New Super Plants?
Posted: Mon Sep 27, 2010 2:45 pm
You have to dig for it a bit, but if you look in the After the Bomb, you can find some genetically engineered plants that answer some of the questions that aren't directly addressed. I always thought something had to have hit the cutting room floor on that account.
In the back of the ATB book, you find...
The Gasoline plant. The implications of this one alone are HUGE. Settlements can have and tend these plants and have self replicating Gasoline stores. This cuts out the need to gather the gas and refine it. Again, in a post apocalyptic setting, this is absolutely massive. All communities would have these and I have a feeling they'd be treated like absolute gold if not more. Severe penalties in many communities for damaging such plants.
Also.. the plants themselves are likely volatile and lol, highly highly flammable. Making them relatively easy targets to destroy. Book says 160 square feet and produce 3 gallons a day. That's a pretty big space. One flaming arrow, or guy with a zippo could ruin the plant and the wall/building that it's growing on. So while any community or house hold would want/need one of these (( if not many cultivated together)) they would be dangerous to keep around. Again the implications of this plant alone, out of all of them, is huge. You could do entire storys or campaign's based around acquiring, planting, cultivating, defending, ect this plant.
Meat Potato plant. Another massive implication that seems to have been lost along the way. In the world where the animal you see in your yard, might be fully sentient, and not only that but highly psionic, 'eating meat' is going to be dangerous at best, and down right horrific at worst. Any people play predators. Lets face it it's more fun to play the tiger, or wolf or gator mutant than the cow or sheep mutant. These predators often still have their predatory nature and natural weapons. But when running across a field and leaping for a cow might result in the cow screaming profanitys at you, or.. standing up on it's hind legs and spray you with a chain fed machine gun..... well you get the point. Many communities would ostrisize mutants that ate meat and other animals if they insisted on eating meat. Remember Predator to non predator numbers are very very small. It might be more fun to play the predator but in nature there's like one wolf per 500 deer or something. (( don't have the actual numbers on me, but it's very very high))
This is touched on in two ways but only barely. First... mutant insects. They've gotten bigger and are farmed. The book doesn't come out and say it but beetles and ants and such have taken the place of cows and pigs. They're raised as food and beasts of burden. The book is pretty PC and doesn't quite say it but if you read between the lines it's there. The other barely touched thing, is this plant. The Meat Potato. It's a fast growing plant that grows between 3 to 18 POUNDS of 'roast' a weak. Sure it's a plant but there's some meaty plants out there, and this one was genetically engineered to be more meaty. Now.... again poof if you read the write up it seems neat and then you go on to the next item in the look table. But if you stop and think about it. 3 to 18 POUNDS of meat can feed a family for a weak easy, from one plant. If you have two or three of these.. well you're set. You pick your 'roasts' and save what you don't eat. Be it smoking and drying or canning or what ever you do with genetically created roasts potatoes you don't consume. This could easily feed you and your family through the winter if you planned ahead. I'm sure there are breeding programs for more flavored meat potatoes too. Some that (( pardon the implication)) Taste more like beef, or more like pork, or more like chicken. A few of these plants (( Only 50 bucks each!)) could easily feed a family of 4 year round. Even if they don't bloom in the winter. As stated above you pick and plan ahead.... This little plant also allows those mutant predators to exist off of meaty protein with out EATING their neighbors. This would allow predators a bit more leway in the mutant animal society.
So between the meat potato and the mutant bugs, predators (( and omnivorous mutants)) can be fed. This plant is a HUGE deal. That it's glossed over with less than 3 collum lines in the book, wow.
Third, the Serum Plant. A plant, that when you soak it's seed in a drop of your blood, produces CUSTOM Genetically engineered medicine. Even today, this plant would have worth that's almost unchartable. In a post apocalyptic setting, 100 bucks for a plant that heals your sickness... is staggering. Now... it could be that the other prices for things in after the bomb are 'low' to symbolize how little money people have, But still. I think the implication here is that these plants, while miricles in green form, are relitivly common. (( same as the above gasoline and meat plants)). In a post apocalyptic setting where you might live your entire life and never meet a doctor, these things would be godsends and are massive in the implications to the society. Again. Every family would cultivate these. One (( If not two or three)) Per person. (( Just in case one of the plants died or something)). You'd be trained from a young young age to take care of your Serum plants, Your Meat Potato plants and your Gasoline vines. These are glossed over in the book (( Infact you only find them in loot tables in the back)) but are ----major---- aspects of After the Bomb society.
