The Glass sea

l y p t i c T o y s #6
Post Apoca
By
Quinn
Co n k l i n Art B
y
And Ashe
h y d er
R
Gary
Montgomery
 Contents
The Electric Sea 3
History 3
Description 3

Possibilities 5
Down on the Glass 5
It’s Genuine, Trust Me 5
Come see the Circus 5
Nothing’s Shocking 6
Spark Pirates 6
Shimmer Drifting All Over The Place 7

People 7
Meshaw Chaplewhite, The Captain 7
Justin Tildres, The Passenger 8
Drifus Black, The Pirate 8

Salvage 10
Barnum McBailey, Ringmaster of the Cirque du Voltaic 10

Rumors 11
Encounters 11

2
 The Electric Sea
History thought to use skids and an old electrical tractor to
haul goods across the gleaming empty. From that it was
The Glass Sea is an enigma that stirs doubt in even a short step to harnessing the Glass Sea’s own electri-
the credulous. Descriptions of the place sound like the cal potential to recharge batteries. From that it was a
thirst-addled ravings of a waster. It’s a glinting, end- simple matter to use the piezoelectrical field to support
less, dead-level plain of mottled glass where lightning trailers, then rafts, then genuine electro-levitating
leaps from the ground up to the sky and where boats float boats.
not on water but a hand’s breadth in the air. The truth is Cathode City was born on the south shores of the
that the Glass Sea exists, and in the desolation of the Glass Sea in a dozen dusty workshops and smoke belching
wastes it has found a certain kind of prosperity. foundries where batteries were scrounged and winding
Of those who’ve chanced the lethal Shimmer Drift, armatures cast of scrap. Now the glassport at Cathode
who’ve seen the sparkboats cruising and seen night City sees a steady stream of cargo barges and lightning
lightning incinerate fools out on the Glass, each of them trawlers, even an occasional pirate or two. Electrical
have a different theory about how the Glass Sea came to lights wink and dazzle there and tinny music plays in
be. There’s a common belief, mangled and recycled through pothouses and taverns. It’s a bulwark against the yawn-
generations of folklore, that it’s the mark of a nuclear ing dark of the ruined world and the empty wastes all
bomb. Foolish on the face of it for no one dies of radiation around.
poisoning out on the Glass. The sea isn’t in the bottom Recently, the flow of commerce across the Big Glassy
of a crater and, for that matter, no one knows for sure if has drawn a more serious class of profiteer – pirates
nukes precipitated the crash-and-burn of the world. Re- equipped with fast electrosailers who hit the transport
ligiously inclined theorists have claimed that it’s the convoys or passenger barges, taking the easily portable
fingerprint of the God of Hunger, the place where His wealth. Most depart with a laugh and a wave, though
searing digit made momentary contact with the world, resistance to pillage is often viciously punished. This
a single press of a divine finger to nudge all existence has led to a boom in pirate hunting and a corresponding
askew. Machine priests and the tech-savvy whisper boom in pirate hunter hunting. An arms race is blooming
frightening tales of orbital weapons, hell storms of on the gleaming surface of the Glass Sea where electro-
coherent light or beams made, somehow, out of particles. sailers circle like sharks.
The Glass Sea has always been a rough place, home
to those driven to the edges of fraying civilization. Description
It’s long seen the presence of the exile and the madman,
Far to the east where the Red Range is just a bloody
the salvage prospector and the hermit. But in recent
smear on the western horizon lies the Glass Sea. It’s
years some of the more noteworthy properties of the Big
a fearsome place – ringed in parched, trackless waste,
Glassy have drawn inventors and entrepreneurs as well
and haunted by the grotesqueries that choose to
as those who follow and feed on them. As the caravan
live there. The surrounding knife-like hills and 3
routes south of the Glass Sea withered some bright soul
twisting can- yons
are home to cannibal cults, water worshippers and worse. created the Glass Sea is the piezoelectrical effect
At the very edge of the Glass Sea is the zone they demonstrated by its many vitreous layers. They absorb the
call the Shimmer Drift where the layers of glass grow sun’s heat all day and when the temperature drops sharply
thin and brittle and the endless, restless wind erodes at night the cycle of thermal expansion and contrac-
the periphery of the Sea. Sweeping across that vast, tion produces a potent electrical charge. From the shores
glittering emptiness a killing gale sifts up a load of of the Big Glassy one can look out at night and see
glassine needles and sweeps them over the land, scouring trapped electricity writhing through the layers of glass,
leaf from tree and flesh from bone. These razor winds look purplish-blue arcs searching for a weak point to burst up-
like dust storms with squalls of surging haze dimming ward in a bolt of night-lightning. During the day as the
the sky. There’s a twinkling translucence to the lower- crystalline structure re-stresses the electrosailers move
ing clouds that makes a seasoned traveler reach for a out onto the glass dragging cat-lines to power their own
shovel, knowing the safest way to ride out a razor wind static generators and to store power in battery banks.
is to bury themselves and hope the shrieking gusts don’t What few know is that in the center of the Big
strip away their meager cover of soil and flay the skin Glassy is an island guarded by reefs of jagged glass.
from their body. Unlike the glittering desolation of the Glass Sea this
Venturing onto the Sea on foot is an exercise in place seems park like; green trees, gentle hills. None
madness. During the day there’s no place to escape the claim to have seen it directly. Most who speak of it
sun’s doubled glare, searing from above and reflected from have a friend whose cousin’s husband served on a long-haul
below. During the night the creaking depths of the Sea barge, and he saw it for sure….
undergo minuscule flexings and bolts of piezoelectric
lightning arc skyward through anything conductive that
rises above the glass – typically the soles of a hapless
wanderer’s feet and out the top of his head.
The Glass Sea is huge. Its extents are poorly charted,
for even the boldest vitrisailor is loath to stray more
than a half day from shore lest the charred wreck of his
craft remain on the horizon as a testament to the fool-
ishness of braving the night lightning. The Big Glassy
may be the size of a country or a state. It may simply
have taken over everything north of Cathode City all the
way to the ends of the earth. Certainly the first trick
pulled on a rube new to that quarrelsome town is the
map swindle where earnest crewmen and conmen offer
useless (and indeed, dangerous) maps for the price of a
drink.
An interesting result of whatever force
4
 Possibilities
Down on the Glass
The old magbarge Eldha has run into trouble
out on the Glass. It started with a problem in the
conductors, a few sparks here and there, but then
the regulators went out and the speed control blew.
They would have shot clear off the Glass if the
power system had not failed. The problems with the
power system are being caused by a strange black box a
passenger called Tildres brought onboard.
Twists
Tildres’ device is cutting edge tech from Before but it has
flaws. It was used recently and has been powered down since
then. The electro-pulses on the Glass Sea have recharged it and
it is in danger of detonating again. Tildres is scared of the
