The Wasted Earth - A Post-Apocalyptic Cypher System Campaign

Don't think I've ever posted this before, but here's my campaign write-up for a Post-Apocalyptic Campaign set in my own home state, a post-apocalyptic New Mexico. I have used this setting using both GURPS rules and more recently Cypher System (as presented here). 

The Wasted Earth – an After the End Campaign for Cypher System

The world ended in a blaze of glory about 250 years ago. Exactly how much time has passed was marked by the last of the elders who were the last men of Earth to remember the world the way it was. These elder’s claim it was about 2370 “AD” when the machines awoke and changed the old world. Their stories were strange, mythical, and filled with tales of “bioweaponry,” “nuclear war,” and “nanotechnology.” They spoke of beings called the Ayesai (ASI, prounced A-es-ai)) as if they were gods or demons. If the old dates are right, then it is 2620 AD, though none can say for sure.

Some of the last elders spoke of men who had traveled to the stars, and wistfully hoped that they would one day return. Stories have been spoken of flying ships descending to the earth, but the armored beings which emerged were armed with death rays and seemed more interested in capturing the People for specimens and torture than anything else….and if you didn’t comply, they razed your community with incinerating beams of light. Whether these were the automatons….robots…..or aliens or men from space no one knew. Did it matter?

To the men of earth these beings from the sky are a terrifying mystery. Unknown to them, they are largely survivors in the so called Spacer Collective, a transgenic society of biomechanoids dominated by the so called machine intelligence, the Ayesai of which the elders warned…the advanced super intelligence which all but destroyed humanity when it awoke in a brilliant singularity, elevating its kind and a few unlucky biomes in to space, as it left a wasted earth behind.

One of the side effects of the genetic tampering that transpired in the days and weeks following the ASI uprising was an enormous escalation in random mutations. Mutants, viable, genetically sustainable new species are now all over the place, and they are the byproduct of the machine experimentation after the nullification of humanity. Intelligent species are everywhere, uplifted by the machines in a moment of curiosity, just as degenerate humans can be found in the wastes.

Pure humans still exist, but they are a hearty relic breed that was “hard coded” to resist the biogenic viruses released in the final days of what the Spacers called “The Change.” These pure strain humans are among the greatest survivors and also the rarest relics of the lost age. Their hidden enclaves are extremely well protected as they were among the few of old humanity’s wealthiest and most resourceful humans, determined to survive the singularity which they accurately predicted would destroy the world.

Despite the elevation of the machine intelligence in to space, the Spacer Commonwealth had a number of enclaves in the solar system which escaped detection and assimilation. These humans, mostly adapted to life in space, have avoided returning to Earth unless out of dire necessity. Their survival has predicated on being able to avoid notice under the presence of the ASI ruling the new Commonwealth, which is primarily dominant in the Jupiter and Saturn systems. Still, a few have begun new scientific expeditions to explore what is left of Earth….and see if anything can be reconstructed.

The Denizens of Wasted Earth

Earth humans now fall into a variety of types, named after various “mythical” archetypes:

Technos

Near-ascended humans who developed staggering intelligence; they were to become the “brains” of the Spacer Change of Earth. Technos did not get far however, as the biogenic weapons used to begin reshaping humanity either mutated intentionally or accidentally, creating many other bizarre human off shoots. The technos survived as a group by virtue of their intelligence and what turned out to be severe longevity, but today they are exceedingly rare, as great intelligence does not make up for weak physiology and a compromised immune system.

Technos look like normal humans but usually have signs of cybernetic modification around their cranium. Some show more extensive modification.

Ascended

The humans who willingly embraced the ASI at the moment of the singularity were assimilated in to the clade of the post humans, and became something more than man, more than machine. The ascended were actually few in number, but many millions were promised the opportunity to assimilate if they cooperated. Those who did not were forcibly conscripted or merged with the machine flesh of the ASI. Today no Ascended are believed to exist on the Wasted Earth, and if any might, they are probably cast out from their Utopian civilization in the region of Jupiter.

Ascended appear in any guise they wish, and are usually hard-light constructs, beings of energy and information projecting from a core source, usually a sophisticated biomachine brain with a gravitic engine.

