[Intro]

This is the way the world ends. Not with a bang or a whimper, but with a vt-vt-vt-vt-wmm-wmm-wmmm-wmmm-wmmmmmm-BRAKAK-VAAAAKAVWOMPVWOMPVWOMP-chkichiKRANG!

Last week, the world ended. The Crash hit Earth like a precision sledgehammer, knocking mankind back into the dark ages with a series of strategic strikes against all those things we hold dear - our technology, our community, our humanity, our desire for flat money with pictures of dead men on it - all these and more were lost as the RADwave wiped over the world, sending the Earth tumbling into chaos.

The Empires of Man fell silent, The Earth went dark, and so it stayed, for hundreds upon hundreds of... minutes.

It seemed like the end of us, but, in time, mankind would crawl forth from its hiding places beneath the ruined cities of the past, staggering out into the light of a new world, feet unsteady from long seconds spent digging their way once again to the surface, eyes squinting after so many... hours spent in the darkness.

Gone were the towers of steel and glass. Gone were the rolling highways and criss-crossing streets that once marked the landscape, that once stood as monument to the progress of man. I mean, okay, most of those things were actually still pretty much there, but they were all busted and dirty, and no one really felt like cleaning them up or repairing them. That shit would take time, and people didn't really want to get into all that.

So mankind adapted, mankind moved on from their sedentary lives. They took to the roads, and headed out into the deserts. They scavenged what they could, and stole what they could not scavenge. Sometimes they traded for things they couldn't steal, but that was, like, a real small percentage of the time.

In time, as the minutes turned into hours, the hours became days, and the days became... well, the days became other days, the old world was forgotten, or at least not talked about quite as much. Men forgot the Rule of Law, for it had no place in this new world. Here, in the shadows of the old ruins, in the seemingly endless stretches of the Wastes, there was only the Rule of Strength. The Rule of Cunning. The Rule of The Gun and Sword. Occasionally, The Rule of The Taser.

To this new world were born New Men, Men of The Mind, Men of The Blood, and Men of The RAD. The Mutants were the first, crawling out of the ruins of the Old World with gifts of flesh and bone, their bodies warped and twisted by the RAD, their genetics all kinds of screwed up. The Mutants were followed by the Psychers, to whom the RAD had granted massive Psychical power, the power to shape this new world, the power to bend men to their will, the power to move you. Finally, there came the Freakers - those who had, more than any other, become inured, accustomed, to the RAD.

Also, there were some robots.

This is a new world. A world free of the baggage of days past. Like, literally, days past - there are still, like, hikers and shit who ain't even aware this shit happened.

Anyway...

It is a new world. A harsh world. A world in need...

...of heroes.

[Encyclopedia]

• The Crash: The End of All Things. No one is totally sure what happened. There was a loud noise, some screaming may have occurred. The sky went green for a second, and then everything went all crazy. Next thing you know the world's all Road Warrior and suddenly what's left of the moon is glowing like Toxic Waste in a poorly researched TV show.
• RAD : Reality Altering Dickery, or The Stuff That Ended The World. RAD is a strange sort of energy that has a tendency to warp existence in strange and unexpected ways. It lingers like radiation, but it follows none of those pleasant, predictable rules. Areas with heavy deposits of RAD tend to take on a pale, neon-greenish glow, and many report seeing the air around such areas "rippling".
• Humans: Also known as Smiths, Jacks, Humies, Norms, Dorks, Barnwallowers, Callbacks, Swingvotes, and Marks. Humans are the old guard, the most common members of the Post-Crash population, making up 60% of the global population - as far as we can figure. Humans vary widely, as always, but since the Crash there seems to be a trend toward stupid haircuts, asymmetrical clothing, and large amounts of chain and leather, though availability has made those last two somewhat optional.
• Mutants: Also known as Muties, Goo-Heads, Glowsticks, Lumpies, Xaviers, and Turtles. The second largest slice of the population, making up 24% of the world's sentient biomass, according to entirely several entirely non-existent censuses. Mutants are even more widely varied than humans, with no two appearing exactly the same, as their anatomies are left up almost entirely to the whims of fate. The luckiest mutants can hope to look like aliens from a low-budget TV show, with skin-patterns and weird eyes being the order of the day. The unlucky are barely recognizable as having once been men. Either way, there is no mistaking a human for a mutant.
• Psychers: Also known as Brainjobs, Lobers, Soccerballs, Xavier-Xaviers-or-maybe-like-that-red-head-chick-Jean-somethings, Psychs. Arguably the luckiest of the Post-Crash Branch Species. Psychers still look exactly like they did when they were human, though many choose to shave their heads as a sign of camaraderie with other Psychers. When intensely upset or extremely strained, Pschers have been known to glow from the eyes or skull. This has no apparent cause or purpose beyond looking a little intimidating.
• Robots: Also known as Toasters, 'Bots, Trons, Braves (after the Brave Little Toaster, of course), Reds (after the well-known and not at all obscure robotic superhero The Red Tornado), and Engines. Born of the RADwave, robots are conglomerations of electronics fused together and somehow granted sentience and a semblance of life. Being, at most, several days old, the Robots are still finding themselves, unsure of their place in this world. Despite their youth as a people, they have formed a unique culture of their own with rapid speed, owing this partially to the rumored "Robonet", an underlying datasharing network rumored to exist as a massive neural web linking all robots. Whether or not this is true, robots have managed to scour out a place as the foremost messengers and datahandlers in this Post-Crash, Post-Wireless world. In the days since the RADwave, more and more robots seem to be emerging from the ruins of human society, and it is assumed, largely without proof, that they now make up 15% of the world's population.
• Freakers: Also known as Freakers. Freakers are those who have become entangled with the warping energies of the RAD. They share a strange connection with it that few can understand. Easily the rarest of all Post-Crash demographics, Freakers make up an (gu)estimated 1% of the world's populace. Strangely, Freakers only appear among the pure-blooded human and robot populations.

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radlands op.txt