Observations of the Fox

A bit more Walkabout Pseudoscience (Disclaimer: This post really gets into details that most player character would never need to know for the Walkabout setting. In fact it probably gets into details that would never be uncovered or remembered by most people in the setting…it’s just some hypothesizing and theory work). So far I’ve tried to make some fairly generalised comments on the way the world has changed in the Walkabout setting. These seem to have met no real controversy, but they’ve just been a series of fairly logical steps based on the pseudo-science (and manifestation of spirits) within the world. One of the pieces of pseudo-science that has been rattling around in my brain relates to an article I read about one of the X-men a few years back. I can’t remember where I read the article, so please don’t ask, but it went through Nightcrawler’s ability to teleport, and whether his momentum in one particular location would translate through to his momentum in another ...

To see the earlier parts of this series... Click here for Part 1: Geotectonics Click here for Part 2: Weather Click here for Part 3: Vegetation   Click here for Part 4: Humanity Click here for Part 5: Technology Click here for Part 6: People (Part 1) The People of the Walkabout World (Part 2)   Those who survived in the wilderness Generally, there were four types of people survived in the deepest wilderness; the powerful, the military, the survivalists and the last of the natives. Working backwards through those groups… The natives of the new world felt the changes just like everyone else, but without a strong reliance on technology, money or “civilisation”, they handled these changes far better. Still able to harvest the plants around their homes, as well as fish or hunt; they were self-sufficient even as the people of the cities starved. Still respectful to their land and its unseen inhabitants, they suffered far less at the hands of maraudi...

To see the earlier parts of this series... Click here for Part 1: Geotectonics Click here for Part 2: Weather Click here for Part 3: Vegetation   Click here for Part 4: Humanity Click here for Part 5: Technology The People of the Walkabout World (Part 1) The premise of the Walkabout setting is a world out of balance. If quantum physics is right and reality is shaped by the observer, then imagine how dangerous the world might become when the natural side of things is blinded by the ideologies of money, war and fundamentalist religious doctrine. Would the world literally shift in alignment with the tainted observations of ten billion souls? Perhaps not, but that’s what a lot of the Quantum Shamans of the post-apocalypse believe. But for every Quantum Shaman, there is a neo-Christian from the Church of the Third Coming, each holding true to the belief that the tilt was proof of the divine walking on the Earth. These zealots believe that the o...

This isn't really game related, it's just something else that's happening in the lives of Vulpinoid Studios at the moment. We've adopted a "special needs" pet, a blind ferret named Fifi, she's been abused and we're nursing her back to health. We've set up a Facebook page for her, under the name "Fifi the Blind Ferret". The page is just a record of our progress with helping her out...maybe a photo every couple of days, a video every week or two...definitely not a page full of spam and cute-animal photo reshares from around Facebook. We appreciate anyone who wants to join this page, or share it with their friends. There probably won't be much more about Fifi on this blog, but she might appear in some of the pictures for our games.

Maps Major Aerial Trade Routes (Links off to the west indicate trade to the former Antarctica, links to the east head toward Asian surviving communities) Territorial Boundaries Zones of Heightened Spiritual Activity (Lightning bolts indicating uranium deposits, and nuclear symbols indicating major radioactive blast sites)

To see the earlier parts of this series... Click here for Part 1: Geotectonics Click here for Part 2: Weather Click here for Part 3: Vegetation Click here for Part 4: Humanity Technology After the Tilt Technologically minded shamans believe that radioactivity has traditionally been a sign of weakness between metaphysical realms. They claim that spirits sought out these locations in the past, using them as gateways to move between their realm and ours, and as points of recharge for their powers. Among the other groups who believe paranormal effects are due to aliens, aware swarms of nanotechnology, or quantum effects manifest in the world due to mass delusion and psychosis, there are other theories linking paranormal phenomena and electromagnetic radiation. The one thing that is certain in the world is that the most advanced technologies are now risky to use. The first thing to impact on technology in the tilted world of Walkabout was the series of electromagnetic pulses ...

To see the earlier parts of this series... Click here for Part 1: Geotectonics Click here for Part 2: Weather Click here for Part 3: Vegetation The Immediate Impact of Humanity on the Tilted World One of the core conceits of the Walkabout setting lies with a simple set of axioms. Australian Aboriginal sacred sites tend to coincide with major sites of metallic ores, quite often the sites where Uranium is found in abundance. Australian Uranium has been exported around the world, and in fact Australia is one of the world's major exporters of the radioactive element. The radiation from Uranium Dioxide and other radioactive compounds is capable of producing mutation in living organisms. Across most of the world, humanity has abandoned the myths and religions of the past. In quantum physics, the presence of an observer collapses probability waveforms into coherent reality. There is more to the world than we are capable of observing, even with our most advanced technologie...