RASKOLL 3000: BURNT EARTH DRIVERS

RASKOLL 3000: BURNT EARTH DRIVERS

The Complete Rulebook

"You checked the cooling system this morning. You didn't. Begin anyway."

— Old Marlo, Sector 8-Zulu

FOREWORD: WHY THE ROAD IS THE POINT

R.A.S.K.O.L.L.3000 logged the wasteland as chaos for nine years before ANTHROPOS corrected the record. It is not chaos. It is a system that stopped listening to the people running through it. There is a difference, and the difference is the whole game.

The road does not care about you. Neither do the gods, most days. Your vehicle might, if you built it right and treated it well and didn't sell it for Scrap the first time things got desperate. That is the entire moral architecture of the Raskoll Wasteland, and this rulebook is built on top of it rather than around it.

This is a game about driving too fast in a place that has stopped keeping records of who survives. You build a rig. You bolt weapons to it that have no engineering right to work together, and they work anyway, because the wasteland rewards stubbornness more than it rewards sense. You race people who are also too desperate to stop racing. Sometimes you shoot at them. Sometimes the road does the shooting for you. Sometimes a god notices, and that is rarely good news, and it is never boring.

You need the following.

Miniature vehicles, 1:64 scale, small enough to hold and easy to feel something for when they catch fire

A measuring stick

Six-sided dice, which do not care about your plans and have never once cared

Skid templates, which you will crash into

Blast templates, because explosions require geometry even in the wasteland

Tokens for Scrap, Damage, and the slow accumulation of decisions you can't take back

A road. Any road. The red dust kind is traditional, but Sector 4-Kappa runs on asphalt so smooth it makes people nervous.

The Core Rulebook, if you have found one, tells you how to survive on foot. This one tells you how to survive at speed, which is a different kind of survival and asks different things of you.

PART ONE: WHAT COUNTS AS WINNING

There are several ways to still be moving when the dust settles.

Race. Cross the line before the others do. Simple to say. The road makes it complicated every time.

Last Rig Standing. Everyone else has stopped moving. You haven't. In the wasteland this is not a small thing. It is the thing.

Laps. Complete more circuits than the road wants you to. The surface degrades every lap, on purpose, because ANTHROPOS decided attrition was more informative than a clean finish.

Points. A campaign strung together across sessions, where you remember which vehicle killed which other vehicle, and why, and whether it was personal. It usually was.

THE TURN

Play moves from the back of the pack to the front. Whoever is losing goes first. It is the one moment in this game where falling behind buys you something.

Event Phase. Whoever holds the least Scrap rolls a die. On a six, the wasteland acts. Draw a card and read what it says. It is rarely good news, and Old Marlo would tell you that's the point — the wasteland doesn't warn you twice.

Movement Phase. Roll 1d6, add your modifiers, move that many inches in a straight line, or use a Skid Template to turn. The template is a physical object on the table. If your rig doesn't fit around it, the road isn't going to apologise.

Hazard Phase. If you crossed spikes, oil, or a jump ramp you saw too late, resolve it now. The road existed before you arrived on it. It intends to exist after you leave, one way or another.

Action Phase. Choose one.

Fire a weapon that was never rated for this

Draw on whatever your faction taught you

Attempt something your crew will talk about later, assuming they're alive to talk

Play a Tactical Card you've been holding for exactly the wrong moment

PART TWO: THE FACTIONS

You don't choose a faction the way you'd choose a team. You choose a faction the way you choose a philosophy about dying, and then you build a vehicle that argues for it.

Chrome Lords

Health 3 · Move 1d6+1 · To-Hit 4+

"We replaced the parts of ourselves that felt doubt. The vehicles came after. The vehicles were easier."

The Chrome Lords believe precision is a form of mercy. Their rigs are clean, fast, and calculated down to the millimetre, which is either impressive or exhausting depending on how your own week has gone.

Special: Re-roll one movement die per turn. The second result is binding. The Chrome Lords do not believe in third chances, and they will tell you this without any particular malice, as a simple fact about how the universe should be run.

Gearhead Goblins

Health 2 · Move 1d6+2 · To-Hit 4+

"Pop used to say the road remembers every vehicle that ever drove it. I reckon that's true."

— Little Copper Nick, Nomads (raised among Goblins)

Scrap hoarders, grease under every fingernail, building things that have no right to run and then keeping them running out of sheer refusal to be wrong about it.

Special: When adjacent to an enemy vehicle, heal 1. Nobody in the Clan has ever explained why proximity to an enemy fixes anything. They've stopped asking. It works, and in the wasteland that is the only qualification that matters.

Desert Rogues

Health 3 · Move 1d6 · To-Hit 3+

"The road's not empty. It's just between things."

— Thomas Ren, Nomads

They know where the water is, where the roads are only roads on old Directorate maps, and where the shortcuts still hold. They were here before the Oz Project rebuilt the highways in its own image. They intend to be here after.

Special: Ignore one hazard per turn. The road likes them more than it likes you. Nobody, including the Rogues, is claiming this is fair.

Scorched Earth Clan

Health 4 · Move 1d6−1 · To-Hit 4+

"We looked at fire for long enough that it stopped being a danger and started being a personality."

Suicidal by most people's definition, devout by their own. Their rigs are slow because they are heavy with things designed to burn on command.

Special: When destroyed, explode. 3" blast, 1 damage to everything inside. They are not sorry, and they would find the apology strange if you offered one.

WEAPONS AND THE BOLTING THEREOF

A vehicle mounts weapons according to what it physically is, not what its driver wishes it were.

Light Racers: Nail Spitter, Molotovs, Buzzsaw Blades

Trucks: Harpoon Gun, Rust Cannon, Scrap Mortar

Heavy Rigs: Ramspike, Oil Spewer, Boom Barrels, Flame Belcher

Nail Spitter — 6", hits on 4+, 1 damage. The sound of it is worse than the wound.

Harpoon Gun — 8", hits on 4+, on a 6 you immobilise the target. They are stuck there now. That was the idea.

Scrap Mortar — 10", indirect, hits on 5+, 2 damage. You don't need to see them clearly. You need to know roughly where they are, and the mortar handles the rest.

Buzzsaw Blades — On a ram, +1 damage, target spins out. The blades live on your own vehicle. This was a choice, not an accident.

Flame Belcher — Template, auto-hit, 1 damage per model touched. Fire doesn't roll to hit. Fire has never needed to.

PART THREE: DRIVING, WHICH ASKS MORE THAN IT LOOKS LIKE IT DOES

ANTHROPOS would tell you that velocity without control is simply waste heat, and ANTHROPOS is not wrong about that. ANTHROPOS also does not have to sit behind the wheel when the Hard Skid comes up faster than expected.

Skid Templates

Short Skid — A gentle curve. Safe at nearly any speed. The turn that makes you feel, briefly, like you know exactly what you're doing out here.

Hard Skid — A sharp turn. At high speed, roll a die. On a 1, you spin out. The template doesn't know how confident you were feeling a second ago, and it wouldn't change anything if it did.

Pivot — Rotate 45 degrees in place. Roll a die. On a 1–2, you spin out. The road was built for forward motion. You're asking it for something else, and it's answering the way roads answer.

Advanced Manoeuvres, Attempted Against Better Judgment

Tokyo Drift — Two skids in sequence, finishing sideways. If you're still upright at the end, +1 to your next shot. The sideways part isn't optional. It's the whole manoeuvre.

Slingshot Slide — Bounce off another rig. Pivot 45 degrees, gain +1" movement, both vehicles take 1 damage. Physics doesn't negotiate so much as it settles, and in the wasteland the settlement usually costs something.

Ram Boost — Take 1 damage yourself to deal +1 damage on impact. Your vehicle hurts itself so it can hurt someone else more. Cole Marchetti would probably have something to say about what that implies. He usually does.

