TEXT: Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  1
   
  JAGS Have-Not 
  By Marco Chacon 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  2
  Sierra Club  
  National Headquarters  
  85 Second Street, 2nd Floor  
  San Francisco, CA 94105  
  USA  
  Phone: 415-977-5500  
  Fax: 415-977-5799 
   
  The Nature Conservancy 
  4245 North Fairfax Drive, Suite 100 
  Arlington, VA 22203-1606 
   
  National Audubon Society  
  700 Broadway  
  New York, NY 10003  
  Phone: (212) 979-3000  
  Fax: (212) 979-3188 
   
  World Wildlife Fund-United States 
  1250 24th Street NW  
  Washington 
  DC 20037-1175 
  United States of America 
  +1 202 293 4800 
   
  Species Survival Commission 
  IUCN - The World Conservation Union  
  Rue Mauverney 28, CH-1196 Gland, Switzerland 
   
   
  Have-Not: It’s a nice place to visit—but I wouldn’t want to live there. 
   
  Featuring amazing artwork by: 
  Mike Docher 
  Santiago Iborra    
  Clash Bowley 
  Howard David Johnson 
  Clayton Bunce 
  Jeff Ward 
  Simon Roth 
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  3
   
  JAGS: Have-Not..................................... 4 
  Long Story Short......................................... 5 
  Long Story Long ......................................... 5 
  The End of the Information Age ........................5 
  The Dawn of the Age of Understanding..........6 
  The Age of Understanding: Dismantling 
  the World...................................................................6 
  The Dawn of the Age of Wonder: The 
  Habitats .....................................................................7 
  New Species............................................................8 
  The Exchange.........................................................8 
  The Plunder of the Eco-Sphere.........................8 
  The Collapse ...........................................................8 
  The Distro-Points Fail: The Age of War..........9 
  The NOW: The BoneYard. Have-Not............10 
  The State of the World.............................. 11 
  Looking Down........................................................11 
  Getting Closer .......................................................12 
  Stories in the Ring ...............................................12 
  Welcome to Have-Not: Approach Section
  ........................................................... 14 
  Heroic Science Fantasy Adventure .......... 14 
  Dispensing With All This: Alternate Takes...14 
  The Three Ethos' of Have-Not.................. 15 
  Post-Apocalypse ..................................................15 
  Cyberpunk ................................................ 15 
  The Western ............................................. 15 
  The Basic Game Structure ....................... 16 
  But It Doesn't Have To Be That Way.............16 
  How Do I Figure This Out? ....................... 16 
  Choosing Game Focus............................. 17 
  The Vehicles Game.............................................17 
  The Ammo, Fuel, Credits, and Water 
  Game .......................................................................17 
  The Exploration Game (vs. the Mysteries) ..17 
  The Exploration Game (vs. the Mysteries) ..18 
  Hazards .................................................... 18 
  Hazards as Color .................................................18 
  Hazards as Barriers.............................................18 
  Hazards as Focus................................................19 
  Encounter Tables...................................... 19 
  Treasure ................................................... 19 
  The McGuffin.........................................................19 
  Life In the Middle Ring ........................ 20 
  What's it Like?........................................... 20 
  Weather in the Middle Ring ...................... 23 
  Dust Storms ...........................................................23 
  Toxic Dust Storms................................................23 
  The Thunderheads ..............................................23 
  Aurora Season......................................................24 
  What Goes On in the Middle Ring?.......... 24 
  Fortress Towns......................................... 24 
  Factory Towns.......................................................24 
  Water Towns......................................................... 24 
  Oil Towns ............................................................... 24 
  Coal Towns............................................................ 25 
  The Garbage Mines............................................ 25 
  Power Farms......................................................... 26 
  Good Land............................................................. 26 
  Dinosaur Ranches............................................... 26 
  What's In Your Average Town? ................ 26 
  Rules in the Middle Ring........................... 28 
  Life in the Inner Wasteland .................29 
  Welcome to the Wasteland. It................... 30 
  The Ecology of the Inner Wasteland......... 31 
  Chemosynthesis .................................................. 31 
  Ergovorics.............................................................. 31 
  Carnivorous........................................................... 31 
  Making The Run: Getting Through the 
  Wasteland................................................. 32 
  Making the Run One on One........................... 32 
  Random Threats.................................................. 32 
  What Random Threats Look Like................... 33 
  Wandering Monsters .......................................... 33 
  Wandering Robots .............................................. 34 
  Bandits.................................................................... 34 
  Ambush................................................................... 34 
  Theory and Practice ........................................... 35 
  Surviving the Ambush........................................ 35 
  Counter Intelligence: The first line of defense
  ................................................................................... 35 
  Intelligence: The second line of defense ..... 36 
  Scouts: The Last Line of Prevention ............. 36 
  A Scout's Life........................................................ 36 
  Scout's Honor ....................................................... 37 
  Scout's Pride......................................................... 37 
  Sensor Rules ............................................ 37 
  Flora and Fauna........................................ 38 
  The BoneYard: Life in the Big City........40 
  Life in the BoneYard is …......................... 41 
  Society in The Yard .................................. 42 
  Getting In .................................................. 42 
  Getting Around.......................................... 42 
  Going Out.................................................. 43 
  Etiquette in The BoneYard........................ 43 
  Rules in the Yard ...................................... 44 
  Medical Care............................................. 44 
  Paying the Toll .......................................... 44 
  Moving On Up........................................... 44 
  Survive the Yard on 12 Credits Per Day!45 
  Welcome To The ‘Yard............................. 46 
  A Citizen's Guide To Common Scams ..... 47 
  Life in the Outer Wasteland .................56 
  Welcome to the Outer Wasteland. It is … 56 
  The Ecology of the Outer Wasteland........ 57 
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal 
  use is granted. 
   
  4 
  JAGS: Have-Not 
  A wind whistles across a desert-dry plain. A river, crystal clear, but 
  its banks choked with dead grass from the poisons it carries, 
  gurgles west towards a hundred yard cliff down to vast expanses 
  of sand where the Pacific Ocean used to be. An eerie song of a 
  mutant bird echoes for a moment—and then things are still again. 
  Were you in an aircraft rushing over the land at the speed of 
  sound, you would see a light in the distance—a glow as though 
  from a smoke-stifled fire. Closer you would see a city—a nightmare 
  megapolis of blackened skeletal buildings with the grim shapes of 
  heavy bore guns pointing out at the land and sky.  The city has 
  lights though—frenetic lights—fire-fights on the freeways, arson in 
  the warrens, massive moving billboards with flickers of gladiatorial 
  combat and industrial zones belching plasma and smog.  
   
  Then you'd be past it, arcing out at an impossible rate of travel 
  over the land around the city—a poisoned swamp—a vicious 
  hyperactive carnivorous ecology that devours and devours and … 
  it's gone too—a green ring—towns, villages—roads and farms 
  below. And then, all too fast, that is gone as well—another 
  wasteland speckled with a few strange dying empires. You'll be 
  past those in a second, heading east across a magnificent 
  expanse of continent—but there is nothing else: there is nothing 
  more to see. You've already passed over the last dying embers of 
  civilization. This is all that remains. Welcome to Have-Not. 
  JAGS HAVE-NOT 
  Welcome to Have-Not, a post apocalypse far 
  future mutants-and-machineguns world book.  
  Have-Not is all about rolling into a small dusty 
  town in armed vehicles and laying the .30-cal 
  smack-down on an evil sheriff. It's about getting 
  your friends together and heading into the 
  Denver Ruins to brave the death machines and 
  the bio-horrors left over from the Age of War to 
  bring back bounty from another era. It's about 
  being an intelligent, telepathic Bengal Tiger with 
  a cybernetic rocket launcher or Cyborg with a 
  built in rocket launcher—or a mobile telepathic 
  plant—or maybe just a human, gun slinging bad-
  ass. 
   
  Have-Not is about exploring a world that's been 
  touched by a miraculous technology (controlled 
  by the Haves, who are now gone) and then 
  abandoned. It's about setting things right or 
  seeing what's broken or just getting rich and 
  powerful—or any of those things. It's about a 
  world that's complex, that's got a lot going on, 
  and has secrets to discover. We hope you enjoy 
  it! 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  5 
   
  Long Story Short 
  It's over, but it ain't got the decency to lay 
  down and die. It knows it's finished but it 
  keeps on fighting. It don't make no sense 
  but it's given up tryin'. The world caught fire 
  a few hundred years ago and it's still 
  burning. You can see the flames—you can 
  still smell the smoke. Some people are fool 
  enough to think they can make a difference 
  … goin around, maybe they don't even 
  know 
  it—but 
  they're 
  thinkin'—they're 
  dreamin'—they're goin "maybe … just 
  maybe … I could put it out." 
   
  Have-Not is what happens when winner 
  takes all. It's what happens when all the 
  good and comfortable and happy belongs to 
  someone else and they leave. It's bitter and it's unfair and it reeks of industrial 
  waste. But there you are. So here ya go. 
   
  In Have-Not you might drive an armored car with co-ax .30-cal machine guns on 
  top. We built those—after the collapse. You might carry a plastic handgun that 
  fires a condensed plasma beam: They built those—and there are still a bunch 
  left. Radiation can riddle your body with cancer, blind you, and make you bleed 
  out through your—well, never mind that. That's our reality. But They left us with 
  "alternate-stability-zones" in our bio-genetic structure and the mutations might 
  just as easily be tentacles or a third eye or … telepathy. That's their little game. 
   
  They are what we call (called) the Haves. A long time ago they ran the world and 
  it was an Age of Wonders. Self-repairing super-highways crisscrossed the 
  continents. Supersonic transports arced through space. Medicine was instant 
  and TV was hypnotic and addictive and just made you feel wonderful.  
   
  And then. They. Left.  
   
  And Then. It. All. Stopped. And there was war that you couldn't imagine—and 
  after that there's this. One city, one real city left. Two far-flung empires so warped 
  as to barely be sane at all, both dying. A narrow ring of civilization under assault 
  from mutation, monster, and machine, and that's … about … it. 
   
  Animals talk, some of us can move things with our minds, and everything can kill 
  you. It's that kind of world and it ain't getting better all by itself. Welcome to Have-
  Not. 
  Long Story Long 
  The End of the Information Age 
  The Information Age came to a close with what has become colloquially known 
  as The Breakthrough. The Breakthrough was a discovery of such magnitude, a 
  realization of such importance that it changed everything. Science in every 
  discipline went from an exploration of a difficult yet map-able terrain to a wild 
  ocean where reason and the scientific method were lost causes. Not only did we 
  AUTHORS 
  Marco Chacon, Eric Chacon 
   
  PLAYTEST 
  Marco Chacon, Melanie 
  Rutman, David Tumarkin, Todd 
  Yankee,  Kenton Hillis, Craig 
  Walker, Irene, DJ, and others. 
   
  Vehicular Help from 
  Wintermute. 
   
  Creatures by Mike 
  Lovdal 
  THE AGES OF MAN 
  The Stone Age ended at about 
  3000 BC when mankind 
  discovered metals—before then, 
  the most valuable commodity 
  was, as the name implied, stone. 
   
  From 3000 to 1300 BC man 
  learned to use fires to forge 
  Bronze—a soft metal by some 
  standards—but a vast 
  improvement over sharp rocks 
  and wooden sticks. Bronze was 
  the "coin" of the day—the 
  standard by which societies lived 
  or perished. 
   
  At 1300 BC the forges learned to 
  tame Iron—and after 300 BC, 
  steel. The age of metals had 
  come to a close. When next the 
  paradigm shift happened, it was 
  the creation of Industry. 
   
  The Industrial Age gave way to 
  the modern area: is it the Space 
  Age? The Atomic Age? The Age 
  of Flight? At this point we have 
  accepted that we live in the 
  Information Age—but what lies 
  beyond that? What indeed . . . 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  6 
  have information—but we had information in over-abundance. Mankind had 
  reached the limits of its biological capacity to comprehend. 
  The Dawn of the Age of Understanding 
  The end of the Information Age left a gulf in man's ever-onward quest for 
  knowledge. Fragments of greatness were within our grasp but the deeper 
  mysteries could be hinted at but not understood. We knew what we were 
  destined to lack. Most of us did, anyway. The dawn of the new age came 
  with in-Utero manipulation of the human genome. A technique of great 
  expense was developed to grow children with additional lobes of the human 
  brain. The significance of this was poorly understood at the time—and even 
  less so the ennui and arrogance that would cause the mega-wealthy to 
  experiment on their children so—but it was done. These people were what 
  would later became known as the Haves. 
  The Age of Understanding: Dismantling the 
  World 
  The Haves tested higher on IQ tests—but that wasn't the significant factor—
  the "singularity"—the thing that changed the world. The big deal was that the 
  Haves could understand the Breakthrough. The Haves at first dabbled in the 
  new sciences and then began a perfectly ordinary rise through the ranks of 
  power—never in charge, always as advisors. It was not, as some thought, a 
  coup: it was a natural occurrence—a natural separation that came on so 
  slowly that it was almost invisible. Corporations re-aligned. Nations borders 
  became more porous and then mere formalities. Over time, the Have think-
  tanks regulated the global economy, nation-building, and emergent 
  technologies. Wars became scalpels of necessity against the intransigent. 
  Education, language, and media became standardized. In time, even 
  national identities began to fade. Finally, the world was the consumer … the 
  Haves 
  were 
  the 
  corporation. 
   
  Distro-Points 
  Have-Not life in the Age of Wonders 
  was based on Distro-Points. Every bit 
  as inscrutable as the Domes, the 
  Distro-points were the arrival location 
  for all goods, chemicals, clothes, fuel, 
  and everything else the society 
  consumed. The city planers could 
  program in what was needed and 
  next cycle (a few days, hours, or 
  even minutes later) it would arrive.  
   
  In the Age of Wonders, Distro-Points 
  were differentiated only by capacity. 
  It was not possible to truly enter the 
  points—but there were several 
  control nexi on the outside. It is 
  believed the goods and power arrived 
  via tubes running under the mantle to 
  the Have-Dome Network. But nothing 
  is really known for certain. Perhaps 
  nano-technology constructors were 
  used to assemble soups of raw 
  materials. Perhaps massive conveyor 
  belts ran from underground factories 
  buried beneath the crust of the 
  planet. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  7 
  The Dawn of the Age of Wonder: The 
  Habitats 
  And then it happened. The Haves organized their retreats. No 
  longer were more children being born to the population with the 
  modifications. The world was ordered and civil. The Haves 
  brought unbelievable advances: miracle drugs, beamed power, 
  complete genetic manipulation, quantum computing, cybernetic 
  neural 
  interfaces, 
  self-repairing 
  systems, 
  nano-enhanced 
  technologies, and stable energy-field creation. In addition to 
  bestowing the wonders on the rest of man through a complicated 
  network of "Distro-Points" (looking, mostly, like giant white 
  mushrooms from which a constant stream of consumer durables, 
  medicine, and high-technology spare parts flowed). The Haves 
  burrowed deep into the earth, running conduits through the 
  mantle. They built habitats in space—and they built the Domes—
  the Retreats. 
   
  The Have Domes 
  The Have Domes are wonders of engineering: 
  totally sealed and impregnable they appear egg-
  shell white and, during the Age of Wonders, 
  seemed to glow with a soft inner luminance. 
  Although several miles across above the surface 
  of the earth (and there were habitats in space, on 
  the ocean floor, and the continent of Antarctica—
  as well as in normally inhabited human climes) 
  they extended far deeper beneath it.  
   
  The exact nature of the technology is unknown: 
  the white material they are made from is 
  unbreakable—immune 
  even 
  to 
  point-blank 
  nuclear 
  detonation. 
  Extensive 
  underground 
  chambers extend "root" structures that burrow 
  and grow through the earth extracting resources 
  through micro-pores. 
   
  The citizens of the world never entered the Have
  domes—and for their part, the Haves rarely 
  exited—their pronouncements came through the 
  media or intermediaries. The (few and ultimately 
  unreliable) reports of those who did enter are 
  often nonsensical: waterfalls running uphill, great 
  secrets of the universe revealed but seemingly 
  mundane when communicated, and in one case, 
  a journalist who had been granted entry—and left 
  with nonsensical tapes of incomprehensible 
  sounds (and memories that evaporated as though 
  from a dream): 
   
  "And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills 
  Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;
  Enfolding sunny spots of greenery 
  But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted 
  Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover! 
  A savage place! as holy and enchanted 
  As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted 
  By woman wailing for her demon-lover! 
  And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil 
  seething, 
  As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing, 
  A mighty fountain momently was forced; 
  Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst 
  Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail, 
  Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail: 
  And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever 
  It flung up momently the sacred river 
  Five miles meandering with a mazy motion 
  Through wood and dale the sacred river ran, 
  Then reached the caverns measureless to man, 
  And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean" 
  --Kubla Kahn, Coleridge (of course) 
   
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  8 
  New Species 
  The Haves were adequate caretakers for the race of man—but they 
  experimented. Humans could be warped into other forms—other phenotypes—
  and they did, with wild abandon. Populations were created in the image of 
  animals—fully talking or telepathically gifted ones. Gene therapy could reshape 
  the human form and open new possibilities and new capabilities (humans who 
  could live under water, men born with armored shells or with resistance to 
  radiation or toxins). Where this was going or why they experimented thus was, as 
  with everything else, unexplained. In the end, perhaps, they just wanted to see if 
  they could do it. 
  The Exchange 
  The Exchange is the term for a nuclear spat between the Haves. At some point 
  more than a century into the era known as the Age of Wonders, two of the 
  Domes (or two committees—or perhaps two individuals—no one is certain how 
  Have society was organized) had a nuclear disagreement. It took the form of 
  massive robotic nuclear bombers unleashed from a far north habitat against a 
  dome on the European continent. The civilian casualties were in the hundreds of 
  millions—the target dome itself, although the ground was literally melted out 
  around it, suffered not a scratch. What the argument was about—nor if it was 
  ever resolved was never established. At this point mankind had become too 
  dependant on the steady flow of anti-depressants, hypnotic Telecast, and 
  arcade-entertainment to muster enough outrage to make a difference. In 
  fairness, it is not known if humankind could have made a difference—the 
  opportunity was probably already too far gone. 
  The Plunder of the Eco-Sphere 
  The Haves wielded unimaginable power—but the wonders they bestowed upon 
  man were only partially in the form of completed consumer goods. Also supplied 
  were raw materials (neonium wonder-metal, spools of room temperature super-
  conductor, nano-morphic super-polymers, etc.). These were then processed by 
  massive refineries to supply man with his never sated-desire for wealth and 
  comfort. This did damage of almost unimaginable proportions—and while the 
  domes glowed the Haves were always there to clean up the mess. But they too 
  changed the face of the planet on an almost inconceivable scale: What used to 
  be the Pacific Ocean became a seemingly infinite desert. Were cyclopean dams 
  built to contain an ocean? Rivers were diverted. Volcanoes made active—and 
  harvested for power—all of this experiment and hubris for the Cool Fusion power 
  cores which the Haves buried in the heart of Earth herself still run today with no 
  sign of stopping. The cities of the time—the Have-Not cities—boasted massive 
  air-purification towers and vast water-and-waste automated scrubbing facilities. 
  The Collapse 
  About five decades later, the unthinkable happened: at once across the world 
  and into space, the domes 'went dark.' Fifty percent of the major distribution 
  points ceased functioning. Those that did became unreliable. The Age of 
  Wonders had come to an end. The Age of War had begun. 
   
  Almost immediately there were police actions and security force response across 
  the globe. The forces, having access to Have technology weaponry, had an 
  unimaginable edge against the citizenry—against each other was another matter. 
  For weeks chaos reigned. Massive populations were cut off from their addictive 
  drugs and suffered traumatic withdrawal. Riots raged. Collective suicides and 
  THE BREAKTHROUGH? 
  A NEW KIND OF 
  SCIENCE 
  Stephen Wolfram is a real guy 
  (you may know who he is and 
  where we're going with all this—
  but if not—keep reading): He's a 
  genius who got his Ph.D. from Cal 
  Tech when he was 20, created the 
  definitive scientific computer 
  program Mathematica, and 
  became fascinated with something 
  called cellular-automata. 
   
  After garnering acclaim, he 
  retreated from the publishing field 
  for several years and returned, on 
  May 2002, with a 1200 page book: 
  A New Kind of Science. To quote 
  from his website:  
   
  "Almost all the science that's been 
  done for the past three hundred or 
  so years has been based in the 
  end on the idea that things in our 
  universe somehow follow rules 
  that 
  can 
  be 
  represented 
  by 
  traditional 
  mathematical 
  equations. The basic idea that 
  underlies A New Kind of Science 
  is that that's much too restrictive, 
  and that in fact one should 
  consider the vastly more general 
  kinds 
  of 
  rules 
  that 
  can 
  be 
  embodied, 
  for 
  example, 
  in 
  computer programs." 
   
  If Wolfram is right, and nothing is 
  saying he is—yet, this could be 
  one of the cornerstones of the end 
  of the Information Age.  
   
  It would have to be something like 
  this: a revelation sparking a 
  multidisciplinary paradigm shift of 
  massive proportions.  
   
  It is the kind of thing for which we 
  as a technological species and an 
  intellectual organism … are 
  completely unprepared.  
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  9 
  collapse of food and health networks resulted in megadeath. Disease spread—
  and worse—the reigning security forces became aware that as the days passed 
  the Haves were possibly—and still unthinkably—not coming back. 
   
  Where possible, still-working Distro-Points were programmed to produce 
  component parts for 20th century industrial technologies. Refineries were built. 
  Mines were dug with robot digging machine. Munitions factories were created—
  and the survivors held their breath—waiting for the other shoe to drop. 
   
  The Distro-Points Fail: The Age of War 
  Drop it did. Reports came via telecom that around the world, one by one, the 
  remaining Distribution Points "went dark." Almost at the same time, those that did 
  still run, changed: they would no longer produce anything you asked for—they 
  produced a limited, random, number of items—and variations on those themes. 
  This last straw broke the back of society entirely. Where some of the 
  survivors could only produce kitchen wares, others could produce Shrike 
  Missiles and powered assault armor. In what may have been definitive of 
  the ugliness of human nature, the forces that had access to the most 
  devastating weapons made war to seize the remaining working points. 
  Humanity was plunged into two hundred and fifty years of constant, total, 
  surreal war. 
   
  The war was not nearly symmetric. Forces that couldn't produce energy 
  weapons relied on assault rifles. Those that couldn't do that used over-
  loaded medical lasers or poison gas or even stranger things. All you can 
  get are robotic clothes store mannequins? They can "see" but can't target 
  a gun or rocket? Fine—outfit each of them with twin curved katana like 
  blades and send them on foot: silent, lethal in close combat, and utterly, 
  utterly patient. Need more soldiers? Use psycho-tech to build helmets that 
  overwrite the personalities of your "peasants" with combat-modes and 
  solider skills. It's horrible—but hey, it's survival. Cities became at first fine-
  gems to be taken and then corridors of death as military robots, plague 
  bombs, and radiological weapons were used to war over them. The 
  destruction, in human terms was almost total—almost. 
  I was dreamin' when I wrote this  
  Forgive me if it goes astray  
  But when I woke up this mornin'  
  Coulda sworn it was judgment day  
  The sky was all purple  
  There were people runnin' everywhere  
  Tryin' 2 run from the destruction  
  U know I didn't even care  
  'Cuz they say two thousand zero zero 
  party over  
  Oops out of time  
  So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999 
   
  --1999, Prince 
   
  Armed Vehicles 
  Travel is dangerous: scorpions the 
  size of SUV's roam the deserts, 
  plague-bearing wolves prowl the 
  hills. If the monsters don't get you 
  the radiation will—and if that fails 
  your fellow man (or intelligent 
  beast) is always ready to hunt you 
  down. 
   
