OSR: Extra Ultraviolet Grasslands Vehicle Upgrades

Here are some extra vehicle rules for Ultraviolet Grasslands. Fuel costs are here. Normally I try to provide attribution for images, but in this case there are just too many. If you want to track down sources you're on your own.

Guzzolene-powered vehicles are sturdy, simple, and easy to maintain. A self-driving golem needs a Golemmafex. A biomechanical beast needs a Fleshcrafter. But a simple vehicle that drinks distilled hydrocarbons and spits out fire and speed can be maintained with a hammer, some wire, and a some luck, provided you don't care about safety or environmental standards. In the Ultraviolet Grasslands smog is the least of your worries.

Side Note: I think everyone should try to own a truly terrible gasoline vehicle built between 1940 (when people figured out how to make vehicles that worked) and 1977 (when people figured out how to make vehicles fancy). You'll learn a lot. Find something that sort-of runs or could potentially run, fix it just enough so that it does run, and drive it until it doesn't run anymore and is too expensive to fix.

Remember, anything built before the invention of safety is intrinsically safe.

OC, based on the wisdom of the ancients.

Any upgrade for a smaller vehicle can be purchased for a larger vehicle at double the cost (so putting a Gun Mount on a Road Yacht costs €100, etc.). Some upgrades might not make sense, so talk to your GM.

Upgrades are a great way for a group to sink extra cash into a shared project.

The mechanical logic is simple. Everything is expensive. If it takes up space in a vehicle, it reduces the vehicle's capacity by the number of Sacks listed. A Sack is 10 inventory slots, 1 person, 1 person's inventory, or 1 week of food and water for 1 person.

I haven't put any vehicle combat rules here. If you need them, try Gaslands or something, or just make a bunch of rulings on the fly. Vehicle-on-vehicle fights are more about mobile terrain anyway.

Metal Steeds - One-Way Ticket To Organ Donation

Capacity: 2 Sacks
Cost: €1,200
If it's 90% engine, 8% wheels, and 2% seat, it's a Metal Steed. No space for supplies, no room for error. Goes like the absolutely clappers. The best are air-breathing, like wicker autogolems, and require no fuel. Most need 1 Supply of fuel every 2 weeks.

Metal Steed Addons:

Gun Mount: €50
Lets the rider fire 1 weapon while riding at full speed. The weapon must fit in the rider's inventory (part of the 2-sack capacity). Attaching or detaching it takes 2 rounds.

Sidecar: €500
Increases capacity by 1 Sack, but loses the Fast trait.

Aquatic: €1,000
Sometimes, all the good loot is buried at the bottom of a lake. The vehicle can no longer operate on the surface, but it can move underwater. It's not a proper submarine, with rooms and torpedo tubes and all of that. It's just a pressurized pod with an engines on it, a diving suit with attitude. The driver can wiggle their arms through thick diving gloves. Only works on Metal Steeds.

Gyrocoptic! €1,000
Flying in the Ultraviolet Grasslands is a bad idea. Bits of invisible stuckforce shred aircraft. Purple haze rots your brain. Dormant anti-missile defense systems wake up, think "oh, that looks interesting" and blows you out of the sky. Still it beats walking. A caravan with a flying vehicle gains 30 minute advanced warning against most encounters. Flying vehicles ignore terrain. Only works on Metal Steeds.

Wicker Autowagon - Witness Me!

Capacity: 3 Sacks
Cost: €2,000
A little bit bigger, a little bit sturdier, and a whole lot dryer in the rain. Some are literally made of wicker, some just look like they are. If you can fit 2 people in the front seats and some cold snacks in the back, you've got a Wicker Autowagon. Some are small enough that air-powered engines can haul them, but if you can't afford one, or you want a little more oomph, fuelled engines are the way to go. A non-air-powered Wicker Autowagon sips 1 Supply of fuel every 2 weeks.
 
