The World of 209X
The world of the 2090s is a fractured landscape, reshaped by a slow, grinding collapse rather than a single apocalyptic bang. It's business as usual, slowly sliding into more and more environmental degradation, economic despair, and mind-numbing pop culture as the corporations rake in the profits and take control. This is a tour of that broken world.
"Some players have some weird ideas about the background. There was no apocalypse or anything like. What happened to the old US was a series of smaller wars that took place over decades."
A Slow Collapse: The Fall of the Old World
The 21st century was not kind. The collapse was not a single event, but a cascade failure of interconnected systems over decades. It was a perfect storm of catastrophe: the fallout from disasters like Fukushima, the relentless creep of climate change and rising sea levels, a cataclysmic earthquake on the San Andreas Fault, and a slowly unfolding water crisis in the southwest. This environmental collapse, combined with the immense economic fallout, ignited the flames that would become the brutal Secession Wars.
"This took place over decades, not days. The land is still mostly there. Just the people aren't."
The Dustbowl & The Badlands
The single most important event in North America's recent history was the creation of the great dustbowl. A combination of factors—overuse of water from ancient aquifers, chemical fertilizers turning soil to dust, massive monoculture farms, and changing rainfall patterns—led to a cascade of desertification. A vast swathe of the continent, from the Rockies to Ohio, was rendered almost uninhabitable, creating the lawless expanse now known as the Badlands.
The Secession Wars
The ecological disaster of the dustbowl triggered mass population movements and resource scarcity, which in turn ignited the bloody and brutal Secession Wars. These were not conflicts fought with large-scale nuclear weapons, but a series of smaller, protracted wars over decades that utilized devastating chemical and biological arsenals. The old USA was torn apart, its government collapsing and its territory fracturing.
Fuel & The Rise of Nanotech
Parallel to the wars, the petrochemical industry, a house of cards built on peak oil and government subsidies, finally collapsed. This spurred a massive boost in the nascent nanochemical industry. Today, a combination of tailored micro-organisms, nanites, and modified algae strains can synthesize almost any chemical compound, including fuels that burn cleaner and more efficiently than their old-world counterparts.
Cincinnati (Cinci): Heart of the Eastern Border
The primary setting of the game, Cincinnati is the largest of the Eastern-Border Cities. Its population swelled to 24 million during the refugee crisis, a result of rushed, uncoordinated, and corrupt urban planning. Today, it is a chaotic mix of hyper-modernity and decay. While Ohio is now its own country, Cinci is its undisputed economic and cultural heart.
The Slums
The slums are Cinci. This sprawling mess of favelas, tenements, and cheap condos covers most of the city and houses the majority of its population. Life is a constant hustle, even for those with standard jobs. The streets are a permanent market controlled by a loose network of protection rackets known as "slums law".
The Projects (e.g., Evanston)
Four colossal, interconnected arcologies housing nearly half of Cinci's population. Built to handle the refugee crisis, they are a NoGo zone for outsiders and a crime-filled swamp. Inside, however, a unique and thriving culture has emerged, born from the necessity of millions learning to live together in a high-pressure environment.
Gamble Street
The city's primary market and Chinatown, existing by its own rules under an uneasy alliance between the Triads and the Yakuza. It's the pulsing heart of the city's black market, where one can buy anything from illegal cybernetics to information spikes.
Protected Zones (PZs)
Gleaming corporate enclaves, walled off from the chaos. Areas like the Central PZ are where the elite live and work under the watchful eye of firms like Tower Group. They are worlds of clean air, high technology, and absolute corporate control.
The Bordertown
The western limit of Cinci is a fortress. Just outside lies the Bordertown, a scattered community of travelers, refugees, and predators. Though technically a NoGo area, the heavy Tower Group presence keeps it in a state of tense stability.
NoGo Zones
Areas without official law enforcement, where entry is at your own risk.
- Riverside: A toxic waste dump on the southern bank of the Ohio, a festering scar from the Secession Wars. Officially depopulated, but some desperate souls still live and die among the chemical sludge.
- The Old City Core: The darkest of the NoGos. The former downtown is now a ruin of decaying skyscrapers, a den of pure evil that is home to snuff studios and the city's worst monsters.
Global Locations: A Fractured World
While America has collapsed, other parts of the world have adapted or risen in its place, creating a new global dynamic. China is now the dominant global power, and space exploration likely consists of a moon base, the ISS being a relic of the past.
Brazil & The Amazon
In stark contrast to the former USA, Brazil has emerged as a stable and powerful nation. However, its vast jungles are a smuggler's paradise and home to ruthless cartels like the Irmandade Roxa. In a stunning reversal of historical trends, it is now a destination for people smugglers moving desperate individuals *out* of the collapsed American state in search of a better life.
The Gulf of Mexico
The Gulf is a graveyard of the old world, with cities like Panama City, Florida, now nothing more than debris sticking out of the sea. The region is dotted with isolated compounds and derelict deep-sea installations, like the oil rig where Mal takes refuge. It's a place to disappear, far from corporate or legal oversight.
The North African Desert
A vast, timeless expanse where borders have no meaning. This is the domain of the nomadic badw clans, who mix ancient traditions with modern technology. It is also a shadow theatre for global espionage, where corporate mercenaries and intelligence agents play a deadly game of cat and mouse amidst the sandstorms.
London
A major world city, but one that has been ravaged by rising sea levels. The old metropolis is flooded, with life continuing on the rooftops and upper levels of its historic buildings, a testament to humanity's stubborn will to adapt.
Siberia
A remote and desolate region used by megacorporations as a location for untraceable subsidiaries, black sites, and brutal gulags. It's a place where people are sent to be forgotten, either as a researcher in a secret lab or a prisoner in a salt mine.
Factions & Power Brokers
In the fractured world of the 2090s, power is not held by governments, but by a complex web of corporate monoliths, ruthless criminal syndicates, and desperate street gangs.
The Corporate Overlords
The true governments of the modern era. They control the PZs, wage shadow wars, and view the populace as either consumers or obstacles.
- Tower Group: Cinci's corporate rent-a-cops and biggest gang. A multinational corporation contracted to enforce the law, they are known for their brutality in the slums while providing high-quality service in the PZs. A secret black-ops unit within Tower acts to maintain the city's "status quo" through any means necessary.
- Other Megacorps: Entities like CinnTech Genetics, Naas, and Rohden are major players in the constant game of corporate espionage.
Syndicates & Street Power
Where corporate law ends, the law of the street begins. These organizations control the illicit economies of the slums.
- The Triads & Yakuza: Traditional organized crime syndicates, most notably the Five Lucky Winds triad's uneasy alliance with the Yakuza on Gamble Street.
- Slums Law: A loose network of neighborhood watch groups and protection rackets that maintain a semblance of peace, allowing business—legal or otherwise—to function.
- The Jags & Modes: The two main street gangs of the slums, locked in a perpetual, hyper-violent turf war. The Jags favor a punk aesthetic, while the Modes emulate an androgynous version of the ancient actor James Dean.
- The Zetas: A societal label for feral children, aged 5-10, with no hope and no future. They are not an organized gang, but a tragic symptom of the city's decay, a concept they themselves wouldn't even understand.
