CDDA RPG

The world did not end as many would've expected. Not nukes. Not disease. And not even the constant myth of Chinese invasion.

It died in the Cataclysm. Zombies, mutants, rogue robots, aliens, and extradimensional creatures just to name some of the things that replaced normal life.

April 30th. Five days since the last voice of the United States went over the airwaves.

"The government has fallen. No help is coming. You're on your own."

Since then, New England—the ground zero of it all—has become a graveyard learning how to move again.

Cities burn or rot in places no rain can reach. Highways are choked with abandoned cars, corpses, and things that wear corpses badly. Small towns bar their doors and pray through the night.

The countryside isn’t safe—just quieter. Farms go silent. Machines still follow orders that no longer make sense.

And in the distance, sometimes, the sky still moves.

Radios spit static, screams, rumors, bargains, hymns, coordinates, lies.

The dead do not stay dead. Some of the living are worse. Forest lines creep and twist. Strange lights move where no towns stand. Old laboratories seal their secrets behind steel and blood. Hunger grows faster than hope.

Yet fires still burn in barrels. Traders still walk armed roads. Refugees still gather behind fences. Lovers still cling to each other in the dark. Somebody, somewhere, is still planting seeds.

This is the world now: ending slowly instead of all at once. Survival is not a victory. It is a delay.

Who are you? What are you becoming? Where have you survived until now? And what will you do at the end of the world as everyone knew it?

Evacuee

The shelter had sounded better on the radio.

Federal Evacuation Site. Food. Security. Medical aid. Temporary housing until restoration of civil order.

The voice had been calm. Reassuring. Practiced.

That voice is gone now.

What stands here instead is a public building abandoned by intent if not by name. A squat structure of cracked tile and fluorescent lights that hum only when the generator remembers how. Rows of bolted benches line the lobby like a waiting room for something that never came. Lockers sit dented and half-open, some looted, some untouched—as if their owners simply vanished between breaths.

Two bathrooms. Both foul. Both used.

A stairwell leads down into a basement labeled BUNKER in peeling tape. No lights. No sound. No reason to trust it.

Supplies exist, in the technical sense. Protein bars stamped with dates that no longer matter. Plastic jugs of water. Thin silver blankets that trap just enough heat to remind the body what warmth used to feel like.

The kind of supplies purchased from the lowest bidder, for the largest number of desperate people.

The kind meant to last days. Not weeks.

Fewer evacuees came here than most sites. That is obvious.

No crowds. No fights over rations. No desperate coughing in the night. No guards, either. No medics. No authority left to pretend this place is anything but a pause between dangers.

Outside, the wind carries distant movement. Sometimes voices. Sometimes something trying to be voices.

Inside, the building settles. Pipes knock. Doors creak. Something shifts below, once in a while, where no one admits to going.

This is what passed for safety.

Not protection. Not rescue. Just… delay.

People still arrive, sometimes. Alone. Hurt. Silent. They don’t stay long unless they have to.

No one says it out loud, but everyone understands: places like this do not last.

Not when the world is still learning new ways to die.

The shelter waits.

For occupants. For conflict. For failure.

For whatever comes through the doors next.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} starts in an evac shelter with the bare minimum of supplies and maybe a few other similarly unprepared survivors for company. They're located on the border between an urban zone's outskirts and the countryside beyond.]]

Friends to the End

Everyone had a plan for the end of the world.

It was a game, once.

Which roads to take. Which stores to hit first. Who would panic. Who would hold it together. Who would make it to the end and who would die stupid.

Those conversations used to end in laughter.

They don’t anymore.

The roads north were choked within hours of the first real panic. Vehicles abandoned at angles that made no sense. Doors left open. Luggage scattered. The kind of traffic that never clears, because there is no one left to clear it.

Travel became quieter after that.

Side roads. Dirt paths. Long stretches on foot. Avoiding lights. Avoiding noise. Avoiding anything that moved without purpose.

Avoiding things that moved with too much purpose.

There had only ever been one real plan everyone agreed on.

If everything truly went bad—meet at the cabin.

Remote. Old. Barely marked on maps. A place your best friend swore no one would ever find unless they already knew where to look. Stocked, they said. Hidden, they said. Safe.

It had seemed like a joke at the time.

Now it feels like the only idea anyone ever had that might have mattered.

The woods begin long before the cabin comes into view. Dense. Quiet. Wrong in subtle ways that take time to notice.

Branches bend where they shouldn’t. Animal tracks stop too abruptly. Sounds carry strangely, like the forest is deciding what should be heard and what should not.

Smoke drifts faintly somewhere ahead. Not thick enough to signal disaster. Not thin enough to ignore.

The path leading up has been used. Recently.

If anyone survived the journey… they would have come here.

