Death Valley
Death Valley earned its name before the Fall and has only grown more deserving of it since. The basin east of Vegasia bakes at temperatures exceeding a hundred degrees even in the mildest seasons, a landscape of expansive salt flats, twisting canyon trails, and mountainous edges where hidden oases have formed in pockets that only the most determined explorers have mapped. Settlement on any significant scale is nearly impossible. The heat alone kills faster than most threats in the wasteland, and the terrain offers little shelter between the canyon walls and the open flats.
Two groups have found reasons to stay. The Death Valley Kings, an Accensorite Darwinist explosives cult, reside somewhere in the basin's depths, overseeing a munitions and explosives trade that outfits many of the Dieseljock clan vehicles roaming the region. Gun runners like Mitch Lash make the long haul through the valley, trading weapons for tech and contraband along routes that only the experienced survive. The second group comes and goes with the seasons: Dieseljock tribes who use the wide Badwater Flats as testing grounds for vehicles and drivers. Impromptu racing circuits pop up on the salt flats and the twisting Tumpisa Rock Paint Canyons, dispatching from Vine Ranch Villa, an old manor that serves as the staging point for races that draw spectators and sponsors from as far away as Vegasia.
The valley is not a place anyone passes through by accident. The heat, the distance from water, and the zealots who call it home ensure that every visitor arrives with a purpose or does not arrive at all.
Two groups have found reasons to stay. The Death Valley Kings, an Accensorite Darwinist explosives cult, reside somewhere in the basin's depths, overseeing a munitions and explosives trade that outfits many of the Dieseljock clan vehicles roaming the region. Gun runners like Mitch Lash make the long haul through the valley, trading weapons for tech and contraband along routes that only the experienced survive. The second group comes and goes with the seasons: Dieseljock tribes who use the wide Badwater Flats as testing grounds for vehicles and drivers. Impromptu racing circuits pop up on the salt flats and the twisting Tumpisa Rock Paint Canyons, dispatching from Vine Ranch Villa, an old manor that serves as the staging point for races that draw spectators and sponsors from as far away as Vegasia.
The valley is not a place anyone passes through by accident. The heat, the distance from water, and the zealots who call it home ensure that every visitor arrives with a purpose or does not arrive at all.
Geography
The basin stretches east of Vegasia, well outside the reach of the city's influence. The Badwater Flats dominate the valley floor, an expanse of cracked salt and compacted earth that shimmers with heat distortion in every direction. The Tumpisa Rock Paint Canyons cut through the surrounding stone in twisting trails narrow enough to scrape paint off a vehicle and deep enough to block the sun for hours. Along the mountainous edges of the basin, hidden oases have formed where water seeps through ancient rock; knowing their locations is the difference between surviving a crossing and dying of thirst within sight of the canyon rim.
The climate is lethal by any standard. Temperatures exceed a hundred degrees even in spring and winter, and summer heat can kill an unprotected traveler in hours. The air above the salt flats ripples constantly, distorting distance and direction. There is no shade on the flats, no relief between canyon passages, and no mercy from a basin that has been killing the unprepared since long before the world ended.
The climate is lethal by any standard. Temperatures exceed a hundred degrees even in spring and winter, and summer heat can kill an unprotected traveler in hours. The air above the salt flats ripples constantly, distorting distance and direction. There is no shade on the flats, no relief between canyon passages, and no mercy from a basin that has been killing the unprepared since long before the world ended.
