Looking for input/feedback on a solarpunk fiction project largely about land restoration
Hi, hope this is okay - for the last year I've been working on a solarpunk fiction project that heavily features deconstruction, environmental restoration, rewilding, and phytoremediation and I'd very much like to run it by anyone who actually knows this stuff before we publish.
It's a solarpunk premade TTRPG campaign and hopefully soon-to-be Choose Your Own Adventure book set in a mostly abandoned town where basically the whole place is being deconstructed and rewilded. The players are tasked with tracking down a hidden industrial waste dump so the blast furnace slag and fly ash buried there can be reused in the production of geopolymers. In that time they can visit deconstruction sites, an unlined town dump in mid-excavation, a once-badly-damaged rewilding zone, phytoremediation sites (including one where they're rebuilding a wetland contaniminated by bad fill), beaver dam analogs on rivers, an enclave of fuel-engine mechanics, former sandpits, and more. Watersheds and groundwater movement play a fairly big role in the story, as do salvage and reuse.
I've learned a lot from posts on this community and I've tried to get the details right but though I've helped with some land conservation projects I don't have any experience at all with restoring damaged habitats with anything but time. If you're familiar with this kind of work, or even if this project just sounds interesting to you, I'd love to get your feedback!
You can find the document here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Ih5SXHQ6r5rQIAkPCzNjVEh921O3ceSN7FuYzEQ6aU/edit?usp=sharing
With a list of relevant sections on the first page after the cover.
And for those of you who would (quite reasonably!) prefer to avoid google services you can find an etherpad version here: https://pads.slrpnk.net/p/Buried_Treasure
Though I'd be happy to exerpt those sections in the comments if you'd prefer to avoid google services.
7 replies
This sounds cool! I don't know so much about reclaiming urban landscapes and dealing with the pollution other than letting the forest grow back and lock away toxins in the wood, but maybe someone else could fill in the details for you. Does reforestation already play a part in your story?
I recommend hosting the document on the SLRPNK Etherpad rather than the non-free google docs.
Thanks! Yes reforestation plays a big role - basically things are moving in stages but they're deconstructing abandoned buildings to salvage as much as possible, then filling in any cellar holes and rewilding the lot. It's a rural exurb so it was fairly sparsely settled even at its peak. New Hampshire wants to be trees so just leaving a clearing alone will generally grow a forest but I go into detail on succession species and how different site histories impact the regrowth. One section is pretty heavily based on a post about rough mounding from this community and I wrote about a project reintroducing eastern hemlock and talking about the Hemlock Wooley Adelgid.
It's almost 200 pages with a lot of formatting for sections, text boxes, charts, etc, so I don't think I can port the whole thing over, but I can certainly copy the sections that deal with phytoremediation, habitat restoration, etc for anyone who wants to read through (not sure how commenting works on etherpad). It'll be published as a free PDF once I'm done but for the moment I'm so close to finished I'm kind of stuck with the google doc. But anything I can do to make sure it's accurate will be worth it.
Respect for natural succession gets a big thumbs-up. 👍
It seems like you're really putting a lot of thought into this, and I for one appreciate that. These are the types of stories that can motivate people to make real change in the world.
Regarding moving (parts of?) the document to Etherpad, you could let people make edits in place, but you could also just share the read-only link so that people can read it and then comment here with their suggestions.
Okay I managed to get the relevant sections copied into this file: https://pads.slrpnk.net/p/Buried_Treasure
I included a few sections I meant to include in that first page of the google doc but apparently forgot to.
I'm late AF but I happen to work in this industry. Specifically, I'm part of a work crew for a conservationist nonprofit... I left some comments, but my time in service is limited so I couldn't go thru 300 pages. You'll see why :) LMK if you have any more questions, I can do my best and hunt down some resources for you.
Hi, I've set up a new copy of the doc for ongoing feedback towards the gamebook version, if you're interested. It's got my old comments on where various details and ideas came from which might be useful if I'm really off-base somewhere. I've also added a page to the beginning with links to various locations with content you might be able to make corrections on. I'm obviously happy to get input on anything that'll improve the next version, but I think given your limited time, these might be the best place to start?
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1naf9MvD_qJTrIv9K3VmNSpQOIuLq5h0qPwDRSxMrJZE/edit?usp=sharing
I'm also happy to share the gamebook version at some point, though I haven't gotten to these topics/locations yet so we're catching it at a good time. Basically anything we correct on this doc goes into the gamebook eventually. For as much work as I put into this campaign, I think it'll probably see less of an audience than a standalone book will, if only because you don't have to convince 3-6 adults to spend two hours a week on it for a couple months.
Thanks again!
Hi, thanks for taking the time to give it a look! You were right - I actually just finalized the PDF and we're gearing up to release it, but I'm also planning out a gamebook (choose your own adventure) version that'll probably be more approachable for regular readers, so I'd still love to get your input! It sounds like your experience directly covers some of the groups, and things I haven't done.
I used to have a page at the front with links to each section I was hoping someone with your experience would look over, but we removed it while finalizing the doc - I'll see if I can find an old version or just gather up links for you (assuming you're still interested). In addition to the site the players are searching for I've got former town (and household) dumps undergoing remediation, a contaminated, filled-in wetland, and forests where they're rewilding.
Looking over your questions I think I feel safe saying that for any point where you asked whether I elaborate on a given setting topic later in the doc, the answer is yes (though I'm always happy to get input). The other devs and editors would probably have preferred if I stopped elaborating at some point, but here we are 300 pages later.
Thanks again!