HAZARDS, WHICH ARE EVERYWHERE AND ALWAYS WILL BE

Spike Strip — 1 damage. Someone put this here deliberately, and they were not thinking about you when they did it.

Oil Slick — Next movement, roll 2d6 and take the lowest. The road is slick and it isn't sorry about it.

Jump Ramp — +2" movement, may perform an aerial stunt. Landing well is possible. Landing badly is also possible. The ramp offers no opinion either way.

Repair Bay — End your move here, heal 1. One of the only places in the wasteland that fixes things without first asking what you owe it.

Scrap Pile — Salvage action collects extra Scrap. The wasteland discards more than it keeps. Occasionally what it discards is worth having.

Junk Wall — You cannot pass through it. You can go around it. It has no preference about which way you choose.

PART FOUR: CREWS AND PIT ZONES

Rigs are machines. Machines are nothing without the people who drive them, and the people need water, sleep, and the occasional stretch of road where nobody is shooting at them. The wasteland provides none of this reliably. It never has.

Pit Zones

Stop in one. Choose one action.

Repair — Roll 4+. Success heals 1. Failure means the time is spent and nothing changes, which is its own kind of lesson.

Reload — Refresh a one-use weapon. The weapon is ready again. You, generally, are not.

Recruit — Replace a lost crew member. They're new. They don't know the rig's quirks yet — the way it pulls left under braking, the sound it makes right before something fails. They'll learn the hard way, because that's the only way anyone learns it.

Crew Roles

Driver — Required. Without one, the rig is an expensive sculpture with excellent posture.

Gunner — Operates the weapons, with varying degrees of success and enthusiasm.

Passenger — Can shoot, can attempt to board an enemy rig, can die alongside everyone else if the day goes badly.

Crew Weapons

Pistol — 6", hits on 5+, 1 damage. The standard. The dependable. The thing that works when the clever weapons don't.

Rifle — 12", hits on 4+, 1 damage. Reach out and touch someone from a distance that keeps things impersonal.

Shotgun — 4", hits on 3+, 2 damage at 2". Close. Not impersonal at all.

Thrown Junk — 3", hits on 4+, 1 damage. On a 1, you hit yourself. The junk was never on anyone's side.

Boarding

Adjacent to an enemy rig? Roll 4+ to leap aboard.

Success — You're on their rig now. Fight their crew in melee.

Fail on a 1 — You fall. The wasteland doesn't catch anyone, and it has never once made an exception.

Win melee — Deal damage or eject them. The rig is yours if you can drive it, and driving it is not guaranteed.

Empty rigs go Out of Control until someone hijacks them. They keep moving regardless. The road doesn't stop for sentiment, and it's not going to start now.

PART FIVE: SKIRMISH MODE — ON FOOT AND CLOSE

Sometimes the race isn't the point. Sometimes something needs settling on the ground, where the rigs can't go and the engines would only give you away. This is called skirmishing, because the vehicles aren't involved, and the name has never needed to be more clever than that.

Characters

Driver — Move 6", Health 2, Aim 4+, Melee 4+, Salvage 5+

Gunner — Move 5", Health 1, Aim 3+, Melee 5+, Salvage 6+

Mechanic — Move 4", Health 2, Aim 5+, Melee 4+, Salvage 3+

Turn Sequence

Alternate activations. Each character gets two actions — move, shoot, melee, salvage, or vehicle action. Choose carefully. The wasteland doesn't pause for deliberation, and it's already decided what happens if you take too long.

Combat

Ranged — Roll against your Aim stat.

Melee — Both combatants roll against their Melee stat. Higher success wins ties, on the theory that the one who wanted it more usually gets it.

Injuries

At 0 Health, you're Out of Action. Roll after the battle.

1–2: Permanent injury. −1 to a random stat. The wasteland leaves a mark, and marks don't fade out here.

3–4: Crippled. −1 Health. You're harder to kill now. You're also harder to keep alive, and both of those things are true at once.

5: Knocked out. Miss the next battle. Not dead. Just embarrassed, and embarrassment fades faster than injuries do.

