Geek Native has some exclusive preview material for Backroads: City of the Arch. It’s a post-apocalyptic setting that uses Backwater Games’ own game system, which you can get as a Name Your Own Price Quickstart on Itch.
The American gothic style to Backgrounds expands, spreads, and the horror of Backwater: Southern Gothic Horror, exploring the irrational, puritanism and the fear of North America’s intimidating natural landscape.
Two notable actual plays are coming up if that sounds interesting and fancy seeing the game in action. On Wednesday 25th, at 7 PM CST, there’s Toddmoonbounce and the crew. After that, on Tuesday 31st, also at 7 PM CST, there are Nerds with Dice.
Backroads: City of the Arch preview
[Download City of Arch preview]
Some of this Mississippi Buck-Toothed Devil has been seen before in a promotional post on the previous Kickstarter. Aside from that, there’s also Backroads: City of Arch preview content to enjoy here too.
The Mississippi’s Buck-Toothed Devil
The Mississippi is by far the largest and most impressive of the Outskirts’ rivers. It retains its beauty and grandeur despite the centuries of pollution flowing through it, much of which comes from cities like St. Louis as the banks erode and ruins collapse. As the great father of waters, its stream mixes with the other Outskirts’ rivers and flows violently south. Its brutal course helps carry refuse downstream, all the way to New Orleans. There, it would normally discharge into the Gulf of Mexico, were it not for scavvers with makeshift riggings, which filter and sift through the wreckage for potential valuables. Even waterlogged electronics have a price…
Over time, this pollution has affected some of the River’s natural inhabitants, breeding monstrosities—abnormally large and aggressive versions of fauna—to threaten the scavvers and travelers of the Outskirts. Are they abhorrent aberrations? Or just another way that nature seeks to reclaim the land? Among these, the Mississippi’s gigantic catfish has inspired the most numerous tales and legends, but the massive and majestic beaver (in my humble opinion) is severely underrepresented. This giant is not-so gentle; yet, its slow and lumbering movement have tempted more than one fool to try to tame a buck-toothed devil for a mount. Don’t underestimate this beast! To my knowledge, only one adventurer has succeeded, supposedly: the wild and legendary wastelander, Deputy Tom. This modern Pecos Bill tamed one of these monstrosities after the collapse of Crystal Crossing’s bridge. He showed up on the back of a massive and angry beaver, which he used to ferry across several different groups of travelers. The only casualty (so they say) was a merchant’s wooden wagon.
Archetypes Preview
An archetype denotes a character’s basic function and abilities. There are four scavver archetypes to choose from: Spelunker, Spiritualist, Steadfast, and Sparklock.
Each archetype tends to be good at certain tasks or in specific circumstances. Spelunkers are crucial for exploring the dilapidated ruins of St. Louis or the moldy caverns in the Ozark forest. They can survive most anywhere and fix your broken gear, to boot. Spiritualists come with a variety of skills, best known for ministering aid, healing party members, or keeping up morale with their divine oration. Steadfast tend to be a sort of portable brick wall for the party, blocking enemies, absorbing blows, and protecting their friends at all costs. Finally, Sparklocks provide the group with a little bit of… spark—machine magic, to be clear. They can generate electricity to power tech, shock their foes, and improve their colleagues’ weapons.
Sparklock Archetype
A sparklock is the gold nugget of every tech-expedition party: rare and valuable. Yet outside a tech-expedition, they are treated with suspicion and skepticism for their electrical and technological witchery. In their hands, ancient technology is born anew, and the electronic doors of ancient ruins lie open before them. They weave their blood and willpower into the technology they use, enhancing its effects or repairing it from the inside out. In the rest of the American Lands, sparklocks are essentially non-existent, perhaps because there is so little technology for them to explore their powers with. One popular theory is that sparklocks and seers are one in the same. The only difference is the context in which they’re raised. Sparklocks may be rare in St. Louis, yet they are much easier to find here than elsewhere. In fact, they have quite the reputation in Meecham, where they are nicknamed “hotshots and “sparkplugs” for their wild egos and stupidly dangerous gambles.
Spelunker Archetype
Spelunkers or urban explorers, as they are sometimes called, come from all walks of life with dreams of obtaining coin, knowledge, or fame through the secrets that ancient cities have to offer. They are common, and in St. Louis even small expeditions hire one or two. Yet, few are prepared to be a successful spelunker, which can require long nights in utility corridors and sewers, scaling the exterior of crumbling buildings, and knowing where to look in the ruins for a particular object. Some spelunkers specialize in cartography and exploration; many specialize in fixing and scavenging ancient technology; and a few focus on research for biology or archeology. Whereas the companies in St. Louis are only after ancient tech, there are plenty of spelunkers in the city looking for surviving books, historical artifacts, rare plants, or simply a better understanding of what happened to this city so long ago.
Spiritualist Archetype
Most expeditions, whether into the Outskirts or the ruins of St. Louis, have some sort of priest or spiritualist, even if their only duty is to bury the dead. In fact, Providence Company expeditions require a spiritualist on all expeditions—technically a Framer of the Founder’s cult, although requests for other spiritualists have been approved. Spiritualists can be ministers or clerics of any religion in the American Lands. What connects them is the intense belief in and connection with the spirit world or metaphysical reality of their faith, as well as a few uncanny gifts that they attribute to the divine. Most spiritualists have a knack for healing wounds and cleansing the mind. Whereas seers are feared for their magic, spiritualists are respected or revered for their magic, which some call “grace”—so much so that a few priests have pretended to be spiritualists for the clout. The exception to this respect are the spiritualists who claim they can commune with the dead, for they are as reviled as those who practice blood magic: rarely do the dead say what a spiritualist’s client wants to hear…
Steadfast Archetype
Every expedition needs some muscle, ideally for hauling loot but usually for carrying back the dead. Dominion soldiers are expensive yet effective in combat, merks or mercenaries can be unpredictable and trigger-happy, and most amateurs are better at turning tail than kicking tail. A wise and cost-effective middle ground is represented by the steadfast. A steadfast is not a real job title or role by any means. Rather it is a nickname for a reliable and resolute guard, usually a veteran in the freight business, an experienced bodyguard, or a former upholder of the law. For the most part, steadfasts are considered non-violent defenders, but their non-violence is contingent upon the danger of their situation. All of this is to say that steadfasts are rarely known to take violent jobs; however, if their job turns violent, they will uphold their bargain and protect their expedition mates. Steadfasts tend to have one of the following ideals: Industry, Protection, or Wealth.
