Starting conditions

in this section we will cover starting conditions for survival stories this is important because the starting conditions generally tie into the way of progression and the story content so lets start the list:

Terrain:this is overlooked sometimes but as for meaning to a survival story is the most important the terrain depending on the terrain the challenges and enemies are different for example in a forest terrain you would encounter more animals,have easy access to wood but would probably find it harder to find metal also some terrains forest included make it hard or impossible for some mechanics or base types for example if your base is a train that everyone has its unlikely that many will see the forest at the start because besides needing tracks through the forest its unlikely to be anything of use there lests list some terrain types:

Forest:

Desert:

Arctic:

Doomsday:

Underground:

Mountainous:

Aquatic:

Island:

Base:in 99% of what i would call survival or global crossing every one starts out with a base of some sort some popular ones are:

base house:an upgradable house that often starts with holes in it generally unless said other wise doesn't move(some can be upgraded to do so)may require blueprints or upgrade vouchers to upgrade.upgrades generally focus on adding area followed by improving durability,adding rooms, and adding functions like having a certain area outside of the house able to be a garden or something

Base Vehicle:some stories feature a base vehicle instead of a house generally these stores tend to form as whole around the vehicle some more popular examples are:cars,trains and ships generally they can be upgraded like base houses however unlike houses that increase area as the main direction base vehicles tend to focus more on armor,speed and weaponry at least at the start

Base functional building:this i actually only saw in one story but it gave me some ideas i want to share first this would work similar to the base house the difference would be however that on top of housing the building would have a function which may or may not be a heavily used plot device some examples could be a hotel that attracts certain characters or an amusement park the benefits of such a concept would be when certain conditions are met certain privileges could be enjoyed like the ability to recruit,make money or have access to some information others dont writers should be careful though to not rely too heavily on the base functional building though if they want to make a survival story because if you rely too much it might change it to the point it comes off as more of a system story the key is degree not too much but not too little either

Portable Base:

Base Island:

Base tree house:

No base:

Disasters:the last thing you have to consider as starting conditions is what if any disasters you are going to use most survival novels(with the exception of a few and most horror world survival novels)use disasters as a means to motivate the survivors and a way to give out rewards for the outstanding ones as well different terrain can make different disasters more or less likely as well as manifest differently for example a beast tide in a forest means animals but a tide disaster in dooms day means a corpse tide the base tide of creatures disaster changes forms depending on the environment i will make a list of some more common or novel disasters below: