Odd Treasure Troves

[Dog 6]

http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_csh6xy

I use to work for them. lol

[WallShadow]

Really sharp

I left a special treat for thieves or marauders in one farmer's smokehouse--cheese made from milk produced by cows that had ingested fallout-contaminated meadow grass. Biologically concentrated, some of the medium and lots of the longer-half-lived radioisotopes would still be present 3 years later. The farmer, rather than discard it, decided to leave this as a delayed-reaction booby trap for the uninvited.

[jester]

I had the PCs find a Royal Engineer Section complete with vehicles all in mid stages of decomposition. It is a lucky thing they never tried the water ine tank trailer.


In the same town near the river, they found a nezt of someone who had been living under a building foundation. They also found several cans of food again, good thing they never tried it, it was contaminated with radioactivity and would have rocked their world.

Its good to be the evil GM

[Matt W]

Some bound copies of "Popular Science" - dating back to the 40's and 50's

Seriously... have a look through them on "Google Books". There's some amazing stuff in there (for example, the April 1940 issue includes an article on how to make a crossbow).

[Targan]

I had the PCs find a Royal Engineer Section complete with vehicles all in mid stages of decomposition. It is a lucky thing they never tried the water ine tank trailer.

In the same town near the river, they found a nezt of someone who had been living under a building foundation. They also found several cans of food again, good thing they never tried it, it was contaminated with radioactivity and would have rocked their world.

Its good to be the evil GM

In my campaign Major Po's group found a large stash of powdered icecream (the powdered component of icecream ready to have milk, cream and other ingredients added for manufacture) while they were exploring in the northern third of Manhatten Island. Some of the stash had been deliberately contaminated with smallpox by a CIA faction. Typically Major Po determined the nature of the contamination and used the material to start spreading smallpox himself. It was of course with great irony that he sometimes referred to himself as "The Medicine Buddha".

[sic1701]

Michael Lee Lanning wrote an interesting book about being a mech. company commander in Germany in the early '70s, when the US Army was at a low point. I found his stories about supplies amusing. The first one being when he asked his supply sergeant how the paperwork was, the sergeant paused before answering, "Well, sir, MY ass is covered."
Lanning showed (I think) his own wisdom by next asking the sergeant what he was hoarding for trading use. The answer was some number of spare barrels for the heavy MGs. Those popped up in the memoir again, of course.

I am reminded of a story from Robert Mason's "Chickenhawk", about helicopter pilots in Vietnam.

After a supply Huey crashed enroute, some naive new Supply guy was instructed to go around to the various units and ask the supply sergeants if they had anything that had been coming in on that downed chopper that now had to be replaced. The supply sergeants recognized a unique opportunity to balance their books, so to speak, and said, "Now that you mention it, I had ordered six cases of this, and seven boxes of that..." By the time it was all calculated, the Huey had some eleven tons of materials on it, according to the supply sergeants' tally. "No wonder the goddammed thing went down!", Mason commented.

[chico20854]

I am reminded of a story from Robert Mason's "Chickenhawk", about helicopter pilots in Vietnam.

After a supply Huey crashed enroute, some naive new Supply guy was instructed to go around to the various units and ask the supply sergeants if they had anything that had been coming in on that downed chopper that now had to be replaced. The supply sergeants recognized a unique opportunity to balance their books, so to speak, and said, "Now that you mention it, I had ordered six cases of this, and seven boxes of that..." By the time it was all calculated, the Huey had some eleven tons of materials on it, according to the supply sergeants' tally. "No wonder the goddammed thing went down!", Mason commented.

I was a supply sergeant in a battalion once that had a similar event happen... we had a CUCV (GI Chevy Blazer) on a train that was derailed, and some items were missing. By the time the paperwork made it to approval, that CUCV was carrying something like 5 tons of gear. But the commander signed it, and that made it official.

When I got back from one deployment, the National Guard state HQ supply guys were there when I cracked open the container full of equipment we redeployed. By the time they left, they had what my commander (naively) was referring to as "the extra list" - a few things that were not officially accounted for. On that deployment I had 4 or 5 little stash locations that nobody new about... they assumed some other unit owned that space.

As far as trading, good supply people don't operate on a "transactional" basis - "I'll trade you this for that" - but on a "relationship" basis - "I'll hook you up when you need something, and when I'm in a bind I can count on you to help me out if you have what I need". Helps get things done. (With that, I once pulled a deal that involved the Danish and Turkish armies and four different US bases... it was epic!)

[sic1701]

God bless easy-going commanders who don't ask a lot of questions!

[chico20854]

God bless easy-going commanders who don't ask a lot of questions!

Actually, that particular commander had already tangled with me once and ended up $400-some poorer as a result. If he had been a little more easy-going maybe his items would have shown up after he lost them...

A lesson for junior officers... don't try to needlessly court martial your supply sergeant in a war zone.

[kato13]

A lesson for junior officers... don't try to needlessly court martial your supply sergeant in a war zone.

For some reason a vision of a conglomeration of Radar O'Reilly and Major Po just flashed before my eyes and I was very scared of the concept.

[M-Type]

Thread revival and all, but I was just doing some research and came across this thread. I was thinking about odd treasure troves myself, and thought about Coca-Cola. I know that in the present you can find Coke in every country except Cuba and North Korea (and even then ), so I thought about the possibility of a group coming across some carefully protected 12-packs or a barely functioning soda fountain.

I looked into it, and low and behold, Poland got its first Coca-Cola corporate office in 1991. And guess where it was The Palace of Culture and Science, the home of the 'ol Black Baron. Guess he has another leg up on the militia, artillery aside!

Over the next year more facilities opened up, as follows:

*Coca-Cola Poland Ltd. (Radzymin), with branches in Gdynia and Niepołomice, owned by The Coca-Cola Company

*Warszawa Coca-Cola Bottlers Ltd. (Warszawa), a joint venture of the Norwegian company Ringness and The Coca-Cola Export Corporation

*Coca-Cola West Poland Sp. z o. o. (Środa Śląska), with a branch in Poznań, owned by the German company Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetraenke GmbH

*Bydgoszcz Coca-Cola Bottlers Ltd. (Bydgoszcz), a joint venture of the Norwegian company Ringness and a local company Pubrex

*Ł3dź Coca-Cola Bottlers Ltd. (Ł3dź), a joint venture of the Austrian company Brau-Beteiligung AG and the German group Marszalkowski

*Lublin Coca-Cola Bottlers (Lublin), owned by the Norwegian company Ringness

Now I envision a literal cross-country journey to find the secret to manufacturing Coca-Cola again! I found this info here if you're interested.

[raketenjagdpanzer]

Coke requires kola beans which do not grow in non-tropical environments, generally; however, some are cultivated in northern italy or southern germany, according to this map:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/df/KolanutYield.png

Also note a crapton are grown in central southern California, but well enough away from LA that they might not be fallout contaminated.

What was the yield of weapons used on and around that region

We can use nukemap to maybe determine what the crops would be like...

Also: I had a character (didn't get to play, unfortunately) among his treasures was a 12 pack of canned coke.

[Wolf sword]

Well I work at a woodworking store (http://www.woodcraft.com/) we stock power and hand woodworking tools. But the big thing would be the books on working with hand tools.

[M-Type]

Well I work at a woodworking store (http://www.woodcraft.com/) we stock power and hand woodworking tools. But the big thing would be the books on working with hand tools.

I can imagine that if a library was able to stay in good conditions (not sure how, given the fallout, looting, and whatnot), 'How-To' books would be extremely valuable. Same with hardware stores like you mentioned. They can offer both in-universe and in-game benefits (Observation learning from reading a book).

[Rockwolf66]

These popped up at the Game squad forums.....I believe the house was owned by a wealthy lawyer type somewhere in the southeastern part of the US.(ie South/North Carolina's, Virginia, Maryland...or something...not sure).

I know that Michael "Mad Mike" Williamson knows the guy who owns that room. According to Mike the Owner recently sold a Livingston rifle for $500,000. And yes it was once owned by that Livingston.