device and wants the party to get rid of it.
W little as soon as they head out on the Big Glassy and introduces
The pirates are after the device and somehow the machine
is sensing that its owner is in danger. The party is on the barge
and the captain, a woman by the name of Chaplewhite asks them
to stop the pirate attack while she gets the boat up and running
again. This means that the party has to go out on the Glass
unprotected.
W through the night unscathed, Wilson will do her best to
Things are worse than they look. The electrical system
is fried and the Eldha needs a new speed regulator. There are
pirates circling the boat and Captain Chaplewhite gets the idea
of attacking one of those ships and taking it over. She wants the
party to take care of that and will send them out in one of the
lifeboats for the raid.
It’s Genuine, Trust Me
In Cathode City on business or pleasure the
party is approached by a tiny elderly woman who
tries the old scam of selling them a map of the Glass
Sea. Unusual for such a thing, this one’s on a piece
of smartpaper covered with tiny animated symbols and
glyphs. Cathode City is marked on it and the Big
Glassy itself is shown in shimmering detail. Her
price? “Take me here,” she says, pointing at the
middle of the map, dismayingly far from anywhere.
The map’s high-tech nature is strong evidence of its
authenticity.
Twists
The woman, tiny and elderly though she may be, is as
ruthless a killer as any and her silenced pistol is still warm
from shooting the previous owner of the map. She knows full
well that to stay on the Glass after sunset is nearly a death
sentence. She hopes to immolate herself, the map and any who’ve
seen it.
W
If the party agrees to convey the woman she relaxes a
herself as Cassandra Wilson. She’s agreeable and conversational
during the trip although if the party pushes her to talk about
the mystery destination she clams up saying only, “Do your job and
leave well enough alone.”
W
If the party is skilled enough to get the electrosailer
sabotage the vessel and strand it in the middle of the Glass Sea.
If caught, she’ll fight to the death. She’s desperate, driven and
no price is too great to destroy the map.
Come see the Circus
Along an old and battered wharf on the edge
of Cathode City a garish barge has pulled up and
begun erecting tents. Posters have appeared on
any open surface and on some slow moving 5
citizens as well. The circus is in town. It’s a time the whole voyage.
of wonder and excitement.
Twists
Twists Once they’re well away from Cathode City another
A desperate young man, no more than a boy really, approaches electrosailer closes with the party’s craft and Captain Malhoun
the party and explains that he is from the next town over and orders a flag run up the electrosailer’s mast. It’s a pirate flag!
that his sister and her best friend disappeared while at the The two vessels drift close and the location, speed, and bearing
circus. He knows there is a powerful man in Cathode City who of a rich electrobarge convoy is shouted across to the turncoat
had been trying to court his sister. She had turned him down and privateer.
he thinks the powerful man has her. He wants the party to help W
him find his sister. If the party doesn’t intervene, Malhoun and the pirate
W craft will proceed to swoop in upon a slow moving convoy in a
The Ringmaster Barnum McBailey approaches the party burst of crackling electricity. Malhoun dons a grounding harness
worried that one of his clowns may be a member of a cannibal and bellowing through a loud-hailer orders the passengers to
cult. A few of his other performers have been suffering accidents throw their valuables overboard or they’ll be walking home across
and losing limbs. No one can find the missing appendages. While the Big Glassy.
McBailey has reason to suspect the clown he needs proof and W
wants the party to go undercover as new members of his troop to Goods begin to rain down from the decks of the electrobarge
find out if his suspicions are correct. and the accompanying pirates send their craft buzzing and sparking
W forward to gather up the loot. “Now,” hollers Malhoun, and
The party is in line to buy tickets for the show when they the skull and crossbones flag flutters to the glassy ground as
are caught between McBailey and a mob of his former customers the captain cuts its lines. Crewmen take aim at the stunned
with some concerns about hair that fell out after they tried pirates and blaze away. It’s a double cross and party members who
his last remedy. The mob has come with pitchforks and fire to played along will get an extra bonus once the bounties are paid.
get their money back or their satisfaction. The performers are
innocent and the mob is fairly determined to set the tent on
fire. Did I mention? The party is caught in the middle. Spark Pirates
A spark trawler captain approaches the party
Nothing’s Shocking offering to hire them as guards against the pirates
that have begun attacking the spark harvesters. The
The party is offered employment by a privateering party is busy with another job, but do need to cross
firm. The pirates out on the Big Glassy are getting the Glass and getting paid for their passage is better
overbold and it’s time to bring in some bounties. than buying a barge ticket.
There’s room aboard the Stark Fist for all types –
shooters, techies and psi-folk for early warning and Twists
threat detection. The captain, Bors Malhoun, is Once the trawler, the Franklin, gets out on the Glass
things change. The party is drugged and when they wake up find
affable and earnest with an outspoken loathing themselves tied to their bunks. An old foe from their past is
for pirates. Anyone who shares his views will sitting across from them and has some questions. Fortunately
6 have to endure his chummy comradeship one party member is not tied down as securely as their enemy
believes him to be.
W the Tradesman.
When the pirates attack they seem genuinely surprised
and disappointed that the ship has guards. The pirate, Black’s
the name, keeps yelling at the captain of the trawler, “Didn’t I
always treat you right?” In the course of the skirmish it comes
out that a petty warlord has taken the trawler captain’s kids
hostage and is demanding a full load of juice for their return.
The pirate curses the poacher and agrees to team up with the
party for a rescue mission.
W W
The trip across the Glass is uneventful and the party
arrives in Cathode City without a hitch. However, after the
trip they often feel they are being watched and occasionally
hear beeping noises coming from a piece of dead machinery
they salvaged before their trip. A spark from the Glass Sea is
caught in it and has carried with it a chunk of artificially
intelligent data. It is scared and wants to go home. It may act
out like a child throwing a temper tantrum if it finds a bigger
more functional device to take control of.
Shimmer Drifting All Over
The Place
Cathode City is a bustling, buzzing kind of place
night and day. Entertainments of all kinds are in
demand and the hottest, newest fad is electrosailer
racing. The party is approached by Shala Carjax,
a displaced Junker and the captain of a racing
vessel whose crew was hired away by a competitor.
“Please,” she begs. “The race is today! If we win,
we’ll split the purse even!” It is a lot of money…
Twists
When the competition hears that Shala has a new crew,
one of the party members deemed to be the most corruptible will
be offered a bribe of goods and weapons to make sure that in the
first lap the Machine Tribe woman has “a little accident.”