Fourth, the Pheromone flower. While neat, and I'm sure used in cites and stuff in restraunts and stores, this one isn't quite as earth shattering as the previous three. What it does though, is open up the door for other types of pheromone plants. The one in the book makes people generally happy. You know... people have made ones that make people sad or enraged or aroused. You plant a 'suicide plant' out side your enemy's window... and in a few weeks they're wrecked. Feeling like their life doesn't matter and might even up and kill themselves. You plant a few fear plants around your house to scare off people (( but hopefully eat fruit from it or something to make your self immune. OR... You grow fear plants and use the fruit as a bio weapon, could go either way on that one.)) This is pretty cool but more for what could be, than what is printed.
Fifth, Guardian Ivy. Pretty scary plant. The implications that the plant can learn you and snatch people with in 12 feet of it if it doesn't like you ( not kidding. If you pet it while it grows, it doesn't snatch you later), is pretty big. You can do alot with this plant and it's relatives. They DID do more in Mutants Down Under. I highly recommend that book to anyone that has After the Bomb. Still. This is a pretty big thing. Though not as earth shattering as the first three. Still pretty impressive and you can do alot with it during storys.
Sixth, The Everfruit tree. Kinda like the Meat Patato but .... meaner. I can see where they were going with this one. And it's pretty scary. Some people would have one, but the fact that it kills everything, in a 160 foot diamiter circle around it is pretty big too. "No big deal" most people think and brush it off. Till you realize this ONE plant, could kill everything in your yard. And the way that it's roots go so deep and stuff you can't kill it easy. Even flame would only kill the surface. You'd have to dig 80 feet down in a 160 foot circle to get it all out. Miss one bit of root and it grows again. 160 foot circle of death.
Want to mess up a colony? Take a bit of the root of the Everfruit, sneak in at night and plant it in a hole at the base of their gasoline plant. Plant a few in the middle of an enemy's field and ruin their crops for ever. These things look like food. But they're not. Well they are. But that's not what they're "FOR" you have the meat potatoes for eating. These things are biological weapons. They're terrorist weapons. And they're pretty scary.
So here's the question. Above are 6 very impressive plants. Earth changing when you look at them.
What other plants have you come up with for your After the Bomb Game? The above show that if plants can produce gasoline and food roasts to the tune of 18 a week, and genetically tailored custom medicine plants, can be produced, made and have now spread and are growing wild.
What sort have YOU made for your games?
In the back of the ATB book, you find...
The Gasoline plant. The implications of this one alone are HUGE. Settlements can have and tend these plants and have self replicating Gasoline stores. This cuts out the need to gather the gas and refine it. Again, in a post apocalyptic setting, this is absolutely massive. All communities would have these and I have a feeling they'd be treated like absolute gold if not more. Severe penalties in many communities for damaging such plants.
Also.. the plants themselves are likely volatile and lol, highly highly flammable. Making them relatively easy targets to destroy. Book says 160 square feet and produce 3 gallons a day. That's a pretty big space. One flaming arrow, or guy with a zippo could ruin the plant and the wall/building that it's growing on. So while any community or house hold would want/need one of these (( if not many cultivated together)) they would be dangerous to keep around. Again the implications of this plant alone, out of all of them, is huge. You could do entire storys or campaign's based around acquiring, planting, cultivating, defending, ect this plant.
Meat Potato plant. Another massive implication that seems to have been lost along the way. In the world where the animal you see in your yard, might be fully sentient, and not only that but highly psionic, 'eating meat' is going to be dangerous at best, and down right horrific at worst. Any people play predators. Lets face it it's more fun to play the tiger, or wolf or gator mutant than the cow or sheep mutant. These predators often still have their predatory nature and natural weapons. But when running across a field and leaping for a cow might result in the cow screaming profanitys at you, or.. standing up on it's hind legs and spray you with a chain fed machine gun..... well you get the point. Many communities would ostrisize mutants that ate meat and other animals if they insisted on eating meat. Remember Predator to non predator numbers are very very small. It might be more fun to play the predator but in nature there's like one wolf per 500 deer or something. (( don't have the actual numbers on me, but it's very very high))
This is touched on in two ways but only barely. First... mutant insects. They've gotten bigger and are farmed. The book doesn't come out and say it but beetles and ants and such have taken the place of cows and pigs. They're raised as food and beasts of burden. The book is pretty PC and doesn't quite say it but if you read between the lines it's there. The other barely touched thing, is this plant. The Meat Potato. It's a fast growing plant that grows between 3 to 18 POUNDS of 'roast' a weak. Sure it's a plant but there's some meaty plants out there, and this one was genetically engineered to be more meaty. Now.... again poof if you read the write up it seems neat and then you go on to the next item in the look table. But if you stop and think about it. 3 to 18 POUNDS of meat can feed a family for a weak easy, from one plant. If you have two or three of these.. well you're set. You pick your 'roasts' and save what you don't eat. Be it smoking and drying or canning or what ever you do with genetically created roasts potatoes you don't consume. This could easily feed you and your family through the winter if you planned ahead. I'm sure there are breeding programs for more flavored meat potatoes too. Some that (( pardon the implication)) Taste more like beef, or more like pork, or more like chicken. A few of these plants (( Only 50 bucks each!)) could easily feed a family of 4 year round. Even if they don't bloom in the winter. As stated above you pick and plan ahead.... This little plant also allows those mutant predators to exist off of meaty protein with out EATING their neighbors. This would allow predators a bit more leway in the mutant animal society.
