Game details:
Tech level: At the time of the Fall, the technology level hadn't progressed too far from current levels (e.g. projectile weapons, no functioning robotics)
Apocalypse: Depopulation bomb
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| All That Remains: The aftermath of post-Fall north-west Europe. The ice-sheet is just off the top of the map... |
-The northland trader sits opposite you across the fire, the ruddy flames highlighting his bearded face and reflecting dully from the hilt of his straight sword, buckles and the CD which forms the centrepiece of his animal tooth necklace. He takes another swig of beer from his tankard before speaking-
''The world ended with a splutter. That's what they say, anyway. As far as I know, no-one from then is still alive to ask. My great grand father could barely remember the early bad years after the Fall - the ones we now call the dark days. Someone once told me that one of the Ancient's weapons misfired: It unleashed a plague that killed almost everyone. But then, someone else told me that the whole world tilted on its axis slightly - they said a rock hit it. I've seen plenty of rocks land, but I can't imagine one big enough to make the whole world move... It's fair to say that I don't know. It doesn't matter now. People died. The Ancient's civilisation crumbled like stale bread. Things changed.
People drifted from place to place, trying to find somewhere to live. In the north, where my people are from, winters started getting really bad. Then they got worse. The ice didn't always melt in summer. Year by year, the ice sheet creeps southward. Some years, it barely moves. Some years it moves miles. So the people kept moving, trying to outdistance the ice sheet. People from east and west became one in those early years, breaking into smaller clans to travel, only coming together for major feastivals. As the ice grows, the sea recedes. At least we can wander further.
We graze reindeer and the mammoths. Someone once said that all the mammoths died long ago, but they must have been lying. There were mammoths in my great grandfather's day. He said they were kept in special places, Zors, where folks could go to see them. No point in looking at a mammoth. Farm them, hunt them, use them to tow your kampacan. But not look at them. When we get close to tribes that aren't of the People, we trade. Or if we can best them in battle and take their things, we do. The weak and useless don't last long in the north. Those who fight back we respect. War is part of life, death is part of life too. Like 8 month old reindeer jerky. We don't make peace, but we move on when the fighting profits no-one and goes on for too long. Often we come back and try again. But always we tell them that the Ice is coming. They say that their walls are thick and that their fires are warm. We shake our heads at such foolishness. The Ice in unstoppable.
Some tribes in the south live in cities, and the Ice has pushed us so far we occasionally come into contact with them . I could not imagine such a thing as a city until I saw it with my own eyes. So many people living together, and so many ways of doing so. In some places, everyone chooses a leader. In some, they say god chose for them. Mammoth dung the lot of it. Each of our clan's is led by a Carn, and each year the Carn's pick the mightiest to be the Great Carn of the People.
That's enough from me - the beer is doing the talking for me... I'll tell you more another time youngster...''
-He stands up, shaking out his long hair snd adjusting his fur jerkin. The old tech charms on his belt chink gently against each other as he strides away, mutterings to himself in the guttural tongue if the nomad people-
-Xander