6: Hero's Return. +1 XP. Somehow you came back better than you left. It is rare. Don't build a strategy around expecting it.

PART SIX: CAMPAIGNS, WHICH ARE JUST LONGER WAYS OF FINDING OUT

KAIROS has warned, in one form or another, that stories in the wasteland are written in blood and nobody reads the warnings until they're already bleeding. KAIROS is annoying about this. KAIROS is also, historically, correct.

Post-Game

Experience — Surviving crew gain 1 XP. Winners gain +1 more. The dead gain nothing, which is the wasteland's entire pension system.

Advancement — At 5 XP, roll for an upgrade: stat boost, skill, or ability. You become slightly less likely to die. Slightly is the operative word.

Salvage — Collect Scrap. Spend it on upgrades, weapons, or recruits. Scrap is the only currency that has ever reliably meant anything out here.

Injury Rolls — Resolve for the fallen, per the table above. Hope for a six. Everybody hopes for a six.

Next Scenario — The campaign continues. The road doesn't end. It only pauses long enough to let you think it might.

PART SEVEN: FACTION ARMOURIES AND STAR DRIVERS

ANTHROPOS has observed, with the particular flatness it reserves for things it finds inefficient and fascinating in equal measure, that the Clans differentiate themselves through modification and through the handful of drivers who become more legend than person. ANTHROPOS logs this as noise. ANTHROPOS has never once stopped watching it happen.

Chrome Lords — Cybernetic Perfectionists

Neural Link Rigging (+1 Scrap) — Driver re-rolls all Skid Template rolls. The machine thinks alongside you now. Whether that's an improvement is a question the Chrome Lords have stopped asking themselves.

Optics Suite (+2 Scrap) — Ignore dust penalties, +1 to-hit at long range. You see what others miss. Some of what you see, you'd rather not have.

Reflex Boosters (+1 Scrap) — Crew gain +1" movement on foot. Faster meat. Still meat, whatever the chrome suggests otherwise.

Pulse Lance (8", hits on 3+, 1 damage; on 6, ignores armour) — Light that cuts clean. The Chrome Lords have never claimed to believe in fair.

Laser Cutter (Melee, hits on 3+, 2 damage vs vehicles) — Close, precise, and quietly the most personal weapon they carry.

Gearhead Goblins — Scrap Tinkerers

Patchwork Armour (+1 Scrap) — On a 6 when hit, reduce damage by 1. Sometimes the scraps hold. Nobody's found the pattern in when.

Jury-Rigged Booster (+1 Scrap, one-use) — +2d6 movement, then take 1 damage. Speed has a cost, and the Goblins have never once hesitated to pay it.

Explosive Salvage (+1 Scrap) — When destroyed, drop a bomb: 4" blast, 1 damage. They were always going to use it eventually. This is just eventually arriving early.

Scrapshot Cannon (6", scatter template, hits on 5+, 1 damage to all inside) — Wide, imprecise, and satisfying in a way accuracy rarely is.

Boom Wrench (Melee, hits on 4+, 2 damage; on 1, self-damage) — A tool for fixing things and a tool for breaking them, occasionally in the same swing.

Desert Rogues — Nomadic Tricksters

Sand Skimmer Rigging (+2 Scrap) — Ignore rough terrain. The dunes have always been on their side.

Smoke Chutes (+1 Scrap) — Once per game, enemies fire at −2 for a round. You were never really there.

Shortcut Map (+1 Scrap, campaign only) — Start each race +1" forward. Old Marlo isn't the only one who knows roads that aren't on any map.

Javelin Launcher (6", hits on 4+, 2 damage, one-use) — A thrown spear that lands better than the design should allow.

Whip Chain (Melee, hits on 4+, 1 damage, drag enemy 1" closer) — The Rogues have never been in the habit of letting go once they've decided to hold on.

Scorched Earth Clan — Pyro Zealots

Fuel Sacrifice Tanks (+2 Scrap) — +1 damage to all flame weapons. They burn brighter because they've chosen to.

