to march towards HubTown in a sedate yet enthusiastic coup. Some of them get sunstroke, unfortunately, causing many to faint on top of each other creating a crush of people in the desert.

### Episode 2

Nut McKenna is shambling through the marketplace with some tumours lagging behind him, carrying a family heirloom, a Sainsbury's bag for life. Inside the bag, a ticking would be heard if not for the crowded noises of the market. Nut McKenna has spent quite a while creating a very deadly bomb, including broken glass and lead piping. Everyone around him avoids eye contact and so he strides to a mound in the corner and starts excavating the mound to place the bomb inside. Nut discovers an undetonated Atom Bomb in the mound. A vague memory of the radiation symbol comes to him, but he ignores it and places the bomb on the radiation symbol. The timer is set for 3 hours, and so Nut McKenna moves out of the blast radius of his own bomb, not realising the much larger blast radius that he has created.

Flash, in his lab, has hatched a venomous snake from one of his eggs. He has been harvesting the venom and injecting it into lemonade because he knows the religious cult are in the desert. So as Nut waits for their bomb to go off, Flash exits his lab with a crate of poisoned lemonade knowing the cult is coming to town today. He's going to deliver the crate to them as a "welcome to town gift." The cultists that are left have been taking clothes from each other to cool down. They are dragging themselves across the desert, only the hardiest and most lightly dressed having made it as far as the town. Upon approaching Hubtown, they spot a crate of lemonade and race towards it. They take deep gulps of lemonade, only to collapse from poison. Over their dying bodies, Flash and Johnny's eyes meet.

Lock is entering town, dragging the robot behind her. It keeps asking if she needs her corridors vacuumed and what she would like for dinner. Snappy is whispering in her ear about how nice he would look with a flamethrower, and if she loves Snappy she will find him some flames. She passes the pile of bodies on the way to the town. As Lock is entering through the guarded gate to Hubtown, mole people slit the guards' throats from behind and Lock walks through without trouble. She then takes a flamethrower from a casualty of the fight.

The mole people, having taken technology from their underground city, reveal modified old-world artillery and destroy the watchtower. They surge forward toward the gap and Lock realizes she must chose a side in the battle happening. The mole people move past her and one tries to take the flamethrower from her so she begins killing them in the square.

Whilst the mole people are attacking, Regina attempts to gain the support of the people so that they can hold the city. She stands on her soap box in the square and shouts *"People of Hubtown! The mole people are our saviours. No longer need we be afraid of these rats. No longer need you be exiled if you fail in your duties. The mole people have great resources of power and tanks."* A small crowd gathers around Regina, listening now that they know she is not insane. However, one of Johnny's surviving cult members moves through this crowd, slithering forward until he pulls out a homemade pepper pot pistol taking a shot at Regina.

Johnny, seeing the destruction being wrought upon Hubtown, reconsiders his final destination. Observing the remains of his dead cult, he turns instead to where the mole people have been emerging from. He shuffles towards the entrance in order to seek technology with which to return to Hubtown and cleanse it. As he moves, we see another undetonated atom bomb under the original atom bomb, as they are atop a delivery shaft from a military silo.

Nut McKenna orders a croissant as he enjoys the destruction around him. Lock is having "the time of her life" killing mole people as Snappy rejoices over being aflame, setting mole people and cars full of mole people alike on fire. She is turning the tide back towards the inhabitants of the town, entirely by accident.

Flash, having successfully eliminated all but the leader of the cult, sneaks back to his lab to dye his hair and change his coat. Once he has disguised himself again, he hops in his car and turns on the tracking devices he had placed in every can of lemonade. One cult member, having just shot at Regina O'Connor, is in the centre of town and Flash is going to find him. He drives through town, one arm out the window as people battle mole people around him. When the cult member spots him, they turn to run but he absolutely flattens them with his car.

Lock Coil is looking for a scientist to help her with attaching Snappy to the flamethrower, burning stuff absent-mindedly as she goes. Suddenly, long forgotten sirens blare over HubTown as the entrance to the missile silo beneath town opens due to the vibrations from the battle, revealing the remains of cannibalistic marines emerging from within. They have been stretching out their time, slowly eating those from the lowest ranks until only officers were left. They use their well maintained but no less ancient guns to sweep out into the city. The mole people and the citizens of Hubtown, recognising a common enemy, temporarily stop fighting each other to fight these marines.

**BREAK**

Regina is bleeding out, having been shot through the heart. She raises her staff and asks that her people "Make [her] a martyr," as she gasps her final breaths. Her people consider this for a moment, and then go back to shopping. The mole people, however, heed her call. They proceed to drag her body underground to preserve for "holy relics." The shoppers are apparently not too concerned with this as the fighting has not reached this area, yet.

Johnny Seconi, sewing his three piece suit back together, is still headed towards the entrance to the mole people's underground city. He is met with the first mole-people gatekeepers of the underground city and tries to convince them that they need his way of life. The mole people do not buy in to this, but do decide he will make an appropriate sacrifice to their prophet, Regina O'Connor, and drag him underground. Outside, the Flash sees a ramp emerge from the ground, and even from his car, can hear his rival rhapsodizing the righteousness of soufflé from underground. He contemplates going down to run him over, but the decision is taken out of his hands by the mole people and some grappling hooks because they want his car.