  Where in the past there was war, 
  now there is a sort of slow-boil 
  chaos. The solution the need for 
  control is armed transport. 
   
  The warlords of The Age of War 
  took civilian vehicle models and 
  requested them with armor and 
  weapons (something many of the 
  distro-points could provide—even 
  if they couldn't provide the force-
  field shielded hover-tanks that a 
  fully armed Have- technology force 
  would have had). 
   
  These are the steeds of the new 
  age: horse drawn carriages still 
  exist, yes—but the real travel—
  travel for miles over hostile 
  terrain—is done by militarized 
  vehicles. Hook yourself up. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  10 
   
  Almost. The genocidal/suicidal global war destroyed almost everything. In its 
  wake were sterilized continents, genetic malfunctions, poisoned skies, scorched 
  forests, and landscapes crawling with tiny death machines. The end of war came 
  not from peace—but from annihilation. 
  The NOW: Welcome To The BoneYard. Have-Not. 
  What is left is a world confined to a few hundred miles of radius. Beyond that is 
  poison and chaos and nothing but noise on the ham-radios. What is left is a 
  world that has fallen almost completely apart. How exactly a group calling itself 
  The Hierarchy pulled itself out of the mire—to take, and hold, the last city with 
  working power is just not known. But the city, known as The BoneYard has more 
  than power—it has the last working Distro-Point—and a high capacity one at that. 
  Now the 'Yard dominates the landscape. They have rivals: The Pharms to the 
  south (with massive Age of Wonder-tech chemical refineries and societies based 
  on drugs). There is the Kingdom of IZ to the east (with its miles and miles of 
  industrial complexes still running as its people die off). Just below the 'Yard is the 
  Church of the Congregation—the last remaining religion with its own storehouse 
  of secrets and small elite army. 
   
  But the BoneYard is pretty much it—a smoking, burning, vomiting industrial 
  powerhouse that sits in hundreds of miles of mud and jungle and swamp so 
  toxic—so aggressive—so deadly that were it not for the self-repairing 
  superhighways left by the Haves none would be able to reach it. The jury is still 
  out on whether the 'Yard will manage to rise above the decay—or is simply 
  prolonging the lingering death of mankind. The bookies are still taking bets. The 
  ghosts in the Vegas Ruins are paying attention. What do you think? 
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  11 
  The State of the World 
  Looking Down 
  To the satellites, hung in the sky like ice-crystals waiting to drop, the world—the 
  last habitable bit, anyway—looks like this: out in a desert on the western half of 
  the North American land mass is a city. Its inhabitants, out of an irony so deep 
  that they don’t even recognize it as such, call it the BoneYard. It is a vast, dark 
  metropolis with ruined skyscrapers and industrial engines running day and night. 
  Around that city is a two hundred and fifty mile toxic zone so poisoned that it 
  churns with the ultra-violence of a mutant eco-system rabidly devouring itself—
  and anything else it can catch. This zone of bubbling smoking pools and wrecked 
  machines and poisoned predators is called the Inner Wasteland. There are 
  superhighways that run through this madhouse of radioactive mudflats and alien 
  plague-ridden heavy-metal poisoned jungle—superhighways built by the Haves 
  that repair themselves constantly so that even at the end of the world they look 
  clean and brand new. 
   
  But the Inner Wasteland doesn’t expand forever—when the poisons more or less 
  run out, there is still desert—the land and sky were still scorched by the Age of 
  War and the wastes of man—but beyond the Inner Wasteland—for another scant 
  250 miles in all directions, things can grow. And here here’s life. Small towns, 
  ranches, dirt roads and conventional highways … old craters, scattered ruins, 
  and people. All kinds of people.  People given the forms of animals. People fused 
  with machines. People born with alterations of the brain and body—and, of 
  course, people who look just as they did a thousand years ago—but people all 
  the same.  
   
  For another two hundred and fifty miles—this ring around the Inner Wastes 
  expands—and then the civilization that clings there begins to thin—and then die 
  out altogether … often violently.  For this zone of habitability is called the Middle 
  Ring—and beyond it—further up the expanse of North America, past the ruin 
  known as Denver in the north, down past the ruin of Tijuana in the south, is what 
  the survivors call the Outer Wasteland. 
   
  This vast stretch of land—this lonely expanse goes on forever and ever (as far as 
  anyone knows). It isn’t as utterly toxic as the Inner Waste, no, but there are other 
  reasons why human life has not taken hold there. That far from the BoneYard 
  supplies are too thin, but also, that far into the unknown the world itself is too 
  dominant, too dangerous, and too strange. 
   
  There are some people out there—in the Outer Waste—and, if you make it far 
  enough, there are two mysterious empires (each in decline, none matching the 
  magnificence of the Yard—or even its feeble level of hope). In the Outer Waste 
  to the South are the Pharms—great ancient engines of chemical plants—drug 
  creation complexes ruled by Overlords whose people are nearly living 
  automatons, driven by the chemical desires they are fed. 
   
  To the West, across the ruddy stretch of sand called the Red Desert, are the 
  Onion Empires (enclaves who live in the weird ruins of the desert and use 
  hydroponics to grow food) and further west, the kingdom of IZ, a huge network of 
  industrial machines all of which seem to be slowly running down. 
   
  And finally, there’s the Church of the Congregation, the most politically powerful 
  entity save for the rulers of the Yard itself. They’re sitting on the only open Have 
  artifact—a space elevator—a structure so impossibly tall it vanishes up into the 
  �The Sagittarian  
  During the Age of War there 
  were multitudes of warriors and 
  warlords, would-be messiahs 
  and end-times prophets. 
  Amongst these, almost three 
  centuries later, one stands out. 
  One is remembered. 
   
  He came from the east, traveling 
  westward towards the power-
  center that would become The 
  BoneYard. He crossed the 
  deserts which, then, were 
  populated by death machines, 
  warring dying societies, and 
  psychotic generals of the 
  apocalypse. He called himself 
  the Sagittarian, although no one 
  knows what, exactly, his 
  affiliation for that sign of the 
  Zodiac implied. 
   
  He never claimed to be a 
  prophet. There is no record of 
  him claiming to be a messiah but 
  he was taken for one anyway 
  (and today, his believers can be 
  executed for heresy by the 
  Congregation in some places). 
  As he traveled, as he came from 
  one war-zone to the next, he met 
  with the leaders—with the insane 
  Cyborgs, with the diseased 
  psychopaths, with the fighters of 
  a world war with no point save a 
  few more days of survival. He 
  spoke with their leaders in 
  private and with the men in 
  public—his vast personal 
  magnetism is a matter of historic 
  record. He cut a swath of peace 
  through the world. 
   
  He convinced the men he spoke 
  with, it is said, that he (and they 
  as they joined him) were part of a 
  grander plan—a plan that had 
  come about when—and because 
  the Haves had left. He told them 
  that he did what he had to do—
  and they believed him. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  12 
  sky, reaching stable orbit. The Congregation believes (or says they believe) that 
  the Haves left because we were wicked. Their tracts, their influence, and their 
  power stretch throughout the Middle Ring, and even reach into the Yard where 
  their Grand Cathedral, with psycho-active hypnotic two-story high moving 
  plasma-screen-‘stained-glass-windows,’ draws throngs of supplicants to its 
  evening services. 
   
  In a world where hope is on life support, people seem ever hungry to be told 
  they’re bad—and how to atone for it. With each season, as life seems to get 
  harder and harder and more and more dangerous the influence of the 
  Congregation grows and spreads and feeds off the desolation and dread of 
  nightfall and death. 
  Getting Closer (The Ring) 
  If you’re alive and healthy this is probably where you start: life is rough, often 
  cheap, and never taken for granted, but at least it’s usually sane here in the 
  towns … well, in some of them. The dry desolate landscape is buffeted by 
  sandstorms and shaken once a season under the roar of the thunderheads when 
  they sweep through bringing rain, but the daily rhythms (most of them) are those 
  of farm life or town life or the regular metallic beat of the mines.  
   
  Here, in the Ring, people hide within their towns, waiting for the next convoy from 
  the Yard to come rumbling through with its escort of armored vehicles and 
  compliment of guns. They guard their water (because it’s rare), they conserve 
  ammo, (because the world is dangerous), they buy fuel, (because the distances 
  between towns can be far and the terrain is too dangerous for common people 
  on horseback), they stockpile medicine and rad-pills and anti-toxin (because the 
  world is diseased and polluted and bombed). They have superstitions (but also 
  many have seen things you wouldn’t believe). 
   
  And when the town ends? Even here, in the Ring, no one’s quite sure what might 
  lie or lurk outside it. They live in the shadow of the shattered towers of the 
  ruins—still too dangerous to enter or to reclaim (too dangerous to pass by, if you 
  ask most folk). After the severe rain of the thunderheads, they are careful as to 
  what may have been uncovered. Many things better left untouched were buried 
  in the past age to be found in this one. 
  Stories in the Ring 
  Most of the stories of the people of the Middle Ring are the stories of those who 
  are born, lived, and died there. Usually all within 20 miles. They are stories of 
  hard work and hard times. Sometimes they're stories about farming or mining, 
  the inexorable passage of the seasons, the rhythm of the ongoing excavation. 
  Sometimes they end in violence. These are simple stories about men and 
  women clinging to existence in a desolate world. 
   
  But there are other stories in the Middle Ring about other kinds of people. 
   
  If you have ambition, a sense of adventure, or curiosity, your path will eventually 
  leave the towns—and may take you back through the Inner Wasteland to the 
  BoneYard. This is the narrative that plays out again and again for the young, the 
  romantic, and the restless. It is, the old townsfolk say, the same story as that of 
  the moth that incinerates itself in the campfire: the Ring is a dangerous place to 
  travel, but The Run, the pedal-down, guns-ready race through the Inner 
  Wasteland is madness (some say differently, but that’s not the conventional 
  wisdom), and if you do survive the Inner Waste, then you reach the Yard. 
   
  �The Sagittarian � 
  The exact nature of his meetings 
  have never been disclosed. 
  Perhaps he had some mutation 
  that compelled men to believe 
  him and follow him (although 
  psionic jammers and telepathic 
  blockers were common at that 
  time). Perhaps the men who 
  formed his convoy and gave him 
  safe passage across the desert 
  were engaged in some deeper 
  game against each other with the 
  Sagittarian as the fulcrum of their 
  plots. Whatever the case, he 
  correctly assessed that the then 
  powerful—but not definitively 
  dominant BoneYard would be the 
  sole survivor of the Age of War. 
  When he arrived at their gates, 
  he brought a message: "I hold 
  the key to the eventual—the 
  final—salvation of mankind. Meet 
  with me. Hear me speak—and I 
  am satisfied." He had come with 
  an army—a personal cadre of 
  hundreds of men—who at the 
  time could have threatened the 
  nascent Hierarchy of the Yard 
  itself. At the gates he disbanded 
  them, and entered, and 
  vanished. 
   
  History does not tell what 
  happened thereafter. Many 
  believe he was executed for 
  making threats against the 
  Hierarchy. Some believe that he 
  left the city in private, in disguise 
  on some personal mission. Still 
  others believe that he was 
  preserved and exists today in 
  some vault or tomb. Whatever 
  the case, the Hierarchy is silent 
  (and when they are not silent, 
  they point out that while the 
  meeting happened, their records 
  of it themselves are inaccurate 
  and incomplete). 
   
  But his legend—and the legend 
  of his secret message remains 
  an enigma. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  13 
  And then the Yard consumes you: its urban-nightmare predator-prey fire-lit/soot-
  black maw devouring all those who come to it from such a humble place as the 
  towns. The Yard is 24-7 always-on high-speed cybernetic sink-or-swim 
  convoluted dog-eat-dog all-kinds-of-hungry. It might be  humanity’s last hope to 
  hang on to the world, the old folks say, but it’s just waiting to take a bite out of 
  you. 
   
  And they’re right. Mostly. 
   
  You see there’s another narrative that gets told sometimes, usually by the young, 
  but also by some of the stranger folk, some of the travelers who’ve been a lot of 
  places and seen a lot of things.  In that story things work out a little differently. 
  The Ruins, those people say, aren’t an object lesson in the folly of leaving the set 
  path. The Yard isn’t a final, terminal destination that eats you whole. The Run 
  isn’t madness. In that story, the quiet story that gets you laughed at if you’re 
  young,  or shunned and ostracized if you’re old, the world’s just waiting, waiting 
  with its treasures and its glory and, yes, its wonders, for anyone with the brains 
  and skill and talent and toughness and, yes, even luck, to come and take it. 
   
  In that story, it’s a stranger world that you can imagine, and more dangerous than 
  you think, but it’s out there—and it’s glorious. 
   
  And maybe, just maybe, you’ve got what it takes to see it. 
   
  Welcome to Have-Not. Proceed With Caution.
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  14
   
  Welcome to Have-Not: Approach Section 
  Hi there, thanks for downloading, and welcome to JAGS Have-Not. It's our third world book (or fourth if you count 
  the Fast Company adventure book) and we've been trying to do it better each time. Here we've got a world full of 
  mysteries, monsters, and loads of cool stuff. We've played around in it and we've had a great time visiting. We 
  hope you do too. 
   
  This what we're calling the Approach chapter. At first it didn't exist … then we were gonna call it "How To Play 
  Have-Not" but that wasn't right either. So we've settled on "Approach." This chapter describes what we were 
  thinking and how you might want to approach a Have-Not game as a GM and as a player. Or you can skip it and 
  get straight to the juicy stuff. Whatever you do: Welcome to Have-Not. Please Drive Safely. 
   
  Heroic Science Fantasy Adventure 
  Have-Not evolved over a long time (over a year—and it draws on games we ran as far back as high school) so 
  even for us there's no "one" way to do it. However, we've bounced around some ideas for what we think might 
  make for a good game—and we're going to share them with you. These are things we've considered during the 
  creation of the rules, the world, and the playtest games we ran. Our current thinking is that JAGS Have-Not is a 
  world of heroic science fantasy adventure. Here's what we think that means: 
  Heroic 
  Science  
  Fantasy 
  Have-Not is heroic. In this context it 
  means that the default assumption is 
  that the characters will grow in power 
  from relative nobodies to earth-shaking 
  heroes who may very possibly crack 
  the secrets of the world and then, 
  maybe, "save it." This is in opposition 
  to the assumption that the PC's are 
  "normal Joes" in the world. 
  There's a background for science for 
  some of this but, erm, here what we're 
  really talking about is the props: it's not 
  "magic" it's "mutation." Those "wands" 
  are some sort of technical device. You 
  might ride horses—but you might, just 
  as easily ride a hover-bike. 
  Have-Not is absurd. It's got a sort of a 
  sense of humor infused into the text—
  and we hope, into the world itself. Yes, 
  there are some reasons for the 
  absurdity—but really, when you boil it 
  down, it's a romp (the whole Pacific 
  ocean is missing, for cryin' out loud). 
  Maybe a black comedy—but if you take 
  it too seriously: it's at your own risk. 
  Dispensing With All This: Alternate Takes 
  The world we've presented "is what it is." You don't need to use all of it as we've presented it, but even if you did, 
  how you interpreted it could be way different than how we did. Here are some takes on Have-Not that we think 
  are not only valid but some of them go right along with the "standard" one, just be aware of some potentially 
  different focuses: 
   
  It's a Tragedy 
  Mankind already lost: the universe is proven incomprehensible to anything recognizably human. The 
  eco-system has been destroyed and all that's left is a bleak future with no "ascension" save to reject 
  the central core of humanity. The Haves may have gone to the stars—Man never will. 
  The Triumph of 
  Humanity 
  Humankind is down, but not out, and we have not yet begun to fight. Are they Haves coming back? 
  They better be ready for us. The world's going down? Not on my watch. Evil men have done bad 
  things, but most of us (through most of the Age of Wonders) were simply, and merely weak. Well, we 
  aren't weak any more. The world had better be ready for us. Bet it’s not. 
  A Question of 
  Human Nature 
  The collapse of the Age of Wonders was The Fall in more than just an allegory. Now, in the bloody 
  aftermath, it's time to choose sides: are you on the side of the angels? Or not. If this is the focus then 
  the true leanings of the power-brokers will be important as the PC's get strong enough to choose a 
  side and make their decisions count. And maybe there aren't any truly easy answers. 
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  15
   
   
  The Three Ethos' of Have-Not 
  Have-Not is part of the post-apocalypse genre: there was a world—
  it ended, you're in the rubble. But after refining it and playing 
  around in it a bunch, we've come to the conclusion that it's not quite 
  that simple—or at least it doesn't have to be. There are three 
  modes of Have-Not that in some places intersect and in some 
  places diverge. It's helpful, when reading about the game, to keep 
  these in mind. 
  Post-Apocalypse 
  In (what we think of) as the Post-Apocalypse genre you are in the 
  ruins. Society has fallen apart. There is no law, there is no 
  civilization (maybe tribes—perhaps small towns—but pretty much 
  each area has to be self-sufficient to survive). While there are 
  outposts in the desert that are little machine-gun guarded enclaves, 
  that's not the case for much of Have-Not as a whole. Sure, places 
  are lawless—sure, society did suffer a hell of a fall—but over all it's 
  not a complete collapse. Of course a trip across the countryside will 
  show burnt out husks of buildings near the roads—massive broken 
  towers of ruins further back. Often the law is what you make it and 
  trials are basically witch-hunts. There are nomads that move across 
  the desert and lawmen who cruise the highways handing out what 
  justice they can. But also—there is civilization and while it might be 
  a weak flame—it's one that needs to be tended. If you really want 
  to play this up, re-set the game in the late Age of War and play where there is no BoneYard and there are masses 
  of disease ridden hopeless refugees moving desperately across a blasted landscape that's being fought over by 
  the lasts of the warlords. 
  Cyberpunk 
  The Cyberpunk genre is often defined by themes of alienation in the face of technology, of a hopeless future, and 
  by the loss of essential humanity in the fusion of man and machine. While Have-Not certainly fits, the BoneYard 
  itself is the definitive Cyberpunk element in the world. There is civilization (at least after a fashion) in the 'Yard. 
  There are corporations, there's a computer-net, there are cyber-salons and hover-cars (at least in some places). 
  There's plenty of alienation and a whole lot of humanity got chucked in the name of survival—these themes bleed 
  out of the 'Yard too: traveling executives with portable data-terminals might sweep through a town. A sick child 
  might be "cured" through the use of cybernetic infection and that might result in a different personality when the 
  kid wakes up. 
   
  If you want to focus on the Cyberpunk aspects, start the game in the BoneYard—and try to survive in the seething 
  death-culture that exists there. 
  The Western 
  Finally, our experience and examination suggests that Have-Not carries a good deal of the tropes (and perhaps 
  the themes) of the Western. There's frontier all around you. There may well be men who fight for a cause without 
  wearing the colors of an army. There's rough (and necessary) justice. There's reciprocal violence of man-vs.-man 
  and often the people in power are the worst sort—the sort that can be counted on to abuse that power. Finally, 
  there's plenty of dust, lots of revolvers, and more than enough saloons to give it a western feel. Sure—a lot of the 
  traditional danger comes from the world itself—but if you want to play the Western game, there's plenty of bad 
  men up at the 'Dry Gulch Power Farm' to keep the plot moving. And we think that also feels right at home in 
  Have-Not. 
   
  “This is Angry Bob – The Man with the 
  Industrial Dick! Coming to you loud and 
  clear on W-A-R Radio. Rise and shine, 
  folks! It’s a beautiful day. Just look at  
  that sky—it’s a work of art! Hunh! Nature 
  never knew colors like that! And a 
  friendly reminder: If you look at it—be 
  sure to wear your shades! The radiation 
  count’s waaay up and the heat wave ain’t 
  expected to let up either. Weather Control 
  tells us it’ll probably hit one hundred and 
  ten downtown before nightfall. 
   
  As for the good news … there is no 
  fucking good news! So let’s rock with 
  one of our golden oldies!” 
  --Future DJ Angry Bob giving the 
  morning report, Hardware 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  16
   
  The Basic Game Structure 
  The basic game, as we see it, starts with the characters in a township 
  somewhere in the Middle Ring. They're (probably) talented, ambitious, 
  and filled with a lust for adventure. They're not ready to take on the 
  BoneYard yet, and might not have any real interests there anyway, 
  there're ruins to be explored, buried installations to be excavated, and 
  plenty of good old fashion man-vs.-man, man-vs.-nature, and man-vs-
  what-the-hell-is-that? battles to contend with. 
   
  But eventually, all roads do lead to the BoneYard and once the PC's have 
  made a name for themselves in the Ring, they can try their fates where 
  the big decisions get made. It's a whole 'nother climb to the top (sure, 
  when the PC's roll into town, they've probably got a lot of armor and 
  weapons, but in the Yard no one can fight city hall and just win—at least it 
  hasn't happened yet.)  
   
  Finally, some end-game conditions come into play: can you manage to 
  reverse the massive ecological damage? What really did happen to the 
  Haves and is it relevant? Will there be a war with the Pharms or the 
  Kingdom of IZ? Can the Hierarchy be challenged? The Banks? The Bitch 
  Queen? Should they? 
   
  And it's a wrap. The game doesn't have to end—but if some of the major 
  questions that started driving the interest of the participants get resolved 
  then maybe it's time to try it all over again … from a different perspective. 
  But It Doesn't Have To Be That Way 
  But that's just a default assumption. It doesn't have to go that way. Maybe 
  the characters all start out as students in the University. They attend 
  classes and are horrified at what goes on beyond the walls—until it 
  becomes relevant to them. Maybe they're interested in smaller challenges 
  than the heroic "saving the world" stuff. Maybe they want to get rich and 
  successful running a trucking outfit—or making sure the medicine gets 
  through to a stricken town is heroic enough. 
  How Do I Figure This Out? 
  Optimally everyone playing says "hey, I like these factors" or "I'd like to 
  see the game kinda go like this." But even if everyone looks at the GM 
  and says "you figure it out," there are some things to keep in mind that'll 
  make this easier. 
  1. The PC's can start small but still be important. In one playtest the 
  characters were fulfilling a prophecy from long ago. In another, they 
  were all a bunch of young guys working for a wise, aging gunslinger 
  with a good idea of what needed to be "set right" in the world. Both 
  were open for a lot of eventualities. 
  2. Start all the PC's with some relationship to each other and have the 
  players discuss what it is—it could be anything: blood relations, 
  shared goals, a shared past neither knows they share with the 
  other—any of these are good for cohesion that works well for team 
  play and especially for the kind of heroic adventure of Have-Not. 
  3. If we've done our job right there's a lot of exciting stuff to see and do 
  around Have-Not. If the players are interested in checking this out, go 
  wild. 
  New Combat Rules 
  JAGS Have-Not comes out at the 
  same time as the new combat 
  rules (check the 1.5 file under 
  Basic Game). The reason we did 
  this was simple: 
   
  We've been playing JAGS for a 
  while and we knew, even when we 
  put it up, that it wasn't perfect or 
  finished. Hell, the day we 
  published it we were making 
  changes to the Archetype rules … 
  so we're committed to doing things 
  we see as improvements. 
   
