Second Dawn:Plains States
From EryriWiki
This is a reference document for the LARP The Second Dawn.
After the Dark Ages, when the old fuels ran low, the people of the Plains began to search among the ruins of their ancestors for better ways to protect themselves. The first leaders to gather the knowledge and capability to build a fusion engine became the first warlords, as their fusion tanks defended enclaves from the predations of the last traveling bandits, then against greedy opponents with the old technologies of their own. The third century AC was marked by a simmering, endless war, as the fourteen great warlords fought each other for territory, resources, and dominion over the people who worked the farms and mines. Minneapolis, Chicago, Detroit, Akron, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Omaha, Tulsa, Topeka, Little Rock, Memphis, Springfield, Bismarck, and Denver; fourteen feudal lords struggling over the resources of the ravaged continent.
Around the year 300, the balance of power began to shift. Warlords had conquered others before, but in the past that had always brought the combined ire of the others down on the winner, none willing to see one gain too much advantage. But when Cordelia Wayne, Warlord of Minneapolis, conquered Bismarck, she and her generals outwitted three opposing armies in a brilliant battle on the edge of the western mountains, routing a force more than twice her size before rolling into Denver.
From then on, it’s all been uphill for Minneapolis. More wars, more battles, some of them close, but Wayne’s brilliant tactics have won out every time. As the years passed, more and more of the cities have fallen under her control, their farms and ramshackle factories added to her war machine. Two years ago, in 326, Akron finally fell under her control, giving her access to the border with the prosperous Eastern Union. Memphis, Tulsa and Detroit remain under independent rule, but even their warlords must bow to Minneapolis’ will if they want to avoid being crushed and replaced by a puppet government.
Cordelia Wayne herself was never been one for fame and public appearances, but her government continues apace. Now that it effectively rules all of the Plains, the bureaucracy is beginning to solidify, power slowly devolving to her loyalists in the far-flung cities. But while no major war stirs the Plains for the first time in over a century, the great war machine still stands, and its forces have been trickling eastwards towards the border with the Eastern Union. Resentment against that wealthy eastern neighbor is common amongst the serfs of the Plains, but Wayne’s plans are unknown. The Union’s military is untested in recent years, but while surely smaller in number than the Plains forces, its secretive Tinkers have powerful sciences at their disposal. Perhaps the massing of Plains forces foretells an invasion of the Union, or perhaps it’s just one more move in a political game of vast proportions.
