LOVE IN A RADIOACTIVE WORLD

Chernobyl Mon Amour is a freeform roleplaying game

in which hopeless criminals find a final opportunity for
life and love in the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation. The
game focuses on the emotional experience of falling in
love in a world of radioactivity and death.
Every story eventually ends badly but you can find a
moment of happiness along the way.

Designer Juhana Pettersson has also worked on the

games Valley of Eternity, Vampire: the Masquerade 5th
Edition and Maa.
Chernobyl Mon Amour
A Roleplaying Game About Love and
Radioactivity
Game design: Juhana Pettersson
Graphic design: Tommi Kovala
Cover: Joel Sammallahti
Illustrations: Joel Sammallahti
Maps: Miska Fredman
Photos: Maria & Juhana Pettersson
Translated into English: Jukka Särkijärvi
Publisher: Pohjoismaisen roolipelaamisen seura ry
Playtesting: Maria Pettersson, Olga Koiverianine, Risto Paalanen, Markus
Montola, Jaakko Stenros, Anne Liljeström:

Thank you: Joona Pettersson, Maria Pettersson, Wille Ruotsalainen, Jukka

Särkijärvi
Published in Finnish in 2016 as Tšernobyl, rakastettuni
Printed: drivethrurpg.com
Chernobyl Mon Amour 2019 © Juhana Pettersson

www.nordicrpg.fi
Table of Contents
Preface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

26th of April, 1986 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

romantic leads . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

Example Characters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Player’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Game Master’s Guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52

The Zone . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

The Zoners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

etiquette . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96

Best Places for a Date . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102

Scenario: For the Atom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109

Scenario: Radiant Angel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

I visited the Chernobyl Zone of Alien-
ation in July 2010. We got to within
a hundred meters of the Sarco­phagus
protecting the Reactor No. 4 destroyed
in the accident. The Sarcophagus con-
sists of concrete elements that have
been fitted on top of a reactor building
resembling a factory.
The Sarcophagus is not an impreg-
nable tomb sealing radioactive mate-
rials in forever and ever. It’s a crum-
bling structure full of holes. Birds
make their nests in the ruins of the
reactor. People worry that the Sar-
cophagus will collapse and create a
billowing cloud of radioactive dust,
like what happens when you slam
shut a book that’s been on the shelf
for too long.
One of the peculiarities of radiation
is that because it spreads to the envi-
ronment via radioactive particles, its
intensity can vary radically in a small
area. The radiation is where the par-
ticles are. If the radioactive dust has
been collecting in a corner, it’s dan-
gerous there but not necessarily next
to it. It’s unwise to spend too much
time near the Sarcophagus, but it
won’t kill you.
We spent two days in the Zone
of Alienation. During the days we
explored the ruins with a guide. The
evenings and nights were spent at
the atmospheric Hotel Chernobyl.
We got our worst dose of radiation
when we drove on a road passing by
the Red Forest. The driver acceler-
ated and the guide suggested we turn
on our dosimeter. The level of radia-
tion inside the car was four times the
ambient level in the vicinity of the
Sarcophagus.
The Red Forest is an area near the
Sarcophagus where an especially sub-
stantial amount of radioactive materi-
als landed during the Chernobyl acci-
dent. The pines in the forest turned a
reddish brown. During the cleaning
operation after the accident, the trees
were cut and buried underground,
but the area is still one of the most
radioactive in the world.
If you want to see what happens
when people mess up their environ-
ment so thoroughly that it becomes
unfit for human habitation, the Red
Forest is a good place to start.
Paradise on Earth
We arrived at the Zone of Alienation
on a sunny summer day. The sound
of crickets was everywhere and the
air smelled of lively nature. Trees cast
the ruined buildings in shade and
light filtered through the leaves.
The Chernobyl Zone of Alienation
is very beautiful.
Our guide kept repeating the word
paradise. The Zone of Alienation is a
paradise for animals that would be
hunted to extinction in other parts
of the world. It’s a paradise for but-
terflies, largely unaffected by radia-
tion. Paradise for plants that won’t be
stamped on by people. In Chernobyl,
it’s obvious that from the perspective
of nature, radioactivity is nothing
compared to the destruction caused
by humans.
People don’t want to live in a
radioactive environment, so it’s been
7
 largely left alone. The postapocalyp-
tic landscape is not the barren waste-
land of Mad Max, but a vibrant place
full of life.
From a human perspective, radioac-
tivity sucks because people are indi-
vidualists. The individual gets sick
and dies. Nature’s perspective is dif-
ferent: in a radioactive environment,
the inbreeding of almost extinct spe-
cies is not such a problem because
radiation creates artificial variation in
their genes. Individuals might get sick
and suffer, but at that point the pups
have been born and the next genera-
tion is underway.
We had our share of adventure. We
accidentally got trapped in a ruined
laboratory where they used to con-
duct experiments on the effects of
radioactivity on fish. An air current
slammed the door shut just as we’d
packed into a room in which fish
stored in jars stared at us. Fortunately,
two of our group had gone elsewhere
and managed to kick in the door.
The problem with opening the
door ourselves was that radioactiv-
ity tends to stick to metal. Opening
the door from the inside would have
required touching a metal door han-
dle with our bare hands.
Romance in Ruins
A tank lies in tall grass. Close by,
there’s a yellow sign warning of
radioactivity.
On the shore of the Pripyat River,
there’s a ruined cafe with its stained
glass windows still intact.
On the tenth floor of an apart-
ment building, there’s an apartment
empty of everything except a piano.
Its keys don’t work anymore, but
8
you could play it by strumming the
strings inside.
The Chernobyl Zone of Alienation
is a romantic place. In Soviet times,
Pripyat was an elite city for privi-
leged workers. The idea of a model
city can still be seen in the ruins. It
represents a future that might have
been real once. Its remains appeal to
a lost sense of hope for the future,
the naivete possible before the 1986
nuclear accident.
The ruins of Chernobyl are filled
with echoes from a world in which
utopia was built on the back of
nuclear power. In this world, the
atom is a train engine pulling human-
ity towards a bright future. Nuclear
energy is an infinite source of green
energy, a tireless giant ready to build
the worker’s paradise of the Soviet
Union as well as the conformist capi-
talism of the Fifties United States.
After the accident, the nature of
the paradise changed. The model
city of nuclear power plant employ-
ees lost its citizens. Instead of a per-
fect society, it became a place out-
side society.
Atom Fact: No Cockroaches
According to a pop culture cliche, the
radioactive wasteland is populated by
nothing but cockroaches. This is not
true. The Chernobyl Zone of Alien-
ation is a cockroach-free zone. Cock-
roaches do best in human company,
and without people there are no cock-
roaches. The cockroach’s ability to
withstand radiation is not very good.
After radioactivity has killed the last
cockroach, butterflies still fly free.
Radioactive Love Atom Fact: Radioactive Laundry
On a pier, there’s a bench on which is Washed Separately
two people can sit and watch the Our guide told us that after we’d
Pripyat River. Further away, there are left the radioactive area, we should
rusted hulks of ships, and closer, huge wash our clothes in three batches.
but peaceful dragonflies. First the whites, then the colors, and
The Zone of Alienation is a place finally the radioactives. This way
where you’d like to be alone with radioactive particles would not stick
your loved one. The world seems far on clothes that were previously non-
away and life is simple. The presence radioactive, but would be washed
of death makes you value your life all away into the drain.
the more.
The romanticism of ruins becomes
a longing for love. We climbed to
the roof of a sixteen-floor apartment
building so we could see the city of
Pripyat from above. From our high
vantage point, the Zone of Alienation
appears as a forest with a few build-
ings sticking out from between the
trees here and there. The Sarcopha-
gus holding the Reactor No. 4 was
visible further away. Its recognizable
silhouette dominated the landscape,
but fortunately the ruins and the for-
est held countless hiding places.
The radiation cuts the Zone of
Alienation off from the world. Despite
this, and because of it, two people
can be happy together there. And
why not more; I’m sure polyamory is
fine in the Zone.
Chernobyl Mon Amour is a roleplay-
ing game about people who find love
after they’ve escaped outside society.
Their life starts when they arrive in a
radioactive paradise.

Juhana Pettersson,
Brussels, 12th of July, 2016

9
 Introduction
I’d just graduated as a doctor when the
Soviet Union fell. Salaries in the public
sector fell with it. There were so many
people who wanted to work in the pri-
vate sector, I never had a chance. I lived
in Kyiv, but my family is from the coun-
tryside and I have no connections. Many
of my friends moved to France, Ger-
many or the US. They need more doc-
tors there.
I became a truck driver. I drove the
same roads for twenty years. I found
a husband, divorced him, remarried,
divorced again. I watched medical dra-
mas on TV, but the world had passed
me by.
I was drunk and late from the sched-
ule. I drove into an intersection and didn’t
notice a car coming from the right. A
diplomat and her husband both died as
their car was crushed under my truck.
I escaped the scene and went to my sis-
ter’s place to hide. In the morning when
I woke up, my sister looked at me and
held her son in her arms as if to pro-
tect him from something evil. The news
showed my face and pictures of man-
gled bodies. They were influential peo-
ple with important friends. My sister
was afraid of me, because friends of the
people I killed would have me murdered.
Now or later.
I went to court. Got sentenced to
prison. The other convicts didn’t much
like me. They told me to make most
of my limited time on earth. My killer
would be rewarded, but no sense in hur-
rying. My cellmate Larissa tattooed a
filthy picture in the back of my neck
12
suggesting that I was not the heterosex-
ual woman I claimed to be. I decided that
prison was not for me.
I escaped, but I knew there’s no place I
can go. I had to get somewhere far away,
out of the reach of the police, news, and
cellmates. I went to the Zone of Alien-
ation. Nobody would follow me there.
There’s an urban legend in Ukraine
about a criminal who flees the police
to the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation.
When he’s finally caught, it turns out
he’s so seriously contaminated with
radioactivity that he can’t be taken
out of the Zone. They leave him
there, to live among the ruins.
This legend is one of the core inspi-
rations for Chernobyl Mon Amour.
In the world of the game, the Zone
of Alienation is almost the same as in
real life, but not quite. It’s more dan-
gerous, more isolated, and a unique
community of criminals and escap-
ees live there. People with no place
in the society outside the Zone.
Those who escape to the Zone
of Alienation leave their old lives
behind. The radioactive area is their
entire world.
A Love Story
I’m not a young woman anymore, and I
didn’t expect much from life. I wanted to
live among people who couldn’t judge me
or ask too many questions. I wanted to
be of use to somebody in my small way.
I thought that the Zone of Alienation
might give me a chance to start anew,
out of the reach of my past mistakes.
 I never expected the Zone to give me
the love of my life.
I’ve been married twice. I was a doc-
tor at my first wedding and a truck
driver at my second. Both relationships
lasted until the wedding, and not much
longer. I figured that maybe storybook
romance was not for me. People around
me had lovers and mistresses, cata-
strophic marriages and heavenly honey-
moons. I knew it was possible but when
it was my turn, it didn’t seem to lead to
anything but disappointment.
I met Danil in the bread line. They
gave away food from outside the Zone
at the Vehicle Graveyard. Danil asked
if I could help him carry bread to the
hospital. He told me he was a doctor
and that he helped people in return for
favors. Sometimes for free.
I carried two bags of bread to the hos-
pital where he lived, and never left.
Chernobyl Mon Amour is a game in
which people fall in love. During the
game, characters fall for each other,
encounter obstacles to their love, but
finally get each other. Love happens
in a radioactive wasteland and mak-
ing it real is the responsibility of both
the players and the Game Master.
The inhabitants of the Zone of
Alienation are criminals who can’t
really judge each other. Some of them
are willing to repeat their mistakes.
Others, such as the player characters,
want to start anew. They come to
the Zone free from the baggage and
expectations of a previous life, on
their way towards love, ready or not.
The Zone of Alienation might be
a beautiful natural paradise, but for
people it means death. The inhab-
itants of the Zone have no illusions
about having a future. They live in
the moment, happy about having a
second chance and being still alive
and cancer-free. Their love is love in
the shadow of death.
You have to love today, because
there might not be a tomorrow.
Inhabitants of the Zone
We were on a date in the Helicopter Bis-
tro, close to where we first met. The Bis-
tro is run by a man called the General.
He’s an invisible shape somewhere on the
edges of our consciousness. I don’t know
if this is because he stays in the shad-
ows cast by the candlelight or because I
can’t keep my eyes from Danil’s face.
I tell him about how one of the guys
from the Jupiter Gang tried to blackmail
us for morphine. Our dog Stalin bit him
in the balls. Danil smiles, almost laughs,
and in the candlelight it’s the most affect-
ing sight in the world.
There’s a vase on the table, and a red
rose in the vase. The daughter of the
General is standing by the door, look-
ing out and playing her violin. The story
goes that she hasn’t said a word after
her lover went to prove something inside
the Sarcophagus, and never returned.
We can afford to eat at the Gener-
al’s bistro because Vadym the Fork shot
himself in the foot. Danil operated on his
knee while I held his hand. We had run
out of painkillers at that point, so I gave
Vadym a shot of vodka every time the
pain got too bad.
Vadym the Fork might be a murderer
and a madman, but he knows how to
show gratitude. I just hope he doesn’t
like us too much. His last doctor was
found with a fork sticking out of his fore-
head. They say he’d let Viagra run out.
13
 The Zone of Alienation is inhab-
ited by people who have escaped
the world. Outsiders are seen rarely,
if ever. Nobody who lives in normal
society wants to make radioactivity
part of who they are.
Some are ordinary people caught
in circumstances so extraordinary
that they can’t make it back to the
shore. Others are professional crimi-
nals, nutcases or incorrigible murder-
ers. They try to continue their lives in
the Zone as before.
There are no cops in the Zone, or
anyone else you can turn to if some-
thing bad happens. Because of this,
nobody survives without friends and
allies who are ready to go against
criminals and ne’erdowells for the
sake of their comrades.
It’s not impossible to live in the
Zone. You can walk home from your
lover’s place at night in Pripyat if
you’re sober and know the terrain.
But if the lover has a jealous, influ-
ential and violent girlfriend or boy-
friend, life can become challenging.
Radioactivity
I haven’t told Danil that I have cancer.
He’ll notice it soon. It’s hard to fool a
doctor. I don’t know how much time I
have left. Maybe a year, maybe more.
The Zone doesn’t have the tools to diag-
nose something like this.
I have a friend who called his mar-
riage a happy end. We studied together.
He was in his twenties. I thought it
strange that life should end at twenty,
even if happily.
We haven’t married with Danil,
because it doesn’t feel like it makes sense
in the Zone. I know this is not a happy
end. This is a happy life.
14
The end will come when I die. It’s not
important if the end is happy. It proba-
bly won’t be. The essential thing is all
that comes before. If we’ve been happy
before the end.
Before I go, I want to visit the inside
of the Sarcophagus and bring back
something that will give our little hos-
pital a future. Radiation doesn’t hurt an
older person the same way it hurts the
young, and I know I’ll die soon no mat-
ter what.
The love stories in Chernobyl Mon
Amour rarely end in death, but radio-
activity is always present in the game.
Love is one of the two core pillars
of the game, and the other is mov-
ing towards radioactivity. You don’t
escape radiation. You embrace it.
A clean person could technically
walk out of the Zone and nobody
would know she’d ever been there.
Because of this, newcomers are not
trusted until they have visited some
of the more radioactive areas of the
Zone.
Badly contaminated people are
respected because they’ve made the
Zone part of who they are. They’re
committed to the lifestyle it entails.
They’ll be there for the rest of their
lives.
Radioactivity opens doors and
makes your life easier. It’s the price
player characters have to pay when
they settle down in a place forgotten
by the whole world.
Research

This game has been inspired by a number of books, movies and games.
Igor Kostin’s photo book Chernobyl: Confessions of a Reporter is an excel-
lent look into the accident and its aftermath. Kostin took the only photograph
of the reactor itself that survives from the day of the accident.
In her book Voices from Chernobyl, Svetlana Alexievich interviews count-
less people whose lives have been affected by the accident. There are survi-
vors, family members of relief workers who died after the accident, soldiers
and doctors. Her book is full of touching, sometimes strange details that have
been sprinkled liberally around this book. Alexievich was awarded the Nobel
prize for literature in 2015.
Mary Mycio’s book Wormwood Forest is a look into what’s going on in
Chernobyl’s natural environment today. It’s the most significant source for this
game’s depiction of Zone nature.
Zhores Medvedev’s book The Legacy of Chernobyl is recommended to
everyone who wants to have a better understanding of what happened dur-
ing the accident. The book is old, but still good. Written by a Soviet scientist
who emigrated to the West, it has enough scepticism towards the facts pre-
sented by all sides.
The Italian photographer Pierpaolo Mittica has a book called Chernobyl:
The Hidden Legacy documenting the ruins and the people of the Chernobyl
area as they are now.
In a sense, Ville Vuorela’s roleplaying game Stalker is a mirror image of
Chernobyl Mon Amour. In Stalker, the Zone is a horrible and dangerous place
player characters visit despite the risk to their lives. In this game, the Zone
saves people and gives them a chance to have new lives. Nevertheless, Stalker
and its source material, the Strugatsky brothers novel Roadside Picnic and the
Tarkovsky movie Stalker, have an excellent Zone atmosphere. One of the
best Finnish roleplaying games, Stalker is available in English as well.
The Ukrainian developer GSC Game World has made a shooter called
S.T.A.L.K.E.R: Shadow of Chernobyl, with the sequels Clear Sky and Call of
Pripyat. They place elements from the Strugatsky brothers novel in the ruins
of Chernobyl. The Zone of the videogames is more hostile than in Chernobyl
Mon Amour, but their sense of place is wonderful.
The videogame Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has a level set in the ghost
city of Pripyat. The level excellently shows what the Zone looks like today. It’s
also the most difficult part of the game, so the player will get to know Ferris
wheel and the bumper cars of Pripyat’s amusement park intimately.
In 2019, HBO produced a miniseries called Chernobyl about the accident.
The best way to get to know the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation is to go
there yourself. A two-day trip is not horribly expensive, and the amount of
radiation it involves is small. On the net, you can find many different compa-
nies offering tours.

15
 This Book

The real Chernobyl Mon Amour is not this book. The game is an event in which
the players and the Game Master participate. This book has three things:
The book gives advice on how to play Chernobyl Mon Amour. How the
player creates a character for themselves, how to approach the game and how
to get as much out of it as possible.
The book contains guidelines for the Game Master on how to run a game
so it works.
In the end, the book is about creating certain kinds of experiences for the
participants of the game. Because of this, a big part of it is raw experiential
material players and the Game Master can use to create places, supporting
characters, situations and scenes for their own games.
My hope is that based on the book, players know how to play, the Game
Master knows how to run the game, and all know how to use the setting of
the Chernobyl Zone of Alienation in as interesting a fashion as possible.

