The principal:

World war 3.  Followed by nukes.  Followed by supernatural craziness.

However, to truly understand you will need a long backstory.  I hope you don't mind reading a little.  I'll try to summarize, but keep it interesting and thorough.

SPOILER!!!!

In Deadlands, an evil group of spirits/demons (it never really specifies) going by the term 'reckoners' gains most of their power by spreading fear.  This starts with an incident known as 'the reckoning' back in the civil war, where one particularly ticked off group of indians open the flood gates to the spirit world where these dark things reside.  This subsequently causes two immediate things:

1. Through tectonic shifts caused by the chaotic change in space time (I just made that up, it never explains) California becomes massively fragmented and almost falls into the ocean, leaving it a broken jutting landscape of mesas and islands as well as a maze of channels.

2.  A mysterious new mineral is unearthed.  Due to its white color and the fact that it burns hotter than coal (and seems to 'shriek' as the gasses emit during the burning) it is dubbed ghost rock.

Subsequently, the event and addition of ghost rock prolongs the civil war by at least a decade, and the north and south never unify.

This part is known as the Weird West, and is a prequel series to Wasted West which we are discussing now.  It is important to this because the reckoners, as they have been dubbed, are sending agents of darkness to cause as much havoc as they can and 'terrorform' our reality into one that is dark and evil enough for them to 'live' in.  They're not stupid enough to open the flood gates at this period of time- they tried that before and it was met with resistance.  Humanity's willful, and if they can NAME an enemy they WILL eventually unify to fight it.  So they worked the shadows, forged the nightmares, seeded the world with terrors small and large...  They were in it for the long haul.  Being immortal, they had nothing but time.

However, special factions such as the Texas Rangers and the Pinkerton Detective agency- and later the feds (your quintessential men in black) are founded after certain people 'in the know' figure out what seems to be going on.  They can't find the gate (it's not a physical thing) so they do their best to destroy any monster the reckoners make, and to keep fear low as possible by any means possible- including covering up the stories so people don't believe in them.

World war 3 happens in the 2060s-ish, after a very long north-south cold war.  It starts as a civil war, but various other governments of the world come to the clarion call.  It's important to note that North and South America both handled WWII in different ways in this alternate reality.  Both were working to stop the axis, but both supported different allies and sparked their own alliances.

When the North and South, who happen to have the ONLY major ghost rock clusters in the world, go to war this quickly causes turmoil.  Gasoline is running out just like in our world, and ghost rock is the next most viable form of fuel.  So, people start trying to gain favor with the north or south respectively, so they can secure their claims.

WWIII lasts several bloody years, fought mostly in America though other nations start to clash as well.  Especially in Europe.  Then, some pistachio decides to launch the bomb.  Everyone blasts everyone, and 99% of those used are 'ghost rock bombs'- a high altitude ghost-rock powered thermonuclear device designed to cause mass casualties while causing minimal (though not entirely non-existent) structural damage.

As you might expect, many people die.  The world is plunged violently and suddenly into a period of nuclear winter.  This raises the fear level exponentially, world-wide.  The reckoners are released, taking the forms of the biblical four horsemen. While they are NOT biblical entities (Deadlands doesn't pick sides on religion) they understand the importance of symbolism and abuse the fear the four horsemen bring to further feed their power.  With them come hundreds of thousands of other 'dark spirits' (or manitous), taking any shape that scares the fudge out of those that see them.

Eventually, without spoiling how, the reckoners are forced to go away.  Perhaps imprisoned, perhaps not.  If I've wet your whistle then I certainly don't want to ruin anything you won't know after a few short games or a read through the book. :)

When they're removed from the equation, the apocalypse is stymied.  Not stopped, just stymied.  Their agents return to harassing the locals (though with a whole lot more of a heavy hand than before) and humanity is left to try and pick up the pieces.  The only real difference is now the lid's off, and everyone knows the monsters under the bed are real- and they have teeth.
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was against the forum rules, at 04:15, Tue 19 Aug 2014.

Ok, so basically modified history, then into the future.  Enemies are monsters and of course other people.  How long after the nukes and ghost rock bombs are dropped does the game take place?

Personally, not my thing.  Completely not, but I can contribute to it.

20 years.

If your a real evil dill pickle you could build a moat with razer wire or barb wire in it and contaminate the water somehow even if it's just urinating in it every day.

Just make sure anyone that tries an swim or wade it is getting an infection

20 years means that the only fuel is what is produced.  Vehicles will still be there and not rusted into nothingness.  The wiring and electrical systems will occasionally work.  Most scrap will have been picked over at least once.

Just remember, find a use for everything.  Old soup can?  Use it as a grenade body, small amount of explosive and some shrapnel.  Old phone books?  Tree sap and varnish and you have armor.

I've always been against using bio near my own place.  You're playing with fire.

