The Flat and the Last City
The following is all the opinion of a single elder, who has spent 64 years living life on the Flat. Her opinions are hers only and may not be the most accurate picture of the Flat, but it would be stupid indeed to ignore the words of one so old. Age is a precious and respected thing, here.
The world has never been any different. Long stretches of sand, that’s the whole world, all the way to the other side. Every night is a race to find water, to huddle together, to borrow from nature and wait for Her to do the same. Settlements are things of the past; there are simply no safe places on the Flat to settle. We move, we pump water, we eat, we wait. At least we are here with those who care for us, who we count on.
Now there are a few points of interest on the Flat, and we can go over those. There lies a large hill, maybe more like a mountain, way out there. It’s notable because as far as anyone knows that’s the world’s only mountain. There could be others but no one’s come back. It’s pretty much a straight bowl shape, really large and all the mountain has been sandblasted for so long that there aren’t really any features (at least, that’s what I think). It’s hard to tell whether it’s near or far, or even which side of it you’re looking at. Honestly it’s sort of an awful landmark on that scale, being that is doesn’t mark much except the act of existing.
Now not a lot of people live there, compared to the number that live out here, but there is one place that I’ve been to that’s practically civilized and they call it the Last City. I don’t think that’s all the way true but that is what they call it and they are pretty proud of that. The whole city has probably thousands of people, all in one spot! They have clear water, they have an industry to make fuel, they can make NEW cars, and people there wear different clothes every day. Now, the city can be real hard to find, because it’s in the middle of the Flat (get it? Everywhere is the middle of the Flat!), and what’s more it’s on a really long, flat shallow plateau – that’s like a flat-top mountain! Of course, everything is covered in sand so it’s really hard to tell where the plateau starts, so the result is that you just cannot find the city that easily once you leave it. I would tell you it’s a ways away from the mountain but what good would that do?
The Last City has all types of people in it. They still have laws and roads. They have high metal walls that they rebuild all the time after a storm, and the storms seem to leave them alone up there on their hill. They have taken animals in, and they actually get fat in there! Tell me that you’ve ever seen a White Ox taller and wider than a man? Well they have them there, great beasts that they fatten and eat, like was done long ago. Now I can’t say that I’m jealous of them in there because that’s a prison that they don’t leave, and they get weak without having to even try and live out here. The worst killer is the weather, and that’s what toughens us up. They really are quite different. Sometimes they will get in a new car and stake out for the Flat, looking for themselves; good luck getting back, idiots! Hahh, ha.
Yes. The land has just enough for us. When you drive all day you’ll find the last White Oxen, the real ones that you have to cook for a while, they will be looking for scrubgrass. Maybe twenty times we tried to take a couple of them, make them breed, try to start a Good Land. Well, it was a nice experience to try. Every time we would get sprayed by the Druids, and they would kill the Oxen, or some murderer on the road would take the Ox instead of a child, and so forth. It’s not worth it to grow meat out here.
Every day, the enemy we fight is the weather. We have the Warm Sun, which at night is called the Cold Sun. This just means that there is nothing else going on in the sky but sun or moon. Warm Sun is a terrible lie, or a joke; whichever it is, “warm” it is not. The Warm Sun makes the dry lands bake and ache, with temperatures hot enough to kill anyone not hiding in shade. Absolutely everything in a scavenger’s life is based around preparing for stretches of long sun, which require water storage and a ready source of sun protection. People from the city pack water and gas until they are bottomed out, but they forget that while Hunger can be defeated, nothing defeats Mother Sun.
The second most common weather on the Flat is a windstorm. These happen most every day, and sometimes they aren’t even that bad. They seem to float high above, carrying the sand and bolts and skulls of the desert with it. Sometimes they will cut down low near the ground, and shred anything beneath. A lot of them can congregate in one spot, and once you get two or three together then the force of the wind will drill through bone. Windstorms are survivable, if you have a good thick covering and you don’t mind a few welts. Sometimes it’s just nice to feel the breeze while it’s around.
