Ghosts and Promises: When the American Abortion War ended, the Lifers relinquished the territory they gained. 2 The Secrets of Kodiak Island The Lifer Army’s defeated, battered veterans limped back to the few fortified city-states the An Otherverse America Sourcebook Treaty of Boston allowed them to retain: Boston and Pensacola, as well as smaller fortresses in dozens of smaller cities all across purple-state Written by Chris A. Field America. Hundreds of Lifer soldiers, human and post-human alike were imprisoned, and many were Cover Illustration by: Vic Shane executed for war crimes.

Interior Illustrations by: Vic Shane, Amanda Webb, But hundreds more of the Lifer nation’s Bradley K. McDevitt, Golden Cobra Games, best and most committed soldiers simply Eastern Raider Games, Scott Young, Shaman’s disappeared. Into the underground, into the Stockart (Anthony Cournoyer), Enclaves. Eventually the APEX and Choice Squad Wooden Vampire Games, LPJD Image Portfolio. Four found some, dragging War-era horrors like Kodiak Island Map provided the terrorist mentat Franklin “Emir” Wasiheed into by Wikimedia Commons. the light of day. Others turned up dead without All images copyright their respective creators, explanation: the eighth and worst Ghost of Babies and are used with permission. Past, Preston Oakley, was found with his head blown apart by a rail gun in a Northern Mexican salvage yard. But other Lifers just went off the www.otherversegames.blogspot.com grid, fell off the world.

Purple XVI, Holly and Trisha Martinez are To this day, the Choicer intel community copyright 2012 Tim Stewart and his gaming speculates what happened to the missing. They group, and are used with permission. check star-liner passenger manifests en route to Thanks for letting me riff on your Solomon Station and even farther out into the Big SampleBlack. file They work informants in the Enclaves, characters, guys! check known associates… but they’ll never find every Lifer who managed to escape Boston after Requires the Use of the D20 Modern and Artemis fell. D20 Future Core Rulebooks, Published by Wizards of the Coast Because under the leadership of Fairfax ------Dacoveney, the last in command of the War-era Army of God and current demagogue of the post- War Lifer nation, hundreds of the movement’s best “He’s the farmer’s barren fields, and most committed rescuers fled to the Lifer the force the army wields. nation’s last fortress: the hidden strike base buried He’s the motive and the conscience beneath Kodiak Island, Alaska. of the murderer. He’s the preacher on TV, the force of tyranny, the nuclear bombs, the kids with no moms. And I’m fearful He’s inside me…..” -American Jesus, Bad Religion (off Recipe for Hate, 1993) 3

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Kodiak Island Strike Base Subdivisions: Lifepoint, Alaksa. (Level One, civilian) Northern Rescue (NOR-RES) Command (Level Two, military) The Judgment Bunkers (Level Three, para-human) The Afognak Arsenal (Heavy weapons storage) Total Population: Approximately 30,000 Combatant Population: Approximately 19,000 Post-Human Population: Approximately 13,000. Post-Human Population Demographics: Mostly Full Conversion Cyborgs, Nano-Featsters, Mechanics and Neverborn Population Under 18 Years Old: Approximately 11,500 Dominant Religion: Lifer Christianity Languages: English, Spanish Community Leadership: General Aaron Blaine (Base CO), General Gerald Vargas (Head of the OCS program), Rev. Harris Brass (religious leader), Moonshot (meta-human leader) SSGT Jesse Witchhammer (head combat trainer) The Kodiak Island Refuge

4 “We’re trying to get a few of those parents to turn their babies over to us…We educate them, feed them, give them a home and train them to survive. Joining the Resistance is voluntary, but they always do. We have a family structure here.” -unnamed medic, Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti’s The Resistance

If Boston is the political and financial capital of the Lifer nation, than its military heart is located in a forgotten corner of Alaskan wilderness. Like Aradia, Kodiak Island was once a federal preserve until it was purchased and repurposed by the emerging pseudo-nation. While Aradia is host to diplomats and theologians from across Earthspace, its Lifer counterpart is a heavily fortified secret. In many ways, Kodiak is one of the best kept secrets of a nation obsessed with them.

