I'm just getting the ball rolling, but some of the guys in my group got a copy of TMNT and other Strangeness. I've been working on a setting to bring it out in.

The first part of this post is stuff I wrote, the second part is mostly source material I got from Wiki.

   
The Gaia Liberation Front (GLF) was founded ten years ago by radicals expelled from Greenpeace. The GLF, mostly eastern Europeans, believed that environmentalism would never catch on and that real change would only come when the backyards of the rich were contaminated. Many of the founding members were suffering from rare forms of cancer, attributed to having been raised in Dzerzinsk, Russia where cold war chemical manufacture and disposal has lead to intolerable levels of ground water contamination.
   
The GLF’s plan was three fold. First, they would return to Dzerzinsk and acquire as much of the most harmful and chemically active compounds they could find. Secondly, they would construct explosive or nebulizing devices which would spread the contamination over a wide area. Finally, on Earth day, 2012, the GLF detonated a bomb at the Sverdolv Plant in Dzerzinsk amplifying the local problem while simultaneously releasing the stolen chemicals in cities around the world.
   
The GLF hoped that their attacks would lead to a major clean up in Dzerzinsk, medical research towards the effects of the poisons, and awareness towards the suffering caused by unregulated chemical dumping. Unfortunately, none of their concerns were ever addressed. The slurry of toxic chemicals, many of which were unidentified, bonded together to form a powerful mutagen. This mutagen had caused significant health problems or sudden death for the majority of people affected. Interestingly, many of the creatures touch were changed in the TMNT fashion.
   
Sites in the United States, China, and France were first attacked by traditional explosives, designed to lure in first responders and military. After their arrival, the chemical weapons were released. In other nations, the homes and businesses of the wealthy were attacked directly. The attacks successfully resulted in a cross section of wealth and poor, civilian and military being affected by the chemicals.

For those changed into mutants, there are a variety of challenges. Other than expressing information that only they would know, it is almost impossible for them to prove their identity. In several cases, individuals fell into comas during the early stages of their mutation or hid in their homes away from family and friends. After the change, DNA records, dental records, voice recordings, and finger prints became useless as means of identification. Sometimes, even their personalities were different. In the worst cases, the victims lost their memories.

Some of those changed, particularly those already enlisted in the military have become the subjects of cruel experimentation. Others have been ostracized by their communities...and in some cases... forced to live in the sewers. Some gained powers. Others just became sick. It is a mixed bag.

________________________________________

The center of the contamination:
Sverdlov Plant, FSE (Federal State Enterprise) manufactures munitions, battle and industrial explosives, and chemicals for industrial purposes (phenol-formaldehyde resin, epoxy resin, carbamide-furane resin, plasticizers, hardeners of various modifications, nitrobenzene, sulphanole, acetic anhydride, various cleaners and detergents, as well as other products). The plant is included in the presidential list of the country's strategic enterprises. This is Dzerzhinsk's largest factory.

Dzerzinsk (Russia)

Potentially affected people: 300,000
Type of pollutants: Chemicals and toxic byproducts from Cold War-era chemical weapons manufacturing, including Sarin, VX gas, lewisite - the poisonous effect of which is owed to its arsenic trioxide content, yperite (mustard gas), prussic acid, phosgene, dioxins and other persistent organic chemicals. Lead, from an additives manufacturer, now closed.

Site description: In Dzerzhinsk, a significant center of the Russian chemical manufacturing, the average life expectancy is 42 years for men and 47 for women. Until the end of the Cold War, the city was among Russia's principal production sites of chemical weapons. According to figures from Dzerzhinsk's environmental agency, from 1930-1998, almost 300,000 tons of chemical waste were improperly disposed of. Of this waste, around 190 separate chemicals were released into the groundwater. These chemicals have turned the water into a white sludge containing dioxins and high levels of phenol - an industrial chemical which can lead to acute poisoning and death. These levels are reportedly 17 million times the safe limit.

The city draws its drinking water from the same aquifers into which these old wastes and unused products were pumped. Now that many of these industries are no longer in operation, the local groundwater has risen, along with the water level in the canal. This rise in the canal's water level threatens to dump arsenic, mercury, lead and dioxins into the Oka river basin, a source of drinking water for the nearby city of Nizhny Novgorod.

Despite the heavy toll on the population's health, a quarter of the city's 300,000 residents are still employed in factories that turn out toxic chemicals. According to a 2003 BBC report it is the young who are most vulnerable. In the local cemetery, there are a shocking number of graves of people below the age of 40. In 2003 it was reported that the death rate exceeded the birth rate by 2.6 times and it is easy to see why. The dioxins that get into the water as a by-product of chlorine production are reported to cause cancer even in minute doses.

Cleanup activity: Following the support of a baseline research project in the area in 2004, Blacksmith, in cooperation with the local government, has funded the installation of water treatment systems in Pyra (population 4,000), and Gavirolvka, settlements whose groundwater is highly polluted, yet remains the sole source of drinking water. In addition, Blacksmith has funded the establishment of a steering committee led by a local NGO (DRONT) in cooperation with the Nizhniy Novgorod municipal government, to begin the design of a large-scale remediation and pollution mitigation plan for the entire affected area.

In 2004 the local government conducted an initial evaluation of the extent of the groundwater contamination in the city and reviewed subsequent engineering options to bring clean water in to Dzerzhinsk to replace use of the contaminated groundwater source in Gavrilovka and Pyra, two areas of the city.

The first major villain I'm planning on writing up is a serial killer that the police were closing in on. He happened to be at the site of one of the bombings. After his change, he murdered a wealthy business man who lost his store in the bombing and took over his life, clamming to be him. Some of the police that were on his trail also changed, though for now they have lost him.

Awesome, Cranewings! TMNTaOS is one of the top ten games ever made IMO! Congrats!

-clash

Quote from: flyingmice;371771Awesome, Cranewings! TMNTaOS is one of the top ten games ever made IMO! Congrats!

-clash

I can honestly say its the only Palladium game I ever liked.  I tried to get back into it a few years ago, but found that my gaming tastes had moved on.  It was great fun, though, at the time.

Good luck with the game, Cranewings!

I'm excited to hear more! Truly, TMNT deserves a spot in the Gaming Hall of Fame.

Sounds pretty good, and yes, TMNT is Erick Wujcik's other great game, which puts it heads and tails above most games.

RPGPundit