Disease and Ruin: More Moves from the Climbers

My long running Apocalypse World game, the Climbers, is complete and it is time to reveal yet more material, used and unused, from that game. This time I'm bringing the disease that ended the world, the Climbers, and horrors born from it.

The Climbers

The Climber were the one consistent Threat throughout the campaign. This fungal infection spread by spores, infesting their victims and driving them to climb to the highest point in the area. Then the fungus would punch through their skulls with rigid stalks, spreading its spores through the air and starting the process all over again.

Symptoms included itchiness and fever as the fungus moved through the skin and lymphatic system, followed by green dots in the eyes called 'the spots'. Eventually the infection spread to the brain causing sleepwalking and eventually sleep climbing.

Kind: Affliction – Disease
Impulse: to saturate a population

When exposed to climber spores roll acting under fire. On a hit you are uninfected. On a 7-9, your immune system is weakened. Gain a -1 forward to your next roll against the climbers. On a miss, you become infected.

Each day you are infected roll +Hard. On a hit the disease doesn't progress. On a 10+ you begin to recover, go back a step on the progression. If you roll 10+ twice you recover fully.

Countdown: Itchiness or fever, itchiness and fever, the spots, sleep walking, sleep climbing, death.

White

A freak of nature, born of a woman dying of the Climbers, White was only 12 when he died. His power came from being present in both the psychic maelstrom and the real world at all times. It gave him a strange power over the climbers and made him wise beyond his years. Horribly scarred from an alligator attack when he was 7, he was also known as a fierce fighter.

He and his minions took over the Big Boat and threw out or killed any who disobey them. All knew he messed with black magic and could control people via zombie powder. He was not above using those infected with the Climbers to get what he wants. He was slowly taking over all the holdings in Miami until Gator shot him in the head. His mind continues to wander the maelstrom.

Kind: Grotesque – Perversion of birth
Impulse: craves overthrow, chaos, the ruination of all

Zombie Powder: when exposed to Zombie Powder, you suffer s-harm and roll +Hard. On a hit, you are okay, more or less. On a 7-9 White tells you what to do. If you do it mark experience. If you don't you are acting under fire from the drugs. On a miss, your will is not your own. You come to a bit later having done what White commanded.

The Music Bowl

The home of the strange cult of music is no more. A ruined sports arena, this collapsed dome was dominated by a rebuilt church organ in its center.

During the struggles with White, it served as a refuge. Despite repeated assaults it stood firm until White successfully launched a rocket at it. Now the smoldering ruin sits abandoned.

While it stood the inhabitants of the ruined stadium sustained themselves primarily on the mushrooms that grew in the basement levels of the structure. They were mostly harmless until White infested them with the climbers.

Bad Mushroom: while eating at the Music Bowl for the first time roll +Weird. On a hit you are fine. On a 10+ gain +1 forward to open your brain. On a miss, you suffer a vision due to a toxic mushroom. Take 1-harm ap and hallucinate.

Really Bad Mushrooms: if the food supply is corrupted by White, roll as if exposed to the Climbers as well.

The Gods

Behind all the threats lurked the gods. These entities knew much about the Golden Age and reached far through the psychic maelstrom. They could protect against the Climbers or direct the infected against their enemies. These mad demented minds of Golden Age climber victims sought to devour the blood of the living to slack their thirst for the living world.

Instead the living fought back and destroyed them.

Kind: Grotesque – Mindfucker
Impulse: to craves mastery

Here is a move they used as things became desperate for them.

Nightmares: roll opening your brain when you sleep. On a 10+ you have a good night's sleep. On a 7-9, you sleep safely but fitfully, take -1 forward. On a miss you survive an attack but choose 1:

• -1 ongoing against the gods. They know you now.
• Choose a memory you cherish. It is gone.
• You did something while you were asleep, you're not sure what.

The Damaged

When the gods were destroyed, not everyone escaped unscathed. Those exposed to the fullest force of the maelstrom became addicted to it. Worse they found they could spread their addiction to others.

Kind: Grotesques – Disease Vector
Impulse: craves contact, intimate and/or anonymous
Cast: Rox, Waters, Shazah, Memo

All members possessed the following moves:

Immune to Psi-harm: the damaged suffer no ill effect from Psi-harm.

Mental Static: if a person has intimate contact with the Damaged, roll Psi-harm (at +1).