[Custom Setting] Front Range

Well, well, another custom setting by me. This one is a tad simpler then the other one I have here and there's some stuff I'm still debating about it and I'm actively looking for opinions on it.

Front Range is a post-apocalypse setting that takes place in a world ravaged by a virus (has nothing to do with COVID-19 as the idea for this setting is about a year or two old). The area of concentration is on a small section of the southwest United States. The majority of the "action" takes place in southern Colorado but it ranges out to parts of northern New Mexico, northwest Texas, and eastern Kansas.

New powers have risen up since the fall of society as we know it (these are the most immediate powers players are likely to come across):

The Springs: The most powerful of the regional powers. Born out of the military remnants that sheltered at Fort Carson during the early days of the apocalypse. The eventually left the safety of the fort grounds and brought order and justice to a bandit filled Colorado Springs. They didn't stop there though. They began a military conquest that gained them Manitou Springs, Canon City, and a large chunk of eastern Colorado stopping at country road 71 and Limon becoming their most northern city. They have a large military, an advanced industrial industry, are self sustaining, a civic religion, and a democratic political system with a divide between citizen and civilian.

Arkansas Trade Confederacy (ATC): Stretching across the best highway in this post-apoc land (the Arkansas River) from Pueblo to Garden City. Once it was a loose alliance of trade merchants that grew into a well oiled mercantile power. Divided up by King Cities and their vassal towns the ATC is a fractured power that is only bound together for two reasons: protection and trade. The King Cities are ruled by a Trade King with barons of trade houses serving under him and serving those trade houses are vassals. It is a plutocratic power with immense trade capital (crops and transportation mostly). It's not a major military power but it can protect itself and you don't want to mess with their Caravan Guard Corp which guards the Trade House's caravans across the Front Range.

Free City of Canon: The city that can not be tamed. Once a vassal to Pueblo the city was taken by The Springs during its Second Expansion Campaign. It was helped thanks to an already going resistance in Canon City against Pueblo. The resistance fighters just traded in another ruler in for one that was much harsher and had no patience with rebellion. However, even The Springs couldn't tame the city no matter how harshly they tried. The local resistance turned the garrisoning commander from The Springs to their side. At that point with a force behind them and after the Battle of Phantom Canyon the Free City of Canon was born. A true democratic power with a close relationship with the San Luis Valley Collective, The Pits, some of the Highlander Clans, and small isolated towns out in the mountains.

Highlander Clans (unoriginal name I know but I couldn't think of anything better): During the apocalypse many fled into the mountains right near Colorado Springs. Over time the survivors gathered into larger groups that were predecessors to the modern clans. The clans took their names from the most prominent mountain peaks they settled around. There are five clans: Pike, Cheyenne, Almagre, Ormes, and Manitou. Clan Cheyenne is the wealthiest and most well off thanks to its mercantile nature and its deeply interconnected relationship with The Springs. Clan Manitou is a shell of its former self. It used to rival that of Clan Cheyenne when it still possessed the walled city of Manitou Springs until The Springs took it. Clan Pike has made Clan Almagre and Manitou close allies thanks to marriage and treaties. The highlander clans are incredibly tribal. They have deep and violent grudges against one another. In particular Clan Pike and Clan Cheyenne thanks to past transgressions when Clan Cheyenne made itself apart of The Springs and tried to conquer the other highlander clans during the Second Expansion Campaign. The clans stay relevant do to trade of materials (minerals, wood, and especially water) and acting as mercenaries.

Pitts: Situated at the large Cripple Creek and Victor gold mine and surrounding towns. Pitts is a mass of vice and sin. Using the wealth from this Pitts has established a prominent, disciplined, and skilled mercenary company called the Brotherhood of the Sword or maybe Rifle (this depends on a question I'm going to ask soon).