  Have-Not uses a lot of autofire. A 
  lot of explosives. A lot of ultra-
  sharp weapons and other stuff like 
  that. Armor and weapon balance is 
  very important—and very touchy in 
  Have-Not. So we wanted to get it 
  all as close to "right" as we could. 
   
  That meant using some new rules. 
  We found these rules either 
  simpler (the autofire rules) or just 
  plain "making more sense" (the 
  Armor Save re-work). We hope 
  you'll agree. 
   
  If you wanna use the old rules, 
  though, go right ahead. Drop us a 
  line and give us some feedback—
  we'd love to hear it. 
  JAGS2 and Have-Not 
  At the same time we've been 
  working on Have-Not we've been 
  testing JAGS2—a rules-liter version 
  of JAGS. We've even done some 
  of the playtest of Have-Not with 
  JAGS2 and we like the results. If 
  you find JAGS is a bit cumbersome 
  for you—or otherwise not suited to 
  your preference, you might find 
  JAGS2 more to your liking. If you 
  like Have-Not and want to try 
  something faster to pick up and 
  less picky about special cases, wait 
  for JAGS2! 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  17
   
  Choosing Game Focus 
  Have-Not is in the post-apocalypse genre and that means that the characters are tearing around a blasted fallen 
  landscape with (in this case) loud engines, wild mutations, and energy weapons. But getting a closer look … what 
  does that mean? 
   
  Well, it means this: if you're going to run Have-Not or play in it, we suggest all the participants get together and 
  talk about elements of Game Focus. This means, in a general sense, what you'll all be expecting to be doing in 
  Have-Not. There are elements below that the players and GM alike should discuss and agree on before making 
  characters: if everyone else is playing a road-warrior on an armed bike and you bring in a 2-ton intelligent 
  elephant you're gonna get left in the dust. That's just one of the problems that might crop up—so iron this out 
  before you start. 
  The Vehicles Game 
  We've got rules for vehicles and vehicle combat. It's honestly a bit complex (as we're writing it, we're trying to 
  simplify things) and it's not necessary. We think armed cars are super cool (and we have some cool pictures) but 
  other than a way to get around, the game doesn't have to focus on them. 
  More Vehicle Focus: The group has vehicles or 
  there's one "team vehicle" and characters can have 
  roles such as Mechanic, Driver, Gunner, etc. The 
  group expects to be highly mobile and move around a 
  lot. 
  Less Vehicle Focus: The PC's don't especially 
  revolve around vehicular roles and if someone does 
  have a vehicle it isn't how the whole group gets 
  around. Maybe you're at an outpost with a lot of stuff 
  going on—or prospecting in the mountains … but you 
  all tend to ride horses or link up with convoys. 
  The Ammo, Fuel, Credits, and Water Game 
  In Have-Not everything is scarce (and life can be cheap). Water is a measured commodity. You conserve ammo. 
  You prize fuel when you can get it and steal it when you can't. Credits are jealously guarded. It's all about that big 
  score—it's about staying alive but also managing your stuff right. Maybe you're all a private enterprise trying to 
  turn a profit. Maybe your base of operations is pretty safe—but your range for exploration is limited by material. 
  Whatever the case, you count credits, measure water, and watch the fuel gauge carefully. Or maybe you don't. 
  Maybe the game is all about adventure and action and while you probably measure something (how many 
  grenades you have—how far out into the real Wasteland you can go on a full tank) you aren't that concerned 
  about getting it right. 
  More Resource Focus: Make sure the players all 
  know this is going on. The GM has to do work to make 
  sure the economy is kept at a proper keel (a big score 
  too early will take a lot of the fun of "making it" out of 
  the game). Travel time and distance is important. This 
  is hard to do but can be very rewarding if everyone's 
  into it. We've done some work to help ensure the rules 
  will support at least some form of this. How exact you 
  get, though, will depend on how much work everyone's 
  up to. 
  Less Resource Focus: Just track really rare things 
  (grenades, Stim-sub-derms, SHOK ammunition, etc.). 
  Money's still probably important—but day-by-day burn-
  rate isn't such a big deal. Assume you have enough 
  water unless you decide to walk across the desert. 
  Stuff like that. You might get hit with a cash shortage 
  to cover major repairs, but for the most part the focus 
  is elsewhere. This was, for the most part, how we 
  played for fun (vs. testing the economy stuff). 
   
  Dizzy: Nuke York’s only 3 days away. 
  Stretch and Zip: Gonna take us six days. We only got half a car left. 
  --Rock and Rule (1983) 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  18
  The Exploration Game (vs. the Mysteries) 
  There are mysteries in Have-Not. There's a planet in the intensive-care ward that might not make it. There are 
  ruins and ancient installations and buried warlord's citadels and all kinds of great stuff like that to go poking 
  around in. What are you waiting for? Well, we think it's a good idea if before starting you all find out how 
  interested everyone is in discovering what happened to the Haves, where the Pacific Ocean went, etc. A game 
  could revolve around raiding ruins and singing drinking songs in the town tavern. It could involve political climbing 
  in the BoneYard. It could end with a Dome opening—or it might never get to one. What do you want as a long 
  term goal? Or is it up to the GM and you want to be surprised? Everyone should have some input. 
  More Meta-Plot Focus: The PC's expect answers 
  eventually and want to move in that direction. This 
  doesn’t mean it all gets figured out in the first three 
  sessions (or maybe … well, you decide)—but it does 
  mean that's where it's going. A Meta-Plot Focused 
  game will quite possibly start in the Ring, lead to the 
  Yard, and then up through the ranks until the 
  characters are major players. We have some notes for 
  that in the Revelations book. Check 'em out if you're 
  GMing. 
  Less Meta-Plot Focus: You might find out what 
  happened to the Haves but who cares if you don't. It's 
  about exploration. It's about riding around in the 
  badlands and bringing justice to the lawless or maybe 
  lawlessness to the civilized areas—whatever.  
   
  You aren't trying to save the human race—someone 
  else is doing that. You're just trying to save yourself. 
   
  Hazards 
  The world of Have-Not is poisoned. There's 
  radiation in the air and poison in the water and 
  plague in the forests. If the monsters don't get 
  humanity—the ecological damage just might. How 
  this is represented in the game can be important 
  and should be discussed prior to play so that 
  everyone knows what to expect. 
  Hazards as Color 
  Yes, the world is trashed. We know. Now let's have 
  some fun. In this mode there are places you don't 
  wanna go, and you're always gonna be popping 
  some Rad pills, but for the most part the disease 
  and decay and facial cancers are just part of the 
  scenery. As color you still don't wanna go hang out 
  in Vegas (it was Neutron bombed so bad it's still 
  toxic) and you should carry your toxin-meter 
  because, well, you never know. But it isn't a 
  constant and persistent problem for the characters. 
  We played in this mode most of the time we play-
  tested. It's mostly trouble free and even "dialed 
  down all the way" there's still plenty of danger from 
  hazards that are emplaced specifically to be 
  problems. 
  Hazards as Barriers 
  Don't go down Main Street in the LA ruins—you'll die of the viral hyper-encephalitis that they hosed the place 
  down with a hundred years ago. Don't try to hike across the Inner Wasteland and if you wanna go road-tripping 
  look out for those craters. In this mode, the GM is carefully circumscribing where you can go. There are a lotta 
  ruins that look good from a distance … or even real close. But once you get there … ack, gasp! … rttle… In this 
  mode Hazards are a "don't go here" symbol. We're not sure what the value of this is specifically, but we wanted to 
  bring it up because it was batted around a lot during playtest. 
  Six o'clock - TV hour. Don't get caught in foreign towers. 
  Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn.  
  Locking in, uniforming, book burning, blood letting.  
  Every motive escalate. Automotive incinerate. 
  Light a candle, light a votive. Step down, step down. 
  Watch your heel crush, crushed, uh-oh, this means no 
  fear cavalier.  
  Renegade steer clear!  
  A tournament, tournament, a tournament of lies.  
  Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives and I decline.  
  It's the end of the world as we know it. 
  It's the end of the world as we know it. 
  It's the end of the world as we know it and I feel fine.  
  --It's The End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel 
  Fine), REM 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  19
  Hazards as Focus 
  If you're playing a "save the ecology" game or just want a really harsh reality the GM will play Hazards to the hilt. 
  Everything is poison and if you've got a room in the 'Yard you might get cancer from the local night club next door. 
  In this mode the PC's will be decked out with bio-suits and medicines and they'll need 'em. Clean water is hard to 
  find on the road—so make sure your stocks are checked … and track your usage. We don't recommend you do 
  this lightly: trying to survive in a world that's fallen apart is bad enough without the air trying to kill you too. 
   
  Encounter Tables 
  We've given you some "roll the dice" and figure out what you run into encounter tables. These have a very 
  specific use in the game: 
   
  If the participants are okay with the use of random-encounters to either "simulate" the world or "because it's 
  cool," or for whatever other reason, then go ahead and use them. They are provided for that purpose only. If the 
  participants wish to play in a more thematic game where those rules are not in effect, then you needn't use them 
  at all. Stated again: these are purely optional to the group as a whole.  
   
  In some modes of play every encounter is up to the GM to arrange. In other modes of play the players might 
  take turns rolling, enjoying the sense of gambling. In some cases the GM might roll the dice behind a screen and 
  maybe omit rolls he doesn't like. These are decisions for your group to make amongst yourselves—we included 
  them because we found them fun.  
   
  In our mode of the play it's probably, commonly, up to the GM as to what's specifically out in a given area—if the 
  decision wasn't already made prior to the start of play, I'd very likely roll … out in the open. Your Mileage May 
  Vary. Welcome to Have-Not. 
   
  Treasure 
  Roleplaying is probably the only chance most of us will ever get to find treasure. A lotta people find it an 
  undeniably cool part of play and we've got tons of it here. From stuff you can pretty much buy (but you gotta have 
  serious money!) to things you gotta dig up and unearth all kinds of cool post-app and hyper-tech goodies. How 
  that gets managed bears some discussion. Let's talk about Gear. 
  The McGuffin 
  When I looked at the Artifacts file I got from Eric I went "I can't introduce this stuff into a game as normal gear—a 
  heart that beats like a nuclear weapon!?" I called up our chief editor and asked him about it. "It's a serious 
  McGuffin," he told me. And I think he was right. There's a buncha stuff in the Artifacts book that represents the 
  outer-edge of PC-power in the game-world. If a person has all off it (the Goliath Battle Suit, the Californium Rifle, 
  the Abnegated Heart, etc. they're beyond the scale of most things in the world … period). And that's okay. Some 
  of that stuff is there because it's cool. Some of it's there as an adventure seed. Some of it … anyway. Okay, 
  because the guy who did it has a weird sense of what should go into a book like this, but we decided to leave it. 
  Anyway. If you're deciding what's in the game (traditionally this means you’re the GM, but we're not gonna stand 
  on tradition) be aware that some of that stuff just plain isn't meant to introduced into a game without seriously 
  warping the campaign around it. 
  “I know what love is: a boy loves his dog.” 
  --Solo Vic, A Boy and His Dog (1975)  
  [Said after feeding his girlfriend to his telepathic dog 
  Blood, to save Blood’s life.] 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  20 
   
  Life In the Middle Ring 
  The Middle Ring is, more or less, "what's left." It's a zone about 
  250 miles across that extends outward from the Inner 
  Wasteland. To the west that puts a lot of it in the Pacific Desert 
  (which isn't habitable) but the rest of it is a place where people 
  can live … sort of. Out beyond it are a couple of near-
  legendary distant empires, some desert enclaves, and … 
  nothing. Nothing civilized at least. There are toxins in the 
  Middle Ring and radioactive craters too, and monsters and 
  bandits and armed militias and all sorts of things like that. But 
  when you get far enough out from the BoneYard's supply of 
  ammo, weapons, and medicine, you start getting into truly wild 
  territory—territory that civilization can't survive in. That's called 
  the Outer Wasteland—and it's another topic. 
   
  What's it Like? 
  The Middle Ring is highly varied. From the desert outposts 
  with their sandbags and minefields and anti-vehicle wire to 
  the aristocratic villas of the Garbage Mines, it couldn't be 
  more diverse or more different from place to place. Most 
  people have never left their village much less gone half way 
  "around the clock"—and the whole place hasn't even been 
  explored. There are ruins smack in the middle that people 
  don't enter. There are ridges and valleys that are far enough 
  off the major roads that people don't venture there. Once you 
  leave your town, you're in an area that isn't as relentlessly 
  and environmentally hostile as the Inner Wasteland, or as 
  untamed as the Outer Wasteland, but is still very mysterious 
  and dangerous. If we were to make some generalizations, we 
  would say The Middle Ring is: 
   
  Dry. Some of it's for-real desert. A lot of it is just dry. There 
  are areas of forest (up north, especially) but water (and more 
  importantly, clean water) is hard to come by for a lot of 
  people. There are dust storms and sagebrush and cacti (both 
  of the really dangerous mutant variety and the more usually 
  type). 
   
  Hard. Living in the Middle Ring means, for most people, 
  having to do without. Outdoor plumbing is a given—but 
  medicine isn't so easy to get hold of (the traveling medicine 
  show still works because of this) and manual labor—hard 
  manual labor—is part of the equation whether you're digging 
  for artifacts in an ancient land-fill or planting crops or moving 
  the fuel cells around a power farm.  
   
  Poor. Chances are, if you're in the Middle Ring, you're a 
  nobody. You're a migrant dirt farmer or a garbage miner or you work with the Hammerhead herds. In town there 
  are a few clerical jobs to be had (behind the counter at the bank, the general store, or the saloon), but mostly it's 
  manual labor or nothing. The best jobs are the ones that'll put a gun in your hand. 
   
  Things are going to slide,  
  Slide in all directions  
  Wont be nothing  
  Nothing you can measure  
  Anymore  
  The blizzard, the blizzard of the world  
  Has crossed the threshold  
  And it has overturned  
  The order of the soul  
  When they said, they said REPENT 
  REPENT  
  I wonder what they meant  
  -- The Future, Leonard Cohen 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  21
  Violent. Not all the time, but when it 
  comes it really comes and the threat 
  hangs over the place like a dull heat. 
  A lot of people get by in this hard, 
  poor land by robbing (the common 
  terms are 'Raiders' or 'Bandits'). And 
  a lot more get into debt or a bad 
  argument in a bar, or just lose it one 
  day, and then take it on the road, 
  running until justice (or what passes 
  for it in the Middle Ring) catches up 
  with them. A lot of regular people are 
  usually caught in between. They're 
  just trying to get by, hoping to find 
  cover when the storms come. 
   
  Indebted. A lot—a lot—of what's out 
  in the Ring holds a very real 
  monetary debt to one of the banks in 
  the 'Yard. Township's incorporation 
  papers (which means a convoy of 
  goods, ammo, fuel, and medicine will 
  come your way) are granted by the 
  bank. The bank gets to assign posts 
  of city government, and the town has 
  to pay on its loan … or else. Often 
  "or else" means a dispatch from the 
  bank shows up and the town council 
  pays up. Sometimes it means the 
  guy who was in charge gets taken 
  back 
  to 
  the 
  Yard 
  for 
  some 
  "discussion" 
  and 
  someone 
  else 
  winds up running the place. A few, 
  very, very rare times it means 
  making an example of a township 
  and black smoke and scorched earth 
  is all that's left. Trouble is: you can 
  never really tell which category your 
  town will fall into. Very few towns are 
  free holds (meaning they've paid off 
  their papers) and if they are, they're usually very picky about who they let in. 
   
  Suspicious. Travelers are fairly few in the Ring. Some people get around a little but most people don't get 
  around a lot. That means if you come rolling into town you might get some traditional hospitality, but also a good 
  healthy dose of getting-to-know-you suspicion … and if bad things are afoot you might be executed by some of 
  that ingrained superstition.  
   
  Hot. The Middle Ring is desert. That means rainfall of less then 1" (1.5 cm) per year and temperatures average 
  between 20 to 25 degrees Celsius, getting as hot as 50 degrees and as cold as 18. With the disappearance of 
  the Pacific Ocean, this land would be completely arid without violent storms that come through in the summer 
  months and dump most of the rainfall that does occur. These storms come from the north and are terrifying, if 
  necessary. 
   
  Living in a vast desert means you're always thirsty (not enough to drink), always grimy (not enough water to 
  wash with) always covered with a thin coating of fine road dust (because it gets everywhere) and always in a bad 
  mood (because you live in a desert where you're always thirsty, dirty, and covered with dust...) 
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  22
  Dusty and Rocky. As far as they eye can see, as they say. The terrain is vast and hilly. It can look deceptively 
  flat all the way out to the horizon, and then as you approach you notice that the ground is shattered, opened up 
  and broken into deep fissures that weren't visible before you go there. And those little ridges you saw from miles 
  away turn out to be labyrinthine foothills with sheer cliff faces 20 meters high and small, dark cave networks. The 
  desert can play tricks on you. On one hand, you can see for miles and miles and miles... and on the other, it's 
  frighteningly easy to go out into the deep wasteland, get lost, and never be heard from again. 
   
  Smells like Ash and Death. The wasteland has a scent to it. You won't notice it most of the time. For people 
  who have grown up there, they never notice it. But the entire terrain smells a little like burnt rubber. A little like 
  tiny raindrops of mercury. A little like ash and smoke. The wide-open spaces of the Middle Ring are faintly and 
  indelibly tainted by what happened here centuries ago, and they say that the Earth has stopped renewing 
  herself. Whether that's true or not is hard to tell; it's unquestionably true that the scent of death remains. 
   
  Traditional. For the people who've grown up there, coming out of two-and-a-half centuries of war, still having to 
  put up with refugees (who can often come bearing the gift of plague), and living in a world where so much isn’t 
  understood by the scientists The Ring breeds a certain tendency to follow one's traditions. Many places are 
  sexist (women are expected to tend shop, maybe teach kids, and keep out of civil government)—but many are 
  not (some places need every pair of hands firing a gun and the more accurate those hands are, the better). But 
  most places that have any history guard it jealously. 
   
  Superstitious. Of course while tradition may mean remembering and honoring where you've come from (even if 
  that means having bad ideas about how much someone can contribute to society), superstition is the dark side. 
  Mass hysteria, illogical beliefs, and dangerous memes make places in the Middle Ring unusually, and 
  sometimes, incomprehensibly dangerous. There's a town out in the desert with a big dish-antenna array. They 
  think their broadcasts keep the sun rising each day. There are also dark reports of burnings, lynching, and other 
  such executions for reasons that often have no basis whatsoever in provable fact. 
   
  Desolate. A lot of the Middle Ring is just empty. You can hear the wind whistle across the plains. And engines 
  sound lonely and far away. There's distance out there. Distance between towns. Distance between outposts. 
  Distance to from the ‘Yard. When you're in town, it feels comfortable and close. But walk to the end of Main 
  Street and look out in any direction, and you can see nothing all the way to the horizon. That makes you feel 
  small.  
   
  People don't like to look out into the badlands. Instead, they huddle together around the things that give life: the 
  wells, the fires, the strong men who promise to protect them. They come together for company because if you 
  face the nothing, you see how very far away you are. 
   
  And you can see that loneliness in some folk's eyes. Look into the face of a prospector or a merchant—someone 
  who spends a lot of time Out There and you'll see a certain reserve. A reticence. These are people who spend a 
  lot of time in the empty. A lot of time face to face with the fact that, very likely, they will die out there, alone. 
   
  In the day, it's bad enough, but at night it gets even worse. 
   
  Dark at Night. They say there used to be more stars. They say the moon used to light up the whole desert with 
  clear, crystal, brilliant light. They say that the world has gone dim, and that today, the world is darker than it used 
  to be. Maybe that's because there's a haze in the upper atmosphere that keeps the dim, distant glow of the 
  universe from getting in. Maybe that's because the stories about the past always make it sound grander and 
  more illustrious than it really was. It can't be that the universe is already dying can it? It can't be that the lights 
  really are going out... 
   
  Night, in the desert, is cold, lonely, and very, very dark.  
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  23
   
  Weather in the Middle Ring 
  There's two kinds of weather in the Middle Ring: No Weather and Bad Weather. No Weather means hot and 
  clear, with a slight breeze, maybe. Bad Weather means trouble. 
  Dust Storms 
  Your basic dust storm is blinding and irritating, but not overly dangerous. High winds and clouds of dust make 
  targeting at a base -2, and quarter all ranges (so a rifle with a 100 yard range drops to -1 / 25 yards). Dust 
  storms can also damage equipment that's not prepared for it, cause weapons to jam, and generally degrade the 
  performance of all machines involved.  
   
  Traveling in a dust storm is particularly hazardous. Going short distances causes a tactical hazard (add an 
  additional -2 to any driving rolls you have to make) and going long distances greatly increases your chances of 
  getting lost. 
   
  Dust storms usually last about 1 hour, but can be much shorter or longer (double the duration for every point of 
  roll above 13; half duration for every point of roll below 7). 
  Toxic Dust Storms 
  Near the Inner Wasteland, storms that come from the interior can be a bit more of a problem. When the winds 
  carry the toxins of the Inner Wasteland with them the storms become poisonous. People who live on the border 
  (and telling exactly where the border is can be far more of an art than a science) carry protective gear with them 
  (at least a scarf to cover one's face with). Visitors can be caught unawares. 
   
  A typical Toxic Dust Storm acts as a Power 12 toxic hazard that does 6 Base Damage. Effects may be felt 
  immediately or after a few hours. Some are far more dangerous, however (and the average one could decimate 
  a whole town without too much difficulty).  
  • 
  Staying indoors or in a mostly covered vehicle gives +2 to CON rolls. 
  • 
  A sealed vehicle is immune—most vehicles give a +3. 
  • 
  A gas mask will usually prevent any damage. A filter mask gives +4 to CON rolls. 
  • 
  A common anti-toxin will give +3 to CON rolls (inoculate the animals)—you usually have to have a 
  couple hours notice. 
  The Thunderheads 
  Dust storms are wind. The thunderheads come in the High Summer. The world gets hot, and the ground bakes 
  and the last bits of green shrivel and die, and then the air gets quiet and still as it waits for the Thunderheads. 
   
  When they come, they come fast. They roll out of the North and the West. They come down like the wrath of 
  God. They turn like great hurricanes, howling over the landscape, sending down vast funnel clouds that can, if 
  you're very unlucky, make you disappear from the face of the earth. 
   
  The Thunderheads are rain storms. They dump 12 to 30 inches of rain on small areas, and lash the plains of the 
  shelf and the Inner Ring with brutally powerful winds. They pass in days (or weeks), and then they're gone. 
   
