Guns in The Outlaw

[Daddy Warpig]

I am enjoying what you are doing here.

Thank you. :)

About vortexes, do they open anywhere at random or are they confined in some way?

There's a lot about vortexes that is simply unknown. Right now, the best guess is that they can open basically anywhere. No one has been able to disprove or prove this.

Can one open or close a vortex?

So far as is known, no one can create a vortex. However, it is possible to collapse one, using a technomagical devisement. BP soldiers (and similar services in the Outlaw, like Texas Rangers) are specially trained to enter vortexes, find the locus, and destroy them. (After which, they are ejected from the Beyond.)

Guns with that training can command premium fees.

[Fortunato]

Oh, I'd love to see more details on the Texas Rangers!

Thanks

[Daddy Warpig]

Oh, I'd love to see more details on the Texas Rangers!

Texas is the largest non-Fed polity in North America. It is one of the two oil states (the other being South Dakota), and so has the wealth to arm and equip a sizable internal security force and self-defense force (an army, though of limited size).

The Rangers were instrumental in maintaining order during the collapse, through the addition of thousands of deputies. Local jurisdictions were bolstered by roving bands of Rangers, who successfully maintained order in the face of the millions who fled the large cities. Aggressive intervention in confrontations maintained public order and kept internecine violence in Texas at the lowest level in the continental US.

(Famine took its toll, and there were few food riots, but nothing like plagued California. Then again, California's problems were much, much worse. Incompetence made the LA death march worse, but nothing could have prevented it.)

The public loved the Rangers, and through them the government in Austin. This kept Texas intact, when so many other states had fallen apart.

The Rangers' role in internal security was increased, and their increased numbers were ratified by Austin. Any city that had local problems they couldn't manage could call upon the Rangers for assistance.

In the aftermath of Emergence, the Rangers were assigned the duty of patrolling vortexes. (Much like the Border Patrol in the Fed.) The Rangers train extensively for this, and even cross train with the BP. (Both Austin and the Fed dislike this arrangement, but the commanders of both forces are given wide latitude to carry out their mission, and sharing tips and tactics between the forces has improved their effectiveness greatly.)

Texas is one of the few polities to officially recognize Guns, and (through the Rangers) even offer a charter service for companies of Guns. By agreeing to abide by Texas laws and a code of conduct, Guns can be officially licensed and chartered. (There are even bonding companies who cover Guns.) Guns who are Texas-licensed are more likely to be hired, and command higher fees.

The Rangers maintain a job board for Guns, a clearinghouse for information about who is hiring in Texas and surrounding areas. When a situation is bad, but not so bad as to require the Rangers' intervention, they recommend that local jurisdictions hire licensed Guns.

[I'm not sure if that's what you were looking for... let me know if I missed anything.]

[Daddy Warpig]

Life in the Jungle, II

There are two jungles in most of the Fed. One where people have self-organized effectively, one where they (for various reasons) have not. The level of self-organization is strongly correlated with how prosperous and secure the neighborhood is.

In the majority of areas, gangs roam freely, battling at will. There is not even a semblance of order or government. These areas are no-go zones, very nearly part of the wild. They are slowly dying.

Other zones are ruled by criminals or bandit gangs, de facto dictators or warlords who make a living through terrorizing those around them, raping and murdering to maintain their power. These places are dog-eat-dog, and people have only what they themselves provide. People here live a subsistence lifestyle, barely surviving, living day to day and hand to mouth. Vigilante gangs rule some areas, but the line between vigilantes and criminals is very thin, and there is no significant difference in prosperity (though much less crime — vigilante gangs are far less likely to engage in looting, murder, or rape, so long as their "fees" are paid).

The best-off areas have organized into neighborhood alliances, as a floor, a building, or several blocks, providing for themselves what the Fed cannot. In these areas, there are neighborhood schools, food co-ops, service alliances (to supply necessaries like water and power), even job boards. The skilled work for barter, trade with other alliances, or for black market currencies. Some areas are wealthy enough to contract with private service companies for security (private police forces), water, power, and so forth. These areas are typically referred to as "settlements", and are usually considered part of the Outlaw.

In all cases, life is hard and short. Epidemics and famine are common. Material security is unknown, and physical security is unknown. Conflicts between neighborhoods (low-intensity, disorganized wars of raid and reprisal) are routine.

