Mini Soda
Mini Soda was one of the coldest places on earth, a frozen territory in the Ironworks' northwestern reaches where nuclear winter had stripped the land to rock and barren trees. During the Ironworks era, the territory bred tough folk through sheer necessity. The terrain was sparse of vegetation, rocky, and unforgiving. What little life existed fed on roots and ground vegetables. A person could walk for many miles without seeing a sign of another living thing.
The Mini Sodans themselves were notably affable despite their grim circumstances, quick to smile and offer a friendly greeting to anyone they met in the freezing wastes. Hunters called Furriers braved the irradiated wildlife, trading furs to the Twin City Ironworks or eastward to Wischigan. Covered in furs and praying to the Seasons, these nomadic trappers maintained warm campfires for fellow travelers and knew the land with an intimacy born of daily survival.
The Nuclear Family maintained a large presence in the territory, preserving heritage from before the Fall. Their most extreme expression was Woe Begone, a quaint, picture-perfect village that welcomed travelers with warm meals and friendly faces. Those who did not fit the Nuclear Family's beliefs were brainwashed or killed. Iron Slaves, Lascarians, Full Dead, and Retrogrades were often murdered outright. A massive crater in the center of town contained innumerable buried corpses, hidden beneath the wholesome veneer.
The Ironworks used Mini Soda as a place of exile. Those who wronged major power players were sent north, where the harsh climate, barren landscape, and brutal wildlife served as a long-term death sentence that required no executioner. The territory also harbored the Taureau Queen, a mysterious figure over nine feet tall, wearing a bleached white bull's skull over long black hair and white robes. She silently haunted the wilderness, abducting people from campfires without a word. No one knew her purpose or what became of the bodies she took. Some believed she predated the Fall; others thought her a Natural One shaman. All agreed that she was best avoided.
The Mini Sodans themselves were notably affable despite their grim circumstances, quick to smile and offer a friendly greeting to anyone they met in the freezing wastes. Hunters called Furriers braved the irradiated wildlife, trading furs to the Twin City Ironworks or eastward to Wischigan. Covered in furs and praying to the Seasons, these nomadic trappers maintained warm campfires for fellow travelers and knew the land with an intimacy born of daily survival.
The Nuclear Family maintained a large presence in the territory, preserving heritage from before the Fall. Their most extreme expression was Woe Begone, a quaint, picture-perfect village that welcomed travelers with warm meals and friendly faces. Those who did not fit the Nuclear Family's beliefs were brainwashed or killed. Iron Slaves, Lascarians, Full Dead, and Retrogrades were often murdered outright. A massive crater in the center of town contained innumerable buried corpses, hidden beneath the wholesome veneer.
The Ironworks used Mini Soda as a place of exile. Those who wronged major power players were sent north, where the harsh climate, barren landscape, and brutal wildlife served as a long-term death sentence that required no executioner. The territory also harbored the Taureau Queen, a mysterious figure over nine feet tall, wearing a bleached white bull's skull over long black hair and white robes. She silently haunted the wilderness, abducting people from campfires without a word. No one knew her purpose or what became of the bodies she took. Some believed she predated the Fall; others thought her a Natural One shaman. All agreed that she was best avoided.
History
Mini Soda endured nuclear winter and the Fall with the same stubborn resilience that defined its people. The Nuclear Family established a strong presence early, preserving pre-fall social structures and traditions. Furrier hunters developed their nomadic trade routes to Twin City and Wischigan, making the frozen territory economically connected to the broader Ironworks despite its isolation. Over time, the Ironworks found a secondary use for the territory: a place to dispose of inconvenient people. Exile to Mini Soda became a recognized punishment for those who crossed the empire's power players, with the landscape itself serving as executioner. The territory remained on the fringe of Ironworks control, too cold and too empty to invest in heavily, but too strategically positioned near Twin City's mines to ignore entirely.
Geography
Mini Soda occupied the frozen northwestern reaches of the Ironworks, a territory where nuclear winter hit especially hard. The terrain was rocky and sparse of vegetation, covered in barren trees toughened by constant snow. Cold and grey throughout the year, winters in Mini Soda could kill the unprepared within hours. The territory bordered Twin City's mining operations and connected eastward to Wischigan through Furrier trade routes. Woe Begone, the Nuclear Family village, sat within the territory's interior. The wilderness between settlements was haunted by irradiated wildlife and the mysterious Taureau Queen.