16
 26th of April, 1986
We were playing by the river with
Misha when we happened to look
in the direction of the power plant.
There was smoke rising from it, a
lonely column of black against an
open sky.
We thought that Martians or capi-
talists were attacking. Misha said that
he’d heard that when you split the
atom, the halves float away from the
cooling towers in a mist that resem-
bled smoke. I didn’t take him very seri-
ously. He was always making up stuff.
For a while, it was exciting to
watch the smoke, but then we got
bored and started to bike towards
home. Someone said they’d heard the
sound of an explosion, in the night or
in the morning, and that there’d been
an accident at the power plant. There
was talk of helicopters, soldiers and
firemen. It was exciting.
Misha and I started biking towards
the plant, because we wanted to
see soldiers. Misha told me his big
brother was a soldier and that he’d
fought the Americans. I didn’t believe
his tales, but I let him spin them. I
used to always call out his lying, but
then thought that perhaps the stories
were important to him.
We didn’t get very far along the
tree-lined road when we encountered
an army truck. It stopped, and the
driver asked where we were going.
We didn’t answer, and he guessed
we were headed to the power plant.
He got out, threw our bikes into the
back, and sat us next to him.
18
The driver talked to himself. We
realized he was scared. Still, the most
important thing was that we were on
the front seat of an army truck. That
was the greatest thing in the world.
For once, Misha would get to tell sto-
ries that were true.
—————
Saturday, April 26th was the most
wonderful day of my life. I married
the man of my dreams. Vasili was an
engineer and worked at the Cher-
nobyl nuclear power plant. We had
only met a few months before, after
my family moved to Pripyat. The
wedding was rushed because I was
pregnant. We wanted to be married
by the time our friends and families
found there was a baby on the way.
It may sound prosaic to get mar-
ried for a baby, but in reality there
was nothing prosaic about it. Because
of men like Vasili we would all be liv-
ing in a paradise. He was so handsome
that all my friends were jealous of
me. He practiced judo and shooting,
and talked about how nuclear power
would provide cheap and abundant
electricity to catalyze development.
My mother fainted at the wedding.
On our wedding night, we did not
sleep. We were too deeply in love.
On Sunday morning, they came to
get Vasili even though he was sup-
posed to have the day off. There had
been an accident at the plant the
previous day. I remembered hearing
something about it at the wedding
but nobody thought it was serious.
There was a little smoke and a cou-
ple of guests had to cancel due to
overtime.
Vasili had to go help in the after-
math of the accident. We were for-
bidden to leave Pripyat. Two days
later, they loaded us all onto buses
and drove us to Kyiv.
—————
When he left that morning, Vasili
smiled and waved. I didn’t realize it
back then, but the man who came
to pick him up was tired and afraid.
He knew that the lives of Vasili,
Pripyat, and maybe even me were
already over.
On the night between Friday and
Saturday, they ran a test of the cooling
systems. The reactor went offline, and
coolant ceased flowing. The standing
water vaporized so fast it exploded,
which flung the roof of Reactor No.
4 high into the air. The debris from
this first explosion spread around the
area that was later to be known as the
Red Forest.
According to one theory, if an
uncontrolled chain reaction took
place in the reactor, it would spread
everywhere and finally the whole
world would explode in endless
nuclear fire. I flew a helicopter that
dumped sand into the smoking reac-
tor crater and I am happy that theory
was false.
I may be just a pilot, but that
doesn’t mean I could not nowadays
understand how a nuclear plant
works. Back when I sat in my heli-
copter and kept it in place in the col-
umn of hot air rising from the plant,
I didn’t yet understand anything
about them. I only knew that if you
dumped sand from a helicopter into
a burning reactor, the chain reaction
would stop.
It didn’t. We worked for days. I
flew, and the guys would pour sand
from the open side door. To pour the
sand, you had to reach out of the door
and put your face into the air rising
from the reactor. All for nothing. The
sand was useless, even detrimental.
After the operation, I retired on dis-
ability pension. Radioactivity brings
health problems so disgusting I won’t
talk about them here. I’ve had a lot of
time to study while sick. Call me per-
verse, but I want to know the thing
that’s been killing me for almost
thirty years now.
—————
“Someone has to dive under the
reactor.” That’s what the chief said.
Incredible. How can you ask any-
one to dive into a concrete trap right
under an active chain reaction? Atoms
splitting above your head. That’s
where you’ll be splashing around in
your gear.
Of course I did it. At that point,
the work had taken an apocalyp-
tic air and everyone made unbeliev-
able sacrifices. It’s hard to remember
what I was thinking. Maybe nothing.
Anything could happen in the reac-
tor, and the crisis had to be stopped.
If someone had to dive into tunnels
flooded with radioactive water, why
not. I’ll do it.
This is how my father told the story.
He joked right until the end, though
it was clear he wouldn’t live long. I
was ten, and my mother managed to
arrange a meeting for us, even though
it was forbidden. Soon, my father was
taken to Moscow. He died there.
I ended up in the field of nuclear
power myself. I graduated as an
19
 engineer and worked at the same
plant as my father. Ukraine needs
power, so it kept going for fifteen
more years after the disaster. I’ve had
to give up the atom since then, and
my current post is at a coal plant
whose power is used to slowly run
down the reactors.
The atom’s in our blood. Dad had
time to tell how mechanical robots
broke down in the radiation after
the accident, and that’s why they
deployed “biological robots” – humans.
Father was so radioactive when he
died that they buried him in a lead
coffin that was soldered shut. I still
think about him, now and then, and I
feel that as long as his body still radi-
ates, he is somehow with me.
—————
My grandma Natalia went crazy
when Chernobyl blew up. She was
scared of radiation even thought we
lived in Kyiv. We had to keep the win-
dows closed, even in the summer. It
was always stifling hot at grandma’s
place, but to her the heat was nothing
compared to the invisible threat that
could make anybody sick with cancer.
One of my husband’s cousins, Diana,
was a junk dealer, selling all kinds of
stuff that she found. Her prices were
low and it was quality merchandise,
things you couldn’t always find in
stores. I figured her for a dealer in sto-
len goods but couldn’t bother to be
too pissed about it. Thanks to her, we
got spare parts for our car, pots and
pans for the kitchen, and a proper
flute for our daughter, one that her
music teacher complimented.
It was three years after the accident
when grandma Natalia got her hands
on a dosimeter. It was a clumsy thing
that started beeping like hell when
20
it came near something radioactive.
Grandma kept it on her living room
table and took measurements when-
ever anybody came calling.
At Easter, we talked grandma into
visiting us, though she disapproved
of our open windows. She squeezed
her dosimeter with both hands when
she crossed the threshold, and started
pointing it in every direction once
the grandchildren had said hello.
It started beeping like mad. Grandma
wasn’t put off. She was finally val-
idated when she found something
really radioactive. All her fears were
well-founded. My husband thought
there was something wrong with the
dosimeter and we all speculated what
it might be. It beeped even more furi-
ously in the kitchen.
Diana wasn’t around that Easter,
which was good. Later, we found out
the location of her inexhaustible trea-
sure trove. In the weeks after the acci-
dent, she’d been to the Zone of Alien-
ation and cleared out apartments,
factories and other buildings. With
some items it was perfectly safe, but
our pots were made of metal, some-
thing known to accumulate radioac-
tive particles.
—————
I guess you could blame all of this on
a man and a dog.
My marriage got destroyed by
war. I guess I could be bitter that
a perfectly okay man became sickly
and sullen because of Afghanistan.
Petro came back a drug addict, and
though we got rid of morphine, the
liquor stayed.
We both worked at the sanitation
plant. People defecate even in the
city of the future. We had a small
house and nice neighbors. I spent a
lot of time with them so’s not to look
at Petro’s boozing.
When we all got moved to Kyiv
after the accident and we got a small
apartment with Petro, I figured things
were bad. It was cramped and he
sometimes got violent. Our dog had
been left in the Zone.
After being cooped up for a cou-
ple of months, I decided to go get the
dog, even though it was forbidden to
go to the Zone. It wasn’t particularly
hard to get to our house. We lived
close to nature and I knew the area.
Someone had broken into one of the
neighboring houses, but our home
was like we’d left yesterday.
I made some tea. I waited for the dog.
It showed up a couple of days later.
Around the same time, the neighbor
arrived to see how his house fared.
We celebrated late into the night.
In the late 90s, my daughter found
me. She’d moved away before the
accident and now owned a shop sell-
ing women’s shoes. She was a capital-
ist. She tried to talk me into leaving
many times over the next few years,
because she was afraid the radiation
would kill me.
Since then my husband’s died,
even the dog has died, but me and
the neighbor are still going strong. It’s
nice to live at home and my daugh-
ter sends me packages when she has
the time.
21
Romantic Leads
Chernobyl Mon Amour is a roleplay-
ing game with a strong focus on
social play. Each player has a charac-
ter, a role they have created together
with the Game Master and the other
players. The character is the player’s
point of view into the game and the
choices made during character cre-
ation have a huge impact on the play
experience.
The players interact with the
game’s scenes through their charac-
ters. The game should not have more
than four players, because the inti-
macy of the atmosphere suffers from
too many people.
The Game Master is responsible for
everything apart from the player char-
acters: pacing, non-player characters,
the world, and other basic roleplaying
game stuff. In many games, the Game
Master has a lot of game mechanics,
dice and other things to help them,
but in Chernobyl Mon Amour the
social focus of the game makes such
things counterproductive.
The tight framing of the game
gives the Game Master all the nec-
essary tools for when they need to
find out what happens. The story is
always about the tension of love and
radioactivity.
One Player
If there is only one player, the game
becomes a carefully tailored fictitious
romance between the Game Master
and the player. You could play the
game like this on a date.
Normally in a roleplaying game,
the presence of other players sup-
plies a social alibi to do things that
would be too intimate between two
people. If a love scene has a couple of
additional players present even just
as spectators who don’t participate in
the in-game action, it has more room
to breathe.
If the game is missing this alibi, its
nature changes. The further the player
and Game Master go in sex scenes or
confessions of love, the more socially
exposed they become to each other.
Unless this is the express goal, you
should avoid two-player Chernobyl
Mon Amour.
Atom Fact: A Radioactivity-
Eating Fungus
When humans and their machines
finally dared to enter the reactor
building destroyed in the accident,
they found something unexpected.
Much of the radioactive fuel had
melted into a huge glob, now cov-
ered with fungal growth. The fungus
was able to use radiation as a source
of energy. Later research revealed
that it also grew faster when exposed
to radiation.
23
 Character Generation
The player characters are criminals
who have done something unforgiv-
able. It could be anything. The char-
acter may have shot the kid next
door while drunk. They could have
performed medical experiments on
patients without their consent. They
can be a murderer, a thief, a pyroma-
niac, a traitor and a cheat.
The character is someone who can’t
afford to judge anyone. Their own
crimes weigh too heavy. They cannot
live in normal society, and because of
that they can’t spit on other crimi-
nals. They’re a criminal too.
The characters are scoundrels and
assholes with terrible deeds in their
past, but in the frame of the game,
they are capable of being human to
one another. The group of player char-
acters may have its own internal ten-
sions, but its basic tone is positive.
Every character is guilty. Nobody
has done time because of false wit-
ness or because the cops caught the
wrong guy. Everyone has to flee to
the Zone from a past and deeds that
are real.
The crime may be central to the
character’s identity or just one back-
ground element among others. They
may regret it or not. The key is that
the crime offers a motive for the will
to start a new life.
From a structural point of view,
the crime’s function is to separate
the character from society. The crime
must be bad enough that the char-
acter understands there is no going
back, no chance for a normal life.
This is the central balancing act
in character generation: the crime
must be serious, but still something
that the players can accept. Different
24
player groups have different lim-
its. This is not about what the play-
ers consider morally wrong, but what
kind of crimes make a character too
unsympathetic for the game to work.
Sex crimes are commonly in this
category. Murder, robbery and white-
collar crime works, but a sadistic
serial killer may be too much. Cor-
ruption is good, but killing children,
even by accident, may be over the
line. Or the other way around. The
group should talk these things over,
and consider the character’s current
relationship with their crime. It is
especially relevant to remember that
this is not a rational moral discussion,
but an exploration of the feelings and
emotions that will guide the game
experience.
Remember too that the crime is a
part of the character’s charm. Crim-
inals, bad guys, nutjobs, and violent
people are sexy, at least in fiction.
Chernobyl Mon Amour is an oppor-
tunity to play stuff that in real life
would be dumb or miserable, but can
be fun and exciting in a game. Here,
too, it pays to check that all play-
ers are on the same page about the
game’s style. If one of the characters
is a morally upright model citizen and
the rest are not, the experience may
be hard for the good guy’s player.
The Zone
As a player, you should make a char-
acter who wants to be in the Zone.
In the beginning, culture shock and
bewilderment over the new living
conditions are okay, but the game
fails if the character’s central motiva-
tion is to get out. It’s critical that the
characters can imagine spending the
rest of their lives in the Zone.
Life After Prison
For this game to work, you must
believe that a person can atone for
their crimes and return to society. For
the characters in the game, returning
to their previous lives is impossible
because a corrupt prison system mis-
treats its wards or powers like venge-
ful oligarchs and a bloodthirsty media
vow vengeance.
In other words, returning to soci-
ety is hard for a specific reason, not
because it’s somehow self-evidently
impossible.
This game has an optimistic view
of humanity: In the Zone, the char-
acters can make something good of
their lives together. The player can
decide how much remorse means
to the character, but in the lives of
the characters the Zone is a second
chance.
Two central elements of the game
are character motivation and relation-
ship with nature. If the character’s
motivation is to find a place in the
community and experience love, the
game works. If, on the other hand, the
character wants to learn a trade and
move to America, the game will not
work. In this regard, characters whose
ambitions are down-to-earth work
better. Personal ambitions rather than
a great life’s work.
The character should, in other
words, be someone motivated by
desires for relationships, sex, or com-
munity rather than career or society.
The character could be overjoyed
that in the Zone he is finally free of
his conservative family and mother
and can get his gay on without wor-
rying if he can ever take his boyfriend
to meet the parents. In the Zone, such
troubles are in the past, and everyone
accepts that there’s no going back to
their earlier lives.
It’s also good if the characters have
positive motivations related to the
Zone itself. A relationship to nature
is helpful: if the character likes liv-
ing in the woods and roughing it in
the bush, it’s easier to get used to the
materially poorer circumstances of
life in the Zone than if they’re urban-
ites who get anxious if there’s over a
block to the nearest nightclub.
The character can be attracted
to many things in the Zone. Maybe
they’re from the countryside and
want to return to their childhood
scenery. Perhaps vacations at the
summer cabin were the best days of
their life. Maybe they think the ruins
are hauntingly beautiful. Maybe they
find radiation sexy.
The character’s relationship with
the Zone can be conflicted. Maybe
the character yearns for things from
their former life. Negative elements
like these can also work in the ser-
vice of interesting game content
about the Zone. If the character wants
back to the club scene in Kyiv, they
can found their own nightclub in the
Zone, where the locals can dance until
dawn. Bringing music into the Zone
can form its own side plot, where the
club owner gets a crush on a mysteri-
ous smuggler.
25
 Appearance
The characters of Chernobyl Mon
Amour are criminals, and many have
been to prison. They aren’t all young
and run the gamut looks-wise.
Every character should be some-
one that somebody can fall in love
with. Even if the romances happen
between player characters and sup-
porting characters, the game works
best if there’s at least some kind of fris-
son between the player characters.
Body, appearance, and style all play
important roles in love stories and
falling in love. Because of this, it pays
to consider how the character’s life
has marked them and which features
could be appealing to someone.
The character can be a young,
unreal blossom that the Zoners find
difficult to relate to. She can be a
forty-year-old, grim woman with an
arresting confidence and intensity. He
can be a man battered and bruised in
prison with a fascinating air of gentle
danger. They can be a charismatic ass-
hole with a face you’d like to punch
but who’s never boring.
When thinking about appearance,
you should remember that style is at
least as important, if not moreso, as
physical qualities.
If you have trouble coming up
with your character’s charming, fas-
cinating, exciting, or beautiful fea-
tures, feel free to collaborate with
other players. Go over each character
as a group and brainstorm what peo-
ple could find attractive in them. If
the character’s player likes the ideas
other players come up with, they
become part of the character.
26
Group Dynamics
You should create the player charac-
ters together as a group so that they
have connections to one another,
a clear motivation for being in the
Zone, and romantic tensions with
one another. You should also con-
sider how the group survives in the
radioactive wilderness. It’s not a bad
idea for all of them to have some use-
ful skills.
Ideally, each character has at least
one target of romantic attraction, one
strong friendship, and at least one
thing that only they can do.
For example, the characters can
break down like this:
Vadym had a good life as a wil-
derness guide, taking rich clients on
hunting trips. Life was good, until a
drunken argument at a hunting lodge
ended with him shooting the chief of
police. He tried to hide his crime by
chopping up the body, leading to the
media branding him as “Vadym the
Hatchetman”.
Nadiya was a doctor doing impor-
tant research on experimental brain
tumor operations. It was difficult
to find patients for her tests, and
she dreamt of making a discovery
that would allow her to start a new
life in the United States. Thus, she
began operating without informing
the patients that the treatment was
experimental. Sixteen patients died
before she was caught.
Pavlo was a cop who was on the
take, beat up suspects, murdered pris-
oners, and lived a comfortable mid-
dle-class life. Internal Affairs decided
to make an example of him, choos-
i9ng him randomly out of a horde of
potential candidates.
 Irina was a soldier selling military
equipment to Chechenya. She had
accomplices; all were convicted of
high treason.
Vadym and Nadiya are siblings.
Pavlo and Irina are accomplices: Pavlo
was a part of Irina’s smuggling oper-
ation. Both pairs are one another’s
best friends, with solid, loyal rela-
tionships. Vadym likes strong women
who can take care of their own busi-
ness. Irina wants a reliable, down-to-
earth man. Vadym and Irina have a
good chance of finding one another.
Nadiya likes assholes and men who
are prepared to break the rules. Pavlo
wants someone whom he can protect
and who’s smarter than he is. The
chances between him and Nadiya are
also good.
Specializations break down so that
Vadym is the wilderness expert of
the group, Nadiya is the doctor, Pavlo
handles violence, and Irina is the
dealer and expert in military matters.
Everyone can feel useful.
In this example, friendships and
romantic relationships are positioned
so that every character has one sin-
gle clear romantic option. This works
best for short games where you want
to get quickly into the romance.
In a longer campaign with many
play sessions, you could also play out
the phase where people figure out
who they want to be with. In this
case, you could have more romantic
options, as long as nobody is left alone.
The friend can be the most unlikely
romantic option for each character.
In the example, the guys should be
friends with one another, the women
likewise, if you assume everybody is
straight. You can mix things up by
changing the gender makeup and
making characters gay or bisexual.
Transliteration
This game contains names in both
Russian and Ukrainian. In both cases,
the names have been transliterated in
English. Often, the same name exists
in both languages but the translitera-
tion differs. If the name is Russian, it’s
written Vadim. If Ukrainian, Vadym. If
Russian, Katya. If Ukraininan, Katiya.
Player Dynamics
A basic rule of all roleplaying games is
that you don’t confuse the player and
the character. If the character Natalia
appears to be a coward, that doesn’t
mean her player Maija is one. The
characters and players each live their
own, separate lives. Despite this rule,
in a game about romance you should
think about who’s playing and what
they might be interested in. Personal
taste is important in romantic top-
ics and a game played with a small
group can be tailored according to
those tastes.
The players’ relationships with one
another outside the game are also
important. They must be cool with
playing a game with romance and sex
with this group, even if there may
not be actual sex scenes.
Content-wise, you should pay
attention to the gender makeup: how
many are men, women, non-binary?
How many straight, gay, or other?
This is the most basic level where
the group makeup affects the atmo-
sphere. If the players are very differ-
ent from one another, it creates ten-
sion and emotional bleed, which
makes the game more interesting.
27
 Alibi is the excuse provided by the
game to do fun stuff that would be
problematic without it. Paavo can
play out a romance in the game with-
out cheating on his real-life boyfriend,
because it is just a game. Because of
this, you should try to balance the
group dynamics so that there are
interesting tensions while still main-
taining the alibi.
Dynamics between characters and
players are improved if the players
create characters that speak to them
on a personal level. The game can be
used to explore relationships that
are fascinating as ideas but would be
terrible in real life. Maybe Paavo is
attracted to men who are unpredict-
able, dramatic goofballs. Dating one
would be trying in real life but can
be fun in the game.
To work, Chernobyl Mon Amour
needs the players to trust and be
relaxed with one another. Interest-
ing and emotional content does not
need to be left to chance: The Game
Master can plan for it ahead of time,
together with the players.
Planning Night
If the game is meant to go on for
several sessions, you should first get
together with the players to plan. For
a one-shot, you can use the pregen-
erated characters in this book or the
Game Master can tailor a new set of
characters for their own game.
The game’s atmosphere should be
considered from the beginning. The
play space should be intimate and pri-
vate: playing in a crowded clubroom
or home with small children running
around is not possible. The themes of
both love and radiation should be vis-
ible in the play space.
28
You should prepare the play space
as if you would for a date. Mood light-
ing. Candles. Sinatra and Kraftwerk.
Roses on the table. A bottle of wine,
maybe two. Either everyone eats
beforehand or someone cooks some-
thing fancier. Even snacks should
play into the mood. If there’s a half-
empty bag of chips on the table, it’s
that much harder to get into the
romantic feeling.
Off-game conversations like how
people are doing and how everyone’s
job sucks should be taken care of
briefly before starting the game. The
Game Master can make the transition
into the game clearer by changing
the lighting or putting on music.
Coming up with characters on
the fly leads to obvious and repeti-
tive ideas. Because of this, the play-
ers should prepare character ideas in
advance of the planning night based
on what the Game Master has told
them about the game. However,
remember that you should not lock
down your character because it’s pos-
sible that they’re incompatible with
the other players’ characters. You
should also consider what you want
from the game and what kind of
issues and situations interest you.
When communicating about the
game to the players, the Game Master
should be very clear about what the
game is about, what the themes are,
and what kind of characters might
work in it.
For example, the Game Master has
sketched out a game where one of
the major themes is organized crime.
The idea is that professional criminals
who have vanished from the normal
world are building their own commu-
nity in the Zone. The outsiders have
Picking Your Players
Chernobyl Mon Amour is not a game for everyone. Everyone who participates
should be comfortable playing a game about intimate feelings in a way that
supports bleed, experiencing the emotions of your character for real. If a player
is not interested in doing this, they won’t get much out of the game.
Safety is also a consideration in terms of player selection. This works two
ways:
Each player should know what they’re getting into and consider whether
this is really the game they want to play. Sometimes playing a scene where
your boyfriend says he no longer loves you is harder than anything you’d find
in a horror game.
Use common sense to leave out players who would make it hard for others
to play this game.
As a rule of thumb, based on their ages and backgrounds every player should
be theoretically able to date one another in real life without it being question-
able. If all the other players are in their forties, it doesn’t work if one is fifteen.
This probably goes without saying, but because the game contains sex and
romance, it’s not something you play with your close family members.

The X-Card
The X-card is a tool used in many roleplaying games and communities to help
participants take care of themselves during the game. It can be any kind of a
token but the obvious choice is a card with a big X on it. You place it on the
table or otherwise within easy reach of everyone.
When something happens in the game that breaks your experience you
take the card and hold it up. Or perhaps just touch it. When other partici-
pants see you do this, the game stops and you calibrate together to find a way
to move forward that works for everyone.
If you see another participant use the X-card, treat the situation with
respect.
If the X-card is in play, you need to make sure everyone understands how
it works before the game starts. You must also stress that using the card is
always okay.
You can also use the X-card as a check-in tool if you suspect the game might
be getting out of hand. Any participant can point to it in a questioning man-
ner, thus creating the opening for others to pick it up if necessary. Or not pick
it up if they’re okay.
Remember that the X-card is just a tool. It doesn’t replace going through
the types of content that will happen in the game with the participants in
advance, nor does it obviate the need for a culture of care for your fellow
participant.

29
 become the ones writing the rules
for the whole society. It is up to the
characters to either accept this sys-
tem or try to build an alternative.
For the setup to work on a per-
sonal level, it’s good if all the charac-
ters have previous contacts with pro-
fessional criminals. Whatever drove
them to the Zone may tie in with this
theme. The players can come up with
different character ideas: one might
be a remorseful hitman, another a pol-
itician convicted of corruption and
now on the run from death threats.
They can have old friends in the
Zone, and maybe also enemies. Per-
haps one of the characters has an ex
who pops up and causes awkward
situations.
The planning night proper should
begin with the Game Master going
over the game’s themes, style, and
topics. Some of them are from this
book, some are their own work. This
should be old news to the players,
because the Game Master has already
presented it to them in advance of
the planning night. However, now
the players can go over yhe plan
together and make sure everybody is
on the same page.
Once the game’s themes, culture,
and style have been sufficiently dis-
cussed, it’s time to build some esprit
de corps. There are exercises for this,
and you should do at least a few of
them. Even though the Game Mas-
ter leads the exercises, they must also
participate just as the players do.
Fears and expectations. In this
exercise, you make two rounds. In
the first round, each participant
talks about a fear they have about
the game. In the second, they talk
about an expectation. The point of
30
this exercise is to lower the pressure
and stress of the game, because these
fears are often very similar. Once the
participants have heard each other’s
worries, it’s easier for them to relax.
The expectation round opens up
what people want from the game.
This makes it easier to play together
and ends the excercise on a positive
note.
Awkward date. Everyone tells an
anecdote or a story from their love
life. This should be humorous: it can
be embarrassing, funny, or just weird.
It can be about a strange ex or your
own embarrassing fumbling. The rel-
evant thing is that the players talk
about romance and their own expe-
riences with it.
Bad crush. Sometimes we get
infatuated with people we are com-
patible with. This is great. However,
most of us also have a type we feel
attracted to that would be catastrio-
phic if we actually ended up in a rela-
tionship with them. The participants
each tell about their bad type. Maybe
a gay player gets crushes on straight
people, a leftie on right-wingers, or
anyone on total nutjobs. This exer-
cise is about finding things that are
difficult to enact in real life but fun
to experience in a game.
The fear and beauty of the
atom. This exercise has two rounds.
In the first round, everyone talks
about something they fear about
nuclear power or radioactivity. Per-
sonal memories related to the topic
are the best, but anecdotes, stories,
and just how you feel are also appro-
priate. On the second round, you
describe something beautiful about
nuclear power. If the tone of the sec-
ond round gets weird, it has served
its purpose. If I myself would do this,
I’d tell how as a kid I saw news about
a nuclear accident in Russia while my
parents were there on a trip. I might
continue on to Svetlana Alexievich’s
book Voices from Chernobyl, where
one of the stories tells of a man dying
of radiation poisoning. It’s narrated
by his wife, who explains in graphic
detail how their sex life didn’t end
even on his death bed.
Once you have done enough exer-
cises, it’s time to go over the char-
acter concepts. They are still prelimi-
nary at this point and the players may
have had different approaches to the
process. If the Game Master feels it
to be necessary, they can talk about
the character concepts with the play-
ers even before the planning night to
make sure that each player has what
they need. The player must consider
their character carefully. It cannot be
half-assed or improvised at the last
minute.
Here are a couple of examples of what
a player character might look like:
• The character is a depressed cos-
mopolite who has led a complicated
life and ended up in jail after a mess
of bribery, graft, narcotics and assas-
sination. She desires a simple life and
wishes to leave the chaos behind,
but has a tendency to complicate her
own affairs.
• The character is a different gen-
der or orientation from the player.
The player wants to explore the lim-
its of his identity and experiment
with things that haven’t been part
of his life. If the player is a straight
guy, maybe he wants to explore gay
romance.
• The character is a terrible flirt
and hits on everything that moves,
but is not into longer relationships.
You will find out during play if they
want to change or if they find play-
mates with similar likes. The player
wants the liberty to be irresponsible
in relationships, because it’s fun but
creates problems in real life.
• The character is a looker, char-
ismatic, and wonderful. They get
around. There is no mystery to why
playing a character like this is fun,
no matter what other characteris-
tics they have. Being desirable can be
enjoyable in a roleplaying game.
If the character concept ties into the
reasons the player has for participating
in the game, you are on the right track.
When going over the concepts,
the essence of the group of charac-
ters begins to form. The Game Master
must make a quick evaluation of two
important things:
Do the characters form a coherent,
functional whole that serves the con-
cept of the game?
Are the characters compatible?
It’s possible that the answer to
either question is no. This is a prob-
lem, and must be solved immediately.
A question of group dynamics can be
resolved by asking a couple of players
to tune their concepts a bit, but it’s
also possible that everything has to
be started anew. This is not necessar-
ily a bad thing, because many players’
second idea is better than their first.
It’s still a lot of work and demands
you pay attention so that nobody
brings a half-baked, lazy, or dull char-
acter to the game.
The characters might, for instance,
be too immoral. If the game looks
like a club for cold-hearted killers
motivated by winning instead of
romance, you’re on the wrong track.
31
 The characters might also have tonal
issues that are only visible when you
throw them together. Maybe one of
them simply does not belong. This
leads to the second question: do all
the characters look like they can
have a positive relationship with one
another?
They don’t need to be BFFs and
conflict is allowed. However, it’s
imperative that the characters can
reasonably spend time together. Ide-
ally, any two characters should be
able to go out for a beer and bitching
session after a failed date.
It’s also possible that characters don’t
work together because of social, soci-
etal, linguistic, or other reasons. Maybe
everyone else made career people in
their fifties and one brought an 18-year-
old. Romance will not work if the other
characters start acting all parental.
Or maybe it will. Who knows? A
fictional space is great for playing
romance that would be questionable
in real life.
At this point, it’s also a good idea to
reflect on how players react to each
other’s crimes and other character-
determining features. The incestu-
ous dynamic suggested above can be
darkly hilarious in one group but dis-
gusting moral turpitude for another.
It’s important to respect other play-
ers’ feelings and remember that they
cannot always be rationally justi-
fied. It is imperative that everyone
can play together in a relaxed atmo-
sphere, in good faith.
With the crimes of the characters,
it also matters how the Game Master
handles them. If they are presented
in a superficial or carnivalized fash-
ion, they can be much more serious
while still being palatable than if you
zoom in on the crying faces of the
32
victims. The Game Master must stick
to the style they have chosen: if the
style is caricatured and the charac-
ters are terrorists and child-killers, it’s
unreasonable to suddenly bring in a
suffering victim whose life a charac-
ter destroyed into the game.
Once the players have heard each
other’s concepts and started discuss-
ing them, the details will settle into
place. Characters with similar back-
grounds know one another. Traitors
have been convicted as one another’s
accomplices. This way, characters can
be tied together naturally as the play-
ers’ ideas begin to intermingle.
The Game Master must partici-
pate in brainstorming the character
concepts and note the players’ com-
ments, wishes, impressions and other
thoughts that help in tailoring the
game to these specific people. This
is one of the wonders of roleplay-
ing games: you are not writing for
an audience of millions or even the
spectators at a theatre, but for four or
fewer people. Mutual trust, knowing
each other and the fact that the game
will not be visible to outsiders grants
a creative freedom that is entirely
impossible in most other art forms.
As the Game Master participates
in the conversation, they should pay
attention to player dynamics. Is one
of the players dominant? Is someone
left out? Issues in player dynamics can
rarely be resolved with a single trick,
but they can be mitigated if caught in
time. It’s also important to say aloud
that if the game doesn’t work for you,
you can and should leave. Playing out
of a sense of social obligation is not
fun and not good gaming.
Once you’ve chewed on the charac-
ters enough, it’s time to start compil-
ing your ideas and making decisions.
Ukraine
Most of the Zone is located in Ukraine, and the rest is in Belarus. Ukrainian
characters are a natural fit, because the distance to the Zone is the shortest.
It depends on the players and the Game Master how “Ukrainian” they want
their game to be. The game’s themes and topics do not require deeper analy-
sis of Ukrainian culture and recent history as such, but local color can make
the game more interesting.
The political situation in Ukraine is volatile and changes quickly, and tying
the characters’ backgrounds to it can make the game feel more meaningful.
Civil war, changes in leadership, and riots all create situations where a charac-
ter can get in trouble.
On the other hand, it’s imperative that once the character arrives in the
Zone, their focus is on the Zone. The game cannot work if real-life events form
an inseparably large part of the character’s concept. Chernobyl Mon Amour is
not a game where the character’s personal history dominates the events. The
background is meant to get them into the Zone, where they can start the next
chapter of their life.
Of course, it can be fun if the characters’ former enemies show up in the
Zone with the same intentions. They are also looking for a new life, but it can
be hard to rebuild while staring your old acquaintances in the face.
You should have enough Ukraine in the game to get the character names
and ethnic backgrounds right. Because the entire game happens in the Zone,
you don’t need to learn a lot of history, but you should probably at least read
through the Wikipedia articles for Ukraine and the Soviet Union.

