The Inner Ramparts (Wermspittle)

The only non-bloodstained ectograph from our visit
to the North West Rampart last Winter.
The trees were singing right up until the Black Smoke alarm...

Between the Great Round Road and the Baffles lie the Inner Ramparts. Eight cardinal redoubts, each heavily fortified and dunged about with various and sundry war machinery, most of it rusted, rotten and defunct. Old timers claim there used to be more of these defensive positions, some say twelve, others as many as sixteen. Now there are eight marked on the maps, even if only six of them are currently listed as active. That's still more than enough to keep the seriously diminished ranks of the Wall Guard busy. There haven't been any of the promised replacements in years. The units originally stationed at these places have become erstwhile squatters, raising their families right there upon the battlements, along the trenches, and in the old Guard Houses. They train-up their children as their replacements now. Each of the five surviving units of the Wall Guard stationed at the still functioning Guard Houses has its own slightly modified insignia, what amounts to a sort of family crest now. It's a tradition among them. Some say that it has affected the children in strange ways. The Wall Guard tend to have more than their share of Prodigies and Oddlings, at least according to popular rumor. Perhaps that's just so much empty-headed gossip. Or it could be a troubling sign of bad times ahead. This is Wermspittle; things can always get worse.

The Eight Inner Ramparts enclose an area known as the Baffles that has been walled-up, cordoned-off and barricaded away. Officially, the Ramparts are supposed to be the only means of access to this area. Unofficially, practically anyone who has spent more than a single Winter in this place knows there are several discrete entrances into the Baffles and the Weak Points leading off to the Adjacent Worlds beyond. All of those worlds are dead. They've all been cataloged, documented and written-off by the majority of experts and scholars at the Academy. It's understandable. Practically every Adjacent World that has been discovered in this region tends to lead to a dead, barren place. The Academy was originally founded here in order to study all these dead and abandoned worlds. The Institute for Apocalyptic Studies used to be an academic institution, before it became a congress of cultists.

Steel-reinforced concrete bunkers flank each of the ponderous draw-bridges connecting the Ramparts with the outer perimeter of the Baffles. Pillbox-style mitrailleuse emplacements overlook the mined and wire-strung approaches. The barbed wire is rusted into uselessness where it isn't entangled with Red Weeds. The Third Army under Javret stripped most of the pill-boxes to use the guns in their disastrous assault on Nagrothea. There used to be heavy cannon as well, but most of those were removed. Some of the bigger guns were remounted along the North Face of the main bluff, ostensibly to defend Wermspittle from the hordes and mobs flooding out from the war-ravaged Three Empires. Most of these cannon were supposed to be melted-down and used to construct urgently needed barricades and spiked barriers for the Sewer Militia to use in their ongoing war in the Deep Below. There are rumors that at least three of the big guns were hidden somewhere in the city by resisters. There are also indications that a goodly amount of the steel from this effort was illegally diverted. No one is sure how or why, or even where the misdirected metal wound up. Some say it was just incompetence on the part of some logistics officer. The Sewer Militia did hang three quartermaster's orderlies in the course of their investigation into the matter. That was back when they still hung people. Back before the Alraunes made that a really bad idea.

Thanks to the Wall Guard, the Ramparts are still manned, more or less. If you're going to visit the Ramparts, go in the Winter. Things tend to be quieter then. You're less likely to get shot by accident. They still maintain the old Black Smoke alarms in the Northern Guard Houses, the alarms in the East are not as reliable and the alarms in the West are gone. Some enterprising scavengers took the alarm when the Western Guard House was abandoned to the Red Weeds.