*Kingdom of Douglas: Not a fun story of how a lot of places became a single entity. It was a rather bloody join or die conquest waged by the family that would form the monarchy of this kingdom. Those that joined became banner families and those that didn't... well you can still find the marked mass graves. Why the conquest in the first place? Land and resources were a major reason but rumors were spreading that someone else had the same idea so someone else jumped on it first. The kingdom could of been much larger if The Springs wasn't taking back Colorado Springs. The two actually ran into each other at what it now their border. The two were already bloody and spent from their previous fighting so a border was hammered out between them. Years later this would become a sore point for both sides and would lead the The Springs and the Kingdom of Douglas into border skirmishes and a simmering cold war. The Kingdom of Douglas rivals the The Springs in its military might on a technological and martial level. They're force are still outnumbered by The Springs. What the Kingdom of Douglas brings to the table resource wise is technology from the times before. They are the closest to the remains of Denver and its surrounding sprawl and launch expeditions into it regularly. They're also allies of the ATC and big trading partners with them.

So that's the basic lay of the land and maybe a little dose of the areas history (which I'll spare everyone from right now).

One theme I wanted to explore with this setting is technological regression. After the apocalypse the structures and forces keeping us at our current technological level have disappeared or extremely waned. This has set humanity back an unknown number of years. Now I ask how far should this regression go? Let's keep it simple and start with weaponry? Devolved back to sword and arrow? Maybe something akin to the late 1800s with cap and ball or maybe the early day of cartridge weapons but no automatic fire or machine guns? I'm asking as I can't make up my mind on which to go with. Any would fit the setting but every time I settle on one I always wander over to something else when it captures my imagination.

Dope ass setting.

I don't think an event like this would lead to technological regression as much as it would lead to technological stagnation. Essentially, the collective knowledge of the past 4,000 years still exits. It may not be in the form of the internet, but libraries certainly exist, as do educators or the offspring of them. And I can only infer this because of the size of the factions involved.

For example, the fact that the Springs Exists as a major military faction that has successfully expanded suggests that they maintained and kept the weapons available to them as members of Fort Carson. The ability to reload and create brass casings is fairly widespread - and the amount of weapons simply available in the US would make obtaining/maintaining current weapon technology feasible. Furthermore, it seems like a group this powerful would make that their top priority.

The ATC represents a crucial factor that humanity thrives upon to continue to innovate and evolve (sometimes without intentionally doing so) and that is Movement/Contact/Resulting Complexity; in fact, I teach my World History courses around these three themes. Given their abundance of resources and subsequent trade in them, societal specialization should still be a thing - in other words, not everyone has to farm. People can still form specialized/skilled labor groups and apprenticeships and valuable technical knowledge can still be maintained and passed down. Stonemasonry, carpentry, blacksmithing, metalworking in general, would all be back on top of needed trades.

Essentially what I am getting at is that just given the size/power of the factions still around as written, I think they'd be more at a technological stagnation rather than straight up regression - at least in teh case of the two major factions. They still wield enough resource surplus to maintain population growth, specialization of labor, obvious social stratification, etc. the likes of which will maintain current tech. Probably won't be making any huge innovations, but I have to imagine that enough engineers and scientists survived the plague to have small, well hidden groups, that hoard tech (BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL HAS ENTERED THE CHAT).

The outlying and smaller groups might be experiencing technological regression simply because of their relative lack of resources, but if they control needed trade items (like water with the clans, for example), they probably trade it for weapons/gear that keep them from being steam rolled by the other factions - or at the very least to protect their sought after commodities.

All that is to say that I think this setting can stay at Marine Corps level of tech (Not army/air force cool shit, but shit that's been tested, tried and true for decades. Who needs an M4 when you have a trusty M16, am I right? lol )

Iron and Metal wrote:

Dope ass setting.

Thank you.

Iron and Metal wrote:

I don't think an event like this would lead to technological regression as much as it would lead to technological stagnation. Essentially, the collective knowledge of the past 4,000 years still exits. It may not be in the form of the internet, but libraries certainly exist, as do educators or the offspring of them. And I can only infer this because of the size of the factions involved.

