The Bonelands

The northeastern region of the former United States of America is a wasteland of parched grasses, mutant foliage, and forbidding mountains. Climatic change over the past eight hundred years has left its southern reaches thickly infested with multihued jungles, while the northern Adirondacks are blanketed in a stubborn tree cover that hides a multitude of sharp-fanged mutants. Between, the wreckage of heavy orbital bombardment and the massive radiation spill around the Altoona Deathlands form a zone that invites only the toughest, most fearless salvagers. Extensive Mandate-era coastal rebuilding kept the seas from eating much of what was once Long Island and the New England coastline, but the engineering has long since broken down into a maze of stranded towns and mazy swamp passages. This "Big Sink" is a haven for swamp-dwelling mutants, dangerous Atlantic sea life, and countless small enclaves that eke out a living on fish and hard-won swamp foods. Some of them turn to darker ends to get what they need, and many who dare the Big Sink's vine-shrouded ways never come out again. The Deesee Jungle in the south is named for the ancient necropolis that served as the former zone capital during the years of the Mandate. Innumerable small mutant tribes are locked in a perpetual struggle with the fervent jungle life, new mutant strains appearing every month in a steaming cauldron of Highshine infestation and radioactive rain. Some areas of the jungle are uninhabitable to any but the most inhumanly resilient creatures- particularly those regions that surround the blighted remains of the capital. The Crazed saved a slow death for that doomed city, overrunning it with storms of Black Dust and mutagenic nanites rather than the quick, clean obliteration of an orbital strike or nuclear explosion. The northern mountains and lakes are less obvious in their hostility to humanity, but the twisted trees hide the prowlings of great packs of feral gorehounds and swollen, misshapen mountain cats. The great and brutal enclaves of Ascension and Renaissance make life dangerous for any tribe that dares to settle in the lowlands, so most seek refuge in the forbidding crags of the mountains or the depths of the mutated forests. It is the central span of the Bonelands that forms some of the most consistently lethal terrain in the entire region, the wide band between the drowned ruins of Old York in the east and the Altoona Deathlands in the west. The long eastward plume of radioactive contaminants trailing from the Deathlands mingled with the streaks of environmental nanopollutants released by the crumbling cities to create a toxic stew all but certain to deface any life unfortunate enough to be caught in its shadow. The land is capricious, green and inviting in places, but holding huge and terrible beasts in its deeper hollows. Much of the terrain is gouged and scored by a rain of orbital debris unleashed on its wretched cities during the first few weeks of Old Terra's death. The few that dare to travel between the jungles and the north would usually sooner risk the Big Sink and the sea monsters than try to make a straight run overland. North or south, however, one universal in the Bonelands is its ruins. This region of Old Terra was once one of the world's most thickly populated areas and it's difficult to go two kilometers without finding the skeletal ruins of some bucolic hamlet or small town. Factories, farms, resorts, geoengineering sites, monuments to longforgotten glories and more all thickly crust the land. The massive necropoli that were once Old York, Boston, Portland, and Delfia stretch in a vastness long since buried under mutant plant life and the weight of catastrophe. The cities marked out on the regional map are merely the centers of these ancient graveyards, and their tendrils of urban accretion stretch for a hundred kilometers around the desolate cores. The city centers are almost unreachable in some cases, buried under debris and crashed orbital habitats. Plumbing their deepest reaches is a pastime only for the veteran wastelander and the young fool. The bones of smaller cities crowd the earth outside the great necropoli. For many of them, nothing remains but a few gutted foundations buried under two centuries of growth. Others still have one or two precarious buildings left standing, their supports eroded by Highshine corrosion and the slow breakdown of "eternal" construction materials. Most tribes and settled enclaves are wary of inhabiting such ruined places, for fear of the things long since buried beneath. The roads between these towns are largely memory, save for where their earthworks cut through rough terrain and make inviting traps for bandit prey. In the days of the Mandate, great underground gravtunnels for internal and intercity travel once connected the necropoli, all carefully monitored by Harmony officers to prevent unapproved travel. Most of these tunnels are collapsed or drowned in the present day, and those that are not are usually home to gruesome ecosystems of desperate life, forcibly adapted to their environment by Highshine infections. The Crazed have only a modest influence in the region compared to some less fortunate zones. Their cultists and bleak evangelists can be found creeping through the back country and spreading their poisonous doctrines among the desperate, but there is little evidence that they have more than a few hidden strongholds in the Bonelands. It may be that they were reluctant to interfere in the area due to the presence of the minor Crazed Theophilus Lien, but the arch-biopsion has been dead for a hundred years. In the disordered minds of these mad psychics, it may be that they have yet to notice his expiration- and when they and their servants do regard the vacuum in the region, who is to imagine what they might do?