Wicker Autowagon Addons:
 
Nitro: €50 per use
For up to 1 minute, the vehicle moves at Ludicrous Speed.

Snazzy Paintjob: €100
Shiny and polished. Options include, if normal colours aren't good enough for you: Scarabeo, Pearl-Tone, Fordite Swirl Supreme, Vantablack, Gibbon, Taupeamarine, and Splunge.

Jet Booster: €1,000
Occupies 1 Sack. About the dumbest idea imaginable, but the first thing anyone tries when they find a jet engine from a bunker. For up to 10 minutes, the vehicle moves at Ludicrous Speed. Gaps smaller than 30' can be safely ignored. Uses up almost all the vehicle's stored fuel. After firing, the vehicle has 30 minutes of safe driving left. Proper Oldtech Jet Fuel lets the vehicle can use this ability twice on one Supply of fuel.

Dropper: €300
Occupies 1 Sack. The back of the vehicle opens up and drops something. Could be a mine, some trained assassin-skeletons on rollerskates, a bunch of oil, some skulls stuffed with hornets, or just a whole bunch of scrap metal. The Sack occupied by the Dropper includes whatever you load into it. For an extra €100, the Dropper can launch stuff forward or sideways instead, becoming an ejector seat or a compressed air cannon.

Hover Wheels: €1,000
The vehicle floats on billowing air-jets, stuckforce discs, or dozens of spinning propeller blades. It's not practical but it is cool. Ignores mildly difficult terrain.

Hood Ornament: €100
Shiny, chrome, and, in emergencies, a good thing to cling on to.
 

Road Yacht - Justified and Ancient

Capacity: 6 Sacks
Cost: €4,000
Back in the old days these used to be everywhere. All the blackthumbs know their names, and the names of their vital gubbins: sparkulator, lightning-whirler, juicebox, caboxylator. Parts are as good as currency in some parts of the Grasslands. While some warriors prefer swift Metal Steeds or sprightly Wicker Autogolems, the greatest Knights of the Road pilot their mighty Road Yachts. A Road Yacht drinks 1 Supply of fuel every week.
 
Road Yatch Addons:
 
Luxury Seats: €300
Made of genuine imitation leather (from genuine imitation cattle) and stuffed with the finest springs. The back seats even fold down to make a bed. Fuzzy dice optional.

Air Conditioning: €500
There's a magic box and by making part of it warmer, somehow the air inside the Road Yatch gets colder. There's probably a bound demon involved. Air Conditioning has no mechanical benefit but it's very impressive.

Fridgermerator: €1,000
Occupies 1 Sack. Can cool up to 6 sacks of storage space to a chilly, supply-maintaining temperature. Excellent for transporting perishable fruit, bodies, etc.

Para-Radio Set: €500
Most of what's broadcast these days isn't fit to be heard by mortal ears, but you can get echoes of tunes long past (or yet to come), coordinate with other vehicles or settlements (weather permitting), and

Loudspeaker: €100
Broadcasts music or speech really loud, to help block out those negative waves.

Big Gun: €1,500
Occupies 2 Sacks, typically 1 for the gun and 1 for the ammo, maintenance equipment, and blast shields. Options include:
-Flammenwerfer. 3d6 fire damage, Far, Reload 6. Sets everything on fire.
-Rotary Rattlecannon: 2d12, Far, Reload 3. Can actually be used to propel a car backwards.

Turret: €500
Occupies 1 Sack. Lets a Gun Mount or a Big Gun fire in all directions instead of a fixed direction. Also makes a vehicle look properly intimidating.

Safe: €200
Occupies 1 Sack. Can contain 1 additional Sack of vitally important material in a gene-locked steel enclosure. Proof against anyone without serious tools and know-how.

Smoke Launchers: €50 per use
Fills a 100' cube with opaque smoke. For an additional €10, you can pick the colour of the smoke. Makes shooting or boarding a caravan difficult, but tends to attract attention.

