Savage Fallout in Arkansas... Savaged Arkansas I guess?

Last week my group decided to run something different than one of our on again off again D&D campaigns. We had planned on starting a 5e game but considering I have about two plug nickles to spare for new game books and we wanted to run the game with the full gamut of options we voted to try a different system. I already have a copy Savage Worlds and it looked interesting and versatile enough that we could broaden our horizons a bit setting wise. So we set about another vote to see what kind of setting we wanted play in.

Everyone had been playing through the new Fallout games recently so it was kind of a no brainer to give the setting a try. We deviated a bit in that instead of going with the canonical setting of the video games we went with a Fallout universe treatment of our home state that had been kicking around in my notes for a while now. I took a couple of days and fleshed things out enough to get through our first session and we got started Monday evening. Character creation is a bit slower than I have been used to lately but not too bad, I suppose in that respect retro-clones have spoiled me. We used elements of a couple of different Fallout Savage Worlds books floating around on the web as well a few things of my own devising.

After the players finished creating their characters we ended up with Ermine, a vault dwelling goober with no discernible usefulness in combat. Bootshit (no I'm not kidding), a shiftless raider who sees all problems in terms of how many bullets it should take to solve it, and Jack (that isn't the PCs name I just don't remember it) a waste dwelling scavenger with no particular aims. So we started play with a simple caravan run, the PC's had all tagged along with a caravan headed for Little Rock the chief trade settlement of the Arkansas waste. The journey was uneventful save for a single attack by raiders that was easily dispatched by the players and caravan guards. More than anything else that particular encounter was a good excuse to familiarize ourselves with the mechanics of a new system. Combat played smoothly and was over fairly quickly. I realized within a round that starting characters in Savage Worlds are considerably more potent than a first level OD&D character.

Little Rock in this alternate universe is a river trade hub built in the ruins of the prewar city. It is a frontier style town, rule of law is minimal and it is a hotbed of tensions between competing trade companies. The Capital River company controls a ramshackle dock on the Arkansas River and thus the lucrative trade lane that comes with it. The Delta Overland group controls caravan trade through the town and while powerful in their own right are overshadowed by the Capital River company. There is the salt brining operation controlled by the Conway family which provides the chief export of the city. Last and most certainly least is the corrupt, drunk of a mayor who is owned by the Capital River company.

Upon arriving in town the players made their way to the Adam and Eve tavern, brothel, and all around cesspit. Here they made acquaintance with Gentleman Jim owner, proprietor, and top hat wearing lunatic. Things progressed quickly from there. Bootshit found his way into the towns booming Bare Knuckle fighting scene and made a couple of caps with a quick first round win. Ermine and Jack mingled amongst the tavern patrons on the lookout for interesting rumors. They heard tell of a plant that had produced electronics for the war effort among the gang infested ruins of the outer city and quickly made up their minds that they would find it and pick it clean of valuables.

After searching among the ruins with only the ramblings of a drunk to go on they found the particular blasted heap they were looking for. We left off there for the evening and will pick back up next Monday.