  In their wake, the land is reconfigured. Things that were visible have been buried (or blown away, or drawn up 
  into the sky). Things that were long buried have been uncovered—the desert gives up her bounty. For weeks 
  after the storms come through, the ground is wet in places that have been blessed with water. Reservoirs are 
  filled. Dry streambeds flow. For a clock-tick, the desert blooms, and then the calm eternity of the Middle Ring 
  settles back again. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  24
  Aurora Season 
  Whatever they did during the Age of War, they damaged not only the earth—but the sky as well. Aurora Season 
  comes sometimes in the hottest months of summer and sometimes in the dark of mid-winter. It's unpredictable 
  and considered a time of bad omens. During this time the night sky is alight with aurora borealis and radios and 
  telecommunication is choppy and of limited range. The communications network that holds the Middle Ring 
  together goes in and out and sometimes for a few days a town can "disappear” off the network entirely. 
   
  What Goes On in the Middle Ring? 
  What happens in the Middle Ring is what has always 
  happened on the frontier: people try to survive, to build 
  themselves up, and to provide a better standard of existence 
  to the next generation. In this case, in a lot of places, that 
  ain't saying much. Here are some of the types of places you 
  might find in the Middle Ring. 
  Fortress Towns 
  At most of the major exits from the Inner Wasteland, and 
  several of the places where a caravan of travelers from one 
  of the outer empires might come in, you get a Fortress. 
  They're usually crewed with some heavy weapons teams 
  courtesy of the BoneYard and they often have perimeters 
  with mine fields (smart mines they can turn off), towers with 
  rocket launchers, and they run patrols within a certain 
  perimeter. Make the wrong kind of trouble within striking 
  distance of a Fortress and they will come out after you. 
  Frontier justice is usually served at hyper-velocities and the 
  "trial" consists of hauling your body back. 
  Factory Towns 
  Every town needs a mechanic and every mechanic needs 
  spare parts. The Middle Ring buys a lot from the Yard, and 
  when sprockets and 12-gague pipe just shows up at the distro-point, the price is hard to beat. Still, when you add 
  shipping costs and uncertainty, there's a narrow profit to be made making and selling manufactured goods. And 
  so there are factories. A lot of what gets made are parts for vehicles and weapons. Gas engines, radios, and 
  rubber goods are also common. Factories tend to be ancient, gothic places with huge assembly lines and great, 
  cathedral-like roofs with catwalks and moving platforms. These things eat up raw materials (coal to drive the 
  great engines, metal ore to be smelted down and re-formed). They operate on volume, and so it's always faster! 
  Work harder! It's never enough! 
  Water Towns 
  All towns have enough good water to drink, usually from wells (the 'big guys' have their own private wells, and 
  then everyone else has communal wells they draw their daily water from before sunrise). Some towns have a 
  surplus of water and they export, usually to outposts, encampments, and other places that don't have adequate 
  sources of ground water. A few even have particularly famous springs and can export valuable, crystal clear 
  water to the Bone Yard. 
  Oil Towns 
  The American Southwest didn't use to be a primary source of fossil fuels, but maybe there were a lot more... 
  fossils … after the Age of War. Or maybe standards have just gone way down. Either way, gas is a nice big 
  export. Even a single oil well is enough to keep a few thousand people happily employed (this includes the 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  25
  refinery and bottlers and so-on... it's not just about getting crude out of the ground). Gas and gas generators are 
  valuable commodities in the Middle Ring. 
   
  The gas pump, itself, is usually a frighteningly Victorian piece of machinery with gears and pipes and tubes. They 
  aren't mass-produced (there's not enough of them), so there's always an engineer who designed and built the 
  damned thing (or maybe his father built it, or his master, whom he apprenticed under...) The engineer keeps the 
  well working and pumping – sort of a court magician, who guards his secrets from his employer... 
   
  Gas Towns are "rich" by Middle Ring standards. Once the pump and the refinery and everything are set up and 
  paid for (and a lot of this happened decades ago, in the Age of War), the profit margin is high. This means 
  there's money for decent roads, mercenary barracks, and so forth. The big banks and other Hierarchy interests 
  tend to have their branch offices in Gas Towns. 
  Coal Towns 
  Another fossil fuel. Gas is pumped; coal is mined. Mining could be done by robots (theoretically), but it never is. 
  It's done by people who go down into the earth, and plunder its riches until the mine runs out. Coal mining and 
  processing is labor intensive work, and the profit margins are low. This means a lot of poor people working. 
  These towns tend to be rowdy and dismal with lots of guards and guns to keep everyone in line. And coal mining 
  is dirty business. Metal ore (used in manufacturing) is also valuable (although less so than coal). In most cases, 
  it's not profitable to mine metal ore unless you're also mining coal... 
  The Garbage Mines 
  Coal, oil, and water, aren't the only things you can pull out of the 
  ground. In the Age of Wonders, consumer goods were 
  produced, sold, used, and discarded by the billions. All that 
  garbage had to go somewhere, and instead of smokelessly 
  incinerating it or creating microorganisms that could break it 
  down into carbon dioxide and sodium chloride, the Haves just 
  buried it. 
   
  There are massive veins of garbage deep under the surface. 
  There are great, covered chasms full of gigatons of empty cases 
  and gum wrappers, and all kinds of other things that just haven't 
  degraded. In its day, it was trash. Today, it's mostly still trash. 
  But every once in awhile... and so they mine. 
   
  Garbage Mines send their steel columns deep into the earth and 
  churn up great mountains of trash that flow like a waterfall into 
  deep trenches. The 'miners' pan the flow – search through it, 
  looking for nuggets of value (something that was thrown away 
  unused... something that was re-usable). 
   
  The most common thing to find are spent batteries – little ones 
  (about the size of a dime) that powered the tiny electronics that 
  were woven into everyone's clothes, or sat behind the labels on 
  the stuff in the store. These batteries are re-chargeable, so if it's 
  worth your while and you have enough of them (volume! Volume! Volume!), you can make money at a garbage 
  mine. And of course, everyone dreams of finding a working smart gun and retiring. 
   
  Most garbage mines work on a profit sharing model – the miners pay the owner a fee to mine (closer to the 
  source, you pay more), and the owner buys the finds from the miners at a steep discount (called 'Right of First 
  Bid' in Middle Ring legal terms). For batteries and micro-antenna, and all the other 'common things' this is just a 
  simple transaction held at the end of each day or week (called "cashing out"), but for more exotic goods the 
  assessor is brought in. Assessors are men in tweed suits with utterly un-charming accountant-like features. They 
  are "experts" in history and science (uh-huh) and can recognize and tell the value of unusual goods.  Since their 
  salaries are paid for by the mine owner, the most common words out of their mouths tend to be, "It's broken. It's 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  26
  worthless. I'll give you a quarter credit for it." Assessors are hated by the garbage miners, who always imagine 
  that their 'worthless' find is really a shining artifact of the past. 
  Power Farms 
  A lot of towns farm vegetables. A few farm enough to export to other places that aren't so fertile, or even the 
  BoneYard. But the Age of Wonders left us with a Tesla-Grid: a world-wide network of invisible beamed power 
  that, mostly, stopped. But mostly is the key. In some places people, built PowerMills that can suck energy out of 
  the ghost of the old grid and fill batteries. These places have a whole field of things that look like a cross 
  between giant light bulbs, fifteen-foot tall vacuum tubes, and metallic spindly windmills. Even the BoneYard, 
  which has quite a lot of working power, still exports drained power cells to some of these places: if they sit on a 
  good grid-line, they can charge them up "for free." 
  Good Land 
  Most of the land is waste land: not good for anything. Land that can be used is good land and it breaks down into 
  farming land and grazing land; (usually both). Good Land is land that has decent ground water, actual soil, and 
  isn't toxic. In rare, beautiful places like that, grass grows. You can plant tubers (potatoes), wheat, maybe even 
  corn. You can also raise animals, herds of Hammerhead cattle for instance, or more interesting delicacies like 
  Rock Lobster. Farming is cyclical and tends to be migrant work. Herding is more of a full-time job, but there are 
  fewer jobs for cowboys than there are for farmers. 
   
  Subsistence farming is a little different. Here and there are patches of good land large enough to support a single 
  family or small group. In this case, there won't be a town as such (not enough produce for export), but if you've 
  gotta live in the desert, having a little postage stamp of greenery is a blessing... 
  Dinosaur Ranches 
  Okay, we're cheating: there are a lot of places that ranch things less sexy than dinosaurs, but if you've ever seen 
  one, with Brontosauruses grazing in the artificial wet-lands (they're killed with specially engineered viruses), 
  you'll never wonder why they get their own heading. Most ranches have nothing more exotic than Hammerhead 
  Cattle, which, when you think about it, is pretty exotic.  
   
  Ranch towns are characterized by Range Riders, probably the strongest archetype in the Ring. Out on horses 
  (or other, more exotic, riding beasts) the Range Rider is part cowboy, part gunslinger, part survivalist, and part 
  monster-hunter. They're also the posse for whatever master they serve.  
   
  What's In Your Average Town? 
  All a town really needs is its natural resources, apartments or dormitories for the workers, barracks for the 
  security forces, and a great house, up on the hill, where the landlord can look down on his domain... ah, but it's 
  never that simple is it? There need to be trucks and caravans to bring raw materials in and ship product out. 
  There need to be roads for those trucks and mechanics to fix them when they break. And an inn for travelers to 
  spend the night in. And a saloon for visitors (and the locals) to enjoy themselves. And then there's a general 
  store because people need to buy food and clothes... 
   
  And suddenly you've got a real town, clinging to the earth the way a plant in some hostile terrain might: its 
  shallow roots holding it in place against the strong winds. Here are some things you'll find there: 
   
  • 
  Auto Shop – The town mechanic, his apprentice, and maybe a couple of helpers. A big town might have 
  two or even more mechanics, but usually only one shop (competition would hurt everyone). 
  • 
  General Store – You can buy clothes, tools, necessities, and even common weapons here (hunting 
  rifles, hand guns). The general store is usually where the married women meet as they go about their 
  errands. 
  • 
  The Well – The well is near the center of town, and drawing water from it is a chore for young women 
  and teenage children. Before dawn, it's the center of cultural life. During the day, it's deserted. Anyone 
  unknown hanging out by the well is treated as very suspicious. In some cases it’s guarded. Be careful of 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  27
  these places: they usually fear conspirators that will poison it. In some cases that's justified. In others … 
  check out the section on superstition. 
  • 
  The Saloon, the Tavern, and the Cat House -The first two of these are in the center of town and cater to 
  visitors – truck drivers, merchants, traveling salesmen, and the like. The ones near the edge of town 
  (down by the factory) cater to the locals and are much cheaper, much dirtier, and way more wild.  
  • 
  The Undertaker – It's the whole circle of life thing. Sad, but necessary. 
  • 
  The Pharmacist – Most towns aren't lucky enough to have their own doctor. They probably do have a 
  pharmacist (some only have a bartender). If you need medicine, that's where you go. Pharmacists are 
  also good at splinting broken limbs and stopping the bleeding. Most charge a nominal fee to locals. 
   
  These are the local businesses. There are usually a few branch offices in big towns as well. 
   
  • 
  The Bank – A small town will have its own bank. A big town will have a branch office of one of the real 
  banks. These places are walled up (like little fortresses), have their own security, and usually drive 
  commerce. They also broker bounties and rewards (so if you're looking for work, you might visit the 
  branch office and see who's wanted this week). 
  • 
  The Union – That's the Teamster's Union. The Trucker's Guild. The supply chain is held together by 
  people willing to drive big, valuable targets through god-forsaken wilderness from one little town 
  to another. They're expensive, bad-tempered, no-nonsense, and absolutely necessary. The 
  Teamsters, their shotgun security details, and executives are considered cool. They're all about 
  business and all about danger. The Union is also usually the only place in town to buy gas. 
  • 
  The Chapel – Been bad lately? Need to atone? The Chapel oversees the spiritual life of the town. For 
  people who buy into it, it's a source of community and a drain on money. For those who don't, it's a 
  source of annoyance. Either way, the Congregation is there. 
   
  Finally, there are a few local services most towns have as well. 
   
  • 
  The Tower – The Radio Tower, in this case. The dusty wasteland of the Middle Ring, does not have an 
  Internet. Instead it has a wireless network of radio stations—transmitters and receivers—that connect 
  the tiny dots of civilization together. Most towns have a tower that broadcasts on a couple of frequencies 
  and serves a few purposes 
  o 
  Checking in: It's considered good manners to call ahead and let them know you're coming. Most 
  towns' radio office is manned 24/7 and calling ahead will avoid a chilly reception (or worse). 
  o 
  Checking out: Towns don't generally care when you leave but if you call out, they'll dutifully 
  make a record of it. This can be useful when you're broken down in the wasteland and you're 
  hoping for a rescue. 
  o 
  Registration: You can sign up for a callsign at any place on the network. Call sign information is 
  one of the few data transmissions that the towers deal with. Once you've registered the radio 
  operator can look you up on a dim green screen that'll tell things like when you registered, what 
  kind of car you drive, and if you're wanted or not. Note that your car probably has an automatic-
  VIN transmitter that registration can associate with you, your bank account, etc. 
  o 
  Warning Notice: When things get bad, the Tower transmits a warning notice. This can be a bio-
  quarantine, a warning about raiders in the area, or any other hazard that folks in town might 
  need to know about. 
  o 
  Log/Lat: The Towers serve as navigation beacons that endlessly broadcast their location and 
  identity at low power. This can be helpful if you're lost. 
  • 
  The Sheriff's Office – Towns have sheriffs and deputies and jails. Big towns have courthouses and small 
  towns send their criminals there for sentencing. Most places do not have prisons. Sentences tend to be 
  things they do to you and then let you go. Or things they do to you and then bury you. 
  • 
  Watch Tower – Stereotypically an old water-tower. In some cases they just build a hut on stilts. Either 
  way, the watch looks out on the main roads and maybe even a few back-roads. They've got an alarm 
  and a .30-caliber machine gun up there. If you don't call in when they contact you, the town militia 
  (whatever it consists of) will be waiting. 
  • 
  A Road Sign – It's not a service per-se, but townships take it very seriously. Usually a sign, and often 
  one of those metallic green and white reflective highway signs on a metal joist, will be a sign that there's 
  a town a few miles up the road.  
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  28
  Rules in the Middle Ring 
  Travel isn't usually all that dangerous if you have an armed vehicle (unlike the Inner Wasteland). While there are 
  things that'll attack an armored convoy, they're considered horrifying aberrations rather than 'yeah, we expected 
  that.' That still doesn't mean a traveler in the Ring can let their guard down. 
   
  Mostly, if you’re driving, you're the only car on the road (until you get to some place where something big is 
  happening then there's a traffic jam of armed vehicles!). If you're going from town to town, here's an encounter 
  table. Roll once for any trip—but roll again for each 3 hours of travel. 
   
  The positive modifiers are location based. 
  • 
  Driving near either edge is +2 usually. However make another roll: on a 15+, it's a bad time to be near 
  that edge and roll 1 dice and add 1 for the positive modifier. 
  • 
  Driving near a ruin is +1 to +5. 
  • 
  Driving in the Freq Corridor is +5. Near the outer edge of the Freq Corridor is +7: but the highest you get 
  is a bunch of Freqs (21 is the max). 
  • 
  Bandit activity will give a +1 to +4 but the usually maximum is 19 (although more sophisticated bandit 
  outfits do exist). 
   
  Encounter Roll 
  Roll 
  Danger 
  0-16 
  Not dangerous to mounted characters 
  17  
  Harass a car 
  18 
  Something that could take on a car ("serious") 
  19 
  Something that could harass a light convoy 
  20 
  Something that could take on a light convoy 
  21 
  Something that could harass a heavy convoy 
  22-26 
  Something that could take on a heavy convoy 
  27 
  Something that could harass the Bone Yard 
   
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  29 
   
  Life in the Inner Wasteland 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Why? The ecology of 
  Wonders 
  Was the Age of Wonders called 
  that because the predominant 
  emotion was awe? No. The 
  predominant emotion might have 
  been greed or It might have been 
  envy but it wasn't awe. The Age of 
  Wonders was so full of miracles 
  nobody cared anymore. It's called 
  the Age of Wonders because that's 
  what it was – an Age of Wonders. 
   
  The Wonders where what the 
  Haves gave to us. They, 
  themselves, used technologies as 
  far beyond the Wonders as the 
  Wonders were beyond our 
  understanding of conventional 
  technology. 
   
  Each dome, it is said, held a stable 
  fusion reaction. Not for power, for 
  they simply sucked power out of 
  void itself—but because the idea of 
  a captive star pleased them in an 
  artistic sense. 
   
  It is said that their very 
  communication itself risked havoc 
  with the laws of time and causality, 
  and that that they didn't care. But 
  whatever the case was for them 
  what they gave us was toys to play 
  with.  
   
  Raw materials came out of the 
  Distro-Points (as well as complete 
  goods and foodstuffs). The great 
  bulk of material that came out had 
  to be processed. The processing 
  took place in vast above ground 
  and underground robotic factories, 
  assembly plants, and refineries.  
   
  The wonder metal Neonium was 
  milled. Spools of Superconductor 
  were pressed into sub-micron 
  circuitry boards. Kinetic inducers 
  were fitted with nuclear-bonding 
  processes to the devices they 
  would act as hover pods for. This 
  was done by robot, but it was 
  managed by man. Perhaps the 
  Haves simply gave us something to 
  do. 
  Rudy's on the midway 
  and Jacob's in the hole 
  the monkey's on the ladder 
  the devil shovels coal 
  with crows as big as airplanes 
  the lion has three heads 
  and someone will eat the skin that he sheds 
  and the earth died screaming 
  the earth died screaming 
  while I lay dreaming of you 
  -- Earth Died Screaming, Tom Waits 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  30 
  Between the BoneYard and the Middle Ring lies the Inner Wasteland. It's a 
  roughly (very roughly) circular area about five hundred miles in diameter. 
  The Inner Wasteland isn't just a poisoned desert (it is that, too) it's the stain 
  on the world that's the price the Bone Yard makes everyone else pay to 
  keep the tiny, dull flame of the Age of Wonders from going out entirely. 
   
  Welcome to the Wasteland. It... 
  Stinks. The air smells like heavy oil, burnt rubber, and strange 
  indescribable chemicals. It smells bad, and your body knows it's no place 
  for a living creature. Some people vomit when they first smell it up close. 
  No one ever forgets it. 
   
  Seethes. Empty? Devoid of life? No. Devoid of natural life, but the Inner 
  Wasteland is full of alternative ecologies. The things that grow in this God-
  forsaken place leave no doubt that something horrible has happened here. 
  The plants are ugly. The animals (if you can call them that; most folks 
  would say monsters) are vicious. Life is cheap and violent. In the nightmare 
  ecology of the Inner Wasteland, death is a mercy. The evolutionary 
  strategy that most Inner Wasteland life forms take is breed fast and 
  consume frantically. Things in the Inner Wasteland swarm; they hunt 
  hysterically, as though they're born ravenous and they know time is limited. 
   
  Hisses. Literally. The ground is unstable. Sinkholes open unexpectedly 
  and swallow whole convoys (off road ones). The mudflats shatter and  
  steam (not water steam, but bilious, white, chemical fumes) rise up through 
  them in the sweltering summer months. The ground sounds mean and it is. 
   
  Consumes. Much of the air, the gravel, the sand and the rocks are acidic. 
  In some places, there are even lakes of acid, rivers of corrosion. Metals, 
  even advanced metals, tarnish and rust. Stop moving for a few weeks, and 
  vines grow over you. By the next season, there's nothing left. Corpses 
  found after a few days appear burnt. The Inner Wasteland devours. 
   
  But it consumes in another way as well. It grows, slowly, as the stain of its 
  existence spreads through the world. Each year, the twisted weeds are 
  found a little further in the Middle Ring. Each year the poison clouds that 
  roll out of it on hot, harsh winds come a little closer. The folks in The Ring 
  who live next door to it will tell you—it's hungry and it's getting bigger. 
   
  Burns. A lot of the chemicals that flow into the Wasteland are flammable. 
  Many more become flammable when they're processed by the bizarre, 
  chemosyntheic life forms that thrive there. In some places a spark can 
  ignite a raging ground fire or even a fire storm that rolls over the landscape, 
  taking everything in its path. On almost any night, if you look out at the 
  horizon, you'll see smoldering flames belching heavy black smoke into the 
  night sky. 
   
  It burns invisibly, too. The Inner Wasteland is radioactive. The ambient 
  energy is about 10,000 mrem/year (10,000 mili-rems per year). This is a 
  chronic dose, meaning it comes at you constantly, but at a low level. Your 
  body has a chance to recover and repair. Radiation in the Inner Wasteland 
  isn't a Zap! You're dead! kind of deal. Rather, it's a slow process that burns 
  your body from the inside out. 
  Why? The ecology of 
  Wonders ConT'D 
  And we did—we did in excess of 
  what the initial plans had called for. 
  Did the Distro Points fail? No. 
   
  They did worse: They were a 
  never-empty cornucopia of 
  material, consumer goods, and 
  food. In the Age of Wonders, 
  humanity pushed as hard as it 
  could and the Distro-Points (and 
  their Have creators) simply gave. 
   
  But there was a consequence: The 
  working of the material was 
  industrial. Refineries bled smoke 
  and poison and heavy metals. 
  Perhaps when the Haves 
  envisioned this they considered 
  that mankind might simply restrain 
  itself. Perhaps they thought they 
  would be around to clean it up (it is 
  believed they could, in the event of 
  eco-catastrophe simply "reboot" the 
  biosphere). Maybe they knew what 
  would happen but did not care. 
   
  In any event, the industrial machine 
  ran day and night and in the end at 
  the time of collapse, the seas were 
  slate gray with pollution, the air was  
  purified for the cities, but columns 
  of ash curled in the upper 
  atmosphere and the land gave birth 
  to straggling mutations. Had the 
  domes not gone dark, humanity 
  might have pressed on. 
   
  The last refineries of Wonders in 
  the world exists in and under the 
  BoneYard. The wastes that are 
  produced, vomited out of the 
  subterranean tubes and belched 
  into the sky, are the last poisoned 
  gasps of the Age of Wonders.  
   
  And they are the toxic "life's blood" 
  that flows through the hellscape of 
  the Inner Wasteland. The 
  Hierarchy, sitting on the vast 
  resources of dominance and 
  power, runs the systems day and 
  night and their domain struggles on 
  under a smog-darkened sky and 
  around them the earth itself writhes 
  in the flow of poison. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  31 
   
  The Ecology of the Inner Wasteland 
  In terms of climate (temperature, annual rainfall, latitude) the Inner 
  Wasteland is a desert. But in terms of biomass (the amount of "living" 
  material in a region), it is a jungle. Within the known world, there is no 
  other place with so much life. 
   
  But the life forms of the Inner Wasteland are perverse. They are 
  unnatural, hostile, even sadistic in their own idiot way. And alien. The 
  Inner Wasteland is a squirming cauldron of monsters – hostile to each 
  other, but even more hostile to "natural" life that might wander in. 
   
  This is not to say that they have no purpose. It would be wrong to say that 
  the life forms of the Inner Wasteland were engineered (they were not)  but 
  they do provide a necessary and important service. 
   