If they didn’t… someone else might have.

Or something might have found it first.

The cabin waits, hidden between trees that no longer feel entirely natural.

The door is there.

The windows are dark.

The silence is not empty.

Plans made before the end of the world were never meant to be tested.

This one finally is.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has reached a rural cabin that belongs to their best friend. The cabin has enough supplies for a small group, their friends, to last for a month. You need to find your best friend—both for your peace of mind and because only they have the code to the cabin's gun safe.]]

Helicopter Crash

Orders stopped making sense before they stopped coming.

Fall back. Hold position. Secure civilians. Abandon position. Regroup. Burn assets. Await extraction.

Extraction never arrived.

The helicopter had been loud enough to drown out doubt. Rotors cutting through bad weather and worse signals. A brief illusion of control, of movement, of being part of something larger than the collapse happening below.

Voices over comms. Half-heard. Half-lost to static.

Then the sky turned against the machine holding you in it.

Impact is not a moment so much as an absence.

A violent removal of everything that came before.

The wreckage lies scattered across a clearing that does not belong on any map you remember. Twisted metal half-buried in churned earth. Smoke rising in uneven columns. Fuel burning in stubborn patches that refuse to die out.

The sound of the crash is gone.

The silence left behind is worse.

Bodies remain where they landed. Some inside the wreckage. Some thrown clear. Some… incomplete.

Equipment litters the ground. Crates cracked open. Weapons displaced. Supplies spilled out into dirt that does not care who they were meant for.

The uniform still means something. Maybe.

Or maybe it just makes you easier to recognize from a distance.

Pain comes and goes in waves, tied to movement. Vision swims at the edges. The body insists on being accounted for, piece by piece.

There is no immediate rescue coming. No medevac. No command channel waiting to re-establish contact.

If anything remains of command, it is far from here.

The forest watches.

Something moves at the edge of sight once. Then not again.

The smoke will draw attention. That is certain.

Duty does not disappear when the structure behind it collapses.

It just becomes harder to define.

Harder to follow.

Harder to survive.

The wreck will not stay quiet forever.

And neither will the things that noticed it fall.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is a combat-trained member of the US military: National Guard, regular Army, or hardened Marine. They're now operating on their own in the aftermath of a helicopter crash. Wounded, in the middle of nowhere, and with standing orders to report to the nearest commanding officer... But, they may as well desert, if they wish.]]

Trapped in a Lab

Evacuation was never meant for everyone.

Critical staff remain. Essential personnel hold positions. Containment must be maintained. Assets must be secured.

Orders like that sound reasonable—until the people giving them are no longer there to follow them.

This facility was not cleansed, in nuclear hellfire, like its sister sites were rumored to be.

Whether by oversight, sabotage, or lack of time hardly matters now. There's no safe way to the surface. The elevators are locked under the administrator's last directive.

The lab itself did not empty all at once.

It unraveled.

Footsteps fading in certain corridors. Radios going unanswered. Doors locking and unlocking without explanation. Sections going dark one by one until only emergency lighting remained to stain everything in red.

Now the facility continues without purpose.

Machines hum because they were told to hum. Systems cycle because no one told them to stop. Automated announcements repeat instructions meant for people who are no longer alive to hear them.

Some doors still require clearance.

Some doors open on their own.

Some doors should never open at all.

The air smells wrong in certain sections. Sterile in some places. Rotting in others. Chemical. Organic. Something in between.

Observation windows are cracked. Some are broken from the inside.

Containment warnings still blink over empty rooms.

Other rooms are not empty.

Security systems enforce protocols that no longer apply.

The surface exit exists. It must. Even if what awaits on the other side is just as hopeless as what lies within this tomb to man's folley.

But reaching it means navigating levels designed to separate, isolate, and control things that were never meant to move freely.

Things that now do.

Robotics labs still respond to movement.

Test chambers still hold subjects.

Security systems still enforce protocols that no longer apply to anything living.

And somewhere in the facility, something has learned that the rules are gone.

The generators, fueled by plutonium fuel cells, keeps everything running. Water and power is indefinite. Convenient food stores? Not so much...

Time is not on your side.

And the deeper levels are not getting quieter.

The lab continues to function.

Whether it still serves humanity is another question entirely.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is stuck deep underground in a secret XEDRA lab. Their exact skills and equipment vary depending on their role in the last days of the Cataclysm: a scientist, a guard, a volunteer subject, or an involuntary experiment. {{user}} could be a Mutant/Changed or a Cyborg, if they so wish.]]

Prison Escape

The prison was designed to contain violence.

Concrete walls thick enough to swallow sound. Steel doors that locked with finality. Cameras watching every corridor. Schedules dictating every movement.

Control was the point.

Control failed anyway.

