Big news, the Neo-Nazbols have dug a secret tunnel into the rear of the Gay Reich. Petra has had a backdoor into their servers and communications for a while now, and apparently they got everything they needed from the dig site to conduct a ritual to summon something terrible to exact revenge. Galdikas has already finished the retrovirus to kill the minions and with Yezhov's intel it can be released into Fran's lab before you get there. That should help even the odds.

Monday, August 2, 2021

State of the City: Faction Relations

"Our Party has united the peoples, the nation-wide system is a great power!"

Art. V. Menshikov, 1971

Allies

The Neo-Nazbols
The Red Ordo
CounterDogma

Vassals

The Sisters of Tleechy Natcha
The Fae
Mayami Import Remnants

Friendly

The Gopniks
The Materialists
The Excavators of the Underground Earth
The Saburovs

Neutral

Krasnaya Zvezda
The Municipal Government

Unfriendly

The Cosmothanatologists

Hostile

NOVOST
The Gay Nazis

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Arkheologorodok: Session ??? Prep

News

Good evening Arkheologorodok! This is Lara Kiseleva of Orbita News bring you this weeks news round up! Let's get to it!

Now is the second week of campaigning and it's looking to be a tight race! Polls can't quite agree who is currently in the lead, but all agree it's either Governor Yevseyev's Refurbishment Party or Radinka Menshchikova's Bright Future Party. Both are riding high on recent crime suppression and economic initiatives respectively, more on both later.

Coming in a close third is Inna Illina's Faith & Works Party, polling high with active Orthodox Christians as well as religious Central Asian workers. Promises for both expansion of city aide services as well as upholding public morality finding support across religious lines. Well, except for the atheists, but no one cares about them anyway.

Ervin Tsitrusovyye's youth oriented New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia is showing a better account for itself than expected, managing to very effectively mobilize the youth vote. Whether or not this will be enough to carry them further into a position of influence isn't yet clear, but those kids are showing some real enthusiasm. It's good to see the youth getting off those phones and doing something for once!

Finally, Ivan Ligachev and the Communist Party are remaining at a very stable 5th place. Unionized skilled workers are proving to be solidly backing their man, a sizeable block that could put Ligachev in position of king maker, or maybe spoiler.

Arkheologorodok Session 6: Santa Muerte Robs a Convenience Store on Ramon Mercader Day

August 20th marks the biggest festival in Arkheologrodok, Ramon Mercader Day. The streets are alive with celebration as the people don novelty sombreros and eat what passes for street tacos in Central Asia. The main attraction is the parade down Ramon Mercader Prospekt, but the partying goes well into the night.

Aleksandr's day doesn't get to start with festivities however. Lured into the hotel bar, he's greeted by two heavily tattooed brodyaga of the Bratva, telling him he has a meeting with the Vor to get to. Weighing his options, Aleksandr decides that running now would guarantee the Bratva marking him for death, and so resignedly allows them to usher him into a waiting g-wagon and shuttle him to the Banya.

Arkheologorodok Session 16: North Korean Bio-Punk

When we last left the Archaeology Dorks, they had just emerged from the underground frontier into the polyclinic's domed cavern only too see the building consumed by flams, a large group of shuffling figures silhouetted by the inferno.

Out of sight from the arsonists, the party decides to observe and listen in before doing anything hasty. They're quickly able to ascertain that nine figures, all but the smoking woman in black robes in undead, and of those three are intelligent and willing participants. Quite a few of the shuffling husks look to be commuters killed in the subway bombings of a few weeks ago, along with a few skeletons, and a teenage girl with slits down her forearms and feral hatred in her eyes is the second in command. She reports to the smoking woman that two of them managed to slide through some cracks before they set fire to the whole place and begs to be allowed to start a hunt. The smoking woman calmly, sweetly speaks to her as a mother would to a daughter, saying that all the evidence of the transaction was destroyed, and the two who escaped will "get what's coming to them in time, like everyone else."

