Post Seattle: Pike Pine

Parts of this hood have gone wild, but there are a few holdouts scattered near the wreckage at Pike and Pine Streets. They cook up a decent rotgut in the old brewery.

You can always find a party in Pike Pine. And if things get out of hand, Sheriff Willow and her band of bulldogs put it right in a hurry. Don’t get on her bad side, especially if you’re an outsider.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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Post Seattle: Pill Hill

  

This used to be all hospitals and it’s so big that nobody’s ever scrounged all of it. Stay away from the pharmacies and storefronts though, they’re all picked over and some nutcase seeded them with landmines, so it’s not worth the effort. Recent reports are something I hunting here–human or animal it’s not too shy about eating you, so tread lightly and stay alert.

Shepp and his gang of addle-headed apostles live just on the border here. They seem harmless, but some as go to their revivals don’t come out right.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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Post Seattle: Denny Hill

  

Lots of people in Denny, but they aren’t folk. A few rival gangs, so don’t get caught wearing the wrong color. I opt for black. Still, you can find copper wire, electronics, and supplies if you know where to look.

One of the gangs here has a secret stash of clean water and lords it over the rest of them. Another gang has a scrounge racket trading in working car batteries. Another one collects ears, so know who you’re dealing with.

Post Seattle: Belltown, Where you can get an Espresso

  

This is the beating heart of Post Seattle, some say; a glimpse of civilization; our own resident metropolis; also known as scum-town, dirt-town, and no-town.

Bell Town is one place you can still buy a decent espresso. And most anything else is available at the Slab Market for a price. Folks here even have a sort of law. Note that justice is particularly harsh and swift for fraud and theft; murder less so.

People here still dig music like they did in The Day, so keep your ears open after sundown and you might just hear something worth hearing. Plenty of underground clubs open after sundown.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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Post Seattle: Cal Anderson Park

  

Was a big brawl near here once. Still loads of military hardware scattered around the place, though most of it’s burned. The frequent roadblocks keep the motor gangs out, but that don’t make it friendly.

There’s a once-a-month weapons market in the park. The gangs consider that an essential service, so they police each other, sort of. Don’t stick around after closing time.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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Post Seattle: Capitol Hill

  

If you need a place to crash in a pinch, and getting by in the Empty isn’t your gig, you can always bivouac at Tent City, though it’s not so much a city as a bunch of villages. Still, everyone’ll band together when a real crisis shows up, which is pretty often. Zoners and gangs show up here pretty often to make trouble. Tent City’s main defense is that there’s little here that’s worth your life to take. Not as much fun as Bell Town, but loads more honest.

Guy named Romulus runs a sort of clinic out of an old café. They’ll patch you up for free.

If Cap Hill's your destination, take the overpass from downtown. The freeway might look inviting, but the lower deck's loaded with wild animals, deadfalls, and worse nasties.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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Post Seattle: South Lake Union

  

Wild dogs and dangerous vagrants here. even the good scrounge’s been picked over.

Some smart geeks’ve set up a pig farm on a rooftop, though. Use the shit to run their generators and grow things hydroponic style. If you send some useful scrap up to them, they might just send down some hothouse cabbages.

There's a scrounger's den on Denny street. Look for the yellow flags. Climb in the third basement window on the left and secure it behind yourself. If you take something from the stash make sure you leave something in return.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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Post Apocalyptic Seattle: Haunted Tower

  

They used to call this The Center, but it’s just wilderness now.

There’s a sniper in the tower who will shoot you. Stay clear. Plenty of decent scrounge here though, on account of the tower and packs of wild dogs. They say the buildings move while you’re sleeping.

There’s a guy near here that breeds good, loyal service dogs, if your service is killing.

--Dee Dee's Doomsday Guide to Seattle

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The Year of the Apocalypse

322 days ago I started a painting project. I didn't have any time for a new project, so I decided I'd get up at 6am, three days a week, and paint for an hour. I figured it would take me three months. Now, almost a year later, it's done.

The image was created using Google maps satellite imagery as a guide.

The initial layer was set down using watercolors to mark out the neighborhoods, roads, areas of vegetation, and ruins.

