The Badlands & The Mutants
is the term for the irradiated desert that covers most of the world. It is a land of salt and brimstone, populated by the limping, mutated remnants of wildlife and those who adapted In the least irradiated portions of The Badlands, there are oases of hardy prehistoric ferns and black pines that have withstood the area's acrid irradiated atmosphere. Most of The Badlands, however, is made up of sprawling gray deserts and cityscapes.
The mutants who live in The Badlands are as harsh and unnatural as their home, borne from humans who struggled in the poisonous land with escalatingly grotesque birth defects. These mutants have not only lost their humanity in a genetic sense, but in a mental sense as well -- Concepts such as filial piety, consensual sex, and mourning one's dead are foreign to them. Cannibalism is a commonplace fear tactic and food source, and leaders remain in power for as long as they are quick-witted and strong enough to avoid assassination. Only one thing is true about The Badlands; It is a foul place, where all things good have been forgotten.
Reclaimed technology is generally found in larger cities, whereas smaller cities make do with the twisted machinations of the current time. The current technologic era in The Badlands is most similar to that of the mid to late 1900's -- Things like electricity, planes, gasoline, and assault rifles all exist, though almost all medical technology, supercomputers, and robotics are found in ancient ruins and deep underground. Due to the existence of things like history books and instruction manuals, the industrial revolution has started much earlier now than during the time of man, and has skipped the steam age as part of their development.
Though rifles are in mass production, swords are still being forged every day in most of The Badlands due to their ease of access, though technology is culturally considered the superior to any alternative, and "soft-skin" or "pointy-eared" ideas such as charity and oneness with nature are shunned with scorn. At the seams of The Badlands and Terra, wagonmakers are day by day learning automobile care, and swordsmiths and fletchers have begun turning to riflesmithing -- A cold, grim fact the denizens of The Badlands take much pride in.
Orcs, mutated humans with hardened skin and fangs, make up the bulk of The Badlands population -- known simply as The Mutants, followed by the beastmen and the Illithid, a psychic race of cephalopod-like humanoids. Among the wildlife are the usual mutant variants of common wildlife, sandworms, and the cactusmen -- living plants, and among the few lifeforms who can tolerate the planet's nuclear caps, and keepers of many of the nuclear desert's narrower shortcuts, valleys, and oases.
Aside from the usual packs of mutated dogs and sandworms, The Badlands is also known for The Terrorbird, a large ostrich-like mount somewhere between a velociraptor and a very large, skinny chicken. It is a solitary creature known for its hardiness, and is the unofficial symbol of The Badlands.
When in doubt: Mordor, Pandora, Chernobyl, The Wasteland (Fallout), The Wasteland (Mad Max), The Wasteland (Modern Detroit), Atacama Desert
Terra & The Fair Folk
Terra is the name for the parts of Earth that remain unspoilt and free of radiation. Ruled by Tiberius Khan, more commonly known as The Red King, Terra is known for its bountiful wildlife, abundance of trees, and widespread use of magic. Though much of it is only a fraction of lush and green as it was millions of years ago, it is still considered the more comfortable region of the world by far.
Most of Terra is expansive jungles that make up a chunk of the planet the size of Asia, and its mutated inhabitants are known as The Fair Folk. They allow orcs and other Mutants -- save for the illithid -- to come into Terra as refugees, though there remains a strong stigma against their kind. Though The Badlands technically has more wildlife, excluding mutated insects and terrorbirds, Terra is by
far the more life-supporting of the two.
Humans make up the bulk of Terra's denizens, followed by the elves. The outer regions of Terra, closest to The Badlands, are ruled by the hardier dwarves, gnomes eager to tinker with the machinations of the more savage parts of the world, as well as scattered colonies throughout every reach of Terra of "pseudosentient" races such as The Lizardmen, Mushroomfolk, and Fairies. There is little nationalism in regards to homelands in Terra, as each region is home to citizens of just about every species and race.
About half of Terra has a completely negative view of technology, citing it as the reason for The Last War. This half has outright rejected technology and refuse it in their villages, making those with cyborg prosthetics -- an option for the wealthy, but nonetheless option, given current medical advances -- pariahs and scapegoats in the more remote sections of the jungle-kingdom. The half of Terra that does not outright shun technology is fearful of it, but will still sometimes use it for the absolute benefit of their lives, such as medicine, transportation for the elderly, and electricity.
Many Terrans live a nomadic lifestyle, and in lieu of owning property, it is culturally acceptable to simply seek good deeds in foreign places and live off of your earnings working as a drifter and the charity of strangers. The title of these journeymen is "The Errant", until they have reached the journey of their quest, which is largely up to the errant themselves. Most are men or elves, though some gnomes and outsiders are willing to seek such philosophical journeys in spite of the cultural stigma, while dwarves and halflings rarely if ever leave their home villages.
When in doubt: Guadosalam, The Amazon, Lothlórien, Pre-Colonization America kinda, The Hundred Acre Wood kinda?