Some ideas must be cut as inappro- written presentation of the character.

priate and others cemented into the
foundation of the game.
Once you’ve talked enough, there’s
one more exercise:
What’s the dumbest thing that
could happen? The Game Master
asks the question and the players
answer in turn. The idea is to air out
fears, make the players relax, and cre-
ate entertaining conversation to end
the planning night on a high note. If
the players start competing to figure
out ways the game can go south, this
exercise has been a success.
Before the First Game
The players still have some work
before the first game. They need to
compile the material created in the
planning night and distill it into a
It can be a series of bullet points or
a freeform text, whatever the player
feels like. The Game Master can
coordinate this so that the players’
details match. One page of material is
enough, five pages is too much.
Finally, the player comes up with a
name and looks for a picture on the
Internet. There are websites with lists
of names from different countries and
cultures to help in naming the char-
acter. With pictures, there are two
methods: you can look for one single
representative picture to show how
the character looks like, or if you
want to emphasize style, pick five
to ten different images that together
convey an impression of who the
character is.
33
Example Characters
Anna
You read somewhere that people
develop a functional moral compass
only when they’re around 25. You
don’t know how true that is, but it
seems to jive for you. When young,
you did a whole lot of stuff you’ve
come to regret.
You thought you should always get
what you wanted. You middle-class
parents couldn’t always give what
you wished, so you had to take things
into your own hands. Some of your
friends started dating violent nutjobs
because that way they got in on all
kinds of cool things. You didn’t have
the patience for that. By the time you
hit 18, you’d done breaking and enter-
ing, dealt drugs, and blackmailed your
teachers for money.
You started dating the love of your
life, Oksana. You got into a lot of shit
together and for a while, it felt like
you’d never get caught. Then you
accidentally killed a child, the son
of an oligarch. The cops started look-
ing lively after that. In the interroga-
tion chamber, you took sole blame to
keep Oksana out of jail. You thought
you sacrificed yourself for love.
You did time from 19 to 27, and
changed your mind about a lot of
things. When you got out, you knew
it would’ve been hard enough to get
rehabilitated even without the guilt
and the hitmen after you.
Love
You used to be a cynic who took
what she wanted, but falling in love
changed how you approached the
world. You were a hopeless romantic
when it came to love and dating. In
prison, you started thinking you were
actually kind of a terrible person, and
if you stayed in the box or the streets
of Kyiv, you’d never get a second
chance. The change also applied to
how you thought about love. You no
longer want to sacrifice yourself for
anyone, but take it day by day, happy
to be alive. You want to find someone
you don’t need to coddle.
Awkwardly enough, Oksana also
lives in the Zone.
Crime
The son of the oligarch was six when
you killed him. Your face was on TV
and politicians swore you’d spend the
rest of your life in jail. You got out after
eight years, although you don’t know
why your sentence was cut short.
Skills
You can talk your way out of diffi-
cult situations, sing and play guitar,
handle drugs, stab people, pick a lock,
and rationalize your actions so well
that you almost believe your stories
yourself. But then, in the small hours
of the night, doubt settles in.
35
Sasha
For a small-time crook, you destroyed
your life in remarkably grand style.
The crime that got you jailed in the
end had nothing to do with the doz-
ens and hundreds of cons that kept
your life moving along.
You used to be well networked in
the Kyiv criminal underworld. You
were a courier and coke dealer for
celebrities. When it was three in the
morning and the party started wan-
ing, you were the one they called to
give it a chemical boost. You weren’t
particularly loyal or dependable but
people tended to overlook your
sketchiness, much to the confusion
of your friends.
You lived like this until it got bor-
ing. You had a romantic idea of a coun-
try house and thought you might find
someone nice to fall in love with.
Love
Your love life is an epic muddle. You
said yes to everyone, leaked secrets
all over the place, and ended up in
the weirdest situations while trip-
ping on acid. You’re a nice, comfort-
able presence when you’re all there,
but your impulse control is poor.
You fantasize about a steadier rela-
tionship and have resolved to make it
happen. Despite this, you’re still very
gifted at waking up next to weird
people.
Crime
You were delivering heroin to a met-
ropolitan bishop. They were rush-
ing you because he couldn’t give
his speech without fortification. You
fucked up the dosage; the bishop
OD’d and died.
In jail, you heard they’d kill you in
prison. You bribed a couple of guards
and decided it was time to vanish.
Skills
You can plan a crime, sleep anywhere,
take care of yourself, party hard, wax
poetic about narcotics, adapt, get
yourself scarce, and seem harmless.
37
Juliya
You were successful. Until lately, this
was self-evident. You graduated as a
physician and did interesting consul-
tancy jobs for the army while work-
ing your private practice. You got
called abroad as an expert, espe-
cially to international courts when
your employer needed someone to
discredit the claims of human rights
activists. You rationalized this to your-
self as “service to the truth”.
You worked as much as humanly
possible. You took amphetamine. You
led a research team in a project about
soldiers’ endurance on the battle-
field. You were profligate with your
money. You didn’t have the energy
to think how things should get done.
You sold military secrets to Russia to
cover your debts. Sleep deprivation
and stress impaired your judgment. A
couple of soldiers even died in ethi-
cally suspect experiments that you’d
approved.
Love
Your love life has always been a sham-
bles. You’ve had a series of confus-
ing and unfortunate affairs with col-
leagues, but you never prioritized
them and your tendency to make
dumb decisions while hopped up
didn’t help. You’ve thought that you
should maybe do something about
this, once your life stabilizes a bit.
Maybe fall in love, or learn to really
know someone. That would be new.
Until now, your relationships have
been so awful that even little things
can make you very happy.
Crime
“High treason” is such an ugly phrase.
You figured that after your conviction
your days would be numbered, consid-
ering how many army and intelligence
officers hated your guts. Once the
treason got out, your affairs got scru-
tinized more carefully and suddenly
all kinds of embezzlement and profes-
sional misconduct came to light.
In the middle of your interroga-
tions you got away in the most dar-
ing manner possible: walking out
with your head held high, ignored by
soldiers and police who didn’t realize
you were a prisoner. Now that you’ve
calmed down a bit and got off amphet-
amine, your earlier life has begun to
feel like a surrealist nightmare.
Skills
You’re a physician. It’s been a while
since you’ve stitched someone up or
set a broken bone, but it feels good to
do simple things to help people. Way
back when you decided to get into
medicine, one of your motivations
was to be helpful. And if it wasn’t
then, it is now.
39
Dima
You think of yourself as a simple,
down-to-earth guy. You did a ten-
year stint in the military, five years as
a pilot. It’s kinda cool, but you don’t
want to make a big thing out of it.
You like nature and dogs, and get
crushes on people who are smarter
than you are.
After you stopped flying, you
started suffering from psychologi-
cal issues stemming from the bomb-
ing campaigns you participated in. Of
course you understood that in a civil
war, you need to bomb traitors, but
some of the traitors were also your
mother’s family. You saw on Twitter
how they posted photos of craters
you’d caused. It was hard to rational-
ize, so you solved the problem with
liquor.
Your CO’s weren’t too understand-
ing of your alcoholism and you got
reassigned. You were bounced around
and considered a loser who couldn’t
handle the reality of war. Your loy-
alty to the army took a blow and you
decided to make some extra cash by
dealing morphine from the infirmary
to your friends. The business took off
and soon you were selling to anyone
with money.
Love
You want a simpler life, but this
doesn’t mean you are attracted to sim-
ple people. Even a difficult person’s
problems are easier than the moral
muddle of your military career. As a
younger man, you were even married
for a while and you consider your rela-
tionship history pretty normal. You
could continue your track record of
successful relationships and perhaps
distract the ghosts of the past.
Crime
The army doesn’t look kindly upon
those who steal state’s property, sell
it, and sympathize with the enemy.
Someone else might have gotten off
on a lighter sentence, but your past
as a pilot pissed people off. There
was a lot of investment in you, and
all for this.
Fortunately, the prison transport
was driven by an old friend of yours
or you’d have ended up in the clink
instead of the Zone.
Skills
You know how to pilot a fighter
plane, which is admittedly not a very
useful skill in the Zone. You know
how to cook in the field, dress an ani-
mal, light a campfire, do carpentry,
fix simple machines, and box.
41
 The Player’s Guide
How do you play Chernobyl Mon
Amour?
Playing a roleplaying game with a
focus on social play is not hard. Still,
you should take a moment before
starting your game to think about
play style, especially if there are play-
ers who are used to a different type
of roleplaying game. Experience has
shown that Chernobyl Mon Amour is
sometimes easier for roleplaying game
novices than veterans.
An ideal game group has a mix of
experienced roleplayers and newbies.
This way, there’s both a certain basic
competence that keeps the game
moving and new points of view that
prevent it from being same old, same
old.
The player’s purpose is not to win
or to direct their character to perform
heroic deeds. The important thing is
social relationships: friends, enemies,
lovers.
Paranoia and competitiveness are
the worst enemies of this play style.
The game works best if the play-
ers advance their plans without too
much worry and the Game Master
runs the game world in a forgiving
and merciful way. If you’re slipping to
meet the mistress of a former crime
boss, her bodyguard could be drunk
or passed out in a ditch. There will be
adversity, but it’s not going to be an
uphill battle all the way.
This leads us to another enemy of
good social play: the power fantasy.
Neither the player characters nor the
44
supporting characters are perfectly
focused professionals. They are ordi-
nary people who live their own lives,
make mistakes, get weird ideas, and
let their passions take them where
they may.
Improvisation
The players can and must improvise
for both themselves and others. You
can deepen your character’s history
and invent new details. For example:
the characters run into a bear. The
player declares that when he was a
child, their character was bear-hunt-
ing with his mother. He’d felt sorry for
the bear, and had loaded his drunken
mother’s rifle with blanks when she
wasn’t looking.
You can also come up with details
about the other player characters, as
long as you keep faithful to the style
of the game. Maybe two of the char-
acters have known each other since
they were kids. Because of this, in
addition to their character, his best
friend was also on the hunting trip.
The mother blamed the friend for the
blanks and gave him a proper hiding.
The friend has a tendency to bring
this up whenever he wants the char-
acter to do something.
Done right, this kind of improvi-
sation is a gift to your fellow player:
it deepens the characters and their
common history and provides mate-
rial for more improvisation. Maybe
the friend’s player decides that their
character wished for a more fulfilling
Atom Fact: The Effects of Radiation On a Human Being
There are many kinds of radioactive radiation, depending on what kind of par-
ticle we’re talking about. Different radioactive substances have very different
half-lives. Some types of radiation affect things at long range from the particle
and are difficult to escape. Others peter out only a few centimeters from the
particle. Because of this latter sort, radiation may fluctuate wildly in a small
area. In the game, you can simplify and declare that where there are particles,
there’s radiation. Some radioactive substances like river mud radiate out to
dozens of centimeters, while radioactive metal affects things only a couple of
centimeters away.
If radiation exposure is long-term or serious, the symptoms are tempo-
rary hair loss and weakening of the immune system. This makes the exposed
person more vulnerable to infection. Blood clots slower than normal, which
makes internal hemorrhaging more dangerous and wounds slow to heal. Radi-
ation may make a person sterile or damage the nervous system.
If the exposure is bad enough, a person will die in weeks or even a day.
Long-term exposure to a milder dose of radiation ups the cancer risk sig-
nificantly, especially in younger people. Studies of the Chernobyl area indi-
cate that cancer takes typically about 20 years to manifest. Because of this, the
effects of radiation on the population have only started to become clear after
very long-term studies.
Typical cancers are breast and stomach cancer, prostrate cancer, lung can-
cer, and colon cancer. In the harsh environment of the Zone, many commit
suicide rather than suffer cancer to the bitter end.

Other Player Characters

end to the bear hunt. Now he’s an
adult, and wishes to take down the
bear he never could as a child.
Improvising a common history
with supporting characters is also
possible, within the limits set by the
game’s style. If the improvised idea
sucks, the Game Master or another
player will block it.
You can also come up with new
stuff for the game world. The Zone
has such a limited population that
riffing on that may be hard, but sim-
ple things like “There’s an abandoned,
dilapidated cabin near our home. I go
there.” works well.
The game runs best if the relation-
ships between the player characters
stay more or less positive. They can
deepen and change. Characters can
fail one another. The players should
still remember the characters’ com-
mon history and the pacifying effects
of shared morning hangovers. What
felt like an unforgivable crime at
night may be perfectly solvable in
the light of day.
Forgiveness may become its own
story, and you should keep in mind
that both good and bad things can
deepen the characters’ common
history.
Conversations between the char-
acters are a big part of the game,

45
 and effort should be put into it. If
the characters can figure out a natu-
ral reason to live together, they will
have opportunities to have nightly
conversations about philosophy or
morning talks about how yesterday’s
date went. Finding a place to stay in
the Zone is not a fait accompli, and
fixing up a rundown building with
friends is a good way for everyone to
get a roof over their heads. This also
handily places the characters close to
one another.
It’s good for the game if the player
characters have plans for the other
characters. These can be, much like
the themes of the game, romantic,
but they don’t have to be. Helpful-
ness is a good reason for this: a char-
acter wants to find a boyfriend for her
friend and arranges all kinds of dates
for her, sometimes without asking
or warning. The character thinks her
friend needs some action and tricks
her on a hunting trip. The character
fears her friend’s boyfriend is treating
her badly, and comes up with a con-
voluted plan to boost her self-esteem.
Supporting Characters
Basically, everything that works with
player characters also works with
supporting characters. With support-
ing characters, the player need not
consider quite so much how events
in the game may affect the core rela-
tionships between the player charac-
ters that sustain the game. A charac-
ter can betray their lover and make a
mortal enemy without creating struc-
tural problems.
When the player characters meet
supporting characters, the player
should ask herself: what could I want
from this guy? How do I react? What’s
46
my first impression? Player charac-
ters should be regularly charmed and
chagrined in equal measure. A sup-
porting character can be impressive,
embarrassing, sexy, scary, and the
player characters can have very dif-
ferent opinions of them. If one of the
player characters starts putting the
moves on a supporting character the
others think is scary or a dork, it will
make for a fun scene where the char-
acters discuss the supporting charac-
ter’s merits as a romantic partner.
For the player, every supporting
character is an opportunity to direct
the game in the direction she wants.
If the character is interested in the
supporting character, they can go on
a date, arrange “random” encounters,
plead a friend to act as an intermedi-
ary, stalk them a bit, or interrogate
their exes.
Motivation
Characters have different motiva-
tions, which should be carefully con-
sidered at the start of the game to
make things run smoothly. Every-
thing a character does springs from
their motivations, and if they’re cal-
ibrated correctly, there’s no need to
fear the character going out of synch
with the rest of the game.
Survival. Chernobyl Mon Amour
is not a survival game that revels in
cold, hunger, and misery. The charac-
ters can have a hard time, but not so
hard they can’t schedule a date. Sur-
vival is a more quotidian motivation:
what must the characters do right
after they’ve arrived in the Zone?
They must find food and a place to
stay, get to know people, learn how
to trade. Once the basics are taken
care of, they can get more ambitious.
Maybe one of them wants to run a
dance club or a movie theatre whose
programme must be smuggled in
from the outside.
Friends. If a character doesn’t
have enough problems, her friends
surely do. They can be player char-
acters or supporting characters, but
sticking your nose into their business
is a good way to keep things mov-
ing. Caretaking, a desire to meddle in
the affairs of others, and sense of duty
are all good motivations for helping
others.
Romance. Does the character
want easy sex or a lasting relation-
ship? Is she trying to fix her earlier
mistakes or does she revel in her
freedom to be herself? The character
doesn’t necessarily have to think she’s
looking for love as long as the player
takes it into account. The player can
also plan the character’s arc so that
upon her arrival in the Zone she’s
thinking she’s never going to date
again because her previous relation-
ship was such an unmitigated disas-
ter. She makes a lot of noise about it
until she falls for someone. Twists like
this are often fun, and the plans of the
player and the character need not be
the same. For that reason, you should
consider character motivations both
in terms of what the character wants
and what you as a player want.
Community. The characters want
to be part of a community. They must
decide how, and on whose terms.
Do they want to build something
for themselves or prove their worth
to the inhabitants of the Zone? The
community creates demands that the
characters must meet. It is better if
they really do want to participate in
life in the Zone, even if it’s difficult
in the beginning. Playing a grouchy
hermit sits ill with the themes of the
game. This motivation is tied to the
other theme of the game, radiation.
To be a true Zoner, you must learn to
love the atom, and this love cannot
stay at the level of metaphor. At some
point, they’ll be sitting by a campfire
when someone passes around a bag of
radioactive blueberries. They can eat
or decline, but their choice will be
remembered.
Structuring
In the beginning, you should agree
how long the game is going to take:
one night, five sessions, or even ten
or twenty. A roleplaying game is a
living thing and plans can change
depending on what happens, but it
is still a good idea to pace your play
according to the assumed length of
the game.
If the game only lasts one night,
you need to get into the core themes
right out of the gate. The first pick-up
line can be deployed at around the
half-hour mark. There’s no time to
meet a whole lot of supporting char-
acters, and emphasis is on the play
between the player characters.
In a five-session game, you have
time to wander in the beginning.
You have time to see the world and
talk with supporting characters. Rela-
tionships can be more complicated:
maybe a character has time to get it
on with one person but then end up
with another.
The play style will change as the arc
of the game advances. At the begin-
ning, you can play a freer game, but
starting around the third session you
should start pulling the themes of
47
 the game together and avoid starting
anything new.
As a general rule, the longer the
game, the more liberty you have. One
of the game’s ideals is that it should
play out with roughly the same atti-
tude as real life. As a player, you make
choices according to what the char-
acter would do.
In practice, this ideal does not actu-
alize completely since as a player you
must also take your co-players and the
structure of the game into account,
but the longer the game lasts, the
more room you have for side treks,
improvisation, and surprising conver-
sations that take hours. Because of
this, you might say the game is at its
best when it lasts for ten sessions or
more. The experience of life cannot
be squeezed into a single night, and
needs room to meander. In a longer
game the Game Master also has more
options to react to what the players
come up with. Plans have time to
come together.
Despite the liberties of a long
game, it also brings its own structural
responsibilities. These are mostly
on the Game Master, but especially
towards the end of the game you
should start considering the whole.
What does this game mean, and what
do I need for it to be meaningful?
Technique
As a player, you have access to a tool-
box of techniques to make the game
run better.
Play to lose. “Play to lose” is a
guideline often heard in Nordic larp
that works equally well in Chernobyl
Mon Amour. It does not literally mean
that you should always lose. Instead,
you should think that losing can be
48
Play Culture
Every participant must take the game
seriously. You arrive on time and you
don’t skip out in the middle of the
session. If a game has been scheduled,
you don’t cancel.
Roleplaying has one simple rule:
the more you put in, the more you
get out of it. Memorable, life-chang-
ing game experiences are not possible
if the players are only half present.
During the game, you don’t talk
about things outside the game. Keep
your mobile phones and iPads away.
Everyone follows even the scenes
where their characters aren’t present.
By putting the priority on a good
play experience, you get a good play
experience.
equally or even more interesting than
succeeding. Here, you should con-
sider what you want out of the game.
If the failure of a relationship feels
depressing, don’t aim for it. However,
if having all your character’s secrets
revealed sounds like it would be fun,
you can intentionally steer the game
in that direction.
Commentary track. You can
freely narrate your character’s inner
life to the other players. It makes for a
deeper game and lets you understand
what’s going on in the heads of others
and why things are they way they are.
For example, the character has tried
to get in a night trip into the Sarcoph-
agus for many sessions. It’s clear that
if she survives the radioactive night,
she’s no longer a newbie but a Zoner.
At the last second, she decides not to
go. The player explains to the others:
it’s not about cowardice, but that she
doesn’t want to experience the Sac-
rophagus in a crowd. It has become
too important to her, and she intends
to go in alone the next night, even if
it is a lot more dangerous.
Non-obvious solutions. Some-
times you can surprise the other play-
ers by doing something that on the
face of it is illogical and unexpected.
Maybe a character has been bad-
mouthing a supporting character for
a long time until she finally tries to
pick him up at a party. The player has
figured that the character has mixed
feelings about the supporting charac-
ter that she expresses in various ways.
In a crowd she’ll talk shit about him,
but tries to hit on him when drunk.
Extreme lameness. Sometimes,
you should do things that make your
fellow players cringe. One trick is to
play your character with such embar-
rassing desperation, it’ll become hard
to watch. Take it far enough, and the
others will squirm and excuse them-
selves from the room. Sometimes
doing this is an end unto itself: who
among us has lived their life with-
out these moments? Getting dumped
presents an opportunity for this.
Instead of accepting it with poise and
dignity, the character can break apart
completely, beg, fall on their knees,
promise the moon from the sky, cry,
appeal to the good old times, and in
general abandon all concept of per-
sonal dignity.
Music, snacks, and other spe-
cial effects. The primary responsibil-
ity for background music and other
environmental effects is on the Game
Master, but as a player you can also
bring in something extra. Maybe
you want to make a date scene more
memorable, so you bring a bouquet
of roses that you put on the table
in a vase as the scene commences.
When the characters celebrate their
new home, you can bring out a bot-
tle of champagne so it really feels
like a party. A character hosts a party
whose playlist is composed solely of
Kylie Minogue’s “Can’t Get You Out
of My Head”, and you play it from
your phone.
Letters and other messages.
Whatever letters or other messages
your characters receive can be real
objects. Maybe your character has
a secret crush on another character,
and you can write an anonymous
love letter and ask the Game Master
to feed it into the game at the appro-
priate moment.
Playing with Barbie dolls. How
does your character dress? How do
they decorate? You can take your
time with these questions during
the game. You can explain your char-
acter’s style, and throw the ball to
another player. If someone’s headed
out for a date, you can ask: “What are
you wearing?” If the characters are
hosting a party, specifying the solu-
tions and choices they make can be
very interesting. Such play is fun
because it reveals small things about
the characters’ personalities.
Immersion
Even though as a player you should
take into account the big picture
and the needs of the other players,
the main goal of the game is to give
you an experience of life through
your character. You immerse your-
self in the character, experience their
life, grieve and celebrate, hate and
love, all according to what happens
to them.
You experience the game through
your character, and an interesting
49
 character offers you meaning
through which the whole game is
contextualized.
Your character is not a marionette
controlled by you. You are the char-
acter. You don’t say: “Next, my char-
acter will…”, but “Next, I will…”
Experience has shown that when
you immerse into the events of the
game through your character, it’s pos-
sible to react organically to things in
an entirely different way from how
you’d do it yourself. This is the goal.
Within the frame of the immersion,
it is of course possible to steer for
more interesting play. You can think
that your character wouldn’t dare go
into the cellar where they put the
irradiated uniforms of firemen who
died in the aftermath of the disaster.
Refusal, though, makes for a less inter-
esting game and the character being
left out of cool scenes. You should
ask: what are the circumstances that
would make my character go along
with this? When you can find such a
logic or framework, the character can
do what you want without breaking
their internal logic. Sometimes this
kind of steering happens by itself, and
sometimes you must work for it.

Axioms For Play

Coming to the Zone was one of the
best choices of your life.
You can live in the Zone. Getting
by is hard, but not impossible.
Radiation is to be embraced. Be
mindful of the risks, but exposure can
be good.
Love will not wait.

