Small Towns
 

How about the many Small unincorporated towns off major highways.
Im sure theres small enclaves or starved dead houses full of goodies.
Guns,canned goods,gardens,tools.

Places like the show american pickers on history channel would be good.
Scroungers should check this show out.

That's funny; I actually have that whole issue, scanned and in my computer. (I concluded many years ago that I would never have room in the house to keep all the magazines I wanted to keep.) Yeah, that would be a treasure trove!

In the TW2000 campaign/timeline/gazeteer I have been fiddling with for years, rumors about giant Mormon stashes of food lead to LDS folks being the targets of a lot of marauders, many of whom mix in a bunch of the standard anti-Mormon hysteria to justify killing and stealing from Mormons. Many Mormons are ejected from their communities for "hoarding." Those that can begin the long trek to the relative security of Utah do so. But they are not the only people headed to Utah.

Groups of Non-LDS refugees flood into Utah on the false presumption that every Mormon family has stocked away food for three years. Told by state and local authorities that this is not true, concentrated in under-fed refugee camps, these refugees ultimately riot and turn marauder. This invasion by violent, desperate non-LDS members shocks the citizens of Utah into taking on a very isolationist stance. Non-LDS Utah residents get the same treatment from the out-of-state marauders who think everyone in Utah is a Mormon.

Utah residents are tortured for the whereabouts of their giant "Mormon" stashes by marauders too stupid to realize there is nothing to steal.

Per canon, the State Governor withholds the National Guard from Federal Service and (although they refuse to actually say they are seceding) refuses to recognize the authority of MilGov or CigGov.

In my timeline, this causes a lot of bad blood with MilGov (which is closer), but no outright combat. MilGov has a couple airbases that are still manned that the Utah State Government is hoping MilGov will abandon so the state can occupy them. Some of those bases have nuclear weapons and MilGov wants to remove them to Colorado for storage, but without the State government's help, transporting them could be precarious. The result is a tense stand off that's not quite a siege, but more of an endurance contest. Can the MilGov facilities hold out until such time as one Federal government has enough resources to force Utah back into the union?

Well, maybe not "force them back into the union." Maybe it's more like "get them to recognize the legitimate authority of the new federal government." I'm imagining that if the reformed US government isn't a religious state hostile to the LDS, then the state of Utah will rejoin the union, and pretend that this was all just a big misunderstanding.

Of course, there are plenty of LDS extremist who want to declare Utah the State of Deseret, creating a nation where church and state are one, bring back polygamy and kick the "children of Ham" out of the church. A violent minority, they are sort of a mini-New America for Utah, constantly causing trouble. Perhaps the Extremists even attempt to provoke a shooting war between MilGov and Utah? If these idiots gain control of any nukes, they are going to be serious trouble. They might even use it to try and stage a coup, seizing the state house and declaring a real secession from the USA.

Well that's good to hear, but I'm still thinking that enough minority LDS communities and individual members are going to get caught flat footed outside Utah and the tide of numbers is going to result in them being injured, killed and their homes and property looted and destroyed. Nevertheless, it does mean that the Utah National Guard and State Militia will have a lot of talent to pull from when it comes time to close the state.

I'd be interested to know what percentage of fringe-wacko LDS members participate in national military service. I expect that since these groups are insular, and secret, they wouldn't get out much and their access to Uncle Sam's training would be lower... which is good. It means that the orthodox LDS would be fighting amateurs, not professionals. Of course, amateurs can suprise you.

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

I just re-read Pat Frank's Alas Babylon. A great book whose only flaw is that I think the author over-estimates the Soviet strike capacity of 1959. The number and armament of the ICBMs comes off like something out of the mid-to-late '60s... 5 megaton warheads on soviet ICBMs just didn't exist in 1959.

Nevertheless, one of the greatest moments of the books (for me) is when one of the kids explores the "attic full of junk" the adults have forgotten about and discovers a treasure trove of early 20th century technology:

A hand-cranked gramaphone and a large collection of 78 rpm records.

A sewing machine that uses a foot-petal to provide energy.

A couple of old kerosene lamps with wicks, but no oil.

An old pot-bellied iron stove with lengths of straight and hinged stove pipe

An old fashioned grooming kit including a strap and two straight razors

Any group of TW:2000 players had better recognize how valuable an intact pot bellied stove would be.

So? What kind of helpful cache of supplies have you thrown at your players that they turned their noses up at because it wasn't ammo, MREs, fuel or medicine?

A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing

Just thought of an interesting treasure trove...

What about something like the Military Vehicle Technology Foundation? http://www.mvtf.org/

A private collection of military vehicles... currently there are 240 vehicles in the collection. Most, if not all are functional. The staff has the facilities and th skills to machine parts to restore the vehicles... perhaps even restore or replace their weaponry with something useful.