Generic Vech, Porcelain or Prismatic Walker - Fight the Hurricane

Capacity: 12 Sacks
Cost: €6,000
Walkers are great in the Grasslands because they are tall and all the cool factions use them. That's about it, really. Legs have a lot of moving parts to maintain and powering one on guzzolene is silly. Still, some people have an unhealthy obsession with giant mechanical spiders. Upgrading bio-mechanical or fancy golem walkers is significantly more expensive (and beyond the scope of this post). A fuel-powered Walker slurps 1 Supply of fuel every week.

Escape Pod: €600
Occupies 1 Sack. Lets 4 Sacks of capacity (2 people and their inventories) escape a wreck in the event of a catastrophic failure.

Chainsaw Arm: €1,000
Occupies 3 Sacks. Deals 4d8 melee damage and ignores armour. Ponderous and inaccurate against small targets.

Boarding Ramp: €500
Occupies 1 Sack. Folds out to allow people from one vehicle to board another, or cross a wall, or generally get into trouble.

Bouncer: €1,000
Rocket-packs, nozzles, and springs let the vehicle leap up to 10' in the air while maintaining its current speed. Bouncing more than once per day will inflict structural damage.
 

Autowagon - 12 Yards Long, 2 Lanes Wide, 65 Tons of American Pride

Capacity: 24 sacks
Cost: €10,000
Could be an old Wreckreational Vehicle, a Desert Bus, or something even stranger. Whatever it is, it's big enough to have separate rooms or compartments, a door with a step, and a comically large turning radius. The flagship of a trading caravan, a little slice of home-away-from-home... or a big slice. An Autowagon guzzles 1 Supply of fuel every week.
 
Water Closet: €500
Occupies 4 Sacks. Toilet, sink, and shower. Ludicrously luxurious for the deep grasslands.
 
Observation Deck: €200
Completely useless, wildly impractical, and likely to take out an eye if you hit deep grit. But if you're going to sail across the grasslands, a chrome-railed balcony is the place to be on a calm Orangemonth night.
 
Hydraulic Throne: €1,000
Occupies 1 Sack. Gold-plated, halogen-lit, extendable flexible automechanical seat of grandeur. Deploys from the front, or from the back on a crane. Could also be a giant holographic face with optional flame cannons.
 
Ram: €200
Occupies 2 Sacks. Might of way makes right of way, and being able to bulldoze smaller vehicles off the road could be handy.
 
Winch, Jacks, and Shovels: €100
Occupies 1 Sack. Look, if you're going pretend an Autowagon is an off-road vehicle, you might as well be prepared to deal with the consequences. Gets a vehicle un-stuck in most conditions.
 
Luxury Pod: €500
Occupies 2 Sacks. 1 person and gear can ride in elegant comfort in their own private suite, with a folding bed-chair, hanging lamp, and adorable cupboards for sundries and snacks. This upgrade can be purchased multiple times.
   
Debauchery Pod: €600
Occupies 2 Sacks. The same as a Luxury Pod, but with a meter, drugs cabinet (drugs not included), and additional horizontal surfaces.
 
Medical Pod: €3,000
Occupies 4 Sacks. Room for 2 patients and a doctor. Proper medical equipment, drains, ominous lights, and sterile plastic sheeting. Lets patients heal on the road.
 

War Engine - Tankity Tank Tank Tank

Capacity: 36 Sacks
Cost: €20,000Impractical, cumbersome, huge, and obvious. Might as well slather yourself in barbecue sauce and wait for the vultures. But still, if you've got one, anyone without serious gumption will think twice before crossing your path. Filling up the vehicle's capacity with weapons and armour is strongly encouraged. Otherwise, it's just a long-haul truck. A War Engine slurps 2 Supply of fuel every week, or 3 Supply if run at top speed (still Slow).
 