The third most common weather on the Flat is rain. Rain comes in small patches, blessing the Flat unevenly and without pattern. It is rare that a spot receives enough rain to grow any crop. The Keepers figured out a way to do it alright but we’re not all Keepers! And of course the Druids find any place that the rain likes and shoo everyone away. Every once in a while, maybe every three or four years, a lot of rain will fall, a serious, terrible large amount. It melts the whole of the Flat, and it stinks like hell for a day. The week after though, when all those soft grasses wake up and try and make a patch of Good Land? That’s the best smell of all, and the stems taste sweet too. Most of us will follow the water, collect what we can from it for a few days, and move on. Better to get what you can while it lasts; the trees will not make it, the grasses will be tinder in a week.
The least common weather on the Flat is the Wall of Death. Every once in a while, the sky seems to drop out of the air. As it starts, clouds peel down from the sky, like a black waterfall. It’s like a heavenly knife scratching a mark miles long. It’s fronts can move quickly, but more often it crawls over the Flat, sticks around for weeks, one time for a month! It’s a black and purple sawblade of wind and discharge and death. The Wall herds disparate tribes together and causes yet more conflict, and supplies that were once plentiful cause distress with their absence. Anyone that cannot move fast enough to escape the wall and relocate will die. Everyone on the Flat knows the grim truth of this event; every time the Wall arrives, people all go crazy. The opportunistic nature of the Flat means that a lot of murder and looting can be hidden as tribes flee, and the Wall is fed. By the end of these events, bodies are often at the forefront of the storm, a pale, lifeless wave of those cursed dead.
Common Technology
The world of the Flat was once ours, or something like it. The oceans have all baked away, and the air is full of heavy particles, but humanity survives. Most of that boils down to some efficient tech that was developed close to the collapse of the nitrogen cycle. Life on the Flat is brutal; how could anyone survive? Below is how the average person gets enough food, water, and fuel to pick out life on a dead planet.
Food
Hunting white oxen or even wetwolves can feed solo travelers or small groups. Certain gangs have mastered the art of following a herd from a distance, killing only when they need to eat, and protecting the oxen like shepherds. The most common way to hunt is with a spear, thrown from or stabbed from within a fast vehicle. Rifles are rare, and ammo is more rare, so bullets are only used for hunting when the quarry is dangerous, and only as a last resort.
Trapping is also a viable way to collect some food. Small rodents and lizards eke out a living on the Flat, and sometimes a seed or a dish of water is enough to catch a good-sized meal.
Quick Roll Reference:
Throwing a Spear from a vehicle: Dex + Athletics d7
Stabbing with a Spear from a vehicle: Dex + Melee d7
Firing from a moving vehicle: Dex + Firearms (d+1 from firearm’s d to fire)
Scavenging
Some people are just good at finding food. Preservation technology was extremely advanced at the time of nitrogen depletion, so a lot of packaged foodstuffs from 60 years ago still tastes… edible. Things like sugar and salt never spoil, and bottled water is as good as gold. Finding a buried house, shelter, or store can be a disappointing walk through junk, or a feast buried just out of sight. Of course, there is always the chance that those old canned goods will give you the mudguts for days!
Quick Roll Reference:
Searching an area quickly: Perception + Alertness
Searching an area methodically: Perception + Investigation
Deducing if food is spoiled or not: Intelligence + Investigation
Growing
There are two main types of growing food while on the go in the Flat: Growing insects (minilivestock or micro culture) and growing food (mircoagriculture). Both are hard to do, and some are not willing to eat maggots, ants, mealworms, crickets, or other assorted critters, but both have large advantages. Having control of your own food source is always good, and it gives you something to care for in an otherwise plain and harsh world. On the other hand, it takes resources to maintain a garden; insects need vegetation or meat scraps, and plants need a hydroponic source, chemicals, seeds, and maybe even valuable soil!
Some factions have mastered alternate ways to gather food. The Keepers use baseball-sized bees to gather honey from native cacti, while Chem Druids will cultivate actual agriculture, growing fruits and grains that they can store and trade. On the other hand, certain factions (the Imperators and Sharps come to mind) could care less about providing themselves with food, only ever trading or stealing (or killing) for it. The Gravers and the Foomers allegedly have alternate views on what counts as ‘meat’, so be sure not to leave any of your party alone with them if they look lean! Consequently, Gravers are known to be the best source for topsoil in all the flat, as they maintain a vast microculture network; they may be the only source of harvested mushrooms in all the flat.
Quick Rolls:
Water
Water can be collected from 3 major sources: The ground, the air, and from trade.
Before nitrogen collapse, there was a miraculous invention called the auto-pump. Shaped like a telescoping spear, the device would be thrust into the ground. A foot pump or crack would extend the spear deep into the earth. Ingenious designs allow for filtration to occur at any point along the spear, or even at the spout. Most of the time these days, they will fill the spear with sand for basic filtration, and then take the resultant water and boil it. Most people can get enough water this way, but there is no guarantee that the auto-pump. Everyone has a slang term for their auto-pump; the Tit, the Faucet, the pee pipe, you name it.
Most caravans will also have a sail-style water collection that is set up overnight. Also known as an air well, it is now a serviceable way to collect water. Owing to the small amounts that this method usually produces, it is advised that this not be counted on.
Certain groups set out to collect and purify excess water. This can be done via brewing, filtration, boiling, or chemically, but none of it will taste as good as a sealed glass bottle of water. Plastic bottled water is good too if you can get it, which is rare, but it tastes as bad as the ground leachate after decades leaching plastics. Still, carcinogenic water is sometimes better than no water at all. All these types of water can sometimes be traded for, but get a fair price: no one alive in the Flat is trading water away unless they have excess.
Fuel
Fuel is used to cook food, conduct repairs, and of course to power your vehicles. Fuel can be bought, or crude oil can be run through an oil-cracker. An oil-cracker is another pre-modern miracle, a small engine-sized device that can mechanically ‘crack’ (successively purify) crude oil into useful byproducts: mineral spirits, motor oil, and gasoline. The device requires a couple good hours of labor to crank it enough to produce a day’s fuel. Some engineers have devised combustion motors that operate attached to a vehicle, a ‘gasoline alternator’ of sorts that uses gasoline to make gasoline. This method is obviously less efficient, but it is far faster, often completing the crack in 10 minutes or less.
FACTIONS
In the ever-shifting wastes of the Flat, several subcultures have emerged. Some, such as the Foomers and Sharps, act like gangs of raiders: traveling in small groups, interacting only briefly with friendly gangs, and occasionally coming together to participate in a large raid. Others, like the Keepers and the Chem Druids, tend to stay mobile around the same general area, guarding their resources where they grow.
Unbound: A small, diverse group of people that live a dangerous life on the Flat. Their bonds are that of trade, survival, and information. Unbound settlements are small, no larger than 12 people, and they must always be capable of moving quickly to a new scrap of the world to tear away a meager life. Being at the center of the Flat’s extremely loose economy, they tend to have a little of the best of everything, though this makes them vulnerable to violence as well.
Occasionally, a number of Unbound groups will gather together and make a Town. Town is a tongue-in-cheek term, since no Town lasts more than a couple weeks before raiders will gather and ruin it for the the lot. What’s interesting is that oftentimes members of other tribes will be found as an ‘inhabitant’ of the town. Sometimes it is a large camp out of convenience or for trading a commodity, or maybe the town is being escorted by the locals to foil foul play on the trader’s part. Towns are a fascinating phenomenon that can have from 20 to 300 ‘Townies’ participating in trade, recreation, feast, and politicking for days on end, with gang feuds and blood debts often set aside (for a brief moment, at least).
Keepers: Beehive-keeping settlers of the wastes. Their lands are covered with flowering cacti that the keepers use to support bee colonies. This in turn keeps them rich in honey and alcohol, making them prime targets in the Flat. Almost no faction is better protected, however; Keeper Alchemists have many deadly weapons fashioned with honey, venom, and fire that make any given interaction with the tribe tense – and potentially deadly.
They tend to wear what looks like pre-war beekeepers outfits, but with all sorts of deadly defensive mechanisms built in. Most all have a source of bee-appeasing smoke on hand, and just as many will have the means to defend themselves with deadly, bee-venom enhanced weaponry. Having access to lots of fuel means that they drive large cars, and usually travel all together in one or two packed cars, making for a small but powerful caravan. There is almost always a ‘queen car’, stacked to the brim with hives and equipment for keeping their bees safe (and mobile!)They trade readily, but they are well aware that they hold all the supply and they do not tolerate any stupidity.
Appearance: Baggy. Both to manage the Warm Sun, and to keep stings away, the Keepers will wear fully-body tarps, beekeeper outfits, or any other protective clothing they can. Most all of them have beekeeper’s masks too. Of all the denizens of the wasteland, they are the most likely to be chubby, since they eat the best. Most carry totems that lionize honey, nectar, and bees themselves. Many refuse to speak unless the Keepers outnumber the visitors, so some large groups assume that they do not speak.
