Horizon:

ReDliNECREDITS

LEAD DEVELOPERRob Vaughn

MANAGING DEVELOPERGreg Benage

WRITINGJeffery Dobberpuhl, Darrell Hardy, Will Hindmarch

Cover ILLUSTRATIONCostantinos Koniotis

INTERIORILLUSTRATIONSEd Bourelle, Jim Brady, AllenDouglas, David Griffith, Chris Keefe,Patrick McEvoy, Scott Schomburg

GRAPHIC DESIGNBrian Schomburg

COVER DESIGNBrian Schomburg

EDITINGGreg Benage, Rob Vaughn

ART DIRECTIONRob Vaughn

LAYOUTRob Vaughn

PUBLISHERChristian T. Petersen

FANTASY FLIGHT GAMES1975 W. County Rd. B2, Suite 1

Roseville, MN 55113

651.639.1905

www.fantasyflightgames.com

‘d20 System’ and the ‘d20 System’ logo are

Trademarks owned by Wizards of the Coast and are

used according to the terms of the d20 System

License version 1.0. A copy of this License can be

found at www.wizards.com.

Dungeons & Dragons® and Wizards of the Coast®

are Registered Trademarks of Wizards of the Coast

and are used with permission.

Copyright © 2003 Fantasy Flight Publishing Inc.

Horizon is a trademark of Fantasy Flight Publishing

Inc. All rights reserved.

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Introduction 2

Chapter 1: Character Backgrounds 3

Bornagain 4

Bygone 5

Drifter 6

Reject 7

Savant 9

Chapter 2: Character Classes 10

Marauder 10

Redliner 12

Rigger 14

Trader 15

Walker 18

Chapter 3: Skills 20

Chapter 4: Feats 26

Chapter 5: Equipment 31

Weapons 31

Vehicle Weapons 34

Armor 34

Vehicles 35

Chapter 6: Vehicle Combat 38

Speed and Scale 38

One-round Summary 40

Maneuvers 41

Crashes 42

Combat 43

Critical Hits 44

Chapter 7: The Creep 45

Random Mutation Tables 47

Linked Mutations 48

Chapter 8: Setting Information 50

Folks 50

Warlords 50

Gangers 50

Zealots 51

Rebuilders 51

Nomads 51

Savages 51

Survivors 52

Resources 52

Water 52

Food 52

Fuel 53

Salvage 53

Artifacts 53

Services 54

Regions 54

Wastelands 54

Ruins 55

Green Zones 58

Chapter 9: Critters and Creeps 59

Muties 59

Rad Vamp 60

Rad Zombie 61

Sand Shark 62

Contents

HORIZONWelcome to HORIZON. You are holding the first of a

new line of self-contained RPGs for the d20 System,published by Fantasy Flight Games. Our goal for theHORIZON line is to explore the farthest possible reachesfor new settings, themes, and mechanics, and we want totake you with us. Just as importantly, every HORIZON

game will remain completely compatible with the d20rules you already know, so you can pick up the book andstart playing immediately.

HORIZON can play as many roles in your gaming lifeas you want it to. For some it will be an occasional breakfrom the regular game. For others it will be the founda-tion for a new campaign setting. Some may add othergaming elements to the rules we present here, otherswill pick their favorite rules from HORIZON games anduse them to augment other games.

Whatever you do with this new line, we hope you’llenjoy pushing roleplaying to the edge as much as wehave. And now: Redline.

INTRODUCTIONRedline unfolds in a post-apocalyptic world gone mad.

Bombs, biological agents, and drought have tested thelimits of everything on the planet. Most of humankind’saccumulated knowledge and resources are lost to thesands of time and the fires of war. Despite this globaltrauma, some humans have clung to life. They now existon the thin line between extinction and survival.

Population centers were targeted most heavily by theweapons, and what wilderness there was has becomeinfested with dangerous creatures. Everything inbetween has been blasted to dust. There’s one thing thatsurvived, though: the open roads, crossing the waste-lands between subsistence settlements and derelicttowns.

The roads are the lifeblood of the creaking remains ofhuman civilization. They let the survivors explore newareas, trade resources, and stay ahead of the Creepclouds and the warlords. But to do all that, you need aset of wheels, the fuel to keep it going, and the skill tostay alive. The roads are the new battlefields, and theknights of this dying world armor themselves in scream-ing steel and pounding motors.

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RULESOF THE ROAD

Redline is a self-containedd20 System RPG that lets yourelive the battles of highwaygladiators and post-apocalyptic desperadosfrom film and fiction. It is intended for quick startup andaction-packed play, requiring only that you be familiarwith the d20 System. You’ll want a copy of the core d20rules in order to play, and most d20 supplements arecompatible with Redline. The game utilizes updatedmaterial from the v.3.5 revision, though the revised rulesare not necessary to play.