Once the basic colors were laid out, I used ink pens to add the detail level. This is a technique I've used before.

But this time I added an additional step between the watercolor and the pen where I deepened the shadows and major features before adding the ink. This gave the picture a lot more depth, but is also why it took 8 months longer than expected.

You can view the full final Full size Seattle Postapocalypse image on my Flickr account.

Why Imagining the End of the World is a Great Idea

Today's Seattle Stranger has an excellent article by Jonathan Golob about how to imagine the world ending, It's Time to Freak out about Climate Change". As I am a strong advocate for the positive effects of imagining your neighborhood as a post-apocalyptic wasteland, I recommend giving it a read.

Jonathan's idea, as I get it, is something like this: if you can't imagine your world devastated by climate change, you're not really ready to start doing something about it. The Seattle Post Apocalyptic Map Project isn't specifically about climate change specifically, but about existential threats in general: financial meltdown, collapse of the food distribution system, war, global terror, gang violence, cynicism, and the breakdown of the social fabric.

Dealing with these horrors is a process of the imagination. First you imagine what could happen. That's the exercise that gets your imagination in shape. Then you imagine what we might do instead. We're role-playing gamers, so our imaginations are already in shape. We've got a leg up.

In news, the post-apocalyptic map is now better than 2/3 done. I'm on pace to finish it at the end of this month. Then it will hang in the Seattle Google offices for a month as part of a show there. After that, I'll be looking for a public venue to hang it. And I'm thinking about a way to make it accessible to more people as a poster, folding map, PDF etc.

Where to get good coffee in post-apocalyptic Seattle

You'd be surprised how many places have coffee in post-apocalyptic Seattle, but unless your well-armed enough to make your way up to the Joe Bar Enclave or have an in to the Starbucks Bastion down south, New Belltown is your best bet. Even though there's nothing like a global economy any more, there are enough ocean nomads and blockade runners to keep a slow trickle of beans from the far South. A few isolated growers seem to be able to produce batches of beans hydroponically, although the hybrid beans are a little wonky sometimes. And there's always that instant stuff from the Starbucks facility, though no one;s quite sure what they're making it out of.

International District

Working today on the International District. This stuff is taking forever! Notice the post-apocalyptic kudzu swallowing the northern portion of the neighborhood; also, gardens on the roof of Uwajimaya.

I Know What I'm Doing this Summer

I just got the word that I'm going to have an art show at Seattle's Google offices in October. Since I use Google tools almost continuously to help create my art, I'm super excited about this show. The problem is, the picture I most want to show is nowhere near done.

I figure I need about 30 hours of work to finish this. Which means I'm going to be spending a lot of my mornings and evenings working on this between now and October. Fortunately, I can hardly think of a better way to spend my time.

A couple of random moleskin pages

I5 at Denny

If you absolutely have to go through Seattle north-south, I5 at Denny might be your worst choke point. Drivers call this stretch the wreckage because you have to squeeze down to a narrow S curve to avoid a large pile of wreckage on the blacktop. There are always some scavengers hunkered down in the wreckage looking for easy prey--not a problem if you're prepared for it, but be warned, they'll leap right on top of a moving rig without a second's hesitation. No, the real danger is the Jarls. They like to set up snipers and ambuscades on the overpass or in the building overlooking the I. Picking a large group to convoy with is recommended, but don't expect them to stop and wait for you if you get a flat.

First Baptist

The streets around Seattle First Baptist are horribly choked with abandoned cars after the apocalypse, for some reason. Not really sure why, but it's not a bad area to scrounge for gas if you're patient and keep a sharp lookout for stalkers.

We Played Metamorphosis Alpha

Metamorphosis Alpha! MA is the legendary first ever Science Fiction RPG that I've longed to play since I first heard of it in about 1985. Now James Ward, the original writer, is offering Metamorphosis Alpha through Lulu. It's a fabulous bargain.

Clyde-Bob is a human with a bricked iPhone and a mutant slave. Plunge Bob is also human. Quazzar is a winged horse with two brains. Chump is a huge mutated rabbit with armored plates and telekentic powers. They are off to the world of the gods to bring back an artifact and thus enter full adulthood as members of the tribe.

