Saturday, May 2, 2015

The End is Near

I am thinking about starting up a new Mutant Future game in the near future. My D&D 4e campaign has been on hiatus since the birth of my son Leo last November and I have been growing less and less inclined to start it back up again. Today some Jehovah's Witnesses came to my door bearing the inspiration I needed, a new direction for a post-apocalyptic campaign. The May 1, 2015 edition of "The Watchtower - Announcing Jehovah's Kingdom" has a killer cover image depicting a few bedraggled survivors making their way across a rubble strewn area while the city burns behind them. Brilliant beams from heaven pierce the thick cloud of black smoke overhead.  The cover asks the question, "Is the end near?

The answer in my game is yes.  I will set my game in the very near future, with the apocalypse loosely as described in the Book of Revelation.  The game will take place after much of the earth is destroyed and while demonic entities rule most of the survivors, before the final battle at Armageddon.     Mutations will be a result of a comet called Wormwood that impacts the earth, poisoning water worldwide with alien mutagenic compounds.

 Some cherry picked descriptions of the apocalypse lifted straight from the Wikipedia Book of Revelation entry including the verse notations):


  • Hail and fire, mingled with blood, are thrown to the earth burning up a third of the trees and green grass. (8:6–7)
  •  Something that resembles a great mountain, burning with fire, falls from the sky and lands in the ocean. It kills a third of the sea creatures and destroys a third of the ships at sea. (8:8–9)
  •  A great star, named Wormwood, falls from heaven and poisons a third of the rivers and springs of water. (8:10–11)
  •  A third of the sun, the moon, and the stars are darkened creating complete darkness for a third of the day and the night. (8:12–13)
  • A "star" falls from the sky (9:1).This "star" is given "the key to the bottomless pit" (9:1). The "star" then opens the bottomless pit. When this happens, "smoke [rises] from [the Abyss] like smoke from a gigantic furnace. The sun and sky [are] darkened by the smoke from the Abyss" (9:2).  From out of the smoke, locusts who are "given power like that of scorpions of the earth" (9:3), who are commanded not to harm anyone or anything except for people who were not given the "seal of God" on their foreheads (from chapter 7) (9:4). The "locusts" are described as having a human appearance (faces and hair) but with lion's teeth, and wearing "breastplates of iron"; the sound of their wings resembles "the thundering of many horses and chariots rushing into battle" (9:7–9).
  • The four angels bound to the great river Euphrates are released to prepare two hundred million horsemen. These armies kill a third of mankind by plagues of fire, smoke, and brimstone. (9:13–21)
  • A great, fiery red, seven-headed dragon drags a third of the stars of heaven with his tail, and throws them to the earth. (12:3–4). 
  • A seven-headed leopard-like beast emerges from the sea, having one mortally wounded head that is then healed. The Dragon grants him power and authority for forty-two months. (13:1–5)
  • Another beast appears, but from the earth, having two horns like a lamb and speaking like a dragon. He directs people to make an image of the beast, breathing life into it, and forcing all people to bear "the mark of the Beast" 




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