Mutant: Year Zero Zone Compendium 2 – Dead Blue Sea Free League Publishing

Zone Compendium 2: Dead Blue Sea is the second official supplement to the Mutant: Year Zero RPG. This booklet gives you a whole new way to play the game – at sea…

“The wind grew stronger and the waves even bigger, wilder. The scrap barge heeled over and creaked under the strain, cold Zone water flooding it with every crashing wave. We had left the Ark at dawn and set out for the old oil rigs on the northern horizon. Now the tall swell and lashing rain blocked all sight of them. We could only fight to stay on board, and pray to the Ancients that the barge wouldn’t break apart. “Torpedo fish!” Franton suddenly yelled. “Underneath us!” he continued, pointing into the dead blue sea. For a fraction of second, I saw a dark shade in the deep. A large shadow. That was no torpedo fish. It was something far worse…”

Zone Compendium 2 Features:

● A whole new Zone at sea, described in text, illustrations, and a full-color map. Let your characters travel here, or play an entire campaign in the Dead Blue Sea.
● New mutations and rules for Zone travel at sea, including navigation, weather, wind, and diving.
● New monsters from the deeps to hunt your characters. Face torpedo fish, strangle weed, rot plankton, and the huge Leviathan.
● The Zone Sector Cage Island – can the characters escape the clutches of the mutant slavers?
● The Zone Sector Oilfields of the Ancients – Who are the mysterious soldiers guarding the ruined oilfields from the Old Age?
● The Zone Sector Drifters From Afar – Where do these faraway strangers come from, and why are they here?
● The Zone Sector Ghost Ship – What secrets are hidden on board the rusted wreck of an ancient super-yacht, drifting in the Zone?
● New maritime artifacts for the characters to find in the Dead Blue Sea.

 

Mutant: Year Zero goes back to the origins of the Mutant franchise: role-playing after the Apocalypse. In this game, you play as one of The People – heavily mutated humans living in The Ark, a small and isolated settlement in a sea of chaos. The outside world is unknown to you, and so is your origin.

Mutant: Year Zero has two major game environments, each with its own style of play:

The Ark, your home in the dawnworld. A nest of intrigue and Lord of the Flies-style power struggles, it’s far from a safe haven. But it’s the only home you know, and just maybe the cradle of a new civilization. The game rules let you improve and develop the Ark in the areas of Warfare, Food Supply, Technology, and Culture. It is up to you, the players, to decide which projects to embark on.

The Zone, wastelands outside the Ark. You will venture into the Zone in search of food, artifacts, other mutants, and knowledge – not least about The People’s own origin. The game includes two maps of example Zones; London and New York and a plethora of tables and other tools to let the GM populate its sectors with mutants, deadly monsters and bizarre phenomena.
 
Where in the world the Zone and the Ark are located is up to you – why not play in a post-apocalyptic version of your own home town? The modular approach of this game lets you place all of the campaign material wherever you like.
The 272 page full colour hardcover core book contains everything you need for hundreds of hours of play.

Some of the contents:

– A fast and effective character generation system, using archetypal roles such as the Crusher, the Gearhead, the Fixer, the Dog Handler and the Chronicler.
– Unstoppable but highly unpredictable mutant powers, such as Flame Breather, Insect Wings, Human Magnet, and Pathokinesis.
– A skill and conflict system that makes you push yourself to the limit, and beyond. The rules system highlights two main themes: mutation and resource management. Every bullet counts.
– Rules for developing the Ark (base building) and exploring the Zone (gridcrawling).
– A rich story generation system, helping the GM instantly create threats to the Ark as well as locations and events in the Zone.
– An illustrated bestiary of humanoids, mutated monsters and Zone phenomena.
– An extensive collection of artifacts for the characters to find in the Zone.
– Five complete and ready-to-use Special Zone Sectors. These are scenario locations with NPC’s, backstory and suggested events. These are scenario locations with NPC’€™s, backstory and suggested events. These Special Zone Sectors, which each come with an illustrative map, can be placed anywhere in the Zone by the GMA campaign outline, called “The Path to Eden€”, including backstory, NPC’s, handouts, and a campaign finale described in detail.

A series of expansions are already in development. The smaller expansions, called Zone Compendia, will each contain illustrated adventure locations in the Zone, extra mutations, artifacts, rules, and more. The major expansions will each focus on one new playable class: mutated animals, robots, then unmutated humans. Each major expansion includes a campaign letting you play the origin story of the class, and then introduces the class into the game and into the Zone. We expect to release the first expansion for Mutant: Year Zero in early 2015.

 

Reviews:

“Overall, I would heartily recommend Mutant: Year Zero. The book and supporting products are high quality and it uses unique, quirky mechanics that really bring its themes of desperate survival to the forefront. New DMs may be slightly intimidated by the openness of the Zone but the book does a good job of guiding and preparing them for play. 
My players and I had a blast playing and can’t wait to get back to the Zone.”
– Brian Ennis, The British Fantasy Society.

“Probably the best post-apocalyptic RPG on the market. Full stop.”
-RPG.Net Playtest Review
 
“Mutant: Year Zero blew me away on a personal level. I did not know of its existence, and suddenly I realise that I am holding a masterpiece, probably the best post-apocalyptic game on the market.”
-RPG.Net Playtest Review
 
“The book and supporting products are high quality and it uses unique, quirky mechanics that really bring its themes of desperate survival to the forefront.”
-The British Fantasy Society
 
“Mutant: Year Zero works for me. I can’t think of a better and more communal way to warp and decay, to evolve and whiter. Death seems certain in this post-apocalyptic game but the story, the adventure along the way, will be interesting.”
-Geek Native
 
“The production quality of Mutant: Year Zero is definitely on par with Fantasy Flight Games or Paizo products.”
-Stargazer’s World
 
“If you are into post-apocalypse RPGs you definitely should give Mutant a chance!”
-Stargazer’s World 

“Despite the number of post-apocalyptic games out there Mutant: Year Zero promises to bring a host of new ideas to the table.”
-Life and times of a Philippine Gamer 
 
“It hits a nice sweet spot between the gonzo nature of Gamma World and the grimmer setting of Aftermath.”