A small cigarette butt like this one could burn a huge factory!
1973

Session 15 Play Report: Weaponized STDs and You

Syphilis Can Be Cured! 1922
Center-left: "Syphilis can be cured quickly at the onset of the disease."
Center-right: "Neglected syphilis can be cured by a long neat treatment"
Center-bottom: "Consequences of untreated syphilis; Insanity, Paralysis, deformation , stillborn children, idiotic children

The party reconvenes after having successfully secured and cured the werebull Dr Peter Jordanson, and proceed to discuss the political implications there in. Governor Yevseyev personally tied himself to Jordanson in order to show he can bring "influential" people to Arkheologorodok, while also using him to appeal to his conservative base and as a symbol of increased medical tourism. With the beginning of the election, and the Cheech's antipathy towards Yevseyev for that little GSS ambush in the sewers, there's much that can be done with Jordanson.

After much discussion of strategies, goals, and the political parties, the Archaeology Dorks were torn between backing the Saburov aligned Faith & Works Party and the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia. Self-interest took prime position over ideology in their calculus, and they ultimately decided to back the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia, as they had more connections and influence with the Nazbols and that the whole underground occult crime thing would probably get a lot easier. As for Jordanson, they've decided to hold onto him for now while they observe the progress of the election and learn more about the Refurbishment Party.

Session 15 Prep

News

Good evening Arkheologorodok! It's time for democracy, as the three weeks of legal campaigning for city wide elections start today! We have a lot more candidates than usual, and it can be pretty confusing to know who to vote for. Well, I'm pleased to say that we here at Orbita News are going to help!

I'm voting for the first time!

The Ossendowski Dossier; An Examination of The Stepnoy Universitet

Dear Mr. Bergstroem,

Unfortunately, I cannot attend our weekly soujourn into the cthonic regions of Arkheologorodok due to professional matters I must attend to. My efforts to understand the powers limiting my excavation of the Homo Slavonis Colossius specimen seem to have run into institutional resistance, and must spend time on putting these matters in order. I apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, as I know the Club has seen some upsets in its membership recently.

I have enclosed in this letter a "photocopy" (I continue to be amazed at our ability to recreate the wonders of the Slavonics) of a dossier collated by Ossendowski, one of my graduate students. I know you have had recent involvements with the group known as the Materialists, which leads me to believe this document may contain information of interest to you. I hope the intelligence here will prove useful to your future efforts.

Sincerely,

Doctor Luka Semenov

Stepnoy Universitet
(The University of the Steppe)

The View of Stepnoy Universitet from the Professionals Quarter

Session 10 Prep

News & Rumors

Good evening Arkheologorodok! This is Lara Kiseleva broadcasting live from Orbita News, bringing you this week’s news round-up.

It is with great pleasure that I can announce to you all that the Counter Terrorism and Anti-Extremism Operation has been brought to a successful close with the recue of Dr Boris Tarasov from the clutches of Chechen extremists. In a joyous press conference, Commissioner Nikitan and Governor Yevseyev celebrated this triumph over extremism in a press-conference in the Municipal Palace, were several of the captured terrorists were presented. The Governor thanked the performance of our brave Militsiya, saying that his administration represented a thin line holding the forces of chaos and darkness back from our fair city.

For those wanting to celebrate the safety of our city, the newly re-opened Zhdanov Park is the perfect place to do so. Heavy winds are coming in from the east, make sure to weigh down your blankets and to grab your kites!

In even more good news, Arkheologorodok is welcoming the newest edition to the city's fine dining experience, La Buenasuerte Cantina y Cocina, an authentic Mexican dining experience with the largest selection of tequila on all the Steppe! Be sure to go onto OrbitaNews.com to read the review. La Buenasuerte Cantina y Cocina, where everyday is Ramon Mercader Day!

So after a day at the park and a delicious dinner at La Buenasuerte, the municipal government and the NOVOST Group are graciously providing a suite of free shows at the People's Theater for an entire week! Governor Yevseyev in a joint statement with NOVOST chairmen Dariy Belov have announced the beginning of New Optimism, and sincerely wish all citizens to enjoy the coming week, as it is a preview of glittering new future on the horizon.

