Quality

Average water is water collected and boiled. It tastes bad, but will keep you going.

Superb water is water either gathered from an intact pre-zombie source, like bottled water, or filtered by an intricate system, like a clay still. Superb water gives you a +3 bonus to all FORT saves for 24 hours.

Poor water is water collected with no filtration from natural sources like rivers, lakes, and rain. Drinking poor water automatically triggers a FORT save vs disease, DC 13.

Unlike most supplies, water collected in the wilds is automatically considered poor, though boiling it will raise it to average. Water bought by merchants is considered average unless specified otherwise.

Economic Viability

For the most part, water isn’t a widely traded resource, as it’s easy enough to harvest from the surrounding environment for everyday use, though some survivors in harsh environments, like deserts, might be willing to trade for it. The main exception to this is superb water; those who can manage to construct clay or osmosis stills find that people are willing to pay to drink water that doesn’t carry the flat, slightly earthy taste of simple boiled water.

Food

The second most vital resource, next to water. You should consume one unit of food every day. For every day you do not consume food, you gain a -1 penalty to FORT saves, which is cumulative; every unit of food you eat after accumulating a penalty reduces the penalty by 1. Every three straight days in which you do not eat reduces your health by one on the survival track.

One unit of food is a standard rationed day for experienced wanderers: two canned goods with one small side item, like a protein bar. It weighs 0.5.

Quality

Average food is the standard fare for most of the world: unopened pre-zombie supplies, like canned goods, bags of chips, beef jerky, military rations, etc. These are edible right out of the container, though most are better heated.

Superb food is made from fresh ingredients, cooked with care, and seasoned with additional spices. Superb food boosts morale, giving its user an additional Hero Point for the day.

Poor food is suspect in quality, either expired, spoiled, dirtied, or otherwise contaminated. Eating poor food automatically triggers a FORT save vs disease, DC 15.

Economic Viability

Food is the most traded item across the wasteland, being the closest thing to a standardized currency. Even settlers in sustainable locations, such as Quebec or the Skyways, are willing to trade for food, stocking up for droughts or famines. Most survivors trade on a scale of 1 food for a cheap item, 3 food for a standard item, and 10 food for a rare item, though in a barter economy, prices are always finalized with convincing words and desperation.

Medical Supplies

Highly desired and very rare, medical supplies refers to items used for long-term, intensive treatments; less bandages and gauze, and more along the lines of antibiotics, saline and blood bags, clamps and sutures, and other specialized medical equipment.

GM Translation: Any in-game combat medic actions, like patching bullet holes, repairing broken limbs, healing allies, etc., is to be handled either with the ‘medicine’ skill or the ‘healing’ power. Medical supplies are designed to be used to treat more survival-oriented threats, like diseases and wounds.

Medical supplies are only situationally used, but extremely helpful. They can be spent to:

• Stabilize an incredibly wounded ally for 24 hours until more intensive care can be secured

• Used to immediately raise your health by one on the health track

• Give you an instant FORT roll against a disease with a +10

• Spent to heal certain wounds (see wounds and scars)

One unit of medical supplies are stored in a specialized kit, like a first aid kit, and contain various antibiotic medications, isopropyl alcohol, distilled water, intravenous fluids, medical instruments, and similar tools. It weighs 1.

Quality

Average medical supplies are those scavenged from pre-zombie sources, and usually missing a few items; a bottle of alcohol here, a scalpel there, etc. They can be spent normally without any check required.

Superb medical supplies are not only complete, but contain well-maintained and full stores from both pre and post-zombie supplies. They’re inconceivably rare and usually only found either in the stores of very important people or very competent individuals. When spent, superb medical supplies grant a choice of two benefits listed above, instead of just one.

Poor medical supplies are the most commonly encountered and usually constructed by settlement residents with medical training with a combination of scavenged pre-zombie supplies and poorer quality post-zombie supplies, such as herbs and plants instead of prescription medication. Poor medical supplies require a DC 15 medicine check to use; if it fails, the supplies are spent without any benefit.