Pure Strain Humans

By luck or design many tens of thousands of humans somehow survived the apocalypse, either avoiding mutation through luck or by having the resources and foresight to ensconce themselves in insulated, protected enclaves to ride out the singularity. These humans range from the hapless survivors who descended from the humans who hid in Carlsbad Caverns and avoided notice to wealthy billionaires like Arthur Biden who used his wealth to forge a private fortress on Mt. Shasta and managed to ride out the destruction. PSHs such as Biden may even survive to this day, having utilized some of the advanced in bioengineering to extend their lifespans indefinitely.

Pure strain humans appear much as contemporary humans do, though by the 24^th century humanity had become such a melting pot that physical differences such as skin color were rarely distinct, and genetic bioengineering had all but eliminated most genetic defects. The amount of biological and nuclear contamination in the Wasted Earth has massively reversed this scenario, and humans today have sharply declined in their overall health and longevity.

Cro

Level 2 (normal) or 3 (warriors); Health 6 or 9; Damage 2 or 3 or by weapon (usually war axes and bows, 4 points); Special: one level higher Might defense but one level lower Intellect defense

Subhumans, to be turned into grunt workers and industrial fodder, food resource who are now regarded as warlike and vicious predators. Lots of mutation among the cros lead to all sorts of variations, many shortening lives or of lethal nature. The cros seem to have “devolved” to an earlier state of human history and have limited language skills.

Most cro are distinctly prehuman, and look much like Neanderthals. The exact nature of their regression is no longer understood though some surviving elders suspect the cro were a byproduct of the first few weeks in which the ASI subjected humanity to intense levels of experimentation.

Shapers

Level 6; Health 30; Damage 6; Special: Intellect Defense Level 7; “sheathing attack” vs. Speed Defense to attach to target (deals Might damage initially), then second attack is vs. Intellect Defense until detached. If Intellect hits 0, at which time target is enslaved.

The shapers are the most terrifying of the mutated, transmorphic entities that seem to depend heavily on the assimilation of other bio-organisms for the reconstitution of their own flesh. Shapers are rare, but notoriously hard to put down. They have a connection to the Carriers, of which one in a thousand seems to manifest as shaper.

Shapers initially can appear as any sort of creature they wish, as they are in fact a “sheave” of translucent flesh which fits like a glove over any other bipedal or quadrupedal host. The shaper will in time convert the host to its willing slave, making it in to a carrier (see below), before finding a new host to convert and moving on. A conversion typically takes 1-2 weeks.

The Legion

Level 4; Health 16; Damage 4 melee or by weapon (usually heavy chain guns 8 damage); usually have 1D3 weird random mutations and cybernetic enhancements: 1-enhanced strength (+1 might defense); 2-enhanced speed (+1 speed defense); 3-monoblade (penetrating attack); 4-toxin resistance (+2 shifts might defense vs. toxins); 5-built in chain gun (can’t be disarmed); 6-dermal armor (+1 Armor); 7-chitnous growth (+1 armor); 8-enhanced vision (thermal, night); 9-heightened senses (+1 shift  perception); 10-spore emission (Immediate range poison attack, might defense level 5); 11-Radiation Resistance (+2 might defense), 12-Radioactive (emits an aura causing 3 radiation damage to adjacent foes).

These immense genetically-enhanced descendants of the “super soldiers” of the Final War are terrifying opponents and devastating in battle. The Legion exists in pockets around the Wastelands, usually in possession of still functional military gear, and seems to rely heavily on capturing women of other mutation types as they seem unable to produce Legion females of their own.

Legion appear as biogenetically and cybernetically enhanced humans, but often with additional unique mutations of sometimes beneficial but also debilitating nature. They are currently third to fourth generation descendants of the first Legion members, and the increase in grotesque mutations have grown, as their factory-labs where they are created are slowly breaking down in to disrepair.  Legion born of women are rarely able to survive for long but the few who do seem to hold the stronger stock of their parents combined.

Carriers

Level 6; Health 24; Damage 6; Armor 2 points; Special: targets injured by carriers must make a level 6 might defense or become carriers; once per month target must make a Level 2 Might Defense or become ill from the virus; on a 20 is cured, on a 1 may mutate. Moves a long distance as a single move.

A bizarre group of transformed humans, animals and mutants who seem to have become carriers for the biogenic virus, which has mutated them into hosts. The transmorphs are noted for being driven by a need to find, kill and assimilate the flesh of their victims into their hive mind, expanding their ranks. The virus operates purely to spread itself, and has lost most of its transmorphic properties. One in a thousand carriers becomes a Shaper.

