’45: Psychobilly Retropocalypse – Mom’s Truck Stop

At the side of the half-shattered remnants of the road sits an almost pristine, gigantic, silver trailer with a sprawling wooden shack build onto the back of it. The delicious smell of sizzling meat wafts out from the spinning fan set into the grubby window and a few battered road-warrior cars are parked outside. It seems popular enough so maybe it is safe…

Mom’s truck stop is run by Mom & Pop, conjoined mutants. Mom is a… large woman (never trust a skinny chef) and her ‘husband’, ‘Pop’, is joined to her back which only increases her mass. Both of them are charming, down-home, lovely people to talk to and genuinely try to run the truck stop the best way they can and to look after everyone who stops by.

Of course… it is suspicious where they get all that meat, which they trade for the rest of the food and other produce they sell. Mom and Pop’s extended family – of which there seems to be an endless number spread out over the surrounding area in a large, extended clan and all of which look uncannily like Mom and Pop (both of whom were lookers at a younger age) only with a wide variety of strange mutations, to which they seem to be particularly susceptible.

Players being players the first thing that they’re going to expect is probably ‘CANNIBALS!’ but the truth is somewhat more tragic. Mom and Pop can’t help but have a huge family because they’re fused in such a way that Mom’s pregnancies were inevitable, a form of parthenogenesis almost, making ‘clones’ of Mom or Pop depending how things went along.

One of their mutant offspring (while they’re clones they’re often highly mutated) was Jedadiah. Jed is really little more than a constantly growing, cancerous lump of regenerating flesh. He’s a nice enough boy, somewhere at the centre of that fleshy mass, but without constant ‘harvesting’ of his tumorous flesh he would soon be crushed under his own weight. In order to help him and to support the clan they hit upon the grotesque solution of selling his ‘meat’ at the same rate that they harvest it. Something that has made Mom & Pop – and the clan – relatively well off, but which is disgusting and sooner or later may get them into trouble, even if they are genuinely good folks who are just doing what they can to survive.

Plots:

1. The characters discover what’s going on and it’s down to them to decide how to react.
2. A gang has discovered Jedadiah’s existence and want to snatch him away so they can profit from his prodigious man-meat. Mom & Pop are forced to look for help!
3. Jedadiah wants to get out and see the world. A really good ‘harvest’ might allow him to move for a while and maybe Mom & Pop can hire someone to escort him and show him a good time before his flesh rebels again.

Hepcats & Squares: Merits and Flaws for ’45

Atomic: (4 point Merit) You have a radioactive half-life that is recharged by the presence of radiation. You can absorb up to two levels of radiation from any source taking no negative effects from it and healing up to two levels of non-lethal damage per source of radiation.

Beauty School Drop Out : (3 point Merit) Your style may not be normal but out in the wastelands people care more about ‘striking’ than anything else. Your radical ideas mean you can use make-up and styling to give someone a 24 hour +1 bonus to either Charm or Control.

Brothel Creeper : (6 point Merit) You’re adept at sneaking in places where you’re allowed to be, even supposed to be, but still don’t want to be found. You have a +3 bonus to stealth, sneaking and hiding rolls when you’re in such a place. Good for getting out without fuss when you’re cornered.

Brylcreem : (3 point Merit) A little dab’ll do ya and it’ll keep you looking unruffled and dapper even in the heat of combat. You have a pool of 3 points which can be used during a session to take lethal or non-lethal damage before it hits your health bar. You can also spend these points to boost your social rolls on a 1/1 basis, as you look so slick.

Crybaby : (3 point Flaw) You blub at the drop of a hat. When someone’s trying to upset you or you’re trying to resist pain you have a penalty of -1 to your rolls. If you fail in either case, you cry like a little girl.

Dapper Dan : (3 point Flaw) You’re a stylish devil and that means when dealing with the ladies you have a +1 bonus to your social rolls. Unfortunately, you also have a knack of bringing out the jealous side of other men though, a role-playing penalty that your Games Master should hit you with whenever possible.

Diner Regular : (3 point Merit) You’ve got a place where you regularly go to eat or used to regularly go to. It needn’t be a diner, it might be a badlands BBQ shack, a food pill repository or a cannibal trading post. Whatever it is, it’s a place where everyone knows your name, where you have a ‘tab’ and where you – and your friends – can get a free meal and a drink whenever you want.