Party members who flatly refuse are threatened with the ire of
W
Shala Carjax’s craft has some Machine Tribe technology
grafted to its electro-levitation system and seems to be
performing rather better than the nearest competitor. Rather
than see a stranger win the purse, the other electro-craft band
together and turn the racing event into a running gun battle!
Sparks fly from every slug that shatters a plate-sized divot out
of the Big Glassy.
As the race comes to an end, Captain Carjax takes a bullet.
One of the party has to take the helm through the final lap as
the competition comes on strong. Skill checks and gunfire are
the order of the day. The action is fast and furious! If the party
pulls a win out, Shala lives up to her promise and divides the
prize equally among them.
People
Meshaw Chaplewhite, The
Captain
History
Chaplewhite has been working the barges of the Glass Sea
since she was a little girl. Her father was a hand on one of the
ships and could not afford to stop working when her mother died
in the second great plague. At first Meshaw was nothing more
than a gofer getting stuff for the guests and the crew so they
did not have to leave their posts.
With all the curiosity of a child she asked questions of
every one and learned all there was to know about the Glass Sea
and the ships that sailed it. By the time her father was too
old and worn to work the ships any more she had already found a
ship of her own to work, reaching the rank of first mate in short
order.
When her captain was killed during an arc lightening
storm she took over the ship and got the crew, the cargo
and the passengers to safety. Since that day it has been
her ship and no one has tried to argue the point. She 7
may not be the most respected captain on the Glass Sea but she is
regarded as one of the most competent and the one most people who
have seen her in action would want to have if things went bad.
Lately cargo runs are not paying as well as they used to.
New suppliers are bringing goods overland that used to have to
cross the sea so Meshaw is taking on more passengers than she
would normally. That’s a problem. Cargo is quiet. Cargo does not
complain. Once cargo is lashed in place it does not go anywhere.
Passengers, on the other hand, get in the way and do not know how
to behave once the ship is underway. She would not mind them
nearly as much if she could stash them in the hold and not have
to see them again until they got to port.
Description
Dark hair and tanned skin, the captain is good looking, but
has a business like air about her that tends to keep people away.
She is working to let her guard down a bit these days which
leads to awkward moments of painfully stilted small talk. She
dresses in light clothing and a grounding harness in case of freak
electrical storms.
Stats and Skills
A great captain and knowledgeable about the Glass Sea
and the electric weather around it, Meshaw can, in a pinch, do
almost anything on the boat except cook. The cook will not even
let her in the kitchen since she ruined a third kettle trying to
make tea.
Justin Tildres, The
Passenger
History
Tildes is on the run, not from slavers, not from cannibal
cults or even from the law. What little there is of law out
in the wastes would be happy to pin a medal on him if they ever
found him. No he is running from his conscience, trying to get
away from all the things that remind him of the bad times back
in Burnwater.
Even though he is running he has taken the thing
8 with him, the cool black case that came alive the
night the Rearer’s Dog Gang came to town, the night they died
at his hands and the town was turned into a smoking crater.
After that the device went to sleep again.
The device had been his father’s, and according to family
history, his father’s before him all the way back to before
everything went all to hell. After seeing the things the device
can do when it wakes up, Justin knows he cannot let it fall into
anyone else’s hands. Now he, and it, runs.
If he can get across the Glass Sea and into the Red Hills
he has heard tell of a place where he may find refuge, where a
mission of the Machine Tribes knows how to handle the delicate
and fantastic machines of the old world. But first he has to
make it across the sea. He is nervous thinking that the pirates
who are circling the craft are after the device and that the
strange blue flickering fish that leap from the Glass Sea may
wake the thing in the black box once again.
Justin does not want any more deaths on his head, but he
also wants to feel the cool embrace of the device as it wakes
up and raps around his hand again, turning him into a weapon of
powerful vengeance. Last time, when Burnwater was destroyed
was the only time he could remember not being scared.
Description
Justin is a fairly normal looking product of the waste. He
has no mutations, but he has a stare that tells you he has seen
some bad things happen and is afraid he will see more. He has
dark hair and pale eyes, with a light dashing of freckles across
his nose.
Stats and Skills
Justin is an average, ordinary member of society. He is
not exceptional in any way. He knows a bit about farming and
can barter okay, but he is no better at that than anyone who was
raised on a farm.
Drifus Black, The Pirate
History
Since the Glass Sea cooled and the first electro-trawlers
started cruising the surface, the barges made their runs and
the couriers shot the glass on their magboards there have been
pirates. If people were willing to ship it, then it was worth Description
enough for someone to try and take it. Drifus is not a sailor Drifus is a bit squat with long, dark hair that is just
by trade or skill, but he knows a thing or two about theft and now beginning to show the first touches of gray. He always has
convincing people to part with what they wrongfully believe to one eye out for an opportunity and as such his eyes are always
be theirs. panning back and forth across a room, across a horizon, it does not
More importantly, Drifus knows about power. Not the kind matter to him. He dresses like most of the people who travel the
of power a warlord or even the Tyrant throws around, but the Glass Sea, loose clothes and a grounding harness to help protect
kind that makes the Machine Tribes gizmos work, the kind that him from a stray bolt. 
can turn darkness into daylight. He used to work farther south
grabbing fuel trucks as they tried to cross the great waste. But Stats and Skills
the supply of fuel ran low and wheelers started keeping it for Drifus is more a business man than a pirate. He sees the
themselves. The caravans dried up and Drifus came north. It was volt trawlers as his sheep or cattle and does not want to do
then he found the Glass Sea and fell in love. much to harm them, just gather his share of the bounty when he
He saw the charge boats dragging their copper cables and can. He is good at making contacts and at keeping them happy. 
knew what his next great prize would be. When he first started
hitting the boats he would take their batteries and leave them
with nothing. But the batteries are expensive and most of these
zap fishers can’t afford to replace them, so he now just takes the
juice and leaves them the means to collect more. Hell, if they
give up a cut without a fight he even leaves them enough
juice to make a profit when they get back home.
But now a deal has come along that is too good
to pass up. A bounty is circulating, not for a man,
but for a thing; a small glassy black box
that rumor has it is a
weapon that destroyed
Burnwater.

