"We have my fists, your letter opener, and a helluva lot of bandits to kill. That's the plan. I run in, punch a few dudes, steal a bike, figure out how to ride it, and head back to the house? Stupid plan but are you going to help me or keep stabbing me in the neck?"
—Typical bounty hunter Indy Ploy
A Play-by-Post Game on This Very Wiki, Bounty Hunters Of The Apocalypse takes place five years after the 2012 apocalypse. It wasn't quite the apocalypse most were expecting, though.
Practically overnight, a multitude of monsters that Humanity had long assumed to just be the work of fiction suddenly became real, such as zombies, werewolves, vampires, bizarre creatures that seemingly defy physics, various types of fairies, and a whole host of demons, just to name a few. While many people hoped that these creatures were more like newer, friendlier interpretations, that did not turn out to be the case; things like peace or just seducing confused teenage girls did not seem to be in these creatures' plans, instead mostly destruction and chaos.
As military forces around the world mobilized, it was quickly discovered that these creatures were not as immune to normal weaponry as the old stories would suggest. Despite being assaulted by an enemy that had started appearing all around the world simultaneously, humanity fought back.
Humanity fought back so well in fact, that even after five long years, they still haven't been put down. Many governments still rule roughly the same areas they did before, with some leniency about where the borders are exactly; especially in regard to military deployments. With military forces mainly being deployed against only the most dangerous monsters or heavily overrun areas, and the police now concentrating on defending the civilian population, many countries had a gap to fill; how to go on the offensive against the monsters in less overrun areas.
The solution for many countries was placing mass blanket bounties on the monsters, and let human fondness for monetary incentives take care of the rest. Bounty hunting as a profession had been revived under a new job description.
The main thread can be found here.
It started in October 2012, and ran for roughly two years before petering out at the start of 2015.
Bounty Hunters Of The Apocalypse contains examples of:
- The Apunkalypse: Not quite- the government still controls large chunks of territory and even where it doesn't there are outposts of civilization- but things seem to be sliding that way. At the start of the apocalypse, a number of Crazy-Prepared people just assumed that this would be how things would go, and decided to get a head start. When society didn't completely collapse, these people found it hard to be welcomed back into society due to all the raiding, pillaging and such they had already done, so many just decided to stick with it. Thus is the origin story of around half of the bandits in the setting (the other half are just crazy or extremely greedy.)
- Bathos: The first cutaway post to seeing what the first antagonist, the vampire Fang, was up to while the bounty hunters were doing their own thing. Sitting in a dark warehouse, calmly drawing out a ritual circle of dark magic and giving an evil monologue to boot... And also sneezing occasionally.
- Batter Up!: Dale's melee weapon is a baseball bat.
- Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Anarchy is kept along as a bounty hunter despite her insanity due to the need for more manpower and firepower. She's also a medical student, but no one wants her anywhere near them.
- Casanova Wannabe: Slightly played with; Kirk admits that he has no luck with the ladies, but that doesn't stop him from trying.
- Cell Phones Are Useless: Because the bandits had control of the radio station and presumably jamming communications, Dale's cellphone was useless while the bandits were able to use their radios to talk to each other. Then, when the protagonists manage to steal a few radios, the ones on the helicopter forgot to leave a radio for those staying behind.
- Chainmail Bikini: The "armor" that succubi wear. It does about as well at protecting them as one could realistically expect, unless they enchant it.
- Child Prodigy: Garnett's only sixteen and yet can fix up a Jeep, helicopter, water heaters, and can invent numerous homemade weapons.
- Combat Pragmatist: Red, throughout the campaign has spit on his enemies, ran over them with a Jeep, threw a walkie talkie at them, and has thrown a shoe at one.
- Contrived Coincidence: A lot of people just happen to stumble into the main group at random times, who just happen to be bounty hunters. Justified as the bounty hunters probably heard about the town needing hunters and so that's why most just happen to be in the area.
- Crazy-Prepared: Ed carries around several water bottles - but only he knows that one actually has poison in it.
- Dirty Coward: Earl Harper deserted the military before the Apocalypse and was perfectly willing to abandon Shevon and the rest of the town that he and Gil were sent to reinforce.
- Does Not Like Guns: Red, who goes so far as to refuse every gun he is handed, even in the middle of gunfights.
- Everything's Deader with Zombies: Compared to the other monsters, the zombies are some of the least troublesome creatures out there.
- Fire-Breathing Weapon:
- Nathan's Homemade Flamethrower.
- Freckle the bandit had one as well, though it's unknown if it actually worked, given that Cranston shot the tank and made it explode before it could be used.