Gigantor: (12 point Merit) You’re enormous, maybe even fifty feet high. Your Strength and Resilience are increased by three each and you gain 3 points of natural armour resistance against any attacks. Any Dexterity check is penalised by -3 due to your clumsy size and slowness and enemies gain a +3 bonus to hit you, due to you being humungulous.

Greasy Hair: (1 point Flaw) Your hair isn’t slick, it’s just greasy. In any rolls to do with your appearance you take a -1 penalty. On the plus side, your greasy hair and skin give you a +1 bonus to escape from bonds, ties or cuffs.

Hot Betty : (5 point Merit) You’ve got more curves than a coiled snake and bigger headlamps than a police cruiser. Your jello jiggles, you’ve got junk in your drunk and you ain’t going to snap during the mattress mambo. Your sexiness gives you a +1 bonus where appropriate along with a pool of 3 points you can use to boost your dice when you choose to ‘vamp it up’. On the downside you have to suffer through a lot of wolf-whistles and bottom pinches.

In Love with a Square : (8 point Flaw) You’re head over heels in love with a Nerdlinger, a geek, a square, someone so unhip it’s a wonder their bum doesn’t fall off. If this ever came out you’d be socially devastated and permanently lose one point from each of your social statistics. You need to continue your affair, but keep it quiet from anyone but your closest friends.

Indestructible Leather Jacket: (4 point Merit) This jacket is your constant companion and by luck or some supernatural intervention it cannot be destroyed. It provides 1 armour against any and all incoming damage sources, no matter what they are, and can never, ever be destroyed. Even if it’s taken off you it returns to your possession at the earliest possible opportunity.

Lucky Strikes : (3 point Merit) You have a crumpled packet of cigarettes containing three magical cigarettes. If you spark one up it provides you a generic +1 bonus to any rolls for the duration of the scene but, at the end, you take a single point of non-lethal damage. If you celebrate with a cigarette at the end of a battle you can swap one level of lethal damage for one level of non-lethal damage.

Prom Queen/King: (9 point Flaw) You’re the kind of person who was a massive deal in high school, or whatever passed for high school in your tribe, city, people or Zeppelin fleet. School was the absolute high point of your career though and while many people still look up to you for who you were, those who had a hard time as teenagers (most people) FUCKING. HATE. YOU. You take a -3 penalty for social interactions with anyone who had a troubled adolescence while you get a +1 bonus with authority figures and fellow school snobs.

Psychobilly : (3 point Merit) You love the weird, the strange, the unnatural, the odd. When dealing with anything horrific, science-fictiony, psychic, mutated or otherwise beyond the ‘norm’ (before the world was lit with atomic fire) you gain a generic +1 bonus.

Scary Walk: (6 point Merit) You may not move fast but it’s damn intimidating and scary, plus people tend to supply their own scary theramin soundtrack as you move. While striding purposefully towards someone you’re considered to have 3 armour and a +3 bonus to scare or intimidate people – though they can easily outrun you.

Strange Attractor: (1 point Flaw) Mars needs men and Venus needs women, when these aliens – or other monsters – have some unnatural rumpy-pumpy in mind, it’s you they think of. It’s always YOU that gets carried off first by robot monsters.

That’s Some Hair : (1 point Flaw) You have an outrageous hairstyle of some type but whatever it is, it’s the natural state of your hair and cannot be disguised for long. It’s incredibly recognisable and contributes to your notoriety as well as making you easy to find for bounty hunters and the like.

The Claw: (6 point Merit) One of your hands is not a hand, it’s a massive claw like that of a crab. In close combat this claw does lethal damage +3, based on your strength and can also snip through fences and chains. The downside is that you can’t use two-handed weapons or rifles and take a -1 penalty on anything else that requires two proper hands.

Too Cool for School /Too School for Cool : (1 point Merit) You’re either too hep to bother with that academic rubbish or too much of a square to bother with ‘jock stuff’. You get a generic +1 bonus to one set of skills and a generic -1 penalty to the other.

X-Ray Spex: In a wrecked store in a bombed out city you found a miraculous pair of red plastic glasses, humming with atomic energy. When you wear them you can see through clothing, skin, flesh, even brick walls but not anything any thicker and not metal. Where appropriate – say medicine – the glasses provide a +1 bonus.