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The Eight Inner Ramparts

d8	Cardinal Direction	Status	Unit Strength	Unit Insignia	Black Smoke %
1	North	Commandant Zulmer has made this Guard House his Headquarters. After sixteen executions and summary courts martial, things are settling down again, as much as they ever do in this place. Zulmer has begun training-up a corps of non-coms with the help of some old sergeants mustered out of the Sewer Militia. This has caused some trouble for him with the units of the Wall Guard stationed on the Outer Ramparts. A schism appears imminent, even inevitable now.	30 Light Infantry, 16 Heavy Infantry, 4 Light Cavalry, 67 Irregulars, 45 Specialists, 21 Support, 106 Dependents	Black Horned-Bear on Green Square	3%
2	North East	The White Harts recently took in some Pallid Refugees to bolster their ranks. They are rumored to have worked-out some sort of arrangement with a group of scavenger-scholars to help fund their re-armament efforts. They recently recovered some field artillery and have requested a training cadre to help them build-up their own artillery-team.	49 Light Infantry, 2 Heavy Infantry, 6 Irregulars, 15 Pallid Recruits, 6 Support, 45 Dependents	White Hart on Black Thorn-Wreath	10%
3	East	This Guard House is compromised, the lower levels are flooded. More than half the Hawks have fled to the North East Guard House. The rest are staying to fight what looks like a losing battle. No reliable reports have come out of this place since the trouble began. Lots of rumors are in circulation, of course.	10 Light Infantry, 14 Heavy Infantry, 18 Irregulars, 2 support, (Rest of unit in transit to NE Guard House)	Yellow Hawk on Blue Oval	70%
4	South East	Surrounded by shantytown, despite mold infestation. The Purple Lions occupy the Infirmary. The Guard House proper is completely taken-over by mold. Jelly Hunters are flocking to this place to investigate the infestation. There is a bit of tension between the factions, but so far the Jelly Hunters have been supportive of the Wall Guard. It saves them money and effort.	16 Light Infantry, 3 Heavy Infantry, 23 Irregulars, 56 Dependents	Purple Lion on Black Triangle	15%
5	South	The South Guard House was abandoned due to the Scarlet Plague. No one gets out of the Containment Zone, though every now and then a few cultists get permission to pass through the cordoned-off section. The majority of the unit assigned to this Guard House occupies a fall-back position that their Combat Engineers are converting into a sort of Keep. No one talks about the 'conscripted undead' digging trenches.	6 Light Infantry on patrol duty, 4 Irregulars on-call. Reserves include mortar crews, mine-layers and combat engineers.	[Red Griffin on Gold Triangle]	30%
6	South West	This Guard House was abandoned after collapse of Main Bunker due to undermining. This area is mostly dangerous rubble, riddled with sinkholes and collapsing tunnels, sprinkled liberally with land-mines and lingering traces of Black Smoke. Foragers and Scavengers have begun to construct some make-shift fortifications off to the side of the main thoroughfare. Some of them have taken to using the old unit's insignia. This has caused some friction between them and the 'legitimate heirs' of the Purple Wyverns. So far the Commandant has not said anything. Officially.	22 Light Infantry, 3 Heavy Infantry, 6 Irregulars stationed outside the primary firewall in make-shift bivouac.	[Purple Wyvern]	90%
7	West	Another abandoned Guard House, this one is now completely overgrown by Red Weeds. You can see the Purple Glow quite a ways off. There are a few survivors of the old unit originally assigned to this Guard House trying to maintain a patrol, but it is pretty ineffective at present.	6 Light Infantry, 22 Irregulars patrol the back quarter on sporadic basis.	[Blue Fist on White Teardrop]	30%
8	North West	Partially rebuilt after fire, Black Smoke lingers about the draw-bridge supports. The Black Eyes have come to an agreement with some of the local gangs of Feral Children; they buy the older kids at a set rate. They are training the new kids to be their own 'combat foragers' and sending them across the Baffles to look for anything useful over there. The Commandant is very interested in their progress.	42 combat Engineers, 23 Light Infantry, 6 Heavy Infantry, 37 Irregulars, 23 Support, 12 Specialists, 78 Dependents.	Black Eye Over Blue Diamond	75%

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Black Smoke %: This is the base chance of someone spotting Black Smoke every hour. It might be a false alarm, someone's moronic idea of a joke, or it could be the real thing. It varies by circumstance and situation.

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Note
Each of the Guard Houses will be more fully detailed in a follow-up post, including their own Encounter Tables. We'll link each of those entries back to this table so it can serve as a central hub for all things pertaining to the Inner Ramparts.

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Beware The Scarlet Plague (Wermspittle)

The heart began to beat faster and the heat of the body to increase. Then came the scarlet rash, spreading like wildfire over the face and body. Most persons never noticed the increase in heat and heart-beat, and the first they knew was when the scarlet rash came out. Usually, they had convulsions at the time of the appearance of the rash. But these convulsions did not last long and were not very severe. If one lived through them, he became perfectly quiet, and only did he feel a numbness swiftly creeping up his body from the feet. The heels became numb first, then the legs, and hips, and when the numbness reached as high as his heart he died. They did not rave or sleep. Their minds always remained cool and calm up to the moment their heart numbed and stopped. And another strange thing was the rapidity of decomposition. No sooner was a person dead than the body seemed to fall to pieces, to fly apart, to melt away even as you looked at it. That was one of the reasons the plague spread so rapidly. All the billions of germs in a corpse were so immediately released...

