[Request] New York Based Fallout Campaign?

[glimmerrat]

So, Grump inspired me to start gathering source material for my upcoming Fallout game. So, do we have any New York natives present on the boards? Or anyone who knows much about the state? I figure the city itself will be an irradiated hellhole - I like the idea of Manhattan itself being sunk, with the ruins of skyscrapers poking up out of the water.

The other four boroughs will be much like the Capital Wasteland, except with less BoS. I was going to refer to the whole area as 'Ny City'. Coney Island is going to figure into this somewhere; I just need to figure out where to plonk down a few vaults now, along with an Enclave base and possibly a BoS forward base.

So... can anyone offer any help?

[Desertpuma]

MilitiaJim, it is on you buddy

[MilitiaJim]

The whole island of Manhattan won't sink enough, but there are a few lower areas that certainly can.  (Anything violent enough to sink the island would certainly topple all the skyscrapers.) 

My old high school will be toppled over into the Hudson.  The subway tunnels will be mostly full of water.  Maybe not, how long after the bombs?  How long after was Fallout 3?  The Metro hadn't flooded at that point, impressive considering the swamp that DC is. 

I grew up in the City, so ask away, I have all kinds of details.

Up at the north end of Manhattan are the Cloisters, and old nunnery on the cliffs (the Palisades) overlooking the Hudson River.  They would make a very good Brotherhood base:  Near a couple bridges and on the high ground.

Edit:  Adding more stuff.

[TheAuldGrump]

Hmmm, how about the Mafia? Folks tend to think of Chicago in that regard, but New York has always been both battlefield and prize. Perhaps the Mob becomes the defacto  governement for the remains of the city?

Open warfare between Raiders from NYC and New Jersey?

Flooding New York would be harder than you might think - there is a pretty massive cave network under the city (for an entertaining read about the caves, look for George C. Chesbro's Bone - the caves are also where the idea for the Batcave under Wayne Manor came from). Flooding would also mean that you wouldn't be able to use ghoul haunted subway tunnels as a 'shortcut' between areas of the city.

The Brooklyn Bridge is a good landmark to highlight the devastation, Ellis Island might be a good ex-slave redoubt. And doing things to the Statue of Liberty has a long tradition in post-Apocalyptic media - You Maniacs! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! God damn you all to hell!

Maybe do something nasty with the Botanical Gardens?

Critters... Black bears still roam New York State, so very small yao guai?
Mirelurks are possible in the bays and rivers.

The Auld Grump

[Krensky]

There are some major ancient fault lines running through Manhattan if I remember right. Having them go active would be to much, but having the bombs trigger some movement leading to a gaping fissure (empty or flooded) might be a cool feature.

As for the radioactive hole, remember that Fallout works on 1950s sci-fi physics. NYC would not be significantly different then DC in terms of hellholitude.

[TheAuldGrump]

Heh - come think, the $20 wonderbundle has two sets of cardstock terrain (Streets of Mayhem and Mini Nuclear Plant) and some music (Zombie Apocalypse) that would work well with FO: NY.

Actually, if I ever run the still vague and amorphous Great Brahmin Drive scenario that I occasionally ponder then Rio Draco might come in handy too.

The Auld Grump

[MilitiaJim]

On the Fallout 3 DC scale, most of NYC would be standing.  Absent power for the pumps many tunnels would flood.  That said, there is no good reason why someone would not get them running again.  Everything is atomic powered.  The pumps would be, as would the individual trains.

Yao guai would be over from NJ, plenty of dogs and probably quite a few of those damn fly things.  I think ghouls would be all over, unless as Grump mentioned, the organized crime groups pushed them out.  Don't forget that in addition to the Sicilian mob, we have Triads, Yakuza (kareoke bars, that was a night), and Russians as well.

The bedrock is granite, which makes it decent for Vaults.  A Vault would make a great deal of sense under the Cloisters.  One under Governor's Island that has some boats or was otherwise designed for the enterence to end up under water could be interesting.

There is a fault line in the NYC area, it goes under the Indian Point atomic plant.  (It wasn't dumb at the time it was built, back them plate tectonics was another crackpot notion.)

How long after the bomb is this adventure?

[glimmerrat]

200 Years.

I was thinking about having the remnants of the descendants of the Islanders and Rangers still existing as gangs, and they still hate each other just as much.

I was also considering Coney as the site of a really messed-up post apocalyptic carnival, with inbred cannibalistic carnies running the joint.

Even if some of the pumps are atomic, not all of them would still be working. Some would have broken down, making the subway a mishmash of ghoul territory bordering on mirelurk territory. Hey, how about this: a section of the subway, one of the old lines, still works. It's run down, but one train still works and it's run/inhabited by a gang that charge a reasonable fee to take you across town. The rule is: no violence on the train. Or the twin sandbagged .50 cals at the end of the car will put paid to any trouble, along with all passengers.

[MilitiaJim]

200 Years.

  200 years is enough time for all the bridges to collapse and most of the skyscrapers to finish coming down.

Various sports teams feuding is a nice touch.

Train gangs certainly could work out well, carnies in Coney Island will work too.  The train tracks run all the way out to Montauk, so there could well be hamlets out that way that manage some farming.  There would be massive die-offs with the supply chain disrupted even if it wasn't nuked.

[Krensky]

Don't forget the haunted firehouse.

[OverNinja]

USS Intrepid.

West Point would make a fine base for the Brotherhood.
Also Fort Drum, while distant, makes a great base for the Enclave.

[MilitiaJim]

USS Intrepid.

West Point would make a fine base for the Brotherhood.
Also Fort Drum, while distant, makes a great base for the Enclave.

West Point may be a but further out than is desirable, but could work for Enclave or Brotherhood.

Fort Drum is WAY too far away to be part of the story, IMO, it is the better part of 300 miles each way, and vertibirds don't have that much range.

There are forts all over the City:  Wadsworth, Schuyler, Totten, Hamilton, and I know I am forgetting several.  There are at least half a dozen National Guard and Reserve Armories as well.

[glimmerrat]

Westpoint as a BoS base? OverNinja, that's a bloody fantastic idea. I'm stealing that.

The Intrepid could be an Enclave base... for forays into the interior of the island.

It could even be the other way around. I just figure the Intrepid would be ideal for vertibird take off and landing.

[MilitiaJim]

Don't forget the robot dinosaurs in the Museum of Natural History.   

[OverNinja]

How far from NY is Camden, NJ?

I was thinking of USS New Jersey, she's in Camden.
She has nine 16-inch guns...