d-Infinity Post-Apocalyptic Oddities
Weird, Useful or Not-So-Useful bits and pieces that clutter the post-apoc landscape, ruins, or landruins, ruinscapes; whatever:
Anybody who would like to play along, feel free to add suitable things to the list.
1 – Ten sealed rolls of tooth floss
2 – A rapid-charging terminal: any electrically powered device may be fully charged in 1d6 minutes. After each item is charged, roll a d6. If the number is equal or below the number of minutes required to charge the last item, the terminal becomes inoperative.
3 – A can-opener
4 – An old icepick
5 – An old plastic bag filled with 2d10 odd socks in good repair
6 – An age-yellowed human skull with no eyeholes, only a blank expanse of bone with tiny holes not unlike coral.
7 – tattered, faded postcard of a nearby, still recognizable, pre-apoc landmark with a hand drawn ‘x’ marked in pen near its base; on the back, in the same pen as the ‘x’, “Bastard’s dead!! Buried the Thing!!” Signed ‘Jack’.
8 – A circular symbol scribed into the dirt. Its periphery is marked by sigils you don’t understand. In the middle is a heavy pistol of unknown make or manufacture, in perfect condition, free of the dust that covers everything else in the area.
9 – The still ambulatory arm, head and upper torso of a zombie, robotic terror, or mutated horror, etc. [type according to your chosen apocalypse]. As you approach, the remnant says, “Help me!”
10 – A small toy wooden submachine gun, with a detacheable wooden toy bayonet.
11 – A small portable viewing tablet of the sort used to store images and data in the Before Time. On the screen is the frozen image of an old man in the rags of a uniform, with disheveled hair and wild eyes peering off screen to your left. As you look, the image unfreezes, he turns to you and, still looking stage left cried, “Look Out!” If you don’t like that one, instead he cries, “What now?”
12 – A pair of pliers with a small light source attached.
13 – A novel from before the Fall, which the last chapter torn away.
14 – A combat knife wired so that it also functions as a sort of cattle prod.
15 – A wicker basket on a makeshift shoulder strap, with knitting needles, balls of wool, a few patterns for hats, socks, sweaters, as well as a project in progress. If you found the Bag of Socks [#5] it is a match to one of the odd ones in the plastic bag.
16 – Pinned under a heavy rock, one ocular shot away, is the head of a killbot. As you approach, its jaws clack loudly.
17 – A thumb drive from before the War, its battery long dead. Do you have the technical know-how to retrieve the data it contains?
18 – A pile of stones arranged in the form of a standing man, similar to what the Inuit of the far north called an ‘inukshuk’ in the Old Days. Painted upon it is a grinning blood-red skull.
19 – A one-gallon metal bucket of assorted nails.
20 – From a rusty post, on a faded strand of red cloth, hang a pair of flayed skulls, suspended by holes punched through their tops, flesh and blood long dried brown as paper and sepia ink. A hollow whistling whisper issues from them in the breeze, though you cannot make out words.
