Umerican Survival Guide KS, Part Deuce

I’m a child of the Cold War. I was born on an Air Force base in Germany in the late ‘60s. My entire childhood was spent on or very near bases that housed, delivered, or directed weapons of mass destruction. I can tell you the difference between a yellow, red, and black alert siren by merely hearing one. Those “duck and cover” drills you see in the old black and white reels? Yeah. We did that. In elementary school. All the time. Tuck your legs up under yourself, put your hands over your head, and whatever you do, make sure your genitalia are away from the blast so you can preserve the human race. I’m dead serious. That’s what we were taught. I lived in Omaha, NE, Ground Zero (the first place in the US that would have been struck by enemy nuclear missiles, if it came to that) for several years. In fact, while I was there, a made-for-TV movie entitled “Ground Zero” was released. It was a pseudo-documentary about what would happen if a 5-megaton bomb were to fall on Offutt AFB, about 5 miles from the military housing where I lived. Part of it was filmed at Peter Sarpy Elementary, a block from where I lived. Since CGI wasn’t a thing yet, they filmed kids playing on the monkey bars. As the nuclear bomb exploded on my television, I saw these kids, some of them only a couple years younger than me, melt on the playground as the thermal pulse passed through. A few weeks later, my family took our vacation to Kansas City to a large theme park there. We were in the hotel room one night, and what should come on the TV but another made-for-TV movie entitled “The Day After” which showed – you guessed it – a nuclear attack on Kansas City!

I was 13 at the time.

And people wonder why I am the way I am. :)

But this was my reality. AND it was my fantasy. It might surprise you that post-apocalyptic roleplaying was a very positive thing for me. But I loved it. Ironically, it gave me some hope! I was introduced to Gamma World in 1980, the same year that Thundarr the Barbarian crashed through my TV screen (and a year after Mad Max and a year before Heavy Metal and a year before The Road Warrior and . . .). Though I had started seriously roleplaying in 1979, the leap from the then-present ‘80s world was not as much of a stretch as that really famous fantasy game that I had picked up the year before. In my mind, fantasy and reality became conflated. Post-apocalyptic roleplaying was my window to the future.

Post-apocalyptic roleplaying was (and still is) for me, in a word, therapeutic. It gives me some measure of control over the future, even if only imagined. Of course, humor and horror are bedfellows, so having a good laugh (which I *always* do at the gaming table) was not out of place at all.

The prospect of nuclear war faded in the late ‘90s, but it seems to be back again. The time is ripe for more post-apocalyptic roleplaying, and Crawling Under a Broken Moon is among the best settings I know to indulge in it. I am extremely excited about the possibility, the timely possibility, of completing work on Killer of Giants and getting it in your hands; my ode to the threat of nuclear destruction that saturated my childhood and seems to be coming back just in time for a mid-life crisis filled with visions of mushroom clouds dancing in my head. I'm laughing death in the face!

What you'll find in Killer of Giants is a delve into some of the iconic structures of the Cold War, the underground missile silo complex. But these are replete with all the weirdness and fun you already associate with Crawling Under a Broken Moon! You see, nuclear destruction can be fun!!!

Did I mention therapy? Well, as I’ve said to many who have asked, writing is my drug. And I need a fix. Bad. This time, you get to be the beneficiary. Welcome to my post-apocalyptic nightmare. Let's laugh it in the face!

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