50
 The Game Master’s Guide
The Game Master’s role is vital to
Chernobyl Mon Amour. The Game Mas-
ter decides what scenes are played,
makes the call on what is possible
and what isn’t, and keeps the world
going round. The Game Master is not
a storyteller who makes every deci-
sion. Their task is to create a frame-
work where the players can experi-
ence interesting scenes in the lives of
their characters.
The main concept for the game
usually comes at the Game Master’s
initiative, but roleplaying is a collab-
orative art form. One of the great joys
of gamemastering is seeing the play-
ers’ ideas, creativity, and energy bring
the game to life. When the game sur-
prises the Game Master, it works.
Because of this, the Game Master
should not try to control the game,
but instead nudge its events along
with a softer touch.
In a game like Chernobyl Mon
Amour with its focus on social situ-
ations, there are a lot of scenes with
no pressing conflict. The substance
is in the nuances and details, the
specifics of what happens and how.
If the players are talking amongst
themselves, the Game Master may
better serve the game by stepping
back and letting things roll on their
own. At other times, the best thing
to do is to end the scene and swiftly
cut to the next one. How can you tell
which solution is correct?
Gamemastering is easy enough
to start, but it is a skill same as any
other. The best way to learn is by
52
doing. Nobody’s first game is a mas-
terpiece, but if the players are out to
have a good time, it will be fun.
The final responsibility for the
game lies with the Game Master.
Their word is the law, and it’s also
their task to make rulings on argu-
ments and unclear situations so that
the game can progress. However, this
authority should always be used spar-
ingly, with the understanding that its
purpose is to facilitate a good experi-
ence for all participants.
Scenes
The game consists of scenes. In a
scene, something interesting hap-
pens, which is the reason it is played
out. You can think up some scenes
beforehand, or come up with them
on the fly. During play, they must
react to the players’ actions, and it is
usually a good idea to leave their res-
olution open when planning.
During the game, you must always
be clear about where the characters
are and what is happening. Every
scene must have a distinct starting
point, usually the point at which
something happens. For example:
“You’re at home, sleeping. It’s dark
outside and the candle you left burn-
ing has gone out. You wake up, and
it sounds as if someone’s playing the
guitar under your window.”
An opening like this gives the
player a situation their can immedi-
ately react to. Their character can go
to the window and see what’s up.
Life, Not Story
The goal of the game is to give players
experiences from the lives their char-
acters. As things happen to the char-
acter, as the character goes through
life as depicted in the game’s events,
so does the player who’s along for
the ride. The game mimics real life
in the sense that the immediate
moment, reacting to a situation, mak-
ing goals and trying to achieve them,
are the substance of the character’s
existence.
The game is not about collabor-
ative storytelling, but about living
the life of the characters, together
and with the help of the Game Mas-
ter. It can be sped up, and you can
skip the boring parts. The player can
sometimes take into account things
outside the game that have nothing
to do with the character’s viewpoint.
They can think about the arc of the
character’s story and ensure its satis-
factory ending.
The point is to experience the
character’s life, as created through
the communal medium of a roleplay-
ing game. You do not need to be a
purist about this, just follow it as a
general principle.
Of course, the game can give birth
to stories: when a player tells their
friend about the events of the game,
they have turned into a story. The
mechanism is the same as when the
player relates anecdotes about their
real life.
Scenes start when something inter-
esting happens and end when the
subject has been resolved. All the
characters can be in the same scene,
or different characters in different sit-
uations. If everyone is not present
in the same scene, you should make
sure that those not present get some-
thing cool in the next scene. Watch-
ing others play is interesting, but
every player must regularly get to
do something themselves. Because
of this, you should make sure during
the planning stage that all characters
have something to do.
Some scenes last for ten minutes,
others take two hours. Because of
this, you should be prepared to scrap
some of the scenes you’ve planned
out. It’s not unusual that events prog-
ress quickly at the start of the game
when the players haven’t yet settled
into the social space created by the
game. At some point, they warm up,
and a scene you thought was going to
be brief suddenly expands into intri-
cate, improvised social play. The play-
ers are on fire, the game is moving
along, new things happen, and you
struggle just to keep up. This is good,
even if it wrecks your plans.
The basic structure of the game
should still be a chain of clearly out-
lined scenes. You should be very care-
ful not to let the game degenerate into
speculative vacillating. A character can
ponder out aloud if she should head
to the party. Another answers that
he could maybe come along as wing-
man. Speculation like this needs to
be stopped in favour of clear declara-
tions of action. They either go or don’t.
Speculating on possible events turns
the game into insubstantial crap.
Many scenes start on player initia-
tive. The Game Master’s basic ques-
tion is: “What do you do?” If the
answer is “We’re off to steal booze
from the town of Chernobyl,” it’s
clear what the next scene is going to
be about.
53
List of Scenes
Your planned list of scenes might look like this:
1 – The wake-up
One or more of the characters wake
up in the wee hours to the sound of
Sad Varvara from the Jazz Club play-
ing guitar under their window. It is
a melancholy song. She has come to
ask the characters to the party next
morning at the Hunting Party’s dacha.
They need liquor for that.
2 – Liquor
The characters must bring gifts, so
it’s likely that next on the itinerary is
a booze run. During earlier game ses-
sions, they’ve found out about a cou-
ple of likely places to get booze, and
now they must pick one. If the play-
ers sound clueless, you can remind
them of a couple of the locations that
have come up. The shop in Chernobyl
town, or Helicopter Bistro.
It’s up to the characters if they steal
or buy the booze, if they get it by
honest means or underhanded trick-
ery. An open scene like this, where
the characters solve a problem, can
take a very long time if the plan is
ambitious (Chernobyl town store) or
it can be over in a jiffy (buy the stuff
somewhere near).
3 – Freeloader
Dariya is a drug dealer who has
heard the characters are headed to
the Hunting Party’s fete. She wants
in. That’s why she’s waiting for them
when they return with the liquor.
She’s charismatic but sketchy, and
is more interested in doing irradi-
ated drugs than romance. She may let
on that something interesting might
happen at the party for the characters
to take part in.
4 – The journey
Sad Varvara comes to pick up the
characters. She checks out the liquor
and comments on the quality, either
approving or deriding. The Hunting
Party has an upscale rep. If Dariya
tags along, she asks Varvara inap-
propriately personal questions. “You
don’t have to answer this but I was
just thinking why do all your rela-
tionships end badly? Or that’s what
I heard…”
Dariya can also ask these from the
characters if you feel they need to
be grilled a bit. She can reveal weird
rumours spread about them behind
their backs.
The characters pass through a small
settlement or meet a group headed
somewhere else. Some of the support-
ing characters are people the charac-
ters already know who aren’t impor-
tant enough to get invited to the
Hunting Party’s events. If the party
comes up in conversation, they’re
envious and want to know if life at
the dacha is as grand as everyone
says.
5 – The car
North of Pripyat, Uncle Seryozha’s
limousine and chauffeur are waiting
for the characters. The chauffeur is an
old, quiet man, reserved in his role.
Like many Soviet cars, the limo’s sus-
pension is excellent and the ride is
smoother than expected. The limo is
necessary for two reasons: it’d take
hours to walk to the dacha, and Uncle
Seryozha wants to make clear who’s
privileged and who’s not.
55
 Before heading out, the chauffeur
asks Sad Varvara about the characters,
and she tells him they are her friends.
Dariya can be used to admire the
limo so it has the appropriate effect:
“Wow, I mean wow… that’s crazy… I’d
heard about this…”
6 – The party
In addition to the hosts, Uncle
Seryozha’s party has a couple of dozen
people. Some have been invited, and
some just tagged along like the char-
acters. There are well-known Zoners,
some eminences grises, and a random
smattering of other folk. A sharp-eyed
observer may note that the guests are
a mix of older, more influential folk
and young, good-looking people.
Uncle Seryozha may at some point
make a speech to the guests, but most
of the time he’s in his private quar-
ters getting liquored up. If he wants
to talk to someone, he invites them
to him.
This is the biggest of the scenes on
this list. I usually make a picture com-
pilation of all the supporting charac-
ters present so that the players can
easily see who’s there. For this scene,
you need at least ten supporting
characters, and each player character
should have at least some unfinished
business with as many of them as pos-
sible. In case the players don’t take
the initiative, at least one support-
ing character should have something
planned for each of the characters.
The point of the scene is to depict
the life of the criminal elite in the
Zone. There’s a hierarchy in place,
and the characters are at its bottom,
but the party has enough of the carni-
val atmosphere that they do not need
to be quite as deferential as they ordi-
narily would. It is also an opportunity
56
to show familiar supporting charac-
ters in a new light: what kind of man
is the Hunting Party’s groundskeeper
when he’s off duty?
The party should have at least one
supporting character that one of the
characters is in love with or crush-
ing on.
7 – The hunt
Once the sun goes down, Uncle
Seryozha comes out and announces
that the night will conclude with a
hunt. Those guests who have been at
the Hunting Party’s events before perk
up. He announces that the quarry will
get one hour’s lead. “And now I sup-
pose everyone wants to find out who
is going to provide sport for us.”
He points at a supporting char-
acter one of the characters has feel-
ings for. They’ve done something
that offended Uncle Seryozha. Maybe
they stole something from the Hunt-
ing Party, or flirted with Uncle Seryo-
zha’s children, or beat him at cards.
Seryozha says the prey can be killed
after the one hour period of grace has
elapsed. The victim flees immedi-
ately, running away from the dacha.
The characters have many ways
to react to the situation. They can
abstain, talk some of the other guests
into helping out, or come up with
something unexpected. They can par-
ticipate in the hunt and hope they
find the victim first. If they are suc-
cessful, they can escape the party
together with the victim, though
that requires a long walk through
Belarussian woods back to the south-
ern Zone. They can catch the vic-
tim and do something so bizarre that
Uncle Seryozha must accept it even
if the victim lives. To pull off a stunt
like this, there must be an element
of radiation. Maybe they cut off a fin-
ger and throw it into the Red For-
est. Thus, the victim would be sym-
bolically given over to the atom and
could then be renamed, free from
past obligations.
Or the characters can hunt them
down and kill them to get into Uncle
Seryozha’s good graces. If they aren’t
interested in the chase, it can also end
with the victim’s escape. They will
certainly remember the characters
were at the party and may wish to
discuss things further, for good or ill.
8 – The party, part two
When the chase is over, the party
is back on. The proximity of death
gives it a kick, and the guests will be
wilder and take bigger risks. Proposi-
tions of all kinds have more chance
of being accepted. Stupid shit gets
pulled. Uncle Seryozha’s bodyguard
wants to show that liquor has no
effect on his aim and shoots a hole
in someone’s ear. Seryozha’s children
Supporting Characters
The Game Master’s most important
job is to play the supporting charac-
ters. This is a game about romance
and radiation. For the romance to
work, the supporting characters must
be good.
Playing supporting characters that
work in romantic scenes requires that
you listen to the players, have humil-
ity, and know your own limits. Some-
times you will be surprised by the
supporting character a player con-
siders interesting. That’s when you
improvise. Other times, a foolproof
romantic partner totally bombs. The
players think he’s a joke, and don’t
even realize that he was planned to
flirt with the guests, who know what
happens if they respond in kind.
In this scene, all the plots started
earlier in the party are wrapped up.
Many of them will form spontane-
ously during the game.
If the characters flee the party dur-
ing the chase, the ending will be
entirely different. They have a long
walk ahead of them, and they may
encounter other hunters with their
own, perhaps surprising goals. The
Belarusian woods are large and scary,
especially at night. The end of the
game may feature an encounter with
one of the large animals of the Zone.
This is also a good time to advance
things between the characters and
the hunt’s victim.
I usually have 5-7 scenes per ses-
sion, plus the ones invented by play-
ers. This is highly individual, and will
be affected by the Game Master’s per-
sonal style and the dynamics of the
player group.
be someone’s lover. That’s when you
accept the setback and return to the
drawing board.
Supporting characters have differ-
ent functions in the game. Some are
just scenery. There are enough people
in the Zone that not everybody needs
to be interesting. The bartender can
be just a bartender.
Some supporting characters have
a mechanical function. There are
no mobile phones in the Zone, but
it’s useful for the game for commu-
nication to work. To this end, you
can come up with a few support-
ing characters who deliver messages.
Maybe Dariya the dealer has a habit
57
 of hanging out near the characters’
place and a handy tendency to be
headed to wherever they need a mes-
sage taken. The characters could also
have a neighbor who takes messages
for them when they’re not home.
Explaining the game world can also
happen through supporting charac-
ters. This is another mechanical func-
tion: through these supporting char-
acters, the players will comprehend
how the world works. With these
characters, it’s useful to be transpar-
ent about when they’re being trust-
worthy and when they are not.
Maybe Dariya is reliable when she’s
describing the Zone’s power groups
and their goals, but utterly untrust-
worthy when it comes to her own
plans. You can bring out the differ-
ence in her manner of speech.
If you need to plan out more than
one interesting supporting character
at a time, approach them in groups.
Maybe the characters’ neighbors are a
Zone-style reconstituted family with
parents in their forties and children
in their twenties. From this, you can
easily start figuring out what they’re
doing in the Zone, what are the con-
flicts between them and what keeps
them together. Answering questions
like these gets you multiple support-
ing characters for the effort of one.
Different people have different
ways of making interesting charac-
ters, but my way starts with a con-
flict. The supporting character must
not be consistent, and must have ele-
ments in their personality that don’t
quite jive. Maybe they’re selfish but
charitable, cynical and romantic,
brave but a coward. That way, they
have at least two different ways they
can go. If the supporting character
58
has an engine like this, improvisation
is easier.
Designing interesting supporting
characters depends on what kind of
concepts the Game Master can pull
off. That’s a question of personality,
and characters one Game Master can
make work may flop with another.
Because of this, these instructions are
very subjective. These tricks work for
me, but not necessarily everyone.
Keeping this in mind, a couple of
rules of thumb:
Nobody likes a goody two-
shoes. Good-looking, friendly, strong
but gentle, smart, noble. Anyone could
fall for this guy, right? In practice,
often the opposite happens. The nice
do-gooder is boring and annoying.
Everybody loves assholes, nut-
jobs, and freaks. It’s not a coinci-
dence that many fictional objects of
desire are complete dicks. You can mix
things up by making a guy like this do
something positive now and then.
The roleplaying game is fic-
tion, and subject to different
rules than real life. In real life,
it’d probably be easier to date the
do-gooder than the nutjob, but the
attraction of a roleplaying game is
that the events are not real. That
allows for exploring stuff you’d never
want to actually happen in reality.
Don’t hesitate to show love. The
players can initiate romance by them-
selves, but the supporting characters
can also make the first move. They
can ask the characters out for dates or
make surprising confessions of love.
Make physically attractive sup-
porting characters. The characters
of Chernobyl Mon Amour have seen life.
They’re not 18-year-old models. Taking
this into account, don’t be too modest
about how supporting characters look.
The key is in describing them subjec-
tively, highlighting elements that you
could fall in love with. It’s a good idea
to have pictures of them so the play-
ers have something to latch on to.
Trust in the classics. Twilight,
True Blood, and many other films,
books and TV shows have a main char-
acter who two differently attractive
people are fighting over. This setup is
seen so often because it works. It’s fun
to be in the middle of a love triangle.
Avoid making things easy. If the
romance is kindled or the character
gets a crush, there must be hardships
to overcome. Passively pining over a
distant supporting character isn’t a
whole lot of fun, but an angry ex, jeal-
ous parents or other external difficul-
ties work well. The player should find
out new and surprising things about
the supporting character during the
romance. Everything shouldn’t be as
it looks.
In a romance between a player char-
acter and a supporting character, the
Game Master should approach play-
ing the supporting character with
the same care and intimacy that the
player has with their character. The
details of their scenes are very impor-
tant, and the Game Master should
play them in more detail than with
other supporting characters.
Nevertheless, keep in mind that
the supporting character is a sup-
porting character. The Game Master
should also contemplate the relation-
ship’s greater context and structure,
and how to keep it interesting. These
things often work best if they’re
thought about during the planning
phase and the session itself is played
in a more immediate, reactive style.
One of the special challenges of
romancing supporting characters is
when the player character gets inter-
ested in someone the Game Master
considers irrelevant. Maybe the alco-
holic next door is delivering a message
when someone thinks to ask them
out. At that point, the Game Master
should quickly improvise new mate-
rial for the supporting character so
that they’ll be sufficiently interesting
by the time the date comes up. My
own trick is to come up with random
elements off the top of my head and
trust that I can stitch them together
into a reasonable whole by the next
game session. With this tactic, I only
need to bluff until the end of the ses-
sion. After that, I have the time I need
to think things through.
Opposition
The characters can’t have everything
they want. The world must resist
somehow. At the same time, it’s also
important that the Game Master be
sympathetic towards the player char-
acters and their dreams. The charac-
ters must be able to do stupid shit
without immediately incurring horri-
ble consequences. This requires a bal-
ancing act: the Zone is dangerous, but
the game must go on.
If the character decides to go smack
talk the Jupiter Gang when drunk out
of his skull, something must happen.
In situations like these, you must cre-
ate the impression of serious conse-
quences without running the game
into a cul-de-sac. The bad option is
that the gangsters kill the character.
That stops the game, and the other
players will no longer dare come up
with dramatic scenes.
59
 Romance Between Player
Characters
The Game Master can actively sup-
port romance between player char-
acters. There are two good ways to
do this: coming up with scenes, and
questions.
Both require a bit of alertness. If it
seems like the characters are interested
in one another, the Game Master can
frame a scene where they are by them-
selves in the kitchen at night. That
way the players have room to develop
their characters’ relationship further.
Creating these scenes requires humil-
ity from the Game Master, because the
players cannot be forced into roman-
tic situations. The players need stim-
ulation and opportunities to do their
thing.
If the characters’ relationship seems
unclear or the players appear uncer-
tain about what’s going on, the Game
Master can directly ask a player what
her character is thinking. It may not
even have anything to do with a scene
or a situation, but it gives the Game
Master and the other players some-
thing they can use to develop things
further. If the character can’t express
her crush but the player tells the other
players about it, they can then direct
their play accordingly.
Instead, the Game Master might
declare that a gang member punches
the character’s lights out. The other
characters wake up in the middle of
the night when the unconscious char-
acter is deposited on their doorstep
with insulting pictures scrawled on
his face with a felt tip marker. Dur-
ing the next week, the gang members
will distribute polaroids of the char-
acter posed in various weird ways.
60
The consequence is dramatic and
serious, but it also takes the game
forward.
In romance, there’s always the
temptation of letting things degen-
erate into fluffy happiness. It’s nice
in real life, but dull in the game. A
character’s relationship can be good if
the source of trouble is external. Exes
can cause trouble, and the character’s
lover can have other ambitions than
make life difficult. Maybe someone
jealous and powerful decides to cre-
ate problems. Challenges like these
keep the game eventful.
Dice
Sometimes, the characters must fail.
Unlike many roleplaying games, Cher-
nobyl Mon Amour does not require
complex rulesets, but sometimes a
bit of randomness livens things up. If
a character tries to fix a motorbike,
run from their enemies, or win at fist-
icuffs, you can roll dice. The chances
can be 50/50, or 30/70, depending on
the circumstances. With easy stuff,
you don’t need randomness. If dice
are rolled, it works best if the players
can see the result.
You can also roll a die for situa-
tions no character is participating in.
If they are following a football match,
the Game Master can ask the play-
ers which side appears to be playing
strong. The assesment made by the
players can be the basis for the proba-
bility for who wins and who loses, for
example 7/10 for Team A and 3/10 for
Team B. The Game Master can then
roll a die or ask a player to do so.
A ten-sided die is useful because it
intuitively maps to percentage-based
probabilities.
 Chernobyl Mon Amour is not heavy
on combat or action, but sometimes
love and radiation can lead to fights,
chases, and other exciting situations.
Running them is challenging and
requires the Game Master to have a
bit of flair.
In action scenes, the most impor-
tant thing is to decide the function
of the scene and what’s at stake. For
example, there are many kinds of fist-
fights. Sometimes it’s a barroom brawl
where taking down your opponent
isn’t all that important. The fighting
itself is the thing. In a case like that,
you don’t need to play out the scene
in much detail, just come up with
funny incidents that could happen
during the brawl.
If, on the other hand, the charac-
ter’s rival shows up at the break of
dawn to find out who’s tougher, it
does matter who comes out on top.
You can structure the fight in rounds,
like many other roleplaying games do,
with each participant having time to
do one thing per round. Like throw a
punch. They can both roll a die, and
see how the fight goes.
Fights where someone actually tries
to kill another person are extremely
rare. The system is the same, but you
can remind the players of how dan-
gerous lethal weapons are by not let-
ting the characters go uninjured.
Fights should almost never lead to
someone’s death. You can plan this
out beforehand by figuring out when
each participant is going to give
up. One might flee after taking one
punch, while another may keep at the
brawl until the bitter end. As a rule of
thumb, if one combatant gets a worse
roll than their opponent, something
bad happens to them. Their nose gets
broken, they take a pint glass to the
face, they fall prone. A weak fighter
can take one setback, while a hardass
could take up to three.
If the situation is complex, dividing
the action into rounds becomes more
important. For instance, if two of the
characters try to slow down pursu-
ers while a third is hightailing it on a
bike, there are so many moving parts
on the board that a more systematic
approach is called for. Sometimes you
can even assign bonuses of +1 or +2 to
die rolls, especially if two characters
roll against each other.
In hunting, chases, and arm-wres-
tling, you can divide the conflict into
dice rolls like this:
GAME MASTER: You’ve never seen
Xeniya run before, but now that she’s
after you, it’s pretty scary. She’s sur-
prisingly fast.
PLAYER: Can’t be faster than I am.
Before I went to prison, I was a rent-a-
cop chasing down shoplifters.
GAME MASTER: Okay. You run to
the road right as Boris from next door
rounds the corner. Roll a die to see if
either of you collide with him. Take a
+1 rent-a-cop bonus.
PLAYER: I got one, so two with the
bonus.
GAME MASTER: Xeniya gets three.
You run into Boris, who falls down.
Xeniya can almost grab the back of
your hoodie.
PLAYER: I continue running along
the road, even if it is dumb.
GAME MASTER: Xeniya’s right on
your heels. She’s shouting: “You fuck-
ing prick, you cheated on me for the
last time!” Roll dice.
PLAYER: Four with the bonus.
61
 GAME MASTER: Xeniya gets
three. There’s an old kindergarten
along the road and some dude on the
roof. You can’t make out what he’s
shouting at you.
PLAYER: Isn’t the canal right by
here? I circle there and try to dive in
the water before Xeniya can catch
me.
GAME MASTER: Okay, let’s roll.
PLAYER: Five.
GAME MASTER: Xeniya only got
two, so you run to the edge of the
canal, rumble down the embank-
ment, and dive in. There’s some reeds
and a half-sunken rowing boat, so if
you swim fast you can escape. Xeniya
is wearing a leather jacket and she
doesn’t want it to get wet. You hear
her shout: “You can’t escape me! I
know where you live!”
In this example, the Game Master
could also ask one of the other play-
ers to make the dice rolls for Xeniya
even if she is a supporting character.
Usually, there is no definite win-
ner, and the situation ends with the
introduction of a new element. Win-
ning and losing is less important than
the progression of events. The ran-
domness of dice is there to make the
situation more exciting, not to model
reality. Action scenes are created by
the players and the Game Master
working together, and chance helps
to introduce the randomness preva-
lent in real life.
Choices
The game should have meaning-
ful choices. A choice works when
the player understands they’re mak-
ing a choice, and understands their
options. You can use supporting char-
acters to make the options explicit.
62
Why Is the System Used In This
Game So Vague?
The action rules in Chernobyl Mon
Amour are open-ended, inaccurate,
and handwavey on purpose.
The game’s focus is on social scenes,
and the player’s most important tool
is their character. In my experience, if
there are rules, they get used. That’s
when the game’s focus moves from
social interaction to rolling dice. The
human element is forgotten when the
players interact with rules mechanics.
If the character is described through
numeric values with mechanical sig-
nificance, they become more impor-
tant than the character’s personality.
Because of this, the game also lacks
the narrative mechanics typical of
storygames. They would distance the
participants from the human realities
of the game and foreground the artifi-
cial nature of the game.
For instance, if the characters are out
to steal booze from Chernobyl town,
a supporting character can explain a
few different ways of going about it.
If the players don’t have enough
information about the situation to
form an opinion, the choice is point-
less. If their options are to break into
the liquor storeroom through the
back door or the basement hatch, it’s
not meaningful unless there’s a clear
difference between the options. The
knowledge that the back door is vis-
ible from the neighboring house but
the basement hatch is noisy and
could wake up the shopkeeper suf-
fices. When making the choice, the
players get to decide the nature of
the risk: would they rather deal with
the neighbor or the shopkeeper?
 The hardest, most fun choices are,
of course, about romance. Choosing
between two rival suitors is a clas-
sic. Supporting characters can force
player characters into making differ-
ent choices by making demands or
creating situations that force them to
act. If one of the suitors says that now
is the time to choose, the character
can choose them, the other suitor, or
to stay single.
Of course, there are always ordi-
nary, everyday choices to make.
What to wear on a date? Confront a
friend about an issue now or put up
with it for the time being? Do some-
thing stupid while drunk? When the
choices have been thought out well,
the game should feature the full
scale from everyday choices to the
big things that affect the character’s
entire life.
One way to bring choices into the
game is to give the characters open-
ended problems. They must complete
an initiation ritual that culminates at
midnight, inside the Sarcophagus,
near Reactor No. 4. To survive, they
must gather information about the
interior of the Sarcophagus so they
can avoid getting a lethal dose of radi-
ation, they must interpret the ritual
in a way that will impress the Zon-
ers, and figure out how to get inside.
The scenario is complicated, and the
players can come up with surprising
solutions.
If the challenge is too great or hard
to grasp, the players can feel helpless.
They don’t know how to approach
the situation. In this case, the Game
Master can help by summing up what
the characters already know or hint-
ing at someone who might be able to
advise them. A supporting character
64
can also take the initiative. Maybe
one of the characters’ acquaintances
wants to get to the reactor for their
own reasons. He’ll help the charac-
ters get started so that he can follow
them in secret after they go in.
Sex Scenes
Sex is important when it comes to
love stories and romance, but the
characters don’t always have to fall in
love or even have a crush on some-
one to get horny. Sometimes they
just want to fuck. Sex scenes should
be played out if they will reveal
something interesting about the char-
acters. It may not be obvious at the
beginning of the scene what that
something is.
Sex scenes have their own chal-
lenges, which relate to how natu-
ral the Game Master and players
feel about playing them. The Game
Master should approach sex scenes
calmly. The scene should only go as
far as the Game Master and players
can hold it together without undue
embarassment.
In running and playing the scene,
you should consider the subjective
viewpoints of the characters. What do
they want? Why are they having sex?
Do they seek satisfaction or do they
want to make the other party happy?
The Game Master can ask the player
what their character is feeling and tell
what they can read about a supporting
character. If there are two (or more)
player characters involved, it may be
interesting to explore how their atti-
tudes differ. It’s tragic if one of them
is fulfilling a long-time dream while
the other is just fucking because they
didn’t feel like saying no.
Paranoia Play
Can’t steal booze without endless revisions of the plan. Can’t free the prisoner
because what if he turns on us and has friends that will come and kill us? Can’t
ask someone out on a date because what if...
Paranoia playing means that the game gets stuck because the players don’t
have a firm grasp of how the world works. When this happens, the game has
failed. The players don’t dare to do things because they fear the Game Master
will punish them.
Screwballing and risk-taking needs to have consequences, but Chernobyl
Mon Amour works best if the Game Master is merciful and lets their support-
ing characters be morons from time to time. The characters in the game are
not hyperalert overachievers. They’re just people. Player characters screw up,
supporting characters screw up, and issues are resolved without always resort-
ing to the most extreme possible solution.
If this issue comes up, the Game Master can try to solve it by outright
telling the players that in this game, it’s possible to take risks and do stupid
things without the game breaking down. The Game Master must also stand
behind this statement: screwing around must have interesting, non-fatal con-
sequences for the players to know that paranoia is unnecessary.
In an actual play situation, the Game Master can also ease the problem by
straight up telling the players that their action will not have negative conse-
quences. If they hesitate to free a Jupiter gang member because they fear his
friends, the Game Master can say that the prisoner will probably be too embar-
rassed to tell his friends about getting caught.

