Humans are a stubborn species.

The bombs came down, the bioweapons spread silent death, and all the works of humanity came crumbling down.

And the survivors mourned, and went on.

Children were born dead or twisted, slow radiation sickness claimed the weak, bandits rose up to torment their fellow men, and the only law was the law of the gun.

And the survivors gritted their teeth, and went on.

One nasty bioweapon, the MORTE virus, twisted its victims into unnatural, rotting cannibals.

The survivors put a bounty on ghouls, learned to stay indoors at night, and went on.

Then the corporations rolled through, using the wastelands as their own personal battleground, torching villages that collaborated with rival corporations, and press-ganging the healthy to fight pointless wars over land that wasn’t theirs.

And the survivors hunkered down, shot back when they could, hid, or did whatever they could to stay alive, and went on.

Magic came back, and strange predators and threats added to the huge number of ways to die out in the wastes. Some children started being born metahuman, to the fear and worry of their unknowing parents. The dragons returned, and claimed land as their own, devouring or burning any who stood against them.

The survivors got over their shock, found allies where they could, learned how to use magic, stayed out of the way of the dragons, and went on.

The villages, or groups of families that survived this ordeal are now towns and cities today. They are the stubborn ones, the ones that either chose not to flee their land, or that found good land to settle on, and held it against all odds. They are frontier towns that could die to the last man, or become uninhabitable if the wrong thing happens at the wrong time, and they know it. They face countless hardships and threats, and it isn’t about to end any time in the near future.

But they survive, and they go on, and most of the time, that is enough.

Wasteland settlements offer the freedom to do whatever you damn well please, within reason. If you want land, all you have to do is find some unclaimed land and hold it. If you want a family, all you have to do is find a mate and raise children. If you want something that’s within your ability to make, just gather the materials and make it. And if trouble comes your way, you’ve got quite a few neighbors with guns to watch your back.

All of this comes at a price. Anything could wander in from the wastes, and often does. Medical care is unreliable at best, and if something happens to the local doc you may be out of luck. If you’ve got a generator and know how to use it, then you can have electricity. If you’re good with pipes, and have an unpolluted aquifer, then you might have running water. If you can make something useful or of value, or provide a service, then you might be able to earn a few dollars.

Most of the time your trade will be in barter, if you live in a wasteland settlement. Travellers are usually the only source of Allin Dollars, so equivalent exchange is more often the way of things.

The technology level in the average settlement ranges from 1890 to 1950. Even then, a lot of essential infrastructure just isn’t there, even in the larger settlements. There are no real factories left out in the wastelands, so everything has to be made by hand. Fortunately, advanced tools are available that allow a skilled craftsman to make technology on par with a machine shop. Unfortunately, it takes time and skill to use these tools properly. Most settlements are lucky to have running water and partial electricity, usually from a coal-burning setup, or a bunch of windmill dynamos. Vehicles are rare, and usually handed down as heirlooms through generations. In this case, they’re usually converted to ethanol burners and only used during emergencies.

The upside to living in a wasteland settlement is that locals are rarely prejudiced against metahumans, mutants, or magic. As long as you’re local, that is. People are people, and if you grew up playing with your neighbors, helping them out when they got in trouble, and marrying into their family then it’s hard to get racist when one of them pops out a metahuman baby. Healthy kids are uncommon nowadays, ANY baby that survives and isn’t sickly is a cause for celebration. And magic earns a certain amount of superstitious respect, as long as you don’t get too weird with it. Magic’s useful for patchin’ people up when the doc ain’t around, and throwing lightning at attacking rusters is a good way to earn goodwill. Magic makes things EASIER, and easy’s rare out here.

The downside to local settlements comes if you don’t fit in, or you’re a traveler from outside, or you have manners that mark you as an obvious enclave-dweller. The disadvantage of a tight-knit community is that you have to earn respect and acceptance if you want to get anywhere with them. That takes time, or some seriously good deeds. The weirder you look and act, the harder a time of it you’ll have, but eventually you’ll be accepted by most of the community.

Unless you’re corp.

The corporations have won no love in most settlements. The corp wars were hard on the wastelanders, and many think the dragons should’ve wiped the corps out when they had the chance. But the absolute worst part of it, is that the corporation folks act so high-handed! They act like they’re better than the folks who live out here, and that simply doesn’t fly.