Economic Viability

Medical supplies are both rare and highly desired; they are the closest thing the post-zombie world has to gold. Even poor quality supplies fetch outrageously high prices when bartered. Those who do find these supplies are careful to keep them secret until they’re ready to trade them, as murder for these enviable kits is all too common.

Scrap

Scrap are collections of useful but specialized items of the pre-zombie world: batteries, wires, capacitors, circuit boards, etc. These supplies are unusable to all but the most competent; to use scrap, you must have the ‘inventor’ advantage, have a power that ‘refills’ from scrap, or be in some similar situation. Most simply collect scrap in hopes of trading it to someone interested somewhere down the line.

Scrap mostly consists of broken electronics and electronic parts. One unit of it weighs 0.5.

Quality

Average scrap is that scavenged from computer or other electronic parts stores; loose wires, unattached parts, etc. It can be spent like normal.

Superb scrap is that from functioning, working electronics, or from well-maintained and clean stores. Superb scrap gives a +3 to the roll or the rank of the relevant skill/power for each unit of superb scrap used.

Poor scrap is that scavenged from burnt-out and damaged electronics. Poor scrap requires a DC 15 Technology check to use; on a fail, the supplies are spent without benefit.

Economic Viability

Scrap is a highly specialized resource, only attractive to those who know how to use it. Those who will buy it are either tinkerers or traveling merchants wishing to trade it to tinkerers in the future. Negotiating on scrap is an uncertain affair, and social savvy and technological knowledge go far in securing a good price for it.

Junk

Junk is the construction material of the post-zombie world; wood, sheet metal, bricks, concrete, plaster, etc. It is used primarily for the construction of shelter, and any construction project, from base-building to vehicular modification, requires junk.

Junk is measured in approximately 5-square foot sheets, or 1.5 meters squared. It has a weight of 3.

Quality

Average quality junk is junk scavenged from pre-zombie construction sites and stores, and can be spent as normal.

Superb quality junk comes from competent craftsmen working with post-zombie supplies; cutting trees into boards, creating their own mixtures of concrete, etc. Items made from superb junk are more durable and less likely to degrade to time or assault; any saves a structure make gain a +3 bonus per unit of Superb junk spent to construct it.

Poor quality junk is that cannibalized from pre-zombie structures by desperate people, cutting out chunks of drywall or sides of metal sheds. Poor quality junk is more likely to fall apart to weather, time, or violence; any saves a structure makes gain a -2 penalty per unit of Poor junk spent to construct it.

Economic Viability

Junk is unlikely to turn many heads, as it's literally laying around everywhere in the wasteland; very few people will be willing to trade for it. Superb junk may fetch a good price, as it’s useful in important or ornamental building projects, and settlements undergoing a construction boom may wish to purchase extra, but otherwise, most don’t consider it worth the bother to haul around.

Books

Knowledge is power, as the adage goes, and many people don’t get to enjoy that kind of power nowadays. Pre-zombie people enjoyed absolute gluts of the stuff, from text to video to interactable programs, all served instantaneously via the internet. Now, humanity has to rely on its old stand-by: books, words on paper bound with glue and string. This old guard of knowledge is both a symbol of wealth and status in the new world; given that many were torn apart for fire fuel in the early days of the Panic, and that many more have fallen to ruin from time and neglect.

Books are measured in single units, with a weight of 1. Unlike most other supplies, books are specialized, divided into fiction and non-fiction books.

Fiction Books

With descriptions of fantastical dragons and far-off planets, fiction books are one of the few sources of entertainment left sought after by the rich and virtually inaccessible to the poor. A library of as many as five fiction books can mark a man as a virtual millionaire. As for the common man, some survivalists have taken it upon themselves to rejuvenate the calling of the bard, carrying one or two books with them and acting out scenes from their pages for the delight of the common man… and pay in food and board.

Notes: Storytelling Challenge

Those with access to a fiction book and living inside a settlement can enquire about performing storytelling for the settlement. Usually, leaders of these places or owners of tavern-like establishments can be persuaded into giving a few days of room and board free for a performance; people in the apocalypse have little to distract them from the horrors around them, so a chance to uplift spirits are always welcome.