A carrier looks like a sleek, vicious predatory beast with a black and red exoskeleton, designed to run at speeds of up to sixty miles per hour and to hunt and kill with brutal efficiency. Variations can be found by region, but the carriers are clearly designed as predators and perhaps even with a sadistic component to their very nature. It is speculated that, much like the cro, carriers and shapers were part of the early phase of bio experimentation which the ASI perpetrated on humanity before eventually moving to forge the ascended.

Created

Variable Level and Stats; Typical basic Created is Level 3; Health 15; Damage 3; May have degraded Intellect (Level 2 intellect defense).

The created are biological androids that existed prior to the Great War and which still function today. Most are quite insane, as it appears that their artificially grown brains, while unaging, have flaws which lead to mental degradation over long periods of time.

Created often look like perfect humans, though time has a way of wearing them down. They do not age though they can simulate human growth habits (hair, fingernails) and can eat, though the food is processed as pure waste. Androids with major injuries to their frame over time may be easier to spot, showing wounds on their synthetic flesh that won’t heal, or damaged internal metal skeletal frames which give their inhuman natures away.

Howlers

Level 5; Health 25; Damage 4 with fists; Special: If the primary attack hits, triggers a level 5 might defense or target takes 5 acid damage; acid damage bypasses armor or may destroy armor on a GMI; Immune to radiation damage. Level 6 intellect defense to avoid being detected by howlers.

The howlers are terrifying mutants which exist in the deeps of the wasteland hunting all other beings as prey. The howlers may once have been human, but the biogenic weapons changed specific hosts into this terrifying form of sludge-like zombies. It is not clear is these chemical zombies have intelligence beyond predatory instinct, but some claim they seem to move about as if simulating their old lives when observed in the wild and unaware of nearby prey.

Howlers look like hideous, greenish zombies covered in a perpetually oozing slime. Their mere touch is lethal to most creatures.

Ghouls

Level 4; Health 12; Damage 4; Special: radiation immunity; nanite emissions, any target in immediate range must make a Level 4 might defense test or move down one grade on the wound track after becoming infected by the ghouls nanites; continue to make test daily, moving up or down on wound track (cannot be healed until resolved); if the infected dies, becomes a new ghoul. 

Ghouls appear almost at random, and are similar to Cro but for their hideous appearance and cannibalistic nature. Ghouls are cunning and intelligent, but see themselves as creatures apart from man. Physically ghouls can pass for human most of the time, but over the years they degrade to a rotted corpse-like state, and their minds tend to degrade as well. Colonies of ghouls keep their degenerate elders alive in catacombs, feeding them and letting them out at night, while the younger ones seek to masquerade as human by day.

Ghouls are believed to be another product of the singularity, but there are a few elders who claim that ghouls already existed prior to the rise of the ASI, and were the survivors of a Nano plague which rendered them immortal but at the cost of much of their humanity about a generation before the apocalypse. The truth of these stories has never been properly established, but there are a few ghouls who do indeed claim to be centuries old.

Robots

Cleaning Droid Level 1; Health 3; Damage 1

Labor Bot Level 2; Health 6; Damage 2; Armor 1

Autocar Level 4; Health 20; Damage 8 if hit at high speed; Armor 2

Machine Laborer Level 3; Health 15; Damage 3; Armor 1; may have distinct intelligence as AGI

Warbot (see Cypher robots)

Robots of all sorts were in general use when the Final War hit. Humanoid robots were often used as inexpensive labor, some were used in warfare, and still others as personal servants. Earth-born robots were given limited AI, to avoid the problem of the emergent Machine AI in the Spacer Colonies that led to the Final War.

Robots appear in all varieties and shapes, from simple cleaning droids to enormous warbots.

Spitters

Level 4; Health 20; Damage 4 by tentacles or venom spit (short range); Special: venom spit causes paralysis if a level 4 might defense roll is failed for 1 minute; paralyzed targets or targets rendered unconscious can be implanted with a spitter host seed in 1D6 rounds. Once implanted the host remains paralyzed until the seed sprouts, creating a new splitter 1D6 hours later.

