Updates

Revised caravan assets to take into account Green Gang compound and other loot picked up along the way.

Condensed "game night" label and "session log" label into one.

Revised all labels to be lower case. Query: How are we applying "story" and "vignette"?

CertainBetrayal: Please review vehicle descrips re SOP and advise on changes/amendments.

UPDATE: filled in all the one-horse town entries recently filed. (HJ)

Schwer Homestead

Maya Schwer is a rancher and waterroot farmer living north-north-west of Baja. Avatanya Brom knew her from before the war when they'd meet at market. Maya is solid and reliable, having helped the Regulators in their fight against the New Baja Gang. Later, she took Kain, the Doc, Sam and Gade in for about two weeks after their quick exit from New Baja.

The Schwer homestead is windswept and worn. It is also very large, with a huge cattle paddock and a half-dozen buildings. The waterroot fields are expansive and well-maintained. The desert is fought here, tooth and nail, on a daily basis.

All told, there are about a dozen or so souls working the homestead.

Timmins

Infamous around the globe for making shoddy knock-offs of anything imaginable, the city state of Timmins is a larger city state on the savannah south of Zagreb. Really, only a small fraction of the city's 270,000 residents find their employment in the copy-cat factories. The rest are employed in highly diversified light industry or agriculture.

Timmins is run by the Communist Party of the Independent City State of Timmins (CPICST), which is notoriously paranoid. Timmins is also a founding member of the Zagreb-plain based Socialist Economic Pact (SEP), a small economic sub-league which includes the UMF city state of Zagreb and a few minor towns in the region. Membership in the Pact makes its members eligible for preferential trading rates and reduced taxes when dealing with other Pact members.

The presence of the SEP has led to a large increase in smuggling from Timmins northward to Zagreb. This has caused no small amount of tension between Timmins and the UMF. The Forzi cartel runs large scale operations in Timmins under the leadership of Eli Brown.

Timmins has a proud history of resistance to the CEF during the War of the Alliance. The communist city was occupied and brutally suppressed. Members of the resistance, like "Brick" Norita and Ben Cantor are well-regarded to this day.

Bezio

Bezio is a tiny independent mining town and caravan supply stop high in the Pacifica Mountain Range, east of Timmins. It is truly a one-horse town, with multiple warehouses for storing caravan supplies and whatever worthwhile ore and minerals are extracted from the surrounding mountains.

In the mountains nearby is a tribe of technologically primitive people called the Araman. They live a semi-nomadic, light agricultural lifestyle. The Araman represent a perfect example of the Terranovan phenomenon of Artificial Prehistory. This is the result of extensive, long-term independent colonization on a planet known for its isolating distances.

The Araman people are proficient in herbal medicine. Their mythology has lately been shaken up with sightings of GRELs two cycles ago (after the War): The 'Godlings' are clearly from the sky, and the Araman must steer clear of them. God abandoned the Araman on Terranova (they call it Neuvelt) and swore never to return for his wayward children. But the Godlings are nothing compared to the appearance of a falling star which streaked across the sky and disappeared in the horizon in the West, sometime in TN1917.

Seminola

Seminola is a small mining town in the western foothills of the Pacifica Mountains, further south of Timmins. Population is roughly 300 people, nearly all miners or farmers. The town consists of a main street cutting through a commercial neighbourhood to the north. To the south is the miner's tent city, which is a much rougher and disorganized place.

The town is currently reeling from the murder of some of its lawmen, the occupation of the town by the MILICIA, and the sudden disappearance of the town mayor, Yonina Kalo.

Notable individuals include Jeremiah Harris, an honest, hardworking, if simple-minded dry goods merchant with a large family, and Dr. Henri Grier, an 83-year old expatriate from the Southern Republic. Grier has been adopted into the Harris family after living quietly in Seminola as a political exile. Grier was a professor to Kain Delacroix and Ben Cantor.

Kolmar Station

Kolmar Station is a medium sized oasis tower on the Peace River-New Baja caravan route and the site of many trading caravan meetings. The station sits atop Kolmar Cliff, which overlooks a collapsed MacAllen Tunnel canyon below. The view is spectacular. The station's design is unique in that it is a normal tapered cylindrical oasis tower, except that the cliff-side facing is flush with the cliff: the station looks like it's been sliced cleanly.

Kolmar Station is run by the Melana Clan, who number about 40 individuals. The station has a bar, a couple of gear and vehicle bays and a large market which serves the various homesteads in the region. There is only one main entrance in and out of the station, rather than two.

Kolmar Station has the following establishments:

The Rock Skag: A larger watering hole near the vehicle decks. It's lived in, grimy, but not particularly horrible. The sun gets reflected down to that level, so it's not too dark. Milton Douek runs the Skag, and at 85 cycles he doesn't tolerate much, usually suggesting that troublemakers leave while he points a shotgun at them.

Klint Kartwright is the owner of the local Hermes72 network uplink franchise, something he's managed to work out with the Melanas.

The Scrapyard: owned and operated by the Rowe family (15 souls). The scrapyard sprawls out along the northern side of the station and runs out along the cliff top. It's getting large enough now that it's been jokingly referred to as the Khayr-ad Din Embassy.

The central plaza is open and there are at least six different inns and hotels. At most times there are 200 people here, all transient, passing through Kolmar Station.

The bottom levels: Dark, dank and dangerous, the Melana clan keeps this area closed off as they work hard to fix the water purifiers, the backup generator and life support, in an effort to bring Kolmar Station up to TNTR standards.

Snowy Hill

Before the War of the Alliance, the town of Snowy Hill was barely more than a homestead county headquarters with a few services. Its population barely topped fifty souls, with another fifty living in the outlying farms. The town was occupied by the CEF for a brief period, but survived relatively unscathed. Snowy Hill is located in the middle of the Western Desert, towards the equator, closer to the Pacifica Mountains.

After the War, a prospector discovered that Snowy Hill was in fact sitting on top of a massive oil field. Northern Petrochemicals, based out of Petropolis, has since set up an extensive operation in Snowy Hill. An oasis tower was built, oil workers were brought in, and derricks, pipelines and storage tanks constructed. Snowy Hill's oil production is shipped northward via large tanker landships owned by the corporation.

The Sheriff of Snowy Hill is a man named Isaac Nessen.

Bored hot, bored cold.

The Terranovan sun had already disappeared beyond the horizon. Major Anatol Medalev shivered, mainly in anticipation of another cold night in the foothills of the Westridge mountain range. It had been brutally hot, despite the locals insisting that it was now winter. Apparently it didn't make much difference in the Badlands. It was either too hot, or too cold. Medalev had heard that the poles would be more to his liking.

Except that this is not Earth, this is Terranova. This whole miserable planet has it in for me.

Sitting in a hill-top dugout, looking out over the darkening dunes of the Barrington Basin, Medalev sighed. He knew, deep down, that his chances of getting off this alien world were slim. It was a daily mental exercise of a supreme order to deny this fact. Still, it had been about a year, give or take, since the fleet left. Medalev knew that the nagging feeling in his gut would have to be addressed sooner, rather than later.

"Sir, cawfee?" the familiar voice of Captain Upton, his aide and constant foil, announced the arrival of refreshments. Upton was always slightly cheerful, and though this endeared him to the men under Medalev's command, it annoyed the major to no end. It didn't help that Upton seemed to have adapted to Terranovan environmental conditions in an almost effortless fashion. The younger officer proffered up a small kettle with a smile as he eased into the dugout.

"No thank you, Upton," Medalev sighed. He could use the perk, but, "the stuff just tastes off, don't you find?"

"A little sir, but I figure, when in Rome," Upton smiled grimly and took a swig from his canteen. Medalev nodded quietly and turned back to look at the sand dunes in the distance. He shivered, this time because it was suddenly quite cold.

"Report, Captain," the major began his twice-daily ritual.

"Sir, we've lost three more GRELs to desertion. Shot two. A Minerva and a Mordred." Upton paused, "That makes fifteen since Commissar Lysanov arrived."

"Continue, Captain," Medalev said after a poignant pause.

"Hover vehicles are still low on fuel. We can't generate enough power on our solar cells alone. Infantry lasers are nearly all inoperable. We've switched to captured weaponry, except for our ammo-fed weapons. Food and water supplies are lasting, and our survey team found a subterranean river. Morale is high, but the men are restless sir."

They're not the only ones, Upton...

"-are wondering why we're holding here in the foothills sir, when we all know that our forces were supposed to rendezvous at WestBase. I estimate that it would take us-"

"That's enough Captain!" Medalev's voice was terse. Upton stopped suddenly. Medalev didn't want to hear about heading into the desert and meeting up with the rest of the stranded Colonial Expeditionary Force on Terranova. He knew that looking at any other die-hards would just make him vomit.

"Captain, our orders come from the Party," Medalev let the hint of dryness enter his tone. As if the Party meant anything here on Terranova anymore. "Captain Lysanov was clear. We are to wait for her orders to move. Until then, keep the men busy, keep them alert, and keep them ready. Is that understood?"

Captain Upton frowned, "Yes sir. Understood."