It’s not always hatred, but usually it’s a good dose of envy, mixed with jealousy, and annoyance at the ignorance that a lot of enclave-types display in the wastes. Wastelander settlements will trade with corporation folks, they’ll tolerate them passing through, but they won’t let them stay unless there’s a seriously good reason to do so. After all, if the corporation’s so good, why don’t they go back where they came from? Corporations have to go through a LOT to get footholds in most settlements, and the locals like that just fine.

Mind you, this isn’t a universal law. Some towns get on fine with corporations in general, or a specific corporation. Relations vary from settlement to settlement, and a lot depends on the past, and present relations. Of course, many of the settlements that like corporate company end up becoming franchise towns, eventually.

On the other end of the spectrum, some settlements are home to people who have escaped or been kicked out of corporate enclaves. There’s little love lost there, and corps that enter the area can usually expect to get cussed out, avoided, or shot at.

All that aside, the wastelander settlements are all unique in their own ways. Lund’s a fortified camp with a few crude manufactories and a vast wall between it and the crater, while Poor Smoth is a strip of settled land against the river, with a wild forest at its back. Hathens still has stone buildings, working sewers, and electricity in most of its neighborhoods. Some settlements are just three families in close proximity, while others are a waystation out in the middle of the woods, owned and operated by everyone that lives there. Some have a government, others have a dictator, and some live in total anarchy, where the law of the gun is the only law around. Some are founded around a religion, while others were founded because the land was good. All of them are different, and all of them present different risks and opportunities.

LUND: THE WALL OF THE WEST (SAMPLE SETTLEMENT)

When the big one hit, no one was terribly surprised when the major command center of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base fell under the bombardment of multiple warheads. The sprawling base was utterly destroyed, leaving a deep, glowing crater in its place. The nearby city of Dayton and most of its suburbs were melted, and all that was left of those caught in the open were shadows seared into stone.

The few survivors were on the road when the bombs came down. They fled in all directions, though many only delayed the inevitable. The fallout from the nuclear devastation was immense, and those who didn’t run far enough quick enough died as radiation stripped them of life.

Those who went north survived, and formed around the town of Picker. Those who went east holed up in Lund. Those who went west kept going until they reached Deanna, and those who went south joined up with other survivors in Sanity.

As time went on, the survivors made do as best they could. Radiation sickness took many, biological plagues took their share as well, but enough survived to carry on.
Once the worst was over, the corporations emerged to reclaim the world. Lund, Picker, and Sanity ended up under the control of Midwest Positronics, a Sanity-based corp that specialized in robotics and heavy machinery. They were able to run supplies and medicines up to the settlements around the Wright-Patterson crater, and in return received salvage, and a cheap labor force. Midwest Positronics was not a benevolent corporation, however. The settlements that it supplied had no choice as to their governance, and any protest or resistance was met with lethal force. MP used self-autonomous drones to run prison camps of dissenters, camps built well into lethally-irradiated areas. Political prisoners, rabble rousers, and others were guarded by uncaring metal machines as they withered and died from the poor food, rampant diseases, and unceasing radiation.

When the corporate wars begun, the settlements of Lund and Picker were prime battle sites. Hall-Mart and Warhound forces clashed with MP, and MP responded by instituting a mandatory draft, using its living recruits as expendables, and generally demonstrating a lack of concern for its satellite settlements.

Finally, the folks of Lund had enough.

The surviving inhabitants of Lund included quite a few military personnel, and their families, from WPAFB. Some of them knew where the auxiliary arms caches could be found. While most of them were in the irradiated area around Dayton, enough of them were outside of the “Instantly Fatal” part of the crater, to make salvage possible, for a price….

The price was the health and lives of the ones who volunteered to retrieve the weapons. They had measured, and they had calculated, and they knew what would happen. They knew going in, that 60% of them would be dead within 30 days. They knew that of the survivors, all of them would likely be bedridden for the rest of their short lives.
They also knew, that they would have at least a week, where they would still be able to walk. Still be able to fire a gun. Still be able to use the weapons hauled out from the nuclear furnace of the crater.