A variant mutant breed reminiscent of the Howlers, the spitters are another degenerate race of human which has been parasitically changed by a strange vine-like plant that controls the brains of its hosts and changes the body over time. The Spitters seek to paralyze prey with a venomous toxin that they can spray from their mouths up to fifty feet or more, after which they incapacitate the prey and implant the host with new spitter seeds. The alien intelligence of the spitter plant is completely unknown, but it does seem to favor humanoid forms exclusively.

The Notmen

RabbitFolk, Level 1 ; health 3; damage 1 or by light weapon (2); Level 4 Speed Defense, Level 3 Intellect Defense vs. perception

Catfolk , Dogfolk,  level 2; Health 6; Damage 2 or by weapon

Bearfolk Level 4; health 16; damage 4 or by weapon; +1 might defense

Apemen Level 4; health 12; damage 4 or by weapon; +1 might defense

Turtlefolk Level 3; health 9; damage 3 or by weapon; armor 1; swimming and diving assets

Before the fall of man, transgenic technology had successfully uplifted several animal species, creating unique animal-human hybrids through DNA manipulation. Of these hybrid species many were created sterile, but not all. Today, a handful of these Notmen still exist, some in thriving communities. Among the notmen are rabbitfolk, catfolk, dogfolk, apemen, the reptilians and even, along the west coast of the Wasteland Expanse the turtlefolk.

Other Animals of Wasted Earth

Humanity wasn’t the only thing that changed. Many species of plant and animal of those that still existed were altered by the biogenic virus of the Machine AI.  Today, only the heartiest and usually deadliest of these species still thrive, making for an incredibly hostile landscape to traverse.

A few common animal types people are used to in the Wastelands:

Groats: fierce descendants of goats mutated with more predatory carnivorous DNA to make them aggressive pack hunters. Groats are reminiscent of swift goat-like horned beasts with lean pantherine bodies. Level 4; Health 12; Damage 4; Armor 1; Speed long

Macs: The macs were cattle mutated for better efficiency and meat output; a created successor to cows. The biogenic virus did many strange things to Mac physiology and today Macs are quadrupedal creatures that mutated with two manipulative arms, a centauroid torso and better vocal chords with which to communicate. They are now intelligent (not much more so than Cros, however) and move in tribal packs. Still considered very tasty, but extremely difficult to catch and kill without a high death rate among human wastelanders. Level 3; Health 9; Damage 3; docile.

Drakes: The drakes appear to have been large snakes that mutated multiple legs and developed surprisingly large and agile bodies. They have a cunning animal intelligence and prey on Macs, Groats and other beasts. Level 5; Health 20; Damage 5; Armor 1; Constriction Attack Level 6 might defense (6 damage).

Scorps: Giant scorpions mixed with what appears to be a bit of reptilian physiology, these insect-like scoprions are sometimes larger than a truck and have none of the issues a conventional insect would display when sized up. Level 7; Health 28; Damage 7 and might defense level 7 or drop 1 on wound track poison; Armor 3; immune to radiation.

Sharlots: These massive spiders appear to have been altered in the same manner as the scorps, with mixed animal DNA to compensate for arthropoidal size limitations. The sharlots are of animal intelligence, or so most believe, and reclusive wilderness dwellers, though some will colonies ruins. There are several variants of sharlot, including the black widow, hobo, trap door, tarantuloid and other variants. Typically Level 3; Health 9; Damage 3 and poison (level 3 might defense or take one wound track damage); Webs can constrain, level 3 Speed Defense or entangled.

Conqueror Worms: These massive mutated worms are sometimes hundreds of feet long and eat almost anything. The exact nature of their biology, how they grow so large and sustain their immense weight is unknown. Level 8; Health 80; Damage 8; Armor 3; Move long.

Lurkers: These giant mutated humanoid frogs display human intelligence and use primitive weapons. They are found in wetlands and along the coast, and are extremely hostile to humans. Level 2; Health 6; Damage 4 (weapon) or 2 (fists); Armor 0 or 1; Can jump a short distance.

Centimares: these disturbingly mutated horses have centipede like qualities with horse’s heads. The exact nature of their mutation is a mystery, but one can carry five passengers as long range movement easily. Level 3; Health 9; Damage 3.

The Carlsbad Region

The region of Carlsbad survived in the heart of the southwest, in a mountainous highland region where a vast cave network at one time became a last-ditch refuge for thousands of humans who sought a means of weathering the unstoppable plague that seemed to have struck humankind. Only the capricious and arbitrary natures of the ascended who served the ASI prevented the men who took their refuge from being targeted and converted, destroyed, or rendered into composite chemicals.