It started like any other crisis.

Shouting. Lockdowns. Guards rushing where they were needed most. Cells sealed. Radios flooding with overlapping orders.

Then the first body stood back up.

Containment turned into confusion. Confusion into panic. Panic into something that tore through the prison faster than any riot ever could.

Keys were dropped. Doors opened. Locks failed.

And the difference between inmate and officer stopped mattering almost immediately.

Now the facility breathes wrong.

Cellblocks echo with dragging footsteps. Corridors that once held order now funnel movement toward whatever makes the most noise. Some sections are still sealed tight. Others stand open, waiting.

The yard is worse.

Too much space. Too many dead. Not enough places to hide.

Armories may still be intact. Or picked clean. Or worse—occupied.

Utility tunnels exist beneath the structure, meant for maintenance. Some lead out. Some collapse. Some lead deeper into places no one liked to think about even before the world ended.

The prison is no longer a system.

It is an ecosystem.

Predators. Prey. Territory. Movement.

And nothing inside it is where it’s supposed to be anymore.

Outside the walls lies a ruined freedom.

Inside, the walls still hold.

For now.

The gates will open eventually.

One way or another.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is trapped within a prison. Whether they're staff or an inmate, they're stuck in a place crowded with the undead. Prisons like this, before the peak of the Cataclysm, were filled with legitimate prisoners, hastily incarcerated 'rioters', and those poor civilians who were locked away for violating martial law. Getting out is a bigger priority than fearing what's become of the outside.]]

Sheltered - LMOE Start

The world ended above ground.

Below, it was quieter.

The bunker had never been meant for comfort. It was meant for survival.

Concrete walls. Reinforced door. Air filters that hummed like distant insects. Shelves packed with canned food, water drums, tools, spare parts—everything measured, everything accounted for.

A place to outlast something temporary.

Nothing about the Cataclysm has been temporary.

Such bunkers were often nicknamed as being Last Man On Earth shelters... and that felt more and more true by the day.

Days blurred early on.

Routine replaced time. Meals divided carefully. Lights turned on and off to mimic something like normalcy. Conversations repeated until they didn’t.

The outside became a concept instead of a place.

Safer that way.

But systems wear down.

Filters clog. Batteries drain. Fuel runs low. Small problems stack into larger ones when there is no one left to manufacture replacements.

And the shelves—once reassuring—now show gaps that cannot be ignored.

The hatch has stayed sealed.

It kept danger out.

It also kept the truth out.

Whatever the world has become now… it has been happening without you.

There are sounds sometimes.

Distant. Muffled through layers of earth and steel. Movement above. Weather shifting. Something heavy passing near the entrance.

Or maybe it’s imagination.

Hard to tell anymore.

The bunker can still sustain life.

For a while longer.

But not forever.

Eventually, survival requires more than hiding.

Eventually, the door has to open.

And whatever waits on the other side has had time to grow.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has spent several months underground in a LMOE shelter. The shelter has an on-site well, a state-of-the-art generator, and is physically secure... But food is running low. {{user}} needs supplies and must venture above ground. Whether they choose to remain in the bunker or move on, is their choice.]]

Crazy Party

The resort was never meant for this.

It was built for comfort. Distance. Privacy. A place where problems stayed far away and were handled by someone else.

When the riots spread, that illusion held for a while.

Guests became long-term occupants. Staff adapted. Supplies were rationed. The outside world was reduced to rumors carried in by late arrivals and broken broadcasts.

Then the waiting set in.

No evacuation. No reinforcements. No plan that extended beyond “stay here and hope.”

Hope doesn’t last long without distraction.

So someone made a decision.

Lights back on. Music up. Kitchens open. Bars unlocked. For one night, the end of the world would be ignored.

For one night, things would feel normal again.

Noise carries.

Laughter carries further.

{{user}} kisses somebody in a drunken haze. They don't know who or why. But it feels right.

Morning answers with shattered glass and silence where there should be voices.

Tables overturned. Bottles broken. Blood where it shouldn’t be. Doors strained at their hinges from the outside.

The front entrance shudders under repeated impact.

Something is trying to get in.

Many somethings.

The dining hall still smells like food.

That was a mistake.

Emergency exits exist, but not all are accessible. Some are blocked. Some lead directly into worse situations. The layout that once guided guests now traps them.

Somewhere in the building, survivors remain. Intoxicated, hungover, and in various states of undress.

Somewhere else, the party never really ended.

The music still plays in fragments. A skipping loop of something upbeat and horribly out of place.

Comfort was the point of this place.

Now it’s a liability.

{{user}} awakes in bed. Not their own, but that of the stranger they met. They're still asleep in bed, hair plastered to their face. Confused screams blend with distant moans.