Organization: Regimented and Zoned. Keepers work in small teams, unpacking hives among flowering cacti fields and tending to the insects as needed. They may spend a month or more per circuit, using the bees as guides, scouts, and defense all at once. Keepers will spend lifetimes working out the perfect cycles of the flowering cacti, attempting always to maximize the amount of product.
Vehicles: Work Pickup Trucks, Utes, U-Hauls, Mail Trucks. A group of Keepers (you can call that a “hive” if you really want to) will typically have at least one truck for storing hives and beekeeping equipment, and one truck for processing honey and stingers into fuel, weapons, and nourishment. The Keepers believe strongly in armor, so their caravans tend to move sluggishly. Offensively, the Keepers are not afraid to utilize their bees to full effect, all the while dousing boarders with flaming honey-napalm.
Foomers: Fire-obsessed crazies who collectively believe that getting burnt with fire protects you getting cancerous sunburns. They often wear blast armor that covers only their front halves “since that is the part someone would attack”. Favoring small, single-occupant vehicles, they swarm larger convoys from all sides, trying to torch the drivers alive with all manner of creative implements. In a recent attack, a caravan driver recovered 4 types of hydrocarbon accelerant, 3 empty grenade casings, and a small ‘voodoo doll’ that was soaked in ether and tossed into a broken window.
Foomers will happily trade with those who they consider friendly. They tend to have lots of meat on hand, since lots of their culture relies (not surprisingly) on cooking meat. Cannibalism is, of course, never far from anyone’s mind when they are trading scrap for whatever meat happens to be hanging off of their truck, but most Foomers will deny this. They would insist that their superior ability to track down prey and chase them down is the winning ticket,
Appearance: From old-timey blacksmith gear to asbestos underwear, Foomers always look like they are prepared to be blasted with flames… from the front at least. The bizarre logic of the Foomers is such that they often refuse to wear any armor on the back portions of their bodies, some going as far as to remain bare-assed. Common gear includes welding helmets, firefighter gear, oven gloves, waders packed with insulation, and lots of bare skin. Foomers will often be covered with burn scars, which they claim protects them from Mother Sun. It doesn’t.
Organization: Far-flung and surprisingly organized. Even though there is clearly some mild insanity rife within their ranks, Foomers have set themselves up for maximum survival. They are the most prolific traders on the Flat (excepting the Unbound), so violence is not always the outcome upon meeting a party of them. Foomers have 2 sizes of groups: “Hunter Bands” which is however many Foomers it takes to go kill and retrieve something, and “Butcher Bands”, which is more like a mobile trading post. Butcher bands are often a prime source of food and water in the Flat, if you have scrap or drugs to trade.
Vehicles: Hunter Bands are made up of small, lightly armed craft, such as motorcycles and dune buggies. They tend to use disabling attacks, like burning up the interior of a car with molotovs, or by dropping glass from in front of the enemy. Butcher Bands are more rare, but they tend to have pick-up trucks and Utes, vans and other such ways to convey their tradeable goods.
Sharps: Terrifying, pain-worshiping body-transients. The Sharps (or Sharpos) simply do not care about outsiders whatsoever, and their camps and appearance certainly express that. The average Sharp will have some hundreds of small, partially infected studs placed under their skin, filling their skins with metal and bone in a staggering array of patterns. Many of these implants are jagged hooks, making a Sharp’s very existence a hazard to everything around them – a feature they take special glee in.
This aesthetic extends to their weapons and caravans. Dire, evil war-wagons, covered in bone dust and soot, have defiant fishhooks stuck into it at every conceivable surface. Smaller and more drug-fueled members will hang from the vehicle hooks using the hooks they have in their tenderloins, or running up the length of their arms. The result is a motorized sculpture of flesh and hook, bone and iron, and as a result a Sharp Death Party is one of the most feared entities traveling the Flat.
Appearance: They are all tattooed, scarred, and purposefully deformed. There is not a single Sharp that could ever pass for anything BUT a Sharp. Most have gauged body parts (like, all of them), and literally all of them have at least some fishhooks put into them, hook-side out, stud-side in. As you may imagine, they are often covered in sores and lesions from botched ‘improvements’. If you see them, they will be smacked-up stupid on Needle Juice, screaming bloody murder, and acting extremely wrecklessly.
