Dark Moscow

Dark Moscow

(Among the Dead expansion – Inspired by the Asylum RPG)

This changes the Moscow as it is described in the adventure Among the Dead.

Russia, after the collapse of Communism, slowly declined into chaos. After a short attempt to westernize their system, the Russian people soon little difference and little growth in their situation. Wars broke out across it’s countryside after 2010. Rebellion and nationalism within the republics grew, as everyone wanted their own country. It started out as small brush wars, but grew gradually. Soon, nuclear weapons and bio-weapons, in the hands of terrorist and freedom fighter fanatics, were used rampantly throughout the country. Millions were killed. The great eastern civilization that was once known as Russia had fallen. But there was more to this chaos than human failure and barbarism.

It was instigated by the Darkness of the Dark Lords. Dark America is one of the few places that have yet to fall under the Darkness’ grip. Russia, on the other hand, has proven to be easier. Although not completely under their grip, they are closer than America is.

Moscow is one of the best examples. As a result of a horrible bio-weapon and numerous tactical nuclear explosions, Moscow and a large portion of the Russian countryside in that area, is under cover of complete darkness. An algae-born of the darktek bio-weapon has blocked out the sun, and stayed stationary over the area for over 25 years. This, in turn, has had an adverse effect on the population.

This algae “Shroud” blankets the entire sky as far as anyone can see. It absorbs all the sunlight, and creating a zone of total sun deprivation. Plants and animals died or migrated away. The Military and the civilian populations fell under the control of oppressive local governments, who themselves were controlled by mega-corporations. And those of course, were under the control of Darklings and their Dark Lords.

The population started to show the signs of sun deprivation relatively quickly. Unbeknownst to them, it was with the help of darktek empathically amplifying the effects, implanted through out the cities by Darklings. Wide spread depression evolved into numerous mental disorders. In order to control it, city officials, protected and controlled by their Darkling masters and their tech, established the Wards. Several cities were walled up, enclosed as city-size Asylums run by political puppets and faceless mega-corporate power brokers. Moscow and St. Petersburg are the largest Wards in Russia.

Most of Russia is covered in this cloud. Only the most eastern regions aren’t, and some of the eastern provinces and countries of Eastern Europe are also effected by it. But because of a strong misinformation campaign and a population driven to poverty so that they are powerless to do anything about it, the blight of Russia is little known by anyone else outside the country.

Government

The Wardens – A seemingly mythological reference to the “big dogs” of the Wards. The secret leaders of the cities, that over see the supply of food, traffic in and out, and command the Staff and the Orderlies. In truth, they are the Dark Ones and their Corporate and Governmental puppets.

The Staff – A secretly Corporate-funded, government-run group that runs the Wards. They are kept under close watch by the Wardens, and are the main front of the conspiracy to keep the true nature of the Shroud from the public or the Inmates. Only the top leaders in the Staff know the truth and know that it’s important to keep it secret.

The Orderlies – Mostly made up of the former Russian military and local police force, the Orderlies are the enforcement arm of the Staff and the Wardens. None of them know the truth. They simply follow orders. Because of the hard mental training they have gone through, they are less susceptible to the psychosis plaguing the rest of the population.

The Conspiracy – The Wardens (Dark Ones and their minions) want to keep the secret of the Shroud from getting out to the general public. Through misinformation and selective assassinations, the talk has been kept to a murmur. The truth is that the Shroud covers only a small part of the world, and that there is sunlight in other places. The population has been lead to believe for the past 20+ years that the Shroud covers the entire planet.

However, the conspiracy has gone beyond just the nature of the Shroud. Now, the Dark Lords of Moscow have gotten ambitious. The want to expand the Shroud, the through the use of dark technology, the plan to expand it to cover the planet.

Inmates

The regular population is called Inmates. In-mates are divided up into gangs and cadres, all usually related to their psychosis. The more dominant gangs dominate the more submissive or passive. The mega-corporations hire these groups as thugs. The rest serve the corporations like proles and mikes in Dark America, but they are more like slaves. They are paid in doses and food.

The Inmates suffer from a range of problems, from moderate and light mental problems that are hardly noticeable to the layman, to considerably noticeable psychoses like homicidal maniacs and schitzophenia.

