DON'T MESS WITH WREXUS — A NEON LORDS OF THE TOXIC WASTELAND JOINT

 

In addition to that Umerica Masters Of The Universe game, got shanghaied into running Neon Lords Of The Toxic Wasteland on Tuesday nights!

We're four seshes in... take a gander here!!!

DON'T MESS WITH WREXUS -- FOUR HOSTESS OF THE APOCALYPSE

 

"And, LO!  The ocean turned to cream filling,
as from a Ho-Ho." — Desolation 16:3

Don't Mess With Wrexus – "Overheard In The Roadhouse"

(Cross-posted from here.) 

1)  "It's almost cannibal-mutant breeding season.  Yeah, the bounties are higher than ever... but, brother, probably best to stay out of the hills entirely."

2)  "Presley's Chicken Tomb is opening a new franchise down the way.  That's sure to righteously piss off the owners of this fine establishment."

3)  "See the weird lights near Old Man Gutchel's place last night?  Could mean another saucer landing.  Wonder what'll happen to that crazy moonshiner's swill this time?"

4)  "Them zombies infestin' the Doom Mall are gittin' smarter.  Could'a swore ah seen 'em usin' utensils."

5)  "Speakin' a' zombies, think the contagion's spreadin'.  Undead gators and feral hogs wrecked a kegger down near the crick.  Man, it's bad enough if animals can now git the bug... but if they're workin' together, we're motherfucked."

6)  "Satan's Cerebrums are back in town.  Sure, those mad biker-scientists are assholes, but their brain-in-a-jar looks pretty boss, riding in the sidecar like that."

7)  "The sweet old werewolf couple over there?  Yeah, the gray ones, with the saggy jowls and fanged dentures?  They keep inviting me to swing-parties at the senior center.  I swear, one more drink, and I'm going for it."

8)  "The Belfry Boys are recruiting for a big job.  Even saying they'll convert those that survive.  Hell, yeah, I'd consider vampirism.  Wouldn't you?"

9)  "The Headless Hotrodsman is racing for pinks down at the haunted dragstrip.  And the rubes are lining up to take him on.  Just what the hell does he do with all those rides he wins, anyway?"

10)  "Get this:  ALL the scarecrows in the county are turning up pregnant.  Yes, pregnant.  Well, what else would you call it?  One day they're hanging there as limp and lifeless as you please, and the next they're bloated and swollen and... and... and beaming, okay?  They're smiling... have a glow about 'em.  YES, EVEN THE DUDE ONES.  Fuck you, dicklips.  Why would I make that up?"

The Guys Of Wrexus Are Upon You — Meet Karl Kongchak, Mutagenic Muckraker!

 

Karl Kongchak

Even the post-apocalypse needs a rumpled, cantankerous crusader who's a perpetual thorn in the sides of The Powers That Be.

Karl can flip from charming to snide in a heartbeat, and wields sarcasm like a razor.  His cleverness is outmatched only by survival skills--he's zippier than an irradiated cockroach and luckier than a three-legged leprechaun.

The Guys Of Wrexus Are Upon You — Meet Jimmy Drips, Moist Miscreant!

 (cross-posted from here)

Everybody needs to know a guy who knows a guy... and Jimmy Drips is the best guy-knowin'-guy around.  Just ask 'im—he'll tell ya!

Ya need dope?  Wheels?  Girlies?  Hoodoo?

Fer enough wet wipes and beer, Jimmy Drips can make it happen, baby.  And ol' Jimmy doesn't mind gettin' his hands even dirtier for a pal like yerself, 'cuz Jimmy loves ya!

(But keep him away from your own stash and ride and gal and mojo, 'cause those dirty hands of his get pretty busy ...and NEVER let him cover the escape route.  That's a surefire way to find yourself, as they say in the vernacular, "wrexus'd".)

[In Don't Mess With Wrexus: The Movie, Jimmy Drips is portrayed by Steve Buscemi.]

What the hell kinda mutant is Jimmy, anyway?  He's a Rawhead. 

And Rawheads are survivors.

Some escaped midway through dinner with clans of chainsaw-cannibals.  Others peeled themselves up off the asphalt after the worst hot-rod wrecks imaginable.  A few even clawed their way free from Hell's sweltering Agony Engines.

But all left something behind amidst the trauma:  their skins.