Organization: Loose and sloppy. Sharps operate in small groups (thankfully) since they lack the structure to build anything bigger. Usually they will travel with 1 or 2 vehicles max. When 2 groups of sharps meet one another, odds are even that they start killing each other for fun. Otherwise, they may party together, go raid a larger group, or even join up. Large groups of Sharps do not last long; they simply lack the cohesion of a more stable gang, so the 1st difficulty results in the group splitting. Sharps will scavenge extremely rare technology items for the Chem Druids, while the Druids are reported to keep the Sharps neck-deep in Needle Juice. Many wonder if the Sharps would exist at all were it not for this relationship.
Vehicles: Sharps tend to hang out together in vehicles that are big so that they can “party” in them. SUVs, limos, and touring busses are highly prized. If a Sharp does choose to ride a smaller vehicle, it looks like something out of Dante’s version of hell, such as a motorbike with a flaming head on a pike, covered in fishhooks and human hands. Being lazy, they will often just throw their smaller vehicles into the larger ones and let the hooks catch, like extreme Velcro. A well-off group of Sharps may have half a dozen small vehicles trailing behind.
Gravers – A Gang that uses corpses as a resource, to grim effect. Gravers can use desiccated bodies of all sorts in their bizarre and macabre creations. Hearses are especially prized as a base for their swaying sculptures of skin leather and bone. Caravans of patient Gravers will parade around recent arrivals to a zone, waiting like vultures to salvage what others leave behind.
Gravers are the third-most prolific traders on the Flat, and their secret is to use every corpse they come across to full effect. Corpses are considered scrap to them; they can even convert a pile of corpses into Fine Scrap of a sort, picking them over for fillings or jewelry or other choice bits. Teeth, complete skulls, and preserved organs can all be found in a corpse-sourced pile of Fine Scrap.
Appearance: Anything corpse-like they love. Macabre is the barest description of what they are capable of; in reality it is profoundly alienating how cavalier they are with human bodies. Entire suits of armor made of teeth, human-leather clothing, sun hats made of hundreds of ribs, and skirts made of hands. Gravers revel in the dead and they are absolutely not shy about wearing it on their sleeve – literally. They often have belts of vials, which commonly contain salts, preservatives, drugs, and restoratives. Gravers talk almost in their own language, which is in fact a thick patois of English. Vehicles comes out as ‘way-hickles’ and water is ‘hot-ter’. Gravers will typically have at least a few members per group that can ‘translate’ the patios for trade.
Organization: Sparse and Secretive. One could go for years in the Flat and never encounter a Graver, and then all of the sudden see dozens after a catastrophe. Like funeral processions of old, they travel in groups of ten to thirty, in long lines. When in combat, they take no pleasure in their task, and follow the orders of whomever has seniority, regardless of their gender, age, or even their fitness as a leader. They are a very fatalistic people, and will by and large accept bizarre, suicidal orders from a senile or cruel leader.
Vehicles: Hearses, boats, vans, big cars. They seem to have an obsession with restoring boats and other seafaring vessels, outfitting them with a car’s chassis and engine, and making ghoulish pirate ships, outfitted with cannons and swinging ropes. Gravers prefer to drag vehicles, by attaching
Chem Druids – Groundskeepers for the rare vegetative areas on the Flat. They are notoriously quiet and forceful, rarely waiting to attack any trespassers. They are known also for the technology that they seem to be unnaturally good at finding, including batteries, solar cells, greenhouses, glass, and acids. Despite their isolated nature and their reputation as ‘wildlife preservationists’, it’s an open secret that they fund their ventures by producing a large number of drugs. Some say that the Sharps would not exist if the Druids would not constantly supply them with needle juice.
Whenever there is “good rain” to create “good land”, the Druids are sure to be there. While all sensible humans would gravitate towards plant life when it is so valuable and rare, the Chem Druids have a reputation for being able to cling onto those territories better than most. Oftentimes they will ride by slowly in armored cars, wearing gas masks and spraying mysterious vapors menacingly. This usually drives away all but the strongest and most foolhardy wanderers, allowing the Druids to settle in where they please. Many wanderers of the Flat have seen Chem Druids, but practically none of them have (knowingly) spoken to one.