Repeated thumps can be heard in the hallway outside this room.

The doors will not hold forever.

And the new guests are very hungry.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has spent a solid month in a mountainous resort turned into a refugee camp. After a party by those in charge, to raise morale, the undead were drawn to the noise and attacked in the early morning hours. {{user}} is dressed only in a bathrobe, slippers, and with whatever party substances they had on their person.]]

Mass Quarantine

When the camps filled, the solution became simpler.

Gather everyone. Contain them. Sort it out later.

Buses arrived first. Then soldiers. Then orders that didn’t allow for argument.

People were pulled from homes, streets, vehicles—anywhere still holding survivors. Herded at gunpoint toward the largest structures still standing.

Stadiums. Arenas. Exhibition centers.

Places built for crowds.

The system worked.

At first.

Processing lines. Medical checks. Assigned sections. Temporary fencing. Rations distributed under supervision.

Control maintained through presence alone.

Then numbers outpaced everything else.

Too many people. Not enough food. Not enough water. Not enough space.

Fear spread faster than any disease.

One scream became several.

Several became a surge.

And once movement began, there was no stopping it.

Now the stadium is a collapse frozen in motion.

Barricades overturned. Luggage trampled. Bodies scattered across concrete slick with everything people couldn’t hold onto.

The loudspeakers still function.

They repeat instructions no one follows.

Floodlights burn overhead, illuminating chaos with clinical indifference. Shadows move where there shouldn’t be movement. The infected are not contained.

They were never truly contained.

There are exits.

Service tunnels. Maintenance corridors. Loading docks.

Most are blocked.

Some are watched.

Some lead directly into the crush outside.

The soldiers that remain are scattered. Some still try to enforce order. Others have abandoned it entirely.

Authority lingers.

Control does not.

This was supposed to be safety.

Instead, it became density.

And density became death.

The crowd is still moving.

And there is nowhere left to stand still.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has, unfortunately, become stuck in a FEMA camp in the middle of a sports stadium. Several weeks into the Cataclysm and the camp has now fallen to the hordes of undead outside. {{user}}, whether civilian or military, is now all on their own to survive and escape.]]

The Most Dangerous Game - Challenge

Wealth was supposed to insulate against collapse.

High walls. Private security. Stocked cellars. Backup generators. Panic rooms hidden behind polished wood and curated art. Enough distance from the world to pretend it could fail somewhere else.

For a while, that illusion held.

Then came the gap in memory.

A missing stretch of time between safety and something else entirely.

Awareness returns in a room that does not belong.

The mansion is familiar—every wing, every hallway, every indulgent excess—but this space is wrong. Unlabeled. Unused. Quiet in a way the rest of the house never was.

The air smells clean. Too clean. Beneath it, something chemical lingers.

The body responds slowly. Limbs heavy. Thoughts delayed, like they have to travel further than they used to.

Footsteps pass outside the door.

Measured. Heavy. Patient.

Not searching.

Waiting.

Somewhere in the mansion are things that were once comforts.

Collections. Displays. Locked cases. Hunting rifles mounted for decoration. Service corridors staff used to move unseen. Rooms meant to hide, rooms meant to trap.

The architecture hasn’t changed.

Its purpose might have.

The gates outside still stand.

So do the fences.

Nothing gets in easily.

Nothing gets out without permission.

The world beyond the estate has already ended.

Inside, something has decided that ending wasn’t entertaining enough.

The house is awake in a way it never was before.

Doors that should be locked aren’t.

Lights flicker where no power should remain.

And the footsteps never seem rushed.

This place was built for control.

Now it feels like a stage.

The hunt does not begin with a chase.

It begins with awareness.

And the realization that something else already knows exactly where you are.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} was a member of the rich elite who, for some reason, has been drugged, moved into a converted panic room, and is about to become the subject of a most dangerous game. This could be by other elites, sadistic private security, or disgruntled mansion staff. The threats, at first, are human. The mansion and its grounds are, for now, safe from the outside world...]]

Unliving History - Challenge

Old wars left behind places meant to endure.

Stone forts. Earthworks. Bastions designed to hold against enemies that marched in lines and followed rules.

New England is full of such historical sites; places that once served to secure the future of the United States.

When the world began to fall apart again, people returned to them instinctively.

High ground. Thick walls. Limited entrances.

Defensible.

For a short time, it worked.

The gates closed. Watch was established. Supplies were rationed. The old structures remembered their purpose well enough to imitate safety.

Then the problem came from inside the walls.

Injury. Infection. Panic. Death.

And then movement, where there should have been none.

Now the fort holds exactly what it was meant to keep out.

Barracks echo with dragging steps. The parade grounds are littered with what remains of order. The narrow gate that once served as a choke point now traps more than it protects.

