The Burning City
The war in the Burning City is not fought over food or water or shelter. It is fought over the routes. Whoever controls the roads and rivers controls everything that passes through them, and in a city positioned at the crossroads of every major trade artery heading toward the oil fields, Under Sea, or New Calgary, the routes are worth more than anything they carry.
Diesel Jocks hold the roads. Their gangs vie for control of the North Gate, an old rusted bridge north of the city that serves as the chokehold for overland trade. Anyone crossing pays a toll. Anyone who objects learns what the Jocks consider a reasonable negotiation tactic. South and east, the rivers belong to the Salt Wise. The Blue Wave Caravan Company, captained by James Ark out of Nootka Island, stamps every crate with three wavy lines and moves goods through waterways the Jocks cannot reach. The two factions do not cooperate. They compete, and the city thrives on the friction.
Between the roads and the rivers, the Burning City layers its other conflicts. School Hill rises at the city's edge, a mountain fortress governed by Sainthood Professors. The Seekers of Knowledge maintain one of the last bastions of learning in the region, sharing it freely, guarded by Genjian and Reclaimer patrols. Beneath the academic calm, Professor David Chan operates one of the largest spy networks in the wasteland, using the Sainthood's reputation for neutrality as cover. Balding, thick-spectacled, and easily underestimated, Chan collects information the way the Seekers collect books: comprehensively.
Underground, the Semper Mort have claimed Bee-See, a complex dating from the early Infection years. Ramshackle buildings sit over trapdoors leading to rough stairs that descend into workshops and laboratories. Bee-See sells technology and Diesel Jock weapon customization for profit, a direct rival to School Hill's free-knowledge approach. The competition between paid expertise and open scholarship is a quieter war than the one over the routes, but no less consequential.
Irving House sits amid the ruins like a hallucination: a perfectly restored two-story pre-Fall house with a white picket fence, every board painted, every window intact. The Full Dead live inside. The Gentlemen of Westminster, an emissary group from Oilberta, manage oil refinery operations from this unsettling island of domestic perfection. Tunnels beneath the house connect to trade networks. Nearby, the Smoker refinery chugs along under Full Dead control, one of the few refineries still standing, guarded by the same Diesel Jocks who fight each other everywhere else.
On the outskirts, the Burning Swamp spreads where a lake used to be. Water levels rose and turned it shallow, warm, and dangerous. Hunters lurk in the shallows alongside sleeping zed. Reclaimers from the Burning Timber Company log the swamp from floating bridges, harvesting lumber despite the risks. The Rebels, a Diesel Jock highway gang led by Harley Strikes, raid oil shipments and nurse a grudge against the Blue Wave Company that killed her parent. There are rumors that some Rebels secretly work for the Irving House Full Dead, which would make the gang's opposition to the oil trade considerably less straightforward than it appears.
Diesel Jocks hold the roads. Their gangs vie for control of the North Gate, an old rusted bridge north of the city that serves as the chokehold for overland trade. Anyone crossing pays a toll. Anyone who objects learns what the Jocks consider a reasonable negotiation tactic. South and east, the rivers belong to the Salt Wise. The Blue Wave Caravan Company, captained by James Ark out of Nootka Island, stamps every crate with three wavy lines and moves goods through waterways the Jocks cannot reach. The two factions do not cooperate. They compete, and the city thrives on the friction.
Between the roads and the rivers, the Burning City layers its other conflicts. School Hill rises at the city's edge, a mountain fortress governed by Sainthood Professors. The Seekers of Knowledge maintain one of the last bastions of learning in the region, sharing it freely, guarded by Genjian and Reclaimer patrols. Beneath the academic calm, Professor David Chan operates one of the largest spy networks in the wasteland, using the Sainthood's reputation for neutrality as cover. Balding, thick-spectacled, and easily underestimated, Chan collects information the way the Seekers collect books: comprehensively.
Underground, the Semper Mort have claimed Bee-See, a complex dating from the early Infection years. Ramshackle buildings sit over trapdoors leading to rough stairs that descend into workshops and laboratories. Bee-See sells technology and Diesel Jock weapon customization for profit, a direct rival to School Hill's free-knowledge approach. The competition between paid expertise and open scholarship is a quieter war than the one over the routes, but no less consequential.
Irving House sits amid the ruins like a hallucination: a perfectly restored two-story pre-Fall house with a white picket fence, every board painted, every window intact. The Full Dead live inside. The Gentlemen of Westminster, an emissary group from Oilberta, manage oil refinery operations from this unsettling island of domestic perfection. Tunnels beneath the house connect to trade networks. Nearby, the Smoker refinery chugs along under Full Dead control, one of the few refineries still standing, guarded by the same Diesel Jocks who fight each other everywhere else.
On the outskirts, the Burning Swamp spreads where a lake used to be. Water levels rose and turned it shallow, warm, and dangerous. Hunters lurk in the shallows alongside sleeping zed. Reclaimers from the Burning Timber Company log the swamp from floating bridges, harvesting lumber despite the risks. The Rebels, a Diesel Jock highway gang led by Harley Strikes, raid oil shipments and nurse a grudge against the Blue Wave Company that killed her parent. There are rumors that some Rebels secretly work for the Irving House Full Dead, which would make the gang's opposition to the oil trade considerably less straightforward than it appears.
History
The Burning City grew where the routes crossed. Rivers intersected roads at a junction that made the location impossible to ignore, and the factions that recognized this earliest claimed the most durable advantages. Diesel Jocks arrived with their machines and their understanding that whoever controls a bridge controls traffic. The Salt Wise came up the rivers with cargo holds and the patience to let water do the work that engines do on land.
Neither side built the city so much as they settled into it. The pre-Fall infrastructure provided foundations, and the post-Fall economy provided incentive. The North Gate bridge became the first chokehold, and the tolls that followed became the first fortunes. Oil made everything more volatile. When the Full Dead from Oilberta established operations at Irving House and the Smoker refinery, the city acquired the most valuable commodity on the Rust Coast and the most dangerous reason for every faction to stay.
School Hill predates most of the commercial activity. The Sainthood scholars fortified the mountain and declared neutrality, a position they have maintained publicly while privately assembling an intelligence network that reaches across the settlement. Bee-See's Semper Mort arrived later, offering the same knowledge for a price and creating a rivalry that mirrors the larger conflict between the roads and rivers. The Burning City has never had a single ruler or a unified government. It runs on competing interests held in precarious balance, and the balance holds because no single faction can afford to let another tip it.
Neither side built the city so much as they settled into it. The pre-Fall infrastructure provided foundations, and the post-Fall economy provided incentive. The North Gate bridge became the first chokehold, and the tolls that followed became the first fortunes. Oil made everything more volatile. When the Full Dead from Oilberta established operations at Irving House and the Smoker refinery, the city acquired the most valuable commodity on the Rust Coast and the most dangerous reason for every faction to stay.
School Hill predates most of the commercial activity. The Sainthood scholars fortified the mountain and declared neutrality, a position they have maintained publicly while privately assembling an intelligence network that reaches across the settlement. Bee-See's Semper Mort arrived later, offering the same knowledge for a price and creating a rivalry that mirrors the larger conflict between the roads and rivers. The Burning City has never had a single ruler or a unified government. It runs on competing interests held in precarious balance, and the balance holds because no single faction can afford to let another tip it.