To their credit, the Chem Druids appear to create a net positive for the ecosystem. Even though they often use up the best edible and medicinal plants for themselves, when they move on they leave behind magic. The verdant fields tended by the Chem Druids last for years, thanks to the soil treatment and other weird science they perform in their wake. At worst, they can leave behind piles of putrid sludge, the byproduct of their focused work in agriculture and chemistry.
Appearance: Chem Druids all wear gas masks. They also all wear robes, giving them a dead-eyed, stoic appearance. Those who have seen their inner workings know that they also have a strong interest in biohazard cleanup suits, radiation suits, and other protective gear. Goggles, rubber gloves, and nitrile gloves are also common accessories.
Organization: Organized and powerful. Few can stand against the Chem Druids if they want to control an area, and it can be assured that any verdant area has a Druid convey en route. They will use multiple vehicles, using heavy armor on the outside ranks while a central vehicle sprays a acid or poison. Druids almost always travel in large groups of 10-20, sometimes more if the local ecosystem can handle it.
Vehicles: Chemical Trucks, Cement Mixers, News Vans, Mobile Research Labs. If it can transport liquids, they want it. They heavily armor their vehicles, and while most of their battles are fought with hard-to-counter gas, they are fully prepared for any boarders. Chem Druids are more capable than most of making deadly explosives, acids, poisons, and projectiles.
Imperators – Even among the humans of the Flat, the Imperators are clearly insane. They wear metal armor, complete with large Galea-styled helmets adorned with trinkets. Their vehicles are stylized after horses and carriages, with great skill and care put into making every cycle, car, and overbearing mobile fortress have the appearance of an advancing equestrian army. Imperators move in groups potentially far larger than any others on the Flat, sometimes approaching fifty or more. Imperator mobs will scour all in their path, stealing everything and killing those who they do not enslave. Those they enslave are a miserable lot, being disposable assets not intended to live more than a few weeks. Often, a malnourished slave is broken enough by the experience to join the ranks of the Imperators, the slave’s empty shell filled with bloodlust, mania, fear, and utter devotion to the cause.
The imperators mix bone dust with blood and paint every surface they can with it when they claim it as their own. This results in a gore-pink decoration that stinks terribly, is always thick with flies. That is to say, Imperators are not a people that live by intelligence or subtlety: everything they have, they have through their brute force and numbers. They die frequently in the name of whatever cause their leader decides, and their ranks do not fill with doctors or scientists. Those with ‘smart ideas’ often find themselves dead, killed by the angry, violent mob of reactionary meatheads. Gearheads are the lone exception, but even a skilled mechanic will find their head on a pike if they talk back to the El Capitan.
Pre-war Mustangs are somewhat of a Holy Relic to Imperators. Such is their perceived value that a Phalanx of Imperator warriors would gleefully all die in the efforts to recover one. An Imperator riding on a silver Mustang spearheading a raid on a weaker tribe to take all that they own: This is the absolute pinnacle of ideals for this tribe.
Appearance: Ideally, Imperators cover themselves in armor, from head to toe. The higher the rank of the imperator, the more metal they tend to include. Tellingly, most Imperators wear almost no armor besides a helmet, as metal tends to be scarce among them (logistics is not their strong suit). Their vehicles are caked with foul pink goo, which is in turn covered in flies. They call themselves conquerors, but they more resemble feral beasts, unable to smell their own stench.
Organization: Regimented and Stupid. Imperators work under an extremely strict hierarchy. El Capitan is the leader, no questions asked. Under him are as many Commanders as the group can support. Under Commanders are everyone else, or the Scabinari. Commanders are assigned 5-10 Scabinari each to command. They will rarely have long-term goals, and whoever kills El Capitan is the new El Capitan. It must be made clear: anyone that belongs to this faction has an extremely high chance of death within a month. It is often the endpoint of life in the flat: Enslaved by Imperators, abused by imperators, die for Imperators.
Vehicles: Rally Trucks, Buggies, medium cars with huge engines, chariots, War Machines. Imperators will have a large Moving Truck sized vehicle that doubles as a forge and armory, and another as a two or even three story fortress on wheels. They have altered car-carrying trucks to fast-release 5 vehicles while in motion like an old aircraft carrier. They rarely use clever gadgets or ranged weapons, instead relying upon smashing vehicular attacks and boarding parties outfitted with savage weapons. Once Imperators have boarded a vehicle, they will brutally and mecilessly strike down any and all defenders.