Discussing how the characters feel
about and approach the act is more
interesting than a carnal, superficial
description of what appendage goes
where. A subjective play style that
springs from the character’s personal
experience also allows bypassing the
naturalistic narration that a sex scene
easily slips into. A scene where sex is
just squishy bits and bodily fluids can
be amusing, but this tends to ignore
the lust and desire that are so very
important to the characters’ internal
experience.
One of the clearest things a sex
scene can bring out is whether the
characters are compatible or not. Is it
good sex? The scene can reveal that
they have similar tastes. It’s always a
happy discovery if this is the case and
tends to lead to good sex. If the par-
ties involved have different, less com-
patible desires, the scene can show
how they play out in relation to one
another. Sometimes characters can
find ways to make both happy, and
sometimes it just results in bad sex.
Sex scenes can also result in nega-
tive consequences. Maybe the other
party is just plain bad in bed. Lack of
experience or confidence can lead to
nobody getting what they want. This
builds a foundation for future ten-
sions between the characters.
When playing a sex scene, the
Game Master should try to gauge the
situation and how the players are feel-
ing, so that they can end the scene

65
 at the right moment and go over the
action in the proper level of detail.
The right approach varies widely and
depends on participants and the situ-
ation. The ability to read a social sit-
uation is vital to running and playing
sex scenes. If the scene isn’t working,
it’s best to just gloss over it, cut it
short and move on.
If playing things out in detail
doesn’t feel right, the Game Mas-
ter can just ask the players what the
scene reveals about their characters.
This way you can preserve the func-
tion of the scene, even if you don’t go
into the nitty-gritty.
If everybody is alright with sex
scenes, they can be played out for the
simple reason that playing sex is fun.
Participant Comfort
The Game Master plans for what hap-
pens in the game, but they are also
responsible for everything going
smoothly during play. Are the play-
ers in a good mood? Is everyone men-
tally and socially safe? Chernobyl Mon
Amour can be very personal. It not
only demands trust between the
Game Master and the players, but
also that any problems get resolved.
Examples of such problems are
being part of a character dynamic
that brings up bad real life memo-
ries or sex scenes that feel too inti-
mate to be played out in such detail.
These kinds of issues can be surpris-
ing and it’s not always obvious even
to the players themselves why some-
thing feels bad. Because of this, prob-
lems can come up even if the play-
ers have discussed the limits of what
they want and don’t want to play in
the game.
66
Sex Scenes – an Example
Victor of the Strontium Wolves
meets one of the characters at a party
in Pripyat and tells them he’s never
fucked at any of the iconic radioactive
locations in the Zone. He’s nonchalant
about it, but the character picks up on
it and suggests the issue be rectified
immediately. Maybe the character is
interested in Victor, wants something
to brag about, or is attracted to radio-
active places.
Victor and the character slip out
and head to the Pripyat fire station.
The most irradiated part of the build-
ing is the basement and its dressing
rooms, where the firefighters changed
their clothes during the disaster. They
carried so many radioactive particles
in their clothes that it’s not a place
where you want to hang around.
During the scene, both Victor and
the character make a quick radiation
dive into the basement, but neither
is self-destructive enough to want
to fuck there. Instead, the adrenaline
rush of the dive is released at the top
of the stairs.
As the Game Master and the player
figure out what happens, the key ele-
ment turns out to be the surface they
screw on. Victor is fine with the peb-
ble-strewn floor, but the player char-
acter wants at least a coat under
them.
Once they get down to business,
it’s swiftly over. It’s not complicated
since it turns out both participants
are thinking more about bragging
rights than good sex. In this sense,
the scene is harmonious, if not partic-
ularly intimate.
 Sometimes you can see the prob-
lem coming and break off the game.
You can talk things through with the
others and figure out how to over-
come it. For example, a supporting
character reminds a player of a recent
ex to a distracting degree. Either the
Game Master realizes something is
wrong or the player speaks out. As a
result, the Game Master sidelines the
supporting character or changes their
dynamic.
However, experience has shown
that you often don’t realize there is
a problem until after the damage has
been done. In these cases, you can talk
about it with the group after the ses-
sion and figure out how to avoid such
situations in the future. If a player
says that they can’t deal with a cer-
tain relationship dynamic, it’s up to
the Game Master and the other play-
ers to make sure it won’t be repeated.
Bear in mind that this is not about
morality but about players being able
to participate fully and have an inter-
esting experience. A player who feels
good about the game is a good player
and the player is always more impor-
tant than the game.
You can have a participant who’s
perfectly fine playing the victim of
a physically abusive boyfriend yet
unable to play a scene where another
character exhibits even mild con-
trolling behavior. We each have our
personal issues and histories and the
beauty of a roleplaying game is that
they can be taken into account by
the people we play with.
In other games, such problems can
be avoided by keeping things super-
ficial, but Chernobyl Mon Amour is
supposed to go beyond your com-
fort zone. Because of this, you should
be prepared to address problems and
talk about uncomfortable, real life
issues the participants might have.
The Game Master has a special
responsibility over mental safety.
However, this leaves one person
exposed, that being the Game Mas-
ter. When running a game, it’s easy to
do everything for the players and for-
get you should take care of your own
limits. Even though the Game Mas-
ter has all the power, it can still feel
difficult to cut a scene that crosses
your boundaries. The game is flowing
and the players love it. Can you bring
yourself to interrupt it even if you’re
feeling bad? The desire to keep the
game going can muddle the Game
Master’s judgment over their own
well-being. You must be alert for this,
because the players are usually too
tied up in the game to have a good
grasp of the situation as a whole. For-
tunately the Game Master also has
good tools to take care of their own
safety, the simplest being to cut away
from the scene in question.
67
 The Cut
A simple tool you can introduce to the game is the cut. This means that when
a participant says ”cut”, the game cuts and everyone will talk off-game to
resolve the issue. A typical use for cut is that something has come up in the
play that a participant can’t deal with.
I’ve had participants cut because the aggression exhibited in a scene where
characters yell at each other was too much, the mention of violence towards
children felt bad and the dynamics of a domestic violence scene brought up
real trauma. In each case, the Game Master must determine how to proceed,
making care that play goes on in a way that works for everyone.
Keep in mind that the Game Master can also cut.
It’s not enough to have the tool theoretically in use. There must also be a
play culture in which it’s acceptable to use it. To foster this, it’s often good
that early in the game, someone actually uses the cut just to establish that it
can be used.
The cut can be an alternative for using the X-card, or you can have both. It’s
a way of formalizing when someone essentially needs to say: “Time out! Time
out! We got to talk about this off-game for a second.” If your players are used to
a particular method, such as either the X-card or the cut, continue with that.

When Things Go Bad

Chernobyl Mon Amour is a tricky game in terms of participant safety because
a certain amount of hurt is part of the game. Love hurts and so does heart-
break. Because of this, participants should play with an eye towards their own
well-being.
Yet playtest experience shows that even in a game with conscientious, car-
ing players, things sometimes go bad. A player misjudges their ability to play
a certain kind of a scene, or the Game Master comes up with something sub-
tly terrible that can’t be stoppped with a simple ’cut’ because the damage has
already been done.
When this happens, the participants should have an off-game discussion
about the situation. When doing so, remember these guidelines:
1. Don’t hurry. Give the discussion the time it needs.
2. Accept emotions as valid. People don’t stop the game just for the fun of it.
3. Don’t make it a moral issue. The game is make-believe and the things that
affect us strongly are personal and random.4. Listen, learn and adapt. Although
discussions like this are sometimes painful, they are also a learning opportu-
nity for how to make the game even better for the specific individuals you’re
playing with.