  They are dependent on the flow of toxic chemicals. Their biologies 
  consume heavy metals, plastics, and radiation the same way that ours 
  process protein and water. As hostile as their ecosphere is to us, our 
  ecosphere is to them. 
  Chemosynthesis 
  Most of the animals of the Inner Wasteland are capable of processing the 
  poisons in their environment to produce energy and other, far less 
  reactive (and less toxic) byproducts. Chlorides are broken down into 
  carbon dioxide and salt. Methane compounds are decomposed into 
  nitrogen gas. These biological processes are dependant on large 
  amounts of complex, artificial chemicals. These creatures need the poison 
  geysers and sludge-filled rivers to survive. 
  Ergovorics 
  There's a lot of energy floating around the Inner Wasteland, most of it in 
  the form of ionizing radiation. While ionizing radiation is harmful to natural 
  organisms, the life forms of the Inner Wasteland absorb it and consume it 
  the way plants use sunlight. Acute dosages of ionizing radiation are still 
  deadly to any biological organism; the radiation energy tears apart the 
  chemical structures that create and sustain life. But for the beasts of the 
  Inner Wasteland, chronic dosages that would kill a human sustain them. 
  Carnivorous 
  Of course it isn't all clean-up duty and powerconsumption. If you're meat 
  out there, you're dead meat. The food chain has several peaks out there 
  and even the things that don't metabolize proteins will still kill you for fun. 
  It's that kind of place. 
   
  'Cause it's the new Mother 
  Nature taking over 
  It's the new Splendid Lady 
  come to call 
  It's the new Mother Nature 
  taking over 
  She's gettin' us all 
  She's gettin' us all... 
  -- No Sugar Tonight, Burton 
  Cummmings 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  32 
   
  Making The Run: Getting Through the Wasteland 
  The Run is 250 mile stretch of screaming terror between the ‘Yard and the 
  Middle Ring. The Run is what the convoys and their scouts make to bring 
  life-giving supplies from the Distro-Point to the towns and outposts that 
  still cling to life in the desert. The Run is how the ‘Yard maintains real, 
  physical contact with the outside world. Maybe the ‘Yard could exist 
  without the Ring or anything else, but a lot of people think that the day the 
  ‘Yard stops looking outward is the day it starts dying. 
   
  The Run has a reputation. If you've made it, people respect that. If you've 
  made it a lot, people look at you a little differently. Most people wouldn't 
  even attempt it. People who do, and don't do it right, tend to die. Even 
  experts don't always come out the other side. 
   
  The Run means different things to different people. If you're a small group 
  no one's ever heard of, it's still dangerous (and making it through is still 
  respected), but statistically, it's not suicide – most of the people who try it 
  get through. Hell, most of the people who try it don't even run into trouble. 
  But in the Inner Wasteland, when trouble comes, it comes on hard and it's 
  ruthless and merciless and hungry. When you're making the run, you're 
  taking a risk and if you're even a little unlucky, goodbye. 
   
  If you're somebody, though, The Run is a little different. There are a 
  limited number of approaches to the Yard – the major highways – and a 
  vast amount of wealth flows along them. Everything from the Distro-Point 
  that makes it to the Middle Ring runs along those highways. It's the 
  Convoys and the Bandits that give The Run its near-mythical status. 
  Making the Run One-on-One 
  Technically, any time you drive through the Inner Wasteland in either 
  direction, you're "making the Run." They call it "the run" rather than "the 
  drive" or "the trip" because people who want to live through it tend to 
  maintain an average speed of around 120mph the whole way. As you 
  approach the edge of the "safe zone" you put the pedal down and make 
  time. 
   
  There are other defenses, of course, other than speed. You can count on 
  being tough enough to absorb whatever's thrown at you. You can count 
  on shooting first and hitting decisively. These are good approaches, but 
  they're almost always secondary. If you make the run regularly, you want 
  speed – and intelligence. 
  Random Threats 
  If no one's gunning for you (more on that later), what you've got to worry 
  about are "random threats." They're not really random, of course, but they 
  seem that way. The Insurance Conglomerates in the Yard figure it this 
  way: a nobody has about a 1% chance of running into trouble per hour 
  spent cruising on the major highways in the Inner Wasteland. 
   
  Sample Encounters 
  In the Inner 
  Wasteland 
  Not everything you could meet 
  in the IW is a fight, but a lot of it 
  is, and it's never too easy to tell 
  when that broken down motorist 
  is for real or is just someone 
  trying to get you to stop. 
   
  Things and people you might 
  meet: 
   
  Executive Transport: Two 
  vehicles—one heavily armored 
  "luxury model" and one 
  Humvee with a rocket pod and 
  a laser gun spells executive 
  transport. Don't expect them to 
  stop if you're broken down (they 
  might radio back for help). 
  Chances are any attempt to flag 
  down a BoneYard executive 
  who has the displeasure of 
  doing business outside the city 
  limits will give the order to fire. 
   
  MINA: Motorist In Need of 
  Assistance (also pronounced 
  Minor). Sometimes it's a trap, 
  sometimes is a person in 
  desperate need of a pickup. 
  Sometimes if you're the 
  motorist, the guy who stops and 
  tells you to approach his vehicle 
  empty handed plans to kill you 
  and sell your ride for salvage. 
  Hard to say, y'know? 
   
  Refugees: People make the 
  journey to the Yard for a 
  number of reasons. Sometimes 
  you see an unarmed, barely 
  running mini-bus loaded with 
  gear doing the best it can 
  (65mph) down the center of the 
  road. Those people are 
  refugees who've split the Middle 
  Ring probably because they've 
  been told they can get work in 
  the 'Yard. It's almost always a 
  scam, but if you escort them in, 
  you'll stop them from dying on 
  the road. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is 
  granted. 
   
  33 
  If you're off road, the odds go up. If you're poking around in the ruins 
  (especially Falstaff), the odds go way up. If you're on foot, or whatever, 
  forget about it. Different odds, different kinds of trouble. 
   
  But if you're moving fairly quickly and you look like an armored car, you 
  have a pretty good chance of going right through. 
  What Random Threats Look Like 
  Your basic threats are Monsters, Robots, and Bandits. Since these things 
  don't make their lairs in the middle of the road and we're assuming they're 
  not laying in wait for you (see below), if you see them during the run, it 
  means they're out wandering about.  
   
  Here's a table that suggests the odds of running into random threats of 
  varying degrees of danger. The danger rating assumes you're a couple of 
  "technicals" – civilian vehicles outfitted with light weapons (machine guns, 
  lasers) and small amounts of armor. 
   
  If you're tooling around in a main battle tank with a fully operational force 
  field, an "ultra lethal" encounter might not even be an inconvenience. 
    
  Two Rolls 
   
  0-4 
  5-10 
  11-15 
  16-20 
  0-4 
  Ultra Lethal 
  Dangerous 
  Dangerous 
  Ultra Lethal 
  5-10 
  Deadly 
  Average 
  Average 
  Deadly 
  11-15 
  Deadly 
  Average 
  Average 
  Deadly 
  16-20 
  Ultra Lethal 
  Dangerous 
  Dangerous 
  Strange 
  Wandering Monsters 
  Every so often, the local flora and fauna will take an interest in the 
  highways. Mostly, they respect them; even animals can sense that the 
  Haves built those roads, and are smart enough to stay away. But not 
  always. Most of the animals in the Inner Wasteland are smart enough not 
  to attack a big metal thing moving at 60+ miles per hour. They'll wait in the 
  bushes by the roadside and hope you have a flat-tire.  
   
  So if you do run into a monster it means: 
   
  1) It thinks it can take you, or 
  2) It's the sort of thing that thinks a car might make a good meal 
   
  As dangerous as the Inner Wasteland is, most of the animals in it don't fall 
  into both of those categories. 
   
  One Roll 
  Examples 
  Dangerous 
  Deadly 
  Ultra Lethal 
  0-4 
  Omnivores 
  Rad Serpent 
  Greater Terror 
  5-10 
  10 Mass Sludge 
  Lesser Terror 
  300 Mass Sludge 
  11-15 
  HCL Swarm 
  Lesser Terror 
  Cyber Terror 
  16-20 
  Lesser Terror 
  C-Rex 
  Greater Terror 
  Sample Encounters In 
  the Inner Wasteland 
  Cont'd 
   
  Pilgrims: The Church of the 
  Congregation doesn't exactly 
  want people to come to its Holy 
  City. For one thing, a lot of them 
  die en-route. For another, when 
  you get there, it's a massive, 
  massive garbage dump and 
  disease ridden outdoor camping 
  grounds. There are too many of 
  the faithful there already. But folks 
  just want to make the journey 
  anyway.  
   
  The kinds of outfits that take 
  people there are iffy to begin with. 
  There's a lot of pilgrim dumping 
  that happens down south, and 
  you sometimes run into the 
  survivors. There's also some good 
  old-fashioned breakdowns and 
  predator-prey stuff (the pilgrim 
  busses are usually poorly armed) 
  going on. 
   
  Freelance: You'll see a moderate 
  number of vehicles making the 
  run solo (or just about) with 
  professional radio call-sign and 
  pretty good arms. These are 
  usually freelancers of some sort 
  and it's good to give them a 
  check-in before you pass 'em. 
  Mainly people on their own 
  business don't want trouble, but 
  do want to know who's coming at 
  them at 120mph. 
   
  Ano:  That means anomaly. You'll 
  hear about it on the radio. 
  Sometimes there's a never-before 
  seen machine in the middle of the 
  super-highway—non-aggressive, 
  just sitting there calling for 
  maintenance on ancient channels. 
  Sometimes you get a damaged 
  entertainment robot that's 
  wandered out of the ruins up onto 
  the road. Anomalies can happen 
  anywhere. Just don't trust them. 
  
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  34 
  Wandering Robots 
  Robots are like monsters, but a little less random. The robots in the Inner 
  Wasteland tend to be relics from the Age of War. There were a number of 
  significant battles fought in and around the Yard (especially toward the 
  end, when it became clear that the Yard was going to be the Last Distro-
  Point standing), and many of the armies out there are still fighting it. 
   
  Robots tend to see everything as a valid target, and at their worst, they 
  launch coordinated attacks from the wilderness.  
   
  One Roll 
  Examples 
  Average 
  Dangerous 
  Ultra Lethal 
  0-4 
  Mech Turtle 
  5 Mech Turtles 
  Crawler Robot 
  5-10 
  2 Mech Turtles 
  Combine 
  Slaughter Pod 
  11-15 
  Rocket Turtle 
  5 Rust Soldiers 
  Cyber Terror 
  16-20 
  1 Rust Soldier 
  2 Combines 
  Mech-abomination 
  Bandits 
  Almost no one lives in the Inner Wasteland. Almost no one operates in 
  there on a regular basis. It's just too damn dangerous. When bandits go 
  in, they usually go in for a reason—to lay an ambush for a specific convoy 
  (see below). 
   
  If you run into bandits "randomly" it could mean they're there for another 
  reason and you're a target of opportunity, or you might just have gotten 
  unlucky. Bandits are usually reasonable fellows with a rock-solid profit 
  motive. If you look dangerous, they might just send you on your way or 
  engage in a little friendly extortion. Even if they're pretty sure they can 
  take you, they might just let you roll on through to avoid giving themselves 
  away. 
   
  One Roll 
  Examples 
  Average 
  Dangerous 
  Ultra Lethal 
  0-4 
  Scavengers 
  Vehicular Ambush 
  Convoy Ambush 
  5-10 
  Scavengers 
  Vehicular Trap 
  Psychotics 
  11-15 
  Highwaymen 
  Vehicular Trap 
  Psychotics 
  16-20 
  Highwaymen 
  Vehicular Ambush 
  Convoy Ambush 
  Ambush 
  What really gives The Run its name is the fear of ambush. When the 18-
  wheelers roll out, heading for the Water Baronies or Congregation City, 
  they're loaded with stuff. Valuable stuff. Necessary stuff. If you're a bandit, 
  "the” big score, the score of a lifetime is a convoy. It's something every 
  bandit dreams about and its something a lot of them feel is worth dying 
  for. 
   
  To really understand what The Run means to a convoy, you need to look 
  at it from a Bandit's point of view. 
   
  Convoys come in different shapes and sizes, but your basic convoy holds 
  about 100,000 credits worth of goods and materials, and some convoys 
  carry as much as one million credits. You can't sell it for that much, of 
  Bandits 
  There are a few trends in the 
  Bandit business. It's hard to make 
  any real generalizations, but here 
  are some rules of thumb. 
   
  Scavengers: Scavengers won't 
  attack you to stop you, but they 
  will move in and brutally 
  massacre you if you already are 
  stopped. Sometimes these guys 
  will kill you for your tires. 
   
  Highwaymen: The term for small 
  time bandits with a lightly armed 
  vehicle that make a living 
  relieving refugees with unarmed 
  vehicles of their rides and goods. 
  They usually don't need to 
  slaughter their prey. They just 
  leave them by the roadside and 
  the Inner Wasteland does the 
  rest. 
   
  Vehicular Ambush: One step up 
  is an armed vehicle with a decent 
  driver and gunner that tries to 
  either extort a toll or just take 
  incoming vehicles. If you're 
  damaged from a previous fight 
  you're even tastier prey. Usually 
  the vehicle is in the 4000c range. 
   
  Vehicular Trap: Lay some wire 
  down on the road or some mines. 
  Maybe "snipe" with a rocket 
  launcher. Whatever the case, 
  these guys are laying in wait just 
  down an off-ramp (not too far 
  down) and they plan to get you 
  out of your ride. If you see a 
  rusted wreck of a bus blocking 3 
  lanes, ask to yourself how it got 
  there since it's obviously an old 
  hulk. It was towed. 
   
  Convoy Ambush: Run into one 
  of these and you come under 
  combined arms fire, multiple 
  vehicular guns, and section 
  commanders who want you dead 
  before you can squeal. 
  
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  35 
  course, if you’re a Bandit, but even a fraction of a million credits is the last 
  payday you'll ever need. 
   
  Convoys are dangerous. All that loot is protected by big guns and 
  experienced guards. But where there's a will, there's a way. 
   
  The "basic strategy" is not to try to take down the whole convoy, but, 
  rather to plan on crippling one or two of the big rigs. The convoy's insured, 
  and once the rig's stopped, they'll probably evacuate the survivors (the 
  driver, the gunners) and leave it to the wolves. 
   
  Less modest bandits go for the "big play" and try to take down the whole 
  thing in an apocalyptic firefight to the death. 
   
  The Basic Strategy requires about 30 very well armed people to have 
  even a reasonable chance. For a big play, you want a battalion. 
   
  These numbers assume your basic ambush. Your firepower is spread out 
  along the highway, back about 20 yards, laying low until the rigs thunder 
  into view. They assume you fire at the right time and at the right target, 
  and they assume you're going to take some casualties. 
  Theory and Practice 
  The jury's still out on the best way to lay an ambush. Some folks say you 
  set up a roadblock on the blind side of an overpass. Of course, if 
  someone does see it coming, it's a dead giveaway, and the ambush might 
  turn around before they're in position. 
   
  Other folks say that you concentrate all your fire on the rigs and ignore the 
  entourage cars. This has the advantage of quickly crippling a truck. It has 
  the disadvantage of letting the security forces fire back at you 
  unmolested. 
   
  Some folks say it's best to fire at the wheels and engines. Take out the 
  machines, let the people go. Others aim for a high kill ratio; if they don't 
  surrender the goodies, make them pay. 
   
  Surviving the Ambush
  The Bandits argue about "how to do it" in their seedy bars and saloons 
  and hideouts. The Teamsters have no difference of opinion: If you're in an 
  ambush, being shot at, you've done something wrong. For them, it's all 
  about prevention. Sure, they can shoot their way out, and often do, but 
  once the bullets start flying, anything can happen. 
  Counter Intelligence: The First Line of 
  Defense 
  If you don't want to be ambushed, don't let anyone know when you're 
  leaving, what route you're taking, or what you're carrying. Loose lips and 
  all that. What's a ship? Of course, keeping secrets is hard and there's a lot 
  of people paying for data. So for the really big shipments, expect that 
  someone's going to leak. 
  Bandits Cont'd 
   
  Psychotics: There's actually a 
  term for people of a certain bent 
  who live to fight on the roadways. 
  Most of these people are cult-
  leaders and have a great deal of 
  money at their disposal. They 
  often style themselves after the 
  ancient warlords of old, and they 
  have the rides to make that stick. 
  If you run into a Psychotic, you 
  are in a telecast battle against a 
  wealthy expert driver with a 
  deadly machine. His disciples are 
  back in the 'Yard cheering him 
  on. But you, you usually gotta 
  high-tail it out of there since the 
  war-machines the Psychotics 
  drive are often more than a match 
  for a standard battle vehicle. 
   
  Talking Your Way Out of an 
  Ambush 
  The good news about running 
  into a Psychotic or a Convoy 
  Ambush is that if, say, you're a 
  Refugee, you stand more of a 
  chance than a moderately 
  powerful vehicle with a lot of 
  sensors. Psychotics and Convoy-
  style ambushes don't waste time 
  gunning down refugees, and 
  even if you spot the convoy-
  ambush, they'll rarely just kill you 
  out of spite. 
   
  On the other hand, if the 
  Vehicular Ambush goes down 
  and 'Dark Star' has just pulled out 
  behind you and raised the 
  electronic Jolly Roger, and you 
  respond by asking him what he'd 
  like on his tombstone—and you're 
  convincing—he might choose 
  easier prey. Persuade and 
  Intimidate rolls can be very 
  helpful for talking one's way out of 
  an ambush. And really, more than 
  one scavenger has discovered 
  that even a bunch of skilled 
  experienced killers from the 
  Middle Ring can have their truck 
  break down, that doesn't mean 
  they've forgotten how to shoot. 
  
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  granted. 
   
  36 
  Intelligence: The Second Line of Defense 
  Knowing what's coming is usually all it takes to avoid trouble. Putting 
  together an ambush is a lot of work. Very few clubs (what Bandits call 
  their outfits) can put together a major one by themselves. Spies, bribes, 
  and signal intelligence goes a long way toward keeping things safe. If you 
  know what they're planning, you simply go around, And the ‘Yard might 
  dispatch a security team to teach them a lesson. 
   
  But even keeping your mouth shut and your ear to the ground isn't 
  enough to ensure safe passage. So when you run, you need real-time 
  look-ahead intel, and the way to get that is with a scout. 
  Scouts: The Last Line of Prevention 
  Up ahead, maybe a mile, maybe less, of the Convoy, there's a small, 
  sleek car running quiet and running fast. It's a scout, and it's looking and 
  listening. It's loaded with sensors, some passive (listening) and some 
  active (scanning) into the jungle and up the road ahead. Laser arrays and 
  radars probe the foliage for hard, reflective surfaces (armor, metal). 
  Scanners probe the radio spectrum looking for encrypted broadcasts. 
  Infrared cameras search the sky for heat rising from idling engine blocks 
  or exposed power sources. 
   
  The Scout's job is to see trouble before it's too late. If it does, if the Scout 
  makes out the Ambush, then the convoy captain can decide what action 
  to take.  Fight? Run? Hold back? With a scout up ahead, the game 
  changes considerably. 
  A Scout's Life 
  Scouts play an integral role the life of the ‘Yard and the Middle Ring. They 
  reduce the risk of running convoys through the Wasteland to the point 
  where it's profitable to do so. In return for this, they're envied and 
  worshiped. Scouts live fast, get paid well, and (often) die young. 
   
  When your job involves driving into an ambush designed to put a dent in, 
  or take out, a major convoy, you're really playing with your life. Scout cars 
  are loaded with defensive and offensive options as well as state of the art 
  sensor gear. But if you've spoiled their ambush, they're going to try hard 
  to kill you. To survive, scouts rely on a few factors: 
   
  • 
  Speed. Scouts drive fast normally, but once they've spotted 
  trouble, they blaze. You're harder to hit at 200 mph, and the less 
  time spent in the "kill zone," the better 
  • 
  Sensors. Life is good if you see the ambush before you get there. 
  Sensor output analysis is about 80% automated (computers 
  observe the radar and IR readings, looking for trace evidence of 
  something out there), but the 20% 'human element' can be a real 
  life saver 
  • 
  Backup. Big Rigs carry big guns and (often) artillery and over-the-
  horizon rockets. Scout sensor arrays can hook into the rig's firing 
  systems and transmit coordinates back to the convoy. There's 
  nothing like dropping heavy cannon fire on an ambush as you fly 
  past at top speed to make you smile. 
  
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  37 
  Scout's Honor 
  The dark side of the scouts is the convoy's trust and reliance on them. A 
  compromised scout could lead a convoy into an ambush blind. If someone 
  even thinks you've taken a payoff, your career is over and maybe your life 
  is too. Playing hard, being proud, even being a big-headed jerk are all 
  forgivable (and even expected), but if your reputation for honor is 
  compromised, you'll never work again. 
  Scout's Pride 
  Being a scout costs a lot of money (it's all about the car, baby), and the 
  really high-paying gigs are rare. Most scouts get by leading VIPs in and 
  out of the Wasteland or shepherding independent merchants. That pays 
  the bills, but doesn't leave much for the high life that most scouts feel 
  they're entitled to. 
   
  Getting a job running point for a super-convoy means being one of the 
  best. At any given time, there are, maybe, 10 top-talents in the ‘Yard. 
  Those "top ten" get the best jobs, the best treatment, and the best money. 
  How do you get into the Top Ten? 
   
  Mainly, you take small jobs and prove your way up, but you also race. 
  Being a Top-Ten scout is a lot about skill—driving skill, skill with sensors, 
  and so on. Scouts regularly run against each other in the dense urban 
  traffic of the ‘Yard. That, by itself, is crazy (a lot of Scouts die that way), 
  but being crazy and taking huge risks, and making them pay is what being 
  a Scout is all about. 
   
  If you're not Top Ten, you live to run against one. You issue challenges. 
  You boast. You talk shit. Anything to get his attention. And when you've 
  got it, you've gotta beat him. 
   
  If you are Top Ten, you hang on to it. That means taking challenges that 
  matter. The ones that people might wonder about if you didn't. 
  Sensor Rules 
  To see a bunch of Bandits standing in plain view at the side of the road, 
  you don't even need to make a perception roll – you just see them. It's 
  rarely that simple though. 
   
  Hiding and Camouflage 
  Setting up an ambush means hiding. Here are some common modifiers 
   
  • 
  Time. One hour +1, 8 hours + 2, 24 or more hours +3 
  • 
  Size. Hiding cars gives a -3 
  • 
  Basic cover (hiding in the bushes) – no bonus or negative. Your basic roll 
  assumes you're hiding in the bushes. This usually means being 10 yards 
  or more from the road. 
  • 
  Deep cover (hiding way back in the bushes) – if you're more than 30 
  yards from the road, you get +2 to your camouflage roll 
  • 
  Netting. If you have camouflage netting you can get a quick +2 to your 
  roll. This does not stack with time bonuses; in 8 hours, you can cover 
  yourselves with mud and get the same bonus. 
  • 
  Numbers. If any members of your ambush are in cars, you get -3 (this is 
  the size modifier listed above, not an additional -3) 
  
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  38 
   
  Flora and Fauna 
  In the category of things you really don't want to meet, the Inner 
  Wasteland is pretty much the grand champion. It's not that everything is  
  so vicious (assault robots are vicious). It's not that everything is so deadly 
  (a C-Rex is pretty damn deadly), It’s that everything that lives there is 
  either poisonous or infectious or radioactive. There's no way to cover all of 
  it. Here's some of it. 
   
  Ozone Grass 
  I 
  Possibly the least offensive of the things you'll find 
  out in the Wasteland is the Ozone Grass. They're 
  really more like purple ferns and weeds. They 
  don't use the sun for most of their energy—and 
  where it gets dense, the Ozone Grass can grow 
  like twisted multi-canopy trees. Don't eat it: it'll kill 
  you. 
   
  Sulfur 
  Dioxide 
  Vines 
  I 
  These ubiquitous twisty vines more like little spiny 
  tentacles of razor-wire. And yes, they sweat a blood 
  toxin. Their flowers, if you take a good whiff, will do 
  you in too. 
   
  Lead Trees 
  " I 
  The Lead Trees grow up like purple clusters with 
  "leaf-like" nodes at the top. They get 40' tall and 
  they can be almost indestructible. They're loaded 
  with heavy metals so don't touch them. But even 
  worse, the microbes in the pods are extremely 
  hazardous. They're also pressurized, so if you 
  puncture one of them (and they're easy to puncture, 
  so watch where you’re going) the whole area is 
  covered in an explosion of toxic microbes. 
   
  Hydrogen 
  Chloride 
  Crawlers 
  I! 
  Now we're getting somewhere—closer to the top of the 
  foodchain, anyway. The HCl crawlers are about 1-3 yards 
  long, not including tentacles, and a swarm can have a 
  few hundred. They'll eat through your hull if they can 
  reach you and then … then you're lunch. 
   
   
  Guide to bio-Hazards 
  I 
  " 
  _ 
  Toxic 
  Bio-
  Hazard 
  Radiation 
  
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  39 
   
  Nitrogen 
  Oxide 
  Worms 
  I! 
  The NO Worms are sometimes harvested for their use 
  in making racing machines, but they're volatile, 
  flammable, and hostile so it's not recommended. They 
  can burrow through the mudflats and sometimes sun-
  themselves on the lower roadways and exit ramps. 
  Don't puncture one: They vent a flammable gas in an 
  explosive fashion. And they bite, hard. 
   
  Cadmium 
  Eels 
  I_ 
  Cadmium eels are about 9 inches long and live and 
  swarm in the streams of toxic waste that flow above and 
  under ground. They do not bite, but contain powerful 
  radioactive cores. When they detect movement above 
  the liquid they swim in, they "pulse," generating a flash 
  of deadly radiation. A large school can cook a person. 
   
  
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  40 
   
  The BoneYard: Life in the Big City 
  It’s the world’s last megapolis, the city to end all cities—black and gray, 
  towering into its own soot-blackened, fire-scarred sky and dominating the 
  toxic mega-wasteland of the Inner Waste around it. It’s the seat of a 
  dubiously moral superpower and home to a violent, predatorily capitalist 
  ecosystem. It’s everything you were ever afraid of in a city—to the nth 
  degree. It’s also, probably, humanity’s last hope for survival. 
   
  The Emmerson Grid-Way Overpass.  One of the many entrances to the driving zone known as the corkscrew, a 
  mathematical zone of hyper-lethality. See SA-Spike analysis. Psy-Op Factors: Fear, Confusion, Distraction, Sensory 
  Overload, Single-Eye Targeting Optical Illusion, Cell-Com Units, Narcotic/Depressants.  
   
  Major Statistical Hazards: Vehicular Weapons Fire, Running an Armed Toll, Duel with Traffic Authority Gunship, Driving 
  Too Slow in the Fast Lanes. 
    
   
  
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  personal use is granted. 
   
  41 
  Life in the BoneYard is … 
  Confusing. From the notorious corkscrew highway nexus where you 
  can fall to your death (and right into somebody’s junkyard) just for 
  driving too slow in the fast lane to the Byzantine toll plazas where 
  inexperienced drivers get killed by machine gun fire for winding up in 
  the wrong toll-road, it’s hard to find your way around. It’s a 3-D 
  Escher style maze of catwalks and crosswalks and intersecting 
  roads and rat-warren apartments and condemned buildings. Even 
  seasoned citizens can get turned around in the underground bazaars 
  or get lost in the twisted industrial corridors that run through the city. 
   
  Dangerous. Oh yeah. It’s dangerous. When you step out of the 
  Inner Wasteland, people start sizing you up. You might be a disease 
  ridden, smaller-than-bite-sized, not-even-a-snack to a megavore in 
  the Inner Waste—but you’re a refugee with a medi-card once you get 
  out of processing and that means someone wants to be your “friend.” 
   
  Fast. Life in the Fast Lane? Everyday, overtime? That’s the Yard. It’s 
  sink or swim and the undertow is strong and the bottom’s full of 
  razorblades. The ‘Yard doesn’t sleep because everyone’s running 
  too fast trying to stay awake, trying to stay alive. They say getting 
  downsized is as statistically dangerous as getting shot. That’s 
  because a lot of the time getting downsized means getting shot. 
   
  Pragmatic. They say there’s no superstition in the ‘Yard. They’d 
  sacrifice virgins if they thought it’d help, but mostly they stick to tried 
  and true methods of screw or be screwed. You look like a footstool 
  with one tentacle, an eyestalk, and you smell strongly of rotten fish? 
  Get out of here! What good are you? Oh, you can read crypto as 
  though it were plaintext? You’re hired. Executive Suite. Just be 
  careful. Our competition will now try to kill you. 
   
  Toxic. Yeah, right. Everything’s toxic, but the ‘Yard has soup for air. 
  Smog warnings start at Level 3 and go up to 8 (full pro-suit, evacuate 
  lower stories of buildings). Wear a visor for the acid rain (the hydro-
  pumps have enough condensate that it does rain in the ‘Yard). 
  Steam coming out of a sewer? Careful, it might be nerve gas. 
  Everyone in the ‘Yard is on antibiotics, anti-toxins, anti-rad, and anti-
  depressants. 
   
  Stratified. There are heights to climb and a long way to fall. Some 
  say it’s the difference between Street and Corp (and if you’re Corp 
  there are places down there you don’t want to be caught and vice 
  versa), but really it’s more than that. Even among criminals there’s 
  an order. Amongst the corpers there’s a hierarchy. Everyone has a 
  bigger predator looking for them, and they’re on the lookout for easy 
  prey. If you come in tough, people’ll check you out to see if you’re for 
  real. Better to come in on a corporate ticket where you’ve got hired 
  protection. They know how tough that is. 
   
  High-Tech. The ‘Yard is a wonderland of technology compared to 
  everywhere else. Holograms shimmer in store windows, hover cars 
  fly in the Lightning District, guards carry laser guns and everyone 
  uses cell-coms. You don’t dress in overalls in the ‘Yard. You wear 
  Another industrial ugly morning 
  The factory belches filth into the sky 
  He walks unhindered through the picket 
  lines today 
  He doesn't think to wonder why 
  -- Synchronicity II , The Police 
  Welcome to the jungle 
  We've got fun 'n' games 
  We got everything you want 
  Honey, we know the names 
  We are the people that can find 
  Whatever you may need 
  If you got the money, honey 
  We got your disease 
  -- Welcome to the Jungle, Guns N Roses 
  I went walking in the wasted city 
  Started thinking about entropy 
  Smelled the wind from the ruined river 
  Went home to watch TV 
  And it's worse when I try to remember 
  When I think about then and now 
  I'd rather see it on the news at eleven 
  Sit back, and watch it run straight down 
  Run straight down 
  ... 
  First the water and the wildlife go 
  Pretty soon there's not a creature stirring
  'Cept the robots at the dynamo 
  And it's worse when I try to remember 
  When I think about then and now 
  I'd rather see it on the news at eleven 
  Sit back, and watch it run straight down 
  -- Run Straight Down, Warren Zevon
  
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  personal use is granted. 
   
  42 
  shades and slick black trenchcoats, accessorize with atomic clocks 
  on your wrist, and joke about carrying guns smarter than you are. 
   
  Violent. Blood and Circuses. Oh, and bread. Yeah. You can see 
  moving billboards with gladiatorial combat piped in from the 8-Track 
  Arena. There are Saturday night-firefights on the Tn Overpass. You 
  can get TV, but a V-chip would shut the thing down entirely. If you 
  don’t pay your bill at Sez Who? the local bar, expect to get your leg 
  broken. The ‘Yard isn’t kind. 
   
  Under Contract. Despite the violent churning chaos that is the Yard, 
  it isn't lawless. Quite to the contrary. There are all sorts of laws, and 
  depending on who you are, they get enforced. Contracts are 
  electronic. Barristers are artificial intelligences. The Justice Drome 
  broadcasts trials and their punishments live on television. The 
  Justice machine of the ‘Yard comes armed with chainguns. Make 
  sure you read the fine print. 
   
  Happening. The ‘Yard consumes people whole—and yet, it’s also 
  the place where things might just come back from. The movers and 
  shakers (the Hierarchy, mostly and some of the Corps) know they 
  need to keep the Middle Ring alive. Make it grow even. The process 
  is slow—but it’s not stopped. There are historians there who are 
  trying to solve the mysteries of the past. There are scientists who 
  know the Haves had ways to address ecological damage. There are 
  doctors who want to reclaim the super-anti-plague serums to wipe 
  out disease. All of this in the frothing, seething, snake-biting-its-own-
  tail, industrial-disease hell hole that is the BoneYard. 
   
  Society in The Yard 
  Getting In 
  If you come in your own vehicle, you go through a checkpoint and 
  you get an ID card. If you’re going to stay long, you get a medi-card 
  (you’ll need it) and you’re on the streets. Come in as a refugee and 
  you get scanned for disease. If you’ve got it, you go to a medi-ward. 
  They either fix you up,  or things don’t look good. If you come with a 
  truck of stuff, you’ll pay an import tax or they’ll confiscate it. (This 
  doesn’t apply to personal gear, even a lot of it, but to bulk goods for 
  sale) the roadways in have great big cannons poking out of the 
  retaining wall,so don’t mess with them. 
  Getting Around 
  Well, even with a map, you’ll get lost. You can get directions at data-
  kiosks, but getting out of a vehicle is risky if people tag you as a 
  newbie. Obeying the traffic signs is even harder. If it’s got an arrow 
  flashing it means that road’s one-way right now. Listen to it. If it’s got 
  a frowny-face, that means there’s a toxin warning of some sort in 
  effect. Watch out for it. If the road itself has arrows or words, read 
  them. And remember, most people drive whatever speed they feel 
  like. Going too slow is a sign you’re prey. 
   
  Corper Punks: Sharp dressed young 
  professionals out for a bit of the ol’ ultra-
  violence. The last thing they want is a fair 
  fight, but with the kind of techno-backup 
  they can have, they're often not in too much 
  danger of that from the kind of prey they 
  usually seek. 
   
  Loners: Loners are solo-psychopaths who 
  wander the streets. They're not a group, 
  per-se, but they are a trend. Loners tend to 
  be 
  cybernetically 
  enhanced 
  or 
  have 
  mutations that aren't obvious. They're a fact 
  of life in the lower levels of the ‘Yard and 
  people give thickly clothed funny-smelling 
  types a wide berth. 
   
  Zoners: Zoners are small gangs that have 
  no franchise exactly, but defend and extort 
  money from people in a given zone. Usually 
  a really nasty one (an industrial corridor 
  between two residential blocks). They're 
  usually hungry, desperate, and mean. They 
  keep their cachet by tackling just about 
  *anyone* not driving an APC or wearing 
  Arm insignia that enters their zone. There's 
  usually a 'Flag' (a graffiti insignia) that they'll 
  point out meaning you shoulda known you'd 
  be asked to pay.  
   
  Ramp-Trolls: In the worse areas of the city, 
  off-ramps are feeding tubes of money and 
  gear. When a car gets off on the wrong 
  place they wind up facing an abandoned 
  building re-worked with armor and some 
  kind of heavy vehicular weapon, or a band 
  of concertina wire, or a land-mine zone … 
  anything to stop a vehicle long enough for 
  them to try to pry the occupants out of it. 
   
  Fear-Sniffers: Technological advances in 
  psychology and telepathic resonances have 
  created the Phobometer, or Fear Sniffer. 
  Also 
  called 
  a 
  Victim 
  Wand. 
  They're 
  expensive black-market devices (even the 
  apathetic city defense forces look dimly 
  upon a device used to sort out who's a 
  victim and who isn't) that use AI body
  language 
  evaluation 
  and 
  a 
  passive 
  telepathic scanning array to find who in a 
  crowd is most afraid. You can sometimes 
  see a group of Ferrals laughing raucously, 
  chasing 
  a 
  solo-fem 
  with 
  beeping 
  Phobometer clicking away as they close in. 
  Satisfyingly, however, the technology is 
  rather unreliable and they're known to get 
  false 
  positives 
  against 
  some 
  very 
  dangerous types that might, for example, 
  happen to be a bit shy but heavily armed. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  43 
  For people who have lived most of their life in the Yard, navigation 
  is a MEM roll at +2. For anyone else, finding your way around is a 
  MEM or RES roll at -5. If the roll is blown by 5 or more, roll on the 
  Wrong-Turn encounter table adding the amount you missed by 
  above 5 (so a miss by 6 adds 1 to the table). 
   
  Improving this roll is done by buying a Normal Skill. (Knowing a 
  District of the Yard is a Trivial Skill) At the higher levels, rolls can be 
  made to add +2 (Lvl3) or +4 (Lvl4) to Streetwise and Surveillance 
  rolls, to find really good dining or parking, etc. 
  Going Out 
  They say that to survive in the 'Yard you gotta have style. That's 
  being glib, but in a place where they've got devices that smell fear, 
  and predation is all but sanctioned, having aplomb and carriage is 
  good. That means you hang with your group, you show the colors, 
  you "keep it real." Sure, there are plenty of people who hole-up in the 
  mega-towers and pray that the gangs that roam the halls won't stop 
  at their door next, but if you want to do well, you need ta hit the 
  scene. 
  In the ‘Yard, people will have a rep that tends to follow them. Back 
  down or hole-up and you get tagged as prey. If that happens, a lot 
  of the security forces might stop you from getting killed (if they're 
  even around), but they won't stop you from getting mugged. (Call it 
  trickle down). On the other hand, if you're selling tough and backing 
  it up, you'll get respect. (But then you become a target for people 
  who want to boost their rep). 
  Etiquette in The BoneYard 
  There's massive wealth built atop massive poverty. In some buildings 
  there's no power, bio-warfare monsters grow in the ventilation 
  system, and door locks come with plastic-explosive charges that 
  detonate if they think someone's trying to pick them. In other places 
  there's still just a little working Tesla power and air-cars hover 
  overhead and you can look down from a massive translucent plastic 
  window at the city while breathing designer air (scented like used to 
  be) and being serviced by a pleasure-bot. Depending on where you 
  fit into this will depend on what you can expect. 
   
  Ferrals: 
  Ferrals 
  are 
  stereotyped 
  as 
  animalistic 
  mutants 
  (or 
  actual 
  mutant 
  animals—like Hyena gangs), but it's really a 
  state of mind more than a look. Fetishes, 
  tattoos, 
  body 
  mutilation, 
  and 
  cyber-
  enhancements (like Saber-Teeth) are all 
  part of the Ferral gig. The Ferrals know how 
  to party, but they take the foodchain 
  seriously. They might not hate you, but if 
  you're in their territory they could very well 
  eat you. 
   
  Razor Girls: Black and chrome isn't just a 
  look for this clique, it's a lifestyle. They mod 
  their bodies like the Scouts mod their cars 
  (they're not alone in this, but it's a visible 
  trend). 
  Razor 
  Girls 
  are 
  mid-strata--
  successful enough to afford cyber-mods, 
  but too Street to work an office job. They're 
  often debt collectors, evictors, service-
  personnel 
  bodyguards, 
  or 
  "equalizers" 
  brought along as hired muscle to just about 
  any event. Their defining trait is the metallic 
  cyber-skin and a nearly impenetrable slang 
  that's really hard to follow. They've got a rep 
  for being tough (and they are) but while a 
  pack of Razor Girls might looks scary, so 
  long as you're not looking for trouble, they're 
  probably less dangerous than the drunk 
  young execs. 
   
  Phages: Phages are scary. Ferrals have, at 
  times, been known to eat people or at least 
  drink their blood (which is a major health 
  risk in the ‘Yard). Phages are worse. 
  They're infected with one of several breeds 
  of engineered parasites and their intent is to 
  infect others. The science of parasitology 
  suggests that such organisms can exert a 
  frightening amount of control over their 
  hosts and that seems to be the case here. 
  Phages are usually spread through a 
  transfer of blood, but in the case of a phage 
  gang, it's one that's not consensual. They'll 
  injure you, hold you down ... and transfuse 
  you. And then, when you're healed, you'll 
  start to get this craving--this lust--to spread 
  the disease. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  44 
   
  Rules in the Yard 
  Medical Care 
  The ‘Yard has acid rain and poisoned smog. It's got carcinogens in 
  the air vents and heavy metals in the water. It's got radioactive 
  clouds and plagues. All of this requires constant, up-to-date medical 
  care. When you come to town, if you check in, you get a medi-card. 
  This is good for free health care at the local clinics. Beyond that 
  though, you need to pay. 
  Cost 
  Care 
  0c / Mo 
  Spend 4-24hrs per week waiting in lines at the 
  Medi-centers or make a CON roll. If you fail it, 
  your CON drops 1pt until you can get 30c 
  worth of care (1 day check-in) and you've 
  contracted some disease (decide on gruesome 
  symptom). 
  60c / Mo 
  Spend 2-12hrs per week at the medi-Center. 
  Make a CON roll or evidence some symptom of 
  bio/chem/or rad poisoning. 
  191c / Mo 
  Spend 2hrs per week at a private clinic. No 
  symptoms. 
  2500c/Mo 
  You're not even really aging. You get +4 to any 
  CON rolls against specific threats. 
  Paying the Toll 
  Wherever you are, you gotta pay for protection in the ‘Yard (you can 
  "provide it yourself,’ but this has other issues). About the minimum 
  fee that'll keep you out of trouble is 30c/month. If you can't make 
  that, the gangs that patrol the area you’re in will make you someone 
  else's problem. (They certainly don't gun down every dead-beat, but 
  if you aren't paying you're in danger). 
  Moving On Up 
  You're not the only person out there looking for a big break, but you 
  might have some things going for you. The 8-Track Arena holds 
  Fight Night: Gladiatorial combat in armed, unarmed, unarmed vs. 
  armed, and vehicular categories. That might get you noticed. If 
  you're good, you can command cred on the street. If you're really 
  good or smart you can get an audience further up the food chain and 
  maybe go Corp. 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  Evangelists: It's your fault the Haves left 
  and condemned us to this hellhole of a 
  world, and you haven't been repenting 
  enough. They use tools that hurt (and 
  sometimes a lot, they'll leave you brain-
  damaged from pain if they have the gear or 
  the time). Areas where they're active tend to 
  be low crime-rate zones (they're fanatic, at 
  least moderately well-armed, and have no 
  tolerance for other thugs), but while that 
  seems like a blessing at first, think again.
  They'll show up at your apartment and want 
  to search it, check your computer, whatever. 
  Run a Story-Disk Rental? Not in their 
  neighborhood (it's all perverse). Like to sing
  or listen to music? Bad idea. And they'll 
  make one example after another after 
  another. 
   
  Security Forces: Legitimate security forces 
  are given a franchise by the city. This 
  means they can call on help and keep 
  calling all the way up. When a gang or 
  company gets a franchise, they're pretty 
  entrenched. How they deal with problems 
  varies widely. Some units have negotiators 
  on staff. Some just fire mustard gas 
  canisters into a building until the unrest 
  "quiets down." Whichever, they can call on 
  big hover-tanks or flying fortresses if they 
  need to. You don't want to be in a block 
  they've decided to pacify
  with heavy 
  pulsars. 
   
  Wage Slaves: It's miserable, unstable, and 
  often degrading, but a certain number of 
  people from the street need to go to work in 
  the Corp buildings to answer com-calls, 
  serve food, clean floors (the robots are 
  always on the blink), and other such things. 
  Human analysis is valuable too (the big 
  guys talk about Total Artilect Analysis), but 
  most corps have a boiler room full of young 
  guys at
  terminals using their relatively 
  cheap brain to spot trends and analyze data 
  instead of fancy electronics. Wage Slaves 
  get treated bad by the Street scene—and 
  get no respect from the Corp scene (but at 
  least they aren't targets for Corper Punks). 
   
  Street Merchants: You can see them 
  clustered down there in the smog, guys with 
  a table with something to sell (sometimes 
  dubious 
  foodstuffs, 
  "wonder 
  tech," 
  narcotics, and stolen gadgets).  
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  45
   
  Welcome to the BoneYard.  
  You are officially screwed. It’s 
  a charming city with more AA 
  batteries than traffic lights. Of 
  course, come to think of it; the 
  AA guns get a lot more 
  respect than the lights do 
  anyway. (You thought I meant 
  power cells? Man, you're 
  gonna get eaten alive). There 
  are microbes in the water and 
  poison in the air and the 
  garbage trucks have 170mm 
  smooth bore turrets forward 
  and mounted .30 calibers to 
  the rear.  
   
  The BoneYard, the whole city, 
  is a monument to what we’ve 
  got left after the Haves left us. 
  Its hundred-story, fire-charred, 
  half-skeletal high-rises soar 
  into a smoke smudged sky 
  and the refineries run day and 
  night venting plumes of flame. 
  It’s nice and homey. 
   
  Of course it isn’t all bad. If you 
  ever get a Helo ride, you can 
  look down on the executive 
  enclaves and palatial plazas 
  with their sparkling blue 
  fountains and lush green 
  gardens. (And those big guns 
  tracking you? That’s the 
  welcoming committee.) 
  There’s business done here—
  big business, small business, 
  black, white, and gray market. 
  Some say the BoneYard is all 
  about business, and many 
  would agree.  But it isn’t, 
  really. Ultimately it’s about 
  power … and survival. 
   
  We’re 
  listening 
  to 
  the 
  satellites, we’re monitoring the airwaves and we haven’t heard anything but us. Sure, the radius is big. Thousands of square 
  miles, uncharted, mutated, strange … but there’s no other global broadcast source. There’s nothing coming out of Europe 
  (which presumably still glows a lovely cobalt blue). There’s nothing out of China or Russia. South America and Africa are silent. 
  Australia has a few point sources that we can pick up with relays. There are outposts down there getting eaten by dinosaurs 
  when the wind is wrong and by predatory amphibians the size of blue whales when the wind is right—but there aren’t any cities. 
  There isn’t anything big, and as much as there is here. (the Inner Wasteland, the Outer Wasteland, the Pharms, the Kingdom of 
  IZ, the Pac-Rim—it’s all riding on the BoneYard.) The patient has cancer and it ain’t clear that he’s getting any better. 
   