And that was this week’s news round-up, brought to you by a kind donation by the Union of Antiquarians. If the store doesn't bare the union's seal, then that's no antique, it's just junk. For Orbita News, this is Lara Kiseleva, signing off.

Off the Record:

Seeing as Orbita News is now focused on New Optimism, a few things got left out of the news wire, namely that mage fight that happened at the bus stop nearest to the Institute for Experimental Aeronautics that ended up turning into some kind of car chase. Ain't clear what exactly happened and between who, but we can be pretty damn sure it was a fight between a pyromancer and a cryomancer, on account of the burnt out bus and the ramp of ice that launched an SUV into the second story of a warehouse. Shit has everyone on edge.

Speaking of, apparently the northern underground frontier has been a god damn warzone. Lot of Bratva dropping the hammer on the area.

Spartak: Gera came through. Apparently the rest of the Thanotologists were as impressed with his recovery of St Faustina as he anticipated, and he's been put in charge of his own "working group." He was only able to deliver $500, but he says he'll be able to get the rest soon. He's a surprisingly chatty guy for a spy

Zhou has been talking to the other tweakers and he knows where most of the Gay Nazi drugpushers tend to operate in Little Azov. He’s pretty sure this means they should have at least one stash house in the area that their “sanitater” should be going to so they can re-up. Hankov is pretty sure he could find it.

Cheech: You've done some digging into the old guy Spartak brained in the Archaeology Lab a while back, Professor Sergei Yegorovich Krivkov. He was a tenured professor of engineering over at Stepnoy Universitat, but apparently he was also the co-founder of something called the Cosmos Project, which seems to be a bunch of engineers and Christian mystics working on...something. They're normally pretty peaceful types, though they can get heavy when it comes to recovering tech from the Underground. But you're getting the impression that they going to get heavy with you and yours after killing their co-founder.

But you also managed to find out about some people who aren't terribly fond of the Cosmos Project who call themselves the Materialists. They compete over recruits and over turf, the Materialists considering themselves the responsible caretakers of the buried technologies in the Underground. You were able to get the name of one of them, a municipal electric worker named Koldan Egorov. He likes to drink at the Grand Khan Irish Pub.

Dr. Galdikas: "uhhhh, boss, so I have some good news and some bad news. The good news is that I've made some great strides in utilizing the funny water and our patented techniques to make more effective workers. The bad news is that it would seem that one of the interns botched a routine procedure on one of the subjects and it seemed to have, uhhh, unlocked something? The fire damage was pretty minimal, but he's out there and he...well...he knows. Anyway, call me back when you get this. Love you." -Pierre

You swear you keep seeing a guy in a dark hoodie looking at your apartment window at night.

Aleksandr: The grand opening went well, that's good, Slava has delivered not just his main product, but even high quality produce and meat, so that's even better. Mara is adjusting well to working as a hostess, but you're seeing a paranoia form in her, made worse by the fact you know you're being watched and they're getting better at it, they switch out tales more often now. Their angle is weird, they're really taking their time and you don't know why.

The Ornithologist wants to talk, says he has a couple bounties he wants you to undertake. You've got a bad feeling all around.

Semenov: The shutting down of the dig has been an irksome set back, but you were able to retrieve some remnants of ancient Slavonic wisdom. From what you've gathered from the analysis of the cross section of the ribs, this is only structurally similar to a human, but that is where the similarities end. Spectral analysis of the bone is revealing exotic materials, and from what you know of the Slavonic Wisdom, it could be fashioned into a weapon that could harm noospheric constructs.

Ossendowski wasn't able to turn up anything in terms of local folklore, mostly because they deemed it impossible early on, so they instead spent their time working on translation of the Enochian scrimshaw in the bones. You would be mad if she wasn't able to turn up something useful. The skeleton seems to be both a chronicle and perhaps a grimoire, much is incomplete because much is still buried, but there are mentions of Mars and fallen civilizations, and mention of "stolen power" by earth bound usurpers. Ossendowski has also provided the outlines of what appears to be a noospheric technique for localized time dilation.

Your more mundane research into the records and dealings of the University has been altogether much less successful, in fact, you're quite confident that the entire faculty is aware of what you're trying to learn, and you're also certain you've made enemies. How many and who remains to be discovered.