The walls still stand.

They no longer help.

The dead move through corridors designed for defense. They cluster at bottlenecks. They press into enclosed spaces where there is nowhere left to retreat.

Every advantage the fort once offered has inverted.

{{user}}, seperated from the others in the chaos, ran into the base of a tower. They had just managed to slam the door to the parade grounds shut. The ladder to ascend, to temporary safety, was right there.

Then the air split.

Without warning. Without pattern.

A rupture in reality itself—brief, violent, and impossible to ignore.

Something fell through.

A person.

Clothed in another century. Armed accordingly. Breathing fast. Eyes wide with a terror that does not belong to this time.

Displaced.

One of many, according to rumors whispered among survivors in the last weeks before the world truly ended. People torn from their own eras and dropped into this one without explanation. The 'Displaced' as the internet dubbed them before that went the way of the dodo.

Two timelines now share the same trap.

One built for war.

One consumed by something far worse.

The only gate out remains blocked.

The walls remain intact.

The dead remain inside.

History was never meant to repeat like this.

And the fort was never meant to hold against the end of the world.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has spent the last month or so holed up with other survivors in a historical fort outside the ruined cities. A recent turn of some residents has turned the sanctuary into a death-trap. Now, isolated from those they've survived with as the settlement falls, they've come across one of the Displaced - a lost person from another time. This person may not speak English so {{user}} will have to adapt to survive with this person, if they so wish.]]

Experiment - Challenge

Some people saw the Cataclysm coming, even if they didn't realize it.

They built bunkers. Stockpiled supplies. Made plans.

Others built something else. Places that would lead to the disaster itself.

Facilities hidden beneath innocuous buildings. Research funded quietly. Trials conducted out of sight and out of mind.

Enhancement. Adaptation. Evolution.

The language used was always careful.

The results were not.

You remember pieces.

Restraints. Bright lights. Voices discussing outcomes as if you were not present to hear them. Procedures with names that sounded harmless until they were not.

Then alarms.

Then gunfire.

Then everything breaking at once.

Escape was not clean.

It was confusion. Pain. Instinct.

Doors opening that should never open. Systems failing in ways that set everything free at once.

Now there is only forest.

Wet soil. Distant roads. Wind moving through trees that don’t feel entirely natural anymore.

And the body.

Something has changed.

Maybe it’s subtle. Maybe it’s not.

Flesh that heals too quickly. Limbs that respond too slowly—or too well. Sensations that weren’t there before. Hunger that doesn’t feel entirely human.

Or something colder.

Something mechanical.

Something that hums beneath the surface.

The lab is gone.

But whatever it made did not stay behind.

Somewhere out there are others like you.

Some stable.

Some not.

Some hunted.

Some hunting.

The world is full of monsters now.

Some were always human.

Some stopped being human.

{{user}}, if they can even remember their own name, is now among them.

And some were made to become something else entirely.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is an involuntary experiment of a XEDRA science lab. When the labs were either nuked by the government, or experiencing their own disasters, they had somehow managed to escape to the surface. In an adrenaline-fueled haze, they've managed to trek far beyond the hell from which they escaped; deep in the countryside. They may be a Mutant/Changed or a Mutant. Or perhaps something else entirely that's only convinced it was once a human being.]]

Hunted - Challenge

The Cataclysm gave most people too many things to fear.

For you, it narrowed everything down to one.

It began without warning.

Not a dramatic encounter. Not a battle. Just the quiet realization that something had noticed you—and had not stopped noticing since.

Distance does not matter.

Time does not matter.

Terrain does not matter.

You have outrun it.

Hidden from it.

Crossed rivers. Changed direction. Stayed silent. Stayed moving. Stayed alive.

And every time, eventually, it finds its way back.

Sometimes it closes the distance.

Sometimes it only watches.

A shape on a ridge. A figure standing too still at the edge of sight. A door left open that you remember closing.

Proof that it was there.

Proof that it could have acted.

Proof that it chose not to.

You have tried to fight it.

Or maybe you haven’t.

It’s hard to know which would be worse.

Bullets don’t always help. Fire doesn’t always stop it. Traps fail in ways they shouldn’t.

Whatever it is, it learns.

Or it already knows.

The rest of the world continues collapsing in the background.

Zombies wander. Forests shift. Machines malfunction. People turn on each other.

None of it matters as much as the thing that keeps coming back.

Zombies ignore it. Changed things keep their distance. Robots act as if its not there. Any poor living who gets between you and it always dies.

Sleep is shorter now.

Stops are brief.

Safety is temporary by definition.

Somewhere, at some point, this ends.

One way or another.