Nut McKenna, worried that the bomb isn't counting down fast enough, goes to check it and accidentally stops it instead. Nut has a brief moment of wondering if they are, in fact, one of the bad guys, before passing out from sunstroke. When Nut wakes up, he is on a table under a halogen light. Sitting up, he finds himself in a hospital bed with many of his tumours removed and replaced with skin grafts. The retreating marines have taken him back with them and are eating tumour sandwiches. He has become a surprisingly somewhat renewable food resource for them and is now their leader. (Which is horrifying. Thanks Alex.) As their leader, Nut now has the suitcase with the big red button (he has no idea what it does) and the scene fades as he flops slowly forward towards it.

Flash, knowing that only one of his enemies remains, lets the mole people take his car and rolls out as they lock it in place. He comes up, dual wielding his dart guns loaded with snake venom and lays waste to everyone around him, especially Johnny, who is shot in the head. In destroying his enemy, he leaves behind the car and all the valuables within, including his Bounty Bar. As he emerges to the surface though, he sees the two deactived atom bombs in the square and actually recognizes the symbol. Panicking, he attempts to disarm the bombs, but in doing so actually activates them both with a countdown timer of three minutes.

Lock, completely unaware of anything that's going on, stumbles around perpetuating destruction. The robot, terrified by the destruction around them, finally breaks and tells Lock they have the plans to the underground city, or rather the missile silo beneath Hubtown. The robot's programming has been activated alongside the bomb and they are meant to switch the bomb back off. Lock, coming upon Flash, finds the bomb and the robot insists it knows how to deactivate it again. Lock however, upon discovering the bomb, panics and starts shooting wildly in a desperate attempt to deactivate it herself. Flash Blaze runs and Lock is left alone with a screaming gun, a screaming robot, and an active atom bomb. She points her gun at the timer, and unloads directly into it. This does not stop countdown, only makes it invisible.

In the depths of their base, the mole people hang Regina on a cross at the bottom of the atom bomb and it ignites her skin as it begins take off. Johnny Seconi, venom taking him, finds himself in a lovely kitchen feeling the heat of an oven baking a soufflé as the flames from the rocket melt his face. Nut McKenna, slumping towards the button, cannot get up and so he presses a different button for morphine and loses consciousness. Flash Blaze, seeing the bomb rising from the ground, leaps onto it to attempt to remove the detonator before it can go off, pulling at wiring even as they fire into the air. Lock, at the behest of her gun Snappy, also jumps onto the atom bomb to try and strap it to the gun and while pulling off panels, she accidentally removes the detonator.

The atom bomb lands, undetonated. Hubtown moves on from its absolutely weirdest day.

## Mechanics

*In Storyjam, the app generates prompt questions, which the players answer in turn to create a collaborative story.*

### Episode 1

* What bizarre law is the leader of Hubtown now enforcing?
	+ Rats are holy
* What unusual device is issued to everyone who becomes a citizen of Hubtown?
	+ An egg from an unknown creature that you have to look after. If it cracks before it is born, death penalty.
* What abundant resource makes Hubtown so settle-able?
	+ Hot air vents.
* What is the tone of your story?
	+ Naturalistic with fantasy aspects.

The characters are created using app-generated suggestions and player input. The names and basic details are decided by the character's player, and each answer is fleshed out by the other players. Character descriptions and questions and answers are on the character pages- see the links on the character names above.

* Tech shaman: Describe the scene as you employ a hitman.
* Tech shaman: Choose which of the following will appear in the scene: bodyguards, mole people, or a minigun
	+ Mole people
* Cult Leader: Describe the scene as you lead the desperate survivors.
* Cult Leader: Which of these now feature? Sunstroke, mutant (inaudible), or giant scorpions?
	+ Sunstroke

### Episode 2

* Mutant: Describe the scene as you plant a bomb.

* Mutant: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ A deactivated Atom Bomb.

* Scientist: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ A Drag Race
* Gun-Toting Priest: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ An Artillery Gang
* Tech Shaman: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ Someone reveals they're in the religious cult.
* Cult Leader: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ Another Deactivated Atom Bomb
* Mutant: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ Flamethrower sets fire to a vehicle
* Scientist: Choose which of these three will now be featured in the scene.
	+ A suped up weaponized car
* Tech Shaman: Which one of these will now appear in the scene?
	+ The Mole People drag someone under ground.
* Cult Leader: Which one of these will now appear in the scene?
	+ The Mole People drag someone under ground.
* Mutant: Which one of these will now appear in the scene?
	+ Someone passes out from sunstroke and wakes up in a better place.
* Scientist: Which one of these will now appear in the scene?
	+ Someone discovers a deactived atom bomb and panics.
* Gun-Toting Priest: Which one of these will now appear in the scene?
	+ Someone discovers a deactived atom bomb and panics.

## Notes

HubTown is loosely based on the aesthetic of the film (unclear which version) Mad Max.