- Friendly Sniper: "Dune" was the best sharpshooter of the bandits, and is also the nicest bandit the hunters have encountered as he switched sides due to a genuine desire to do good. It is strongly implied that he was forced to become a bandit.
- Guns Akimbo:
- Tequila is skilled at using a Colt Peacemaker in each hand.
- Jerry also dual wielded his pistols to kill a dire wolf.
- Headphones Equal Isolation: When Garnett puts on her Slayer-blasting headphones, she typically can't be talked to.
- Heel–Face Turn: After "Bill" was captured by Red, he ended up repairing the Jeep and led the bounty hunters to the rest of the bandits, as well as supplying vital information about Glassy and his gang. Ultimately though, he was killed before he could see any of this come into fruition.
- I Know Madden Kombat:
- Red applies his skills as a former boxer to fistfight zombies with his brass knuckles - though his bare-knuckled punches hurt like hell as well.
- As a former football player, Dale instinctively tried to tackle Red when he mistakenly believed he was trying to burn down the house containing their bounty. And again when Red wouldn't stop talking into the radio and giving away their position.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: A skeleton shot Kirk with an arrow and it impaled him through his chest.
- Improvised Weapon:
- Og is known to hit things with his entrenching tool very hard.
- Dale keeps a Brooklyn Smasher around just in case.
- Red fights with a bike chain and has fought with a chair before.
- Kleptomaniac Hero: After clearing out the zombies that were infesting a farm house, the bounty hunters stole everything they could carry, hoping it would be of some use when brought back to town.
- The Magic Comes Back: After the apocalypse, many of the creatures of myths and legends came back into focus - mainly because it is more or less the entire reason for the apocalypse.
- Never Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight: Unsurprisingly, Glassy's dual machetes weren't too useful against Jerry's Winchester sending a bullet right through his skull. The eight grenades he had tied to his vest, though, are another story.
- No Name Given: Ed - he got the name "Ed" when Steph guessed his name was "Edward Nigma", and he decided to stick with that. As for Tank, well, everyone calls him "Tank". There's also Anarchy.
- Nonindicative Name: Monsters that are on Humanity's side, particularly those that used to be Human, are usually called "half" monsters in-setting, but this is a misnomer from a biological standpoint, from which they are just as much of a monster as their evil counterparts.
- Not That Kind of Doctor: Doc, who is a doctor, and the town's medic, but not a Doctor of Medicine."Paleontology - that's what my doctorate is actually in, paleontology. I got tired of explaining to people that 'I'm not that kind of doctor', so I decided to learn a thing or two about fixing people up."
- Out with a Bang: A subversion on the part of succubi and incubi; just about everyone who's had intercourse with one is dead, but the act itself is not lethal in the slightest. The part where they tear out your throat once they're finished, however...
- Overly Long Name: "Emerson Cabinet Three Cabinets Down From The End Cabinet", a gnome the bounty hunters meet. Tequila's full name is "Patricia Tequila Stands At Sunrise Mallory"
- Pyromaniac: Several. Nathan D. Ignacio, the bounty hunter who fights with his Homemade Flamethrower. Freckle the bandit may also count seeing as he wields a flamethrower and is frequently described as maniacal. Pyro now seems to have replaced Nathan as the group's resident fire starter.
- Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Red seems to be okay with the Dune's Flyer's, and Kirk's past as bandits, but when he found out that Kirk had attempted to rape a women, he was notably upset, gave a stern talking to Kirk, and warned him that if he ever tried it again, he would answer to Red. Anarchy also tried to murder him.
- Really Gets Around: Elisa is adept at using her (ahem) natural assets and her charming demeanor to coerce men (and the right women) into getting just what she wants from them.
- Rodents of Unusual Size: The aptly named giant rats are rats about the same size as a dog. At least, the small ones are; the larger ones can be around the size of cows.
- Running Gag: Several. Red seems to lose his shirt frequently, Kirk always seems to end up injured, Max (formerly Dale) and Red always seem to try and seduce succubi, and none of the hunters can ever seem to remember that Flyer's helicopter is small.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: "Dune" abandoned town and fled when he heard that Mephisto had been summoned. Is a bit less cowardly than most examples seeing as his deal with the sheriff was technically finished and a demon overlord is something that any sane man should fear.
