Apocalyse Campaign Ends

[David Johansen]

I just tied off an interesting short campaign tonight. The original intent was a zombie apocalypse but I decided to throw a little spin on it. It's the biblical apocalypse. A particularly western evangelical sort with winged angels and demons fighting over the last few undecided souls. It's been pretty gritty with one PC getting his head scooped off by a band of armed pilgrims with hunting rifles. But in the end they took sides and became angels fought demons, faced the final judgement and chose to remain as angels rather than heading off to the paradisical new Earth or going to hell. They then learned that the hell those who chose the path to the left returned to a closed loop version of their lives, living forever trapped in the meaningless and joyless world they had chosen.

Anyhow, it was a bit weird and silly at times. I grossed out the PCs with lots of crazy people like the atheist hospital commune and the old cannibal couple and their RV hiding in a national park. So, has anyone else run a campaign that ran to the awkward and weird like that? I've always thought Demon and Innomine Sathanis would be like that.

 

[Shipyard Locked]

I grossed out the PCs with lots of crazy people like the atheist hospital commune...

How did that gross your players out? Were they letting cats run around the operating theater or something?

 

[David Johansen]

No, but as things hadn't become really clearly biblical yet the hospital refugee camp was being lead by a charismatic doctor. They were treating anyone who claimed to have seen supernatural things as if they had the zombie plague. Easily treated with a bullet in the head. They'd attacked a Mormon church for supplies. They also demanded the PCs give up all their supplies and weapons if they want to join the camp.

Let's see, good gross out moments. There was a hotel and café that were apparently unaffected by the apocalypse. At first the PCs thought it was a time loop but when they went into the kitchen there were demons carving up a live person to serve to the customers. It was a trap where demons were luring in survivors. There was the road side diner full of dead bodies where the waitress and cook were blissfully unaware that anything was wrong and were serving up food full of flies and maggots. There were the frozen corpses of some people who got trapped in a walk-in freezer. The old couple living in the backwoods with a smoke house full of corpses, they'd been killing and eating people for years.

The setup was essentially that the world has been ruled by the antichrist for a thousand years and now the time of the last battle has arrived. The core assumption is that most people are beyond accepting Christ have been possessed and become violent zombie-like creatures. Those few who already truly accepted Christ were taken up into the cloud before the tribulation began. That left those who were on the line, free agents, able to come to the choice. The assumption being that a very Old Testament God's expectations allow for a good bit horrible behavior if you're on his side. When the PCs chose to help a group of angels who were outnumbered 3:1, they were asked if they were ready to make a choice and they chose to help the angels, taking up the weapons of the angels and choosing to remain angels after the final judgement.

Anyhow, it was pretty messed up and touched on some difficult topics. I wouldn't run something like that with just any group.