Gavril: Alright, so it looks like this is turning into less of a temporary hideout and more of a permanent kind of situation. No problem, lot of work here, lot of money to be made, the family seems to actually prefer to keep you down here for the time being. They sent you a little money and you've got your own house a little business in the suburbs. You're carving a nice little niche for yourself here, and you're building a little network for your trade. Man, you're really glad the Bratva seems convinced someone other than you killed the Numinist, because those fuckers are tearing the Underground apart from what you hear. Better keep that one to yourself.

Jobs:

Vernisa is offering $2,000 for a recovery job down in the Underground. She tells you to call her on a landline to set up a meet.

Chef Mosolov has announced a $300 reward to anyone who can bag him Vodyanoy. He's planning to make frog legs.

The smuggler Slava says he's cooking something up, maybe you lot would be interested.

Haven't checked in on the Excavators in a while, you know they'd pay top dollar for a passage to Polis Station.

Monday, December 7, 2020

Arkheologorodok in Focus: Miami in a Hangar

Mayami Import

[Майами Импорт]

Beneath the derelict Institute for Experimental Aeronautics is an utterly cavernous facility, a massive hidden hangar, large enough to comfortably fit multiple tu-160s, strategic bombers with a wing span of a 182 ft. The hangar floor is lined with pull car towing systems and turntables for moving the aircraft onto rail lines for rapid deployment through tunnels to the eastern airfields. From the hangar, there are multiple rail, car, and pedestrian tunnels snaking out into the Underground at large, though many are still sealed behind massive blast doors that refuse to be lifted.

But the Hangar is not abandoned, far from it, it is constantly abuzz with activity, for it is here that the smuggling ring Mayami Import has made its home, and under the wings of aircraft designed to drown a decadent west in flames, a flourishing market place has formed.

Session 5: Schnappi Cessation & Sluggish Schizophrenia

The Resolute Brothers by Alexander Aspit
1918

So all those dig applications Professor Semenov wrote while coked up paid off, as the University of the Steppe has approved funds and grad students for Semenov's excavation of the spinal catastrophism in the underground frontier near the near and under the Silent Homes.

This brought along with it a complication. The dig site was in territory disputed between the Gay Nazis and the Gopniks, two gangs whose first impressions of the party were not good ones. In fact, they were quite lethal. Realizing that an agreement must be reached with one of them in opposition to other in order to provided security for the dig site. Knowing that Germanic conquest of the Rodina would have apocalyptic results in the Noosphere, Semenov elects to parlay with the Gopniks.

The Neo-Nazbols
Неонацболы
(Neonatsboly)

Session 4 (Week 3 Continued) 4D Chess, or The Gang's First Act of Political Sabotage

Chess and Checkers to the Masses!
Soviet Uzbek Poster, 1934

We deviate from our normal programming of moving forward a week in the game world between sessions this time, with the action picking up two days after last session. I dropped a line in the session 3 prep about a job that could have very serious consequences for Arkheologorodok as a whole and I figured I should at least give the players a chance to see if they want to take it or not.

In the early hours of the morning, Aleksandr is awoken by call from Artyom, the teenage metro worker and member of the Excavators. There is angry shouting in the background, and Aleksandr can only barely hear Artyom as he apologetically explains that he's trapped in the bathroom by his drunken father demanding his paycheck, and that he's going to be late for his shift. Aleksandr sets out the apartment blocs immediately.

Even had he not known the number, Aleksandr would have had no trouble finding apartment in question just by following the screams and shouts. Stepping over a few hypodermic needles as he crosses the threshold, Aleksandr see as bald fat man lifting Artyom by the throat as the strung out mother ineffectually pleads from the couch. Invoking the strength of Holy Death, Aleksandr commands the man to release the boy, and then makes it clear that Artyom is under protection to the stunned drunkard. Artyom thanks Aleksandr and quickly makes his way to the metro for his shift.

"Alcoholism is the enemy of health, family, society"
1983

Session 3: Schnappi and the Gay Nazis

The Return of Hans Speidel
(the medals read "For the War Against France" "For the War Against England")

Another week, another expedition into the world of Arkheologorodok. Spartak spent most of the week at the Party Headquarters/Nightclub of the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia, getting to know everyone, "learning" their esoteric principles, getting fed LSD, and dancing the night away. Dr Galidikas has spent his week writing up plans for some experimental surgery, and Aleksandr has been conducting his own investigations.

Early in the day, Aleksandr gets a call from Artyom, the teenage subway employee they met at the Excavators of the Underground Earth. He's in a bit of a bind, because he needs to get to work, but his father has trapped him in the bathroom, demanding money for booze. Aleksandr wastes no time getting to the boy's apartment, and after invoking the power of the Holy Lady of Death to command the fat drunk to cease strangling the boy, he instructs both the drunk father and the junkie mother that Artyom is now under his protection. Fairly confident that the proper amount of fear has been instilled in these two, Aleksandr leaves with Artyom, who thanks him before running off to work.

The party sans Gavril re-assembles in Professor Semenov's VAZ-2109, now an essential part of the party's logistics, and head towards the Silent Homes to complete Slava's job of deploying surveillance devices. Before going in, Aleksandr asks Semenov is he can ask around the medical school about a nurse named Anya Dmitrieva while Dr Galidikas gets Spartak to sign some consent forms.

Session 2 The Conquest of Bread!

Завоевание хлеба!

"Wealth of the Motherland" decorative carpet, 1939

A week has passed since the party's first foray in the Underground, and they now gather again in the basement of the Central State Library once again to prepare for a second expedition. Earlier in the day, Dr. Galidikas observed Spartak trip on the shrooms recovered last week, and was disappointed by the failure of ancestral memories to surface. When the pair arrived to meet with the others, Spartak was still feeling the residual effects.

Gavril and Professor Semenov attempted to recover the promised payment for last week's expedition from Gennadiy Chupov, citing that they were not warned of the dangers they faced. Gennadiy agreed, but before he could pay them, the Excavator's treasurer, Tatiana Zhutova, intervened, pointing out the job was to find and map the rumored North-Western passage from the Silo, and seeing as the party had been magically bound to deny its existence, they could not protest the claim they had not found it.

Arkheologorodok Session 2- Prep

News & Rumors

Good evening Arkheologorodok! This is Lara Kiseleva with Orbita News, bringing you this week’s news round-up.

The top story this week is the grenade attack at the abattoir. Witnesses describe a black sedan pulling up to the southern loading dock and tossing two grenades before speeding off. According to officials at the D.I. Dankovskii Hospital, two workers were killed in the blast, with seven others injured. Two workers are currently in critical condition. The Militsiya request that anyone with any information to come forward. Steppak Meats was unable to be reached for comment.

Sightings of a clown in the metro tunnels are making waves online, prompting mass speculation among citizens. Commissioner Nikitan has dismissed such sightings as “baseless hysteria.”

Dry weather is expected to continue after the unexpected rainstorms of last month, with a dry easterly wind bringing elevated pollen levels from across the Steppe.

A new media law is being debated in the city council, with Mayor Yevseyev noting the necessity to curtail what he described as “a flood of extremist propaganda.” Though he has not named them as such, it is believed he is referring to the controversial Nastuplenie! newspaper published by the New National Bolshevik Party of Eurasia and the increase of pamphlets circulated by the outlawed LGBTQ rights organization CounterDogma. Both groups have been vocal in their criticism of the renewal of anti-sodomy laws.

This week’s news round-up was brought to you by VostockCom, bringing crystal clear internet and cellphone connection to the Steppe. For Orbita News, this is Lara Kiseleva, signing off.

Work & Leads

Slava says to come see him in the Hangar, says there could be a $1000 in it for ya.

Speaking of the Hangar, apparently Arkheologorodok’s great Chef Mosolov has a side project there. Says he’s got a bounty on a specific “ingredient.”

Mara texted you, Aleksandr. Apparently, that friend of hers that managed to get into the old church crypt died in hospital. She says there’s something you need to see at the mortuary.

