Lore Primer

In order to cope with the sheer despair of the Burnout, many surviving communities found refuge in the absurd and occult. These various new faiths have since been used to consolidate power in fanatical nation-states. The average person, born in the shadows of ruins, knows little besides the lore and ways of the Clan or City they were born into, and they often spend their lives completely swept up in their nation’s struggles for territory, trading-rights, holy relics, and resources. 

Only a few administrators and intellectuals operate in positions where they can see the true nature of the country: it is yet another grand political experiment devised by early leaders who would sooner lock their country in stagnation and ignorance than risk progress and another Burnout. The very laws and rituals that these civilizations are founded upon are corporate-approved machinations. 

This re-wilded frontier is still very much the land of opportunity: there is profound spiritual meaning for all who are willing to believe, glory for those who can be ruthless, and for a few who are daring enough to venture to the fringes of society— and their sanity— glimpses of truth about the Burnout and the real powers at play. 

These fateful decades in the twilight of civilization have been a time like no other. Industrial superpowers have risen out of ash and fallen into bloody snow while rumors and interventions of the supernatural have become an increasing part of daily life. 

To truly grasp the breadth and depth of the Post-Burnout country is to force one’s mind into distension. To understand it in its glorious and tragic entirety is to admit insanity. 

This is a very high-concept setting. A lot of the “cool” things are in the nuances between cultures and economies for different factions, the multi-lateral deals they make, and the evolution of different political theories as civilization gets further from the collapse. There is a great deal of low-concept “cool” stuff, like cults, supervehicles, and cosmic horror.