Most Rawheads try to make the best of their supernatural transitions—despite the incessant oozing—and return to some semblance of *snort* normal.  But those of the more unhinged variety scheme to reclaim their former lives by any means necessary, and all they need is a facelift... or, more accurately, someone's face to lift in the most felonious of filleted fashions.

One more thing:  if you wanna die—and die ugly—call a Rawhead a goodbody to its face.  Slurs don't get much worse.

The Guys Of Wrexus Are Upon You — Meet Chainsaw Sadie, Meat-Making Mechanical Madam!

(cross-posted from here)  

"Chainsaw" Sadie Kowalczyk

Despite lopped limbs and gnarly trauma, Sadie Kowalczyk final gal'd the hell out of that inbred cannibal family with their own terror-tools.  And per the KIATIS ("Kill It And Take Its Stuff") credo, she claimed their horrid homestead, transforming a backwoods Superfund-ian abattoir into one of Grueston's must-see locales.

Yep, all road trips require a visit to Chainsaw Sadie's Love Garage.

Stock up on BBQ and jerky--now, both 100% hitchhiker-free!!!--and liquid libations distilled in-house!

Treat yer vehicle to a wash, tune-up, and repairs by the bevy of comely mechanics!

Take advantage of the spa, oh weary sons-of-the-road, as all truckstop amenities--from showers to cots to massages to "ahem... massages" are tended by fetching companions of all shapes, sizes, and species!

The Love Garage prides itself on being a safe, secure place to indulge, and offers assorted specialty suites for the adventurous.  So if you have the time and the budget, check out the Lagoon Room, Tomb Room, Cocoon Room, Bloom Room, Broom Room, 'Shroom Room, Dune Room, Moon Room, and / or Goop Room for delights that'll blow yer gaskets!  Perfect for honeymoons!

Chainsaw Sadie--part saloon madam, part pitmisstress, part junkyard cyborg, and all woman--herself is a brazen, bawdy broad who tolerates zero nonsense.  She's ferocious and protective, and takes in all manner of orphans to mold 'em from survivors to thrive-ers.  Her employees adore her, so cross Sadie at yer own peril.

The lady's signature weapon (engraved with "The Family Is Sawed" below a scored-out "The Saw Is Family") hangs above the main bar.  Rumor is it's fully gassed and ready to dice at a moment's notice.

Chainsaw Sadie thinks she has a friendly rivalry with Farmer Vincent Smith and his sister, Ida.  And with Vincent, she certainly does... but Ida?  That schemin' spinster plots to "harvest" Sadie and add The Love Garage to the Smith culinary empire.  The puritanical Vincent would take affront at such unseemliness (what with all the liquor and prostitution, above and beyond the simple galling treachery), so Ida's machinates on the sly.  Maybe she'll hire some PCs to do the dirty work...?

[In Don't Mess With Wrexus: The Movie, "Chainsaw" Sadie is portrayed by Aunjanue Ellis.]

The Guys Of Wrexus Are Upon You — Meet Señor Güsto, Viscous Vendor!

Señor Güsto is the owner / operator of  Señor Güsto's Fine Slimes, the go-to Gunspoint vendor for all your ooze-, goop-, and sludge-related needs.

Corrosive cruds?

Mucks medicinal and murderous?

Automotive alluvia?

Lascivious lubes?

Señor Güsto's got 'em all!

His petite, five-foot frame is inverse to his flamboyance.  Señor Güsto affects an outlandish Spanglish accent, gesticulating all the while with folding fan in one hand and dabbing handkerchief in the other.  (And, boy howdy, does he go through hankies, as he's perpetually dripping.  Señor Güsto blames the Grueston humidity, but nobody perspires that much.)

Señor Güsto is cagey about where, exactly, he procures his clammy commodities.  When queried, he narrows sly, twinkling eyes and mutters about "the labyrinthine Sewers Of Syzzurp".

[In Don't Mess With Wrexus: The Movie, Señor Güsto is portrayed by a CGI'd Luis Guzmán.]

The Guys Of Wrexus Are Upon You — Meet Professor Morgan Mist, Organist!

 

Professor Morgan Mist, Organist

Beneath Gunspoint's standard shanty-fortress cacophony floats tones—sometimes dulcet, sometimes sonorous, sometimes jaunty, always harmonious—of Ancient keyboards.  Following them leads to an unassuming, curtain-draped shopfront known as The Organ Exchange, Grueston's premier purveyor of musical mechanisms, vocal lessons, and second-hand organs.