Obviously the wouldn't be as many tanks in 1997 as there are today, but the tools and equipment for working on tanks might be worth more than the tanks themselves. It's a privately owned tank depot!

For me, this place would have fallen into the hands of the US 6th Army, particularly the 40th ID (Mech), which might partly explain how the unit has managed to keep so many vehicles operational.


A. Scott Glancy, President TCCorp, dba Pagan Publishing.

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_csh6xy


I use to work for them. lol

Really sharp?
 

I left a special treat for thieves or marauders in one farmer's smokehouse--cheese made from milk produced by cows that had ingested fallout-contaminated meadow grass. Biologically concentrated, some of the medium and lots of the longer-half-lived radioisotopes would still be present 3 years later. The farmer, rather than discard it, decided to leave this as a delayed-reaction booby trap for the uninvited.

I had the PCs find a Royal Engineer Section complete with vehicles all in mid stages of decomposition. It is a lucky thing they never tried the water ine tank trailer.


In the same town near the river, they found a nezt of someone who had been living under a building foundation. They also found several cans of food again, good thing they never tried it, it was contaminated with radioactivity and would have rocked their world.

Its good to be the evil GM:D

Some bound copies of "Popular Science" - dating back to the 40's and 50's

Seriously... have a look through them on "Google Books". There's some amazing stuff in there (for example, the April 1940 issue includes an article on how to make a crossbow).

In my campaign Major Po's group found a large stash of powdered icecream (the powdered component of icecream ready to have milk, cream and other ingredients added for manufacture) while they were exploring in the northern third of Manhatten Island. Some of the stash had been deliberately contaminated with smallpox by a CIA faction. Typically Major Po determined the nature of the contamination and used the material to start spreading smallpox himself. It was of course with great irony that he sometimes referred to himself as "The Medicine Buddha".

I am reminded of a story from Robert Mason's "Chickenhawk", about helicopter pilots in Vietnam.

After a supply Huey crashed enroute, some naive new Supply guy was instructed to go around to the various units and ask the supply sergeants if they had anything that had been coming in on that downed chopper that now had to be replaced. The supply sergeants recognized a unique opportunity to balance their books, so to speak, and said, "Now that you mention it, I had ordered six cases of this, and seven boxes of that..." By the time it was all calculated, the Huey had some eleven tons of materials on it, according to the supply sergeants' tally. "No wonder the goddammed thing went down!", Mason commented.

I was a supply sergeant in a battalion once that had a similar event happen... we had a CUCV (GI Chevy Blazer) on a train that was derailed, and some items were missing. By the time the paperwork made it to approval, that CUCV was carrying something like 5 tons of gear. But the commander signed it, and that made it official.

When I got back from one deployment, the National Guard state HQ supply guys were there when I cracked open the container full of equipment we redeployed. By the time they left, they had what my commander (naively) was referring to as "the extra list" - a few things that were not officially accounted for. On that deployment I had 4 or 5 little stash locations that nobody new about... they assumed some other unit owned that space.

As far as trading, good supply people don't operate on a "transactional" basis - "I'll trade you this for that" - but on a "relationship" basis - "I'll hook you up when you need something, and when I'm in a bind I can count on you to help me out if you have what I need". Helps get things done. (With that, I once pulled a deal that involved the Danish and Turkish armies and four different US bases... it was epic!)

God bless easy-going commanders who don't ask a lot of questions!

Actually, that particular commander had already tangled with me once and ended up $400-some poorer as a result. If he had been a little more easy-going maybe his items would have shown up after he lost them...

A lesson for junior officers... don't try to needlessly court martial your supply sergeant in a war zone.

For some reason a vision of a conglomeration of Radar O'Reilly and Major Po just flashed before my eyes and I was very scared of the concept.

Thread revival and all, but I was just doing some research and came across this thread. I was thinking about odd treasure troves myself, and thought about Coca-Cola. I know that in the present you can find Coke in every country except Cuba and North Korea (and even then ;) ), so I thought about the possibility of a group coming across some carefully protected 12-packs or a barely functioning soda fountain.

I looked into it, and low and behold, Poland got its first Coca-Cola corporate office in 1991. And guess where it was? The Palace of Culture and Science, the home of the 'ol Black Baron. Guess he has another leg up on the militia, artillery aside!

Over the next year more facilities opened up, as follows:

Now I envision a literal cross-country journey to find the secret to manufacturing Coca-Cola again! I found this info here if you're interested.

Coke requires kola beans which do not grow in non-tropical environments, generally; however, some are cultivated in northern italy or southern germany, according to this map:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...lanutYield.png

Also note a crapton are grown in central southern California, but well enough away from LA that they might not be fallout contaminated.