68
Preparation
The game is at its best when the
Game Master has prepared well and
knows what they are doing. As with
many things related to gamemaster-
ing, the type and quantity of prep-
aration is personal. My prep time is
usually the same as the duration of
the session, one evening. Most of my
prepwork is about creating the list
of scenes and inventing supporting
characters. You can spend an amaz-
ing amount of time on Google Image
Search, trying to find just the right
picture for a supporting character.
The challenge of preparation is that
the game must feel open-ended, so
the players can do what they will. Yet
you can’t prepare for everything, so
you should prep stuff that the play-
ers and characters will go for. You
can also expect that a part of your
material will go unused. With me,
the loss is around 30%, and it’s mostly
caused by player actions. The game
ends up having so many player-initi-
ated scenes that there’s no room for
what I prepared. This is the ”kill your
darlings” phase of gamemastering,
because although a part of the mate-
rial can be saved for the next session,
some of it is destined for the bin.
A good way to keep the game tightly
focused yet create a feeling of freedom
is to plan scenes with a strong starting
position but an open ending.
The Game Master can start a scene
by declaring: “A couple of days later,
you’re hunting boar when you stum-
ble upon an animal someone has just
killed. They must be nearby, because
nobody would leave their catch just
lying around like that.” The Game
Master continues the scene by bring-
ing in a pair of Strontium Wolves in
the middle of a hunting ritual. The
Game Master has thus decided that
the characters are hunting, but lets
them continue as they will. Maybe
they will hide and follow the Stron-
tium Wolves. Maybe they will call
loudly until the Wolves show up,
and invite them to a housewarming
party.
Of course, good manners require
the Game Master to stick to things
the characters would sensibly do
when making decisions like this for
them. If the characters hunt often, it’s
no stretch to assume they’re hunting
at the start of a given scene.
A Living World
The characters are the focus of the
game, but if you want the game to
live, the supporting characters must
also do things. The world comes alive
when you make sure that something
happens even when the characters
are not present. Maybe they hear that
the Strontium Wolves and the Jupi-
ter Gang had a big fight and some-
one died. Maybe one of their friends
brags about entering the Sarcophagus
last night.
You can also use the living world
to build meaningful choices. If the
characters decide to go to one party,
they will miss another. The host of
that other party is pissed, and will try
to sabotage someone’s relationship.
One of the easiest ways to make
sure there’s something happening
in the world is to create supporting
characters that are doing something
when the characters show up. They’re
not just loafing around, but about to
leave, coming from somewhere, get-
ting drunk alone, or agonizing over a
love letter.
69
Radiation
In real life, radiation is not a happy
thing, but it is an important part of
the aesthetic of Chernobyl Mon Amour.
The game has two themes, love and
radiation. Love is the easier one: most
of us can identify with it. Radiation is
harder, because it demands that the
characters develop a perverse rela-
tionship to it.
In Chernobyl Mon Amour, the effects
of radiation on the human body are
realistic. Radiation sickness is very bad
for your health, and living in the Zone
exposes the characters to a higher can-
cer risk no matter what they do to
shield themselves.
To live in the Zone, you must
accept the rules of the Zone. They
can be distilled into radiation and its
acceptance. If the character can’t eat
berries off a bush in Pripyat, knowing
that the plants channel radioactive
particles from the ground into those
berries, they can’t begin a new life.
There’s one good trick to making
radiation cool: peer pressure. Regard-
less of what the characters do, all the
supporting characters are really into
radioactivity.
To the inhabitants of the Zone,
radiation is deeply meaningful. A true
Zoner has accepted radiation and is
not afraid of it. To many, it is the
fear of radiation that singles out the
outsider.
If the characters are new in the
Zone, the old Zoners will try to feel
out their attitudes about radiation. If
the characters are scared, they’ll be
laughed at. The arc of a longer game
can be formed by the characters
learning to accept radiation as part of
their life.
The supporting characters will pull
off all kinds of stunts related to radia-
tion, and gain the admiration of other
supporting characters. This way, the
whole social environment of the
Zone is built on the assumption that
you have to accept a certain amount
of radiation. It’s even better if you
learn to love it.
The themes of Chernobyl Mon
Amour can be broken down into
their most classic expressions: sex
and death. Maybe that’s why fucking
in radioactive locations is such a big
thing in the Zone.
The Zone
In reality, you can enter the Zone,
and it’s not even hard. I was there for
two days, and there are many com-
panies that organize such outings.
There are thousands of people who
commute to the Zone. A decommis-
sioned nuclear power plant can’t be
left to its own devices.
In the world of the game, the Zone
is separated from the regular world.
The states of Ukraine and Belarus
keep a tighter control on who gets
to enter, and tourism doesn’t exist.
Some people go there to work, but
they are fewer and live in isolation.
In reality, some elderly people
actually do live in the Zone, having
returned to their homes after the
evacuation. Their relatives secretly
visit them from time to time. This is
not a major phenomenon, however,
73
 and they only number around one
hundred.
In Chernobyl Mon Amour, the Zone
is home to around five hundred crim-
inals and outlaws who have fled ordi-
nary society, each for their own rea-
sons. They live in isolation and have
nothing to do with the workers, sol-
diers or outsiders that visit the Zone.
They have their own community left
alone by the power plant employ-
ees. When this book talks about the
inhabitants of the Zone, these are the
people it refers to.
Contact with outsiders does not
play a major part in the game. At
most, something can be stolen from
their apartments, but in general, all
action happens among the Zoner
community.
The Geography of the Zone
The Zone has two parts. The power
plant itself and the town of Pripyat
are on the Ukrainian side of the bor-
der, in a Zone of Alienation 2  600
square kilometres in size. Entering
the Zone without permission is for-
bidden, but the border is not partic-
ularly tightly guarded. It’s possible to
slip in during the night, if one can
avoid the patrols.
The Zone of Alienation is further
divided into the 30-kilometre Zone
and the 10-kilometre Zone. The inner
10-kilometre Zone is more polluted,
but the difference is important mostly
to people who work in the Zone or
are otherwise on authorized busi-
ness. The outer zone contains Cher-
nobyl town, inhabited by the power
plant’s workers, and the inner zone
contains the plant itself and the town
of Pripyat.
74
The other half of the Zone is the
Polesie State Radioecological Reserve
on the Belarussian side of the bor-
der. This area is 2 162 square kilome-
tres in size and has no habitation. It is
by far the largest nature preserve in
Belarus, and cannot be entered with-
out express permission.
From the Zoner’s point of view, the
border between Ukraine and Belarus
doesn’t matter much. It is guarded
only rarely and is easy to cross. There
is no fence or other barrier, and the
difference between Ukrainian trees
and Belarussian trees is a mere line
on a map.
Culturally, they are still different.
Practically all Zoners live in popula-
tion centres on the Ukrainian side. The
Belarussian side is wilderness. Some go
there to hunt or get away from peo-
ple, but there is really nothing there
but untouched, irradiated nature.
Pripyat River
The most significant natural forma-
tion in the area is the Pripyat River,
which flows through the Zone. It
meanders down from Belarus in the
north to Ukraine, right past the Cher-
nobyl power plant, and finally joins
the Dnepr. The waters end up in the
Black Sea.
Radioactive materials have a ten-
dency to sink to the bottom, which
is why the mud and sand at the bot-
tom of Pripyat River are radioactive.
There are some fish in the river, the
most famous being the huge, mutated
sheatfish that can grow to four metres
in length. They are frequently found
in the cooling pond where the water
is warmer, between the power plant
and the river.
 Zoners disagree on whether it’s a
good idea to live by the river. Some
think it is a smart choice, because you
can use a boat to easily reach other
places by the water, and in the winter
you can skate on the ice. The cooling
pond, of course, never freezes. You
can also catch fish that can be eaten
if you’re not a wuss about radiation.
The proximity of the river does
cause one significant problem, which
makes many avoid it. There are many
marshlands and standing pools of
water nearby, which are home to
incredible amounts of mosquitoes.
Chernobyl Town
Both the power plant and the town
inhabited by its workers are known
by the name of Chernobyl. It used to
be larger, but nowadays the popula-
tion stands at 550. The buildings used
by the workers are maintained, and
the rest are falling to ruin. A special
feature of the town are thick pipes
on the ground that have been pulled
up into gateways at crossroads to let
cars drive through. These pipes con-
tain power lines and water and sew-
age pipes. In a normal town, they’d
be dug underground, but there is
so much radioactive material down
there that nobody wants to poke
around in it.
The town contains apartment build-
ings where the workers live for three
weeks at a time before being rotated
out of the radioactive Zone for a while.
Some buildings are used as offices.
Hotel Chernobyl is a dinky hotel that
most resembles a student dormitory
and houses people on short work vis-
its. It usually has only a few guests.
The Zoners are not interested in
the goings-on of Chernobyl town.
The town is guarded, but not partic-
ularly well. Despite this, the social
rift between Zoners and power plant
workers runs deep. Neither group
wants anything to do with the other
– with one exception. There’s some-
thing in Chernobyl town that the
Zoners talk about a lot and some-
times rob in the middle of the night:
the liquor store. In principle, it is for-
bidden for the workers to bring alco-
hol into the Zone of Alienation, but
the rule is flagrantly broken, to the
point that the Chernobyl grocery
store mostly carries booze, smokes,
and Pringles.
Many Zoners make their own
alcohol, but booze from outside the
Zone has its own attraction. Unfor-
tunately, it’s not easy to steal. When
the store closes at sundown, the bot-
tles are placed in an iron chest with
a large padlock.
The Red Forest
The Red Forest is an area southwest of
the Chernobyl reactor. It is one of the
most radioactive places in the Zone,
and even a short stay can have serious
health repercussions. The name of
the forest comes from the red colour
of the pines that were killed by radia-
tion. In the post-disaster cleanup, the
Red Forest was bulldozed and the
trees buried. Immediately after the
disaster, the radioactivity of the area
was 20 times that of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki after the nuclear bombs.
The forest has regrown since then,
at least in part. The trees are still
stunted and the grass is barely alive.
Many places have no trees at all. As
they grow, the trees pull both nutri-
ents and radioactive particles from
the ground. If there’s ever a forest
75
 fire, all those particles will be carried
away in the smoke and the wind.
Intentionally setting such a fire
is often talked about among Zoners
as the ultimate act of nihilism, but
nobody has yet done it. Sometimes,
newbies to the Zone try to prove
they are worthy of the community by
taking the atom into their hearts and
hiking into the Red Forest. With the
atom, moderation is very important,
and these people tend to die of the
complications of radiation sickness.
Rumors tell of a forester who
lived in Pripyat before the disaster
and now dwells in a little cabin in
the middle of the Red Forest. He is
so old that radiation no longer affects
him. It is said he removes signposts
warning of radiation so that Zoners
moving about at night wouldn’t real-
ize they’ve arrived in the Red Forest
until it’s too late.
The road that the plant work-
ers use to drive to the plant from
Chernobyl town passes through the
Red Forest. It’s a bad idea to walk it
unprotected. Workers start acceler-
ating their cars well before the for-
est and pass through it careening as
fast as they can because they want to
spend as little time in the radiation
as possible. If you drive fast enough,
you can be through the forest in just
a couple of minutes.
Chernobyl-2
In the year 1976, a new and extremely
powerful radio signal was detected
around the world. It was nicknamed
“the Russian Woodpecker”. The sig-
nal originated from the Duga-1 radar
array, built between the towns of
Pripyat and Chernobyl, southwest of
the road connecting the two.
76
The radar was decommissioned in
1989, three years after the disaster.
The similar Russian Duga arrays were
recommissioned in 2013.
The area is named Chernobyl-2.
The radar itself is a huge wall of steel
struts and supports, rising high above
the nearby blocks of flats. The struc-
ture is almost impossibly large, rem-
iniscent of the edges of virtual real-
ity when the simulation begins to
glitch. Ukrainian authorities have
debated demolishing it, fearing that
if it comes down on its own, its huge
weight might cause a small earth-
quake. The metal of the radar is radio-
active after the disaster, making it dif-
ficult to handle.
The radar still functions as an
antenna, and you can plug in your
own radio gear. It is said that through
the radar, you can hear forlorn confes-
sions of love from lonely operators of
Siberian Duga stations. If you listen to
the white noise long enough, you can
also hear messages from dead people,
cosmonauts lost in space, and radio-
active angels. Imbibing reasonable
amounts of vodka while listening can
help make out the signals.
The radar is a rusty ruin, but it is
still powered by an unknown source.
If you know what you are doing, you
can use it as a transmitter, though
nobody has done this in decades. As
a transmitter, its maximum power is
around ten megawatts. This makes
it almost incomprehensibly power-
ful, and it is said that messages sent
through it will carry beyond reality
itself. As a point of comparison, the
world’s largest radiotelescope at Are-
cibo, Puerto Rico, has the power of
one megawatt.
The Bunker
Two kilometres west of Chernobyl-2,
there’s an underground complex. No
road leads there, and its entrance is
just a small concrete building that
looks like a weather station, deep in
the woods. Back when the Chernob-
yl-2 radar array was active, the bunker
was a part of the area’s missile defence
system and housed a large group of
soldiers in reserve. The underground
centre also performed orbital surveil-
lance and communications, as well as
defence research.
Zoners know the place as the Bun-
ker. It’s a mythical place that’s hard
to find and can be imagined to hold
the solution to all of one’s problems.
The Bunker was largely safe from
the effects of the disaster, and con-
tains few radioactive particles. It’s dif-
ficult to get stuff up from there, so it
is largely preserved in the condition
it was left when the Soviet Union col-
lapsed. There are still top secret doc-
ument archives, the Soviet flag in the
corner of the mess hall, and dried
cups of coffee on the table.
The Bunker makes for an attrac-
tive dwelling because it contains edi-
ble canned food, and those inside
have nothing to fear from wild ani-
mals or other people. However, the
Bunker has mysteries of its own: par-
anoid hermits who decide to move in
never come out. They’re never heard
of again, for those who want to make
the Bunker into their own fiefdom
just vanish. On the other hand, lovers
who use the Bunker as a secret love
nest return safe and sound.
The Bunker has three underground
levels. It was originally built to house
500 people, though in conditions rem-
iniscent of a submarine. Abandoned,
the Bunker is claustrophobic but not
cramped. It receives power from an
unknown source, though the lights
and other electric equipment are too
decayed to be of any use.
Rumours tell of an underground
tunnel that leads from the Bunker to
a building in Pripyat, or maybe even
the reactor itself.
The Whole Wide World
Chernobyl Mon Amour happens in the
Zone. The Zone is the world of the
game, and nothing outside it has any
meaning. Because of this, you need
to be careful in using elements that
have ties outside the Zone.
Chernobyl-2 and the Bunker are
locations where you can hear echoes
of the outside world. The histories of
the Soviet Union and the Cold War
are concrete and present here, much
moreso than in other places. It’s
important that the signals of Cher-
nobyl-2 and the documents in the
Bunker are illusions from somewhere
afar, not real hooks that the charac-
ters can follow up on.
Chernobyl-2 and the Bunker repre-
sent the past whose ruins the charac-
ters are building their lives on. Follow-
ing their signposts leads nowhere.
Kopachi
Kopachi is a small village located
between Pripyat and Chernobyl
town, near the Chernobyl-2 radar
station. At the time of the disaster,
only about a thousand people lived
in Kopachi. The power plant was
very near, so after the disaster all the
buildings were demolished and bur-
ied. The exceptions were two kinder-
77
 gartens, a cattle farm, and a cemetery,
which were left as they were.
The Zoners have repurposed some
of the buildings in Kopachi. There
are about 20 people living here, and
they own the Zone’s only cows,
named Atom and Radium. The cem-
etery is still in use, the only one in
the Zone. Most of the Zone’s dead
remain where they fall, in some for-
saken, radioactive cellar, but the ones
who are buried properly are buried
here. The inhabitants of Kopachi like
to use the official, yellow radiation
warning signs sprinkled around the
Zone as grave markers.
People come to Kopachi for milk
or funerals.
Parichev
Parichev is a little village by the
Pripyat River, east of Chernobyl town.
In its time, Parichev was more of a
suburb than a village, home to about
1200 people. In addition to the houses,
Parichev’s only landmark was the fire
station whose ruins still stand there.
Currently, Parichev houses 26 people,
all of them elderly folk who returned
to the Zone right after the disaster. The
houses here are mostly wooden cabins,
though there are a couple of decrepit
rowhouses as well. They are all decay-
ing and have a lot of vegetation grow-
ing on them. It’s hard to say which
ones are inhabited and which ones
abandoned. The inhabitants returned
to their own homes, sprinkled amid
the empty houses of Parichev.
Parichev is one of the most thor-
oughly looted places in the Zone,
because the elderly have scavenged
their neighbors’ houses many times
over.
78
The Zoners and the old folk don’t
share a lot in common. The old folk
are thought of as weird or mad, and
they consider the newcomers crim-
inals and hooligans. There is some
trade, though – they know how to
distill moonshine in Parichev.
Reactors No. 5 and 6
The Chernobyl nuclear power plant
was originally meant to have six
reactors. Four were finished and
the last two were being built when
the disaster happened. On the night
of the disaster, work continued at
the nearby building site. 286 build-
ers were at their jobs when Reactor
No. 4 was spewing forth radioactive
substances.
In the end, the two reactors were
never completed. The only thing
remaining are the skeletons of enor-
mous cooling towers. The rusty struc-
tures are so large that walking inside
them feels like you are still outdoors.
The cooling towers are near the
power plant, so Zoners don’t go there
often. The power plant’s guards some-
times venture to them, and nobody
wants to deal with soldiers. There is
line of sight between the towers and
the plant.
The cooling towers were never
completed, so you can enter them,
walking between steel girders. Look-
ing up, you can see the sky, framed in
iron. The structures are so impressive
that despite the danger, Zoners have
some of their most important celebra-
tions inside. Especially when some-
one is about to enter the Chernobyl
power plant itself, it is traditional to
celebrate the deed in a ceremony
inside a cooling tower. They shoot
flares that go off inside the tower and
eat radioactive blueberries.
Near the plant, soldiers usually
shoot first and ask questions later,
especially at night. If the celebrating
Zoners hear shots while at the cool-
ing tower, they take their torches and
flee in different directions, while the
hero of the day heads to the plant,
vanishing in the tall, dry grass.
The cooling towers are also a tra-
ditional spot for weddings. The cere-
monies are held at night and the cer-
emony itself can take hours. Zoner
clergymen have their own ways of
bringing the Holy Atom into the
Orthodox Christian ceremony. Radi-
ation is a God’s gift that protects the
Zoners and gives them a chance for a
new life. Atonement is possible only
in the embrace of the Atom.
Pripyat
Pripyat is the largest population cen-
tre in the Zone of Alienation. At the
time of the disaster, it was home to
some 50,000 people. It was a closed
city, inhabited by the elite of the
Soviet Union, and had been built from
the ground up only a couple of years
earlier to support the nearby power
plant. The population was composed
of young families, and people were
unusually educated. Pripyat was the
model of an ideal society, where priv-
ileged workers could live a better life
than less fortunate Soviet citizens.
The city of the future was built on
the bank of the Pripyat River, north
of the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant. It is made up of five smaller
districts in a semi-circle around the
amusement park on the riverbank.
Every district had its own primary
school and kindergarten. Due to the
pre-disaster demographics, there are
many ruins of schools and kindergar-
tens in Pripyat yet no care homes for
the elderly.
Pripyat also has 16-story apartment
buildings, a factory, large public
buildings, and everything else that its
inhabitants might have needed. The
city is also accessible by train. The
Yanov railway station is at its south-
ern edge, though it’s off-limits to Zon-
ers. There isn’t much train traffic, but
when there is, it is on its way to the
power plant and guarded by soldiers.
The widest of the roads leaving
Pripyat, Prospekt Lenina, takes you to
the south, towards the power plant. It
starts at the main square in the mid-
dle of Pripyat. It crosses over the rail-
road via a bridge at the city limits. It
is called the Bridge of Death for two
reasons. After the disaster, the dying
cleaners, “liquidators”, were brought
to Pripyat along the bridge. Since
then, it has taken a second meaning,
as foolhardy Zoners sometimes jump
from the bridge to the roof of the
train. It’s just before the Yanov station
and the train slows down enough that
it’s possible to survive.
The Zoners ride on the roof as long
as they dare, and then jump off at a
curve. This pursuit causes a death
every couple of years. Usually they
screw up the jump, but sometimes
death comes by a soldier’s bullet.
Hundreds of people live in Pripyat’s
apartments and other buildings. In
daytime, only a trained eye can tell
an inhabited building from an empty
one. In the night it’s easier because of
the lights. Some houses have inhab-
ited floors where dozens of people
form their own community. Some
live alone, and in the darkness there
79
 may be entire blocks of flats with just
one lonely candle at the window.
Pripyat’s central square is next to
the amusement park. Its most impor-
tant building is the Palace of Cul-
ture Energetik, which the Zoners still
keep open and active.
Mortality in the Zone
People die all the time in the Zone.
Suicides, radiation poisonings, and
insane risk-taking are all common
enough that a single death will not
shock the community. Many Zoners
think they are living on borrowed
time anyway, and do not prioritize
survival like they might have in the
outside world.
Though people die often, violent
deaths are rare. Murders are almost
nonexistent, and manslaughters are
usually between drunken friends, one
of whom had a knife. Deadly violence
is no more common in the Zone than
in the outside world.
Reactions to a death depend a lot
on how it happened. Radiation sick-
ness is taken philosophically. The
Atom takes its own. More tragic
deaths, like suicides, cause melan-
choly binge drinking and moaning
about the harshness of life.
Funeral arrangements fall on the
deceased’s friends, but once the
funeral is held, even complete strang-
ers may show up. The Zone lacks
entertainment options, so people
come to a funeral out of curiosity,
and because the Zoner community is
small, in the end.
80
The Jupiter Factory
The Jupiter Factory is an enormous
industrial complex. It is the largest
industrial ruin in the Zone, and is
made up of large halls still filled with
heavy equipment. You can climb into
its offices, and glistening substances
still seep from cracked pipes. The fac-
tory is right next to Pripyat, at the
southwest city limit.
Officially, the factory manufac-
tured small radios for the Soviet con-
sumer market, but the truth is more
exciting. After all, it was located in
a closed zone in a city that was not
marked on any maps, and made com-
ponents for radars, radio surveillance,
and communications equipment.
The factory, or actually its auxiliary
buildings, are inhabited by one of the
larger factions of Zoners, the Jupiter
Gang. There are about 50 members,
and they mostly keep apart from out-
siders. They are violent, rob other
Zoners, and defend their own. It is
possible to join the Jupiter Gang, but
their initiation ritual is brutal.
The actual factory halls are too
large and unpleasant for living, but
the gang members keep a close eye
on them and it is difficult for an
outsider to slip in. If an intruder is
caught, they are roundly beaten and
thrown out.
The Jupiter Gang is not alone in
their factory. The tracks of an unusu-
ally large dog or wolf are sometimes
seen in the pools of unknown sub-
stances spread all over the floor.
The Amusement Park
The amusement park at the centre of
Pripyat is the most famous sight in the
city. The rides, like the ferris wheel
and the bumper cars, are primarily
made of metal and thus very radioac-
tive. Despite this, it’s a popular place
to spend time. People come here for
walks or picnics, and violence in the
park is considered gauche. If you
want a date with a Jupiter gang mem-
ber without getting beaten by their
friends, this is the place for it.
The rides are rusty, but now and
then the ferris wheel gets repaired
enough to run if someone supplies
their own generator. Different Zoner
factions use the ferris wheel for their
own rituals. If a newbie wants to con-
vince their community that they are
a true child of the Atom, the ferris
wheel is a good way to do it. The oth-
ers will gather around the wheel to
cheer as the initiate climbs into one
of the gondolas. The wheel slowly
begins to turn. A full rotation feels
like an eternity, especially if you’re
along on the ride.
The metal is so radioactive that
you will feel it quickly. One rotation
is enough to convince the audience.
Two rounds means that you are ready
to sacrifice yourself for the Atom.
Three is madness. Because of the rust,
the wheel makes a horrible screech-
ing noise regardless of how much it
is oiled.
Atom Fact: Nausea
Among the first symptoms of radia-
tion sickness are vomiting and diar-
rhea. This is because quickly renew-
ing tissue, like what you have in your
digestive tract, is most affected by
radiation. Because of this, old peo-
ple can withstand radiation better
than young folk. Their tissue doesn’t
renew as quickly, so they are less vul-
nerable to damage.
The Chernobyl Nuclear
Power Plant
At the heart of the Zone of Alienation
lies the Chernobyl Nuclear Power
Plant, whose Reactor No. 4 suffered a
catastrophic steam explosion on Sat-
urday, 26th of April 1986. The explo-
sion flung most of the plant’s roof
into the nearby forest, since known
as the Red Forest. The cloud that rose
up into the sky spread across Europe,
contaminating things like the lichen
that reindeer eat in Lapland.
The power plant saw use even
after the explosion, because it was
central to the region’s energy pro-
duction. Reactor No. 2 was powered
down in 1991 after a fire. Reactor No.
1 followed in 1996, and finally Reactor
No. 3 in 2000.
The plant is a huge lump of a build-
ing, dominated by the Sarcophagus
built to shield reactor four. It is still
a radioactive deathtrap, where the
explosion has created strange new
compounds. The Sarcophagus is a
concrete chest that seals the reactor
within but is by no means airtight.
It’s possible to slip into Reactor No.
4 through cracks in the Sarcopha-
gus, via underground tunnels, or by
climbing up the wall and entering
the holes near the ceiling. There is a
new protective shell in the works to
be placed on top of the Sarcophagus,
but the project has suffered many set-
backs and delays. According to cur-
rent information, it should be in place
by the end of 2017.
81
The World Changes
I started writing this game in 2010
and finished it in 2016. During these
six years, many things happened.
The situation in Ukraine changed
radically and the New Shelter has
become a part of the landscape. It
cannot be seen in the photographs in
this book, which were taken in 2010.
If you want a look at the New Shelter,
Google “New Safe Confinement”.
As you plan your own game of
Chernobyl Mon Amour, you can
decide whether you like the old,
creaking Sarcophagus or the modern
New Safe Confinement better. Use
the one that works for the game you
want to make.
Inside, Reactor No. 4 is a labyrinth
of fire-blackened concrete walls. In
theory, it is possible to walk right up
to where the original uncontrolled
reaction occurred, but in practice
this is extremely dangerous. Radia-
tion does not distribute evenly, and
may fluctuate wildly over small areas.
Even if it is perfectly safe to stand
here, a metre away the radiation may
be lethal. It is invisible and not all
dosimeters measure all types of radi-
ation. Strong radiation makes electric
devices like flashlights and dosime-
ters break down quickly. First they
start to glitch, and then they die.
There are many bodies inside the
reactor. Most of them are Zoners who
came here to prove something or to
commit suicide.
Moving about in the reactor area is
extremely dangerous, as the soldiers
guarding it are easy on the trigger.
Their routes have not been organized
very well, however, so it is possible
to slip past if one is willing to take
the risk of getting shot.
Reactor No. 2 is in better shape, but
it, too, bears the marks of an accident.
The walls are blackened by fire. Reac-
tors No. 1 and 3 are basically intact,
there if one wants to see what a reac-
tor looked before it blew up. It isn’t
easy, because they are guarded much
more closely than the disaster reac-
tors. There’s no easy way in. Most of
the Zoners are not interested anyway,
because they lack the mysticism of
nuclear doom.
In the daytime, birds flying in and
out of the Sarcophagus are a common
sight. The concrete shell is a popular
nesting place.
Soldiers
The plant, the train, and the soldiers
guarding the Zone are not meant as
enemies. They are a force of nature
that sets limits to the possibilities
of life in the Zone. They cannot be
fought, and they will always outnum-
ber you. They can only be avoided
and dodged.
83
The Zoners
The Zone is home to some five hun-
dred criminals, outlaws, wanted peo-
ple, and fugitives. Many Zoners live
alone or in smaller groups in the ruins
of Pripyat or one of the smaller vil-
lages. In addition to these unofficial
groups, a part of the population has
organized into societies, gangs, and
other groups with more cohesion.
A typical group of Zoners com-
prises four to ten people, living in a
shared floor on an apartment block, a
row house, or a cottage. Most of the
buildings have been repaired using
materials from other abandoned
buildings, but some enterprising new
arrivals have built their own wooden
houses. They tend to be fairly simple
cabins, because building materials are
not easy to come by in the Zone. Fell-
ing trees and looting ruins are usually
the only options.
The groups of people living in the
Zone form a loose community with
their own gathering places, traditions,
and events. About half the inhabit-
ants are regular Zoners, and the other
half belongs to the gangs. The char-
acters’ first contact is probably with
the “regular Zoners”, because the
gang members are tied up with their
own things. The characters may join a
gang, but the assumption is that they
will not.
An Unhappy Couple
Vladyslav and Mykola were small-
time criminals and lovers in Odessa
who thought they had hit upon the
gig of their lifetime. A local politi-
cian’s son passed out in front of Myko-
la’s car during a coke deal. The cou-
ple improvised a kidnapping that was
supposed to end with them moving
abroad with their riches. Instead, the
police entered their hideout through
the wall and the politician said their
life expectancy in jail would be short.
They decided to flee to the Zone and
start a new life.
Vladyslav and Mykola live in a flat in
the fourth district of Pripyat. They’ve
fixed up an apartment near the Little
Star of the Deniers of the Atom. Vla-
dyslav is a 35-year-old, bearded, reli-
able-looking man. Mykola is younger
and quicker, and his job was to han-
dle the human element of their cons.
As long as their life was difficult and
dangerous, their love bloomed. Sur-
vival in Odessa, the kidnapping,
escaping to the Zone. These were the
best moments of their relationship.
Now that everything is fine, their
bliss has started to crack. Vladyslav is
wondering if Mykola is conning him as
well. Mykola can’t bear that their sex
life ended as they entered the Zone.
85
 Deniers of the Atom
The Deniers of the Atom are a com-
munity of about 20, living in the Little
Star kindergarten in the fourth district
of Pripyat. The Jupiter Factory is not
far. The Little Star is one of the best-
fortified buildings in the Zone, because
the Deniers of the Atom have a lot of
enemies. They will not accept many
of the principles and tenets that other
Zoners hold dear and have gained an
outlaw status even among outlaws.
The Deniers of the Atom try to
live in the Zone as insulated from the
radiation as possible. They live in iso-
lation in their kindergarten and rarely
leave. They have a garden on the roof,
and have bricked shut their windows
so that outsiders have a hard time
breaking in. The Jupiter Gang and the
Strontium Wolves attack the Little
Star regularly, though this is more a
“fuck you” than a serious threat.
Because they are so despised, few
want anything to do with the Deniers
of the Atom. Their community care-
fully monitors contact with other
Zoners. The Deniers of the Atom
resemble a cult with their empha-
sis on bodily purity and the impor-
tance of communal life. In their par-
lance, the phrase ”Clean World” refers
to a time before nuclear power. They
approach it through literature.
In the evening the Deniers of the
Atom gather together to read aloud
Tolstoy novels. All kinds of dating,
sex, and romance are strictly forbid-
den, for in a radioactive world there
can be no love and definitely no chil-
dren. The punishment for breaking
this ban can escalate into physical
violence. The community is cruel to
those who stick out.
86
Most Deniers of the Atom have a
very poor understanding of life in the
Zone. They tend to be people who
arrived in the Zone alone and were
not able to face the horrors of radia-
tion. The Deniers of the Atom often
try to find newbies before they meet
anyone else to convince them that
the Zone is a lethally dangerous place
and the only safety is with a tight
community that avoids radiation to
the utmost.
The Deniers of the Atom have
access to an unknown and appar-
ently inexhaustible store of Soviet-
era canned food. They live on this
and the bounty of their garden.
From a romantic point of view, the
attraction of the Deniers of the Atom
is in their naivete and separation
from the world. Also, like nearly all of
the gangs, they offer the chance for
a romantic relationship strictly con-
demned by the community. In the
case of the Deniers of the Atom, you
can assume that both the other Zon-
ers and the Deniers will regard the
romance very negatively. Because of
this, it’s best for prospective lovers
to meet in secret. Maybe the charac-
ter can help the Denier of the Atom
accept radiation and experience all
the wonderful things that the Zone
has to offer. Likewise, the Denier of
the Atom can bring the character to
the strange secrets in the basement of
the Little Star.
The Victim
Yuri arrived in the Zone with his father
when he was only twelve. After the
first few nightmarish days and nights,
the Deniers of the Atom saved them
from the misery, hunger, and can-
cer. Father became one of their most
devoted members. According to him,
they might as well live on a foreign
planet, and only the walls, cans, and
garden of the Little Star gave them
a chance. Like many Deniers of the
Atom, father wears a gas mask when-
ever he is outdoors.
Yuri’s rebellion began when he
stopped wearing his gas mask at the
age of 18. He has begun to suspect
that outside the Little Star, there is
a life more difficult, interesting, and
exciting than anything he can expe-
rience inside.
The first impression of Yuri is that
he’s utterly incapable of staying alive
in the Zone. He is tall, broad-shoul-
dered, and so relaxed it’s unreal. He is
naïve, trusting, and easily taken advan-
tage of. He has basically no sense of
self-preservation and will home in
on anything cool. Parties, drugs, sex.
Yuri can surprise you, however. If you
betray him or treat him badly, it may
turn out that he is a survivor after all.
The Jazz Club of
Chernobyl-2
Every Thursday, there’s a meetup of
jazz aficionados at the Chernobyl-2
radar station. Sometimes they even
have a gig. Chernobyl-2 is a good
place for listening music, because a
proficient sound technician can pull
power for the gear straight from the
radar array. The club is sufficiently tra-
ditionalist that their music is played
off vinyl and the gigs are usually
acoustic.
The Jazz Club is attended by
around 30 people, most of whom are
former hired killers and their friends
and family. They are connected by
their love of music, but the Zoners
know that you’re not welcome to the
jazz evenings unless you also belong
there by trade.
Politics, business, and organized
crime in Russia and Ukraine employ
a lot of hitmen, some of them very
good at what they do. Unfortunately,
situations change, and sometimes it
happens that a hitman’s existence
becomes awkward to important peo-
ple. Another hired gun may be dis-
patched after them, or the cops take
care of them in jail.
Many professional killers dream of
retiring to Ibiza after accumulating
enough capital, but in practice many
of them end up here, in the Zone.
The Jazz Club has a consensus that
the Zone is not a place for killing
people, but sometimes things esca-
late and violence is unavoidable. The
members of the Jazz Club will defend
themselves and sometimes each
other, but they also believe that if a
member dies violently, it happened
of their own free will. Revenge is not
their style, unless it’s because of per-
sonal friendship.
The Jazz Club’s meetings are a pop-
ular topic in the zone, because their
members have the best cigars, the
rarest whisky, and the weirdest por-
nography. When it comes to hard-to-
get luxury goods, you can’t beat the
Jazz Club. Basically anyone can show
up to their meetings, but outsiders
will get the cold shoulder. A guest
who doesn’t belong might get asked
87
 between sets: “Are you sure you’re in
the right place? This is more for us
fans of jazz.”
Romantically, retired hitmen rep-
resent danger, the attraction to vio-
lence, and the brutality of force. They
tend to be civilized, punctual, and
capable of taking what they want.
The appreciate the finer things in life,
be it vintage wine or an attractive
date. If the romance develops, the
killer may turn out to be jealous or
overprotective. They will rescue the
object of their affection, but the price
will be paid in the blood of others.
The Hunting Party
The biggest, most beautiful building
in the Zone constructed by Zoners is
a dacha at the border of Ukraine and
Belarus, where the former crime boss
Sergei “Uncle Seryozha” Maximov-
ich Demidov is spending his retire-
ment. During his career, Uncle Seryo-
zha regretted that he never had the
time to go hunting. Now he has all
the time in the world, so sometimes
he and his retinue head out from his
dacha to the Belarusian forest after elk
and bear. More commonly, though,
hunting plans are scuttled by liquor,
and they never get out of the dacha.
Uncle Seryozha has a group of
around 30 hangarounders. Some of
them came with him to the Zone, oth-
ers are former subordinates who later
followed him, and the rest are Zoners
who joined for their own reasons.
The dacha itself is as close to a pal-
ace as possible when building with
logs in the middle of the woods. It
has two floors and a basement, sev-
eral outbuildings, and a guard tower.
Uncle Seryozha still gets food and sup-
plies from the outside. He’s usually
88
drunk, and nobody is allowed to go
to sleep before he has passed out. He
rules his dacha as a dictator and has
a habit of shooting those who break
his rules.
Uncle Seryozha has a thin wife who
starts drinking early in the morning,
and a son and a daughter in their twen-
ties, Oleksandr and Anastasiya. He is
very jealous of his children and lets
them leave the dacha only rarely, and
then with a minimum of two body-
guards. They are both very beautiful.
They chafe under their father’s strict
discipline, but are also used to people
doing as they want. They are the two
best-dressed people in the Zone.
Dating-wise, the Hunting Party is
a realm ruled by a conservative patri-
arch, where wooing carries the risk
of ending up as a game animal in the
Belarusian woods. If you try some-
thing with Uncle Seryozha’s children,
you wake up naked, to the sound of
the hunting horn. In addition to the
children, the Hunting Party offers
other potential romantic partners.
Perhaps Uncle Seryozha has a right-
hand man or woman, who follows
their boss’s every order until falling in
love with one of the characters. The
danger brings its own flavor to sex
and romance. Uncle Seryozha’s chil-
dren are beautiful assholes, who want
to break the rules and experience life.
You can take things in many direc-
tions with them: maybe it’s fun to
teach a fancy brat a lesson, or maybe
the cruel youth can force their will on
a player character who falls for them.
Zoners have only a few cars at their
disposal, and gas is hard to come by.
It’s common knowledge that Uncle
Seryozha’s ZIL-41047 limousine is
the finest car in the Zone. The black
A Collector of Lace
Vira specialized in using her mocking smile and aggressive sexuality to get
close to her targets. She operated in parties, on hunting trips, at strip clubs,
and other venues where the target was at leisure and it was easy to bypass
bodyguards in the heat of the moment. Killing her targets with improvised
weapons like broken glasses, forks, or ballpoint pens became something of a
trademark.
Vira’s career was short, only a couple of years. Everybody knew who she
was and she liked parties, coke, and her own reflection far too much to slow
down. She’s not in the Zone because of any particular murder but because her
few friends decided she was no longer worth the trouble.
She has decided to quit the murder business and superficial life. She is going
to become a cultivated person, who appreciates jazz and classical music, and
understands spiritual values. She doesn’t yearn to leave the Zone, but deep
down, she’s bored. Her favourite things in the world were killing people and
lace underwear. Each is difficult in the Zone, for different reasons.
When it comes to relationships, Vira likes everything that breaks her lim-
its and forces her into a new situation or position. She gets bored easily, fears
nothing, and cannot be tied down into any conventional relationship arrange-
ment. If there are no exciting twists in the romance, she will make some.

Ella Fitzgerald’s Number One Fan

Kyrylo’s nom de guerre was the Terminator of Kharkov. After a stint in the
army, he moved to the private sector but his basic job description, killing,
remained the same. His career lasted for some twenty years, and over 50 dead
bodies. He had a habit of loading his phone full of Ella Fitzgerald songs and
waiting on a rooftop with a sniper rifle until he could shoot his target’s head
off through a window from hundreds of metres away. It was calming, even
meditative, to wait on the roof and listen to music that speaks more of life
than anything Kyrylo has ever experienced.
The money got him a good apartment, vintage scotch, and bespoke suits.
Sometimes Kyrylo went to the opera. In his forties, he started thinking about
his future and realized his life was going nowhere. He was lonely, and a retire-
ment in Marseille, Florida, or Bangkok didn’t sound appealing. He decided to
leave for the Zone, where people would understand him.
Kyrylo is one of the central characters of the Jazz Club. He’s a broad-shoul-
dered, slightly battered-looking man with a deep focus whenever he listens to
music or falls in love. Kyrylo does not have crushes; when he’s interested in
someone, it is as if he sees something nobody else can see. Something as beau-
tiful as music that speaks of the deepest truths of the human condition.
Violence holds no appeal to Kyrylo, but it does come easily to him. In the
Zone, he tries to leave people alive, but if someone bothers his date, things
escalate quickly.