And in a week, they won. They are remembered to this day as the “Ghosts of October”, the hundred volunteers that fought for their freedom even as their internal organs were melting inside of them. Each morning they’d bury their dead, and go out hunting for corporate kills. Corporate forces were optimized for battling each other, and armored against civilian-grade weaponry. They were often ill-trained conscripts, fighting in territory they didn’t know. The Ghosts had military training, military-grade legacy weapons, and the knowledge that if they failed, their families would be killed. They won. On the morning of Halloween, the quarrelling corporations declared a cessation of hostilities. Grateful Lundsmen retrieved the remains of the Ghosts, and buried them along with their weapons under vast slabs of concrete. Their tombs were hidden throughout the lands that Lund claimed, and their names are passed down in the schoolhouses of Lund, as true heroes.

In the end, Lund declared neutrality, and the corps listened. Warhound and Hall-Mart fell back to fighting over Picker, and MP’s northern forces were almost completely destroyed.

Lund settled back to try and get on with surviving, but events would not let them rest for long. They’d just finished burying the Ghosts of October, when magic returned to this world. This put a definite pause in the nearby corporate wars, but eventually the fighting started once more.

It didn’t last long before the dragons woke up.

Within weeks, Midwest Positronics was no more, and a sizeable part of Sanity was burned ash. Hall-Mart and Warhound Inc. pulled back to defend their territory, and Lund was left to its own devices.

The military council has sealed records of this time, and forbidden Lundsmen from talking with outsiders of what went on during this period. Most outsiders believe that Lund negotiated with at least one dragon, but no one knows the truth of it. What IS known, is that the dragons have never attacked Lund, or demanded tribute from them.

It is about this time that Lund started construction of the great western wall. They sent out scavengers in all directions but west, and started gathering materials and weapons. They absorbed or conquered all settlements within ten miles, and in the space of a few months, set up a mandatory draft. Everyone in Lund was to be a part of the war effort. Everyone in Lund was to be either a soldier, or a supporter. Those who didn’t like it could leave, but they couldn’t take anything beyond bare necessities with them.

Warhound, thinking they were going to come west, strengthened its own forces and prepared for an assault.

As it turns out, the corporate preparations were not wasted… But the foe they faced was NOT Lund.

A year after magic’s return, the dead walked out of the Wright-Patterson crater.

Warhound and Lund were the only forces prepared to fight, and they stopped them from going east or west. The north and the south, though, were devastated. The already-troubled city of Sanity vanished in a matter of weeks, and Midwest Positronics became no more. Their robots, built to fight the living, could not handle the hordes of the walking dead. To the north, the town of Picker was besieged for years, and only held out as long as it did thanks to a joint Hall-Mart and Lund venture… But in 2205, it fell.

Lund has held the wall ever since, and the enemy has shown no signs of slowing. And along with walking corpses, there are rumors that stranger, darker creatures join the battle in ever-growing numbers. The Lundsmen are tight-lipped about the things that they’ve fought, but you can read their battles in their eyes.

Lund is a military settlement, ruled by a military council. Everyone in Lund must either join the army, or support the army in some fashion… Children are no exception, though they are given lighter duties, kept up on safer spots of the wall, and generally granted more free time. Lund is not a good place to raise a family, in any case. The wall has been breached before, and there are always threats that can hurdle it with little trouble. When the wind blows from the west, radioactive dust from the crater poisons crops, causes sickness, and exposes Lundsmen to a few more rads. When the wind blows from the east, plague dust from Colum taints crops, sickens the healthy, and kills the sick. Windbreaks help, but there’s just too much death all around.

You won’t live long here, unless you’re tough and smart. Even then, something’ll get you in the end.

For all this, Lund has a few advantages going for it. Through ingenuity and careful salvaging, they have managed to create four manufactories that are about on par with 1950’s era machine tool capability. Though there are things they can’t easily reproduce, these facilities are not dependant upon nanites, skilled craftsmen, or outside corporate interests. They’re powered by prisoners pushing turbines, a practice that has garnered Lund a lot of criticism in the past. The manufactories can be used to put together cloth, wooden goods, tools, bullets, simple firearms, gas masks, and a number of fairly simple metal , fabric, and wooden goods. They’re the source of Lund’s trade with the western Hio settlements, and a few of the more primitive eastern ones.