## Settlements

### Ascension

In the blazing aftermath of the Scream many of the resorts and pleasure-cities of the Mandate were cut off by cascading disasters. In the north, the Serenity Towers resort complex found itself under siege by one of its former guests- the maddened Theophilus Lien, an arch-biopsion who had somehow survived the Scream. This minor Crazed methodically dissolved half of the cowering guests and enslaved the rest. Lien’s particular madness had convinced him that his soul was the soul of all psychics, and that only through converging all the scattered shards into a single bloodline could he be made immortal and immanent in all ages. He was one of the vanishingly few psychics still capable of training novices, and he promptly set about seeking newborn infants with the gift. Those he found, he took and raised for his chosen minions. Lesser, “impure” souls were simply slave fodder for the Towers of the Mind. Even now, the handful of psychics capable of training the gift of others into a controlled state are all constantly monitored by their suspicious brethren. Since his death one hundred years ago, the Minders are agreed that the man was a lunatic, barring a fringe element that nurses a demented zeal for the cause. They continue to support his eugenic program, however, breeding and crossbreeding those with known psychic bloodlines to purify the line and increase the chance of psychic offspring. This actually works, to an extent- though the cost in deformations and genetic illnesses is brutal. Those not needed for the Great Plan are slaves who may be disposed of as the Lords and Ladies of the Pure appoint. All told, there are perhaps sixty psychics within Ascension, an enormous concentration over the usual onein-a-thousand odds. The Minders tolerate strangers, provided they do not prove troublesome and granted that they bring something of value. The Pure tend to neglect the coarse terrestrial concerns of tech and science, and often trade the abundant produce of their slave-worked farms for salvage brought by the few renegades willing to work with the hated psychics. While they are powerful in their pale Old Terran towers, they are universally hated and feared by the other denizens of the Bonelands.

### Big Grange

Not many people survived the destruction of Old York. The ancient city had long since faded from its former place of global glory, but the old engineering of lost ages provided the Crazed with plenty of things to devastate. Burst seawalls inundated much of the city, and multiple atomic explosions cleared most of the rest. Among the few survivors that succeeded in fleeing the doomed city were a handful of desperate men and women who fled northeast, away from the coast. They eventually halted at one of the countless robot-operated factory farms, where a Harmony station had been established to keep down the local malcontents and prevent vandalism of the robots. The chief in charge understood the gravity of the situation and threw open the agency and its resources to the desperate survivors. This history has left the Grangers with a deep sense of loyalty to the memory of the Mandate, and the maintenance of the agency’s records and datafiles is an honored role among them. In the present, the Grangers make their living by harvesting the factory farm’s fields in between planting cycles. The limited maintenance keycodes possessed by the Harmony officers allow them to shut down the factory’s external security long enough to harvest, but they still can’t enter the deeper reaches of the plant without attracting the attention of dangerous security bots. For the past hundred years, the Grangers have been fighting a slow war with the mutants of Saltbay. The mutants see no reason to leave the factory farm in Granger hands, and the raids have left the locals bitterly prejudiced against all mutants. Those who change among them are exiled, and outsiders with visible mutations are made to stay outside the village. Great deeds might soften the Grangers’ attitude toward mutants, but the Saltbay raiders keep the wounds fresh and festering. If Big Grange was closer, Saltbay surely would have conquered it by now, but the distance is prohibitive for Saltbay’s limited ground forces. Big Grange lacks a scrapsmith ever since the last one died during a Saltie raid. The locals struggle along as best they can, but they have great difficulty in making anything but the most basic goods.

### Iron Town

The enigmatic economic patterns imposed by the Maestros weren’t always terribly comprehensible to human observers. The small artisanal factory established here in the western lands never made much economic sense but it preserved the centuries-old cultural folkway of repetitive manufacturing labor that some bureaucrat evidently found charmingly quaint. When the Scream came, the factory workers were able to use their primitive tools to maintain the simple facility. The factory is dominated by the Union, an elite of a half-dozen small families descended from the original supervisors. The Foreman who rules Iron Town is always chosen from among their number by other members of the Union. The Foreman’s sons and daughters are accorded the princely positions of Firstmen and Firstwomen. Iron Town is the most technologically advanced major settlement in the Bonelands. Even its common folk are literate and almost all of them are capable of basic scrapsmithing at the least. Even the youngest adult of the Union families knows as much as any village scrapsmith, and their elders are among the best in the region, a handful of them possessing the equivalent of Tech/Postech-3 skills. The factory itself was never intended to produce much more than cultural capital, but the dummy blanks and bars it makes out of recycled scrap can be filed and hammered into the necessary parts for more advanced equipment. The factory’s self-contained nanite power plant is capricious but provides the Forgers with electricity, hot water, and a quality of life far superior to that of any of their neighbors. The Forgers are constitutionally suspicious of outsiders, but they’re forced to trade in order to get the food that their small numbers can’t effectively grow or hunt. They never trade firearms with outsiders who haven’t proven themselves trusted allies, but their swords, spears, and metal goods are prized in the region. They also shun would-be immigrants in most cases, fearing that they might be conquered from within or reduced to “ignorant savages”. This dislike is largely shared by their neighbors, despite the trade.

### Monastery of Saint Li

The inhabitants of the Monastery of St. Li are a patchwork of tribes descended from the initial swarm of refugees who sought shelter from the Traditional Catholic inhabitants. The monastery’s architectural style coincidentally doubled as an excellent fortress against the initial bands of desperate looters, and their vineyards and artisanal farmland supported the survivors. The refugees were all deeply impressed by their survival, and while not all converted to Traditional Catholicism, all of the clans are quite devout toward their traditional faiths. The Highshine disaster had a positive effect for the monastery, in that the interactions seemed to have a positive effect on one of the nearby nanoemitters. Originally intended to keep a particular spring clean and purified for the monastery’s winemaking, the nanites now imbued the water with unusual powers of healing and cleansing, curing radiation poisoning in those who drank it. The nanites degraded if removed from the spring, but the wine the monks made was able to preserve this effect, making it an extremely valuable trade commodity. In time, this wealth attracted the interest of the restorationists from Renaissance. The Rennies sent a large squad of heavily-armed ambassadors to “invite” the Lians to take their proper place in the grand restoration of the glories of humanity- their proper place being endless grinding labor for their Rennie overlords. The Lians had the monastery but not enough men or guns to fight off the Rennies, so they were forced to submit and a quisling local cleric put in charge over their traditional clan council. Outsiders are tolerated around the monastery, but they are not welcome if they bring no useful trade goods or convenient services. The Rennies avoid molesting traders overmuch lest they stop coming to the monastery, but any interference with the Lian slaves is punished harshly. The current Unifier is both amused and contemptuous toward the Lians, viewing them as godbothered fools who are being done a favor by having a place within the glorious future that the restoration will bring. Those who fail to appreciate the kindness shown to them will be treated accordingly

### Rennaisance

Rebels and malcontents had an unusually high survival percentage after the Scream, as many of them were already accustomed to surviving beyond the comforts of Mandate civilization. Renaissance was founded from the rebel base operated by one such faction, the “Universal Restoration Way”. It looked back to a mythical golden age of humanity before the Mandate, when the world was perfectly ordered under the wise guidance of autocrats who provided all their people required. The Restorationists struggled valiantly against the brute forces of democracy and the blind, savage mob. Since then, the “Rennies” have been vigorously attempting to rectify the chaos of the world through the salvific power of their spears. Any group that fails to bow to the Commander and his chosen Unifier nobility is clearly composed of dangerous reactionaries and must be brought into line forcibly. Rennie society is composed of a poisonous noble clique of Unifiers, a larger block of “ideologically sound” subjects, and a still larger lump of slaves considered incapable of grasping the wisdom of the Restorationist way. They and their minions are universally despised across the north. This doesn’t stop certain traders from quietly bartering in their markets, though. The Unifiers spend most of their time extorting neighboring enclaves and scheming to trap each other in public errors in ideology, the penalty for which ranges from demotion to summary execution. The subjects keep their heads down and gladly prosper on the sufferings of the slaves and neighbors, while the slaves merely endure. The Rennies keep a large standing army composed strictly of Unifiers and subjects. These troops are equipped with the best they can plunder and are usually kept busy monitoring the slaves for signs of rebellion. The work tends to attract the most zealous and sadistic of the locals. Outsides are welcome in Renaissance so long as they show due deference to the Commander and submit to the authority of the Unifiers. Those who do so are allowed to trade in the largest and most abundant market north of Saltbay, with wares and slaves from all across the north provided to willing buyers.