- Shout-Out:
- During the RP, the Player Characters met a "half" vampire by the name of Carl. Carl was wearing tons of jewelry, authentic and fake, including multiple crowns, and was busy sorting candies by color when encountered. Carl was a dual-reference; the first was to a certain build of Dwarf Fortress, in which vampires in adventure mode were bugged to wear tons and tons more jewelry items than they should. The second reference was to an episode of The X-Files, in which vampires are explained to be extremely obsessive compulsive about counting and sorting (like in certain ancient legends about vampires) and a spilled bag of candy is used to distract one.
- The Bestiary post alone contains a lot of shout outs. To list some of the less obvious ones, from top to bottom...
- The idea that female giant spiders are larger than their male counterparts is true with real spiders, at least with some species, but them being larger and much less common together are in reference to plot elements from the movie Eight Legged Freaks. In fact, the inclusion of giant spiders at all is mostly due to that movie and the GM's fondness for it.
- Though it also requires referencing the GMPC's character sheet, it can be discerned that house cats are both immune to the magic that normally makes animals into dire animals, and that some monsters automatically dislike cats. This is specifically a reference to The Mummy, in which it's said by a character that cats are Egyptian guardians of the underworld, and one is used to scare off the titular character; it's specifically a reference to the movie because the GM had not yet bothered to figure out if that's actually a part of Egyptian mythology.
- The approximate size of giant ants in the setting are specifically based off the giant ants in the later installments of the Fallout series, Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas. None of them breathe fire in the RP, but they come in much higher numbers than the games.
- The appearance of ghouls is based off of "burnt corpse" ragdolls from Half-Life 2.
- Though the videogame Metro 2033 helped cement the idea of what to have common ghosts be in the RP, the GM originally got the idea by messing with certain tools on ragdolls and entities in Garry's Mod, achieving the same "invisible object with casted shadow from a flashlight" effect.
- Animated statues were partially inspired by the GM listening to a couple of his friends talking about "weeping angels" from the Doctor Who series, along with being a pretty straight forward idea on its own.
- Small abominations, while partially inspired by a player monster suggestion, were also inspired by The Thing (1982). Big abominations were inspired by an undead faction unit from Warcraft III. (Along with an encounter in a real life RPG the GM played in, run by a friend of his, but that's not as linkable.)
- The "goblin" demons are based pretty much entirely on an early enemy from Diablo II, as referenced with its final alternative name, "fallen". The reason the GM decided to have goblin be the main name was due to a conversation with a friend while said friend was playing through the early sections of Diablo II, calling the enemies goblins because "that's basically what they are". This also inspired the GM to include more alternate names based on the "somewhat chibi, beastly human-like enemy" mook archetype that appears in many games; hence moblin and gremlin also being listed as alternate names.
- Hellhounds were inspired by an enemy unit in Majesty.
- Warlords were mainly inspired by major demons of Khorne from Warhammer 40,000, particularly the depictions of the bloodthirster and deamon prince from the Dawn of War video game.
- While the cthulians in general are obviously based on the Cthulhu Mythos, the GM has so far only taken the ideas of merfolk and the shoggoth specifically from the mythos; this is mainly because the GM has not actually read any of the direct Cthulhu Mythos himself, and mostly knows of it from indirect sources such as: a friend of his who has, a couple of games based on/inspired by the mythos, and a fanfic.
- The name of "the thing" cthulian has the same inspiration as the small abominations up above, but its physical appearance is based on SCP-058.
- The RP's version of cherubs was inspired by a kids' edition Bible the GM used to have, that included editor footnotes to explain obscure things in the Bible and provide some possible explanations for things that weren't clear. When the Bible references cherubs having the "face of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle", an editor footnote was attached explaining that they guessed what the Bible meant was that cherubs could look like whatever they wanted at any time. Hence the cherubs in the RP being shape-shifters.
- Archangels are described in the RP as having a varied number of appearances on purpose so the GM can eventually include unique ones; a combination of the examples listed though (darkened hood plus "tentacle wings") makes the angel Tyreal from Diablo II, which is not a coincidence.
- Teach Me How To Fight: Red trains Eve how to box while Eve, in turn, teaches him how to use a bo staff.
- Too Dumb to Live: Yeah, Red, going after about a dozen or so bandits armed with guns by yourself is a great idea. Same for you Anarchy.
- Voice Changeling: Anarchy's very good at imitating voices. It's the main reason she could pretend to be a man for as long as she did.
- Wrench Wench: Garnet can fix just about anything, and can make weapons capable of killing ghouls out of pieces of shovels - all while blasting Slayer through her earbuds.
- Zombie Apocalypse: In technicality, but really the zombies are only a small part of the bigger picture.
- Zombie Gait: The zombies classified as walkers and ghouls are limited to walking, making them quite slow. However, the runners... run.