89
 vehicle is carefully maintained by
Uncle Seryozha’s chauffeur. The boss
himself uses it only rarely. Usually
the car is seen bringing his children
somewhere.
Weird Relationships
Most people in the Zone are sane
people that you can have mature,
balanced relationships with. There’s
always drama, but the idea is that
you can find a suitable partner in the
Zone.
However, some of these gangs and
other factions represent more fucked
up relationship options, the kind that
would be kinda horrible in real life.
These gangs offer the chance to date
nutjobs, sadists, and psychopaths.
The Jupiter Gang
The Jupiter Gang are the closest the
Zone has to a biker club. The lives
of their few dozen members revolve
around moonshine, sex, and violence.
The cheap drugs they cook are the
most plentiful in the Zone, even if the
quality control leaves something to be
desired. Every night is a party night,
and at the end they usually head out
to beat up someone living nearby.
Keeping motorbikes running in
the Zone is hard, but the Jupiter
mechanics usually have one or two
vehicles patched together from rusty
iron. They don’t last long, and it’s not
unusual that after midnight some-
one drives one of them through the
Deniers of the Atom’ wall to lay hands
on “fresh meat”.
The Jupiter Gang is feuding with
pretty much all other Zoner fac-
tions, but they are also surprisingly
approachable. If you go to the Jupiter
90
Factory before noon, you can have a
normal conversation with them. On
the other hand, if you go there in the
evening, you end up as the night’s
entertainment. It’s rarely lethal, but
humiliation is certain.
Basically anybody can join, if
they’re willing and able to do meth
and beat up people. The initiation
rituals are different every time, but
the element of humiliation is always
strong. Some examples are sucking
off every member of the gang, or hav-
ing to sit on the ground while every-
one else pisses on the initiate. If you
can take it, you’re in. The initiation
usually lasts for a couple of days, and
to get to that point requires hanging
with the gang for around a month.
Before the initiation, the initiate is
basically a slave that any gang mem-
ber can order around. Every member
has gone through the same process.
The Jupiter Gang has few rules, but
harsh discipline. Individual activity,
especially directed outside the gang,
is frowned upon. The gang being
what it is, this frowning may express
itself as drunken stabbing. When it
comes to romance, the gang is about
choices and community. If a gang
member and a character fall in love,
sooner or later one of them will have
to change their life. Either the gang
member must abandon the gang, or
the character has to join. Both options
are difficult. You can’t just walk away
from the Jupiter Gang, and traitors
are killed. If someone known to date
a gang member tries to get in, the ini-
tiation will be unusually hard.
The Mechanic
Lara the Bolt was a junkie from Kyiv
whose enemies were never very pow-
erful, but there were a lot of them.
When she finally got a longer sen-
tence, she faced a prison life in close
proximity to all of them. That did
not feel good. She dosed herself up
on meth and performed a jailbreak
details of which she can’t remember.
In the Zone, she drifted around for a
time but the Jupiter Gang’s style felt
familiar and understandable.
In the gang, Lara has even managed
to improve herself. She has learned to
fight and build cars. Building insane
mechanical devices is fun, and it’s
awesome to see them roll out and
spread terror.
Lara is a sinewy woman in good
physical shape, usually seen in her
mechanic’s overalls. She tries to
limit her boozing and hellraising to
the evenings so that there’s a sem-
blance of order in her existence. Now
that her life is back on track, she has
begun to contemplate her miserable
love life. The Jupiter Gang is kinda
difficult for that, because Lara’s type
is vulnerable people who stir her pro-
tective instincts. Previously, she has
been so broken up herself that find-
ing people like that has been impossi-
ble, but the situation is different now.
Because of this, she might go look-
ing outside the gang. Lara tries not to
think about the choices the relation-
ship of her dreams might lead to.
Strontium Wolves
Along with the Jupiter Gang, the
Strontium Wolves are the two most
violent gangs in the Zone. Their ideal
is to become a part of the Zone’s nat-
ural system. Strontium is a radioac-
tive material that resembles calcium.
If a human or animal gets it in their
system, it will not pass through, but
ends up in the bones. A strontium
skeleton is radioactive, and very bad
for your health.
Many animals in the Zone are radio-
active, but their strontium bones do
not prevent them from thriving. By
the time a wolf dies of cancer, it has
had ample opportunity to procreate.
The Strontium Wolves see this as a
part of the circle of life. To become a
member, an initiate must kill a wolf,
bear, or wild boar, armed only with a
piece of radioactive metal. In the ini-
tiation ritual, the new member eats a
powder made of the horns of an elk
living in the Zone.
The Strontium Wolves dwell in
small cabins and huts, away from the
other Zoners. They hunt together,
armed with knives, and perform rit-
uals where they paint their naked
bodies with blood. Sometimes they
attack the other villages of the Zone
to raid and pillage.
The Strontium Wolves are the
only faction in the Zone that tries to
aggressively reproduce. Making chil-
dren is seen as a duty, because the
Strontium Wolves believe the Zone
is but a foreshadowing of what the
entire world will eventually be like.
Climate change and natural disasters
will destroy most of humankind, and
survivors must be able to live in the
polluted wilderness, just as they do
in the Zone. Disabled children are
91
 born more frequently than outside
the Zone, and the Strontium Wolves
see taking care of them as normal.
The rest of the Zoners generally
view the Strontium Wolves as dan-
gerous lunatics. They number about
50, 35 of them adult. The Wolves
don’t exactly disapprove interacting
with outsiders, especially if child-
making is involved. When the child
is born, they will try to bring it in
and raise it as a Strontium Wolf, and
if a Wolf is too involved with an out-
sider, they will attempt to bring the
outsider into the gang as well.
From a romantic perspective, the
Strontium Wolves are half-animals,
living in the moment, stalking the
woods. Maybe the character will
bring out a Wolf’s desire to experi-
ence the finer things in life, or a char-
acter is attracted to the Wolves’ crazi-
ness. The social gulf between Wolves
and regular Zoners isn’t as deep as it
is with some of the other gangs, but
sooner or later the Wolves assume
that if you hang out with them, you
must be ready to live like them. If
you’re not, and especially if there is a
child involved, conflict is inevitable.
92
The Liberated Man
When Viktor worked as a personal
trainer, his clientele comprised mostly
of the trophy wives of rich and pow-
erful men. Many were lonely and if
he offered a more personal touch,
he got tipped a lot more. Viktor has
always liked people and emphatized
with their sorrows, perhaps too eas-
ily. Fucking the wives of business-
men was unwise, but it felt easy to
go along with it, help a fellow human,
and make some money.
Many of Viktor’s clients were tem-
peramental and knew their own
worth, and certainly knew how to
hit back if they felt they were mis-
treated. One of them told her hus-
band during a fight that the bun in
the oven wasn’t his. It was Viktor’s.
Hard to say if that was true. Viktor
was leaving a nightclub when two
men beat him up badly. When he got
home, he found out that the extent
of his services to his clients was now
common knowledge. The apartment
had been demolished and there was
a death threat on the wall. Viktor
decided to head into the Zone.
Viktor is an adaptable person. He
gets crushes easily, goes along with
anything, and will accept the most
outlandish excuses. It doesn’t take
much for him to make radical deci-
sions. He’s funny, charismatic, and
active. It’s easy to like him, but in the
end he will always do as he pleases.
Deep down, the Zone and the Stron-
tium Wolf philosophy has released
him of all external pressure. It’s easy
to be with him, but dating may result
in a child or two.
The Greenhouse
Can you lead a normal life in the
ruins of Pripyat? The inhabitants of
the Greenhouse are doing their best
to prove that yes, you can. On the
surface, the Greenhouse resembles
life outside the Zone. Located in the
north of Pripyat, on the border of
the fourth district, there’s a test farm
whose greenhouse has been refur-
bished for food production.
The community known as the
Greenhouse has around 40 members.
They try to dress as people dress on
the outside. They have apartments
and working hours. Dinner is eaten
around the dining room table, and
some have even made children. Along
with the Strontium Wolves, the
Greenhouse is the only faction that
has made actual plans for the future.
Where the Wolves adapt to the Zone,
the Greenhouse bends it’s surround-
ings to its own needs.
The Greenhouse is not afraid of
radiation. Its health effects are played
down and the resulting problems are
blamed on the patient. It’s a fact that
a human being needs only five hours
of sleep per night.
The Greenhouse trades a lot with
other communities and its members
regularly interact with their neigh-
bors. Greenhouse residents know that
it’s entirely possible to live a fully
normal life in the Zone, if only you
are willing to put in some work.
They try to conceal it, but the
Greenhouse’s secret is common
knowledge: it’s the Zone’s suicide
central. You cannot live in the Zone as
you would on the outside, and if you
feel this is because of your own infe-
riority, it is easy to fall into despair.
As only a positive and happy attitude
is acceptable at the Greenhouse, you
can’t talk about your problems with
anyone.
Many newbies move into the
Greenhouse. Talk of how life can go
on as before appeals to those shocked
by the primitive conditions in the
Zone. The Greenhouse is selling
the idea that adaptation is unneces-
sary. Some residents move out after a
while, and there are no special sanc-
tions. The biggest barrier to leaving is
the fact that Greenhouse people are
disliked by the other communities.
They are thought of as self-important
and self-righteous, emphasizing how
they are better than everyone else.
On the face of it, it’s easy to kindle
a relationship with someone from the
Greenhouse. You can encounter them
away from home, and there are no
barriers to social relationships. Soon,
though, you will notice how the
demands placed upon them by the
community are too harsh for them
to actually have time for anything
else. The relationship has a future
only if the character can tear away
their love from the mentally destruc-
tive environment of the Greenhouse.
The problem is that members usually
can’t see how the Greenhouse is hurt-
ing them.
93
 Miss Perfection
Masha isn’t a criminal like the other Zoners, at least in her own mind. She used
to work for Russia’s FSB as an intelligence analyst. In her work, she saw infor-
mation about a multitude of abuses of power that she began leaking to the
media and human rights organizations. She didn’t get far with Russian media,
but soon her leaks were picked up outside the country.
Her primary goals used to be a methodical life and efficient career advance-
ment, before her conscience messed things up. However, it was not for noth-
ing that she worked at the FSB, and she figured out that the jig was up a few
hours before they came to arrest her. Masha guessed that if she stayed put
they’d arrest her and she’d disappear into some godforsaken hole, so the Zone
felt like a reasonable option.
Based on first impressions, the Greenhouse looked like the only good com-
munity in the Zone. She moved in and made herself useful during the first
Jupiter Gang attack. The ideal of an organized and tightly scheduled life has
just one problem: Masha no longer has any goals. Career and the Motherland
are meaningless here. She works according to the principles of the Green-
house, but has a hard time figuring out why any of it matters.
Masha is looking for something to believe in. Romance and falling in love
may be a part of this, but in the end she can only be happy with someone
who has a broader vision of life. A mere person cannot make her happy. She
needs an ideal.

94
 Etiquette
Zoners are not uptight. People dress
how they will, and outside of the
gangs, people are used to making
their own decisions. There’s enough
communal feeling that people will
take care of their friends and likeable
strangers, but an asshole can pass out
in the snow and nobody gives a shit.
The difference between when peo-
ple work and when they cut loose is
stark. An ordinary Monday is quiet,
but once it’s party time, Zoners put
in a lot of effort. One of the reasons is
that in the Zone, there’s limited enter-
tainment and a lot of free time, and
people must come up with stuff to do
on a regular basis. It’s not uncommon
to have a party three nights a week.
The interaction between the dif-
ferent groups is shaped by the way
they all stew in the same small area.
More or less every Zoner will get
attacked by the Jupiter Gang at some
point, because there just aren’t a lot
of targets to go around. Zoners drink
and do a lot of drugs, but the worst
excesses are curtailed by the poor
availability of suitable substances.
Most Zoners go by a first name,
a nickname, or sometimes their last
name. Using one’s full name is rare,
because almost everyone knows
everyone else. Most people don’t
want to be remembered from the
outside world, where some of them
have enjoyed their fifteen minutes of
infamy in the papers. The combina-
tion of given name and patronym is
also sometimes used.
Generally speaking, Zoners respect
privacy and romance. Gossip spreads
96
fast, but at parties you get to make
out in peace.
Ukrainian and Russian names
Ukrainian and Russian names have
three parts: given name, patronym,
and family name. Additionally, there
are nicknames based on the given
name.
A character may be called Boris
Ivanovich Sokurov. Thus, his nick-
name would be Borya. His father’s
name is Ivan, which is combined with
a suffix for Ivanovich.
If the character is a woman, her
name could be Natalia Ivanovna
Sokurova. Her nickname would be
Natasha. Her father’s name is Ivan, so
her patronym is Ivanovna. Female sur-
names get appended with an -a, result-
ing in Sokurova, not just Sokurov.
The same given name may have
several nicknames. This helps in dif-
ferentiating people with the same
first name from one another. Other
nicknames for Boris are Boba, Bob,
Borulya, and Boryha.
Russian-style, my own name would
be Juhana Eerovich Pettersson.
The Anniversary
of the Disaster
The Zoners observe each and every
holiday that anyone can think up.
The most important is their own, the
anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster.
It has many names. The week leading
up to the anniversary itself is called
the Celebration of the Atom. The
actual date is April 26th, but the Cele-
bration of the Atom usually kicks off
well in advance.
At the beginning of the Celebra-
tion, Zoners begin to fast. The more
enthusiastic celebrants start earlier,
the rest as the week progresses. The
fast lasts from dawn to sundown, and
at night there’s a feast. Tradition-
ally, only food grown in the soil of
the Zone or hunted in its woods is
served. Thus, the power of the Atom
is carried from the land to its inhab-
itants. The rarer and harder catches
like European bison are hunted on
the first days of the Celebration.
The dramatic climax of the Cel-
ebration of the Atom occurs on the
eve of the anniversary. Zoners build
a wooden tower which is set on fire
and finally blown up around mid-
night. The ceremony is usually held at
the central square of Pripyat, though
sometimes the Zoners experiment
with a new location. As part of the rit-
ual, Zoners watch the flaming tower
from as close as possible. Once the
fire has gone out and there is noth-
ing left except burnt wood, they rub
the ashes on their face or bare skin.
Many take off their shirt and some-
times other clothes at this point.
Compared to the eve, the day of
the anniversary itself is peaceful.
After sundown, people go as close
to the power plant as possible. Some
years, the soldiers allow them to
approach and some years they don’t.
Everyone brings a candle, a stick of
incense, or a small torch and leaves it
on the ground near the plant. Once
everyone has left their flame, they
wait in silence until the last one has
gone out. After this, they leave. The
moment right after the candles have
gone out is traditionally used to make
radical, life-changing decisions.
There’s a point of etiquette about
the candles: they cannot be too long.
Nobody wants to wait half an hour
for them to die.
Most of the gangs respect the anni-
versary and the Celebration of the
Atom. The Deniers of the Atom keep
to themselves, and sometimes the
Strontium Wolves or the Jupiter Gang
observe the anniversary by attacking
them. The Greenhouse participates,
but without enthusiasm.
The Zone League
The largest sports field in the Zone,
the Avandgard Stadium, is in Pripyat.
It’s in the centre, between the amuse-
ment park and the fifth district. There
are raised bleachers on its northern
edge. Maintaining the field is diffi-
cult, but Zoners work together on it
so that each summer, they can play
the Zone League. Football is serious
business in the Zone.
There are five teams in the League,
and to keep the season going they
play several combinations before the
finals. Men, women, and other gen-
ders all play together. During the
games, there is a truce between differ-
ent factions, but things may get out
of hand once the winner is declared.
Feelings run hot.
The Jupiter Gang has their own
team, also called Jupiter. Strontium
90 is composed of Strontium Wolves
and members of the Jazz Club. It is
the most feared team in the Zone,
but rarely claims the championship.
Radium, Reactor, and Polonium are
all composed of regular Zoners.
Football is the single most impor-
tant power bringing the Zone’s various
97
 factions together. Because there are
a lot of games, the different groups
have to deal with one another. The
referee has traditionally been a man
called Sokolov, who has lived in the
Zone for a while now. He played pro-
fessional football back in his youth,
in Belarus. People generally agree he
has a favorite among the teams of the
Zone, but the identity of that favor-
ite depends on who’s talking. Proving
his bias by going over old matches is
one of the favourite discussion topics
in the Zone.
Radiation Diving
There are a lot of people in the Zone
who feel the need to prove they are
tougher than anyone else. The most
common way of doing this is radia-
tion diving. That’s when you and
your friends go to a place of strong
radiation. You either run through the
radioactive area, or rush in and out.
Sometimes, two people compete by
seeing who can stay in the longest.
Most Zoner communities try to stop
these kinds of contests, though. Radi-
ation is invisible, and catching a lethal
dose by accident is easy.
The most iconic radiation dive is a
run through the Red Forest, but in
practice most Zoners understand this
to be suicide. There’s a fire station in
Pripyat whose basement is very radio-
active, because it houses the locker
rooms of the firefighters who partic-
ipated in the post-disaster cleanup
efforts. The protective clothes hang-
ing from the walls are still extremely
radioactive. There are no lights in the
basement, and it’s easy to fall and hit
your head running in the darkness.
Sometimes people take the concept
more literally and the participants
98
swim or dive in the Pripyat River.
The goal is to swim carefully so as
not to disturb the silt at the bot-
tom. After the Red Forest, the crazi-
est radiation dive is also acquatic, and
requires scuba gear. You can dive in
the cooling pond of the power plant
and swim through the water intake
pipes straight beneath the exploded
Reactor No. 4. The necessary gear is
hard to come by in the Zone, so this
type of stunt is rare.
Dust Racing
Every summer, the Zoners organize
a racing contest, where at sundown
they start from Pripyat, drive into
the sparsely-populated western Zone,
then turn towards Chernobyl town,
drive through it, turn north and drive
past the cooling pond on the east
side, and finally drive past the Sar-
cophagus and return to Pripyat.
There are usually around ten cars
in the contest. The date varies, and
moves around a lot because of the
weather. The spirit of the contest
requires the weather to be warm and
dry so that the unpaved roads will be
as dusty as possible. Radioactive parti-
cles settle into the ground, where the
wheels may fling them back up. The
more road dust, the better the effect.
You are only allowed to participate
in a car you’ve built yourself, and the
chassis must come from a pre-disas-
ter original or one of the vehicles
used in the cleanup operation. There
are hundreds of abandoned helicop-
ters, trucks, cars, and other vehicles
that had to be left behind once the
cleanup was done. Radioactive parti-
cles stick to metal, and none of the
metallic vehicles could be removed
from the Zone.
 None of these abandoned wrecks
work, so the radioactive chassis needs
its motor and probably most other
parts replaced. New parts are smug-
gled from the outside or stolen from
rivals.
The cars tend to look wild, not only
because they are self-made but also
because the rules approve destroying
the competition through ramming.
Their outer surfaces are rusty, radio-
active metal, studded with spikes
and armor plating, though the worst
excesses are curtailed by the Zone’s
rather challenging racing terrain
which favours lighter vehicles that
won’t get stuck on branches.
Dust racer cars rarely see use out-
side of the race because they break
down.
The interiors of the cars are insu-
lated so that radiation will not bother
the driver too much. The materials
used are packing plastic, Styrofoam,
and cardboard. Radioactive metal
doesn’t radiate very far, so it is pos-
sible to drive the car without seri-
ous exposure. The dust cloud from
the car ahead is the worse danger,
because getting radioactive particles
in your lungs means the radiation is
coming from within your own body.
The dust race doesn’t have an orga-
nizer as such, and is arranged by com-
munal effort. The decision about the
date can lead to heated arguments,
usually because some want to post-
pone for a dustier day and others
fear the rest of the summer will be
one long rainstorm. The judges are
usually three Zoners from different
groups who are not friends with any
of the drivers. Some years this is diffi-
cult, and new arrivals to the Zone are
often chosen for this duty.
It is not unheard of that there is
no winner because nobody makes it
to the goal. Sometimes people drive
so aggressively that every car falls to
pieces.
The Abortion Clinic
In the Zone, there are many love
stories but few families. The Zoners
think that especially after stronger
doses of radiation, the risk of getting
a deformed baby is too great. Most
people also think that the Zone is not
a place with enough of a future for
a child to have a chance. To them,
the Zone is the final destination for
people the world has forsaken, where
they can live in the moment and die
of radiation sickness.
Still, sometimes even the Zoners
forget to use a rubber and someone
ends up pregnant. That’s when they
usually head to the abortion clinic.
The only abortion clinic in the
Zone operates near the Belarusian
border in the village of Chapayevka,
or its ruins. Chapayevka is located 35
kilometers east of Pripyat, and apart
from the clinic there’s nothing there.
The dense forest typical of the Bela­
rusian Zone has taken over the ruins
and the clinic itself operates in a
cabin that’s easy to miss even when
walking nearby.
The clinic is run by an older woman
named Polina Sergeyevna. She is a
warm, grandmotherly person who says
she worked as a doctor at Pripyat’s
Hospital no. 126. According to her, the
clinic was evacuated from the hospital
and is still a part of its operations.
Actually, Polina Sergeyevna was a
cleaning lady at the hospital before
the disaster, and has no training to
perform abortions. She is a self-taught
99
 amateur, whose good-natured bedside Contraception
manner goes a long way to cover for Contraceptives such as condoms are
the roughness of her folksy methods. sought-after luxuries in the Zone. Mak-
The abortion doesn’t need to be ing them yourself is hard or impos-
paid right away, but Zoners say that sible, so they are smuggled in from
Polina Sergeyevna always gets what’s outside or stolen from power plant
due to her in the end. Most women workers. A condom has good trade
coming to the clinic bring the appro- value compared to booze, because
priate fee up front. They do not want moonshine is distilled locally.
to owe her. One of the regular topics of discus-
Sometimes Zoners decide to keep sion in the Zone is whether a condom
their children. A few even send their is one-use or if you can wash it off.
babies out of the Zone. Most Zoner
parents are optimistic slackers.
The abortion clinic is not a gener-
ally controversial topic in the Zone,
but the Strontium Wolves do not
like it. The Wolves do not care what
members of other groups do, but if a
Wolf gets caught visiting, the conse-
quences are very bad.

100
 Best Places for a Date
Helicopter Bistro
The Vehicle Graveyard is a junkyard
for old Soviet helicopters that were
used in the cleanup operation. Because
radioactivity sticks to metal, they had
to be abandoned in the Zone. They
no longer fly, just lie on the ground in
endless rows. The dry grass and rusty
metal hide many things. One of them
is the Helicopter Bistro.
The Bistro opens at sundown. It’s
easy to find by the fire outside that
shines far in the dark Graveyard.
Dodging between the helicopter
chassises can be ghostly, but the radi-
ation is only dangerous if you touch
the metal.
The proprietor is an old man by the
name of General. He’s both the cook
and the waiter. The Bistro has been
built inside an old transport helicop-
ter. There’s a red velvet curtain in
its doorway, and old, framed photo-
graphs of happy and innocent people
decorate its walls.
The Bistro only has a few, small
tables, and all of them seat two. The
General provides the services of the
Bistro at no charge, and he does
everything to ensure that his guests
enjoy themselves. It is said, though,
that if you have spent a night at the
General’s, he may ask about it at a
later date. Maybe he requests a bottle
of cognac, or a delivery of rare fruit.
Once you’ve had yours, you must
help get the ingredients for someone
else’s romantic dinner.
102
The General has a daughter, or
maybe a granddaughter, a young
woman who looks like she lives in
other worlds. When the sun goes
down and the Bistro opens, she takes
out her violin and plays sad songs.
They urge the listener to enjoy the
moment because tomorrow things
will be different.
The Zoners call her the Angel,
because the story goes that she and
her father arrived to the Zone on the
same helicopter that houses the Bistro.
It is said she never speaks, and those
who fall in love with her are doomed
to wonder if she is even aware that
they exist. Attempts to rob the Bistro
are very unwise, because of both the
General and the Angel. They’re capa-
ble of a surprising amount of brutal-
ity if the situation calls for it.
Or so the rumor goes. You shouldn’t
believe everything you hear, espe-
cially when it’s about the Vehicle
Graveyard.
The Roof of Apartment
Building No. 17
Apartment building no. 17 is one of the
tallest buildings in Pripyat, a 16-story
tower rising out of the woods. No. 17
is mostly empty, but there are a few
inhabitants who have fixed them-
selves apartments in the top floors.
They are united by their love of a
good view, because carrying drinking
water up there is a tough job. Only
someone who really wants to look
over the rooftops at the power plant,
morning or night, would live there.
Pripyat’s lovers have discovered
the sunsets at no. 17, and there’s a
slow-burning feud between them
and the inhabitants. The inhabitants
do not like outsiders in their build-
ing. Would you enjoy listening to the
giggling of giddy lovers when you’re
trying to sleep?
The traditional no. 17 date requires
walking up to the top floor via the
stairwell, climbing up to the attic, and
then to the roof. There’s a body of a
dead dog in the attic. You must not
touch it as disturbing the body brings
bad luck. Sometimes the building’s
inhabitants try to bar doors or block
staircases. In such cases, you must go
through windows, use a crowbar, or
try climbing through a second story
window.
The roof is flat concrete with grass
growing in its cracks. Once you’ve
made it to the roof, you spread a blan-
ket and sit down to drink moonshine
and watch the sun set over the dis-
tant Sarcophagus. Tradition dictates
that you spend the whole night on
the rooftop. This is easy in the sum-
mer, but harder in the winter, though
every New Year’s Eve the roof is lit-
tered with couples and small groups.
Kino Atom
The Palace of Culture is one of the
most recognizable landmarks in
Pripyat. Before the disaster, it housed
a movie theatre. It’s still in use, in a
way. These days, you sit in the ruins
in folding chairs and there’s a small
bar that sells vodka, Zone-made apple
wine, and apricot liquor.
People come to Kino Atom to sit,
talk with their friends, drink, and tell
their melancholy life stories. It’s a
good place to meet up with someone
in an informal context. It’s easy to get
to know Zoners here, because people
move fluidly between cliques.
Actual shows are sporadic, usually
on Wednesdays, Fridays and Satur-
days in the evening and a matinee on
Sunday. The Kino usually shows three
films in a row, with people coming
and going all the way through. Kino
Atom is operated by a woman in her
forties named Oksana Ivanovna, origi-
nally from Kyiv. Apparently she used
to work in the field of culture or in
academia, and still holds on to her
uncompromising dignity.
Most nights, Oksana Ivanovna sits
at the back of the room, smoking and
looking at the screen, often the only
person actually following the movie.
Now and then, she introduces a film
and talks about what it means to her.
You’re supposed to stay quiet, and
applaud respectfully at the end.
Kino Atom’s programming consists
of a dozen old romantic tragedies.
Lovers yearn for one another for the
rest of their lives. Even at their death-
beds they still wonder if it could have
gone differently. The movies are on
film, and the projector runs on a gen-
erator chugging away in the cellar.
The bartender and bouncer of the
theatre is Oksana Ivanovna’s new pro-
tégé, Bruno. Bruno is a handsome
man in his twenties, of uncertain eth-
nicity, and delights in shooting down
people trying to hit on him. He likes
to do it as publicly as possible. The
only comfort for the dejected is that
this fate has already been shared by
most of the Kino Atom regulars.
Sometimes, the film catches fire in
the middle of the movie. That’s when
103
 Oksana Ivanovna’s thoughts turn to
her past, and Bruno shoos the cus-
tomers away. The two can be seen
sitting by a candle at the bar late into
the night, Oksana Ivanovna talking,
Bruno listening and pouring more
apricot liquor.
Café Pripyat
Café Pripyat is famed for its painted
glass windows, and is open when-
ever there’s light outside. It is run by
a collective of old Zoners, the Doc-
tors. They have since been joined by
newcomers, but originally they com-
prised a bunch of employees of old
Hospital no. 126, who stayed in the
Zone to make money illegally sell-
ing abandoned hospital equipment.
Later, they stayed because they were
wanted by the law for selling radio-
active hospital equipment. The orig-
inal Doctors are senior citizens by
now, and only a few are left. None
of them are actually physicians – they
were cleaning staff, cafeteria staff, and
maintenance workers.
The Doctors long held the monop-
oly on healthcare in the Zone, and
the business was brutal and primi-
tive. Lately, some actual physicians
have arrived, and the Doctor col-
lective has taken up running a café.
Some of them still live in the old Hos-
pital no. 126 across the street from
Café Pripyat, while others live in a
nearby apartment building.
Café Pripyat opens at dawn and
upholds traditional Soviet service
culture. Amidst the ruins, there are
tables, chairs, and a minimalist field
kitchen. A typical lunch is soup, with
meat and potatoes.
The café is useful when you want
to meet your lover discreetly, without
104
arousing suspicion. Many Zoners eat
at Café Pripyat, and going there is
not suspicious. Because there are so
few tables, it’s normal that customers
eat side by side. Sitting at the same
table with someone at Café Pripyat
means nothing, which makes it pop-
ular among those cheating on their
spouses.
Café Pripyat doesn’t accept money.
Instead, customers open a tab that
they must periodically shorten by
delivering the Doctors various goods.
If the debt isn’t paid in time, the Doc-
tors will make a house call.
On occasion, lovers have secretly
entered Café Pripyat at night to eat in
private and admire the painted glass
in the moonlight.
Neptune’s Day
In the Soviet Union, Navy Day was
the last Sunday of July. The unof-
ficial Neptune’s Day, when people
engaged in all sorts of sailor-themed
playfulness was held on the same
day. Nobody gives a damn about the
Soviet Navy in the Zone, but the old-
est residents still remember how on
Neptune’s Day there was boating on
the Pripyat River and they crowned
the King of the Seas.
This holiday is still in the Zoner cal-
endar. Radiation changes some things,
but it’s hot in July and methods for
cooling down are in demand. There
are ample participants for all sorts of
hijinks on the Pripyat River and in
the power plant’s cooling pond.
The mood of Neptune’s Day is play-
ful, and costumes are part of the deal.
On Neptune’s Day, nobody has to be
themselves.
One of the recurring topics of
discussion in the Zone is whether
cheating counts if it happens on Nep- heard all the way across the pond in
tune’s Day. Typical excuses include: Pripyat.
“Lose is free in Neptune’s domain.” In principle, everyone must obey
“I was just playing a role.” the royal couple no matter what
“Neptune’s Day doesn’t count.” they desire, and it’s a part of the cul-
These explanations are often heard ture that people try to provoke them
through your neighbor’s wall to the into making over-the-top requests. If
sound of breaking dishes. they try to wimp out, they get fed
Neptune’s Day is celebrated all more drugs.
around the Zone, but the major The shadow event has a bad rep
events happen in Pripyat and in the even by Zone standards, and many
village of Lelev. In Pripyat there’s a slip in to participate without telling
big party by the river, with everyone their friends. People go there to get
in a sea-themed costume. Those who wasted and fuck random people.
have no costume, especially new
arrivals, get carried to the riverbank
and thrown in the water. When they
splash to the shore, they must crawl
before the throne of the King of the
Seas and swear eternal loyalty.
The role of the King of the Seas is
chosen somewhat erratically. Some-
times it’s a King, sometimes a Queen,
sometimes a royal couple.
The party in Pripyat is one of the
biggest and most chaotic parties in
the Zone, so it’s no wonder there’s a
shadow event. The village of Lelev is
on the southern edge of the power
plant’s cooling pond. It used to be a
small place of about 1,200 inhabitants,
remembered for a particularly pleas-
ant park. Now nobody lives there and
nearly all the buildings have been
bulldozed.
The few remaining buildings are
right by the edge of the water, and
people drag in mattresses and bring
meat for barbecue. In the shadow
event, the most recent arrivals to
the Zone are crowned the King and
Queen. They’re given unreasonable
amounts of drink, fed psychoactive
mushrooms, and their reign is her-
alded with ritual drumming that is