As has held for most of human history, jungle dwellers live in perpetual fear of war or banditry. It is a measure of how fearsome people find the Outlaw, that they are willing to live in such poverty rather than take their chances with the dangers there.

These fears are exaggerated, and as a matter of deliberate policy. Life in the Outlaw is not as bad as jungle dwellers are told, but Fed officials spread the tales anyway. They find the jungles a useful safety valve and threat — exile to the jungles is the worst punishment enclave residents can imagine, and in the face of this threat, they toe the line.

Life in the enclaves is, of course, very different. Enclave residency is the carrot, the reward for political sycophancy.

[Fortunato]

[I'm not sure if that's what you were looking for... let me know if I missed anything.]

Yes, that's great! 

[Daddy Warpig]

Asked and Answered: Vortexes and Rangers

This is an expanded, clarified, and rewritten repost of the questions Fortunato asked, and my answers. They cover the same ground, but clarify some points and expand on others.

Q1: About vortexes, do they open anywhere at random or are they confined in some way?

A1: There's a lot about vortexes that is simply unknown. Right now, the best guess is that they can open basically anywhere, and apparently at random. No one has been able to prove or disprove this.

Q2: Can one open or close a vortex?

A2: So far as is known, no one can create a vortex (they seem to be a spontaneous magical phenomenon). However, it is possible to collapse one, using a specially designed technomagical devisement.

BP soldiers (and similar services in the Outlaw, like Texas Rangers) are specially trained to enter vortexes and close them. (After which, they are ejected from the Beyond.) Guns with that training can command premium fees.

Q3: Any more details on the Texas Rangers?

A3: Texas is the largest non-Fed polity in North America (measured by territory, population, and wealth). It is one of the two exporting oil states (the other being South Dakota), and so has the wealth to arm and equip a sizable internal security force and self-defense force (an army). The Rangers are their internal police and security force.

(One note of irony: since both polities lay claim to the mantle of the former US, they both fly the Stars-and-Stripes. If the Fed and Texas ever go to war, both armies will be flying the same flag and fighting in the name of the same country.)

The Rangers were instrumental in maintaining order during the Collapse, through the addition of thousands of deputies. Local jurisdictions were bolstered by roving bands of Rangers, who successfully maintained order during the mass exodus from urban centers (roughly 6 million refugees, in Texas' case). Aggressive intervention in confrontations maintained public order and kept internecine violence in Texas at nearly the lowest level in the continental US. (The lowest being Utah.)

(Famine took its toll, and there were a few food riots, but nothing like plagued California. Then again, California's problems were of a much greater magnitude. Incompetence made the LA death march more lethal than might have been otherwise, but nothing could have prevented it.)

The public loved the Rangers, and through them the government in Austin. This kept Texas intact, when so many other states fell apart.

After the Collapse, the Rangers' role in internal security was increased, and their increased numbers were ratified by Austin. Any Texas city that had local problems they couldn't manage could call upon the Rangers for assistance.

In the aftermath of Emergence, the Rangers were assigned the duty of patrolling vortexes. (Much like the Border Patrol in the Fed.) The Rangers train extensively for this, and even cross train with the BP. (Both Austin and the Fed dislike this arrangement, but the commanders of both forces are given wide latitude to carry out their mission, and sharing tips and tactics between the forces has improved their effectiveness greatly.)

Texas is one of the few polities to officially recognize Guns, and (through the Rangers) even offer a charter service for Gun companies. By agreeing to abide by Texas laws and a professional code of conduct, Guns can be officially licensed and chartered. (There are even bonding companies who cover Guns.) Texas-licensed Guns are in high demand, and command higher fees.

The Rangers maintain a job board for Guns, a clearinghouse for information about who is hiring in Texas and surrounding areas. When a situation is bad, but not so bad as to require the Rangers' intervention, they recommend that local jurisdictions hire licensed Guns.

[Daddy Warpig]

Asked and Answered: Utah in 2039

In yesterday's post, I made an offhand reference to Utah, prompting the following question from one of my blog readers:

Q1: What happened in Utah? Did I miss that post?

A1: No, you didn't miss that post. There's background information that I haven't posted yet. This includes Utah.

The State of Utah is a semi-independent member of the Fed. It participates in national elections, and sends Senators and Representatives to Congress, but doesn't accept the authority of the Reconciliation Committee, nor follow their dictates (including residency policies).

Though it officially only covers the geographic boundaries of the former State of Utah, unofficially Utah incorporates portions of southern Idaho, south-west Wyoming, and western Colorado. (The Free City of Denver is not included.) People in these areas participate in state and national elections as citizens of Utah, and are governed by Utah law and courts. The rest of the Fed doesn't like this, but turns a blind eye.

Utah is unique among American states, in that it's regained and even surpassed its population levels from before the plague (roughly 3 million, in 2039). This is due to the family sizes of LDS Church members (the "Mormon Church", members of which comprise about 66% of the state's population), approximately 4.8 children per family on average, and the number of refugees who settled there before Emergence (roughly 400,000).

Today, Utah is known for agriculture (it's the largest non-Chartered Company agricultural center in the 48), charity towards refugees, and firearms. "Don't fuck with the Mormons," the saying goes, "because they make good guns and aren't afraid to use them." Utahns tend to be friendly towards outsiders, but harsh towards malefactors.

Browning Arms Company is responsible for the State's reputation for firearms. The company is the largest arms producer in the western US, and manufactures weapons and ammunition (including rifles, shotguns, bows, and more) for internal sale and export. Browning weapons are known for their high quality, reliability, and low cost of ownership. Consequently, they are extremely popular weapons, especially in the Outlaw. Browning guns are the second-most common weapons in the Outlaw, just above locally produced firearms. (Pre-Collapse arms are the most common.)

Salt Lake City (the state capitol) is a linchpin for Fed travel routes, because of its location, lack of bandits, and local gasoline production. Nearly all traffic from California to the east has to pass through SLC, and the Fed's nascent freight rail lines run the same route. Utah markets sell goods from all over the Fed.

The Wasatch Mountains, Bonneville Salt Flats, and Zion National Park all see a large number of vortexes, far above the national average. Utah has a small bureau of officers trained in vortex-jumping, but they are nowhere near as expert as the Rangers or BP. The State of Utah relies heavily on Guns for these kinds of incursions.

Life in Utah is hard, but not as desperate as many other areas of the Fed. The State is a net agricultural exporter (if only just), meaning it produces enough food to feed all its citizens. The Church's food program (expanded to include refugees, post-Collapse) also provides a limited safety net: if they're willing to work, and the food is available, people won't starve. They may be hungry much of the time, but they won't die of starvation.

(I'll talk about the post-plague history of Utah in the next post.)

[Daddy Warpig]

Eaters of Men

There are three elements in Beyonder mysticism: the material, the energic, the ephemeral. Tangible things, like water, gases, and metals, are material. Heat, light, and cold are energies. (Yes, cold and darkness are active energies.) Beyonders know of, and believe in, an immortal soul, something that continues to exist after the body has died. Both the soul and magic are ephemeral phenomenon, they transcend the mortal world.

Magic can manifest as curses, supernatural forces that causes harm to someone. There are curses of ill luck (a hex or juju), curses of death, or the morphic curses, that turn people into monsters. The most frightening curses are the anthrophagic: curses which turn people into cannibals.

Such monsters are known as eaters, because they consume their victims. There are many different strains of eaters, but all strains are linked to one of the mystical elements.

Ghouls eat the flesh of their victims, different strains preferring different organs (livers, lungs, hearts) or substances (bile, spinal fluid, blood). Some consume any flesh they can. All are oriented towards the material.

Vampires eat the energy of their victims (the electrochemical energies known as "life"), different strains draining this in different ways. Some drain through simple touch, others through consuming the flesh or fluids of their victims (their attacks appearing, at first glance, to be the work of a ghoul), others through... intimate contact. (These last are known as inccubi or succubi.) Vampires are linked to the energic world.

Revenants drain ephemera (often through consuming the flesh or fluids of their victims). The soul is of the ephemeral world, and some revenants feed off it. These revenants consume and destroy the soul, leaving the victim a mindless, but still living, husk. Other strains eat the magic of their victims — after being attacked, the person is absolutely normal, save that they cannot use their magical talents any more. (These last are known as mage-killers.)

Anthrophagic curses are contagious: after some period of time, their victims arise as new eaters. Some spawn eaters of their strain, some eaters of different strains. Some can chose when to spawn, or choose what strain they produce. (For example, some vampires can create ghoul servitors.) But all eaters pass along a curse to those they kill. (Some don't even have to kill: a bite or touch is sufficient to spread the curse.)

Eaters are mystical beings, and very often they are only vulnerable to specific substances or weapons. Some can only be harmed by magic, others only by the faith of a true priest. Some can only be hurt by water, salt, or wood grown in soil from the land of their nativity. Knowing which variety of eater you face is essential.

When well-fed, eaters are frighteningly intelligent and cunning. Deprived of that which they consume, their intelligence devolves but their strength and resilience grows. Starving eaters (called "ferals") are utterly mindless — ravening animals that consume without thought.

Eaters are widely feared, and for good reason. They are malevolent, voracious, and spread their curse to those they attack. Shortly after Emergence, a Eater plague spread along the East Coast, destroying several enclaves and settlements. (Among them, Boston and Chicago.) Soon after, the first bloodgangs appeared: nomadic bands of eaters who hunt in packs.

Eaters are one of the prime menaces in 2039. The BP and Texas Rangers both train in identifying and eliminating eater strains.

Hunters, Guns who specialize in tracking and killing eaters, are among the most highly trained and deadly mercenaries in the Outlaw. (And, often, the most fanatical. Hunting has a low life expectancy, and people who survive for a long time, and continue in the face of the horrors they suffer and see, are driven by something.) Guns can expect that many of their most lucrative, and dangerous, contracts will involve eaters, one way or the other.

[Note: I still need to post the other half of Utah's writeup. Tomorrow, hopefully.]

[Daddy Warpig]

A History of Violence in Utah

Violence during the Collapse wasn't universal. Internecine violence following the Collapse was largely due to fighting over food, the rise of gangs or packs, and the urban exodus. Areas with low population levels, rural areas, and areas with a high social cohesion suffered far lower levels of violence than the obverse.

Utah had the lowest level of post-plague violence in the United States, precisely due to these factors. It had a much smaller population than most states, a largely suburban or rural population, and a generally higher level of social cohesion.

More, its population had significant stores of privately held food (the result of Church teachings), meaning hunger was a smaller concern. Although Utah residents went hungry much of the time, they never faced outright starvation, much less the famines that plagued, for example, LA.

The suburban sprawl of the Wasatch Front meant people could convert their backyards into gardens, supplying food for their families. This practice was widespread before the Collapse, but became ubiquitous after the Mormon Church collectivized food distribution for members in summer of 2016 (the Black Summer, when the famines were at their worst). In later years, after the fall 2016 harvest, Utah even began feeding refugees from other states in large numbers.

(Members mostly complied with the "United Order" food distribution plan, but there were many who left the Church over it. It was discontinued in 2018, after the worst of the famines had passed.)

By the time of the Reconciliation Conference, in 2018, Utah had pretty much recovered from the Collapse. Thanks to the Wyoming pipeline (and Salt Lake refineries), it even had a small supply of gasoline.

[Note: There is probably one more Utah post. Hopefully tomorrow.]

[Daddy Warpig]

Utah: Life On the Frontier

Life in Utah is very, very hard. The majority of the state works in agriculture, producing food for themselves and others. It's a hardscrabble existence. Military service is mandatory, for men and women, and despite its importance as a trading center, Utahns are by and large materially poor.

In a way, it's a modern American Israel. Utah is a lone polity, dominated by a majority religion, geographically isolated from similar polities, surrounded by enemies and under constant attack.

The enemies, in this case, are the monsters that emerge from three nearby vortex clusters (in the Salt Flats, Zion parkland, and the Wasatch Mountains). Incursions from these clusters can be expected twice a year, or more.

The state lacks a dedicated vortex-jumper unit, like the BP or Texas Rangers (though individual Utahns are as trained or better), instead military service being the responsibility of all Utahns. (They are not averse to hiring Guns as needed). The populace is on constant alert for attacks, and every male Utahn above the age of 15 is inducted into the State Guard. (Females above the age of 15 join the auxiliaries, where they fulfill support roles.)

Even after mustering out, at the age of 20, Utahns are perpetually in the reserves (and allowed to keep their service weapons, another similarity with Israel and Switzerland). Utahns are a well-armed people.

The state is a crossroads, the primary link between the East and West. (And hence sees a lot of convoy traffic. It's pretty easy for Guns to find employ in Utah, so long as vortex-jumping, bounty-hunting, and convoy duty are acceptable employments.) It trades primarily with the State of California (part of the Fed), the Seattle Domain, and the Free City of Denver. Utah has a large domestic arms industry, driven by Browning Arms in Morgan, and Browning weapons are among the most common and best-regarded post-Collapse weapons in the shattered country.

Other than technology, Utah has regressed to the lifestyle of the pioneer era. Farmwork is the most common employment (about 51%), followed by shopkeeping. All family members work from the time they are old enough to stand on their own.

Families produce most of what they need themselves, the chief exception being technological items. Children receive a strong primary education (by religious decree), but seldom attend college. People marry young, 15 or 16 on average, and start their own farm (or otherwise establish a household).

Clothing styles are modern cut (aping the styles of pre-Collapse America), but made of homespun cloth. Technological devices are expensive, and (other than pre-Collapse relics) very uncommon. Vehicles are rare, reserved for official use. Firearms are ubiquitous, but the state has a very low crime rate and a harsh, but fair judicial system. (Which makes extensive use of Gun contracts for bail-jumpers and fugitives. Utah hired Guns have claimed fugitives in New York's jungles, the ghoul cities of Boston and Chicago, and even Mexico. Utahns don't mind paying for justice.)

If you can stomach living like an 1840's frontier farmer, and don't mind the occasional mind-breaking beast from out a vortex, life in Utah is among the best in the Fed. There is no residency fee, meaning you are safe in your home and land, and there is little of the corruption that plagues politics and daily life in California and New York. The police provide good security and don't demand bribes to do their job.

There is a small safety net, unlike the rest of the Fed. (Church members donating 10% of their annual increase to the Church, and donating more monthly for the care of the poor. Catholics and other religions also maintain missions and charities.) You are free to prosper, even if your definition of "prosperity" has to be adjusted sharply downwards.

Life in Utah is not pretty, not glamorous, not romantic. It it a harsh, desert land, frequently beset by ravening monstrosities, lost in the middle of the vast post-Collapse wilderness of 2039 North America.

[This is the last Utah post. Tomorrow, I want to talk about guns, lowercase.]

[Daddy Warpig]

The Black Summer

I want to talk about guns, but before I do I have to talk about 2016. Everything odd about guns in the Outlaw — how the AK-47 became the iPhone of the Outlaw, how Utah became the arms-mongers of 2039 by selling AK's to the quarter million Communist Chinese refugees occupying Seattle (and later, the dragon who took the city), and how the Emergence caused the widening adoption of the 10mm round — starts in 2016.

The plague hit the US in September 2015. People began getting sick, and three or four weeks later, started dying. During October and November, approximately 25% of the United States died of contagious gangrene. In the aftermath of the plague, came the chaos.

Pandemics are horrifying. Nobody knows what exactly they are, how to ward them off, or how to cure them. (Or if they do, they can do nothing about it.) All you can do is make the dying comfortable, and wait for the disease to run its course.

Adversity can be ennobling; some of the greatest moments of compassion can arise from communal suffering. But pressed too hard, for too long, and people become desperate. Civilized habits and morals are stripped away by the constant need to fight for life.

Let me explain.

The disease spreads, and people are dying. You have a job, maybe a grocer, bus driver, or paramedic. But if you go out, into the world, you can catch the disease. Tens of millions of people are dying, their flesh rotting off their bones, and you see this every day. So you run away. You grab what supplies you can, bunker up, and wait out the plague.

And everybody does this. And food stops moving. And fuel stops moving. And policing stops. And trash is no longer picked up.

There is no food. The cities have been stripped clean. And you are hungry. And your kids are hungry. And the hunger never goes away. And you find yourself eating things you never would imagine.

And it is winter. And it is cold. And the snows begin to fall. And people begin freezing.

So you flee the cities, into the countryside. There are plants there, animals there, food there. Or there was, before 20 million other people headed south with you.

And your kids are hungry. And you are hungry. Not just hungry. Ravenous.

There is an empty pit in your belly, an aching pain that fills your torso, like getting punched in the gut. And it never goes away. Even when you eat leaves off trees, or the half-rotten carcass by the side of the road, or the time you found a single candy bar and had to split it four ways, and just for a moment, staring at the squashed, stepped-on Snickers bar inside the plastic wrap, your hands shaking with weakness, you thought about wolfing it down. Damn the kids, you needed to eat. After a moment of pounding hunger, you gave them the candy bar and wept after, dry sobs you tried to stifle, so the kids wouldn't hear. So tired you couldn't walk straight, you bedded down in the burned out store. You'd been carrying your youngest — she was just two — and the next day, she'd fallen asleep and never woke up.

Even after all that, the hunger never went away. And you were hungry and your kids were hungry.

Such people are desperate. There isn't much they wouldn't do to survive.

[Pt. 2, tomorrow.]

[Daddy Warpig]

2016, Pt II

There's some key questions that need to be answered, for the setting to make any sense. We know that the US is (in 2039) fractured. There are six major polities, which govern only part of the country, and even those which are nominally part of the same polity (the Fed) are effectively different nations.

But why? Why is the United States so fractured? The answer is simple: it's all down to tribes.

Humans are tribalistic. It's innate, evolutionary, necessary to survive. We divide the world into Us and Them and (in most cases) hate and fear the Them. (Whoever the "Them" are.)

When two foreign tribes come into contact, 99% percent of the time the absolute best you can expect, the pinnacle of morality and decency, is benign indifference. They interact, usually trade, and go on their way. A step down is suspicion and distrust. Below that is active hostility and below that, killing. Two tribes who compete for the same resources will become enemies, and enemies, sooner or later, will kill each other. This is tribalism.

(I note that benign indifference isn't immoral behavior. When survival is a hard-won prize, when every day is spent on the edge of starvation, disease, or death, there is no generosity, because there is nothing to be generous with. The widow may have donated her two mites, but if there are no mites, have never been any mites, and will never be any mites, not for centuries, people give nothing because they have nothing to give. Generosity is a virtue of those who have something to be generous with.)

America, in 2039, is tribalized. It is broken into thousands of tribes, dozens of multi-tribal alliances, and six small nations.

Each settlement is a separate tribe, unto itself. Each city-state is a strong tribal alliance, each local or regional confederacy a weak one. Each of the six polities are (in effect) small nations, and they view the others as foreign and strange.

New York's urban warriors and agro-businessmen have little in common with the optimistic industrial laborers of the Dakotas or the devout but impoverished farmers of Utah. They see the world in different ways, have different customs, morals, and social norms, and are deeply suspicious of the "other".

America has regressed — it is no longer one nation. And 2016 is why.

[Daddy Warpig]

2016, Part III

In Part I, I talked about people's suffering in 2016. In Part II, I talked about the tribalization of the US in 2039. But how did we get from the first to the second?

Group identity is an odd thing. It can be shattered by disaster, or forged into an unbreakable bond. People who suffer through adversity, who lean on each other, depend on each other, and save each other's lives over and over, bond in ways most people will never understand.

The plague and the Collapse caused people to break into small groups, then caused those groups to bond together tightly.

The plague broke the back of commerce, and food deliveries stopped. Stores emptied out, quite quickly, and people were left with what they had on hand, or what they could acquire. (However they went about it.) Packs — ad hoc mobs led by a strongman — formed, and fought over the scraps.

When the cities ran short of food, people left for the countryside. And they were desperate. And they fought for food any way they could — it was literally a matter of life and death. But there simply was not enough food to feed everyone.

In the countryside, the towns (on the whole) said "no". This usually ended badly, for both sides.

Sometimes the town could fend off the "locusts" (as they called the urban refugees). More often, the refugees overran the defenders and took the town. In rare cases, a modus vivendi was reached.

These conflicts, these bitter little wars over food and shelter are burned into the minds of those who lived through them. On either side, people were driven by sheer desperation to do things they abhorred. And the survivors remembered.

The refugee packs, by and large, bonded due to their shared experience of famine in the city, flight to the countryside, and supporting their leader in armed confrontations. They became proud of their group, proud of their leader, and became a family, a tribe. They became willing to fight and die for their tribe.

Rural cities bonded over shared struggles to restore order, feed themselves, and fend off locusts. They became proud of their town, proud of their fellow citizens, and proud of their successes in their struggle. (Towns who weren't successful disintegrated or simply died.) They became a tribe, and were willing to fight and die for it.

Military bases, cut off from command and each other, became a tribe. Families were sheltered there, fed, clothed, and cared for there, and soldiers fought to keep themselves and their families safe. People were willing to fight and die for this tribe.

Most people lived through similar experiences. By the end of 2016, nearly everyone in America saw themselves as part of a tribe, even if they didn't recognize it.

