"Spaz" mode, anyone?

[straffin]

The easy part: 

The hard part:

Michael was allergic to everything. This is not hyperbole on an overstatement. He was allergic to EV. RY. THING. Artificial flavors and colors, the BPA lining in cans, petroleum products and sulfurous compounds (especially their fumes), the dyes used in most modern clothing and printers inks, EVEN OTHER PEOPLE (or, at least, their deodorants, perfumes, soaps, and the residue they left behind). For the most part, if it involved chemistry, just a trace of it could send him into anaphylactic shock, possibly killing him. Or, at the every least, it would make him wish he were dead. So, he avoided these things as much as humanly possible.

This all meant that Michael was an "all-natural" kid growing up. Organic (and often home-grown) foods and natural fibers (mostly wool and leather; cotton was always either chemically bleached or dyed) were the order of the day. After his first near-death experience (with, of all things, a stuffed animal his grandparents had bought him shortly after his birth), his parents moved to the middle of nowhere and raised him away from the "modern" world. Even then, however, things as outdoorsy as firearms and matches caused him no end of trouble thanks to the fumes they gave off (as they discovered with Michael's *second* near-death experience). In his early teen-age years, the other kids, few as they were in Central Nowhere, were aware of his many odd restrictions and gave him the nickname he's borne to this very day: "Spaz".

Now, as a fairly well-adjusted adult, Michael has somehow found himself stranded in a strangely abandoned Canadian wilderness. While he's not sure how he'd gotten here, he's not entirely out of his element. Due to indoor spaces being full of fumes (and other people with THEIR fumes), he's spent nearly his entire life outdoors. Sure...air filtration and circulation gear kept him safe at home, but who wants to stay indoors when everything fun (that won't kill you) is outside? That said, getting by in this unfamiliar landscape is going to be...interesting.

(Note, if playing the female, read it again as "Michelle" and with all the appropriate feminine pronouns...)

Gameplay:

This is going to primarily be an exercise in discipline. The custom code creates a fairly normal environment: no auroras, no wildlife out to get you, no unnaturally cold weather, and plentiful sticks, branches, and limbs. You even get a 24-hour head-start on predators. BUT, your severe allergies to (say it with me) EVERYTHING mean:
- No matches. No flares. No discovered lamp oil (allowing for whatever's in the lamp when you find it...you can't exactly empty them). Fire-strikers, magnifiers, and oil derived from fishies is fine.
- No firearms. The code omits rifles and revolvers from play, but avoid the flare gun as well. It's arrows for you, Spaz!
- No going indoors for longer than it takes to quickly loot a place, smash-and-grab style. Also, do you wanna die in your sleep from construction material off-gassing and residual POISONS from the people who were last there? NO? Good. Then don't sleep indoors. Or in cars. Caves and snow shelters are best.
- No other-people's clothing with two exceptions: leather and wool. These are natural fibers that (for the sake of surviving in this story) are traditionally colored with natural dyes and absorb less/none of the previous wearer's "fumes". Whatever clothes you start out with have been yours forever--put through a bazillion wash cycles before you even put them on for the first time--and are fine. Everything else made from cotton, nylon, or whatever-else blends is highly suspect. If it doesn't say "wool" or "leather" in the name or description, don't wear it. Your best hope for not freezing is fur clothes you make yourself, so get curing, quick.
- This also means no salvaging cloth from non-wool clothing. Blankets, curtains, and found cloth are fine. Old bedrolls, pillows, and towels aren't.
- And if old bedrolls and pillows are off the list, then so are other people's usable bedrolls. Make your own out of a bear or two. Of skip it in your show shelter.
- No non-harvested foodstuffs. Can liners and plastic bottles will kill you. The fake crap and preservatives in wrapped foods will kill you. Soda will kill you. (That one is actually true. Don't drink that stuff!) Cattails, teas/coffees, fresh meat...these are life. Oh, and find a cooking pot...the only thing worse for you than a cold can liner is a hot can liner.
- Remember printers' inks? No books or newspapers/stacks of paper for you. Earn your skills the old-fashioned way and burn cattail heads or stick-tinder.
SUPER HARD MODE: Spaz is also a hemophiliac...he's comfortable around needles, fishhooks, arrowheads, and hacksaws, but axes and knives worry the heck out of him. This'll mean harvesting animals by hand and making only rabbit and deerskin clothes and a moose-hide satchel, all of which only need needle and thread (or fishhook and line).
SILVER LINING: Due to his time outdoors, feel free to pick 5 skills of your choice...except the book one. That'd be dumb.
POSSIBLE MULLIGAN: If you want to pretend that the Emergency Stim is an EpiPen, go ahead and have that dinner of soda and energy bars...just pop a stim afterwards then sit there until it wears off. 😄 

So, anyone else ready to be a Spaz? 😉 

Edited October 12, 2021 by straffin
grammar

[straffin]

While very interesting, @hozz1235's "Natural Challenge" felt a little arbitrary to me... I wanted to follow rules that felt like they made sense and carry them as far as possible, however hard it made things. I also grew up with a friend named Michael, nicknamed "Spaz", who wasn't as bad as this but *did* have an amazingly long list of things he was allergic to (including artificial flavors and colors). 😄 

I've deliberately started (a few times so far) at Mystery Lake, where I've usually found a fire striker or two and a cooking pot fairly quickly, then headed up the hill to put a snow shelter facing the cave at the overlook. My previous attempts were foiled by my being greedy and exploring too much of the lake before my first sleep on the hill, ending with pockets filled with cattails while I froze to death overnight. I'm currently on day 6, with hides curing in the cave and a fire at the mouth of the shelter. I'll soon head one way or the other to get to a forge and start making arrows.

[hozz1235]

14 hours ago, straffin said:

While very interesting, @hozz1235's "Natural Challenge" felt a little arbitrary to me... I wanted to follow rules that felt like they made sense and carry them as far as possible, however hard it made things. I also grew up with a friend named Michael, nicknamed "Spaz", who wasn't as bad as this but *did* have an amazingly long list of things he was allergic to (including artificial flavors and colors). 😄 

I've deliberately started (a few times so far) at Mystery Lake, where I've usually found a fire striker or two and a cooking pot fairly quickly, then headed up the hill to put a snow shelter facing the cave at the overlook. My previous attempts were foiled by my being greedy and exploring too much of the lake before my first sleep on the hill, ending with pockets filled with cattails while I froze to death overnight. I'm currently on day 6, with hides curing in the cave and a fire at the mouth of the shelter. I'll soon head one way or the other to get to a forge and start making arrows.

I'm glad to see my idea sparked this creativity