What was the yield of weapons used on and around that region?

We can use nukemap to maybe determine what the crops would be like...

Also: I had a character (didn't get to play, unfortunately) among his treasures was a 12 pack of canned coke.

Well I work at a woodworking store (http://www.woodcraft.com/) we stock power and hand woodworking tools. But the big thing would be the books on working with hand tools.

I can imagine that if a library was able to stay in good conditions (not sure how, given the fallout, looting, and whatnot), 'How-To' books would be extremely valuable. Same with hardware stores like you mentioned. They can offer both in-universe and in-game benefits (Observation learning from reading a book?).

I know that Michael "Mad Mike" Williamson knows the guy who owns that room. According to Mike the Owner recently sold a Livingston rifle for $500,000. And yes it was once owned by that Livingston.

I had a few thoughts....

One has anyone ever seen the show hoarders? Now most of these people on the show hoard garbage and junk not fit to be around but some of them hoard things like Books and tools. My old boss legitimately was a firearms, ammunition and accessories hoarder. Some people hoard canned food and batteries and household goods useful things to the end of world traveler. My moms house is a mixture of all the above!

The second thought was Liberty tool shed and captain Tinkhams.....two real places here in Maine that have nothing but antique tools and farm equipment!!!!

I read that John Denver was a gas hoarder in the 1970's had several underground tanks full of gasoline/petrol on his property.

Perhaps these are all easy ideas and there could be something more bizzare but also useful.....

what about a place with functioning hot water? Say a farm house with a wood boiler and gravity feed water tank (not that uncommon here in the north east)

ill think of more soon

Hoarding books...I'm guilty.

My mother calls me a hoarder, but I don't think I'm that far gone. But perhaps my biggest aspect of hoarding is computer parts and files. I have some old RAM in my closet that wouldn't fit in any computer made for quite some time now. And I have files that I wrote on my first computer in 1991 (just converted into something readable by today's programs), and some of the JPGs have been on one of my computers since the beginning.

A lot of time, these things become useful. It's not hoarding -- I know where to look for everything.

My mother tends to hoard. Its irrational. She keeps unopened bank statements from like 15 years ago, receipts that are decades old, etc. Not very useful in a T2K sense. Aside from a nice source of paper to start a fire with.

Functional uses for "useless" items
 

While not a "private" stash, there are a few things mentioned in passing in the Allegheny Uprising strategic reserve that might actually turn out more valuable than at first glance.
--Crates of DoD and tax forms; lots of paper, which, if densely compressed, will slow down projectiles if the reserve's location becomes a combat zone. Also useful with moderate treatment (soaked with water and dried) as toilet paper. Not great but better than leaves, brother. Perhaps also useful if soaked in water, rolled tightly and bound into 11-inch-long "logs", dried, then soaked in waste fat/oil for erszatz firewood. And finally, as a source of information about the addresses of small businesses that might have hidden/abandoned resources nearby that could be used in the recovery efforts.
--Crates of oil pipeline xrays, which are negatives. Which contain lots and lots of recoverable _silver_. Also, the filmstock itself might come in handy to water proof small items, or as sunglass lenses.
More as they occur to me.

No. Dawn of the Dead was filmed at the Monroeville Mall. They even refer to it (the zombies swarm the mall due to some bearly-remembered instinct for shopping).

I (along with a dozen friends, awake at stupid o'clock in the morning on different Sat nights/Sunday mornings) was one of the extras, but near as I can see I ended up on the cutting room floor.

Uncle Ted

Are you pushing for actual Cola Wars?

Picture a mad-eyed senior officer....

"Dammit, major! My men will need to have heart to push those dammned Mexicans out of California! They'll need the promise of Coke! Served by cute American girls in short shorts! Your battalion WILL take that area this week, and secure the area until the harvest is complete!."

Uncle Ted

Iron Mountain
 

I used to work for Iron Mountain about 12 years ago.

In addition to tons of paper records (government & corporate), there are private physical storage areas, with anything from photo albums to sets of china (these are rare, because access is difficult and the storage is expensive - but then, what is there is probabaly of value - or was of value before TDM and nuclear war.

There (is) also a (very) large data center, designed to hold corporate (and government) electronic data. While the data may be of limited value, you will get a large functioning data center in a place specifically designed NOT to be damaged by natural and unnatural disasters, including nuclear attack, and is not near a specific target. The computers, of course, can be re-purposed, and corporate finance and operations records for a few hundred randomly selected US Fortune 5000 corporations deleted (heck, its available on back-up anyway).

Uncle Ted

Just for entertainment...Try surfing some of the survival food web sites, the claims and counterclaims can be amusing. Although the five gallon plastic buckets holding four weeks of food for one person are intriguing...

