Previously On...
As promised, here's the next chapter in the ongoing saga of the wastelands where wild board game gangs wander what once was a pristine landscape, terraforming the land to their own desires. A quick summary of the previous post:
Our hero found himself trapped in a wasteland of what once was America after an explosion knocked him out. As he wandered the wasteland of what was once his home country, he learned that ten years had passed since he had been last conscious. How this happened, he wasn't sure, but the incident which put him into a ten-year coma, also game him increased vitality and stamina to wander the wastelands of the apocalypse.
As our hero first began his journey, he learned that his wife and children were nowhere to be found and wandered aimlessly until he found himself in the territory of the Ark Novans. He was warned to be on the lookout for other rival gangs by the animalistically dressed denizens of the camp who warned him of the dangers that their neighbors the Rangers and Martians could pose. Taking this advice to heart, our hero attempted to avoid the main road through the gang's territories but found himself wandering too far afoot.
He found himself captured by a mysterious cult-like group that hid their faces and escorted the hero to a hidden cave, where they revealed that they were a secret group known as the Brotherhood of Scythe. Our hero was forced to play the game under threat of death and found that while he enjoyed the game, it was not to his liking. Wanting to avoid any chances that his life would be snuffed out at the hands of the Brotherhood, our Hero managed to escape without joining the hidden brotherhood.
As he made his escape, the hero managed to notice some details about the Brotherhood, including that the members that it consisted of were made of members of rival gangs that had come together to play Scythe in secret. Armed with this knowledge, the hero managed to sneak past the remaining territories to a nearby city. Stirred by the idea of forming a gang based on a game, our hero found himself in an old garage full of dilapidated vehicles that surprisingly had old gasoline still usable in their tanks. With a bent from Mad Max, our hero fully leaned into the chaos and carnage of Thunder Road: Vendetta swearing that he would spread the gospel of the Thunderers!
Mayhem and Mania
I never claimed that I was sane.
Anyone who says that they thought I was really hasn't spent too much time with me.
At first, when someone meets me, I may seem slightly manic, even mostly rational with my thought process. And that might have been true before the incident, but something has been off upstairs since I found myself waking on the edge of that bridge not too long ago. The more time that you spend with me, the more you'll notice things that are slightly odd, such as a propensity to wander off for hours at a time in random directions when I get bored, or the tendency to hyperfocus to the point where no stimuli can break me out of my trance.
It's like the old concept of "flow" cranked to 11 with me, but instead of being able to be pulled out of it by a touch or quick call of my name, I get fully into my project and lose all track of time and reasoning. It's why I spent three months outfitting seven cars with old machine guns, spear guns, spiked armor, and jacked up the suspension so bigger tires could be placed on them. It's why I spent another three months learning how to build and then implementing various mechanical improvements to the old vehicles so they would be able to run on a teaspoon of gas for hundreds of hours. A feat that shouldn't have been possible, and yet here we are.
Once you start to notice that, you'll also start to realize that there's something imbalanced up top too with the anger. I'm not sure why my brain feels like it's constantly on fire and needs to vent some of the excess energy at all times, but it's been getting more and more intense over the last two months and the only thing that seems to calm it down is driving my old modified sportscar, The Angel of Destruction. It's only on these drives at high speeds that the energy seems to dissipate and I've found that it decreases further when I cause destruction with the Angel or various "improvements" I've made to it.
I've also found that practicing what I thought was an old martial art seemed to help, but I never could remember where I trained. There was something in my memory that seemed buried away, but I couldn't remember much of my former life now. The time in the wasteland had hardened me and all I had left from my former life was an old smartphone that was cracked and out of battery. It had died long before I woke up, but I held onto it in the hopes that someday I could get it charged and see who I was once. That was where I found the solace of going through the various moves of my martial practice to help me settle my mind, but as each day saw the intensity of my fire in my head grow more and more, the practice became less calm movements and more wild and powerful attacks to attempt to burn off the excess energy.
Boss and Grease
I'm not certain how long I spent working on those cars and building and rebuilding my Angel of Destruction, but I soon found that the martial practice that I did daily now was not keeping the fire down. I sank into another one of my "episodes" after having an epiphany that I could make several race courses to drive through the old city and burn off some of my fire in my head. I worked day and night for the next few weeks, clearing off the road and designing several different routes through the old city that I could race through. I was fairly certain that there were still people living in the city, but the roar of my engine as I drove around seemed to spook everyone and keep them away from the madman in the car.
