Submarine Town



By: Gaspard,  Gaspard, and  Zenbitz

Approval status: pending

General Information
''Where is this located? What is the general purpose of the location? What is the day-to-day life like in the location? Is there anything particularly unique about the location?''

WW3
The fictional delta class submarine had left the dockyards of Leningrad (now: St. Petersburg) from a routine checkup and some minor repairs only a mere hour before the red alert call was radioed from land that informed the crew of the situation which was to escalate into the Apocalypse.

It was the ship's second voyage, it's maiden voyage being the one from the Severodvinsk Shipyard around Scandinavia through the Norwegian Sea to the Gulf of Finland to fine-tune the reactor and also fully restock on fuel, rations etc.

Hearing the transmission the ship went on alert, submerged and executed a protocol dealing with a situation like that, consequently it launched most of it's ballistic missiles in a single salvo. The ship was executing a maneuver to turn around and return to the Leningrad docks when the EMP blast from a nearby  nuclear explosion(s) severely damaged it's navigational communications systems. The ship managed to surface but still could not avoid being marooned not too far from Leningrad but on the coast of ---  part of the hull being driven into the rocky beach.

Of the crew of 133 men 130 survived and of the survivors half a dozen were severely injured during the shipwreck and died during the following days and weeks.

No radio transmissions for over two weeks - just static. Right after being cast ashore a group was sent to scout out the nearby area and found a semi-small settlement . A camp was set up. Equipment and rations were being unloaded from the ship, which was virtually intact, but unable to run again mainly due to the damage that the navigational systems had suffered, also the main drive was broken. The reactor was shut down and would have needed repairs before being able to be fully operational. The backup diesel-powered generators provided the electricity for various devices including the partly repaired radio and communications systems. After around a fortnight the first coherent radio transmissions were caught, but at first nothing in Russian and therefore incomprehensible to the crew. Finally a transmission from the underground bunker network in Leningrad - World War III had happened, the Apocalypse, and the world will never be same again. Leningrad was virtually no more and because satellites were not reachable (or perhaps shot out of the sky) very little info on the rest of Mother Russia or even the rest of the world.

Devastated, the crew of the marooned submarine, delta class, broke apart - some headed towards the Leningrad bunkers knowing fully well that it might be suicide because of the radiation and fallout, some joined the people of the nearby settlement (who had been reluctant and even hostile at first, but hearing the "news" and having seen the lights flashing in the night skies accepted the stranded soldiers as their own; and as there still had been vehicles in that settlement some of the men had left using those, but the locals were not eager to part with these and the scarce fuel was considered all but priceless.), some just wandered off in various directions either on foot or using the lifeboats from the sub in groups that varied in size, only a few stayed with the ship and started making the camp more permanent with hopes of perhaps one day getting the ship operable again. There were several suicides.

Immediate Aftermath
Those who stayed with the ship managed to get the reactor operable and stable again, but the sub was still far from being travel-capable. Eventually the reactor were shut down for the final time (for the time being Wink and enough atomic fuel was left over in storage to last for another 30 years. The men had been considering using the "leftover" munition to blow up the ship, but in the end decided against that - there was no enemy left who could use it against the Motherland which pretty much did not exist anymore either. No-one stayed, the sub was stripped of anything that could be screwed loose and carried and the men left - most of them joined those who had stayed with the people living in the nearby settlement. There men found partners and started their own families in time or led a solitary existence, doing their part to aid the community - a naval medic was invaluable in the coming rough times and so were the engineers to keep the rarely used but still important machinery running. The soldiers were also trained in combat, which became pretty much invaluable and secured the prosperity of the community when the raids were starting. Over the years there had been fights and even shootings among the soldiers and between the soldiers and the locals, but in the end those who felt rebellious were either shot or exiled or they committed suicide. And so - even more time passed and those people grew accustomed to the cold weather which got more severe every passing year.

Of the inhabitants of the aforementioned settlement obviously not all had stayed when the bombs had fallen. Right after (the Apocalypse) many groups left to find their families elsewere and after hearing proof of the Apocalypse from the submarine's crewmen there were also cases of suicide. Lack of new medicine and pretty much lack of anything from the outside world, which pretty much did not exist anymore, took a heavy toll, and the little graveyard behind the settlements little chapel grew bigger and sadder in too short of a time. Radiation poisoning did not help either, to which the people (obviously the submarine's crewmen too) were prone to when the winds carried radioactive matter into the area (although the weather had been "good" during the bombing and the winds directed away from our settlement - so the pollution was not too severe)

Current
A year or so before the game takes place some people along with the men who had been engineers and maintaining the sub's nuclear reactor decide to try and get the reactor up and running to provide electricity to the community. The sub was approached again and opened up  and the reactor was started up again. Celebrations followed and everybody who had an electrical light (christmas tree decorations etc) brought it to the makeshift powerplant to light it up.

But there was a problem - namely the community was still too far from the sub to be of any use... Still, some people had decided to move closer to the sub, namely pretty much to live ON it. Shantys were built on and around the hull of the marooned hulk and it didn't take long to become a little community in itself that traded electricity (in the form of batteries) with the adjoining settlement where they all were originally from and some other (smaller) settlements that they traded/communicated with on a regular basis. Locals found it beautiful how the whole place was lit up during nighttime - it was a singular sight - the children who had been born after the war saw electrical lights perhaps for the first time in their lives.

There'd also be a taboo spot not far (or perhaps further away) from the 'powerplant' where the radioactive waste is stored

Government
''Is there a need for governing? Is there a local government, or does it rely on the help of a nearby township or faction? Who's the mayor? Sheriff? What about local guilds, if there are any?''

Places of Interest

 * Taverns / Inns / Hotels / Hostels?
 * Shops?
 * Unique areas within this location, including other locations?

People of Note
Who lives here worth knowing?

Quest options

 * this is an excellent place for one of the factions mentioned in Egalor's story/setting draft (http://forums.parpg.net/index.php?topic=198.0) to hear of the nuclear power plant and it's probable location (the exact coordinates did not survive in the ships logs or damaged navigational systems).
 * that lost pre-war nuclear power plant could also be the source of raw material for the submarine's own reactor - thus lengthening the 30-year lifetime the sub's reactor has because then it would run out of fuel.
 * 
 * military equipment from the submarine and the equipment the crew survivors had been keeping serviceable (rifles, ammo, radios(walkie-talkies?), medicine etc).
 * story-related or background story information on the submarine's computers and/or logs
 * missiles, torpedoes and/or heavy explosives for solving quests or just blowing up for fun/karma.
 * delta-class submarines were capable of carrying and launching smaller space-satellites. Perhaps this juicy piece of pre-war tech could be either scavenged from the satellite or the satellite itself launched into the atmosphere to find a location or just pictures of the post-apoc world or for communications 
 * the submarines back-up diesel powered engines could have been scavenged and attached (after serious modification and/or mixing with existing machinery/equipment from the nearby settlement) to a makeshift ferry or a sort of boat that might take the player across the water to another location for a large amount of money/for a service