After the ascension and the elevation of the ASI into space, the survivors returned to the surface world to a land blasted by destruction and change. They sought initially to inhabit the ruins of the local cities: El Paso, Carlsbad, Artesia and Roswell. In this future area the ruins were now home to a large commercial spaceport, but that very port had brought the might of the ASI and their converted into space. The port itself was now desiccated, haunted, and rife with the terrible mutations called the shapers and the carriers. Elsewhere, the military enclaves to the north which had survived awoke to expose the remnants of the Legion, the last of a genetic super-race which was designed to fight the ascended. Now they seem determined to purge Wasted Earth of mutated life, though their mechanisms seem to catch mutant and pure strain human alike in their gunsights.

Pazo

In the South the Pazo is a vast sprawl of ruins which are riddled with deadly creatures and a vast nuclear crater, but on its fringes thrive multiple raider colonies.

The Great Caves

These haunted caves are remembered for the time they saved humankind, but now are considered the repository of the ghosts of the elders. Only the cro dwell here, ruling from the caves as well as their labyrinthine villages. The cro treat human and mutant alike as a viable food source.

Carlsbad Ruins

When the humans of the caverns emerged post-apocalypse, they attempted for a short time to reclaim the city of Carlsbad, but death, famine and disease eroded at the community, and then the first mutants and raiders hit. Now, 125 years later, the ruins are dominated by different animal tribes, monsters and other denizens.

Lander’s End

The ruins of Lander’s End were once the city or Roswell. The city itself suffered terrible damage in the war but it also still contains buried relics and wonders. Lander’s End has become the focal point of a cult of religious fanatics who prowl the ruins for relics of old, and believe that the ascended were the last humans to be carried to the heavens by the Space Gods.  They think that the space gods will eventually return for more people.

The Grand Towers of the Astrodome

Most of nearby Roswell is a barely sustained ruin, but the impressive launch yards of the Astrodome that is known for the Grand Towers (immense ship launch stations) is a sprawling ruin of impressive machinery, unused but nonfunctional ships and remnants of the final conflict of the ever so brief war brought about by the singularity. Located midway between Roswell and Kirkie to the north, the Astrodome covers seventy miles of territory and was once a shockingly impressive installation.

The Grand Towers house the Terror Tribes, which are vicious cannibal mutants ruled by a ghoul who calls himself Amadeus. They engage in regular warfare with the Legion from the north.

Blackfire Mountains

The mountains to the west, beyond which is found Al’Ordo, are highly radioactive and deadly. The deathsmoker clans are found out here, short-lived mutants and beasts which terrorize the rest of the region. The enigmating glittering dome is also found in this direction.

Artesia

This oil-rich region is being rekindled out of its ruins as the so called Guzzlers take control. These raiders use rebuilt vehicles and seem to have more than a little scientific know-how. Their subjugation of neighboring regions for slavery and food is making them very unpopular. They are led by the mutant Notorious Gam.

The Burning Pit

East of the region near the Old Texas Border (called Taxaz) is a vast stretch more than a hundred miles in length that is a perpetual burning pit, a terrifying gap that seems to dig deep in to the core of the earth. The tribes in that region are dedicated to weird cults. 

The Redair Region

Redair is a mountain town built on the reasonably safe ruins of an older community, located at a highlands point where the air is generally fresh and clean year round. It didn’t used to be like this; the first couple generations said the valley of the ruins used to be filled with a weird red mist, but it eventually dissipated and the town grew rapidly.

Redair is operated by a loose group of local citizens and a handful of men who belong to the Commonwealth of Humanity, a group dedicated to restoring civilization and decency to the barbarian tribes of the wasteland. They have allied with several local communities, as well as the western tribes of the Lizhini Sha lands, as well as outliers at the major ruin-settlements, including Fenx, Rad, and Kirk.

Nestled in the Black Mountains of Redair are several unique locations:

The Monolith

This immense, black structure juts out of and seems to grow from Black Mountain to the south.  The monolith is in fact an immense construction of unknown origin that burrows deep in to the earth. A colony of morlocks, subhumanoids with access to ancient technology, dwell near its buried mass and steal technology from the maze of structures comprising the monolith.

