Running the Ruins

Outposts are isolated communities in the ruins that have built their own presence into the empty buildings that once belonged to their creators. They are often products of their environment, making Outposts near factories quite industrious, and Outposts near old universities very research hungry. This is not a strict trend, Outposts like Iron Outpost at Iron Wall University decided to take special interest in the campus car shops, and developed a heavy racing culture around them. Outposts can be anything, as long as their motivations are nearby.


In terms of Outposts in Architects of the Ruins, your Outpost is your home base. Your bear lives at this Outpost, belonging to this community first before all others, and spends most of their time inside the community that has formed there.


During the course of a game using Architects of the Ruins to modify Ancient Aetherium, all the members of the game will be responsible for constructing, maintaining, and protecting their Outpost and their various bear peers. This will be broken up into event cycles described later in this section, and rest time also described later in this section. Outposts are all based around logistical choices, community forum, and resource management.

Events & Rests

Games focusing on the progression of an Outpost over a long period of time will inevitably run into the issue of having long periods of time where everything runs relatively smoothly, and periods of time where some force has brought the bears out to play. Events describe the small stories that hit the Outpost that are played out in sessions. You can have a session thats just a Rest, but this is far from the point of a rest, and its suggested to use Events as individual points of action in the Outpost timeline, and allow the Outpost to function in-between these sessions (though, some Events may take more than one session to conclude).


Events are just normal play sessions, and can often be scenarios like Gredo knocking on the front door, the Nausea becoming a new neighbor, a siege from the Hive, the Military taking temporary refuge, or some Traitor group causing trouble. Anything can fit in an Event, however Events should be somewhat isolated from each other time wise to give room for Rests.
Rests are the time between Events, representing the day-to-day life of the Outpost as it’s merely just trying to survive. During a Rest every bear can choose to use their Rest Ability as picked in the Occupation section, attend a single gathering, and pick on building of focus.


Rest Abilities are unique abilities each bear has to keep the Outpost moving and/or care for their peers. They can be taken no matter what during each Rest.


Gatherings are the unique abilities of Bartenders and Bouncers. They take a group of bears and give them some bonus for the next Event which wears off after the Event concludes. Some buildings may provide an alternative to one of these Gatherings, but they also use a building’s Focus.


A building of focus is a fancy way to say “the building that your bear spends most of their time/energy at.” During a rest, you may choose any building in the Outpost that has not been fully decayed, or is not at capacity, and use it’s ability. Sometimes this can be incompatible with attending a Gathering, but most will allow you to attend any Gathering you want.

Architecting the Ruins

At the physical core of every outpost are the structures that comprise it. Each building has a set of stats and a building ability which can be used in-between Rests.


Buildings are comprised of 2 main stages: construction, and maintenance. Both require various resources, but those resources will be different for each building stage. These stages will also have a time factor, represented by a single number. Time is measured in Rests, with any time effect being applied once the Rest ends.


Construction is the creation of a new structure. To start construction, pick an existing building to either add a new purpose to, or to upgrade an existing purpose. This will require a set of materials and a duration of construction. 


The Outpost does not need to have enough resources to meet the requirements in order to start building one. Instead, for each rest, every tick down of the construction will require one material. If there are not enough materials, the building project will start gaining decay, which must be fixed before it can move forward.


Decay is the natural wear and tear that will happen to each building, and will require resources to maintain. Each building has a resource or two that can remove decay, and by default any bear may choose to focus on a building in order to repair 1 decay with 1 resource.


Decay is measured in a rate, and a critical failure. At the start of every Rest the building will gain the listed amount of Decay, and if enough Decay builds to meet the Critical Failure, the building has collapsed and needs to be rebuilt.

Materials & Resources

This is a list of each material type used for building construction and maintenance, what it is, and where it is often found. Use this as a reference when looking at the building list.

Metal

Metal is as it sounds, various forms of metals and alloys. These are decently common in Ruined cities, but they are most common from supply lines ran by Gredo. Metal is most often used to add durability and armoring, making it most commonly used in defensive or offensive structures.

Stone

Stone encompasses most materials that are hard, heavy, and used to make the walls, floors, and roofs of buildings. This can be brick, rock, tile, or anything in-between. These are the materials old buildings are primarily made out of, making this material the most abundant of the bunch.

Brace

Brace is used to add stability and structure to a building. Think wooden and steel beams. Brace is unique in the fact that most of it out in the ruins is usable to a point, but not salvage-able due to wear over the years. Most Brace comes from supply lines, but toppling an old skyscraper will also yield some to take home.

Arcane

Arcane materials are just crystals. That’s pretty much all it is. Arcane materials are mostly used on buildings that require some magical function or routine, but typically not in as high amounts as Metal, Brace, or Stone. Arcane materials are semi-common on supply lines, but somewhat rare in the ruins.

Exotic

These materials cover a wide range. From unstable forms of inverted crystals, to mind crystals, to a set of specific machine components, Exotic materials are just the hard to find specific and unique pieces some builds need to bring together. These are hard to find, just because they are rare by nature, and must be directly acquired.

Gear

Gear encompasses all equipment, and will come with specifics when the building asks for it. Guard posts, for instance, will require some kind of weapon that is specific to it. This is as common as the piece of gear is.

Uncharted Ruins

During rests Scavengers and Ruiners can choose to investigate the Ruins around them to discover locations of interest, or hunt down resources. When this happens, they find Uncharted Ruins (anywhere unexplored by the outpost), and turn them into Charted Ruins. 
Charted Ruins contain some amount of resources, hazards, or encounters. While it is best left to the Ruin Master to take the rolls of the bears into account and weave an amount of resources and risk they see fit, they may also choose to create one through rolling some dice of their own. Whatever is contained in Charted Ruins remains there until a Ruiner, Scavenger, or other member of the Outpost goes to loot it. Only Scavengers and Ruiners may take resources present in charted ruins.


For resources, roll a pair of D6s for each success rolled by the Ruiner or Scavenger. For each pair rolled, add the following resources based on the total of the two dice:

2

No resource

3

Nothing

4

1D6 Metal

5

2D6 Metal

6

1D6 Stone

7

2D6 Stone

8

1D6 Brace

9

1D2 Gear (anything)

10

1D3 Arcane

11

2D3 Arcane

12

1D2 Exotic

Afterwards, roll 1D6 and add the following based on the roll:

1

1D2 Enemy of a higher level

2

1 Enemy of a higher level

3

1D2 Enemies of the current level

4

1D6 Enemies of a lower level

5

Nothing

6

1 Friendly passerby


 
If rolling on these tables, the Ruin Master should feel free to take inspiration instead, and tweak the contents of the Charted Ruin to make something they think is interesting.