The natives call their canyon city “the Red Place” and everything beyond that “out on the sand.” Recursors call the recursion Cannibal Wasteland.
The chief community, called the Red Place, is located in a tunneled and carved canyon fortress. The canyon provides shelter from the storms that rage periodically out on the sand, but no protection from the radiation that causes unsightly mutations in many natives. Madam Protector leads the people who live in the Red Place with an iron fist (literally, a mutant iron fist). Her Valkyries—a group of armed maniacs who drive cars like weapons— defend the Red Place and deliver death to anyone who opposes the protector’s rule. The Valkyries also cull the weak and old, who end up as food for the rest of the community. The Valkyries have recently become aware of a curious location near the canyon entrance where confused strangers occasionally appear out of nowhere. Such visitors are easy pickings, and to this end the Valkyries have set a “Welcome Wagon” to watch the site. When the alarm sounds, the Valkyries drive. Although the PCs are likely in the dark at first, three things bear on their current situation. First, the background radiation interferes with
Most mutations caused by Cannibal Wasteland’s relentless background radiation are somewhat disfiguring, if not outright harmful.
Many more locations than those shown on the map and detailed on the previous pages exist in Cannibal Wasteland. The canyon extends for about a half mile in all, ending at the reinforced structure of Madam Protector's tower. Residents eat barbeque and special cheese made from the milk of rats, giving thanks to the Water Spirit and Madam Protector (and her Valkyries) for saving them from the End of All Things, when the world died.
People are not especially friendly in the Red Place. Most are too concerned with where their next drink of water or bite to eat is coming from, or whether they've done something to elicit the wrath of a Valkyrie, though as in any community, standouts exist.
A lone community judge named Calvin hears the complaints of citizen against citizen, attempting to arbitrate disputes before they rise to the level of Valkyrie involvement. If Calvin meets the PCs, he may ask them to perform a minor service along the lines of helping another citizen out of trouble or locating a lost child out on the sand.
Calvin level 4, tasks related to persuasion and pleasant interaction as level 6
This series of caverns includes training facilities, an armory, quarters, and parking for Madam Protector's loyal company of Valkyries. All told, the Valkyries number about thirty, though twice that many recruits are in training at any given time. Only about one in three recruits survives the training ordeals to become a full-fledged Valkyrie with the right to claim a battlecar.
Valkyries tend to be women, though several men are also part of the company.
The imposing structure at the head of the canyon is partly carved into the cliff face. In addition to Madame Protector's opulent quarters, the tower also houses about five Valkyrie honor guard, a luxurious guest chamber for whichever Valkyrie currently serves as the leader's honored companion, and a chamber that stores curiosities and artifacts collected out in the desert.
If the PCs get lost out on the sands, in addition to the encounters noted on the previous spread, they might find the following locations.
A massive military craft, partly buried in the sand, provides shelter from storms, months of food and water, several cyphers, and the possibility of an artifact.
This ancient facility contains cyphers, artifacts, and a group of mutants with powerful mutations (as opposed to merely disfiguring mutations). The mutants are suspicious of outsiders but are not automatically xenophobic.
TRANSLATION ANCHOR
Level: 1d6 + 2
Form: Large glowing mechanical deviceEffect: When activated, the translation anchor functions constantly until switched off again. If it is active in juvenile or younger recursions, the recursion becomes a magnet for translation attempts that fail, drawing recursors from across the Strange to the default translation location (or the last location a recursor visited). Study of the translation anchor reveals that it is likely a component of a larger device, one that has additional properties relating to translation, though what those might be specifically can’t be teased out. Unlike normal equipment and artifacts, the translation anchor itself can translate between recursions.
Depletion: 1 in d100