In the frozen mud plain in the center of the Great Habitation Complex beneath the 120' tall pile of shopping cards, Clyde-Bob convinces the lord of the talking chameleon crow people to become his vassal (in exchange for certain favors and shiny objects) and sets up a potentially lucrative scrap metal mining operation. He then convinces a working domestic robot to become his personal chef.

Plunge-Bob and Quazzar flee the crows by flying down the giant radioactive slag aqueduct and penetrate the lost medical facility beyond. There they defeat the security lockdown console, decipher the mutagenic purge chamber, and transform Plunge-Bob into a genetically perfect specific of humanity.

Chump investigates the complex of endless apartment units, narrowly defeats the massive metal-skinned badger, and finds a functioning laser rifle for her new toy.

The tribesfolk return to the scrapheap, but are dismayed to discover that the teleport device that brought them hence has failed, and needs complex repairs!

Metamorphosis Alph is rife with weirdness and coolness in equal amounts. Every character had ample opportunity to be killed horribly, but they all pulled through and garnered great rewards in the process. At one point I explained calmly to Clyde-Bob that if his attempt to convince the crow people to parlay with him failed, he would certainly be torn apart by the flock. He decided to take the chance.

The ability of humans to gain mutants as followers is very strange. I'm reasonably sure that John Ward did not intend the first roll of the game to happen when the humans turn to the mutant PCs and attempt to take them as followers so they can ride into battle on their backs. I can totally see shying away from this aspect of the game and limiting it in play, but we decided to take it on and embrace it fully.

Details of the Mission

The neighborhood is 1d6 square blocks in size and...
1. Dense residential
2. Medium residential
3. Wealthy residential
4. Commercial
5. Downtown financial district
9. Special (stadium, theme park, missile silo, etc.)
10. Roll twice, and combine, or it's between the two


Your mission is...
1. Scavenge for goods
2. Find a safe camp or defensible area
3. Trade goods for goods
4. Just get through safely
5. Retrieve a specific large, dangerous, or resistant item or person
6. Get a message to someone and bring back their answer
7. Eliminate a threat
8. Sabotage or theft
9. Prepare a detailed scouting report
10. None of these, you're already lost or fleeing

Cal Anderson Park, West



Known threat in this area is...
1. Gangs and mobs
2. One particularly dangerous badass
3. Territory is claimed by rivals or enemies
4. Natural hazards and dangerous terrain
5. Wild animals
6. Someone is actively trying to stymie the mission
7. Traps or ambush
8. Unfriendly locals


The area can be described as...
1. Largely untouched with good scavenging
2. A scene of massive destruction
3. Scarred by fire or other disaster
4. Heavily damaged by battle or mass violence
5. Containing an organized community
6. Overgrown and near collapse
7. Eerily well preserved
8. Divided between two armed camps
9. A known local source of particularly useful scrounge
10. A generally agreed-upon neutral area for trade or parlay


Local color
1. Strangely silent with oppressive, heavy air
2. Misty and dark with little visibility
3. Grisly trophies affixed to posts and walls
4. Locals who offer abundant apparent hospitality
5. Heavily overgrown with dense, unnatural plant life
6. A once-was landmark now festooned with weird offerings
7. A madman, lost in delusions, spouting weird half-truths
8. A place of worship
9. A scene of rare beauty
10. A tableau of destruction, a grim reminder of hopes dashed

Art by Tim Wistrom

The Smoke Man

It wouldn't be right to say that Capitol Hill is abandoned now, but it wouldn't be right to call it inhabited either. Now it's just a few souls hanging on to the ragged edge, living by scavenging or trade with one of the better established holds. Still, you can find a bit of hospitality if you know where to like. Like the smoking man. Everybody needs something to trade, and he trades smokes. Could be he cleared out the tobacco stores after the End. Or maybe he found a truckload, or even a warehouse, but this is the one place in Old Seattle where you can still get smokes, the way they were made back then. 12th and John, just past the wrecks.

WIP: Seattle, After the Apocalypse

Large shot; the whole thing is 2' x 3':

Closeup: the Junkpile:

Closeup: scavenging: