The Badlands
The Badlands are the empire that never was. This ring of territory surrounding Greater Vegasia encompasses the old-world Nevada landscape in all its brutal variety: salt flats baking under relentless sun, canyons cutting through stone older than memory, abandoned settlements slowly being reclaimed by dust and scrub. There was a time when Vegasia could have absorbed every community in this region, extending its reach to the shores of the new bay and the rim of the Black Canyon. Those ambitions died when the ruling families turned their knives on each other. The civil war that consumed Vegasia's energy and resources left the outlying settlements to fend for themselves, independent not by choice but by neglect.
What survives in the Badlands survives because Vegasia was too busy eating itself to swallow it. The Salt Lake Commune tends its collective farms four days to the south, sharing territory with the Fallow Hopes Tabernacle in an arrangement that grows more violent by the season. The Roar roars with the sound of Dieseljock engineering five days to the northwest, built on the treasures of a buried automobile museum. Cayota huddles in its adobe buildings on the northern road, keeping uneasy company with the intelligent undead in the Casa de la Muerte. Hoover Falls spans the Black Canyon on the far eastern edge, its two surviving turbines still feeding electricity to Vegas City. Each of these places exists in its own orbit, connected to Vegasia by trade and necessity but governed by local circumstances and local dangers.
The terrain itself is hostile across most of the region. Death Valley to the east bakes at temperatures exceeding a hundred degrees even in spring and winter. The coastal cliffs to the west offer relief from the heat but introduce their own hazards. Between these extremes, the scrublands stretch in every direction, dry and unforgiving, populated by raiders, zed, and the occasional traveler who thought the shortcut would save time. The Badlands are not empty. They are full of things that Vegasia forgot about, and some of those things have grown teeth.
What survives in the Badlands survives because Vegasia was too busy eating itself to swallow it. The Salt Lake Commune tends its collective farms four days to the south, sharing territory with the Fallow Hopes Tabernacle in an arrangement that grows more violent by the season. The Roar roars with the sound of Dieseljock engineering five days to the northwest, built on the treasures of a buried automobile museum. Cayota huddles in its adobe buildings on the northern road, keeping uneasy company with the intelligent undead in the Casa de la Muerte. Hoover Falls spans the Black Canyon on the far eastern edge, its two surviving turbines still feeding electricity to Vegas City. Each of these places exists in its own orbit, connected to Vegasia by trade and necessity but governed by local circumstances and local dangers.
The terrain itself is hostile across most of the region. Death Valley to the east bakes at temperatures exceeding a hundred degrees even in spring and winter. The coastal cliffs to the west offer relief from the heat but introduce their own hazards. Between these extremes, the scrublands stretch in every direction, dry and unforgiving, populated by raiders, zed, and the occasional traveler who thought the shortcut would save time. The Badlands are not empty. They are full of things that Vegasia forgot about, and some of those things have grown teeth.
Geography
The Badlands encompass the former Nevada territory surrounding Greater Vegasia, a vast and varied landscape of desert scrublands, salt flats, canyons, and arid basins. To the east, Death Valley drops into a scorching basin where temperatures exceed a hundred degrees year-round. The Great Salt Lake valley stretches to the south. Coastal cliffs mark the western edge, where the geological upheaval that fractured California created new shorelines. The Black Canyon and the crumbling Hoover Dam define the far eastern boundary, serving as both geographic landmark and the gateway to the Lone Star territories beyond.
The climate is extreme across most of the region. Desert heat dominates, with only the coastal areas and the higher elevations near the canyon rim offering meaningful relief. Water is scarce away from the rivers and ponds that formed in the rifts after the Fall. The scattered settlements that persist in the Badlands have each found their own answer to survival, whether that is controlling a resource like salt or power generation, sitting on a valuable salvage site, or simply being too remote for anyone to bother conquering.
The climate is extreme across most of the region. Desert heat dominates, with only the coastal areas and the higher elevations near the canyon rim offering meaningful relief. Water is scarce away from the rivers and ponds that formed in the rifts after the Fall. The scattered settlements that persist in the Badlands have each found their own answer to survival, whether that is controlling a resource like salt or power generation, sitting on a valuable salvage site, or simply being too remote for anyone to bother conquering.