A storytelling challenge is rolled with the skill Expertise (Acting), though that skill is based off of PRESENCE and not INTELLECT. Others can assist the challenge with whatever skills they wish to do; a particularly scary individual could play the role of the monster with an Intimidation check, or an intelligent one craft stage gear and props with a Technology roll. Those who engage in modern bardom find the more, the merrier.

At the end of the performance, the result determines how people respond. A high roll is a good performance, and the party may find the population agreeable, the merchants friendly, and their patrons requesting another showing for more free food and lodging. A low roll is a bad performance, and people may be gruff, merchants unsympathetic, and their patrons wanting payment as soon as the free room and board run out.

Nonfiction Books

The last vaults of the collected knowledge of the old world, nonfiction books are indescribably valuable to any wastelander. Each book is focused on a specific skill, specified when the player receives the book, (Survival, Medicine, Psychology, Technology, etc.), and with each one collected, a person’s competence in that area increases. A wastelander with one of these is someone to envy; a wastelander with five is someone to fear.

Quality

Average nonfiction books are informative and helpful, though potentially not as explicit or with as many pages intact as their owners may wish. If the player can access and use the book during a skill check that involves the book’s relevant subject matter, they get a +3 to the check.

Superb books are intact, easy-to-read, and both detailed and authoritative in their subject matter. If the player can access and use the book during a skill check that involves the book’s relevant subject matter, they get a +5 to the check.

Poor books are hard to understand, whether that be from the majority of the pages being damaged or unclear and nonspecific writing. They’re still better than nothing, though; if the player can access and use the book during a skill check that involves the book’s relevant subject matter, they get a +1 to the check.

Economic Viability

There’s nothing that showcases wealth like books. Most settlers don’t even bother to trade for them; it’s hard enough to scrounge up enough to support yourself and your family without spending food on something as trivial or extravagant as a book, no matter how much they may secretly want one. Among those with high amounts of excess, however, books are highly wanted and sought after; high-quality ones have even been known to start bidding wars.

Fuel

Gasoline was the inheritance taken from the world before and for a while it seemed like that inheritance was unlimited. But in the apocalypse, nothing lasts. Things fall apart. The world moves on. And everyday, fuel becomes harder and harder to find.

Fuel is the lifeblood for all vehicles in the apocalypse, and vehicles are really the only way to navigate the wasteland. Vehicles have three stats to them: Capacity, Passenger Count, and Fuel Usage. Capacity is how much Bulk the vehicle can store. Passenger Count is how many people the vehicle can transport. Fuel Usage is how many units of fuel is needed for a full day’s travel. Vehicles may also have other benefits and flaws, as noted in their descriptions.

Whenever the vehicle travels for the day, it uses up a number of fuel units equal to its Fuel Usage. If you do not have enough fuel to pay for a vehicle’s Fuel Usage, the vehicle can not be used to leave the location you are at.

Each unit of fuel weighs one bulk.

Quality

Average fuel is properly stored fuel siphoned from a commercial source, still good and perfectly burnable.

Superb fuel is high grade, higher-octane gasoline mixed with performance enhancers. Each unit of superb fuel used gives you +50 miles range for a full day’s travel that day.

Poor fuel has been exposed the air and slowly lost quality due to evaporation and oxidation, cloudy and discolored. Attempting to use bad gasoline can cause your vehicle to choke and stall: when traveling for the day, attempt a DC 10 Vehicle or Technology check; each unit of Poor fuel spent raises the DC by 2. On a fail, the gas clogs the engine and the vehicle is unusable until a full downtime activity is spent re-rolling the check at the same DC and succeeded at.

Economic Viability

As a resource, fuel’s value is highly subjective; they are luxuries for a settlement dweller, usable to run generators for a limited time and heat homes, but vital for scavengers and travelers; an average settlement user may consider it worth three food, while a wasteland wanderer can pay as much as eight for a single unit. The only one who never seems to have need for it is, ironically, the Caravan, as they never feel the need to purchase it from wanderers but always have an infinite stock for sale.