Did you meet Ollie? He's this graffiti artist from London that hangs around the Excavators. Apparently he's getting harassed by a couple of gopniks real bad. Says he'll pay $250 to anyone who'll get them to stop.

Monday, August 10, 2020

Session 1 Going Below

Emancipation
by Veniamin Kushnir

So not only was this the first session of Esoteric Enterprises I’ve ever run, or even just the first dungeon crawler I’ve ever run, but also the first of either that any of my players have ever played. It was a little rough, but it was a lot of fun and I learned a lot. First mistake I made was not instructing the players that they would need to actually MAP the interior of the dungeons they explored, but that was rectified by the time they reached the second dungeon, the Silo.

The session began with the assembling of the PCs into a coherent group. Spartak had already met Dr. Jurgen Galidikas while being treated at the free City Sanitarium No. 1 after getting hit by a bus shortly after arriving in Arkheologorodok (the bus came away the poorer). Because he has no money, Spartak has been staying at the hostel near the Gunig Marsh, where he shares the room with a friendly back backing Israeli hippie named Abram Bunin. Jurgen arrives after getting off work (having just performed a live saving surgery on a young girl plus a free sterilization) to find with great dismay that his ape man subject of study has been convinced to attend a meeting of the Excavators of the Underground Earth in the basement of the Central State Library at 5:30 pm. He reluctantly joins.

Spartak's Youth Hostel

City Sanitarium No. 1

Tenure review is quickly approaching at Stepnoy Universitet and Professor Luka Semenov decides he must take proactive steps to find the ancient Slavonic city now or he never will. He has seen flyers for a group of urban explorers called the Excavators of the Underground Earth around the university. He sets off to the Central State Library with cash in hand hoping to put together an expedition to plumb the depths for ancient Slavonic Wisdom.

Stepnoy Universitet

Aleksandr has been in in Arkheologorodok for a few days, waiting for a sign form Santa Muerte. One night he’s drinking in the bar of the Hotel Cosima when he locks eyes with a young woman named Mara Tsiolkovskaya and there is an immediate mutual understanding that they are both closer to the dead than the living. She tells him to meet her and her friends the next day in the basement of the library on Ramon Merkador Prospekt. Aleksandr has gotten his sign.

Hotel Cosima
source: modernism.art

Gavril rolled into town the other day in his BMW 525i and checked into the nicest hotel he could find, the Hotel Cosima in the now downtown, just off Elektricheskaya Prospekt. By some uncanny coincidence, his bags are delivered to the wrong room. When they finally arrive at Gavril’s room, they are in the hands of a strange one eyed man named Aleksandr, who apparently regards it as some kind of sign. Gavril can recognize another mobster when he sees one, and he’s already starting to run out of money, so when Aleksandr offers to hire him as a bodyguard, he agrees. Apparently, he wants to go to some meeting of Urban Explorers in the library basement for some reason. Whatever, Gavril thinks, money still spends, even when it is given to you by a mad man.

Gavril's Whip

By hook or crook, the disparate individuals find themselves in a spare storage room in the library basement where head of maintenance Gennadiy Chupov and geological research librarian Tatiana Zhutova are leading a discussion with a motley assortment of individuals about potential routes to the rumored Polis Station to the South East. Abram cheerfully introduces Spartak and Mara switches from her normally cool and somber demeanor to welcome Aleksandr. Professor Semenov shows great interest in the Ruins while Mara tells Aleksandr about her great interest in the recently found Church Crypt, though bemoans the difficult routes there, either through the Plague Pit or up the underground river leading from Leninskaya Station. Only one of their number has managed to get there, but he's currently in the hospital with a truly horrific case of herpes. The statuesque Finn, Aarno Harkonnen, mentions some rumors he’s heard about a new passageway leading from the Silo to some unknown chamber. Seeing that there are new faces and knowing the bulk of the group either have their own projects or are devoted to the Polis Project, Gennadiy and Tatiana offer $500 dollars to group who can find and map the passage in question. Soon after an Exploring Kid in the metro worker’s uniform and is introduced as Artyom. He is the one who discovered the Gastev Station entrance to the Underground, and he will be happy to show it to the newbies.

