Lone Star
The wildest stretch of the Merican Wastes sprawls from the crude walls of Star City to the shifting sands of the Dune Sea, and everything between belongs to Lone Star. Desert and barren plains define the landscape, flat and open enough that you can see for miles in every direction. That visibility cuts both ways. The zed see you too, and everything in Lone Star is bigger: Tanks, Goliaths, and hordes that move across the plains like weather fronts.
General Mustang rules from Star City, the only walled settlement in the region, and his Lawmen patrol the surrounding territory on iron horses. Five laws govern the land, all enforced with the kind of frontier justice that values speed over nuance. Murder, theft, aiding criminals, sabotaging oil derricks, and treason will get you hauled before the Judicial Circuit at Sky Temple, where punishment is corporal and final.
Oil from the Trembling Plains is the lifeblood of Lone Star. Pureblood Oilmen own the derricks and hire Merican overseers to watch over Iron Slave labor, while Dieseljock gangs patrol the roads in exchange for discounted fuel. South of Star City, New Austin trades Aggieland technology at markup prices. North, the Grasslands hide the Cad Nation, a confederation of Natural One tribes unified by Mother Chenoa Adaes through a combination of diplomacy and extermination. To the northwest, the Dune Sea shifts and remakes itself hourly, haunted by the ghostly Nezrengal tribe.
Mericans, Texicans, Lascarians, Natural Ones, Retrogrades, Purebloods, and Iron Slaves all call this territory home. They share nothing in common except the sun overhead and the dead underfoot. Lone Star is a land of open spaces, oil wealth, and the understanding that the horizon offers no cover and no mercy.
General Mustang rules from Star City, the only walled settlement in the region, and his Lawmen patrol the surrounding territory on iron horses. Five laws govern the land, all enforced with the kind of frontier justice that values speed over nuance. Murder, theft, aiding criminals, sabotaging oil derricks, and treason will get you hauled before the Judicial Circuit at Sky Temple, where punishment is corporal and final.
Oil from the Trembling Plains is the lifeblood of Lone Star. Pureblood Oilmen own the derricks and hire Merican overseers to watch over Iron Slave labor, while Dieseljock gangs patrol the roads in exchange for discounted fuel. South of Star City, New Austin trades Aggieland technology at markup prices. North, the Grasslands hide the Cad Nation, a confederation of Natural One tribes unified by Mother Chenoa Adaes through a combination of diplomacy and extermination. To the northwest, the Dune Sea shifts and remakes itself hourly, haunted by the ghostly Nezrengal tribe.
Mericans, Texicans, Lascarians, Natural Ones, Retrogrades, Purebloods, and Iron Slaves all call this territory home. They share nothing in common except the sun overhead and the dead underfoot. Lone Star is a land of open spaces, oil wealth, and the understanding that the horizon offers no cover and no mercy.
Geography
Lone Star is a combination of unforgiving desert and barren plains, transformed when the bombs fell. Grass and warped trees dot the landscape as remnants of a once lusher era, but the terrain is flat and open with massive visibility in all directions. The harsh sun and scorching heat are constant companions, broken only by massive lightning storms that appear without warning during summer.
Star City rises from the plains as the only walled settlement, visible for miles on clear days. Southwest past New Austin, the Trembling Plains shudder with constant drilling operations. North of Star City, the Grasslands stretch as a deadly sea of tall grass held by the Cad Nation. To the northwest, the ever-shifting Dune Sea separates Lone Star from the canyon lands of Vegasia. Along the southern coast, the Spoiled Coast stretches hundreds of miles of oil-blackened shoreline. Between New Austin and the defunct settlement of Bravo, the Space Caverns run underground, serving as Lascarian territory and smuggling routes.
Star City rises from the plains as the only walled settlement, visible for miles on clear days. Southwest past New Austin, the Trembling Plains shudder with constant drilling operations. North of Star City, the Grasslands stretch as a deadly sea of tall grass held by the Cad Nation. To the northwest, the ever-shifting Dune Sea separates Lone Star from the canyon lands of Vegasia. Along the southern coast, the Spoiled Coast stretches hundreds of miles of oil-blackened shoreline. Between New Austin and the defunct settlement of Bravo, the Space Caverns run underground, serving as Lascarian territory and smuggling routes.
History
Corebook Era
The earliest sources describe Lone Star as a place where Merica never fell, where cowboys ride iron horses across the dusty plains and black gold still flows as the lifeblood of the few folks hard enough to survive. It was called the last great bastion of Merican determination, where hardened men and women ride the irradiated, shifting desert echoing the cowboys, marshals, and bandits of old. Small towns, ramshackle forts, and dusty farmsteads were overseen by sheriffs or left to their own devices.
Countless old world cities, towns, and holdouts fell and were re-settled, only to fall again, leaving behind a legacy of shambling hordes waiting for travelers foolhardy enough to venture into their domains. The nomadic Natural One tribes of the Pridelands and the Nekota plains constantly clashed with the Lone Star, continuing a blood feud whose origins had long since lost their meaning.