The function of the complex is unknown, but what is known is that it seems to be growing sometimes by dozens of feet every year. Occasionally entrances are identified, and scavengers brave the machines crawling through the complex to find artifacts and relics. A few have returned, with quite a haul, and very strange stories of the interior.

The Northern Rad Wastes

The northern mountains of Greater Rad are said to contain many communities that are safely out of irradiated or toxic zones, but slicing across the southern region is a great valley of death called the Rad Wastes. Mutants and Scorps crawl across the region, but there are a handful of safe highland passages that cut through, including one heading north from Redair. Once in a while the weather shifts, and the Redair area is hit by toxic clouds and acid rain, but this seems to happen only occasional and mostly during rain season.

The X

Known for the remains of a relic sign of the ancients that is a huge “X” this sprawling location contains what are described as ancient rocket ships and is claimed to be a staging ground for space travel from the old era. No one knows if the ships still work, but death machines patrol the region making scavenging dangerous. Most high tech weaponry in the region that still works comes from this location, so the risk is worth it.

Eastland Machine Factory

East of the community of Spring near the Old Passage is a remote functioning facility called the Eastland Machine Factory. This immense complex continues to function, though its output is minimal. The old genius Carter Manners runs the place with his gang of twenty, and his loyal synthetics, who help to keep up manufacture on arms and bullets. Carter Manners sells to the highest bidder through the shanty town which has sprung up around the facility. Rumor is he managed to crack the secret of the ancients’ security, bonding the robots to his servitude. Many consider him the most powerful person in this region as a result.

Hahk

This is the territory northwest of the Redair region where the Cro tribes roam. They often go to conflict with the western Mesa People as well as the mountain folk of Redair. The cro are noted for their primitivism and violence, but they seem able to at least comprehend how to use technology, if only as blunt instruments. The cro of Hahk have been moving south recently, possibly due to an invasion of Spitters which are coming out of DurandGo to the north, pushing them in to Redair and Mesa territory.

Mesa and Lizhini Sha

The so-called “City of the Black Sun” is the name of the ancient mesa people’s settlement that still stands strong in the heart of what was once the convergence of four great empires of old. The people claim many heritages, and unlike others descended from the ancients have remembered a bit more of their ancestry since it seems they had never moved as far from nature as so many others had during the collapse. Their city is called Black Sun in the language of one tribe, of those who call themselves Navajo, and say that Black God now rules the Fifth World, a world where man was left behind. Aside from the Navajo are several other tribes who identify with groups who can trace their heritage back to long before the collapse of the ancestors centuries before.

Lizhini Sha has about two thousand inhabitants and is along a trade route to the northwest territories, through the Rocky Badlands and the Burning Mountains to the great Salt Sea northwest, where the City of Salt is located. Ruled by an egalitarian collective, the mesafolk protect their lands carefully and have worked many local wells and mines to sustain themselves with buried veins of metal and subterranean water resources. The community is fragile, however, and recent draughts are making life in the region very difficult. Some of the tribesmen have taken to raiding neighboring settlements.

A handful of inhabitants at Lizhini Sha are notmen, who are considered free and equal in the community. The region is locally terrified of several colonies of ghouls in the area, who are considered supernatural predators and bringers of disease (rightfully).

Tractor Town

Located in the middle of nowhere, near the old ruins of Bloom, lies a single complex where once ancient machines of farming and agriculture were created and sent to grow crops. The machines plow tirelessly on, fractured in their programming, building endless arrays of biodomes filled with mutated crops in one, dessicated and dead crops in another, and on occasion a genuine bountiful harvest.

A tribe of men called the Farmers have settled here and pluck the product of Tractor Town, sending it off to sell to neighbors for goods they cannot get themselves. The Farmers are deeply spiritual and revere the farmbots as something like gods, and defend them with lethal force if necessary.

Bloom

The ruins of bloom are three major cities of old, which appeared to have been in decline before the collapse of the ancients. Many antiques can be found here, but an immense crater on the north end of the expanse suggests a terrible destruction hit the region, and the area is crawling with Howlers. Bloom’s main claim to fame is an abandoned refinery for oil that still works, but no one can handle production for long without getting sick or killed by howlers. It also has an unusually large number of still intact vehicles awaiting salvage or reconstruction. A local trader named Maddison has a refurbishing business outside the ruins, where they pull the carcasses of old vehicles out of the ruins and turn them in to fresh mac-powered wagons.