War Engine Addons: 
  
Armour Plating: €1,000
Occupies 4 Sacks. The vehicle reduces incoming damage by 8 (or, effectively, ignores small arms, medium arms, and glancing hits from heavier weapons). This upgrade can be purchased multiple times, but at some point you're better off calling it a town.
   
Big Treads: Free
Replaces wheels or centipede legs or whatever. The War Engine now moves Incredibly Slowly, but can ignore terrain, smaller vehicles, or anti-personnel mines. It leaves an obvious track through the landscape.
 
 Really Big Gun: €3,000
Occupies 4 Sacks, typically 2 for the gun and 2 for the ammo, fire prevention equipment, and earplugs. Seriously, what are you expecting to fight out here?
-Artillery Tube: 2d10x1d10, Very Very Far, Reload 20, blast. Ignores armour, intervening terrain, and common sense. Makes a hell of a noise. If it hits anything smaller than a Road Yatch, target must Save or evaporate instead.
-Doom Laser: 3d20, Very Very Far, Reload 10, requires 1 round to charge before firing.

1d10	What's Broken?	How Do We Fix It?	How Long Until It's Fixed?
1	Sparkulators are clogged.	Take them out and file them.	1 hour.
2	Lightning whirler isn't whirling right.	Squint at it, twiddle some screws.	30 minutes.
3	Fuel tube's busted.	Run a new one.	1 hour.
4	No brakes.	It'll probably be fine.	Don't worry about it.
5	Flat tire.	Get out the tools, patch it, swap it.	30 minutes
6	Radumilator is blown.	Keep adding liquid as we go.	Ongoing issue.
7	Fuel pump is seized.	Probably need a new one.	12 hours.
8	Won't hold any pressure.	Bit of bubblegum welding.	1d20 hours.
9	Carboxymlator's stuck or something.	Hit it with the backside of a wrench.	10 minutes.
10	Wheel bearing has locked up.	Grease and a hammer.	2 hours.
11	Threw a belt.	Find something long and stretchy.	30 minutes.
12	Lightning hoses are broken.	String together some new ones.	30 minutes.
13	Confuser unit gives an error code.	Get the diagnosticator, push buttons.	1d20 hours.
14	Transmission goes "clunk".	Take the whole thing off.	2 days.
15	Transmisison goes "grrrrntktktktkt"	Just don't use that gear.	It'll be fine.
16	Zeusbox won't charge the battery.	Replace it, ideally with a better one.	1 hour.
17	Battery won't hold a charge.	Fancy chemicals and a short ritual.	6 hours.
18	Burned all the dead dinosaur juice.	Stop and add some more.	30 minutes.
19	Hole in the metal-fragment-catcher.	Patch it, add more liquid, pray.	1d6 hours.
20	Piston went on a space vacation.	Needs a full rebuild.	How far is it to town?

1d20	Brands of the Long Long Ago	Dubious Features
1	Insoggle	Self-Threading Caps
2	Golemkraftwagen	Anti-Tampering Engine Configuration
3	Ober-Kastell	Synchrotronic Gearbox
4	Chuft	Electric Transix Variator
5	Adlertz	Lycoming Compressors
6	Rocksfall Rulings	Oulianov Propulsion Unit
7	Tuker-Simplex-Ransommmer	Microhydraulic Control Lines
8	Atomic Coachwerks	Inhalator Body Air-Scoops
9	Ultracta	Anti-Kidnapping Heartbeat Sensor
10	Nevada Systems	Nine-Axis Suspension Struts
11	Sord	Swivel Bucket Seats
12	Kurdish Wheyland	Gyroscopic Autoleveller
13	Revochelle	Automatic Anti-Crash Foam Nozzles
14	Prangwalter K 90	Extruded Bismuth Trim
15	Sklorch Enginefabber	Telepathic Key System
16	Omniversal Hydroid Corporation	Extensible Omniadaptors
17	Vulcan	Trained Underbody Rust Slimes
18	Silverkammerung United	Mercuric Chrome Bearings
19	Capricorn	Extra-Dry Clutch
20	Offroad Indolence Syndicate	Hydrophobic Seatcovers

OSR: Ultraviolet Grasslands Session 9 - Random Encounter Trouble

Last session, the Cat's Meow Trading Company, after a very short series of comically terrible choices, accidentally set off a nuclear explosion.

Note: If you haven't read Ultraviolet Grasslands, most of this writeup will seem like psychedelic heavy metal Mad Libs. Even if you have read UVG it's going to be a mess.

The survivors of the catastrophe were:
 
Granville Porter
Cogflower necromancer lawyer. A mutant human thief/necromancer and warlock of Kon-Fabulate. Survived by using a porcelain walker as a ballistic coffin.  
 
Gormog the Builder
A half-orc barbarian/fighter and warlock of Kon-Fabulate, Gormog survived by being a VOME -  a ViOlent MEchanism.  
 
Clovis
Exiled pirate liberal with a chainsword and a tattooed map to an aerolith fortress. Survived via the power of foam.
 
Dusty
Human unicorn farmer and Ba-Priest. Main asset is a truly ludicrous accent.
 
Transport: 1 zombie porter, badly burned by radiation and missing an arm.

Hirelings: 1 scorched Veggie-Mite.

Moebius

The foam cube smashed into the ground several miles from the drifting column of radioactive smoke. It bounced once, twice, then gently came to rest on top of a mesa. As the foam slowly dissolved, Clovis and Dusty emerged. While Clovis performed an impromptu baptism and anointing ceremony, praising Holy Foam the whole time, Dusty collected their possessions, said a polite (if quavering) goodbye, and marched away from the drifting cloud of fallout.

Side Note: Dusty's player had to drop out of the game for the time being. Surviving a nuclear explosion is an excellent excuse to leave an adventuring and mercantile group.

The other survivors used the fallen cube as a landmark. The group slowly reassembled. Gormog's appearance was now distressingly VOME-ish. What remained of his original half-orc flesh was pierced and subsumed beneath layers of cabling, silicone goop, and hissing hydraulics.

The nuclear explosion, falling foam cube, and roving VOME had attracted some local attention. Three people, whose pleasant meeting-shack had been demolished by the blast wave, peered through binoculars at the motley collection of burned PCs. They were:

-Garet 3-Mind, a half-ling polybody dilettante. Though not a Porcelain Prince, the polybody was known to them and considered a harmless eccentric.
-Cheesus, a mutant steppelander boneworker and force wizard, hired by Garet 3-Mind to complete some bonework sculptures. Cheesus' mutations included mystical body odour that could turn milk to cheese and one mug-shaped hand.
-Greb Greb, another mutant steppelander, blending both fighting and wizardry. Greb Greb is a devotee of the Radiation God, exiled from a high-tech arcology for her beliefs or transgressions. The mushroom cloud and fallout were, to her, signs of divine favour.

The three new arrivals, after a few hours of cautious scouting, approached the Cat's Meow Trading Company to see if they could explain the nuclear explosion. While scant details were provided, Greb Greb was delighted to meet people who had been so near to a holy event.

The group's only valuables, aside from some loose change, were the pieces of looted ultraviolet porcelain Granville had carried from the quarry. They had no supplies. Gormog and Greb Greb volunteered to search the blast zone for sturdy items. They encountered the screaming radiation ghost of one of the group's vaporized hirelings, but Greb Greb convinced them that suffering was the natural state of life, and that being dead (and a ghost) wasn't so bad.

With pockets full of mildly radioactive metal and a few scattered cash ingots, the group decided to move southwest around the Potsherd Crater, away from the site of the explosion, and towards abandoned dig sites and quarries that might provide cover from fallout.

Lucas Roussel

Unfortunately, the cave they chose to hide in contained a Dragon.