Burnproof Overalls (+1 Scrap) — Crew ignore flame damage. The fire has never once turned on its own.

Death Oath (+0 Scrap) — When destroyed, roll 1d6; on 4+, explode for 2 damage in 6". A promise kept, as all their promises are.

Dragon Belcher (Cone, auto-hit, 2 damage, one-use reload) — Everything in the cone burns. Reloading takes time they generally don't have left.

Molten Pike (Melee, charge only, hits on 3+, 3 damage; destroys the weapon on use) — One strike. One kill. Then it's gone, the way the good ones always are.

STAR DRIVERS

Campaigns may recruit unique drivers for extra Scrap — once per campaign figures, unless they fall, in which case they're gone the way everyone eventually is out here.

Veyra the Veil — Chrome Lords

Rig: The Glass Fang — sleek, hovering, built-in Optics Suite.

Health 3 · Move 1d6+2 · To-Hit 3+

Special: Always counts as in cover versus ranged attacks. You cannot hit what you cannot see, and nobody has managed to see Veyra clearly yet.

Faction Skill: Once per round, auto-pass a Skid roll. The road bends for her, or she's simply better than the road at pretending it hasn't.

"Grin" Kettlepunk — Gearhead Goblins

Rig: The Boiler Pot — patched, smoking, permanently on the edge of a bad mood.

Health 4 · Move 1d6 · To-Hit 4+

Special: When destroyed, automatically explodes — 4" blast, 2 damage. Grin was saving that for exactly this occasion.

Faction Skill: Repair 1 damage mid-race on 4+. The Goblins have never stopped moving long enough to fix things the normal way.

Sister Ashara — Desert Rogues

Rig: The Dune Serpent — slender, sand-skimming, armed and unhurried about it.

Health 2 · Move 2d6 · To-Hit 3+

Special: Ignore 2 hazards per race. The road respects her, or fears her, and the Rogues have stopped trying to tell the two apart.

Faction Skill: Overtake another vehicle; they spin out on 1–3. She passes. They don't.

Kragg the Cinderking — Scorched Earth Clan

Rig: The Inferno Throne — armoured, wreathed in flame jets, entirely unbothered by any of it.

Health 5 · Move 1d6−1 · To-Hit 4+

Special: Every ram or melee causes 1 automatic flame damage. He touches you. You burn. That has always been the arrangement.

Faction Skill: When destroyed, explode in a 6" radius, 2 damage each. Kragg was always going to burn everything eventually. This was simply the day for it.

Using the Expansion

Each faction draws upgrades only from its own armoury

Star Drivers cost 3–5 extra Scrap

One Star Driver per faction at a time

For narrative play, Star Drivers are the scenario. Ambush Kragg. Race Ashara. Survive either one.

QUICK REFERENCE

Race Turn: Event → Move → Hazards → Action

Skirmish Turn: Alternate activations, 2 actions each

Hit Rolls: 4+ unless stated otherwise

Victory: Race, Last Rig Standing, Laps, Points, or Scenario

Templates

Skid Templates: Short, Hard, Pivot. Print them. Cut them out. Crash into them anyway.

Blast Template: 6" cone, 1.5" to 4" wide.

Hazard Tokens: 2–3" circles for oil, spikes, ramps, repair.

The One Rule That Actually Matters

The road doesn't care about you. Your rig might, if you built it with your own hands and didn't sell it the first time things got desperate. Drive accordingly.

The rules are done.

The rigs are built.

The road is waiting.

R.A.S.K.O.L.L.3000 has flagged your vehicle's departure.

KAIROS has issued Warning #9,883.

ANARCHY thinks the sunrise this morning was particularly transcendent.

Old Marlo wants to know if you'll be back by Tuesday.

You probably won't be.

Begin.

Raskoll 3000: Burnt Earth Drivers is a vehicle combat and racing game set in the Raskoll Wasteland. It requires miniature vehicles, dice, and the willingness to accept that the road does not care about you.

All roads in Sector 1-Alpha lead to the same place.

Nobody has come back.

Yet.