### Saltbay

Saltbay rose from Old Natuxent, an Old Terran port town once served by massive oceangoing cargo ships that disgorged their wares into vast gravway tunnels that burrowed throughout the Bonelands. These transport pipelines brought innumerable vital goods to the cities of the region, and when the Scream washed over the city, the natives impounded the goods in the warehouse, detonated the tunnels to block intruders, and hunkered down to survive. Damage from the Crazed was relatively limited, save for a particularly vicious atomic strike on the edge of the town. A potent Highshine strain mingled with the radioactive winds to mutate the great majority of Saltbay’s citizenry, and ever since the town has been a stronghold of mutant dominance on the Bonelands coast. The great cargo-ships soon collapsed into uselessness, but some of the pleasure boats owned by Mandate officials could still be made functional, and crude coastal barges of local wood and scrap could float close to shore to bring goods to other enclaves. Saltbay became a trading town, with strangers bringing in goods from along the Big Sink and Saltbay’s armed powerboats fending off pirates and sea monsters. Ambition runs as strong in Saltbay as anywhere else, and a faction on the town council keeps insisting that the settlement needs to take over the nearby farming enclaves in order to strengthen their position. More peaceful heads usually dissuade them, but the human settlement of Big Grange has been a lasting target for the warmongers for years, and even the more peaceable members sometimes approve raids as payoff for support from the expansionists. Trade is the root of Saltbay’s prosperity, and they welcome outsiders who bring something useful to exchange. They have a particular need of technical resources, as many of the mutants find it difficult to manipulate standard tools and much of their inherited technical base has collapsed. They make very little for themselves these days, instead acquiring their necessary goods through trade with more technically proficient enclaves. This attitude may come back to haunt them if Renaissance and Ascension ever turn attention south.

**Sanctuary**

Sanctuary was founded a little less than a hundred years ago by some of the first slaves to successfully flee Ascension after the death of Theophilus Lien. The small mountain resort village they found had been cracked and damaged by quakes from a nearby orbital strike, but enough of the buildings were standing to make it habitable. The pelting of orbital debris left the surrounding lands rough and riven with narrow passes, ones easily blocked or guarded from intruders. Ever since, the men and women of Sanctuary have been fighting a one-sided war against the Minders of Ascension, plundering their goods and freeing their slaves. Newly-freed slaves find a harsh custom- they are permitted to follow the raiders back to Sanctuary if they are able, but no food is shared and no help is given. Those that live are strong enough to contribute to the community. Exceptions are sometimes made for infants and children, but Sanctuary is too poor to take in many foundlings. The citizens of Sanctuary are almost all either former slaves or the children of such. Outsiders are accepted as traders and visitors, but those that can’t do some good for the community are “encouraged” on their way with little ceremony. Sanctuary always has room for another strong arm- provided they have no Minder ties- but they can’t afford to humor the useless. Sanctuary’s rulers are the leaders of the raiding bands, and they earn their authority by the amount of supplies and number of strong freed slaves they bring back to the settlement. A guerilla chieftain who fails to bring back resources soon loses his following, while those who do the most for the community tend to earn the greatest deference. Serious differences of opinion are resolved by votes among the raid leaders. As poor as Sanctuary is, there is little distinguishing between personal and enclave goods. The belongings a person can carry on their own back are their own; all else is for those that need it. The Quartermaster is the exception, holding in trust those community goods meant for trade with outsiders.

## Ruins

### Freedom Outpost, Rebel Base

> Famine / Mutants / Unstable Construction / Cryogenic Pods
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Multiple nearby orbital strikes have drastically destabilized this ancient mountain lair. The cracks in the seals eventually opened wide enough to let in a number of vicious mutant raiders who favored the outpost for its defensible nature and large stock of salvagethough food supplies appear to have been completely consumed by the time the base went into hibernation. The mutants have yet to crack the automated defenses on the lower level, where scores of cryogenic pods hold the sleeping survivors of the ancient rebel group.