Six-legged war-beasts from the Long Long Ago, Dragons are notoriously difficult to kill. This one breathed freezing lumps of burning phosphorous. Despite scouting and preparation, the fight went poorly for the Cat's Meow Trading Company.

Gormog fought bravely, but the colossal VOME-infected warrior was frozen then shattered by the dragon's breath. Granville Porter, survivor of so many misadventures, exhausted his spells and resorted to desperate dagger-stabs before succumbing. Cheesus fired off a single spell then fled. One of Garet's bodies, bravely wielding a bow and arrow, attempted to help, but was frozen and devoured in turn, leading the other two bodies to panic.

Greb Greb and Clovis bravely assisted from very, very far away. In fact, along with the Veggie-Mite and two of Garet 3-Mind's bodies, they didn't spend any time in the cave at all.

With all combatants in the cave dead, the dragon retreated to lick its wounds. Greb Greb prepared some radioactive poison for it, but the next day, stealth-based assassination via chainsaw, Black City Blade, and magic won the day. The few survivors settled down to a feast of highly unstable dragon meat.

Mutations ensued. Greb Greb gained draconic scales. All of Garet 2-Mind's teeth fell out, and planting them raised an obedient skeleton for 1 hour. Clovis acquired a dragon's acquisitive nature and secretly began assembling a hoard.

The dragon's hoard consisted of silver wire and sheaves of asbestos. The group also found a dragon egg wrapped in protective insulation. The prospect of a trained war-beast appealed to the group.

But fighting a dragon is not a silent affair.

Two bounty hunters, dispatched by the Porcelain Princes, arrived to witness the debauched barbecue. They asked if they could join; there was more than enough dragon-meat to share, and the group didn't want another fight.

And so Doman, a dour Myrm tracker and hunter, and Sentinel 473, a Porcelain soldier-drone, joined the group, at least temporarily. Myrms are masked deep-steppe isolationists, notoriously efficient and clean but brutally dismissive and curt. Soldier-drones of the Princes are vat-spliced disposable fighters, for situations where an entire Polybody would be unwieldy. Their enhanced abilities came at a cost; they healed slowly without high-tech equipment and rare ingredients.

Side Note: I'm using my hacked-together World of Rust bestiary to populate some bits of the Ultraviolet Grasslands. Art for the Myrm is on pg. 8 and art for the Kingdom Soldier is on pg. 20.

 Like  many things in my games, details were made up as needed.

David Tilton

The bounty hunters were on the trail of a pair of terrorist dwarves, whose notorious crimes had threatened the rule of the Porcelain Princes. "Never heard of them," Clovis said, looking at the glossy photos of Karl and Frieda. As the last survivor of the original Cat's Meow crew, and someone who'd always preferred to remain out of the spotlight, Clovis felt completely safe. The half-elf even insinuated that the bounty hunters could join this new crew, the "Dragon's Bollocks Trading Company", for safety and ease of travel.

The other PCs shared tales of the Princes' perfidy, their cheapness, and their recent political upheavals. The "Animated Teratology", a cabal of 4-body Princes had seized power in the Last Serai and the Porcelain Citadel. Monobodies were not permitted in settlements; many had been executed in arbitrary purges. Patrols near the settlements imposed rapacious taxes, but in the deep country, allies or representatives with para-radio sets hadn't received new orders.

And so, lightly mutated, heavily irradiated, and freshly enriched, the reconstituted and battered group plotted a new course to fame and fortune. First, they would need to acquire new wagons or beasts of burden, and fresh uncontaminated supplies. Finding a fleshcrater would also be useful. Dragon meat had mutated Doman's hands into claws, rendering his finely tuned bow useless. The rest of the group had assorted other ailments that required professional healing.

Third, and finally, Clovis wanted to reach the mysterious Lake of Wyv and the aerolith fortress said to float above its oil-slicked waters.