While crossing the plaza a man in a white leisure suit, pink shirt, and Rayban wayfarers struts towards them with a clear intent to speak, a prospect that causes Artyom a great deal of worry. The man introduces himself as Slava and makes it clear to Artyom he’s not looking for trouble, just some people who might want some work. He offers to put theme names on the free entry list to the Hanger where his outfit, Mayami Import, runs a black market. He tells them to meet him there for work, and if they want to arm up they should find Comrade Cowboy. Slava tells them to play up any leftist political tendencies they might have if they buy from him and says that he thinks Comrade Cowboy and Spartak will get along, to which Dr Galidikas says something about genetic predispositions and vectors for communist contagion. This makes Slava laugh and ask if he’s a Gay Nazi, which also makes Artyom laugh. Now curious as to whether there are any Strasserists around, Slava and Artyom explain the Gay Nazis are a universally maligned street gang operating in the Underground near the Shkola Granat club. After niceties are exchanged, Slava leaves and the party make their way into Gastev Station.

Welcome to Arkheologorodok [Добро пожаловать в Aрхеологородok]

Welcome to Arkheologorodok
[Добро пожаловать в Aрхеологородok]

"50th Anniversary of the USSR" cover of "Tekhnika Molodezhi (Technology for Youth) Soviet magazine, 1972
sourced from Soviet Visuals

Resting along the G'am River on the Steppe, Arkheologorodok was founded as a Soviet science city shortly after the Great Patriotic War. Built atop the burnt ruins of some nameless town destroyed by a plague in 1904, the academicians and military men were much more interested in vastly older ruins far below that. Arkheologorodok (literally Archaeology Town) was devoted to excavation of the ruins below, and then the study and exploitation of the technologies found within. It became home to institutes of every stripe dedicated to boldly advancing Soviet science into every direction of the unknown. Factories were established to create any materials the scientists needed, and entire populations were moved in and housed to work those factories. It had every amenity a Soviet citizen could dream of. And then, the money ran out.

The immediate years after the dissolution were hard, funding tried up and labs were abandoned. Overnight, most of the factories were churning out products that no longer had buyers. The town was quickly dying, until the old abattoir to the south-east was reopened by the Saburovs. This stabilized the town long enough for some former party officials to properly reinvent themselves as capitalists and find ways to make the Advanced Metallurgical Complex and the cement factory profitable. The town also had an ace up its sleeve in the form of the Stepnoy Universitet, for people all seem to learn Russian so very quickly in Arkheologorodok, and this fact was used to advertise Stepnoy as the best place to learn Russian for foreigners looking to loot the ruins of the Soviet Union.

With republics spinning off in every direction during the collapse, Arkheologorodok found itself seemingly in none of them, and currently exists in a sort of Transnistria like state. As such, it has found itself for miscreants and weirdos from all over. Most recently, it has attracted the NOVOST Group, a holding company and owner of the energy company Stepneft, which has set about exploiting the gas fields in the marshlands to the south of the town and is rapidly becoming the largest employer in town. It is also clearly seeking to buy up the entirety of Arkheologorodok, and the Saburovs have not taken kindly to it. Lines are being drawn, and arms are being taken up. Enter the players...

Dramatis Personae
[драматические персонажи]

Gavril Bootur, Yakut Hitman

Hailing from Sakha Republic of the Russian Federation, Gavril was raised to be a valuable member of the family business. The Bootur family business just happened to be contract killing, and business has long been good. Though comfortable with a gun in their hands, Gavril and his kin have long preferred the silence of blades, and are known across the Siberian underworld as consummate professionals. However, a recent job went sideways and Southern Siberia has gotten a little too hot for Gavril. Hoping to lie low for a while, Gavril has found himself in Arkheologorodok. We'll see how long that lasts.

Professor Luka Semenov, Eurasian Occultist

A tenured anthropology professor at Stepnoy University, Semenov is a forthcoming, agreeable, and diligent professor, which is why the university administration is willing to tolerate his more...fringe viewpoints.