For example, the fact that the Springs Exists as a major military faction that has successfully expanded suggests that they maintained and kept the weapons available to them as members of Fort Carson. The ability to reload and create brass casings is fairly widespread - and the amount of weapons simply available in the US would make obtaining/maintaining current weapon technology feasible. Furthermore, it seems like a group this powerful would make that their top priority.

The ATC represents a crucial factor that humanity thrives upon to continue to innovate and evolve (sometimes without intentionally doing so) and that is Movement/Contact/Resulting Complexity; in fact, I teach my World History courses around these three themes. Given their abundance of resources and subsequent trade in them, societal specialization should still be a thing - in other words, not everyone has to farm. People can still form specialized/skilled labor groups and apprenticeships and valuable technical knowledge can still be maintained and passed down. Stonemasonry, carpentry, blacksmithing, metalworking in general, would all be back on top of needed trades.

Essentially what I am getting at is that just given the size/power of the factions still around as written, I think they'd be more at a technological stagnation rather than straight up regression - at least in teh case of the two major factions. They still wield enough resource surplus to maintain population growth, specialization of labor, obvious social stratification, etc. the likes of which will maintain current tech. Probably won't be making any huge innovations, but I have to imagine that enough engineers and scientists survived the plague to have small, well hidden groups, that hoard tech (BROTHERHOOD OF STEEL HAS ENTERED THE CHAT).

Interesting thought about stagnation instead of regression. I've messed with that thought as well.

My first thought about why regression is simply do to loss of vital infrastructure. The lack of factories, the tooling, CAD machines, and the power to actually get it to work is gone. Now, there are some things that don't need that exactly to make it work. Creating brass casing can be done by hand or man powered machines. However to use that M4/M16/AR15 example (getting down to brass tax the two are the same base platform. M4 is a carbine, M16 is a full rifle, and an AR15 a semi-auto only version) it might be a little harder then you think. There's a lot of plastic injection molding, forged metal, and a lot of small machine cut parts. That rifle platform was considered space age when it came out for a good reason. To the point that Armalite actually made a cheaper and easier to make version called the AR180 for countries without the capability to make the M16. I'll digress at that point but I hope that got some of my thinking across.

So it's not brain drain of why they can't keep maintaining the course but the ability to produce what they used to be able to. With that "brain power" they would resort to earlier methods that don't require that fancy tech that's just dead weight or unable to be fixed when it finally gave out (no techs that understand it or the parts to fix it). However, ditch the plastic and go with wood and you still have an M16 that's just heavier and with wood furniture, lol.

So going with a slight regression and not something as drastic as I was thinking seems plausible (get your dope ass retro M16s with wood furniture here!).

Iron and Metal wrote:

The outlying and smaller groups might be experiencing technological regression simply because of their relative lack of resources, but if they control needed trade items (like water with the clans, for example), they probably trade it for weapons/gear that keep them from being steam rolled by the other factions - or at the very least to protect their sought after commodities.

All that is to say that I think this setting can stay at Marine Corps level of tech (Not army/air force cool shit, but shit that's been tested, tried and true for decades. Who needs an M4 when you have a trusty M16, am I right? lol )

Yeah, the range of mountains right next to Colorado Springs is home to lots of man made reservoirs. The snow from up there feeds them and lots of the surrounding communities and the clans weaponized that so to speak economically.

Not our current day USMC with their F35s, Ospreys, and King Stallions. However I get what your saying. More like the USMC was during WW2... the red headed step child of the armed forces with old and obsolescent weapons and equipment.

I was making a general comparison about the budgets of the Marine Corps compared to that of the Army and Air Force. My buds who were 0311s in Iraq were still being issued Nam-era M60s in training (beginning of the Iraq War, mind you - 2004 - 2007), humvees that were not uparmored, and in some cases didn't even have doors, and jungle cammie BDUs.

I also wasn't intending to speak to the minute variations between battle rifles (M4 vs M16 and the AR civilian version); my point was that I highly doubt they would be wielding bows and arrows out of necessity. In fact, a point of interest/conquest within the setting could be the very factories with the equipment capable of creating modern battle rifles.

