dicebox - MECH KIDS (d12)
TW: colonialism, climate change, death
[♪♪♪] story intro / missions / major groups / story beats / oeri-hoan history / arcs
Hi!
This is a campaign setting I ran for a first-time group of players. The structure was a monster-of-the-week, with players racing to stop kaiju called ANGELS from reaching the shore. I’ve tried to adapt my chaotic Google Drive notes on the setting here.
The goal was to expand on kaiju stories like Shin Godzilla, Neon Genesis Evangelion, Umurangi Generation, and Into the Breach, where incomprehensible monsters threaten humanity. Those stories clearly draw from Asian anxieties after WW2 (especially between Japan and the atomic bomb). And they’re something I don’t see much of in American sci-fi — apocalypses that target places other than New York City, resisted by mostly Asian protagonists.
A great example of that anxiety is how Shin Godzilla’s ragtag team of Japanese scientists must stop the kaiju before America drops a third nuke on Japan — an ultimatum that’s both chilling and humiliating. And I love the power of their framing — kaiju turn our anxieties and existential threats into something we can kill, albeit rarely without consequences.
In this setting, I wanted the main anxiety to be imperialism and climate change in Southeast Asia. Here, the island nations of Oerin and Hoan had a long history of occupying one another long before the Saxon Empire colonized them both. This sets up the devil’s bargain that Oerin and Hoan are making to resist annihilation — working with the Saxon Army to fight ANGELS in the New East. The Saxons are matched by Viennids in Central America and Gaels in East Africa, also fighting ANGELS alongside their former colonies.
Yet even before any ANGELS arrive, their looming threat reshapes the islands, opening up political, military, and social changes that the players are caught between. Instead of asking how an apocalypse might end humanity, leaving no real stories to tell, maybe we can ask how an apocalypse might change us.
Let’s fly.
STORY INTRO
In 2072, the world boils yet again.
It’s been three decades since the UN initiative to seed the stratosphere with sulfate slowed both rapid warming and human desperation. But the droughts, famine, and disease that followed are only getting worse as rainfall and ecosystems fail to recover.
The rot of a Sixth Mass Extinction is attracting previously undetected megafauna to the surface. They vary in size, form, and destructive potential. The world’s surviving humans call them ANGELS.
Humanity responded with a program to build giant MECHA piloted by young children. A coalition of UN Forces and former colonial powers operates three bases nearby ANGEL hotspots – the Horn of Africa, the Central Gulf, and the New East.
The newest base sits on the impoverished island-nation of OERIN. The Oeri survived a brutal Saxon colonial occupation, a civil war that split them from the nearby nation of Hoan, and a Saxon-backed coup of their democratically elected government.
The base marks the Saxon army’s return to the New East after a century of fragile independence. Once again, they promise salvation and peace.
You are their pilots.
MISSIONS
Every mission begins with an ANGEL sighting, typically approaching a population center or military assets.
BASE-III deploys a squad of MECHA pilots to kill the ANGEL before it reaches the shore. If the squad fails, BASE-III will resort to a heavy blanket bombardment that causes untold collateral damage. This is taken wholesale from the game Sad Teen Mecha Pilots by Unknown Dungeon, go check them out!
Since all ANGELS are unique, squads balance cautiously studying their behavior and quickly killing them before they make landfall. Since pilots train between missions, pilots who are recovering from heavy injuries can’t pick up new abilities and weaponry.
MAJOR GROUPS
UNITED NATIONS: An international coalition of world governments. Operates BASE-I and BASE-II alongside the Viennids and Gaels.
OERIN: An island nation. Formerly part of the Saxon Empire and the kingdom of Hoan. Governed by a military autocracy.
HOAN: An island nation. Formerly part of the Saxon Empire. Governed by a fragile liberal democracy.
SAXONY: A former colonial power that dominated the Old East. Currently operates BASE-III in Oerin alongside the UN.
BASE-III: A military operation under the command of the UN, but effectively run by Saxony. The Oeri military provides supporting staff and intelligence. BASE-III has a clandestine international team of scientists researching the ANGELS.
OERI CIVIL FORCE: A branch of the Oeri military tasked with keeping the peace domestically. Recently dealing with increasing dissent over BASE-III funding and the presence of Saxon soldiers.
My players were mostly Oeri or Hoan teens. Their commanders were a mix of Oeri, Hoan, and Saxon military officials.
STORY BEATS
Since TTRPG campaigns are improvised episodic stories, these are basically episode plots that I plan between sessions and pull out when players are in the right spot.
UNREST: A player’s relatives get involved or caught up in political unrest, putting them at odds with the Oeri Civil Force. The player gets news of a relative’s protest/curfew violation/arrest between missions.
FLOTILLA: Players find a flotilla of Hoan refugees displaced by another squad’s failed mission during combat. The boats are easily damaged, block player movement, and are difficult to evacuate.
STORM: Terrible weather obscures an ANGEL until it’s far too close to a major city. The players deploy far too late and with reduced visibility.
SURVIVOR: Another pilot squad is deployed on an unwinnable mission and returns severely injured. Their only uninjured pilot deploys with the player squad, showing signs of defensiveness/guilt/arrogance/disassociation.
THE DRILL: The Hoan government is furious when BASE-III bombs a Hoan oil rig in waters that Hoan and Oerin both claim, alleging that Oeri officers exaggerated or falsified an ANGEL threat.
STARSTRUCK: A famous pilot from BASE-I is one of the only pilots of first-generation MECHA to survive until young adulthood. They reach out to a player and get scared that BASE-III is repeating the mistakes that got their cohort killed.