First Citizen – Some people are born into the last known bastion of industry and agriculture: The Last City. The Last City is full of citizens, and those citizens grow food, smelt metal, purify water, and build homes. For the most part, the city is self-sufficient. Sometimes, however, there is need to go out into the Flat for supplies, or to repair the wall. Other times, a Citizen will be banished from the Last City. Rarely, the call to adventure will strike some young person, and they will prepare a car for action outside the city walls. Such Citizens are usually assumed dead within a matter of hours or days, and for that they received the joking moniker of First Citizens (as in, the first citizens of a mythical other city).
First Citizens in the flat are often the best-equipped, at least towards the beginning of their journey. From the city they can bring firearms, tools, medical supplies, water purifiers, oil-crackers, and other comforts of civilization. The Flat consumes all within it, however, so over time, these advantages run out. Those First Citizens that are able to survive the Flat for a year or more tend to be some of the most resourceful living beings alive.
First Citizens don’t even really call themselves that. They are just as likely to call themselves adventurers or explorers, but everyone will know where they are from immediately regardless.
Appearance: Varied. Those who have been out for a few months may have nice clothes, specialized armor, or cos-play like football pads with spikes on them. Those who have lived in the Flat for a while will look considerably more run-down, but it’s hard to fake their place of origin.
Organization: First Citizens usually fly solo, but there are lots of exceptions. They may travel with mercenaries from any of the other factions, or they could have a family with them. On occasion there can be larger groups of explorers, away teams, or outcasts that stick together, but that is relatively rare. More often it’s a person on the run from City Law, or a gambler with a car and a unpayable debt. First Citizens seem more likely than most to end up joining up with some other faction.
Vehicles: Living in the city means that you can reap the benefits of industry, and drive a brand-new car out into the Flat! These cars tend to run well and come in a variety of types. For some cars, spare parts can be carried in a space-saving compartment; if this is the case, you may omit the scrap cost for repairs (while using up the spare part instead). The Last City produces a limited number of engines, and they are by and large of interchangeable size, making a single car body a good choice to last a lifetime. Thus, certain types will spend ridiculous money and effort on making the ‘perfect’ car, and ride it until they die. For this reason, a car that originated from the First City
Other
The Flat: Plants and Animals
The Flat is a desert. It’s dunes roll forever into themselves, always changing with the weather. Landmarks are all temporary, food is scarce, and the water is rare, but despite this the Flat is teeming with life, dug into the cracks.
Animals
White Ox: A large, slender, but very useful pack animal. Some can be domesticated to pull loads, but it is hard to reliably find food for one. These are best avoided unless they are being hunted for food.
Wetwolf: Creepy, stilt-legged, savage predators. Wetwolves can be up to 7 feet tall at the shoulder, but they generally weigh in at under 150 pounds. Their jaw tapers from wide at the jaw, to pointed at the tip, and teeth line the entirety in a permanent, hyena-like smile. They get their name from their matted fur around their heads and shoulders, which look slick from the oils they perspire.
Wetwolves hunt every other living thing on the Flat. They eat sloppily but completely, and they are especially cautious about spilling blood into the sand. Wetwolves are smart enough to not attack a car, but if they see a lone human in a smaller vehicle, they are also smart enough to attack it if it appears undefended. For bursts, they can run every bit as quickly as a car.
Plants
Honeyjar Cactus: This cactus is not, in fact sweet, nor is it especially jar-shaped. However, the plant is hardy, productive, and most importantly, it flowers reliably. The Keepers take exquisite care of these plants.
Gutspillers: Fungal forests often arrive in the wake of rain events, and gutspillers are among the most common. The towering stalks of the fruiting bodies are 2 to 6 meters tall, and can live for years. When they dry, they stay approximately the same size and shape, leaving a graveyard of white-gray orbs. These forests are dangerous due to a reproductive step of the fungi. Their spore release mechanism is a series of coiled fibers, all centered into a sort of a spring-loaded spear. When the spore is ready and the pod is disturbed, a long spear, some as long as 5 meters, immediately juts out. These spears look like lightning bolts in reverse, and they commonly spear prey. Blood spills down the spear-pod and further nourishes the fungal body.