Autostede: Neon Badlands is a synthwave meets punk rock journey across an unforgiving wasteland inspired by Zoids, Mad Max and Horizon: Zero Dawn.
You play as a Drover, the pilot of an Autostede; a badass mechanical animal that’s been modified to be a death machine. Forever on the path to the next town, you take whatever jobs you can get and kill anyone who stands in your way.
You’re not alone, though. The other players are the few that have stuck with you through countless impossible odds. Will you all find somewhere to rest and create a new bastion of peace in the wilderness? Or will the road be another one of your companions, as you find the joy of constant adventure and exploration. The choice is yours, together.
Autos are mechanical animals that live wild in the wastelands. No-one is quite sure where they came from, though there are heaps of theories. While they are all mechanical in nature, their forms vary between organic and metallic in sometimes strange and confusing ways. Some of them generate energy through a direct interaction with the natural world, whether by burning fuel such as wood, or having solar style panelling, or other, unknown, unknowable processes. Conversely some autos extract their power source directly from other autos, hunting them down, draining them dry, then moving on to the next victim. This has inspired plenty of tall tales of autos draining humans dry or fields full of people strung up to be used as batteries, but mostly it seems that while autos are intelligent, they tend to act based on instinct and emotion more than logic and organisation.
Drovers are hardy nomads that traverse the wilderness, moving from town to town, taking out troublesome autos and getting in over their heads. They tend to travel in small groups, either to leverage the combination of certain autostedes or to make sure there’s someone who’s got your back in a tight spot. Some are considered no better than petty thieves and bandits, some are decried as criminals and vagabonds, and some are hailed as heroes.
Autostedes have a Frame, their base animal form, a Social Dynamic, the way that animal functions in the wild, and one or two Modules, powerful weapons that are either part of the natural makeup of the autostede or have been bolted on by you on the road.
When you enter a dramatic or dangerous situation, you roll a pool of d6s onto a play sheet, which contains sections that represent the frame, social dynamic and modules of the autostede. Where the dice land on this sheet determine what actions your autostede is willing to perform in that situation, and the numbers on those dice determine how successful that action is.