Any rules not specifically mentioned in Redlineshould be assumed to work as described in the core d20rules (PHB and DMG).

GETTING STARTEDCharacters in this world are tough, savvy oppor-

tunists who know how to take a bad situation and makeit better for themselves and worse for their foes. Someare motivated by a desire to re-establish the civilizationsof old. Others want power, pure and simple. Still othersmay merely be trying to make the world a little morehospitable for themselves, and a little less scary foreveryone else.

Creatinga character to enter

this world of grim and grittyadventures only takes five sim-ple steps. First, generate the

character’s abilities as describedin the PHB (Chapter 1, Ability

Scores). Second, select your character’s background (asall Redline characters are human, backgrounds effec-tively replace races). Backgrounds not only modify acharacter’s starting abilities and provide special abilitiesor skills, they also determine some of a character’s his-tory and outlook on life.

Third, select a character class. Each class focuses ona different theme from the post-apocalyptic road wargenre, as well as specifies what a character does best.

Fourth, assign your skill points and select startingfeats. Skill points will help your character in day-to-daysurvival while feats allow your character to performthose remarkable acts that define him as a hero. Fifth,and finally, purchase starting equipment.

There are no alignments in Redline. Everyone’s justtrying to get by.

Horizon: Redline

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“A man can try to outrun his past, but it alwaysseems to catch up. Today’s the day you shakehands with yours.”

— Edge to Gunner Jon, from The Last Ride of Gunner Jon

In a world that has moved on, sometimes where youcome from is all that keeps you going. A character’s pastis called her background. Backgrounds are a character’sgeneral bent towards life and include her genetics,youth, training, education, and the struggles that madethe character the person she is when the title screencomes up and the action starts. For all practical purpos-es, a character’s background in Redline is similar to acharacter’s race in other settings. Backgrounds, oncechosen, are permanent.

The descriptions below offer suggestions on how acharacter might have become the way she is, how shelooks at this sorry excuse for a post-apocalyptic life, andwhat her goals, if any, may be. These are merely role-playing suggestions, however, and should be consideredseeds for your ideas rather than ironclad paths. Playersare encouraged to come up with their own character his-tories to describe their motivations.

Redline players have six backgrounds to choosefrom: bornagains, bygones, drifters, ferals, rejects, andsavants. Bornagains have turned to faith, almost zeal-ously, to help them get by. Bygones are believers, aswell, but in a different time rather than the bornagains’different place. Drifters are loners, searching for some-thing only they can define. Ferals are outsiders, perhapsorphaned in the wild at an early age, looking in on soci-ety. Rejects are those who were born not-quite-right, butfor all that they’re handy to have around. Savants are abit off-key, as well; maybe it’s the Creep that does it tothem, or maybe it’s a survival skill in this world wherebeing really good at one thing is sometimes all that getsyou by.

BORNAGAIN “The good Lord tells me faith will see me

through this one. You? He says I’d better start onyour eulogy.”

— Squawker Dell to Gunner Jon, from The Last Ride of Gunner Jon

In times of great crisis, humanity will seek answersto life’s great mysteries outside of the mundane. Afterthe war, the answers have never seemed more elusive ormore necessary. Bornagains were raised with a religiousor spiritual slant that attempts to provide those answers.

Bornagains spend a lot of time pondering the thingsthat no one else has the heart to or the care to. Oftentimes, bornagains have excellent practical wisdom toshare, but just as often, they spew out high-fallutin’ non-sense that’s likely to get them and their followers killed.

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Despite this, bornagains often become great leaders intheir communities. Their fevered devotion and passion-ate beliefs can be contagious.

Most bornagains simply want to follow their faith,wherever it may lead them. At worst, this leads to absurdquests or miniature holy wars. At best, it leads to acts ofheroic compassion and selfless sacrifice for the sake ofothers.

Bornagain BackgroundTraits• +2 to Wisdom. Bornagains spend a lot of time

pondering mysteries nobody else bothers to. Thisinward reflection has put them in touch with them-selves, others, and the world around them.

• +2 racial bonus to Chatter checks. Bornagains arenatural speakers. They always seem to know theright thing to say, even if it’s something so ridicu-lous or annoying that their listener just gives themwhat they want.