Tearing around the courses I had made was exactly what I needed and helped solve the problem of my fire in my brain for a week or so, but after a bit of time, I found that even driving top speed through the dangerously winding courses still didn't do it for me. I tried to make more and more dangerous courses around the city, even creating ramps off and into buildings and other road hazards, but it wasn't until I started adding in traps, such as mines and spikes, that my adrenaline spiked to a point where the heat in my head died down. These new traps of course meant that I'd have to repair my Angel with scrap from around the city, which meant that I'd spend about half my time just building traps and rebuilding my beautiful Angel of Destruction.
I began to get very good at reheating rubber and metal to shape into what I wanted, but the constant repairs that I was making to my car were difficult to maintain. I knew that I was getting to a point where I would have to range further from my zone of comfort in order to find materials to use, but I was hesitant to leave my territory. It was mine and I had built it for destruction and I was damned if someone else would steal my cars and use them for their own gain.
It was after one of those days that I had been driving around the city looking for some scrap to add to my Angel that I was approached by a rough-looking woman. She was well built and almost a head taller than me, which was saying something as I was no slouch myself. She had an air about her that screamed she was dangerous and from her looks at my car, I could tell immediately that she wanted to take my car from me, in any way possible. Like a wild animal that has been backed into a corner, I let loose all my rage and anger on this woman who dared to take away my Angel. It was not a pretty scrap, but I ultimately came out on top, after both sides had received heavy blows.
It was then that this mountain of a woman asked if there were any other cars that she could drive as she sought out the adrenaline rush that had been missing from since before the incident. We made our way back to my garage and I pointed her towards the six other cars and trucks (and even an old van) that I had converted in my mania. Her eyes lit up with avarice and although she tried not to show it, I knew that I had her on the hook. Knowing that I could leverage her desire for the vehicles, I offered her a deal: join my gang and she could have the car. If she split with the car, I told her that I had always wanted to try car to car combat, especially in the ruined streets below the parking garage where we now sat.
She agreed to my terms and accepted the keys to an old van that had it's side doors ripped off and two mounted miniguns attached to where the doors had been. It was a project that I had been working on for a while and after learning that she was somewhat of a grease-monkey herself, we got to upgrading the vehicle to suit her purposes. We never exchanged names, referring to one another as "Boss" and "Grease" respectively, but our mutual love of cars helped solidify our relationship. I was her superior and supplied her with the vehicle and she was the subordinate who understood the solid but conditional foundation that we had built on our cars.
The next few weeks flew by with Grease and I tearing up the roadways with our vehicles, engaging in some destruction of our own. We often attempted to disable the other's vehicle as we set courses through the dilapidated city, either with non-lethal weaponry, or with one of the numerous road hazards that had been placed before the race began. Mines, wrecks, and spike strips were the norm for us and we often found ourselves at the midpoint of the race with our cars in pretty bad shape. This never deterred us however and we always managed to get our cars in working order again using the massive piles of scrap from the city.
Grease, it turned out had quite the hand at repairing cars and reshaping metal too. She never noted where she had picked up the skills, but she had a working forge before long and was able to create molds to make parts that we needed that were too small to shape with tools. She also had an uncanny ability to patch tires, even ones that seemed to be unsalvagable, and somehow managed to make our tires more and more durable each time she worked on them. It was a perfect symbiotic relationship and we were happy for a time, just racing and causing our own brand of chaos that affected only us.
And Then There Were More
It was probably the constant thundering of vehicles and clashes of destruction that drew more people to my garage, but it wasn't too long before we had several more rough-hides show up and attempt to take our vehicles away from us. I had been training Grease on some tactics and we quickly subdued the group of three men that attempted to bully us out of our hard-earned garage. Two of them managed to escape, swearing vengeance on us and destruction of the chaotic paradise that we had built in the city.
The third on the other hand was so enamored by our cars that he didn't care about the beating we had given him. He was small and wiry and had a familiar air of chaos and genius about him, one that I recognized as being close to my own, in a slightly different manner. After some talk, both Grease and I agreed to let him into our group and he became affectionately known as "Wiry," both due to his stature, but also his propensity to dive deep into the electronics of the vehicles.
Wiry turned out to be an excellent addition to the group, choosing a large truck chassis which I had left unaltered since I hadn't figured out a plan for it yet. He was able to help fill a hole that I didn't realize was missing and was able to wire up several new weapons systems to each of our vehicles that added both more power and danger to our regular races. Wiry too joined in the races, remarking that as we finished up one night that it was similar to the old game of Thunder Road: Vendetta. I had never fancied myself as wanting to join the strange group of gangs that fashioned themselves after board games, but Wiry insisted that we call ourselves the "Thunderers," and thus our gang was born.