  So come on in. The beast needs to get fed and we can always use some more fuel in the fire. Welcome to the Bone Yard. Hey, 
  you might get killed. You might get rich. Which do you think is more likely? 
  Survive the Yard on 12 Credits Per Day! 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  46 
   
  Welcome To The ‘Yard 
  Welcome to the BoneYard. Your first view is very likely to be that 
  of a smudge-black mountain, crackling with fire, at the end of a 
  stretch of highway that looks like it was built yesterday. As you 
  approach the mountain, it becomes clearer: A mass of darkened 
  sky-rise buildings, crumbing monorail lines, smokestacks, raised 
  viaducts, the giant “vase” shape of old-fashioned nuclear reactor 
  tanks, and, hurtling into this industrial nightmare, the highways. 
  Raised above the simmering jungle, the highways are 
  magnificent wide-open, 12-lane interstates with asphalt that’s 
  unfaded by centuries of sun and wind, bright yellow and white 
  lines that shine like they were painted yesterday, and green and 
  white road signs marking exits to nowhere that stand out above 
  the roads like nothing ever went wrong with the world. 
   
  The BoneYard is very much a walled city. Approaching on foot 
  from most directions would involve hacking through toxic mutant 
  jungle and then scaling a forty-foot concrete wall. Atop the wall 
  one would find a maze of rusted metal pipes and vents dumping 
  caustic waste into the surrounding land. It isn’t a wall meant to 
  keep out invaders: the BoneYard’s presence within a 500-mile 
  radius wasteland does that. It’s where the city that once existed 
  was meant to hook into the rest of the industrial complex that 
  once existed. Centuries of weather, war, decay, and change 
  have turned that surrounding area into the ultra-hostile biome 
  that now exists. The only ways in to the city are to fly (which 
  almost never happens) or along one of the eternal highways (so-
  called because they were built by the Haves and self repair … 
  they always look new). 
   
  Inside the ‘Yard is divided up into “districts.” These range in size 
  from a block to over 5 square miles. A district is defined by some 
  common trend in its architecture, contents, or atmosphere. The 
  Rain District, for example, exists under the massive condenser 
  towers and is constantly wet with a drizzle of artificial 
  precipitation. The Gold District boasts towering skyscrapers and 
  each of the three major banks has a building there. 
   
  Transportation between districts can be tricky. Although streets 
  connect the entire city, leaving one section and entering another 
  is often like crossing over from one gang’s territory to the next. 
  Checkpoints where the local authorities are asking for 
  “donations” (especially from people from other districts) are 
  hardly uncommon. Going from a poorer district to a richer one 
  can meet with armed searches and barricades. 
   
  There are two tramsystems in the city (consisting of electric 
  buses, monorails, and subways). These, the Orange and White 
  Lines service most of the industrial places people work.  There 
  are also several highways and fly-over roadways that criss-cross 
  the city. Although patrolled by the Traffic Authority (with hover-
  gunboats boasting heavy energy weapons), these are far from 
  safe. Exits into more lawless areas are great places to launch 
  A Citizen’s Handy Guide to Env-Warnings 
  Warning 
  Meaning 
  x 
  Contamination! Microbes in 
  Water! 
  y 
  R-Smog Warning: high-roentgen 
  dust cloud 
  z 
  Arial Blister-Agent: Cover 
  exposed skin. 
  t 
  Chemical Spill: Looking for 
  warning lights. 
  n 
  Class 5 Air Alert: avoid street 
  level activity. 
  h 
  Toxic Mutant Insects: apply 
  Category 12 Pesticide to skin 
  and home. 
  g 
  Outbreak: infectious disease. See 
  block medical team immediately.
  ENTRY PROCESSING 
  ! 
  INPROCESSING 
  Genetic Stamp, ID card issued 
  Bio-Toxin/Disease Screen 
  Search of vehicle/Person 
  Random Contraband Screen 
   
  @ 
  CITIZENSHIP APPLICATION 
  Check against wanted database 
  from middle ring 
  Declaration of skills 
   
  # 
  ISSUE 
  Medi-Card 
  Food Card 
  Block Assignment 
  Work Permit 
   
   
   
  ! Warning: Unstable Mutations are 
  Everyone’s Problem. If you are or are 
  aware of an unstable energy-active 
  mutation, please report to the Public 
  Security Division of Mutant Control.  
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  47 
  armed-vehicular ambushes from and roadway duels are a fact of 
  life for purposes of ego or defense of right-of-way. 
   
  So most districts are self-sufficient. They have a few 
  neighborhood clinics (there are always lines), a food and 
  sundries depot (where armed trucks take supplies in once a 
  week—also long lines), and blocks of private or subsidized 
  housing. Garbage pickup, power, and water are often spotty. 
   
  Life in the ‘Yard can be short and brutal if you look like prey to 
  the myriad groups of predators in it. Even if you have “nothing,” 
  your medical access card is worth 60 cred on the black market, 
  your food card is worth 15, and your Work Permit is worth 5. 
   
   
  Many citizens of the 'Yard are working angles. Keep these wallet 
  sized cards handy to check against common con jobs, scams, 
  and setups. You can also find more of them in specially marked 
  QuikSnak™ Packs of sweets from the local neighborhood distro-
  point. Collect them all! 
   
   
   
   
   
   
  A Citizen's Guide To Common Scams 
  The Insurance Job 
  You are approached and asked for your Medi-Card number. When 
  it is processed, you are told that while you are covered for weekly 
  visits to the Medical Salons, you are not covered for invasive 
  surgical procedures (if you have children, the seller will tell you 
  they are at risk). You are offered "gap" coverage. This "Gap" 
  agreement is a binding agreement with the local authorities. But it 
  doesn’t cover the local hospitals but rather applies to facilities 
  outside the 'Yard with questionable facilities. Be careful what you 
  sign. 
  The "Word" Approach 
  A scraggly man holding a Congregational Holy Book approaches 
  you asking you to repent. Within the book is a space for a .75 cal 
  auto-pistol. Beware of approaching fanatics. Either cross the 
  street, seek assistance of the nearest peace officer, or give a 
  standard "three yard warning" before opening fire. 
   
  The Triple Rent Scam 
  Unscrupulous landlords may rent apartments to more than one 
  family, especially if you list employment as shift work, which 
  many do (so long as the persons are not on the same shift). These 
  agreements are binding so be careful to look for Solo clauses in 
  the agreement. Also: ask if the previous and current occupants of 
  the building are listed as missing in action, present location 
  unknown, temporarily incarcerated, potentially incinerated, or 
  "not responding to phone calls." 
   
  The Work Agency Shuffle  
  Employment is often difficult to find and employment agencies 
  will offer to help. Never leave your work permit with an agency 
  (although they will cite regulations that make copying them 
  illegal). Once an unscrupulous agency has collected enough 
  permits it will vanish and sell them to altered-identity criminals on 
  the black-market.   
   
  Shopping in the 'Yard 
  Here are some shops you might pass on the 
  street in the BoneYard. 
   
  Arti-Pets: “Guaranteed Real Looking Electric 
  Animals! An Arti-Pet is the ONLY friend you 
  can trust!” 
   
  Sleep Bar: “Safe, Secure, and Relaxing. 
  Nocturna's slumber pods are the only way to 
  guarantee an 8-hour uninterrupted rest. 
  Tuesday Night Special: Free dose of Dream-
  Lock to ensure nightmare-free repose.” 
   
  Simul-Sex Booth: “Exotic, Dirty, and Clean.” 
  (Yes, the last is a lie. No, they're not trying to 
  be contradictory). 
   
  Osirus Cyber-Acoustics: brain-jack 
  interfaces, neural-stim speakers, opti-nerve 
  light-shows. 
   
  Auto-Mat: The place working stiffs go to eat. 
  Robot-cooked meals served in the friendly 
  style of a vending machine. Yes, there's 
  probably a guy back there somewhere. No he 
  doesn't want to talk to you. 
   
  Drive-Thru Confessional: Because the 
  Church of the Congregation says "You're never 
  sorry enough!" Penance Valu-Pak .30c 
  Discount. 
   
  Segmentation Fault Arcade: System-Shock 
  gambling games (audience pays to see you 
  get shocked when you lose). 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  48 
   
  What's What? 
   
  "Incoming Refugee Transport, this is ‘Yard Traffic 
  Authority. Please move to the intake station and stand 
  down all weaponry. Searches and Health exam will 
  commence directly. If randomized health checks detect 
  Quarantine Grade 1 infectious organisms, entire transport 
  will be sterilized. You are considered warned. Have a nice 
  day." 
  --Standard greeting for refugee intake 
   
  Welcome to the BoneYard. We like to say it’s the most 
  beautiful city in the world. That’s because it’s the last. 
  Most of The BoneYard looks like the back-lot of a train 
  station: rusted metal with sharp edges, stained and 
  cracked concrete covered with graffiti, and hulks of 
  vehicles and abandoned buildings with the window glass 
  knocked out.  Mutant weeds grow through some of the 
  cracks, but the downtown areas are still in the ever-
  present shadow of the skyscrapers. These are some of 
  the places you might go and the sights you might see. 
   
  A Visitor’s Guide to the BoneYard 
  8 
  Radioactive Hazard. Seek anti-rad 
  treatment after visiting. 
  O 
  Mutants welcome! 
  " 
  Bio/Chem Hazard present. Wear 
  environmental gear. 
  K 
  Historical Site: take pictures! 
  Q 
  Medical 
  Facilities 
  close 
  by/available. 
  i 
  Telepathic assistance available (mind your 
  thoughts) 
  F 
  Electrical Power is reliable. 
  | 
  Computer Virus Zone. Sensitive systems 
  and cybernetics should exercise safe data-
  sharing. 
  u 
  Vehicular 
  transit/combat 
  is 
  common. 
  p 
  Danger-Zone: keep your weapons handy. 
  ¥ 
  Fees 
  charged: 
  have 
  currency 
  handy. 
  Failure 
  to 
  pay 
  is 
  dangerous. 
  h 
  Fine Dining available: bring a date! 
   
   
  Court TV 
  h 
  Q 
  ¥ 
  When justice doesn’t come swiftly, it comes with 
  lights, applause, and valuable prizes. Visit the 
  Central Magistrates Pavilion and purchase tickets 
  to the Judgment Drome where plea-bargaining 
  citizens get to try their hands at solving the 
  Labyrinth of Justice, their fate at Spinning the 
  Penalty Wheel (from electro-flogging to execution 
  for an unlucky player), or matching wits with The 
  GrandMaster: an unbeaten chess AI.  
   
   
   
  The 8-Track 
  h 
  u 
  ¥ 
  Those giant moving-picture billboards all over the 
  city are called MoveBoards™ and 80% of them 
  are 
  hooked 
  directly 
  into 
  the 
  BoneYard’s 
  automotive combat arena. In the upper deck 
  enjoy fine dining, private bullet-proof skybox 
  seating, and a perfect view of the figure-8 shaped 
  mile-long track.  In the lower decks you can get 
  ring-side seating at the two “inside” Coliseums 
  where gladiatorial combat, games and sports, 
  Cyborg Corper and his Escort Bots. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  49
  and the once-a-year Circus takes place. Be 
  aware that lower price seating is sometimes 
  subject to errant fire from the track. 
  The Queen’s Tower 
  | 
  F 
  ¥ 
  A sixty story cylindrical tower with three story 
  metal security walls around it, the Queen’s Tower 
  is hard to miss from anywhere in the western arc. 
  Daily tours show the metal gates and still-armed 
  cyclic machine gun nests that defended the 
  Queen at the beginning of her rise to economic 
  power in The BoneYard. Also visible are the 
  surgical-steel pneumatic spikes on which she 
  used to impale her enemies. It’s a charming 
  history tour of one of the BoneYard’s most unique 
  citizens. 
  The Lightning District 
  K 
  i 
  p 
  At night there’s nothing more spectacular than a 
  walk down Electric Avenue. The crescent shape 
  road runs within the broad-cast power zone of the 
  Lightning Tower, the largest remaining broad-
  cast power station in existence. Here you’ll find 
  no light unlit, power-weapons fire without having 
  to re-cycle their charge, and air-cars use the 
  plentiful invisible beams of energy to soar 
  through the sky. It’s a great place to buy and sell 
  either electronics, information, or just take a good 
  look at the revitalized old-style two-story tall 
  Security Walkers! 
  Low Quad 
  " 
  8 
  p 
  It’s not a place for the kids but if you’re looking for 
  the right kind of merchandise and don’t mind a 
  fire-fight, the Low Quad is a place to go where no 
  one cares who you are. That’s usually because if 
  you live there eventually you become “Mr. 
  Cancer-Face” no matter who you were when you 
  came in. There are many dives in the city but the 
  Low Quad is unmistakable in the shadow of the 
  200 yard high Industrial Wall and bathed in the 
  wash from the Waste Pipes that run through it. 
  This 
  charming 
  collection 
  of 
  shanty-towns, 
  cardboard and plastic-bag housing, and junk-
  choked gutters hosts authentic knife fights, 
  colorful “crazy” street minstrels, and some of the 
  most heavily mutated organisms in the remaining 
  world. 
  The Hard Luck Café 
  h 
   
   
  A one-of-a-kind dining establishment, the Hard 
  Luck hosts pictures showing all of humanities 
  falls and foibles (exploding blimps, undersea 
  pictures of mammoth ancient ocean liners, 
  massive dual-skyscrapers consumed in smoke, 
  and nuclear fireballs over Europe are just some 
  of the fine décor pieces). Don’t miss the 
  awesome Gun Metal Moon—an “Art Deco” 
  display piece of the guidance system of one of 
  the robotic nuclear bombers used to destroy 
  Europe during the Exchange. Mind your manners 
  though. The Hard Luck is un-forgiving when it 
  comes to trouble. 
  The Burning Gates 
  " 
  F 
   
  About half the first-time visitors to the BoneYard 
  come in through the Burning Gates and it’s worth 
  their while! Quite a sight to see. The road runes 
  between two hundred-story smoke-stacks from 
  the Primary Industrial Refinery and as it runs 24/7 
  so do the flame vents from the top. Bring 
  breathing gear as the heavy fall out from the 
  stacks resembles gray snow … so you don’t want 
  to breath it. 
  Utopia Farms 
  p 
   
   
  All through the city you’ll see big, bright, cheery 
  advertisements for Utopia Farms—usually in the 
  form of a giant billboard showing a gray-jumpsuit 
  wearing man and woman with big smiles on their 
  faces. Behind them, in the background are rolling 
  green hills and a rising sun under blue skies. The 
  legend says Utopia Farms—Food, Medical Care, 
  Shelter. Free Room Board Overnight. Exit 121. 
  Under no conditions should you stop there. No 
  matter what. 
  NetShoppes 
  F 
  | 
   
  Unlike the rest of the world, the BoneYard has a 
  working prevalent “network.” Even in some of the 
  darkest corners of the ‘Yard you can find Data-
  Terms for Net-Access. Some of the more stable 
  areas have NetShoppes with gear that allows 
  interactive games, virtual-realities, and searching 
  the various libraries that are available. Note: 
  although there is a great deal of linkage, there 
  are over 100 individual networks across the 
  BoneYard—each with different systems and 
  protocols. It can take a Byzantine knowledge of 
  these different systems to access them correctly. 
  The Rain District 
  u 
   
   
  Off the South-Access Highway is the Rain 
  District, the collection of shantytowns and low-
  rise buildings that exists under the Condenser 
  Farm. The Condenser Farm is a collection of 
  sixty-story buildings that act as some sort of heat-
  exchange and vent for the underground systems. 
  It is also a major source of water for the 
  BoneYard Reservoir. The city beneath it is in 
  constant shadow (from the massive, rusted-metal 
  colored fins from the condenser towers) and 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  50
  constant rain.  Even in the driest climates of the 
  BoneYard’s summer the Rain District is awash in 
  foul tasting water.  It is also a major high-way 
  nexus 
  and 
  site 
  for 
  unlicensed 
  no-arena 
  automotive combat: drive carefully. 
  The Art District 
  F 
  K 
  i 
  Even in the decay of the BoneYard, artists can 
  find their patrons. The Art “District” is a 1.5 block 
  stretch of plaza with buildings well over 100 years 
  old. It is one of the few places in the ‘Yard that’s 
  considered “attractive,” with gabled roofs, two-
  story town houses and tiny clumps of bungalows 
  (surrounded by security walls and Severe Tire 
  Damage 
  entry-prevention 
  systems)—and, 
  indeed, if the landlords charged rent the prices 
  would be astronomical.  But the cost to live here 
  is the production of art that appeals to the 
  patrons: The Corpus Cognito. The Corpus are a 
  group of Telepaths who are some of the richest 
  denizens of the ‘Yard. Each month new artists 
  are reviewed and challenge the latest works of 
  the older ones. The losers are moved out to 
  outlying housing of a far inferior nature … and if 
  the lose a few more times, out all together. Thus 
  the cut-throat world of the Art District produces, 
  by Darwinian pressure works of great and 
  enduring beauty that can often be seen by 
  invitation only in private collections. But it’s a 
  great place to see a performance of one of the 
  last remaining live bands! 
  Dry Docks 
  F 
   
   
  The city imports things from the ring of civilization 
  outside the Inner Wasteland: crops from the 
  straggling 
  farms 
  (although 
  the 
  Distro-Point 
  supplies a great deal of food itself), recharged 
  batteries from the energy mills, and raw materials 
  from the mines. From further out, it imports exotic 
  drugs from the Pharms and machineparts the 
  Distro-Point will not provide from the Kingdom of 
  IZ. The Dry Docks are a collection of truck-stops 
  and 
  loading 
  zones. 
  Robotic 
  arms 
  sweep 
  overhead, pallets of goods and tanks of fluid are 
  moved across the vast, cracked, concrete floors. 
  It’s a good place to look for low-wage work and 
  the first time many of the trucking crews get to 
  see when they disembark. 
  Gold District 
  F 
  Q 
  h 
  The center of banking for the world. Three towers 
  (the tallest is Great White’s, the most lavish is 
  Hammerhead’s) stand amid glittering shops and 
  ultra high security. The trust the banks have for 
  one another can be seen in the smooth-bore 
  artillery that protrudes from the sides of the 
  buildings that face their rivals. 
  The Congregational Cathedral  
  ¥ 
  Q 
  h 
  The Congregation is the largest remaining 
  religion. Based in the “holy city” of the Needle, 
  several hundred miles south of the ‘Yard, the 
  Congregation maintains its Grand Cathedral near 
  the heart of the Bone Yard. The liquid-crystal ten-
  story stained-glass windows crawl with animated 
  stories of the Congregation’s parables. Inside 
  each pew has a view of a wide-screen high-
  definition TV and thundering 3D sound system. 
  During one of the six daily services throngs of 
  beggars, degenerate mutants, and onlookers 
  crowd around the massive building to listen to the 
  sermon of our abandonment by the Haves for our 
  unworthy, bestial nature. Expensive Box Seating 
  (seasonal passes available in the lobby past the 
  gift shops) gives a great view of the Mortification 
  of the Penitents in the great central arena (electro 
  scourges are a real crowd pleaser)! Please be 
  sure to bring sufficient credits to cover admission 
  and a few extra in case of any accidental 
  transgressions that result in fines.  
   
  The Academy  
  i 
  K 
   
  The group of Telepaths that hold power in the 
  BoneYard, The Corpus, have no public meeting 
  place—but if there is a center of power for them it 
  is the Academy (usually called The Academy). It 
  appears as a building from another age: stone 
  facades in the front, towering columns, and 
  automated machine guns hidden behind snap-
  open firing ports in the bas relief. It is the training 
  place for nascent telepaths—when a young 
  telepath of notable power is found, he or she is 
  brought here and trained: most never find a place 
  in the Corpus, but do find positions of wealth and 
  power with the Banks, the Hierarchy, or other 
  power-brokers. Although you can't go inside 
  unless you have legitimate business (and believe 
  me, they'll know) it's a great place to take 
  pictures of! 
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  51
   
  The Food Chain: Who’s Who in the ‘Yard 
  Welcome to the BoneYard. Let me tell you a 
  story about predation. Once upon a time, in the 
  seas (before the ozone layer burned away and 
  the UV radiation killed off the top twenty feet of 
  eco-system and the waves became a sort of 
  frothy slate-gray they called a Strangelove 
  Ocean) there were fish. Right? And the little 
  fish were eaten by the big fish and the bigger 
  fish ate the big fish and the sharks came and 
  ate the bigger fish and so on. I dunno where I 
  was going with all of this except that it seems 
  to correlate somehow with the statistics that 
  say that within 72 seconds of leaving the 
  orientation station, 12% of all incoming 
  refugees get robbed and that within 96 hours over 80% are under the control of an organization 
  that will, erm, extract payment for “protection.” Somewhere upwards of 50% can’t pay and those 
  that can often get the ‘Vig by robbing the rest. So without further analogies, apologies, or ado, 
  here’s the list: the Who’s Who of the BoneYard.  
   
   
  The Hierarchy 
  Who: The rulers of the Bone Yard. 
  Style: You never see them directly. Everything is 
  an intermediary—if you do reach them, they are a 
  broad “royal family” as eccentric as they are 
  ruthless and pragmatic when it comes to 
  defending what is theirs.  It is said they wear 
  ornate, ornamental robes and head-dresses and 
  often use telepathic rigs to “speak” through their 
  retinue of servants. It is said each is “wired” to an 
  ancient assault robot which is never far away, 
  ready to rain death on an attacker. 
  Where: The western road-nexus called the 
  Spiral. Their stronghold is a former corporate 
  complex that still has the lush gardens and broad 
  sparkling avenues that it used to. It’s defended 
  with 
  nuclear-fueled 
  smart-lasers, 
  Have-
  technology force fields, and killer robots. 
  Claim To Fame: An army. The last remaining 
  Distribution Point. Lots and lots of ancient 
  artifacts. Power-Weapons. Arcane things you’ve 
  never heard of. A penchant for thinking long-term 
  that means they almost always fight when they 
  want to. Paranoia. 
  If They Were A Fish The Would Be: A 
  Megladon (prehistoric shark that can swallow a 
  family of 5 and their Volkswagen) 
   
  The Arm: The Military of the Yard 
  Who: Over a Thousand men, women, and 
  mutants—all conditioned to be suicidally loyal 
  and all trained constantly for war. They do not 
  patrol the city or the wastelands—they train 
  constantly for war—for attack, defense, or 
  retribution. Like the Hierarchy that commands 
  them, they are almost never seen by the rank 
  and file. 
  Style: Matt-Black weapons. Sleek uniforms with 
  high-tech web-gear. Armored visors with night 
  vision and cybernetic targeting. A razor-crisp 
  “How High?” attitude. Real professionals that 
  scare the hell out of everyone else’s barbaric ad 
  hoc militia. 
  Where: Six walled armories within the city and 
  six hidden bolt-holes just outside. 
  Claim To Fame: Ancient armed hover-vehicles 
  with energy siege cannons. Robotic drones. 
  Tactical Neutron Bombs. Cybernetic soldiers. 
  If They Were a Fish They Would Be: A 
  Swordfish. It doesn’t eat all the fish in the sea, 
  but if you mess with it, it’s got a chainsaw. 
   