%MOSCOW%

Moscow Asylum (Modifications to the Map in Among the Dead)
  • Vyshgorod – Corporate Central; A walled in area that encloses the corporate fortresses of all the Corporations of Moscow.
  • Afghan – Area where war veterans gathered after the fall of the Shroud. Many War veterans came to Moscow to their families, or just to the only place they new civilization existed. Many of these veterans at one time fought each other in the civil wars the ripped Russia apart. Now, a shelter to the post-traumatic stress syndrome victims of the wars, it is named after the first war the Soviets were said to have lost – the Afghan war.
  • Universitet – Former University of Moscow, now home to the cadres of inmates that consider themselves scholar and monks, mystics and academics. The University itself is burned out in the riots that tore the city of Moscow apart during Russia’s fall.
  • Gargain – This is the Market place and bizarre of Moscow, where Inmates trade goods and services, for doses or bullets.
  • Zilgrad – Industrial zone where many of the proles and mikes slave working for the corporations. Huge factories watched over by Orderlies and corporate security robots populate it.
  • Syever – No-man-lands of Moscow. Walled off and watched by the most heavily armed the Orderlies, the worst mental cases are banished to this zone. Most don’t survive. There are rumors that Dark Minions have taken residence their to feed on the human that are banished there.
  • Airport – Radioactive slag of the second Moscow airport.
  • Vistok – Mike and prole town of the inmates that try to live a normal life, cooperating with the Staff. They live a strict life, with curfews and rationed food. They don’t ask questions and allow the Staff to examine and evaluate them as they see fit.

Corporations

  • MirCorp – A major space exploration conglomerate that stemmed from the old Soviet space program, that took on a lot of the lessons learned from NASA to become one of the first privatized space corporations. It, along with the UNASA Corp, are the two major Space exploration entities of the world. Both corporations built many space station programs funded by other corporations.
  • Kremlinaya Corp – What was left of the KGB and other intelligence organizations formed together and formed a major information and computer corporation. On the surface, it is a huge computer corporation, while deep down, it’s an information brokering corporation.
  • ZilCorp – The industrial giant of Moscow, producing everything from war machines to civilian cars.
  • VRKh/BPX – Chemical and bio corporation that has the secret responsibility of maintaining and expanding the Shroud.

Significant Figures

Koshchey: BPX is still run by Koshchey, the Undying Dark Lord. Expand him as a travelling spirit that has inhabited the bodies of some of the worst, most evil figures in history – Hitler, Ghengis Khan, Stalin, Ho Chi Min, and some serial killer – Jack the Ripper, etc. Related Blood Devil of Dark Matter. One can spot this type of spirit through common threads and coincidences in the earthly-manifestations past.

“Not all Dark Lords are extra-dimensionally born…

“Some are born from the evils of man itself…

“Time and tragedy, ancient evil and destruction…

“The evil remains in the same place,

” only to be reborn once his time is up.”

These spirits are called Dark Born, spirits born on Earth of human darkness, fed by the new Darkness befalling the Earth now.

Psychosis Tables – Lists of Psychoses from Asylum RPG.

DisordersAberrationsQuirks
DIDKleptomaniaDomineering
BipolarDependentHypochondriac
ManicMonomaniaMasochistic
DepressiveCompulsiveNarcissistic
SociopathParanoidSadistic
ParanoidAutisticSubmissive
ObsessivePsychotic-philia
PsychoticPyromania-mania
CompulsiveExhibitionist-phobia
Pathological Liar
Homicidal
Honest
Narcolepsy
Anal Rententive
Phobia
Prefix Meaning Prefix Meaning
Acro – hieghts ichthy – fish
Ailuro – cats mono – alone
Andro – males necro – dead things
Aqua – water nocto – night
Astra – lightning nycto – darkness
Astro – stars Ondonto – teeth
Bacterio – bacteria Onomato – a certain name
Ballisto – bullets Ophidio – snakes
Belone – pins and needles ornitho – birds
Botano – plants pedi – children
Blenno – slime phago – eating
Claustro – closed spaces pyro – fire
clino – beds scoleci – worms
Demono – demons Spectro – ghosts
demo – crowds taphe – being burried alive
Dendro – trees Thalasso – sea
dora – furr tomo – surgery
Entomo – bugs vestio – clothing
ergo – work xeno – foreigners
Gephyrdro – crossing bridges zoo – animals
gyne – females
Hemato – blood
iatro – doctors