a|state

Nearly one thousand years ago, as far as anyone can tell, an event took place. Why and how this event happened remains unknown. But it happened, and since then, things have been different in The City. Philosophers, scientists and poets agree that the The City once had a name. In the present it is simply called The City, for there is nowhere else other than the blasted Outlands.

The event came to be known as The Shift, a change in reality so great that the very fabric of The City was changed forever. Places and people were altered, new beings sprang, fully formed into existence. One fact that is known is that almost immediately after The Shift, The City was subjected to a rain of fire known as The Bombardment. Infernos fell from the sky and laid waste to whole tracts of land. More important than the destruction of the physical was the destruction of knowledge that The Bombardment caused. Datacores were wiped, libraries reduced to ashes and the memories of the survivors scarred. No remnant of life before The Shift and The Bombardment remains, only a few structures of vast size and strength remain to remind the inhabitants of the past. For centuries people have lived in limbo, the only history that of the past hundred decades.

Rumours circulate that The Outlands were once fertile and green, now they are a blasted land of desert and rock. The City is a place of dark alleys, ponderous architecture and stinking canals. In the century following these two cataclysmic events, the survivors sought to band together and make some sort of life for themselves. Not only did they have to deal with a lack of technology, they had to deal with the creatures which became know as the Simils, the Ubel, the Drache and the Lugners. The struggles of the first century gave rise to organisations which still exist today. The eight macrocorps all grew from the ashes, each with their own unique story of war, decimation and survival.

Over the coming centuries, The City and its inhabitants would reach a twisted equilibrium with their situation. Society grew and expanded, the population stuttered, fell and then grew. Sciences and technologies were rediscovered, yet even today, many live in poverty and primitive conditions. The rediscovered technologies were harnessed by those who had the power and influence to utilise them. The macrocorps became bastions of knowledge, hoarding their precious discoveries to themselves, only to find them ripped away by unceasing war and the more subtle influences of espionage and treachery.

Now, centuries later, The City is a study in contrasts. The majority of the population live in tenements and towers built of brick, stone and concrete. Their dwellings are lit by gas piped in from huge rubbish heaps, their clothes made from crude fibres and their property that of a society barely reaching the industrial age. In the domains of the macrocorps, things are very different. The corporate citizens have access to the finest food, to unlimited power and light, to shining vehicles and well made clothes. Their soldier who guard them ward off rioters armed with black powder sparklock weapons, the soldiers themselves carrying sleek gauss rifles and compact lasers.

In the slums of Mire End, Dreamingspires and Fogwarren, life is a daily toil, making enough to get by as best you can. The middle classes fear the slums, envisioning them encroaching upon their own moderately comfortable lives. In the corporate bastions of Luminosity Tower, Konkret and The Forbidden City, the corporates look down upon the teeming million, their workforce and their potential doom.

Through the backstreets and alleys, Ubel stalk, ripping and tearing those who come too close, leaving only a cooling corpse as an echo of their passing. Simils made of iron and brass, surmounted with a human head, clank their way through the streets on lay down their existences in the hell of the Contested Grounds. Lugner spread rumour, fear and suspicion through their whispers and fleeting dreams.

Some seek to stand up to the despair and hopelessness. Lostfinders search and investigate for little or no reward while Stringers piece together fragments of information to feed into the hungry newswires and memory cores of the Dataflow. The Provosts of the Three Canals try to enforce some form of law and order in a chaotic society, holding on to the belief that there is the one place in The City where life is that little bit better. Others believe that the forces which prevent anyone leaving this place are corroding, that soon they will be able to leave this place for a better life among the stars.

The clouds will one-day part. And then, the people of The City will once again have that rarest and most precious of commodities: hope.

$40.00

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The Lostfinders Guide to Mire End

The Lostfinders Guide to Mire End is the first of a series of supplements to be released for the a/state RPG. Inside you'll find loads of brand new source material including new Organisations, Personalities, Adventure Nuggets, a fully detailed map of Mire End and a whole host of new Highlighted Locations.

Come wander down the flooded lanes and dank alleys of Mire End. Meet the people and organisations who inhabit this impoverished, benighted burgh.

Meet Father Guy Herbert, disgraced but honest priest of The Third Church of God The Architect and saviour of lost children....

Shoot the breeze with Carnelian Yet, political activist for hire and man of one thousand slogans...

Browse the cluttered, labyrinthine pawn shop of Emmanuel Detseted and search for that special little something...

Twist, turn and watch out over your shoulder in the barrios and shanties of Redberry Park...

Come face to face with the psychotic, drug-addled, amoral killer children of Wastrels Lot....

Tap into the sources and archives of that paragon of local journalistic virtue, The Mire End Tribune...

With a full map of Mire End and a host of useful information crammed into its pages, the Lostfinders Guide To Mire End is a valuable addition to the world of The City.

$10.00

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