We decided to keep to ourselves since there was no reason for us to find ourselves embroiled in a war of ideology. Wiry tried a few times unsuccessfully to convince us to wage a campaign against the various gangs that sat east of us, but I quickly shot down the idea since there was nothing for us to gain. We left them alone and they left us to our chaos and carnage, which suited me just fine. If they wanted to wage war over which game was best, that was fine with me; just leave me to my driving and dangerous courses.
We were joined by three more over the next few months, two women and another man who were travelling together. They had heard rumors of our sport and had come to see if it was true. It wasn't hard to follow the roars of engines and they had watched the races for several days before approaching my garage to see if they could join. In the tradition of how the gang had been previously working, no real names were exchanged and they introduced themselves as "Crank," "Artiste," and "Wheeler."
Crank was a big guy, more fat than muscle, but he had a grin that could make the entire garage light up in laughter. His jokes were bad, but we soon began to appreciate the levity that he added to our little home. He was not the quickest on the uptake, but Crank could design traps that were so well hidden that it wasn't until you were driving over them that you knew they were there. He took an old sedan as his vehicle and immediately began working on installing booby traps in all of our vehicles.
Artiste was a tall, willowy woman who just oozed old-world charm. I could tell that she had been a mother at one point because she had that certain feel about her. She always made sure that each of us were eating and drinking well after our races, but on the course, she was a firecracker and came at us with bear-like energy. Her vehicle of choice was a big 10 passenger van that she decked out with various colors from spray paint that she found from an old hardware store. Artiste became the team designer and outfitted all our vehicles with new paint, and even went out during our down times to create signs for the courses.
Wheeler was attractive and from what I could tell, might have been a model at one point, but she wouldn't ever say. She was quiet and reserved off the track, but when she got behind the wheel of her modified sportscar, some switch was flipped and she was nearly unstoppable, driving through trap and opponent alike. Off the track, Wheeler liked to just sit and write in her free time and after a few weeks since she joined the gang, even started practicing some martial arts with Grease and I. She always wore a full-body racing suit and from what I could tell, there was a story behind it, but Wheeler always just smiled coyly at me whenever I asked, never sharing her secrets with me or anyone else in the gang.
It was a time of relative peace for us all and we sunk into a regular rhythm of preparing the track in the morning, racing in the afternoon, and cleaning up the mayhem and upgrading our cars in the evening. The fire in my head seemed to be satiated for a time and having people who I would begin to start calling "family" around me seemed to help keep it calm. I even found myself wanting to move on from my wife and daughters and even though I missed them terribly, I knew that I had to let them go. They were gone and I didn't know if I would ever see them again, especially since I had travelled so far afield from where I had awoken.
Life was good and despite still attempting to carve out a home in this relatively harsh wasteland, I was happy. For now...
Final Thoughts
This has been really fun to write and while I kinda went in a different direction with this post, I think that I'm happy with how the story went. My original plan with today was to write about my main character's descent into madness and his desire to create a gang that would rival the other gangs, but then I realized there needed to be motivation to do so. And what better motivation for our main character for him to build up a life of his own, only to have tragedy strike, leading him down a dark path?
"What is that tragedy" you ask? Well, you'll just have to subscribe and keep an eye out for the next post in June! I have a few ideas, but I'm still in the preliminary stages of building out a skeleton of what I want this story to be. The idea of a board-game gang wasteland is so full and rich that I want to do it justice and really take the time to build up and establish my characters. There might be another post or two to really flesh out the gang, but it will be coming soon, I promise.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoyed this post and continue to have fun reading my blog. It's been a really fun experience writing this three times a week and you've all been so great at providing some good alternatives and options for me to enjoy. I hope that you have enjoyed reading these odd posts and continue to come back to chat!
Give me your thoughts:If you had to make a gang based off a board game, what would it be? What would your nickname be if you joined a post-apocalyptic gang? What would be your specialty and what would you do in your free time?
Thank you so much for checking out this blog. If you liked it, please hit the green thumb at the top of the page and feel free to leave a comment on the post. I appreciate all interactions and will respond to everything that I can. If you really liked the post and want more ramblings, feel free to subscribe and get new posts every Monday/Wednesday/Friday.
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