2015 shattered America. But 2016 cemented those divisions. After that year — a long year of famine and strife — people no longer thought of themselves as Americans, one indivisible nation.

They said they did, they thought they did, they aspired to. But deep in their hearts, those they fought and survived with were their tribe and everyone else was "Them".

Even the efforts of the Reconciliation Conference (in 2018) couldn't overcome the baked-in distrust and enmity that sprang from the events of 2016.

[Note: That's the end of the depressing stuff. Apologies, this really isn't a grimdark campaign setting. But to understand America in 2039, you have to understand 2016, and what happened then was pretty grim. Next time, the posts should be more upbeat. Or, at least, deal with less thoroughly horrible subjects.]

[Daddy Warpig]

Next time, the posts should be more upbeat. Or, at least, deal with less thoroughly horrible subjects.

Blowing stuff up with machine guns and fireballs.  :D

Hell, yes! :D

And treasure hunting in ancient ruins on the other side of portals to an alien and magical world.

And breaking into computers by entering a dimension of shadow and magic.

And running bootleg contraband past the New York Border Patrol, while driving a souped-up modern replica of the 1958 Packard Hawk (which has at least been modded with a technomagical camouflage system, so you'll probably survive).

And tracking the last survivor of a bloodgang south, through the Mexicali Narco-kingdoms.

And bodyguarding a Chartered Company rep while he negotiates for trade rights (in Mandarin) with the clutch of dragons that rule Seattle.

Vortex-jumping underwater, off the coast of Cuban Florida.

Trying to rescue the passengers of a Dakota-manufactured Huey that crashed in the Black Hole of Oregon. (The so-called "Oregon Triangle".)

Talking your way into a troll warlord's camp, so you can bribe him with a chest of pre-plague Playboys.

Signing on for a suicide contract, to guard a tiny town from a brutal bezerkergang onslaught.

It's a big world, and there's a lot of bad things going on, which is why they need Guns. But this is an adventure game, not an exercise in grimdark misery tourism, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

[Daddy Warpig]

Packs of the Dying Years

Humans adapt to changing conditions. When the world around them changes, they develop (and innovate) new techniques, tools, and cultural norms. They adapt to the new conditions, and in a generation it becomes the new normal. In the aftermath of the rotting plague and the Collapse, people created packs.

"The most remarkable feature of these conflict-forged, ad hoc 'tribes' is the degree to which their dynamics resemble those of another emergent social phenomenon of the Collapse: the packs of feral dogs that coalesced out of the hundreds of thousands of pets abandoned by their owners during the chaos. They were both nomadic, both lead by an alpha figure, and both aggressive and untamable."

— Emmanuel Farberg, "Packs: Ad Hoc Tribal Bands of the Urban American Diaspora", Social Inquiry Monthly, Issue #16, Manhattan University Press, 25-Oct-2031.

The milieu from which packs emerged was an anarchic one, a dog-eat-dog struggle for the barest supplies necessary to survive. On the run, desperate for food and shelter, people banded together in small (usually around 100 people), ad hoc, discrete groups, usually under the leadership of a charismatic leader or a strong man.

These were common people — stock brokers, lawyers, hair dressers, waiters, truck drivers, former police — from every socio-economic and cultural background, foraging together, hunting together, fighting together (with steak knives, improvised weapons, and their fists). They banded together to protect themselves and their families against millions of desperate survivors just like them.

Rural townsfolk called the refugees locusts, both because of their numbers and their tendency to strip the land bare. Conflict, in the aftermath of the plague, mainly occurred between town dwellers and packs of survivors, usually over matters of food and land.

Hundreds of thousands of packs formed from the urban exiles, and many didn't survive the dying years. Those who did had almost always bonded together into a tight, unbreakable social unit. After the famine subsided, they lived together, worked together, travelled together. They had become a tribe.

After the dying years had passed, many settled down. Those who usurped a town usually settled there. Others made their own tiny hamlets, small cities of tents and shacks cobbled together from scavenged materials. (Called settlements, the name came to apply to any independent Outlaw city.) Many of these settlements stand today, and are still occupied. Many other packs just kept moving.

And do today. The large numbers of itinerant groups in the Outlaw is an outgrowth of the emergence of packs. Warpacks, okiepacks, rotpacks, carnypacks, fleshgangs, bezerkergangs, and bloodgangs were all outgrowths of the refugee packs of 2015.