Ugly Sweaters
 

A trunkful (or suitcase or storage box) of particularly ugly sweaters, part of collection of that which should not be worn: bright, clashing colors, peculiar shades, decorated with elves, trees, moose, reindeer, big red hearts, badly rendered ice skaters, large silvery stars, etc.

There could be matching socks in the bottom.

Found in an attic or basement in November in a northern climate. (Last folk passing through in summer did not need or want them them).

You can provide a clue by having a shredded sweater on the stairs leading to the rest. "Is that a smurf?"

Uncle Ted

Have the team exploring an abandoned house, and finding a hatch in the backyard. Exploring the hatch leads to a bomb shelter...packed of U.S. Civil Defence supplies, nothing like 50-year old canned water and enriched crackers for dinner. Would that be a +5 for the upchoke roll!

Slightly off the road, your PCs find a set of trailers, slightly weathered.

On further examination, these are carnival rides, abandoned by the trucks that towed them a years or two back. Some rides have been plundered, in that seats or some decorations are missing.

With some persistence (if the ride is opened up), some of the rides have their own generator or engine - each with 0-50L of gasoline (2D6-2 x 5) that can be siphoned out.

Uncle Ted

Some of them also have hydraulics, from which might be siphoned the fluid. That is if you're not going to salvage the systems themselves.
You never know when you might need an MG/periscope on an extension arm.
Might also be handy equipped with a rake or hook attachment to try to remove objects without getting too close (AP mines). :cool:

Visiting a friends house, who runs the local civil war living history unit, and his arms room got me thinking...a 12pdr Napoleon, a dozen Springfield and Enfield rifle muskets, Spencer rifles and carbine, Colt and Remington cap and ball revolvers, sabers, bayonets, enough to field a company.

Amazing what one can find in the Deep South!

The Napoleon is the prize here, followed by the rifles and revolvers. The Spencers are going to have the same problem faced by the Southerners who captured them--once the rimfire ammo's gone, it's a fancy club.
The Napoleon, though, could take out soft-skinned vehicles and make a APC think twice. IIRC some ACW artillerists live-fire their weapons with appropriately-diametered food cans filled with cement. One wonders what would happen if a nice hardened steel spike is centered along the long axis of the projectile?

While I generally agree with you on the cannon, I think the black powder pistols and rifles will be more useful and the caps are a pretty easy fix. The better (more useful?) use for those food cans is to fill them with stones or scrap metal fragments and just bend the top back down. They fragment wonderfully upon impact.

I do know that this has been used to fire grapeshot and canister as well as solid shot as part of an archeological research project, copies of artillery manuals from the Civil War showing to make shells and fuses, and several members claim they can manufacture the same, so I can see certain possibilities. This is part a battery in lower Mississippi and eastern Louisiana and they have access to another Napoleon, a 12pdr mountain howitizer, a 6pdr field gun and a 12pdr Cohorn mortar. So enough guns to defend a small town.

Also, note that the carriage on that Napoleon can be removed and the gun placed on a more "modern" mount. There would be no problem mounting that on the back of a 5-ton flatbed using the parts of a light truck suspension to mount the gun without damaging the truck or the gun. In fact, I'm willing to bet there's a "Technical" out there with just such an arrangement.

One wonders how much more beneficial a recoil mechanism would be for accuracy. Of course a soup can packed with 6d nails or heavy staples (heh,heh), or even barbs clipped from barbed wire (suitably rusty, of course), would most definitely have a beneficially adverse effect on enemy morale.
Hmmmm....soup can with razor wire coiled inside it....?

[QUOTE=WallShadow;71287]One wonders how much more beneficial a recoil mechanism would be for accuracy. Of course a soup can packed with 6d nails or heavy staples (heh,heh), or even barbs clipped from barbed wire (suitably rusty, of course), would most definitely have a beneficially adverse effect on enemy morale.
Hmmmm....soup can with razor wire coiled inside

Soup cans are a tad small in a diameter, coffee cans are normally used, stuff one full of musket balls and you have canister, pour concrete and let one set, you have solid shot.

The artillery manuals also all kinds of useful info like how to make illumination and incendiary rounds as well.

Not an odd treasure trove, more an odd place to find certain things...

In regards to finding firearms for scenarios set in the United Kingdom (and for almost anywhere else really), there is one source of civilian firearms that doesn't get much attention... zoos/wildlife parks.

In many countries, operators of these facilities have an obligation to protect the public should a dangerous animal escape and for some, one option is to deploy their own armed response teams.
Zoos/wildlife parks are by no means very common but aside from people going there to kill the animals for food or find vehicles, construction supplies etc. etc., how many people would raid a zoo thinking it has firearms locked away somewhere?

For some more info, The Firearms Blog has this page,
http://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2...irearm+Blog%29