In reply to Azraile (msg # 67):

problem there is that it is a major health hazard for the local population. moats tend to draw mosquitoes, and other insects. You also have the smell, and the general nastiness of a large cesspool completely surrounding our home.
  Planting cattails and other water plants might help, serving as a biological clean up system, as well as drawing in frogs, minnows, and birds, but  ab ig stagnant sup is a formula for dysentery and mosquito borne disease.

Now diverting a stream to flow through trenches with a steady flow to keep the insects and filth under control would work rather nicely. In addition a large fresh water source would be good for powering water wheels, and providing pens for fish farming.

Yah true trying to get some one infacted could get you infected more likely every way I think about it.... even if it's a trap it would have to be an awfull well sealed trap, and then what about cleaning it up after it went off?   no... the traps in the water are still a good idea... paticuarly if it's a muddy stream.


and hey have a net at the end of the stream who knows what might get cut up in the razer wire? lol maybe free fish!

Really, keep the razor wire out of the water.  Too likely it'll get tangled up with stuff and reduce it's effectiveness.  Have the stream semi shallow, 3 foot deep say.  Make sure it's nice and silty upstream, makes the water murky.  Line the stream bed with punji stakes.  Old rebar works great for this.  You can even be a real biscuit and slice and bend in barbs.

Edit:  Tetanus sucks, plus you have a nasty chance of infection from the water and stake beyond tetanus.
This message was last edited by the user at 05:08, Sun 17 Aug 2014.

true anything to do to keep stuff out of the water upstream won't keep stuff falling in and tangling up there.....

so many problems lol

still there is potentail for something here..... people see a moat they think it's a moat.... something to slow them down, nothing else.

Throwing something in to hurt them (Besides wild animals which is the only real exspected threat) can catch people off guard

there looking for alagators or something and get a stake through there foot....

Another variant (though it doesn't work very well in water), is a small foot sized pit about knee deep.  With this one you need multiple spikes pointing down.  Camouflage the pit, some reeds or a grass mat across the top.  This one you're fine stepping into the pit (other than maybe a good ankle twist).  The thing is you can't pull you leg out without removing the muscles from your leg or digging the whole pit out.

That could work well enough underwater if the water is muddy

Yes, but it creates a lot of upkeep.  Dirt and sediment collects in them too quick, especially if the stream is flowing.  Much easier to keep it out and straight up punji's in the water.

Misdirection is another fun thing.  If you're worried about an enemy that can think and read, Make yourself a fake minefield.  Label it, and have fake probes strewn about.

If you have a lot of 12-gauge shells laying about, there are lots of things you can do with them.  With a little work and scrap you can make them into mini-mines, micro- grenades, and other goodness.

good thing to do with that....

make a very very big fake mine field....  with a rather random strip of real mines a good 2/3rds the way into it.

True.  Or mine the areas NEXT to the minefield.

Fake mine pit is a pretty darn good idea.  I hadn't thought of that.  Especially since there are people who specialize in making junk-mines (think bottlecap mines from fallout).  So there'd be a very real fear of approaching a field of small junk objects (edited afterthought: in fact, from real life experience, I would be especially weary of any out-of-place junk anyway).  They go through enough to determine it's a decoy, and that's when they really start to risk stepping on the real thing.

Pitfalls are good ideas also, especially considering most people will have to work with what they have.  Same goes for moats, and having them lined with nasty surprises helps greatly.  It's like my 'junk pit' idea, just add water. ;)  Then they aren't going to simply look in, decide "Eh, sharp stuff in there" and find another way.  They'll lose a few first.

I was doing some research on the subject, and found another use for those pesky useless junk car engines.  As you said, not all will be just piles of scrap- some will still run.  But those that don't?  Well it's much easier to lift an engine with a pully system than a whole car.  So you could have an old school trip wire system, and an engine welded to (or just otherwise secured by) chain.  Down it drops, down the intruder in the doorway goes (fair punishment, he should've watched his step) and you simply reset it with a pulley system later.

Shotgun shells are a dirty little trick, especially for enemies such as cannibals that'd rather take someone off at a leg and slow them down for otherwise fresh meat.  It'd be rather traumatic for the players to watch an NPC companion get taken off at the leg, then have to decide whether to fight off the Sawyer family or hide.  The former will ensure plenty of bloodshed, the later the horrific experience of watching one of your own get dragged off to be somebody else's dinner.  And also make them watch under their feet from then on.

Let's see.  I also thought about it and realized that (this part isn't defense but) plastic can be restructured very easily for the sake of repurposing.  Saw a boat made entirely out of plastic bottles and fiberglass sealant (spray on I think they used).  Crazy thing is, not only did it float but it seemed to have a much longer 'life expectancy' than I expected.

But yeah, back to defense.  I was thinking on the concept of light.  After all, someone's gotta watch the walls or posts after the sun goes down (especially then).  Fuel would be rather wasted and run out sooner or later, so I don't see a gas fueled light system working too well for too long.  I was thinking 'reserve it and use trip-wire pop-up-flares'.  But I'm not sure how long those would last either. That's a rather finite resource.  Other than simple torches, can anybody think of a sustainable source of light? Something that could be dependable for a while?  Only thing I can really think of is wind-up flashlights and those... Well... You'd have to be pretty lucky to have many of them.
This message was last edited by the user at 08:33, Sun 17 Aug 2014.