The Coalition for Life acquired the massive preserve early in its history, though exactly when is a subject for much debate. Ownership and land transfer records are intentionally confused, and the island’s true history is mired in a Gordian knot of dummySample file corporations, false trails and misinformation. Some records indicate that the former federal preserve left government control sometime their families live and work at the Refuge, during the first George W. Bush administration; including a large Powered contingent. Many of the other records, equally convincing, show the actual Powered children born and raised on the Island transfer of ownership didn’t take place until the have never seen the outside world, aside from mid 2040s. during strike missions. In addition to its role as the ‘arsenal of God’, Kodiak’s primary purpose is to Whatever the truth, today the Refuge is breed and train the next generation of Lifer super- firmly under Lifer control, though the land records soldier. say a completely neutral Saudi oil baron owns the land. The surface of the island is unremarkable. Metahuman children born at Kodiac spend Aside from a few surveyor’s buildings and a more than a decade beneath the permafrost layer handful of tiny offices, the land hasn’t been before ever seeing the sun. They are raised touched. communally by the women of the movement, indoctrinated and trained as the next generation of The actual Kodiak Island Refuge extends Christian weapons. Most of the “CFL Kids” raised several miles beneath the island, a military base on the Island first leave it on a mission- those who larger than Pensacola as it existed at the dawn of return alive are heroes for the preborn, and are the 21st Century. Thousands of Lifer veterans and welcomed into the Army of God with great pomp However, new (and increasingly lethal) Lifer and ceremony. Lifer teens are encouraged to breed Powereds are coming from somewhere. The among themselves, to birth the next generation of existence of new Lifer enhancement facilities, 5 Lifer soldiers. As most CFL Kids seen their training operating in defiance of the Treaty of Boston, has platoons as immediate family, they usually choose long been suspected, but has not been conclusively mates from within a ‘sister’ platoon. Since 10-15 proven. Choicer intel believes that new training platoons enter combat service every year, enhancement facilities and “Rescue-Commands” Lifer posthumans have a wide selection of potential have been secretly established all across the planet. mates to choose from. A high security proving ground is suspected to exist somewhere in the Alaskan wilderness, and The majority of the Lifer nation’s military evidence of Powered genetics labs have been found strength is garrisoned on the island, including a in the Philippines. small but impressive fighter wing and several Shell battalions. Most of the new weapons and In addition, turning the beliefs of their equipment finding their way into the hands of enemy against them, the Lifers have begun a modern Lifers were assembled on Kodiak. To culture-wide breeding program to create the new prevent easy detection of their assets by satellite, generation of post-human soldiers. Knowing that the island is protected by an innovative series of the Choicer nation will never restrict the right to hologram and psi-based illusions. Since the Refuge bear children, even metahuman children destined to is located on the Alaskan coast, most missions be used as living weapons, the Lifer high command launched from the Island deploy a few miles off has been able to breed a new generation of shore. Most Lifer equipment, including their Shell powered children in the cheapest, most old fashion suits and VTOL troop carriers, can easily survive a way possible. Powereds are taught from an early ‘wet’ deployment. age that is their duty not only to fight for the Lifer cause, but to procreate and spread their divine gifts. New Promise Soldiers The Alternate Sites Sample file “But that’s life when a weapon is what you In addition to the Kodiak Island Refuge, are. Not all you are, but the first thing, the most the Lifer nation has several other secure fortresses. important thing.” Most of these “Alternate” sites are manned only by -Melissa, I Love Bees.com Alternate a token custodial staff, and aren’t used for active Reality Game missions. Instead, if Kodiak Island is ever discovered, the Lifer nation will move its New Lifer superhumans emerge with operations to one or more of these Alternates. disturbing regularity, far more than what could be accounted for by random mutation or by a latent The largest and most mission-ready metahuman’s ancestral gifts emerging at puberty. Alternate is Alternate One, located on the Russian Despite the best effort of APEX and the Choicers Island of Nova Zemyla (New Land). High in the to track, catalogue and restrict the creation of new Arctic Circle, Nova Zemyla was used by Russia/the Lifer Powereds, new post-human soldiers emerge Soviet Union as a nuclear dumping ground every day, to lead rescue-strikes and assassination throughout most of the 20th and 21st Centuries. It missions deep into Choicer territory. Lifer genetics is one of the most desolate, polluted places on the labs and cyber-enhancement foundries were planet; only an exceptionally durable Powered officially decommissioned with the War’s End, and could hope to survive there for any length of time. their enhancement tech confiscated. That fact alone makes it perfect for the Lifer’s needs. Alternate Two is located somewhere in the to buy the land a few years later and raise Aradia’s Philippines. Alt-Two is an active site, used as back- Isle on the site. While the world watched the up storage for Kodiak Island’s genetic samples. Covenant open its gleaming new capitol city to 6 Copies of every Lifer genome are kept at Alt-Two, great fanfare, the Lifer nation secretly began to ensure these potent gene-lines aren’t lost if construction of its own hidden homeland. Kodiak Kodiak falls. Island passed into Lifer hands soon after it became obvious that the fallen fishing communities on the The Tribulation Quake Island would never be rebuilt.

