The Wastes

The Wastes

The wastes are what is left of the world. After a virus plagued the land and damaged the population a shortage in water as the oceans dwindled caused complete chaos. Society fell, nations became a thing of the past, now everyone just fought to survive. The land is barren and desert like with large stretches of nothing between what could be considered makeshift towns as some groups have decided working together helps their survival chances.

Resources in the Wastes

The wastes have very few resources and as such a lot of things have become more valuable. These are in order from rarest and most valuable to more common and less valuable.

1. Water = Extremely rare and valuable for survival.
   
2. Gasoline = While not rare in some places overall it is very difficult to get a hold of.
   
3. Ammunition = Difficult to find, and even harder to make as very few know the secrets of Sparkpowder.
   
4. Food = While food such as human meat, grubs, and insects are available, any good food is extremely hard to find. As such things like Dog food are considered a delicacy.
   
5. Scrap/Vehicles = Having a vehicle is fine, but having a working one is amazing. Few know the arts of the blackfingers to fix a war machine, but having one gives you a step up in the wastes.
   

Settlements

While few and far inbetween the Settlements of the wastes are very different from each other, but usually built around a valuable resource. Settlements usually have an abundance of a rare resource and have built up to protect their assets. Some allow visitors, some only allow those they know and will turn away others, some are outright hostile.

Dangers

There are many dangers in the wastes but here are some of the common ones to look out for.

• Starvation/Thirst = With little food or water it is easy to starve or die of thirst.
  
• Extreme Heat = People, vehicles, and many other things suffer from the constant desert heat, travelling at night is common.
  
• Disease = With so much death in the wastes disease is common. A lot of those with healing hands make a fortune on working for big settlements.
  
• Bandits/Raiders = Groups that simply wish to burn, pillage, steal, and rape anything they can.
  
• Storms = Since becoming barren the Wastes host the most dangerous storms. These Storms come in 3 levels; 1 being a "sandstorm", 2 being a "torrent", and 3 being a "Blackmist". Sandstorms are blinding and very hard on machines but can be survived relatively easy. Torrents are heavier sandstorms with violent Lightning striking anything metal within it; these are hard to survive without shelter and generally destroy light machines. A Blackmist is a wall of black sand that rips, shreds, and spits out anything it passes over; trying to survive one is neigh impossible.
  

The Psychic Maelstrom

Part of the end of the world was a loss of control of magic. As such all magic users now must tap into a Maelstrom of chaotic psychic energy that can destroy the mind of even the most talented mages. Magic is feared and blocked by most because of the risks, but some crazies have taken the stride to use it and have performed great feats before dying from exposure.