Iron and Metal wrote:

I also wasn't intending to speak to the minute variations between battle rifles (M4 vs M16 and the AR civilian version); my point was that I highly doubt they would be wielding bows and arrows out of necessity. In fact, a point of interest/conquest within the setting could be the very factories with the equipment capable of creating modern battle rifles.

My inner gun nerd yelled in rage that you needed to die for that transgression, sorry.

I'll have to sleuth around to see if there's an arms manufacturers in Colorado Springs. However, even stuff that gunsmiths have at gun stores would be valuable.

I always saw The Springs as a major weapons manufacturer in the setting. They would use their weapons as a source of capital for trade.

To you and anyone else a general area of what the area looks like I guess I should share the setting map: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1mug_R4TROoNeksr4qpT7nKWtYASNuWne&usp=sharing

That also reminds me that I forgot one important faction. Added it to the OP.

A few other factions on here I haven't gone over but I'll get to them soon.

Quote :

My inner gun nerd yelled in rage that you needed to die for that transgression, sorry

Clearly. Did it feel nice at least?

There are a shitload of arms manufacturers in Colorado. Not sure about Colorado Springs in particular though.

That's the vibe I got from The Springs as well.

Iron and Metal wrote:

Quote :

My inner gun nerd yelled in rage that you needed to die for that transgression, sorry

Clearly. Did it feel nice at least?

Iron and Metal wrote:

There are a shitload of arms manufacturers in Colorado. Not sure about Colorado Springs in particular though.

That's the vibe I got from The Springs as well.

There are. Nothing big in Colorado Springs. Not a big deal as I'll just have the bandits that occupied it before horde and stashed that kind of equipment (these bandits were pretty well organized and split up Colorado Springs into little fiefdoms that Bandit Lords ruled over). After the First Expansion Campaign they would of claimed those and any more they came across. Enough were they could reverse engineer some of them down the line.

So I think I've settled on stagnation when it comes to weaponry.

Now the next question I've been fighting with as well. Transportation. Go with good ol' combustion vehicles or slide back to horses and pack animals? The issue with vehicles is they're big multi part machines that have a certain power source. Not against them and with the Amarillo Expanse (another if distant power in the region) I can turn into an oil provider pretty easily. Doesn't mean horses would be out of the question. Could keep vehicles around but they're prized possessions and used sparingly for certain tasks. Horses and pack animals picking up some slack where they're not used anymore.

Decided on keeping vehicles. They're rare and almost treated like heirlooms.

With vehicles it will let travel be quicker and also lead to some fun Mad Max like road battles.

I missed when this was first posted. Very cool setting.

One thing that may or may not be important but that interests me is the fashion, as that helps to visualize the people in the setting. How should I envison these people's appearence? Like mix of western and Mad Max/Fallout fashion? A trash-bin knight packing a full automatic?

Gurkhal wrote:

One thing that may or may not be important but that interests me is the fashion, as that helps to visualize the people in the setting. How should I envison these people's appearence? Like mix of western and Mad Max/Fallout fashion? A trash-bin knight packing a full automatic?

Kinda depends on the factions but it falls within western and mad max/fallout fashion.

The Springs: More refined and minimalist going back to its roots as being founded by the old US military.
Free City of Canon: Take most of their fashion from The Springs.
ATC: Hierarchy based but the trade houses, barons, and Trade Kings love to flaunt their wealth. The Caravan Guard are well known for their use of blue shamaghs covering their heads and faces and acts as a mark of office for them.
Highlanders: Rugged and practical. No kilts but they do make good use of camouflage especially Clan Pike. Clan Cheyenne have some guys called Sun Templars are pretty bold in appearance and colors with a mix in lots of sun iconography onto their combat gear.
Kingdom of Douglas: Have integrated a lot of old renaissance like looks into everyday wear and their combat equipment.
Pitts: A lot of Mad Max looking dudes here.

To keep it short, thanks for the update. Then I know a little about how to visualize these guys.