Lund also provides law and protection for settlements that accept its governance. Settlements that accept their help become “Holdings,” and usually benefit from the arrangement. Holdings are required to follow the seven laws of Lund;

1. You shall not murder.
2. You shall not take or buy slaves.
3. You shall not steal.
4. You shall not assault a surrendered or helpless man.
5. You shall not break hospitality that is rightfully given.
6. You shall not work against Lund, or her people.
7. You shall not eat of the flesh of a man or woman, or anything sentient.
8. You shall not imprison a person against their will, save that they have broken one of these laws.

Holdings ship goods and recruits to Lund, receiving goods and protection in return. And as long as Lund gets their taxes and a few trade advantages, they don’t mind if a given holding trades elsewhere. Holdings are governed in whatever way the holding wishes, but everyone in the holding is subject to the laws, and must answer to Arbiters, specialized enforcers and agents of Lund who ride circuits through holdings and make sure that people are obeying the laws.

In 2208, Lund suffered a major setback. Evidence of a cannibal cult surfaced in Zane, and the death of an arbiter in that town enraged the folk of Lund. The military council sent a punitive force to root out the cult by force, and ended up panicking the folks of Zane. Fearful and unprepared to fight the Lund army, the council of Zane accepted a standing offer from Hall-Mart, and became a franchise town. Hall-Mart immediately moved forces into the town, and a fierce battle ensued.

Lund was unable to dislodge Hall-Mart forces from Zane, and out of the 300 men that road east, only six returned west. Arbiter Stone, a revered veteran of the first corporate wars, died as well.

The Lundsmen had no time to mourn, as holdings in the East gave up their affiliation with Lund, and the trickle of goods that came into the settlement from the east dried to a standstill. The army of Lund, now 300 men and uncounted amounts of supplies short, is pulling back and going purely defensive. The fight on the wall has never been more bitter, and doesn’t look to be improving anytime soon.

If you were born in Lund or recruited by their forces at a young age, you were raised to honor and revere the town’s founders and heroes for the sacrifices they made for the greater good. You were taught that cowardice is contemptible, and duty comes before any single person. Death was no stranger to you, even at an early age. At the very least, you were taught to fight, and you were taught to bandage the wounded, and those skills have served you well.

Lund holds no prejudice against metahumans, magic, or most mutants. As long as you are willing to fight or help aid the fight, there is a place for you in Lund. Religion is another matter… If your religion includes pacifism, worship of dark entities, or other behavior that distracts from the fight or flouts the laws of Lund, then you will find no welcome in that town. Expect to be encouraged to leave, unless the council has a reason for wanting you there. The Meek, for example, are tolerated but kept well to the rear whenever they visit, and are VERY politely asked to leave within the hour that they are done trading or resting.

Robots and other artificial beings are usually destroyed on sight in Lund. They’ve had to deal with too many marauding rusters, and drones corrupted by crater forces, to ever rest easily around artificial life.

Lund does not tolerate ghouls, who are in clear violation of the seventh law by their existence and continued life. Sane and well-behaved ghouls, or infected veterans of the wall MIGHT be escorted to the borders of Lund and told never to return, but most are killed on sight.

If you have allegiance with a corporation, then you will find your stay in Lund unpleasant and as short as possible. Lund does NOT like corporations. They’ve been through too much bad history with them to ever trust or accept any corporate force any time soon. With that said, the priority of Lund is making sure that the horrific forces of the crater are prevented from moving east. To that end, they’ve got no problem with temporary alliances with anyone who’ll fight. In the past, they’ve pulled joint ventures with Warhound and Hall-Mart, and will do so again if it’s the best way to achieve their goal. They also need some of the high-tech chemicals and medicines that only the corporations can provide, to fend off radiation, disease, and crop death, so they cannot sever ALL ties… They pay extremely high prices for the trade of these substances, often with material that they can ill-afford to sell. Still, the Lundsmen make it very clear that they will NEVER yield their independence to ANY corporation, ever again.

The flag of Lund is a blue star on a white field, commemorating the military ancestry of Lund. The town itself numbers about 8 thousand, give or take the activities of the crater, and new recruits shipped in from the holdings.