• May take Knowledge (big picture) as a class skill.• Smite Mutie. Your body is a temple, and the born-

again is out to prove it. Once per day at first level,a bornagain may attempt to smite any creature thathas reached the 7th threshold of Creep contamina-tion with a melee or ranged attack within 30 ft. Headds his Charisma bonus (if any) to his attack roll

and deals 1 extra point of damage per characterlevel. If the bornagain accidently smites a creaturethat has not reached the 7th threshold of Creep con-tamination, the smite has no effect, but the ability isstill used up for the day. Every three levels, a born-again may smite mutie one additional time per dayand may affect creatures that are one contaminationthreshold lower. For example, a 3rd-level bornagaincan smite mutie three times per day, affecting 7th-and 6th-threshold muties, while a 6th-level borna-gain can smite mutie four time per day, affecting7th-, 6th-, and 5th-threshold muties, etc.

• Divine Reroll. Are the gods a bornagain worshipsreally out there? Bornagains sure believe in ‘em. Sostrongly, in fact, that by sheer force of conviction abornagain may, once per day, reroll one roll that hehas just made before the GM declares whether theroll results in a success or failure. The bornagainmust take the result of the reroll, even if it’s worsethan the original roll.

BYGONE“You can keep living in the dirt like roaches, or

you can start to rebuild, today, now. The worldwasn’t always like this.”

–– Roddy Shiner, to the people of Grippe Bay

After the war, anything akin to pride, tradition, andhistory got lost in the dust and the fires. Folks livefor the moment because the past is too harsh to

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future is probably going to be worse. There are a few,though, who make looking to the past and planning forthe future their stock in trade. These folks, calledbygones, can draw upon their knowledge to help keepthings running, be it a machine or the fabric of society.

Bygones tend to view society as a world gone mad.They firmly believe that if people would just work atremembering the past and honoring tradition, answers tomodern traumas would be found. They abhor chaos, andtend to live by setting an example for their fellows.While some bygones become crotchety curmudgeons,always muttering about the “good old days,” mostbygones are youthful and optimistic. They often becomeleaders; their hope and firm convictions, not to mentiontheir willingness to work hard for the common good,garner them followers fairly easily.

Their goals are clear: preserve the past and try tomove society out of its current dark age. The obvioushole in their reasoning, which some are quick to pointout, is that it was those ways of the past that caused thewar. Bygones aren’t bothered by that, saying that thistime, we have the chance to get it right.

Bygone BackgroundTraits• +2 to Charisma. Whether it’s because

of their reassuring tales of daysgone by or optimistic insightsinto a possible future, bygoneshave magnetic personalities.

• May take Knowledge(olden) and Knowledge(subfarming) as class skills.Bygones spent their idealis-tic youth scraping togetherwhatever information theycould, whether from oldcodgers that lived through thewar or scraps of magazinesfound in a bunker. While spotty andoften lacking context, this infor-mation helps them keep their com-munities healthy, both sociallyand physically.

• Free Heroic Surge Feat.Bygones are the paladins ofthese dark days, pushingthemselves to their limits forthe sake of the greater good.

• Heroic Tales. Bygones caninspire those around themwith their sacrifice, deter-mination, or even withrousing tales of the past.Once per day per threelevels, as a full-roundaction, a bygone can tella quick story of an appro-priate situation that booststhe morale of any allies within hearing range.

This boost gives the allies a +1 morale bonus onsaving throws against charm and fear affects and a+1 morale bonus on attack and weapon damagerolls. Alternatively, the bygone may invoke thisability as a free action whenever he is wounded incombat. In such a situation, all allies that were ableto see the bygone get injured receive the bonuses.In either case, the bonuses last for five rounds.DRIFTER

“Yeah, I have a name. See no reason to give itto ya, though.”

–– Overheard at Stubby’s Joint

Wandering is a way of life in these harsh times. Folkshave to move to find new resources, stay out of the wayof the muties and warlords, and keep ahead of the Creepclouds. Most move around en masse, ‘cause the oldadage “safety in numbers” is as true now as it ever was.But some are drifters that walk their own path.

You’ve got to be nuts to wander alone, plain and sim-ple. Drifters usually impose some kind of self-exile onthemselves, haunted by something that keeps them from

becoming a regular part of society. To last aslong as they have, though, they’ve devel-

oped some pretty tough survival and fight-ing skills.

Drifters keep their goals, likeeverything else, close to the vest.

They’re looking for something,that much is obvious. If you

could take a peak inside theirheads, past the five o’ clockshadow and the dead eyes,you’d find they have no ideawhat they’re looking for . . .just that it’s something intangi-ble, and it’s something to makethemselves whole. As often asnot, the answer to that searchis death.

DrifterBackgroundTraits• +2 to Constitution. Walkingthe wastes is tough stuff.Drifters have developed astrong resistance to most of thehazards of the day.• +2 bonus on all Scroungeand Survival (wastelands)

checks. Drifters learn a lot aboutsurviving in the wastes. They are

great at finding what they need andare able to avoid perils most others would-

n’t even recognize.• Drifters have been around. They may take6

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