Semenov is a proponent of what he calls the "Homo Slavonic Hypothesis," which posits the Slavic peoples are the descendants of an ancient, technologically advanced, psychic human offshoot who once ruled over a globe spanning empire. During his time living and researching in Arkheologorodok, Semenov has come to believe that deep beneath the surface are the ruins of a suburb of the Homo Slavonic's great Arctic Mega-City. Hoping to uncover great Slavic wisdom before the review for tenure renewal comes up, Semenov now looks to brave the Underground to find the lost city.

Though a kind, almost grandfatherly figure, do NOT mention Dugin to him. Not after Omsk.

Aleksandr "El Afortunado" Bogruv, Mobster and Devotee of Santa Muerte

A long time member of the Solntsevskaya Bratva, Aleksandr is a skilled negotiator. This is why he was sent to Mexico in the mid-2000s to act as an in-between for the continued exchange of guns for drugs with the Sinaloa Cartel. This is also why he was marked for death by the Juarez Cartel. On one fine, dusky evening in Fuentes del Valle, Aleksandr found himself bleeding out, stumbling through back alleys as the Sicarios closed in, collapsing before a folk shrine to Santa Muerte. There, he experienced an apparition of the Dead Saint who revealed to him but a fragment of the true nature of death. Upon waking, Aleksandr found his wounds miraculously healed - a stroke of apparent luck that earned him the nickname El Afortunado.

From that moment on, Aleksandr became a disciple of Santa Muerte, seeking out her holy places and the blessing of her divine apparition. In the most recent and direct of these apparitions, Aleksandr has been commanded by his beloved Saint to travel to Arkheologorodok for reasons she has not yet seen fit to reveal. But El Afortunado is a man of faith, and he will seek to fulfill her will in this strange place.

Dr Jurgen Galidikas, Experimental Eugenicist

Originally from Boston, Dr. Galidikas is a talented surgeon who is more interested in the health of the body of society than he is in the health of the bodies of his patients. And there have been many bodies. Wanted in the United States for multiple unauthorized lobotomies, Jurgen now finds himself in Arkheologorodok, a town known for its scientific curiosity and its lack of extradition treaties. Helps that it's mostly white, well, at least a close approximation to white as far as Dr. Galidikas is concerned. He works at the Valerii V. Bunak Ward of City Sanitorium No. 1 because the administration at the D.I. Dankovksy Hospital googled his name. Ironically a well-regarded figure at the free Sanitorium and the community it serves due to actually having a degree and offering off the books procedures for only the price of mere sterilization.

He now has begun to journey into the Underground so he can better observe and study our next contestant...

Spartak, Stalinist Apeman

A monument to the achievements of science under the Wise Guidance of Comrade Stalin, Spartak is one of the finest specimen's produced by Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov's research, continued long after his faked death. Sadly, success was achieved too late for Spartak and his kin to fight the German Fascists, and with Comrade Stalin's death in 1953, the collective farm deep within the Taiga where the hyrbids lived was forgotten. And forgotten it would have remained were it not for the logging companies of the Oligarchs.

Chased from their collective farm, the hybrids were scattered to the four winds, and Spartak found himself alone in a world that had gone wrong. However, Spartak was raised in the fine tradition of Stalinist education, and would brook no idea of defeatism. Clearly the present moment called for primitive capitalist accumulation so he could purchase a tract of land from the capitalists and re-establish the commune. Having heard that Arkheologorodok offered opportunities for wealth and new technologies to wield against capitalists and traitors, Spartak quickly set out.

Description

Special thanks to Tomas (Dr. Galidikas's player) for making the fantastic character portraits

Thursday, August 26, 2021

Monday, August 23, 2021

Wednesday, August 18, 2021

Monday, August 2, 2021

Thursday, July 29, 2021

Thursday, June 24, 2021

Tuesday, June 22, 2021

Thursday, April 1, 2021

Wednesday, March 24, 2021

Monday, December 28, 2020

Saturday, December 12, 2020

Monday, December 7, 2020

Sunday, October 25, 2020

The Neo-Nazbols Неонацболы(Neonatsboly)

Monday, October 19, 2020

Thursday, September 3, 2020

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Wednesday, August 19, 2020