The Place of the Deep Glow Sinister Caves Nukes Degenerates Disguised Purpose / Cult Stronghold Nuke strikes drove the inhabitants of several nearby towns into this maze of underground passageways cut as part of an abortive wastestorage construction effort. The Highshine infestation reacted with some of the waste cannisters, and certain of the survivors were infected with a strange parasitic hybrid of the two. These “Keepers of the Glow” now rule the degenerates in their deep tunnels.

The Abdulafia Clinic Pleasure Resort Mutation Mutants Highshine Concentration / Mad Scientist Mad Doctor Abdulafia is a survivor of the Scream, hopped up on cutting-edge longevity nanites and high-grade Mandate technology from his former exalted rank. The mutation and degeneration of those around him- and his own misshapen state- have driven him into a frenzied search for a cure for Highshine mutation. The grounds of the clinic are haunted with his failures, discarded and vicious.

Plant #993 Power Plant Panic Robots Psychic Stronghold / Sentient Plants The first dreadful weeks after the Scream saw mad violence claim most of the survivors who gathered at this still-functional power plant. Those who remained tried to use a mutated kudzu variant for foodstuffs, but the radiation and Highshine combined to merge the humans with the plants in a breed of grotesque hybrid. Something about the hybridization process appears to have unlocked psychic powers in the plant-beings, and they now use the plant’s robotic workforce to ensure their safety and abundant fertilization.

Grahamstown Ruined Village Raiders Mutants Taboo Land / Black Dust Local enclaves warn strangers away from Grahamstown, calling it a place of ghosts and demons. Those who stir up the creatures within are often attacked, such is the dread of the shambling things within Grahamstown’s crumbling houses. In truth, a raider attack on a squatter community some decades ago accidentally broke open a nanoemitter programmed to spew Black Dust. The hostile nanites permeated the brains of the luckless humans, destroying their minds and turning them into bestial, undying savages.

Fen Guo Educational Center Pleasure Resort Conquest Squatters Unstable Power Core / Failed Community Once a recreational “educational center” for interminable Mandate retreats, the Fen Guo Center was once home to a peaceful enclave that prospered on the center’s still-functional nanotech power generator. An attack by the Wheeler raider clan slaughtered the locals, but the fighting damaged and destabilized the power core. The surviving raiders now guard the center jealously, but if no one is able to repair the damaged power core, it’s going to wipe out several nearby enclaves when it finally goes critical. The Wheelers refuse to believe that anything is wrong with the core, and view any attempt to get near it as mere trickery aimed against them.

Cornucopia Farms Agro-Complex Panic Robots Flooded Ruins / Cyclical Threat One of the innumerable robot-operated factory farms that fed Old Terra, Cornucopia Farms was remote enough that few survivors ever made it to it in the wake of the Scream, and those that did ended up killing each other over control of the farm. The robots have cheerfully continued their labors, growing several boutique plant varieties and numerous colorful ornamentals. Unfortunately, these ornamentals have mutated into a perfect food source for a type of ground-dwelling mutant locust not unlike a heritor bug. Every few decades, the locust population explodes into a carpet of crawling doom that slaughters those nearby enclaves that have innocently sprung up in the quiet years between outbreaks.

BetterLife Industries Industrial Complex Decay Squatters Ancient Lore / Forbidden Fruit Advanced pharmacological tech was one of the few varieties of Mandate pretech that was commonly available to ordinary Old Terran citizens. BetterLife Industries operated this plant to create a wide range of lifestyle stims. Less obviously, they also operated it to conduct maltech research into combat stims, mind-controlling drugs and chems meant to destroy the wills of troublesome malcontents. The few scientists and workers left at the site after the Scream gradually succumbed to the perils of the New Earth, and only recently have a band of squatters made a new home in the place. They’re using stims indiscriminately, relying on the boosted speed, strength, and ferocity that the combat mixes grant-and heedless of the damage that they’re doing to their minds. Some of the worst of them are barely-sentient monsters, and even the most rational can’t hope to understand the stim research and advanced chemical blueprints left behind by the maltech researchers.