105
Adventure
– For the Atom
“For the Atom” is a one-night game
where the characters escape from
prison and arrive in the Zone. The
outside world can no longer offer
them a chance at life, so they have
decided together to start over in a
radioactive paradise.
The players can make their own
characters or use the sample charac-
ters from the beginning of this book,
adapted to their needs. Because the
game takes only one session, it works
best if the players are capable of tak-
ing initiative.
Running the game, it’s important to
remember that the players are them-
selves responsible for the key roman-
tic scenes and choices. That’s the core
content of this scenario. The dramaric
scenes outlined here are to give the
game structure and keep things mov-
ing. Although there are kidnappings
and initiation rites, the most impor-
tant scene in the game may be a date
that two players improvise between
their characters.
Scene 1 – The Escape
This scene is set on a train transport-
ing the characters between prisons.
At the beginning of the scene, they
have agreed together to escape to
the Zone with the help of a contact
among the other prisoners.
Contact: Katiya is in jail for killing
a cop, and suspects she’s going to be
murdered. She has arranged through
her underworld contacts that the
train will stop for fifteen minutes
next to the Zone of Alienation. Katiya
is an energetic woman in her thirties
and full of crazy ideas.
The characters must come up with
a way to get out of the train carriage. If
they are successful, they can run into
the Zone under the cover of darkness.
There’s tall grass growing next to the
tracks. The characters’ hands are all
cuffed in the front. They and Katiya
are in a carriage with 30 prisoners all
told, both men and women. Its layout
is open, and both walls have benches
that the prisoners are chained to.
The players can come up with var-
ious ways to get free at the right
moment. Maybe one of the charac-
ters asks to get to the bathroom when
there’s only one guard in the carriage,
and another can wrench their poorly
attached handcuffs off the bench. This
is not meant to be hard: anything the
players suggest should work, as long
as it makes a modicum of sense.
If you want more excitement in
the scene, just as the characters have
opened the door with a key they stole
off a guard, the train starts moving.
Everyone rolls a die, and on a result of
1, the character lands poorly and will
have to take care with their ankle for
a few days.
The escape is quickly noticed and
you can keep the players on their
toes with spotlights on the grass,
shouts, and gunshots. The guards will
not pursue, however, and the charac-
ters will make it to the Zone.
109
 Scene 2 – The Zone
The characters arrive in the Zone, a
place they do not know, in the mid-
dle of the night, with no possessions
but the prison uniforms at their back
and the handcuffs on their wrists.
The first impression can be fright-
ening. It’s pitch black in the night and
the tall grass soon gives way to thick
woods that make movement difficult.
One of the characters can get their
shoes wet in a stream.
Wading through the woods doesn’t
need to last all that long in terms
of real time, because the characters
don’t really have access to easy solu-
tions. At some point, morning comes
and the sun rises, and the characters
discover they are in a beautiful nat-
ural paradise, where sunlight filters
through the birch boughs. At dawn,
Katiya leaves. She thanks the charac-
ters, saying that she must go on alone.
She’s been just as lost as the charac-
ters, but in the daylight she spots a
road beyond the trees. She suggests
the characters take the road to the
north, which should take them to
Pripyat. Katiya herself heads off in a
different direction.
Later on, the characters will run
into Katiya now and then. Her func-
tion is to always make the oppo-
site choice from the characters and
so illustrate the opportunities of the
Zone. If they befriend the Strontium
Wolves, Katiya joins the Greenhouse.
If they move in a Pripyat apartment
building, she can be found in a small
commune in one of the Zone’s ruined
villages. If someone decides to fall
for Katiya, her signals are constantly
mixed. At night she’s fully into it, but
when morning comes she has disap-
peared to pursue her own schemes.
110
Scene 3 – Pripyat
If the characters follow Katiya’s instruc-
tions and head north along the road,
they will reach Pripyat in a couple of
hours. The city pops up unexpectedly.
They cannot see it from the woods
until they are walking past apartment
buildings. They enter the city by the
main road and immediately run into
a garden party taking advantage of a
beautiful summer Sunday.
On the lawn in front of an apart-
ment building, there’s a grill, plas-
tic chairs spread around haphazardly,
and someone trying to get a boom-
box to work. There are about 20 peo-
ple present. Everyone turns to look at
the characters, surprised: their party
is being invaded by a group of dirty
and tired fugitives. The characters are
met with understanding, however,
since everyone present has at one
time been in their place.
The people at the garden party
look ordinary, maybe a bit more worn
than people outside the Zone. The
characters are received with warmth,
but also some reservations. Nobody
has anything against them, but no
one wants to take them home. The
garden party wants to be hospitable
while suggesting the characters build
their new life on their own.
 Garden Party Supporting
Characters
The garden party can have more sup-
porting characters created by the
Game Master, but these two are
important.
Xeniya is a woman in her fif-
ties, who spent a good fifteen years
behind bars before breakin out and
heading to the Zone. She carries her-
self in a way suggesting a deeply con-
fident capacity for violence, and has
no need to make threats.
She’s the hostess of the party: she
brought down the beast whose meat
is sizzling in the grill. She lives in a
nearby apartment building. She’s
friendly, but not helpful, and tolerates
no bullshit. Try to fuck with her and
you’ll get your ass kicked. Romanti-
cally, Xeniya is interested in signifi-
cantly younger men and women who
yearn for a strong, older person. Her
relationships are short, chaotic, and
very sexual.
Vova is a twenty-something with
dreadlocks. He’s very young by Zone
standards and a bit of a slacker. He
owns one set of clothes, consisting of
jeans and a t-shirt with holes in it. In
the winter, he may have a coat, but
he is not as bothered by cold as others
are. He’s garrulous, in excellent phys-
ical condition, and has a tendency to
fall for everyone he meets. He’s help-
ful, charitable, knows a lot of cool
places, and regards the property of
others as his own. He doesn’t consider
himself a thief, but he often picks up
stuff and puts it in his pocket.
112
The characters meet Vova, who
gives them some pointers as to what
they should do next. Living in the
Zone requires a place to stay, and
he can suggest apartment buildings,
ruined cabins, and the like. This is an
important choice to make, and they
should consider the options carefully.
Do they want a place somewhere
high, with a good view, or low, where
it’s easier to move around? Next to the
river so they can reach a boat quickly,
or far away so the mosquitos won’t
bother them in the summer months?
Scene 4 – Home
Guided by Vova, the characters
decide to stay somewhere. It’s prob-
ably unnecessary to play this out
moment to moment. Just go over the
initial practicalities of living in the
Zone with the players. In game time,
it can take as long as a week as they
set up their home.
The Game Master should come up
with a few neighbors who can help
them join the social networks of the
Zone. They don’t need to be impor-
tant characters, and their role is to
help the players figure out how life
works here. For example, next door
a woman trades the fish the charac-
ters pull from the river for vegetables
smuggled from the outside.
The neighbors should be some-
times friendly, sometimes brusque.
They won’t be outright rude, but it’s
always possible that at three in the
morning there’s a man at the door,
drunk out of his skull, demanding to
know what the fuck the characters
are doing here in the Zone.
Scene 5 – Romance
The more general conversation
which characterizes the last scene
ends when one of the earlier sup-
porting characters shows up to visit a
player character with romantic inten-
tions. The characters have no obliga-
tion to go along; this scene is merely
intended to return the game to its
central themes.
Some examples of what might
happen:
Katiya’s found a scene she likes,
maybe with one of the Zone gangs.
Still, she hasn’t been able to get one
of the characters out of her mind. So
she comes for a visit, ostensibly with
the purpose of talking her crush into
joining her new crew. She’s not a
very good PR person for her gang and
blurts out all kinds of revelations that
make them sound terrible. At the
same time, she tries to maneuver her-
self alone with her crush.
Xeniya is interested if one of the
characters is her type: a bit lost, much
younger than her, male or female.
She’s very direct and if her feelings are
not reciprocated, she leaves quickly.
Vova shows up with his guitar,
intending to hang out at the charac-
ters’ place for a day or two. He can also
flirt with one or more of the charac-
ters. Vova crushes on everybody and
it’s obvious that nothing serious will
come of it. However, getting stoned
and having relaxed sex is well within
the realm of possibility.
If none of these three feel like
they’ll work, you can also use a new
supporting character, either from this
book or newly made up. In this case,
the supporting character must have
a motivation for visiting the player
characters.
Scene 6 – Radiation
The game’s other main theme is radi-
ation, highlighted in this scene. At
three in the morning, the characters
are woken up by the sound of drums
from the outside. When they go to
the window, they see their home sur-
rounded by about 30 people wearing
gas masks and wielding torches. Some
have drums, and beat out a hypnotic,
ritualistic beat.
The characters might get scared,
especially if they think this is a lynch-
ing party. However, if they look more
closely, they will note that many of
the people have cans of beer or vodka
bottles, and nobody has anything that
looks like a weapon.
When the crowd sees one of the
characters, an older woman comes
to the fore, carrying a sign with the
iconic logo warning of radiation. She
shouts that it is time to make the
characters true Zoners.
If they go along, the crowd forms a
procession that walks to the banks of
the Pripyat River. The older woman
wades in waist-deep into the water,
and the characters are expected to
follow her one by one. She pushes
them under the surface, and when
they splutter back up, gives them a
swig of vodka.
The scene works best if you play
up its dreamlike quality, the feel of
radioactive mud at the characters’
feet, and the joy of acceptance as
they rise from the waters.
If casual sex fits the characters and
your players, once they’ve risen from
the water they notice that people are
getting frisky under the anonymous
cover of the gas masks. People who
might be neighbours make proposi-
tions, dance, and laugh.
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 If the characters don’t join the rit-
ual, a different ritual will take place
outside their home, a dark and mali-
cious one, and in the morning their
walls will be covered with symbols
of the atom.
Scene 7 – Jealousy
This scene is the game’s dramatic cli-
max. A lot of the game’s events fall
into place depending on how the
players and their characters pick up
on various romantic possibilities. If
the romance is kindled between char-
acters, the game plays out very dif-
ferently from how it will if everyone
falls for the same supporting char-
acter. It’s good if at least one char-
acter develops a romantic plot, and
it’s quite possible that not everybody
will. Maybe the game’s chemistry just
doesn’t work for them. In these cases,
it’s good to give them opportunities,
but avoid forcing the issue.
At this point, the characters will
have had some romance in the Zone.
The Zoners are no longer teenagers
getting into their first relationships
but mature people with histories.
This includes exes.
One of these exes will be jealous,
and decide it is time to cause some
trouble.
If all of the romance is between
player characters, it’s one of their ex.
The ex came to the Zone earlier with-
out the knowledge of the player char-
acters, for reasons of their own. The
ex has been fantasizing about rekin-
dling an old relationship and was hor-
rified that their old flame has moved
on. Thus, they will show up when
the character is alone, and force them
to go on a date at gunpoint.
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The date will happen on the roof
of one of Pripyat’s tallest apartment
buildings. There’s a good view over
the forest towards the power plant
and the Sarcophagus.
If the ex in question is Katiya’s,
Xeniya’s, or Vova’s, the situation will
otherwise proceed similarly, but the
victim will be the player character
that the supporting character is inter-
ested in. They’ll be kidnapped with
the idea that “if I can’t have ‘em, no
one can”. The kidnapper isn’t hard-
ened enough to kill anyone straight
away, though. Instead, they’ll take
the character to the rooftop and start
a conversation about the unfairness of
life. “What do you have that I don’t?”
The other characters have the
opportunity to interfere because one
of their neighbors will have seen what
happened and come and tell them.
They can follow the kidnapper and the
victim to the rooftop. You should let
the conversation between the kidnap-
per and the victim go on for a while
before interrupting it with a rescue.
The scene can resolve in a num-
ber of ways. The character can talk
the kidnapper into letting go. The
other player characters can show up
and save the day. If you want to make
it really dramatic, the kidnapper can
jump to their death from the roof.
It’s hard to plan the kidnapper
beforehand, since the details depend
on whose ex the kidnapper is. They’ll
be a man, woman, or person of some
other gender in their thirties, and
they’ve led a hard life. They’ve lived
in the Zone for a while now, and their
defining personality trait is bitter-
ness. They feel the world owes them
for their suffering and sacrifices. They
could be named Olesya or Petya.
Scene 8 – The End
After the kidnapping, it’s time to end
the game. Because a lot of the con-
tent is very personal, the Game Mas-
ter must keep an eye out for things
that come up during play. It may be
that after the kidnapping you need
a party scene where the characters
celebrate how the day was saved.
This is an opportunity to finish or
finalize relationships and settle ten-
sions between characters. If one of
the characters has a thing develop-
ing with a supporting character, the
scene can introduce a final element
of surprise into the game. If you want
a melancholy ending, the relationship
a character has with Vova or Xeniya
can end.
The Game Master can also ask the
players directly about their charac-
ters’ relationships. “How does your
character feel about this relationship?”
It can provoke the players into taking
the game to a romantically appropri-
ate conclusion.

115
Scenario
– The Radiant Angel
The Radiant Angel is a framework for
a ten-session mini campaign. In the
beginning, the characters are new-
comers to the Zone, and during the
campaign they get settled, get to
know its inhabitants, and encoun-
ter its myriad challenges. You may
not think so when you arrive, but
the Zone often shows its best sides
to newcomers, and some of its prob-
lems are not obvious until you have
lived there for a while. As the cam-
paign progresses, the characters will
begin to understand how the Zone
really works, and what their place in
it might be.
Session 1
– Arriving to the Zone
In the first game session, the charac-
ters arrive in the Zone. They meet
some Zoners and get settled. Arriving
in the Zone is exciting and action-
filled, and there’s no reason to rush
things. At this point, everything they
see is new and wondrous. The roman-
tic themes can be introduced through
describing the landscape. Maybe the
characters have finally evaded the
soldiers and stop to take a breather,
and watch the moon and the stars
reflected from the placid surface of
Pripyat River.
You can model this session after
the first scenario, Towards the Atom,
but in a ten-session campaign there’s
much less pressure to fit an entire
dramatic arc into a single session.
You can let the game flow naturally
and pay more attention to how the
characters arrange their everyday
existence.
Session 2 – Party
In the second session, the commu-
nity of the Zone really opens up. The
characters see a few different parties
held by the Zoners and encounter
one or two gangs. During this session,
the player characters meet a bunch
of locals they can fall for or who can
fall for them. They will see how peo-
ple who have embraced the Atom are
respected in the community.
This session is meant to let the char-
acters get to know the Zone. It can be
meandering and go off on tangents,
and the Game Master can follow the
characters wherever they want to go.
The important thing is to introduce
enough supporting characters in suf-
ficient depth that the players under-
stand what they are all about.
Session 3
– The First Setbacks
In the third session, the characters
will have their first real setbacks.
One of the Zoner gangs puts them on
notice. Here, it is important to main-
tain the tone of the game. The Jupiter
Gang could come in at night to burn
down the characters’ painstakingly
renovated cabin, but that’s too grim.
Maybe they’ll just shout threats and
paint obscenities on the front door.
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 Jupiter is the easiest gang for this
purpose, but you can use any of the
others too.
This works best if the bad guys
have a face. Maybe the Jupiter Gang
terrorizes the characters at the start
of the session, and then asks them to
visit the Factory. If they accept the
invitation, a gang member will inter-
rogate them about the Radiant Angel.
This is the first the characters will
have heard of it. At the same time,
one of the other gang members will
hit on the characters.
After the third session, all of the
characters should have some sort of
romance going on.
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Scene 4 – The Upstarts
The characters’ honeymoon with the
Zone is over, but at the same time
their relationship with it deepens.
There are rumors that they know
something about the Radiant Angel,
which puts them in a difficult posi-
tion. Nobody knows what the Angel
is, but people think it has some sort
of deep radioactive significance.
Because the characters are clearly
withholding information about the
Angel, people think they are annoy-
ing upstarts. Zoners who have for-
merly been friendly now advise them
that the Zone must be approached
with humility, and you can’t think
that you could be more in favor with
the Atom than people who have lived
here for years.
This will obviously be a source
of great bewilderment to the char-
actera, but at the same time should
clarify the social importance of radio-
active rituals. Maybe their romantic
partners will also get interested in
the Angel.
This session’s content is mostly
social, and deepens the supporting
characters seen earlier. You can also
play romantic scenes with the char-
acters and their partners.
Session 5 – To Join the Atom
The difficulties of the two previous
sessions come to a head in this one.
The characters are at a party, and a
drunk comes at them on account of
them being arrogant dicks. A support-
ing character can mention that one
way to normalize the situation is to
organize a ritual of radiation for some-
one else. This would demonstrate the
communal spirit of the characters
and signal that they’re not a threat.
For this to work, the Game Master
needs to supply some candidates for
such a ritual.
Maybe one of the characters’
acquaintances is finally ready for a
radiation dive. They’ve been talking
about it for a while, and the char-
acters can lend a hand to make it a
memorable event. Ideally, the ritual
is so complex that executing it will
take most of the session. Don’t let the
planning go on too long though. Once
the ritual is on, the supporting char-
acters should add something surpris-
ing to it. This requires a bit of impro-
visation, but you can plan beforehand
for which supporting characters
might pick up on ideas expressed
by the players. The function of these
new developents is not to question
the characters’ plans but to give them
nuance and heighten the impression
of a living world.
At the end of the session, the char-
acters feel more like a part of the com-
munity. They notice they’re accepted
into conversations they were previ-
ously shut out of. Someone in a posi-
tion of power mentions the Radiant
Angel in passing and gives the char-
acters an opportunity to learn some-
thing new.
The Radiant Angel
“The Radiant Angel” is a story making
the rounds in the Zone, but the facts
of the case are unclear to most. The
phrase sounds fascinating, so people
pick up on it. It has something to do
with the time before the disaster, but
opinions differ whether it’s a person
or an object.
In truth, the Radiant Angel is a
woman doctor who treated firefight-
ers in the disaster area at the expense
of her own health. Miraculously, she
is still alive. She spent many years in
retirement in Kyiv, but moved to the
Zone about six months back to die
here, in the ruins of the catastrophe
that changed the course of her life.
Her real name is Rozalina Mihailova.
Some of the old folk in the Zone still
remember her, and she may even
have family in the area. Following
these ties, it’s possible to slowly fig-
ure out who the Radiant Angel is.
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 Session 6
– The World Opens Up
The characters’ position in the com-
munities of the Zone has changed,
and it’s a good idea to review the set-
ting. In this session, they meet sup-
porting characters, go to parties, and
get a better idea of why Zoners are
so interested in this Radiant Angel.
Everyone wants to be appreciated
and belong. Through the Angel, the
characters have the opportunity to
become part of a Zone legend.
This is also a fine opportunity to
bring in more complications to the
characters’ relationships. Exes show
up to bother them, strange fetishes
come to light, and the guy who for-
merly was all about free love is now
talking about commitment.
Session 7
– Wondrous Places
This is the last game before the home
stretch. Now is the time to develop
the characters’ previous relationships
further and visit all the cool places
in the Zone. The characters will be
invited to the Hunting Party’s fete to
meet Uncle Seryozha, and a one-night
stand turns out to be a member of
the Jazz Club.
This is also a good session if the
characters want to organize some-
thing big in the Zone, be it a party or
a friendship game of football between
the Strontium Wolves and the Jupi-
ter Gang.
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Session 8 – Escalation
The end is near, and this session’s
theme is how the situation gets out
of control. There will be more things
happening than the characters can
react to. The rumor mill is wild with
stories of the Radiant Angel.
If the characters have a significant
personal relationship to the Radi-
ant Angel, it’s best not to bring her
out before the next session. If they
are more tied up in their own things,
they could meet her now. Maybe
she comes to them, or maybe they
happen upon information that helps
them locate her.
If they find her now, the other Zon-
ers may react in an unexpected and
strange manner.
If the Radiant Angel has become
important to the characters, you can
reveal her background during this ses-
sion. The characters will meet senior
Zoners who were there on the day of
the disaster and remember her per-
sonally. They will find out her spouse
was a firefighter who never came out
from the depths of Reactor No. 4.
Session 9 – Climax
All the plots reach their climax. Pro-
posals, desperate romantic gestures,
dangerous radioactive stunts, every-
thing happens now. It’s a good idea
to keep the world lively and ensure
that the supporting characters will
also pull off surprising stunts even
when the player characters are not
there to see it.
Though the Radiant Angel’s the-
matic role is significant, the focus
should remain with events that are
important to the players and their
characters. If the Angel is important
to them, a meeting in a dilapidated
old cabin can easily be played up as a
spiritual experience about the Atom’s
effect on human life. If the Angel’s
role is smaller, the climactic scene
can be about the characters’ love life.
You should schedule a bit of empty
time at the end of the session so that
the characters can go over the events
among themselves. This social play
will continue in the next session, but
the energy will have had time to dis-
sipate. Because of this it is important
not to end on a cliffhanger.
Session 10 – Epilogue
In the final session, the characters’
story is over. We will see the shape
of their lives, and gain insight into
the challenges they might face in the
future.
The Epilogue’s key element is a
bunch of newcomers fresh to the Zone
with naught but ragged prison uni-
forms to their name. They are going
through the same things the charac-
ters once did, but now it is the char-
acters’ role to help them find a place
to stay and organize the rituals that
will make them into true Zoners.
To this end, it’s good if the new-
comers resemble the characters, but
not so much it would be weird. This
allows the characters to see them-
selves, and understand the long way
they have come.
121