FOIL: After a player comes back heavily injured from a mission, another pilot with almost their exact load-out gets added to the squad. The rival is insufferably talented and left their previous squad for unknown reasons.
NEW BLOOD: BASE-III gets a new commander from BASE-II. Existing officials are promoted/demoted/fired as the commander executes their new vision. Pilots experience new restrictions/requirements/freedoms.
DESERTER: Players wake up to an emergency meeting in the hangar. Another pilot they know has disappeared from BASE-III and taken their MECHA with them. Panic and suspicion overtake BASE-III.
ROT: An entire unit of the Oeri Civil Forces is dismissed, falling ill after handling toxic ANGEL residue your mission left behind. Their hometown becomes the epicenter of a new disease.
WHALEFALL: ANGEL corpses wash up on an Oeri beach. You’ve never seen their variety before and wonder what killed them. Before the Oeri Civil Force can lock the beach down, locals loot pieces of the corpse to sell.
LEAK: A sample of ANGEL flesh is mishandled and contaminates BASE-III. Player training and base operations are disrupted as officers scramble to contain it. Players get a chance to talk to the usually reclusive scientists on BASE-III.
HOTSHOT: A young Viennid/Gaelic pilot deploys to BASE-III instead of BASE-I or BASE-II due to their exceptional abilities and ambitions/thrill-seeking/curiosity. Their understanding of and relationship to Oeri-Hoan culture provides a new (and potentially fraught) perspective.
PROTOTYPE: A player gets rewarded with a new weapon prototype based on ANGEL flesh. It often malfunctions in combat and causes strange, lingering psychological effects in its pilot.
ABANDON: A lesser ANGEL ravages an impoverished region in East Oerin. Players can find out that many such ANGEL attacks go unaddressed and are covered up by BASE-III, so long as they don’t pose a threat to military assets.
OERI-HOAN HISTORY
This was almost never relevant to the players but it helped me build out Oerin and Hoan. In-game, this actually led to a cool moment where we improvised that a player’s parents had never told them about their Oeri history in detail, despite living through the turmoil.
I’m still not sure if I want Oerin and Hoan to share a language, but they definitely speak something separate from the Saxons. I really wanted to have two conflicting Asian nations with a shared colonial history that shapes their current-day tensions, so the dynamic of imperialism isn’t solely between a former Asian colony and a European power.
227: The island kingdom of Hoan is founded.
680: Hoan expands into the nearby island of Oerin. The annexation is never complete or stable, as various Oeri tribes resist and secede over centuries of conflict.
1834: The Saxon Empire colonizes the Old East and administers the two islands as one province, Oeri-Hoan.
1961: The Oeri-Hoan war for independence begins.
1968: The Saxon Empire withdraws from Oerin.
1972: The Saxon Empire withdraws from Hoan. Oeri-Hoan is founded as an independent state. Tensions in the independence coalition simmer.
1973: Violence begins breaking out between Oeri communists, Hoan nationalists, Saxony loyalists, and the transition government.
1977: Right-wing Hoan nationalists overthrow the transition government. Left-wing Oeri parties declare Oerin’s secession from the union, sparking the Oeri-Hoan civil war.
1980: The popular left-wing Oeri government is toppled by a Saxon-backed coup and replaced with a military junta. Hoan occupies East Oerin in the chaos.
1985: The Oeri-Hoan civil war ends when Hoan withdraws from East Oerin. Oeri and Hoan are founded as two separate nations.
1997: Hoan slowly begins to liberalize and normalizes diplomatic relations with the outside world. Saxon support for the Oerin military junta wanes as they negotiate trade deals with Hoan.
2072: The UN announces that BASE-III, on West Oerin, is fully operational and will be run by a UN-Saxony coalition force with the support of Oeri’s government.
ARCS
I’m still working out how I think campaigns should be written. Are they just a sandbox of interesting places and people for players to bounce off of? Should there be pre-determined major events that players shape and adapt to?
How should we balance the fun of seeing somewhat random player actions impact the story and the satisfaction of a coherent, well-paced plot? This campaign didn’t run long enough to really test that, but these are some story arcs I was eyeing setups for.
IDOLS: A famous surviving Oeri pilot begins a national campaign against BASE-III with a protest/TV interview. She contacts the players to see if anyone within BASE-III shares her grievances and is willing to speak out.
GRIEF: Scientists discover that the ANGELS are drawn to the grief caused by the Sixth Mass Extinction. Each of their hotspots center around former colonies and sites of massive ecological loss.
COLLAPSE: An overwhelming surge of ANGELS prompts the UN to call for evacuating BASE-III and a blanket bombardment of most of the New East. Players must decide whether to move out of the way and fight the ANGELS on their retreat to Europe, or to defend the New East alone.
While it definitely would’ve evolved over more sessions, I think my core idea was that BASE-III is a military solution. But the ANGELS are an ecological problem that can’t be shot down permanently, and their arrival alongside BASE-III drives new political and social problems in the New East.
Human processes of colonization and industrialization changed the world enough for the ecological processes of climate change and ANGELS to appear. The setting then sees how human processes adapt to that harsh, terrifying ecology.
Because I mostly focused on the military within BASE-III and its interactions with the Oerin and Hoan governments, this is also a much less people-focused setting than I usually write. I think Oeri and Hoan would have vibrant social movements with plenty to say and do about BASE-III’s contradications. I also think many of them would already be adapting to the ongoing climate crisis and ANGELS in ways that surprise and challenge BASE-III. It’s just hard to see that from within the cockpit.
I might not revisit the New East for a while, but I hope it was interesting! Stay warm.