Scavenge some solar panels and hook up spotlights to batteries and trip wires.

Actually, if you have someone that knows some electrical engineering, getting some power isn't very hard.  Batteries aren't too terribly difficult to make/repair.  Wire is just free for the taking, the same with lights.  Most lights aren't terribly dependent on a steady current and could even run off a twelve volt system.

Generating the electrical power isn't that difficult.  Any electrical motor can be used in reverse to make electricity.  How you turn that motor doesn't really matter.  It can be driven by water, wind, steam, or animal (humans work best for this using old bicycles).  Once you have the basic system set up you wouldn't need much in the way of upkeep.

Torches are another semi-renewable method.  Especially if you use pitch.  Just remember to place them near the out side of the perimeter.  Back lighting the enemy is more effective and gives them less light to see you by.  If they snuff the torches you know they are there and can use spot lights.  You can even make 'torch spot lights' using mirrors to focus the light.

Hrm, except the numbers I've seen on using humans to generate electricity by bicycles have generally shown that it's totally untenable for anything but a short-term stop-gap.  Humans need to consume far more calories than is reasonable to even be able to, say, run a few lightbulbs a night.  ( http://www.motherearthnews.com...e.aspx#axzz3AfQnOwp8 )  I tend to figure that in an apocalypse situation human time can be spent better than generating electric, and quality calories might be hard to find.

I have a crank-powered radio for example, but honestly, it gets old real fast.  By hour five of a power outage I'm already in the "I couldn't possibly care what's going on out there enough to crank that thing some more."  Of course, "what's going on out there" has never been a zombie apocalypse, so far (except that once).
This message was last edited by the user at 16:29, Sun 17 Aug 2014.

In reply to cruinne (msg # 81):

Are human powered generators efficient?  Not in the least.  If it's the only method you have though, it is better than nothing.  You're not going to run much, but you can get a few things going.  You can use them to charge batteries that will later power things that are used on an infrequent basis.

In reply to pfarland (msg # 82):

Right.  Where I think my doubt comes in is that if food is scarce, spending your energy recharging batteries is a poor choice, imo.  I look at it as expenditure of energy is essentially a food-based trade.  That'd have to be an insanely important battery to be spending your hard-earned food on.
This message was last edited by the user at 16:34, Sun 17 Aug 2014.

In reply to cruinne (msg # 83):

Nothing has been said about food being scarce.  Of course, if that's the case, living takes a bit higher priority.  And really, there are other methods almost all better and most likely available, to any surviving community.

Some engine blocks high up so they have a fair distance to fall, attached to cables or barbed wire or something. The wires are spread around on the ground on an approach. When someone is in the area, release the block, it tightens the wire potentially ripping open their legs, but also potentially trapping them.

Being able to use radios, and flashlights would be a huge advantage. Workig after dark increases the productivity of a group. While a handheld radio allows work groups to communicate, or warn of danger.

fortunately there are a lot of other means of charging batteries available ..anyone with some basic skills and the right instructions can whip up a power pack and generator from any DC motor, automotive alternator, etc into a power pack.

in addition a clever fella could grab one of those handy solar power units that are used to power roadside lights and information transmitters along modern highways.

once a power source was available, the same halfway decent electrician could probably cobble together enough parts to rig LED lighting. This would allow people to work after dark without burning fuel. A simple waterwheel or wind mill would be more than enough to allow the system to operate.

In reply to w byrd (msg # 86):

I think he meant that only in regards to using human powered energy generation methods and with the supposition of food scarcity.  If that's the case, then yes, it's a poor choice.

With the setting being 20 years later, I'm not sure of the continued viability of solar cells.

Another method would be steam powered.  With a decent sized steam engine you could actually power a small town.

http://energyinformative.org/lifespan-solar-panels/

Oh no doubt after twenty years any form of power generation device is going to be iffy. solar cells usually lose their zip when they get dirty or corroded, but tend to have a long shelf life if protected in some way from moisture and dirt...say a pae of glass, and a bit of caulking.

when you talk about generating electricity you have to consider the effort and skills needed to operate a power plant. Cutting wood, or gathering fuel takes calories, which has o come from potentially limited food. Steam engines is that they require some fairly uncommon skills to build.

on the other hand Simply stripping an alternator off a wreck, or a DC motor out of a car then attaching it to a waterwheel or wind mill requires only basic skills. About any electrician or person with basic electronics knowledge could rig a power pack from lead acid batteries, which will last a very long time if properly maintained.

Now, if you happen to find a functional steam engine, yes, they are remarkably durable and can be fueled by any flammable material. if you happen to live in an area where coal is common you can usually find exposed coal banks that can be excavated with pick and shovel.