[Aftermath!] The D.C. Campaign: Intro

I ran an Aftermath! campaign set in Washington, D.C. a long time ago and recently found the notes in some old gaming papers of mine. I put a lot of work into it but I didn't write everything down (so I don't remember how it was supposed to go) , so I'm going to post what I have (including any archaic technology, e.g. M60 tanks, because that was in Aftermath!) and fill in whatever blanks are left.

The D.C. Campaign started 25 years after the Ruin and I didn't really have an actual start date in mind, so don't expect it to be 2025 AD or something like that. The survivors call it 25 AR (After Ruin), the new world isn't interested in old world time.

No one really knows what happened. World War III was full NBC. For some reason or another, the nuclear missiles targeted on D.C. missed or were shot down by missile defense but the chem and bio weapons got close enough to do the job.

Amidst the bombs, food riots and complete break-down of society, the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area had widespread looting, out-of-control fires and mass death from chemical and biological weapons. Within two months, the metropolitan population went from 5.3 million to less than 700,000. The secondary kills and related problems over the years, including a virulent plague (probably of human origin) in 15 AR (after Ruin), dropped the population down to the present levels, somewhere between 10,000 and 70,000. Several communities survive to this day from those troubled times.

Radiation, cannibals, pockets of still-active chem or bio agents, bandits and thieves, wild animals and stranger things still, and people just trying to get by mix in this glorious old capital of a dead country. And into this strange new world come the player characters.

Will they help rebuild Washington? Or loot it's corpse like those from the past?