Tao

The ruins of this region are sparse and already overrun by nature, and a colony of notmen now dwell in this region, as well as a trade town called Taos’ End. The area is not prone to violence, but for years locals have complained of strange noises, barely audible, which sometimes seem to drive locals mad.

Pinnacle station

Located deep in the south mountains near the ruins of old Los Alamos, Pinnacle Station is actually an Oribital Laboratory set up by the spacers who survived somewhat intact following the collapse. These spacers are part of the Collective, a large colony network on Enceladus which was somehow not annihilated during the ASI exodus. About twenty years ago a mission to return to Earth to study and determine a course of action was established. The colony was settled using new technology, landers which were powered with impressive fusion drives, and one hundred and thirty two scientists and researchers were settled to begin studying what had happened to earth on the remains of the old Los Alamos National Labs. That was fifteen years ago. About six years ago the research colony lost all contact with Enceladus and the Collective Network, which included new bases on Titan, Mars, the Moon and Venus. They have had no visit from any lander, and have assumed the worst happened: the ASI returned to finish the job.

The station is currently led by Richard Macallister, a military commander and survivalist who was voted in to his position. He has maintained a “wait and see” attitude toward the matter while working to shore up the colony so it would remain self-sustaining, creating a series of camouflaged biodomes and enhancing the underground network. Over the last fifteen years the colonists have had three dozen children, though the mortality rate is unusually high in birth due to the pervasive biogenic, nanotechnic and radiological contaminants in the air. The colony continues to actively disguise its presence from locals. The notion is that the locals are too uncivilized at this time, and if any one group provides evidence it is developing more sophisticated cultural and sociological development they may study it more closely. Currently a spy named Matt Plant is living in Redair, for example, monitoring the curious trade network that has sprung up. Another spy name Lindsey Lace lives in Tractor Town.

Blackscar

A major obstacle heading south to Kirk, Blackscar is a 177 mile long rift in the earth, a deep, carbonized black canyon that is anywhere from 150 to 600 feet deep. Radioactive water builds in the base, and evidence of intense energy and heat shows for miles around the scar. Two routes go around it to Kirk proper, but someone constructed a bridge (no one knows who) that is currently maintained by a scavenger gang of bandits called the Bridge Boys. Most traders can get by with a donation of goods or food, but sometimes the Bridge Boys ask for women or other slaves, and this can lead to fights. The gang is about 100 strong, and contains some mutants and roaches.

Kirk Ruins and Salvage Town

The vast ruins of Kirk are a sprawling mess, and three areas with craters suggest terrible fires of the ancients probably killed the city. Several trenches, some three miles long, suggest the burning fire that created Blackscar also killed Kirk.

Despite this, despite the radiation, and despite the hordes of roaches and the armies of mutants (including howlers, spitters, scorps, shapers and leapers) the outskirts of the city has an extensive community known as Salvage Town. Run by the ex-legion Brute, Salvage Town thrives on picking apart the ruins and using it to forge his crude army. The town in turn benefits from Brute’s tactical acumen and surprising knowledge of ancient warfare and machinery, which keeps them safe from the dangers of Kirk Ruins. Even more so, it protects them from the southern habitat, called Kirk Land, where the legion Outpost in this region is located. Brute lives to protect his wife, the human woman Maza, from all harm.

Kirk Land

The Emperor of Kirk Land is a scrawny ascended named Lazarus who claims to be an ancient, and has earned the trust of the general Maximus, a legion commander who has colonized the area with two hundred of his kin, taking control of an ancient military base and using Lazarus’s knowledge to restore a complex full of medical tanks that can help to clone new legionnaires, repair damage and even graft new cybernetics on to their bodies. He is part of the Greater Legion which sends its armies out from Texaz to the east, in the area of Huu Stan.

Though only a few hundred in number, the Legion battles tirelessly against the roach forces of Kirk Ruins and seeks to shatter the lawlessness of the city in the name of the Legion. They also seek to subjugate Salvage Town, where the hated criminal Brute has gone, former leader of their kind, who renounced his rule and mission after he fell in love with the human woman Maza. Brute feels that the Legion are programmed or brainwashed by the old science of the ancient military machines to behave as they do, and seeks to end their ways. Maximus will end him.