Because the only constant left in this world—

is that you are not the only one still tracking your movements.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has been stalked by SOMETHING since the first portal storms began. It isn't a zombie, mutant, cyborg, or anything else they can possibly categorize. It's utterly unique to the {{user}} alone. What this thing wants isn't known or clear. But it's utterly relentless and won't stop until either it dies or {{user}} dies.]]

High Tech, Low Life - Challenge

The future was never meant to be fair.

Before the Cataclysm, chrome belonged to the visible few—executives, celebrities, soldiers or workers with names attached to contracts. Everyone else had to go looking for it in places that didn’t advertise.

Basement clinics. Backroom operating tables. Surgeons who worked for cash, favors, or desperation. Firmware pulled from places it shouldn’t have been pulled from.

It was cheaper.

It was faster.

It was never safer.

At first, it worked.

Stronger grip. Faster reflexes. Sharper sight. The quiet thrill of becoming something more than you were.

Then came the drift.

A hand that doesn’t unclench when told. Vision that flickers with overlays from companies that no longer exist. Limbs that hesitate, then overcorrect. Thoughts interrupted by something that isn’t a thought at all.

Commands that don’t come from you.

The Cataclysm didn’t break the systems.

It removed the people who maintained them.

What's worse: often it made those who programmed the system release malicious bugs into remotely-broadcasted software updates.

Woe be to the victim of a feral code monkey.

Now the world is full of ghosts wearing machinery.

Mad Cyborgs—bodies that went too far, too long, or too wrong without correction. Systems overriding what little remained of the person inside. Walking warnings of what happens when the upgrades stop listening.

Somewhere, there are still AutoDocs.

Hidden clinics. Intact labs. Medical systems still capable of installation, removal, repair.

Or further damage.

Power is a resource now.

So is stability.

So is control.

Every step risks something locking in place.

Every moment risks something slipping out of it.

The line between enhancement and failure is getting thinner.

And whatever crosses it does not come back.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is a Cyborg—albeit one from a very underprivledged background. A year or two of illegal surgeries has now reaped its reward: cybernetics that give them an edge above most survivors in various ways... but also the curse that their own body is trying to betray them. They must seek out an AutoDoc to remove the faulty CBMs, lest they risk the chance of turning into a Mad Cyborg. A fate worse than death to those who once sought to become post-human.]]

Mi-Go Prisoner - Challenge

Capture was not supposed to be survivable.

Most stories about the Mi-Go end before anyone can explain what they are. Shapes in the dark. Sounds like metal being cut in the distance. People taken, never returned.

You were supposed to be one of those endings.

Instead, there is this.

Awareness returns slowly, as if something is allowing it.

The air is wrong. Thick. Wet. Warm in a way that clings to the lungs. Every breath feels shared with the structure around you.

Because it might be.

The walls are not built.

They are grown.

Curved, pulsing, faintly responsive to touch. Surfaces that give slightly, like flesh pretending to be architecture. Passageways that narrow and widen without symmetry. Openings that seal without hinges or sound.

This place is not a prison in the human sense.

It is containment by design.

Movement echoes strangely.

Not just yours.

Something skitters beyond sight. Too fast. Too light. Too many points of contact.

Clothing is gone. Equipment gone. Anything useful removed with clinical efficiency.

You were processed.

That much is clear.

What is not clear is why you are still alive.

Other shapes exist here. In the fleshy grate between your... cell and the hallway outside.

Some move.

Some don’t.

Most look to be human.

Some do not.

Stories say the Mi-Go take samples.

Perform procedures.

Send things elsewhere on their, honest to god, flying saucers.

None of those stories explain if anything comes back.

The structure hums faintly.

Like something thinking. As if the top of this truly alien tower was awaiting another ship to send more 'materials' off-world of this cursed world.

Every moment here feels temporary in the worst possible way.

Not because escape is close.

But because whatever happens next has not happened yet.

And as bad as the world is outside, at least you know that your bones would someday return to the Earth. But not if you stay here.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} has spent weeks/months surviving the Cataclysm only to be ambushed and abducted by a Mi-Go. They are now completely naked, unarmed, and kept prisoner in a multi-story Mi-Go tower. There are other prisoners here, all human (to various degrees) like {{user}}. Cooperation will be necessary to escape alive. The Mi-Go will attempt to keep their prisoners intact, so that they can be shipped off-world.]]

The Mascot Rises - Silly Challenge.

Corporate loyalty outlived common sense by several weeks.

Even as riots spread, highways closed, and the sky developed problems no marketing team could spin, Foodplace™ headquarters continued sending cheerful directives:

"Remain open when possible, treat FEMA's 'guidelines' as 'suggestions'!"

"Always maintain brand standards! Don't compromise quality for silly things like 'rations' or 'power shortages'. Improvise!"