The December 3, 2038 “Tribulation” is The Island: Surface Level the most famous seismic event of the 21st Century. This massive 9.4 earth quake devastated the Pacific “At about 0300 last night, my patrol found Rim region. The Tribulation, so named by the same remains of a campfire and some buried garbage- Christians who now inhabit the rebuilt Kodiak about 300 meters from the fenceline around the Island, killed more than six million worldwide and old town of Akhiok. Our forensic tech laid waste to dozens of mega-cities. From the reconstructed the scene as a probable homeless wreckage of this massive seismic disaster, the camp, maybe 15 people staying there, or down in modern world emerged. the ruins somewhere. The question is what to do with ‘em? Most of the United State’s Pacific Coastline was reshaped; fires and aftershocks ravaged most They’ve gotten this close, but I’m arguing of the West Coast’s mega-cities. Los Angeles, San a few squatters makes good cover, especially for Francisco and Seattle all suffered devastating an abandoned island this size, and they’ll be easy wounds; American casualties topped 200,000. enough for our Kids to avoid. Plus, we’re Outside America, things were worse. Japan was supposed to be big on Christian charity here, gutted but the resilient nation rebuilt as it had from right? As usual, Comstock wants to take them a dozen previous cataclysms; huge percentages of down, dump their bodies in the sea and sanitize the Philippine and Sumatran archipeligos were lost everything. Base security agrees with Comstock. to the sea. India, suffered massive casualties,Sample as did So we’refile looking to you to break the tie.” Nepal, Burma and a dozen other nations. When the -Captain Neal Ridgeback, Security Force dust settled, and the last aftershocks faded during IV, stationed on Kodiak Island. Encrypted email to the spring of 2039, the world took stock of the his superior, November, 2105. devastation. Kodiak Island has been officially The Tribulation Quake marked the uninhabited since 2038, when shifting weather beginning of a global economic downturn that only patterns and the same massive Pac-Rim earthquake worsened when the Abortion War went hot in that devastated the former Alcatraz Island and 2061. It also convinced a generation of Enclave- much of the Bay Area displaced Kodiak Island’s living Christians that the Time of Revelations was 30,000 inhabitants. Today, Kodiak, once the largest at hand, and seeded the ground for Lifer military city on the island, is a ghost-town, a crumbling recruiters. More tangibly, the economic and curiosity occasionally visited by archeologists and ecological havoc wreaked by the Tribulation long since picked clean by scavengers. The islands Quake gave both new nations their headquarters. current population of terrorist post-humans occasionally use Kodiak city as a single, massive Unable to cope with the trillion dollar live-fire range. restoration bills left behind by “the Big Trib”, the United States government wrote off huge swaths Kodiak Island’s forested expanse has been of Western territory. It divested itself of the former left to the animals; bears and deer wander through federal prison at Alcatraz, allowing the Covenant the streets of the quake-ravaged cities, and have 7

Sample file learned to flee at the sound and scent of Powered covers almost all of the island- so far, Kodiak’s soldiers emerging from the deep bunkers for fire bio-techs haven’t managed to develop a strain of training. As far as the outside world is concerned, K-Moss capable of surviving along the rocky, ice- Kodiak Island was written off by the Fed-Gov rimed coastlines. K-Moss is pressure sensitive; decades ago and forgotten, and the island’s current when stepped on, the lichen converts the sensation owners want nothing to threaten that façade. into an electrical impulse that can be picked by the Surface entrances to the deep bunkers are island’s fiber optic comms-net. concealed in the island’s crumbling shops; guard posts are disguised as rusting cellular phone towers K-Moss is designed to alert Kodiak’s from an earlier generation of comm-tech and security system to anything heavier than 200 lbs guardhouses take the form of old Forestry Service moves anywhere on the island. The moss does its stations. Holographic shields conceal the island’s job too well; the base’s dumb AI security/tracking few surface level structures, and the training that systems spend most of their time separating animal occurs there from satellite view. ‘contacts’ from human intrusion, and have become experts at distinguishing bipedal contacts from K-Moss quadrapedal ones. K-Moss is a genetically engineered breed of lichen and is the first stage of the Island’s anti- K-Moss will alert the island’s security intrusion countermeasures. This hardy green moss system anytime a Medium or larger creature moves