Niv Lova: Searching for Home
Staying Alive
Name: Nikita
Background: Poor / Goal: Settle
MUS: 0, FIN +2, VIG: 0, MIN +2, PRE: 0/ HP: 6, FP: 1 / XP: 0 lvl: 0
15c, 1 bandage, 3 Food, Knife, Bedroll, Backpack,
Revolver (d6, 10 rounds)
Where is she going? 2 hexes SW, searching for an NPC. Why?
A youth, like her.
A friend. Another homeless orphan who’d been snatched up a year earlier and sent here. She’d heard word he was still alive, nearby.
A heavy fog drifted over the land, lowering visibility and making it difficult to find her way. Heavy Fog. Lost.
-1 Food (2 left). Night. Psychic. Close. 8 → Neutral.
Running. Bare feet slapping the pavement. Gasping for breath. Boots behind her. Yelling, calling after her. Can’t stop. If they get her, it’s over. Sent away forever. Just like Fedor. Put in the back of a truck and gone forever.
She turned a corner, ran straight into him. Knocked down. Uniform. Gun on his hip. Nightstick in hand. She got up to run. Stick came down. Darkness.
Nikita awoke with a start, sitting up, eyes darting around. Nobody there. No cops here to grab her. Her nightmare a memory from before. Now every day was a nightmare. She gathered up her things and rolled up her bedroll, stuffing it in her pack.
A heavy fog lay on the land, covering the area and blocking any landmarks she might have been able to make out. Travel would be difficult, if not impossible. She had to go, though. She’d heard Fedor was alive and not far. Had to find him. Having someone to watch your back was as important here as on the streets. If you’re alone, you’re easy pickings. She tucked her revolver in her jeans.
It was quiet, unnervingly so, the fog a blanket, soundless as a tomb.
It wasn’t long before she got turned around, found herself lost.
She swore before making camp once more. Ate a can of mushy green beans before going to sleep.
This time, a noise woke her. Something close. Gun in hand, peering out. She looked and slapped a hand over her mouth to stop from crying out.
The figure was humanoid, pale and sickly, its skull abnormally larger than a human’s.
Nikita felt a thudding pain in her head and her vision grow blurry as she looked. Time seemed to slow as she tried to raise the revolver and aim it at the figure. what the fuck???
It moved away, into the black fog of the night.
Time resumed, her hand shaking as it held the revolver pointed in the direction the thing had gone. The pain in her head faded and her vision cleared. She let out the breath she’d been holding. “Jesus fucking Christ,” she whispered. “What the fuck was that?”
In the morning, clouds covered the sky but the fog had cleared. It was almost as if the fog had lifted into the air and now blocked out the sky.
At it was clear, and Nikita was able to get her bearings. She needed to head southwest. A couple more days and she’d be at Fedor’s last known location. She packed up and got a move on. She was low on supplies but she didn’t want to slow down to scavenge.
2 warthogs, close, neutral
She passed rusted-out vehicles and burned-out structures before hearing something that made her pause. A snuffling and snorting, nearby. She ducked down beneath some scrubby brush, trying to hide. Unfortunately, they sniffed her out, coming around the brush, snouts sniffling, patchy fur and sore-covered skin shuffling towards her. They didn’t seem antagonistic, at least not at the moment.
PRE check → success
She stood and backed away slowly. “Easy doggies,” she said, knowing these were not dogs. “Easy.” The two sniffed where she’d been hiding, then turned and headed off in another direction.
She camped, having made good time and ate a can of beans. One more day of travel, if she didn’t slow down. It was risky, though, having only one can of food left. She laid down and slept, hoping she didn’t dream.
5 lurkers. close. Neutral.
Once more her sleep was disturbed. Opening her eyes, the night was clear and cold, moon nearly full and on high. A dozen or so feet away, a handful of figures moved.
At first, she thought they were animals, as they crawled on all fours, but to her horror, she realized they were humans or at least, had once been. They wore tattered clothes and gas masks, the hoses hanging limply, unconnected. They made strange, grunting and growling noises to each other. Do they leave her alone? yes and, they leave behind a random piece of gear.