Both definitions apply.  Of organs, that is.

Polydactylic proprietor Professor Morgan Mist razzles (dazzles cost extra) patrons with jingles from The Long Days Ago, corny repartee, and promises of teaching YOU mastery of an instrument in six easy lessons.  And no one beats his deals on slightly-used spleens—just ask 'im, he'll tell ya!—so buy, sell, and trade your scavenged saxophones and pilferred innards at The Organ Exchange today!

The Professor is available for weddings, spawings, batty mitzvahs, and brises, though he needs a month's advance notice and an intact carton of wet-wipes as a deposit.

Little is known about The Professor.  He's clearly an undead, but his species is a mystery.  And though it seems he'd be in cahoots with the necromancers of The Necrozone (what with their similar graverobbery pursuits and all), Mist often badmouths them... in song, even.  His diss ditties get intense.

Rumors persist that Mist's fez has either hypnotic properties (better to impart musical mastery in students...?), or an evil li'l critter living within.  But not both, because that'd be crazy.

[In Don't Mess With Wrexus: The Movie, Professor Morgan Mist is portrayed by Crispin Glover.]

Don't Mess With Wrexus — Headstone World

  

Located about five miles north of Gunspoint up the blasted Die-45 freeway, Headstone World is Grueston's premier provider of monuments and memorials for the living impaired.

Sure, ya could git that traditional marker of stone or li'l bronze placard with yer name all tasteful and dainty... but why not splurge for an inflatable, skydancing tube-spook to hex any that dare spit, piss, or worse on your grave?  Or an ensorcelled effigy of skull, bone, and Thangs Man Was Not Meant To Know?

Want yer eternal (temporary?) resting place awash in day-glo and neon like Saint Rob Zombie's fever dreams?  They can do it!

Want fog machines and spoooooky ambient audio for convenient monster mashes, bashes, and / or champagne jams?  Easy!  ¡No hay problema!  Không vấn đề!

Want caged go-go ghouls suspended over yer tomb to shimmy ya into Oblivion?  Only an upcharge away!

Convenient payment plans available in alllllll the currencies:  corn-squeezins, fat stacks o' toilet paper; teeth; firstborns; souls.  Or even have yer not-yet-interred corpse work it off, reanimation-style, fer only the teensiest timeframe of a year or ten.  Whatever works best for yer kinfolk's budget!

Buy today, and git a free dashboard batquarium!  Supplies are limited!

(Please note that Headstone World is operated by the necromancers at the ruined campuses of the combined Commonwealth Institute Of Funeral Service and The National Museum Of Funeral History, aka The Necrozone.)

"Don't Mess With Wrexus" Redux

Hola amigos.  How's it hangin'?  I know it's been a long time since I rapped at ya, but a lot's been going down in this part of town.  But it's boring and no bueno, so forget I said anything.

Anyhow...

I'm trying to un-rust the ol' gaming gears and do something with Goodman Games' post-apoc gonzofest setting, Umerica.

Good, good stuff.

It combines the Dungeon Crawl Classics chassis with the sensibilities I adore, and I'm adding all my fave inspirations (pictured below) to the brew.

Intro campaign flavor text follows!

Version 2.0!

The One That Started It All

***

Don’t Mess With Wrexus Redux

At 11:59:59 pm on December 31^st, 1999, the world ended.

Bombs dropped.

Reactors popped.

Seas boiled.

Continents roiled.

Phages bloomed.

Radiation 'shroomed.

Toxic waste erupted.

Gene pools corrupted.

Locusts molted.

Apes revolted.

Acids rained.

Mankind insaned.

The moon broke.

The old gods awoke.

And that’s when things got really bad.

For magic thrived and dinosaurs revived.  Monsters unhid and aliens invade-ed.  Kaiju stomped and demons romped.  Angels fell and The Dead rose from Hell.

—

The old-timers call it Judgment Day; others, Y2K.

More names abound:  The Flush.  The Thunderkiss.  The Reckoning.  The Bigger Bang.  The Great Mistake.  Even TEOTWAWKI.

But the past isn’t important beyond what you can scavenge from the burnt-out malls; what you can refurb from the rusting junkyards; what you can summon from the irradiated graveyards.  Toilet paper and gasoline, bullets and beer:  these are more valuable than all the gold in the cosmos.

Welcome to The Blighted States Of Nightmerica.

Hope you survive the experience.

(And if you don’t?  There’s always undeath!)