Quote:
Originally Posted by Astromancer
Dawn?
"They say that the technology of the cities used to be everywhere. It was normal for country folk to go to school and some went to universities and the like. But that was before the Great Death when the cities let people in freely.
My grandfather told me that his great grandma just left her home in someplace called Alabama and without any money or people trying to stop her went and lived by the Western Ocean for ten years. After that she married my great grandpa and came to live here just before the Great Death. Imagine that. One lone girl doing that and living. And she called it a fun adventure!
Now, you go everywhere armed and you aren't allowed to stay without good reason. The city folk buy children. They have plenty of their own kids. Ours they use as servants, though their kids can be citizens, though that isn't everywhere. Many farmers just want slaves. So being in a trade caravan isn't an easy or safe job, but it's the only one that lets you see America.
Basically a post-apocalyptic blend between Connan and Sinbad. But you're in a wagon train the cities are impoverished TL nine enclaves powered by fusion generators or other stable safe renewables. They are slowly rebuilding America. The large numbers of hostile barbarian descendents of the rest of the population don't make this easy. Mainly because the cities want either egalitarian democracies (generally socialist) or republics (generally market capitalist) and most of the powers in the countryside want their local oligrachies left intact and/or made rich and more powerful. As there is no unified view of the goal, little progress is being made towards it. Most other nations are worse off or fanatically isolationist.
The PCs are young post-apocalyptic rural people looking for a better less restrictive life.
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Further details. Although the USA still describes itself as a single nation it's really less unified than the Holy Roman Empire. Individual communities have adapted to the world they live in sometimes strange ways, in other times brutal ways. Read TV Tropes
Adventure Towns for ideas.
The federal government is slowly but surely rebuilding the rail system, but it's not all that systematic. Still they are working to connect seaports to inland trade centers. So after traveling in what would seem like Mad Max/Conan world for a couple of weeks the caravans suddenly can find themselves in what seems like small town America of the late 19th/ early 20th century.
The Caravans are a cross between traveling
Trade Fairs (they create a marketplace wherever they go) and circuses. They also have government services, like medical tents where the people can get medical and dental care, eyeglasses, etc.., and civil service exams. Groups of people who always travel with the caravan have taken to calling themselves "gypsies," some of them are even related to the
Romani People.
The main economic life blood of the Caravans is the simple fact that they buy cattle from country people and sell them to city people. Although between
Vertical Farming and
Aquaculture conducted in tandem, the cities are self sufficient in food, and they have good dairy and poultry farms, they lack red meat. The country people supply cattle, hogs, lambs, sheep, and goats (and some Bison and Elk) to the cities. In return the cities produce quality manufactured goods and supply services.
Poverty is the norm. Any wealth level above
Struggling requires a thirty point
Unusual Background. There are clear signs that in a generation or two thing could be much better, but the long tern side effects of Global warming are still around, so it might not get better soon. Plus the society is radically divided and hostile towards it's different parts even though they need each other.