They passed on without incident and Nikita allowed herself to breath. In the morning, She found a small tin can of coffee beans that must have fallen from one of their pockets without them noticing. She pocketed it and moved on.
The fog returned, though not nearly as heavy as before, light and wispy. Nikita kept her bearings and headed south-west, not stopping to scavenge in order to make better time.
25 - aberration, close, electricity, medium intensity
She almost walked right into it. She’d been in her head, trying to remember what Fedor looked like, when she noticed the sparking along the ground. Flashes of electricity surging and fading in random spots. She stopped moving, waiting and watching. A loud POP! hurt her ears and a blast of electricity exploded in the air in front of her.
She gulped. She could go back, go around it, avoid it altogether, but that’d take time. She could see the electricity coursing along the ground. In the center of the aberration, she thought she saw something, a remnant, possibly. They could be found in aberrations, sometimes. “Fuck it,” she said, nimbly hopping through the electrified area.
FIN check → Success
She ducked under another electrical blast and leaped over sparks on the ground, arriving in the center. There was an object and she grabbed it, feeling a sudden surge of power run through her. The electricity stopped, dead. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Then, she looked at the item she’d found.
Dark, cubic, plastic, Weak, inspire fear, taste bile
She held a dark plastic cube, about the size of a basketball in both hands, the color so dark, it was hard to even perceive the shape of it from sight alone. A remnant. She’d finally found one. She knew what to do. She had to concentrate and see if she could figure out what it did and how to activate it.
MIN check → Success
It was activated by concentrating on it.
Weak strength
Holding it in her hands, she felt something unlock within it. By concentrating on it, she could feel a darkness pouring out of it, an emotion of pure fear and using the cube, she could direct it as she willed. She let go, opening her eyes and feeling her shoulders slump. She packed the “Fear Box” away and put her pack back on. keep going
That night, she finished her last rations, a can of mushy green beans. She’d have to scavenge tomorrow, but that’d be okay. Maybe she’d find Fedor tomorrow as well.
warthog
Another restless night where she couldn’t find sleep. Hours passed before she heard something, saw movement in the distance darkness. After watching, she could tell it was a warthog, making its way toward her. She attempted to be silent and hide, holding her revolver ready.
FIN check → failure. Reaction → Neutral
It was going to walk straight toward her. She stood, making a lot of noise and shouting to scare it away.
PRE check → Success
It took off into the night, scared by the sudden noise and movement.
Nikita let out a breath. just one quiet night would be nice…
If you’d like to dive into Niv Lova, you can check out the Playtest Document. If you’d like, you can join my discord to provide feedback, thoughts and comments on any and all things PWM, including Niv Lova. Otherwise, you can always comment here or message me through Substack.
I apologize for the lack of weekly updates. I have been feeling overwhelmed and burnt out at work, as well as feeling an increase in my general anxiety overall. Despite that, I’ve made tons of progress on Niv Lova and should be ready to release in a couple weeks. At the moment, I’m finding artists I can pay to include some hand-drawn art so it’s not just edited Canva pictures/symbols. I will proudly state AI was NOT used at all in creating Niv Lova’s text or art.
On initial release, it will likely be only in pdf format that you can print out if you’d like. I am tentatively looking into zine formats and other more-printer-friendly formats/layouts but I have no experience in that, so it may be something I do after release.
Thanks to Andrew Wylde, BuddhaRandom, and Eric, for being paid subscribers. A reminder paid subscribers will receive the final version of Niv Lova, free of charge, when it’s available.
Thanks for reading!
My playing and writing will always be available for free, but if you enjoy what I write and would be willing, please consider upgrading to a paid subscription which allows you to vote on the tools/games I play. If that’s too much commitment, you can also just buy me a coffee.
If you’d like to support my newsletter in other ways, please subscribe, share and comment.
Check out the Table of Contents for previous games I’ve played as well as other stuff I’ve written. It hasn’t been updated in awhile but does have some previous actual plays that I’m pretty proud of.
I'm digging Niv Lova. There are a couple other "post-apoc" games coming out soon but this one is right here and looks fun to play solo.
Super cool write-up. Interested to see where the story goes.