Setting Preview
History of the City
One of Old America’s major population centers, a combination of evacuation, plague, and war completely depopulated the city of St. Louis in the years after The End’s initial destructive events. The many years that followed the collapse of human society turned the metropolitan area into a decaying urban jungle, with many partially collapsed structures and a tangle of sickly, mutated plant life. Until recently, the only life to be found in the ruins was the Gores, Hollow Men, and other mutant monstrosities hostile to human life that infested the ruined buildings and underground spaces of the once proud city. Despite all this, the city remains remarkably intact, a far cry from the utterly destroyed urban centers of the coasts, or the megacities of the interior, like Chicago or Phoenix.
Following the “discovery” of the city by scouts and explorers from the American Lands, St. Louis quickly became a magnet for the desperate and the optimistic, each hoping to haul from the ruins of the city a cache of Old World weapons, technology, or knowledge. Promising the opportunity to change one’s fortunes overnight, untold numbers of the brave and foolhardy alike have found their fate in the city’s ruins; some returning home exceedingly rich, most earning only an unmarked, hastily dug grave among the rubble. Still, the siren song of hidden wealth just waiting to be uncovered means that there is a never ending supply of those who are willing to risk everything in the uncompromising ruins of the City of the Arch.
The First Expeditions
The first major expedition into the ruins was financed by the Elector of the Heartlands, alongside several of his leading vassals, including the governors of Maine and Connecticut, and the Chief Justice, the formal head of the Church of the Founders. The head of the expedition, Governor Morris of Maine, was a highly intelligent and capable woman who spared no expense in preparation, ensuring that locals who knew the outskirts of ruins were paired with highly trained troops who excelled in wilderness survival, and could live on their own for weeks at a time. Although occasionally attacked by the monstrous residents of the ruins, the expedition spent a solid month looting the outskirts of the western bank from their base at the ruins of the former St. Louis airport. Before returning home to report their phenomenal success, the leaders of the expedition left an armed enclave at the airport, which eventually grew into a sizable frontier city called Morris Flats. Everyone involved in the expedition became exceptionally rich, with one soldier reportedly garnering enough wealth to buy their hometown in its entirety.
Such spectacular success naturally spawned a host of imitators, each hoping to achieve similar results. Unfortunately, many were never heard from again. The most infamous of these was the Meecham Expedition, launched around ten years after the initial (or Maine) expedition. Like the Maine Expedition, the Meecham Expedition was financed largely from the personal coffers of several leading members of the nobility, this time gathering the three wealthiest individuals in the Tidewater: the Tidewater Elector, the Governor of Virginia, and the Commandant of the Citadel. Each of these nobles poured in massive sums of money, fully expecting an equally massive return on their investment.
To command the expedition, the Tidewater Elector selected Sir William “Bill” Meecham, a decorated commander of the numerous “Little Wars” of the Tidewater, an instructor at the Citadel, and rumored to be the bastard son of a former Lord Presiding. With a well equipped army of 700 personally selected soldiers and support staff, Meecham planned to head deeper into the ruins than any previous expedition, hoping to find vast, untouched heaps of technology and weapons. Arriving in the spring, Meecham established his camp on the eastern banks of the sluggish, polluted Mississippi directly across from the famed arch, and began scouting the ruins.
Disaster struck almost immediately. Several scouting patrols never returned, while sole survivors of others patrols reported being hunted, ambushed, and slaughtered by terrible monsters that lived in the ruins. Morale plunged, and the camp took on the aspect of a city under siege by a shadow enemy. Meecham turned to increasingly draconian measures to ensure discipline, reportedly executing two soldiers whose boots were not polished to his standards. Dozens deserted, some returning home with tales of an increasingly desperate situation, others into the ruins that day by day seemed to mock the camp with their silence. The final straw came when Meecham’s own son-in-law went missing in the ruins during a routine scouting patrol.
In a rage, Meecham vowed to lead every remaining member of the expedition into the ruins, threatening death to those who disobeyed. The entirety of the expedition left the camp, and none ever returned. A group of settlers from Morris Flats arrived after several weeks had passed with no contact, and discovered the camp empty, with only Meecham’s increasingly erratic expedition logs as evidence for what had transpired since the Expedition’s arrival. A relief force dispatched by the Elector to find Meecham in the ruins came back empty handed, and no sign or indication of the expedition’s fate has ever been discovered.
News of the loss of the entire Meecham Expedition caused a shockwave in Tidewater society, resulting in the ruin of the three nobles who backed it. The Elector was removed from his post, as was the Governor Virginia. Still, the disaster sparked a new wave of interest in the city and its ruins, with numerous theories as to what had been the cause of Meecham’s disappearance. It also inspired a new round of adventurers hoping to succeed where Meecham had failed.
Quick Links
- Kickstarter Backroads: City of the Arch
- Backwater Quickstart on Itch
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