  The Traffic Authority 
  Who: The large-scale police force that enforces 
  order, especially against armed vehicles. There 
  are “Eye in the Sky” helicopters and video-robots. 
  The Traffic Authority guards the entrance gates 
  to the city and deals with any large scale 
  vehicular 
  mayhem 
  (usually 
  by 
  destroying 
  everything in the area). They also handle revolts 
  or massive riots (the same way). 
  Style: “Unidentified Vehicle, you are in violation 
  of Code 187.1.2-C. Power down engines and 
  weapons and exit the vehicle. You have 12-
  seconds to comply.” The Authority is almost 
  never seen in “person.” Their voice is a 
  Somehow you made it in the big wide world 
  And you're absolutely home and dry 
  You got away from a one horse town 
  And the only way out was to fly 
  … 
  You sign a deal that's been etched in stone 
  It's absolutely cut and dry 
  That's when they got you in the danger zone 
  And the only way out is to die 
  -- Alan Parson’s Project Vulture Culture 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  52
  computer-simulated 
  female 
  sounding 
  signal 
  broadcast from their central control tower (a 70-
  story windowless cement tower with a glass-lined 
  “command complex” at the top that glows a 
  hellish red.  
  Where: The tower is central. There are two 
  “Armories” (North and South) with the flying 
  hover-craft and ground vehicles. 
  Claim To Fame: They use short range anti-
  gravity hover-gunboats lined with Heavy-Pulsar 
  Energy guns that can pulverize a block (these are 
  perhaps the last flying assault force left in 
  existence). On the ground there are armed 
  Humvees with .50 caliber machine guns. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A Killer 
  Whale. What? That’s not? Well, it’s big and it 
  eats lots of fish right? Right? There you go. 
   
  The Corpus Cognito 
  Who: The “Body of Thought,” a private (some 
  would say secret) council of Telepaths of 
  immense power. They were instrumental in the 
  early rise of the BoneYard and have maintained 
  their place. They advise the Hierarchy (using 
  precognition, telepathic espionage, and a few 
  brilliant strategic minds). They regulate power 
  amongst the banks. They keep a close eye on 
  any powerful telepaths in the city. 
  Style: Hello. You can’t see me. I’m in your head. 
  Stop looking around like that. It looks silly. A 
  council of minds—powerful minds—wants to talk 
  to you. No, umm, no. You can’t say no. They are 
  a would-be praetorian guard. They fight amongst 
  each other, play chess with the less powerful 
  members of the BoneYard society, and further 
  their own ends. Each member takes the name of 
  an ancient city (Tokyo, Manhattan, HongKong, 
  etc.) 
  Where: Some members are “public” meaning 
  that other powerful people know where they can 
  be found. Most are very hard to get to. There is a 
  building called The Drome where the mental 
  avatars meet and where they bring people to talk 
  to them “officially.” 
  Claim To Fame: Lots of Telepathy and 
  Precognition. A scary network of informants, guys 
  with deeply implanted directives, etc. Scheming 
  that would make Machiavelli queasy. Pacts that 
  ensure that if you kill one of them, the rest will at 
  least make a real attempt to get rid of you.  
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A deep 
  water, super-toxic lion fish with barbed spikes. 
  That is if the Lion Fish would sometimes come up 
  to the surface and eat a skindiver for reasons no 
  one could understand. 
   
   
  The Bitch Queen 
  Who: A long lived extreme mutant who was there 
  when 
  the 
  BoneYard 
  became 
  the 
  world’s 
  preeminent power and created the monetary 
  system the world uses today. She is a massive 
  semi-human 
  being, 
  bloated 
  with 
  constant 
  pregnancy and giving birth to  monsters she 
  controls. 
  Style: A Queen. An Empress.  She has retinue of 
  her men and her “children” (each different and 
  manufactured for a specific set of attributes). 
  When she has an audience, she speaks in the 
  royal “We” and her voice has an eerie reverb. 
  She wears multicolored silk robes over her 
  massive bulk. 
  Claim To Fame: She created the concept of the 
  “Credit”—a triangular piece of metal with a 
  crypto-chip in it that prevents counterfeit. She 
  runs her own Order of Knights whose purpose is 
  to collect debts owed and to ensure that her 
  currency is taken. She is infamous for having her 
  enemies (deadbeats, enemy bankers, mayors of 
  towns 
  who 
  didn’t 
  pay 
  up) 
  impaled 
  on 
  pneumatically activated steel spikes outside her 
  tower. In addition to her own order knights, and 
  her small force of monsters, she has a seventy-
  five-man personal security force with armored 
  vehicles. 
  If They Were A Fish The Would Be: A 
  Barracuda.  
  Bank: Great White 
  Who: The largest of the three major banks, Great 
  White is known for its ruthless enforcement of 
  contracts and predatory lending techniques. On 
  the street level, Great White operators always 
  have a loan plan they’ll accept and will chop you 
  up for spare parts if you don’t pay. 
  Style: That of a drug pusher. Great White has 
  humans who carry out the decisions but the 
  policy is run by a machine—a massive computer 
  that calculates risks and odds and orders those 
  whose risks get too high terminated. 
  Where: The Gold Block (where all three main 
  bank offices face off with assault cannons 
  pointed at each other’s high-rises). Regional 
  offices and operators are everywhere. 
  Claim To Fame: A 200-man private army and a 
  core of elite cybernetically modified shock troops 
  (“the sharks”). 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A man-
  eater, plowing through schools of smaller fish and 
  consuming them. 
   
  Bank: Black Tip 
  Who: The second bank (and equal rival with 
  Hammerhead). Unlike Great White, at the top is a 
  single personality: a gunslinger named Colin 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  53
  Wayatt. He’s said to have killed over 30 people in 
  duels with his twin Lews .45 over-loaded six-
  guns. Black Tip takes risk and has a history of 
  taking those who can’t pay and making them 
  work-off their debt (for the rest of their lives). 
  Black Tip specializes in putting up loan money for 
  bounties. 
  Style: Cowboys. Wheeler-dealers. Black Tip 
  does a lot of work outside the ‘Yard. Many 
  townships out in the ring of civilization past the 
  Inner Wasteland got started and still owe 
  interests on Black Tip loans. The sight of a small 
  convoy of custom armed vehicles bearing the 
  Black Tip logo and arriving in a plume of dust 
  clouds bodes very ill for a mayor who has not 
  been meeting his payments.  
  Where: The Gold Block with the other banks.  
  Claim To Fame: The Range Riders—a group of 
  highly trained “mercenaries” (many whom owe 
  debts to Black Tip they will never pay off) that 
  enforce Black Tip’s law. These are ruthless 
  gunfighters who take pleasure in riding out in 
  heavily armed convoys to enforce their patron’s 
  contracts. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A big one, 
  just a little smaller than Great White and eyeing it 
  closely. 
   
  Bank: Hammerhead 
  Who: A second-tier bank tied with Black Tip in 
  size and reach. Hammerhead specializes in 
  business loans and is also known for funding 
  exploratory missions for a cut of the findings. 
  Style: Hammerhead maintains a private data-
  library with thousands and thousands of cross-
  indexed facts. The central board tries to know 
  what’s going on in the city before the Hierarchy 
  does—or even the Corpu’s Precogs. They 
  specialize in selling and trading corporate stocks, 
  Yard bonds and other financial instruments. Their 
  agents reek of mathematical genius misapplied in 
  the pursuit of power. 
  Where: The Gold District. The Hammerhead 
  building is lush with gold designs built into the 
  black-marble floors and hanging gardens fed by 
  hydroponics systems. 
  Claim To Fame: A small collection of assault 
  robots that can be used to back up their agents. 
  A no-nonsense security force that includes and 
  expert team of mutant snipers. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A moray 
  eel. Look, I’m doing this okay? I know an eel’s 
  not a FISH! They lay in wait and then dart out, 
  consuming their prey with multiple rows of razor 
  sharp … what? Ok. With single rows … a 
  SINGLE row of sharp teeth. Anyway, they’re 
  sneaky and calculating. The fish thing doesn’t 
   
  The Congregation 
  Who: The Congregation is the largest religion in 
  the world and has a 24/7 broadcast to all 
  available video receiving units. With a large 
  number of adherents in the BoneYard, they are a 
  force to be contended with. The Hierarchy 
  despises them (more for their power than their 
  rapacious hypocrisy) but maintains agreements 
  and treaties. 
  Style: The Spanish Inquisition. If you run a foul of 
  them (which can easily happen by finding out too 
  much about the Haves or by plying into their 
  secrets, or by making statements about the past 
  that their history disagrees with) they can come 
  for you. Their clerics wear high, shiny, curved 
  head-dresses that taper to points giving them a 
  look of a semi-medieval cleric.  
  Where: The Grand Cathedral is the seat of 
  power. There are smaller missions everywhere. 
  Claim To Fame: They control a massive 
  broadcast network, the Space-needle (which the 
  Hierarchy would dearly love to take command of 
  someday), and adherents both on the street and 
  (more secretly) in high levels of government. 
  They have a military … and it is said, trained 
  assassins as well. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: One of 
  those ones with the light in front that draws you to 
  it (pretty)—and then it has GIANT FREAKING 
  FANGS. That fish.   
   
  City Grid: The Power Brokers 
  Who: Power flows from the Spiral where the 
  Hierarchy is (in the lightning district there is a 
  small zone of Broadcast Power, but there are no 
  working relays and most of the city can’t take 
  advantage 
  of 
  that). 
  Through 
  the 
  ‘Yard, 
  connections are maintained by the City Grid—an 
  “incorporated” entity that sells power to everyone. 
  Style: If you’re big, they’re a utility—impersonal 
  and pretty efficient. If you do something like blow 
  up a major relay they’ll send the Public Security 
  Force or maybe even the Traffic Authority after 
  you (and if it, say, serviced the Bitch Queen or 
  the Gold Districts others may want you too). If 
  you are small though, or in an area with spotty 
  power, you deal with a Wireman. A guy with a 
  limited number of outlets or a daily delivery of 
  charged batteries and wires to run. If you run a 
  street-side Sex-Stim-Booth, you have to pay your 
  wireman off each day. That gets dirty fast. 
  Usually the Wire-Men have small gangs of 
  protectors and will try to control business within a 
  given block 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  54
  Where: Everywhere. The office is in the east of 
  the city. It has two three-story forks outside that 
  crackle with bands of lighting. 
  Claim To Fame: A writ for the Hierarchy to 
  distribute power. A personal interior security force 
  (but backed up by the Authority). 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A bunch 
  of small fighting fish (the wire-men) looking for a 
  kickback from those they can squeeze. 
   
  Central Water 
  Who: The Hierarchy may not care about any 
  individual, but they do care about the health of 
  their empire as a whole. Central Water maintains 
  the pipes that get water through the BoneYard 
  from the main reservoir.  
  Style: They’re a utility. If you mess with them, 
  you answer to the Traffic Authority and the Public 
  Security Forces. 
  Where: Everywhere. The Reservoir is in the Rain 
  District. 
  Claim To Fame: They’re quick to call for backup, 
  and they get it. No questions asked. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: A big lazy 
  fish that doesn’t eat much but no one messes 
  with. 
   
  The Octopus 
  Who: Organized Crime. The Hierarchy does not 
  like competition and although crime is a constant, 
  organized crime is usually institutionalized (the 
  Power Brokers, the Public Security Force). Still, 
  the Octopus remains occulted in the shadows. It 
  is sort of a thieves’ gild, sort of a network of 
  fences. 
  Style: I know someone who knows someone. 
  The Octopus is subtle and secretive. If you’ve 
  stolen something from the Corpus, the Octopus 
  could help you fence it. If you have secrets to sell 
  about Hammerhead’s security, the Octopus is 
  buying, but it’s very low key. 
  Where: Everywhere and nowhere. 
  Claim To Fame: Some very high level people 
  and a variety of organizations are hedging their 
  bets and backing up their power-plays by joining.  
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be A: fast 
  black one that is rarely seen—but has sharp 
  teeth when it attacks from surprise. 
   
  Public Security Forces 
  Who: The “police.” They’re corrupt as cops go—
  but not so corrupt as to be worthless. They cruise 
  the streets in lightly armored fuel burning vehicles 
  and squash anyone who they think they can take 
  who’s making trouble. That’s what they want: no 
  trouble.  
  Style: Laconic and jaded—if you are poor. 
  Snappy and responsive if you’re rich. They aren’t 
  incompetent though—the attack en-mass and 
  don’t like being humiliated. Usually if you get 
  caught purse-snatching on an average block 
  they’ll haul you down town, beat you, write you 
  up, break your arm, and throw you back out on 
  the street. 
   
  If you have a successful business, they expect a 
  “bonus” but really do protect you more if you pay 
  it. 
  Where: Upper middle and high-class districts 
  (also seen in transit). In the lower class areas 
  there are a few—but deputized gangs are more 
  common. 
  Claim To Fame: Armed with .9mm handguns 
  and full-auto SMG’s they are fairly well armed for 
  most of the populace. Their cars tend to have a 
  .30 cal on top and light armor. They make good 
  use of radios and tend to look after their own 
  more than their citizens. 
  If They Were A Fish? Corrupt Cop Fish—that’s 
  what they’d be. 
   
  The Orders 
  Who: The Orders are groups of Road Knights 
  who have taken vows to help try and keep the 
  world from falling apart. Although 90% of their 
  work is done outside the BoneYard, there are 
  chapters within and individual knights conducting 
  their business. 
  Style: Varies but think of the armored bad-ass in 
  a tank-like vehicle, who has trained from a wee-
  lad or lass to kick your ass. You just broke their 
  personal code … 
  Where: Chapters tend to have offices in poorer 
  blocks (the Orders are respected by their friends 
  and feared by their enemies—but they don’t 
  spend their precious money on nice digs). 
  Knights can be found anywhere. 
  Claim 
  To 
  Fame: 
  Armed 
  vehicles, 
  power 
  weapons, elite training.  
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: I don’t 
  know? Warrior Knight Fish? Is that a fish? I think 
  I’ve seen it on the menu. 
   
  Deputized Gangs 
  Who: In the middle and low class districts order 
  is maintained by gangs that have been given a 
  writ by Public Security. They tend to be brutal 
  and violent—but they do keep out other gangs 
  and they don’t want to get their writs revoked so 
  they have to keep things kinda quiet. 
  Style: That of the fox guarding the henhouse. 
  You gotta pay your ‘vig to the deputies—and if 
  you don’t you will get the big shakedown. They 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for personal use is granted. 
   
  55
  have badges but behind the badge, it’s nothing 
  but mutant thug. 
  Where: In the middle and low-class districts.  If 
  you travel through one you may run into a toll-
  collecting check-point. 
  Claim To Fame: A badge, some weapons, and a 
  bunch of tough guys. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: Piranha!  
   
  Criminal Gangs 
  Who: 
  Gangs 
  that 
  aren’t 
  deemed 
  socially 
  conscious enough (i.e. profit motivated and semi-
  organized and smart enough to know where their 
  interest lies) are just criminal gangs. It’s usually 
  live and let live unless the gang crosses a 
  customer who’s paying for good protection or 
  decides to move up the food-chain. 
  Style: Knives, chains, cheap guns, mutant 
  abilities, leather jackets, wild haircuts, and loud 
  music. 
  Where: all over—but mostly the bad parts of 
  town. 
  Claim To Fame: A Zip gun.  
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: An Oscar. 
  Eats guppies. Gets eaten by larger Oscars. 
   
   
   
   
   
  Loners, Zoners, and Grifters 
  Who: The predatory underclass is alive and 
  healthy in the ‘Yard. From the “Taxi Driver” who 
  takes you on a one-way trip to “robbed-and-dead-
  ville” to the psychopathic drugged up knife-
  fighters that wander the streets looking for 
  “action” to get the next fix, the street is full of 
  predators looking for prey. 
  Style: Even in the nice parts of town you travel 
  with security or look over your shoulder. Women 
  on the trams travel in packs with concealed 
  weapons incase the wrong person comes up to 
  them. If you look like a scary mutant you may be 
  shot before you even get a chance to prove 
  you’re not psychotic. 
  Where: Everywhere … BEHIND YOU! Really, 
  anywhere on the street. 
  Claim To Fame: anything from a switchblade to 
  a mutant optical blast. Mostly a desperate need 
  for money or food or both. 
  If They Were A Fish They Would Be: Rabid fish 
  … frothing at the mouth. Don’t bother me any 
  more—I’m done with the fish thing. 
   
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  56 
   
  Life in the Outer Wasteland 
  Starting at the toxic outer edge of the Middle Ring, drive 250 
  miles in any direction where there's still land and you'll reach 
  the nominal end of civilization. The Middle Ring is no paradise: 
  towns fall, diseases and toxins take their toll, Freqs raid and the 
  ruins that speckle the landscape remain mysterious and 
  dangerous. But when you get about 500 miles from the 
  BoneYard, the world takes over—and humanity runs out of 
  steam (well, almost—there are some distant points of 
  civilization, but getting there's a gamble). 
  Welcome to the Outer Wasteland. It is … 
  Deserted. In a way even the Middle Ring doesn't manage to 
  be. Out there are more monsters than man—and more empty 
  space than both. You can drive for the rest of your life and 
  never see another human being if you head north. 
   
  Weird. The Outer Wasteland is bizarre in ways that don't 
  immediately or obviously relate to its status as ground simply 
  too dangerous to inhabit. There are forces at work out there that 
  don't venture closer (for whatever reason). There are things out 
  there with perspectives we may never understand. The laws of 
  physics themselves aren't necessarily all that intact. People 
  who venture out there report pre-cognitive dreams and terribly 
  possibly-lethal nightmares. 
   
  Dangerous. The Outer Wasteland contains things that could, 
  frankly, just devour a convoy. We're not sure what they are—
  but they're out there. Massive nuclear powered war machines? 
  Mobile masses of hostile psychic energy? Holes in the ground 
  with no known bottom? Sure—all that an more. The basic 
  monsters (9-foot tall invisible hopping fungi) are bad enough—
  but the Outer Wasteland isn't just a numbers game: people who 
  live on the edge know, in a very real sense, when they've gone 
  too far out and its time to come back. 
   
  Unexplored. At one time there were complete down-to-the-foot 
  satellite maps of the planet (they say)—and certainly a few 
  hundred years ago society spread across everything (and up 
  into the sky and down into the earth)—but now it's a different 
  story. Be it the vast forests of the north to the deserts of the 
  east or the toxic jungles of the south there are places no one—
  and that includes the distant empires has been. Traveling out 
  there means seeing stuff that hasn't been seen before by any 
  living member of any generation. Sometimes even 100 miles 
  from home (if you live right on the edge) down a pretty decent 
  stretch of remaining road-way gets you places you'll know 
  you're the first one to look at. 
   
  Recovering. Maybe. People who have ventured out say that 
  the eco-systems are, maybe, coming back … sort of. There are 
  reports of massive nuclear craters filled with tangled green 
  forests. There are reports of mountain tops covered with snow 
  Can you picture what will be, So 
  limitless and free 
  Desperately in need...of 
  some...stranger's hand 
  In a...desperate land 
  Lost in a Roman...wilderness of pain
  And all the children are insane, All 
  the children are insane 
  Waiting for the summer rain, yeah 
  There's danger on the edge of town 
  Ride the King's highway, baby 
  Weird scenes inside the gold mine 
  Ride the highway west, baby 
  Ride the snake, ride the snake 
  To the lake, the ancient lake, baby 
  The snake is long, seven miles 
  --The End, The Doors 
  The Ruins 
  People don’t live in the Ruins—to the 
  west are the Grand Ruins—the remains 
  of the great city that stretched along the 
  North American Pacific coast—and they 
  still stand—gray, dusty—silent—but not 
  quite empty. Not quite. And very, very 
  deadly. To the North East is the ruin of 
  Denver. And there’s Vegas with the 
  lights still on and the slot machines still 
  working—sterilized by still deadly 
  radiation. 
   
  The Ruins aren’t discussed here—
  they’re not exactly part of the Outer 
  Wasteland (many are right at home 
  smack in the middle of everything)—but. 
  But. But … 
   
  The Ruins may not be far-flung from 
  where people live—but they’re as distant 
  from civilization as the Outer Wasteland. 
  They share the same ethic—the same 
  sense of deserted strangeness—the 
  same sense of wrongness. So if you’re 
  thinking about a never-to-return journey 
  to the Outer Wasteland: take a look at 
  Ruins. It’s the Outer Wasteland … closer 
  to home. 
  
  Copyright © Marco Chacon, Permission to copy for 
  personal use is granted. 
   
  57 
  and housing glimmering flying things that swoop and rise on the 
  air-currents. There are reports of massive herds of animals (of 
  never-before seen types—but all of roughly the same type). 
  Some people say the earth is coming back—and the earth is 
  coming back angry. 
  The Ecology of the Outer Wasteland 
  The Outer Wasteland is, geographically, like the Middle Ring. 
  The differences are more subtle than a simple change in terrain. 
  That, however, doesn't mean there aren't differences. 
  Nightmare Storms 
  Where there are thunderheads in the Middle Ring and toxic 
  sand-storms in the Inner Wasteland, periodically something—
  something bad—will sweep down from the north. This thing—
  this phenomena—is called a Nightmare Storm. Clinically, it is 
  said to be a massive discharge of semi-stable negative psychic 
  energy whose source is unknown. Physically it looks a bit like a 
  blizzard 
  (and 
  is 
  accompanied 
  by 
  unseasonably 
  cold 
  temperatures). In nightmare storms waves of fear and panic 
  gust like the high winds. People vanish—towns disappear, and 
  hollow pleas are heard on the radio in the call signs of the gone 
  decades later. Nightmare Storms are thankfully rare—and seem 
  to avoid populace areas as a one storm-front may curve around 
  another—but out in the wasteland they can come—and you'd 
  better avoid them when they do. 
  The Behemoths 
  There are some big animals in the Middle Ring. Down Death 
  Alley are the Gila Monsters. There are nuclear powered Crawler 
  robots in the ruins. There are toxic abominations in the Inner 
  Ring (some cybernetic). These are all big. Out in the Outer 
  Wasteland are reports of things on a scale with mountain 
  ranges. The Iron Warlord (fact or myth, you decide?) is reputed 
  to be over 300 yards of black metal armor. The Machine Herds 
  have members over 100 yards long—how big do they get? 
  Down in the Pacific Basin there are rumors of things even 
  bigger: land dwelling tentacled things the size of cities. Who 
  knows—but you don't want to be the first to find out if they're 
  hostile. 
  Lost Areas 
  Another reputed phenomena of the Outer Wasteland are 
  reports of lost areas—spots (which may move—there certainly 
  are no maps to any) that are blind spots on the planet—places 
  where your radio doesn't work—where your natural sense of 
  direction just leads you further in. Lost Areas are said to be 
  places where you can go one step in and turn around and it's 
  100-steps to get out (meaning back to where you were) or 
  worse. People who've traveled the Outer Wasteland—even 
  hard-bitten ones, treat this as something perhaps more 
  dangerous than superstition. All kinds of weapons were used in 
  the Age of War. What if one of them simply took porous chunks 
  out of reality altogether? 
  Now it's been 10,000 years  
  Man has cried a billion tears  
  For what he never knew  
  Now man's reign is through  
  But through the eternal night  
  The twinkling of starlight  
  So very far away  
  Maybe it's only yesterday... 
  -- "In The Year 2525 (Exordium 
  & Terminus)," Zager and Evans 
  
SOURCE: textdata/thevault/Have-Not/Have-Not Corebook.pdf