Vegasia
The desert saved Vegasia from the undead. Miles of uninhabited territory in every direction meant the hordes that consumed the coasts and the inland cities never arrived in sufficient numbers to threaten the ruins of pre-fall Las Vegas. The city survived the Fall largely intact, its casinos and hotels standing while the rest of the world burned. Initial scouts pushed outward and found something unexpected: earthquakes had shattered California into a web of islands along its fault lines, and new rivers and ponds were filling the desert rifts. A great bay had formed roughly sixty miles to the west. Vegas, once stranded in the middle of a dead expanse, now sat within reach of a coastline. For a brief, heady moment, the survivors believed they were building something that would last.
Within the first year, that dream turned to poison. Organized crime families exerted control as the city grew toward the new Nevada bay. Lines were drawn, territories carved out, and the culture of casinos and entertainment that had defined the old world reshaped itself into something darker: a massive infrastructure of slavery, drug trade, and exploitation. The expansion that should have made Vegasia an empire collapsed into civil war as families fought for control of the profits rather than the territory. The Badlands, the ring of settlements and outposts that Vegasia once intended to absorb, were left independent by default when the city turned its knives inward.
What remains is a kingdom that rules through ten powerful families called the High Rollers, who control every meaningful decision through puppet officials and transactional alliances. No one trusts anyone completely. Social networking is purely a matter of exploitation and leverage; when someone ceases to be useful, they are sold out or sold into slavery. Vegasians take pride in the subtlety of their betrayals, considering theatrical backstabbing an art form and blatant violence an "east coast tendency" beneath their dignity. They dress in bright, conflicting colors using animal feathers, dyed fabrics, and sea shells, their wardrobes echoing the brilliant coloring of poisonous animals. The sun-bleached remnants of the old world, garish reds faded to washed oranges and deep greens muted to light mints, provide the backdrop for a society that has all the beauty of a venomous thing basking in the heat.
Within the first year, that dream turned to poison. Organized crime families exerted control as the city grew toward the new Nevada bay. Lines were drawn, territories carved out, and the culture of casinos and entertainment that had defined the old world reshaped itself into something darker: a massive infrastructure of slavery, drug trade, and exploitation. The expansion that should have made Vegasia an empire collapsed into civil war as families fought for control of the profits rather than the territory. The Badlands, the ring of settlements and outposts that Vegasia once intended to absorb, were left independent by default when the city turned its knives inward.
What remains is a kingdom that rules through ten powerful families called the High Rollers, who control every meaningful decision through puppet officials and transactional alliances. No one trusts anyone completely. Social networking is purely a matter of exploitation and leverage; when someone ceases to be useful, they are sold out or sold into slavery. Vegasians take pride in the subtlety of their betrayals, considering theatrical backstabbing an art form and blatant violence an "east coast tendency" beneath their dignity. They dress in bright, conflicting colors using animal feathers, dyed fabrics, and sea shells, their wardrobes echoing the brilliant coloring of poisonous animals. The sun-bleached remnants of the old world, garish reds faded to washed oranges and deep greens muted to light mints, provide the backdrop for a society that has all the beauty of a venomous thing basking in the heat.
Geography
Vegasia occupies the transformed Nevada desert, a landscape reshaped by the same geological upheaval that shattered California into islands. Where there was once nothing but arid sand and scrub for hundreds of miles, new rivers now fill rifts in the earth, ponds collect in basins that were dry for millennia, and a great bay has formed roughly sixty miles to the west. The terrain is scrubland punctuated by these water features, a far cry from the featureless desert of the pre-fall era but still harsh enough to kill the unprepared. Extreme heat dominates the climate, moderated only slightly by the moisture the new waterways bring.
The region's architecture carries the sun-bleached residue of the old world. Pre-fall structures have been cobbled together for post-fall use, their original colors faded by decades of desert light into muted oranges, pale mints, and bleached whites. The Badlands ring the Greater Vegasian territory, stretching out into salt flats, canyons, and scrublands that Vegasia once planned to control. The Outside Chance, a scatter of surviving outposts along former trade routes, marks where the city's ambitions reached before the civil war pulled them back. To the east, the Black Canyon and Hoover Falls form a natural boundary. To the south, the Great Salt Lake valley. To the west, the new coastline and the shattered remnants of California beyond.
The region's architecture carries the sun-bleached residue of the old world. Pre-fall structures have been cobbled together for post-fall use, their original colors faded by decades of desert light into muted oranges, pale mints, and bleached whites. The Badlands ring the Greater Vegasian territory, stretching out into salt flats, canyons, and scrublands that Vegasia once planned to control. The Outside Chance, a scatter of surviving outposts along former trade routes, marks where the city's ambitions reached before the civil war pulled them back. To the east, the Black Canyon and Hoover Falls form a natural boundary. To the south, the Great Salt Lake valley. To the west, the new coastline and the shattered remnants of California beyond.
History
Corebook Era
The earliest sources describe Vegasia as the unlikely center of the west coast's recivilization. After the old bastions of California fell into the ocean, leaving a massive bay and a new coastline hundreds of miles further east, humanity fled inland. Vegasia became a new coastal territory on the western shores of fallen Merica, surrounded by arid deserts and open stretches of sun-cracked earth. Settlements managed to survive under the protection of Vegas City and her precious water supply.
The corebook describes Vegasia as a territory of cutthroat criminal families built on the commerce of chance, entertainment, and slavery. Under the watch of colorful and eccentric families descended from the mixed cultures of pre-fall Vegas, the territory thrived as a den of corruption and soulless amorality. The further from the cities one traveled, the less one felt the pernicious Vegas influence, but without the precious water traded from the massive Vegas City waterworks, many smaller settlements would dry up overnight.