So between the meat potato and the mutant bugs, predators (( and omnivorous mutants)) can be fed. This plant is a HUGE deal. That it's glossed over with less than 3 collum lines in the book, wow.
Third, the Serum Plant. A plant, that when you soak it's seed in a drop of your blood, produces CUSTOM Genetically engineered medicine. Even today, this plant would have worth that's almost unchartable. In a post apocalyptic setting, 100 bucks for a plant that heals your sickness... is staggering. Now... it could be that the other prices for things in after the bomb are 'low' to symbolize how little money people have, But still. I think the implication here is that these plants, while miricles in green form, are relitivly common. (( same as the above gasoline and meat plants)). In a post apocalyptic setting where you might live your entire life and never meet a doctor, these things would be godsends and are massive in the implications to the society. Again. Every family would cultivate these. One (( If not two or three)) Per person. (( Just in case one of the plants died or something)). You'd be trained from a young young age to take care of your Serum plants, Your Meat Potato plants and your Gasoline vines. These are glossed over in the book (( Infact you only find them in loot tables in the back)) but are ----major---- aspects of After the Bomb society.
Fourth, the Pheromone flower. While neat, and I'm sure used in cites and stuff in restraunts and stores, this one isn't quite as earth shattering as the previous three. What it does though, is open up the door for other types of pheromone plants. The one in the book makes people generally happy. You know... people have made ones that make people sad or enraged or aroused. You plant a 'suicide plant' out side your enemy's window... and in a few weeks they're wrecked. Feeling like their life doesn't matter and might even up and kill themselves. You plant a few fear plants around your house to scare off people (( but hopefully eat fruit from it or something to make your self immune. OR... You grow fear plants and use the fruit as a bio weapon, could go either way on that one.)) This is pretty cool but more for what could be, than what is printed.
Fifth, Guardian Ivy. Pretty scary plant. The implications that the plant can learn you and snatch people with in 12 feet of it if it doesn't like you ( not kidding. If you pet it while it grows, it doesn't snatch you later), is pretty big. You can do alot with this plant and it's relatives. They DID do more in Mutants Down Under. I highly recommend that book to anyone that has After the Bomb. Still. This is a pretty big thing. Though not as earth shattering as the first three. Still pretty impressive and you can do alot with it during storys.
Sixth, The Everfruit tree. Kinda like the Meat Patato but .... meaner. I can see where they were going with this one. And it's pretty scary. Some people would have one, but the fact that it kills everything, in a 160 foot diamiter circle around it is pretty big too. "No big deal" most people think and brush it off. Till you realize this ONE plant, could kill everything in your yard. And the way that it's roots go so deep and stuff you can't kill it easy. Even flame would only kill the surface. You'd have to dig 80 feet down in a 160 foot circle to get it all out. Miss one bit of root and it grows again. 160 foot circle of death.
Want to mess up a colony? Take a bit of the root of the Everfruit, sneak in at night and plant it in a hole at the base of their gasoline plant. Plant a few in the middle of an enemy's field and ruin their crops for ever. These things look like food. But they're not. Well they are. But that's not what they're "FOR" you have the meat potatoes for eating. These things are biological weapons. They're terrorist weapons. And they're pretty scary.
So here's the question. Above are 6 very impressive plants. Earth changing when you look at them.
What other plants have you come up with for your After the Bomb Game? The above show that if plants can produce gasoline and food roasts to the tune of 18 a week, and genetically tailored custom medicine plants, can be produced, made and have now spread and are growing wild.
What sort have YOU made for your games?