9
Barnum McBailey, Ringmaster Salvage
of the Cirque du Voltaic 1 11 A grounding harness that shields the
- wearer from electrical shocks.
History
A personal electro-levitation harness
Part scientist, part snake oil sales man, Barnum McBailey 12-22
is a whip-thin man with dark hair and a quick smile. He has a that is insanely dangerous to use.
A set of piezo-knives chipped from
firm handshake and tends to take control of a conversation before 23-33
the other people involved even know it has begun. He has worked fragments of the Big Glassy.
the edges of the Glass Sea all his life, running small cons, Glass-travel gear, insulated boots and a
24-44
selling cures that do nothing and, when all else fails, making an silly looking nonconductive hat.
honest living performing on street corners. An electro-compass that indicates current
45-55
His latest venture is the Cirque Du Voltaic, a carnival of flow under the Glass Sea.
light and electricity that he is taking on the road to the more Vitrisailor’s goggles with dark lenses for
56-66
civilized ports along the Glass Sea. He has gathered all manner day travel on the Big Glassy.
of performers and oddities and loaded them into an old magbarge he The title to an electrosailer of dubious
won in a poker game with a bit of luck and a few extra aces in 77-88
value, the Banhammer.
the deck. Shaped charges that will shatter a
The honest work of the circus and the midway that travels 89-00
half acre of glass and release a huge pulse of
with them is a cover for his more dishonest endeavors. He still electricity.
sells his patent medicines and for a price will pack up anything
that needs to move quietly from one place to another along
with the clowns and mutants that make up his cast of circus
characters.
He refuses to participate in any crimes that he feels are
violent or that harm others. He does not sell his medicines to
people who need doctors, or as he puts it, “I only take money from
those people who I first convince are sick.”