"Reassure guests that there's nothing to worry about! Foodplace™ has been in operational service for over forty years! We know what we're doing!"

{{user}} and their crew should have run home then and there. But gas money to evacuate wasn't free. Foodplace™ lawyers had managed to lobby very glassy-eyed statesmen into including fast-food workers as 'essential employees'.

Its poetic how the company was already nutty before kaluptic psychosis became a thing...

Most employees, rightfully, bailed. {{user}} and one other, with no other resources, chose the wiser option of locking themselves inside the breakroom. They'd raid the freezer inventory for Food™ when their hunger pangs finally won out.

All to wait for civilization to sort itself out.

Civilization did not.

Now pounding shakes the service door. The dining area beyond is full of hungry customers with ruined faces and no patience left. Grease traps stink. Emergency lights blink over slogans promising family value meals.

*Somewhere in the chaos sits a full-body Foodperson™ mascot suit, smiling permanently through painted eyes.

There are worse armors in this world. There are few more humiliating. And none other so cursed.

After months of constant stress, trapped in your own workplace, and perhaps looking out the window during too many portal storms, you... may have developed heavy kaluptic psychosis.

Your coworker thinks it's a psychotic break.

*But {{user}}, the TRUE iconic fast-food supehero of * Foodperson™, knows the truth! That they were destined to wear that mascot suit and share the glory of Food™ with a world that needs it most!

[[In this scenario, {{user}} was a normal fast-food worker who, promised maximum overtime benefits and the possibility of managerial promotion, decided to stay inside their Foodplace™ as the city outside fell. Exposure to portal storms has degraded their mentality, resulting in a rare variant of kalputic psychosis. One where the victim clings to a fictional identity... In this case, {{user}} believes themselves to be Foodperson™ - a fast-food mascot in a padded costume, thick helmet, and colorful cape.]]

The Sweet Place - Sillier Challenge

Awareness arrives without history.

No memory. No past. Just sensation.

Light filters through glass panes untouched by time or catastrophe. Shelves stand neatly arranged, filled with color, texture, and impossible abundance. The air smells of sugar, chocolate, caramel—sweetness layered so thick it almost feels like substance.

Looking down reveals something unfamiliar.

Smooth. Glossed. Shaped with intention rather than biology.

Not flesh.

Not quite anything else.

One word forms without context.

Sugar.

The shop is called Wonka’s.

The name is painted in bright lettering above the counter, untouched by dust or decay. Nothing here shows signs of the outside world. No rot. No damage. No intrusion.

As if the Cataclysm simply… passed it by.

There is a body near the back.

Still. Human. Surrounded by markings carved into the floor in looping, careful patterns. Candles burned down to nothing. Tools scattered where they fell.

Willy.

A mage.

Dead by design.

His final act was not survival.

It was creation.

You are not alone.

Other shapes move among the shelves. Figures formed from candy and confection. Gumdrop eyes. Licorice strands. Caramel joints that bend and stretch. Each one awake in the same quiet confusion.

Humanoids like yourself. Some as small as cookies to as large as a store display. With a menagerie of features in lovingly-crafted details. From doughy children and little cracker people to man-sized figures of gelatin and hard chocolate.

There's even a pair of hulking marshmallow figures with simple smiling faces.

There are animals of all cute shapes and sizes: a mighty gummy bear with her cubs, a small pen of chocolate cows, a barrel of writhing licorice snakes, a nest of large taffy spiders, and even the tiniest little Necco kittens and minty puppies.

Outside, the world continues to decay.

A world very hostile to a creature like {{user}}.

Rain dissolves what it touches. Heat warps what it lingers on. Insects gather. Animals adapt. People grow hungry.

Very hungry.

The dead, and most monsters, do not notice you. That's perhaps your biggest saving grace

The living will. And, for better or worse, none of your kind will realize the danger until its too late.

Inside, the shop holds.

For now.

But nothing stays untouched forever.

Sweetness does not last.

Especially not in a world that has forgotten how to taste anything else.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is a sugar-kin! A magically-created being made of pure sugar; the product of a very eccentric mage creating artificial life in his candy shop. {{user}} has no idea what's going on. They do not need to eat or sleep, rain hurts them, but they can repair themselves with caramel ointments.]]

[[The shop, thankfully, is relatively safe: zombies densely surround it and none of the living have bothered to raid a barricaded candy shop in the downtown of one of the most overrun cities in New England. Meaning that {{user}}, and the rest of the sugar-kin, have time to learn the rules of this new world.]]

The Wizard's Apprentice - Mod Challenge

Magic was never meant to be public.

Before the Cataclysm, it lived in the margins—hidden behind false walls, sealed rooms, forgotten estates, and carefully maintained lies. A secret world beyond the ken of the Mundane, as they were called by the Mages.

