The Perfect Survivalist Snack Cake Is No More

This just in on the Armageddon Newswire: Hostess brands has announced it is closing immediately. What does this newsflash have to do with the End of the World? Well...

According to The Elementary School Rumor Mill, only two things were ever going to survive a nuclear war: cockroaches and Twinkies. With a legendary shelf-life nearing that of plutonium, acquiring Twinkies was often a goal on any apocalyptic survivalist's To Do List. Case in point:

Family Guy's "Da Boom" episode took place after a nuclear exchange destroyed the world. As the Griffin family wandered the wastelands, Peter -- remembering that Twinkies can withstand such a disaster -- made it his mission to get the family to the Twinkie factory in a nearby town. When they got there, they saw that the golden spongecakes had indeed survived, feeding them all for years. A new post-apocalyptic village arose around the Twinkie factory ruins.

In the zombie survival movie Zombieland, Tallahassee has one goal in life after the apocalypse: to find and eat a single Twinkie. This quest of his takes he and Columbus to an abandoned Hostess truck by the side of the road; to a supermarket (where they meet Little Rock and Wichita for the first time); to a (sadly empty) Deep-Fried Twinkies booth at Pacific Playland. At the end of the movie, Tallahassee gets his Twinkie, leading to Rule 32: Enjoy the Little Things.

Apparently, store shelves have been laid bare upon the news, so if you haven't had a Twinkie in a while, you probably missed your chance. And there won't be any after the End of the World either.

(And truth be told, I'm a Zingers man anyway.)

"SavageAfterWorld.com" Back Up

Looks like my brand new domain name, www.savageafterworld.com, was hijacked or usurped or sold out from under me or redirected or something. No amount of calling and emailing or whatever is giving me any degree of satisfaction, so please use www.savageafterworld.blogspot.com until further notice.

EDITED: After hours of "I have no idea what I'm doing," I finally figured out that -- somehow -- all of my domain's CNAME records had a period added at the end. Removed them, and we're good to go.

Savage AfterWorld GM Merit Badges

Stuart over at Strange Magic started the newest round of blog memes when he posted some GM Merit Badges. GMs can post these to give players a heads-up as to what kind of game they may encounter. Clever fun idea, but I noticed a distinct lack of post-apocalyptic-themed badges. So, I cobbled together a few that would be more apropo for my own games:

Splashing around in radiation will not give you new mutations. Most likely, it will kill you. So stop bathing in every toxic waste drum you discover. You're not going to grow an extra arm or develop telepathy. If you're lucky, you may make your saving throw and die in 10 minutes rather than immediately.

Go ahead and start pushing buttons and flipping switches on that odd piece of Ancient technology you discovered. Go ahead. I dare ya.

Yeah, I'm a sucker for the "It was Earth all along!" twist. You know it's Earth. I know it's Earth. Just try and act surprised when you find the Statue's torch on the beach or stumble across Mount Rushmore in a canyon.

Mutant human/animal hybrids are cool, and you will either encounter them or play them as pre-gens. They are not "furries." Stop calling them that. It's creepy.

At some point, the D30 will come into play. And when it does, the results will be AWESOME.

All of my games take place in "Norleans," "Shykago," "N'York," or some other slightly-altered place name location. Bask in my cleverness when you realize what "Klumbus" actually is.

"Butt Bite"?!?!?!

Checked today's blog stats and I had three Google hits when someone searched for the phrase "butt bite." Needless to say, I could not for the LIFE of me puzzle out how that could lead folks here. So I clicked on the link to The Savage AfterWorld to see where it led.

Yup, it's a legit hit all right.