The Scarlet Plague, by Jack London.

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Calmly, Death Comes in Red
It arrived in the South Guard House of the Inner Ramparts in early summer. Some forager or scavenger returning from beyond the Weak Point fell into convulsions while their papers were being checked. He was dead inside of ten minutes. His body practically melted before it even reached the cobblestones. Then the members of the Wall Guard who had been near him started to show signs of a reddish rash-like discoloration. They went into convulsions. They died. Their bodies dissolved into bloody messes of corruption. Then those a little farther out were struck. The eerie thing about it all was how absolutely calm everyone was, up until they collapsed.

Outside the South Guard House panic ensued. The Wall Guard Commandant acted quickly. No one was allowed to leave the South Guard House. He ordered flame-throwers and mitrailleuses to be brought up from the other Guard Houses. He might not have bothered. No one survived long enough to get very far.

A cordon has been established. Three hundred feet out from the main entrance to the South Guard House is a Kill Zone. Nothing that goes in can ever leave. No one comes back from this place. Not under any circumstance. The area surrounding the South Guard House is extensively mined, strung with constriction-wire, and very well covered by every available weapon the Wall Guard has within their arsenal.

Every autumn a few small gatherings of religious misfits petition the Commandant for safe passage into the Southern Containment Zone. They rarely come back. Those that do, never leave the cordoned-off section. The galvanic weapons appropriated from the Sewer Militia have come in handy on more than one occasion.

Each year the Commandant of the Wall Guard must face repeated attempts to open-up the South Guard House. Surely the plague is no longer a threat, say those who stand to gain by rescinding the travel restrictions. It has been long enough. The plague is dormant. No new cases have been reported in decades, at least not officially. Of course that might be due to the revision to the standard medical texts that have re-labeled the Scarlet Plague as either a lethal red rash or some similar innocuous sounding bit of jargon, allowing the record to appear spotless, despite any inconvenient outbreaks. Besides, there's rarely any way to prove that it was the so-called Scarlet Plague and not some form of the Vile Transformation...

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The plague takes 1d6x10 minutes to kill those who fail their Save. First there is a red rash, followed by fever and sometimes convulsions, then the victim slips into a coma-like state and dies. Victims' bodies decompose almost immediately, leaving behind a gory mess that remains infectious for 1d6 days. They remain perfectly calm through the entire process.

A successful Save indicates that the victim experiences the rash, fever and eerie calmness, but have the option of sacrificing 1 point of CON to gain an additional roll to Save. Each such attempt incurs a cumulative penalty of -1 on the Save. Whether they succeed or fail, the CON point is permanently lost. Those exposed can use as much of their CON as they like trying to get a successful Save. Those who have exceedingly bad luck and manage to hit zero become Bloody Bones Servitors. They should also consider getting new dice. Anyone surviving the Scarlet Plague remains marked by the red mottling, though the rash will recede. They are also noted for being very calm, almost emotionless, and have a +2 bonus on all Saves versus emotion-based spells and effects, such as Fear.

The spell Cure Disease will only be effective during the onset of the plague, once a victim falls into a coma, no spell will stop the disease. Those who succumb to this plague cannot be Raised, except as undead skeletons.

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The Scarlet Plague by Jack London is a post-apocalyptic science fiction story that describes the collapse of civilization in the wake of a horrific epidemic that spreads far and wide before anyone can do anything about it. The survivors are reduced to barbarism, forced to eke out a nomadic existence in the rapidly returning wilderness. Grim, cruel and ignorant, the feral children who have become the masters of the Earth in the wake of the Scarlet Plague do not believe in the tales of their elders who still remember a time before it all went to hell. The lights have really gone out, everything has been lost, and this is a somewhat depressing story without any attempt at a happy ending. It's not at all what I was expecting from the author of The Call of the Wild. Maybe it's because I'm getting older now, but I found this far more engaging than I probably would have twenty years ago. It also provides an interesting alternative/parallel to Lord of the Flies...

The Scarlet Plague, as well as many of Jack London's other books are available at Project Gutenberg. You can also read it online. There's a nicely done synopsis of the novel at the Boston Globe, if you don't have the time or patience to read the novel itself.

You can also listen to The Scarlet Plague at Libri Vox.