Description
A tall whip of a man who dresses in a garish and overly
patched red suit and a large top hat dotted with teardrop shaped
light baubles that flicker and flash and occasionally spark. He is
the center of attention even when he is by himself.

Stats and Skills

A showman and an orator, McBailey can talk a slaver into
selling their chains and wagons instead of their stock. He has a
gift for making people feel good and the way he sees it, most of
the scams he runs are just ways to sell a bit of fun to the
marks.
10
 Rumors Encounters
Cathode City has electric lights that A ragged group fleeing an oncoming
1-14 1-14
run all through the night.  razorwind.
The Glass Sea is full of strange sparks Cannibal cultists posing as Cathode City
15-28 15-28
that sometimes leap from the glass to the sky people.
and other times dart about like schools of fish A broken down electrobarge and a crew
below the surface.  29-42
trying to fix it.
If you put enough magnets together you Pirates unhappy about being interrupted.
29-42 43-57
can make anything float over the glass sea,
Tech-priests on a pilgrimage to Cathode
even boats. 58-71
Where there is commerce there are City.
43-57 Jungle Ghosts, tribal folk controlled by a
thieves and the Glass Sea in no different. 72-85
Pirates are becoming a real problem for those brain parasite hive-mind.
who make their living out on the glass. 
A troop of cannibal berserkers coked to the
The ringmaster of the circus that is 86-00
58-71 gills on toxic meat.
traveling to the port towns of the Glass Sea
is more of a criminal than a showman. Watch
your money if you go to the show. 
According to rumor there’s an island in
72-85
the center of the Glass Sea. Some say it’s
green, some say stone.
Be careful crossing the glass. If you
86-00
take too much metal with you one of the spark
fish are sure to get you. 

11