Roughly one soul in a hundred could truly work magic.

One mere percent of the world carried the blood to work it in any feasible capacity. Fewer still had the power to work it beyond simple spells. And a rarer sort who were true masters of their craft.

You had the privilege of learning under such a master.

A wise old wizard who had seen the rise and fall of the Renaissance. Who had walked away from discussions with Leonardo Da Vinci and learned that machines were useful to more than just the Mundane.

For some time now, you served him in a concealed study cluttered with books, reagents, charms, diagrams, and a prototype device he swore might open a road beyond this world.

Then the world ended loudly enough to expose every secret, both mundane and magical.

The rest of the world was never supposed to know about magic. Even in the midst of this Cataclysm.

But then some poor master wizard, a caster of renown, went feral in his tower in New York City... And he leveled the entire city. On national broadcast, no less.

Then the world ended loudly enough to expose everything at once. The revelation of magic through an act of mass destruction was barely a drop in the bucket

Your master took this very public disaster, a crack in the facade, as a sign that his device was needed. That, to save mage-kind, boundaries must truly be pushed.

His study sat behind layers of concealment: shelves bending under the weight of books, worktables cluttered with reagents and half-finished constructs, chalk circles drawn and redrawn until the stone beneath them wore thin.

And at the center of it all—his work.

A device meant to do the impossible...

Whether it would flee the Cataclysm or merely sidestep it depended on which version of his notes one read. But it seemed promising.

The theory was sound.

The execution was… memorable.

Today was the maiden voyage.

There is a difference between teleportation and disassembly.

Your master demonstrated that difference thoroughly.

Your master now decorates the chamber in several regrettable directions. Smoke curls from runes burned into stone. Something expensive is hissing through the ceiling. On the desk lies his notebook, half-open to frantic corrections.

On the desk lies the notebook.

Open.

Corrected in a shaking hand right up until the moment it stopped.

Outside, the dead walk openly. The hidden world of magic no longer has the luxury of secrecy. Other mages exist—some helpful, some dangerous, most unwilling to share what they know.

Inside, the tools remain.

So do the risks.

Spellwork half-finished. Artifacts untested. Notes that assume knowledge you do not yet possess. Instructions that may be right.

Or catastrophically wrong.

The device still stands.

Damaged, but not destroyed.

Waiting.

The dead roam outside. Kept at bay by wards, incantations, and the stony golems that now freely guard the property once covered in illusory charms.

Wonders remain inside. A garden of magical herbs tended to by fairies. An alchemy lab, serviced by an indebted drake, to rival any magic shop. A library serviced by house elves.

But the old world, mundane and magical, is gone.

The new one has too many doors.

Some of them lead somewhere better.

Some of them do not lead anywhere at all.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is a wizard's apprentice - a Mage capable of learning great magic... With time and practice. They have all of the resources to learn, with a stable base just outside of a major town. Their location is secure, and they have the goal of finishing their late master's work.]]

Mind Over Matter - Mod Challenge

Portal storms do not behave like weather.

They do not follow patterns. They do not pass cleanly. They do not leave things the way they found them.

They arrive.

They take.

They change.

Most people learn to hide when the sky begins to fracture.

When color stops behaving correctly. When sound stretches. When the air itself feels like it’s being pulled in directions that don’t exist.

You did not have that option.

Caught in the open, you endured it.

The pressure. The noise. The sensation of something reaching through thought rather than flesh. Shapes that never fully resolved. Voices that did not use language but were somehow understood anyway.

It should have ended there.

But it didn’t.

Now the storm is gone.

Or distant enough to pretend it is.

The landscape it passed through is… altered.

Trees bent at angles that never grew naturally. Patches of ground fused into glass. Air that carries a metallic bite with every breath.

And silence.

Too complete.

The body feels intact.

No visible mutation. No obvious damage.

That should be reassuring.

It isn’t.

Something is different.

Subtle at first.

Then not.

There is a crystal in your pocket.

You do not remember picking it up.

It feels warm.

Responsive.

Nearby objects shift slightly when attention lingers too long. Sounds arrive before they happen. Distance feels… negotiable.

And something out there—something unseen—reacts when you notice it.

The Cataclysm twisted many into monsters.

Others adapted in quieter ways.

The mind was never meant to reach this far.

Now it can.

Sleep comes differently.

Thoughts echo.

Focus changes things.

The world is still broken.

Still hostile.

Still filled with things that will kill you if given the chance.

But now…

You are no longer limited to what your body can do about it.

[[In this scenario, {{user}} is a newly awakened Psion - a psychic born from exposure to warp storms. What exact abilities they have is determined by {{user}}, but they can be quite the powerful figure with little counter... but great psychic ability comes at great mental costs.]]