Northtowne Wastes

The Townies

When people thought of the Townies, meticulous came to mind as did tidy. Warm and friendly? No, but they were polite — overly polite some said. They were, and more or less are still, a people of black and white. Black pants or skirts, white shirts or blouses, black jackets… and so on. Order was their religion.
People often wondered how there were so many of the Townies. They hardly seemed the kind of people that took off their clothes… ever, and you never once so much as heard a child. Speculations range from kidnapping to zombies. Take your pick.

The Calamity

Even the most advanced civilizations are subject to the random whims of nature. Such was the case with Northtowne.

Sometime between the first and second peak of civilization,(Heights of humanity have a tendency to be 1-uppers), things just stopped working. Dynamos were spinning the wrong way, polarities were being reversed, metals were melting backwards. Things were soon turned on their head, then just as suddenly, it corrected itself. Not being a suspicious people, the Townies wrote it off, (as stated in the official report to the sub-committee of the Unusually Unusual Nonoccurence Department), as being an influx of anti-magnatron radiation caused by too many people flipping on a light switch at the same time. Let’s face it, it happens to the best of us. How else do you explain Lima?

A few days after the strange events corrected themselves, the sky grew dark — the air grew cold. There was a sudden rush of wind — then nothing. The first thing people remembered was finding their bustling megopolis gone. Utterly destroyed. There were shells of buildings, skeletons of infrastructure and a gapping hole some miles across right in the middle of what was once the research and industrial region of the realm.

There are holes, and then there are holes. The first sort of hole is the type of hole you’d expect to find a pirate’s treasure in, or maybe a rabbit if you find yourself lacking a spiffy hat. The second type of hole is more philosophical than it is physical. Oh sure, you can see this hole, you know it’s there – it’s real alright. But when something is so immensely real as this hole that appeared in the middle of Northtowne, it goes outside of reality and becomes philosophy. So in other words a lot of resources and other really great things go into it, and nothing but bullshit comes out.

The Calamity after the Calamity

It is often said that the worst thing a person can do in a moment of crisis is panic. This holds true most of the time. What is not often said is that if there is anything worse than panicking in a moment of crisis, it’s getting curious.

It’s already been said that the Townies were an industrious lot, and with that having been said, what do YOU think happened next? Well they naturally gravitated towards the big hole. What’s the harm in that you might ask. You know that yellow line they tell you not to cross on subway platforms and roller coaster queues? This hole didn’t have one. And do you know what happened next? Three quarters of the Northtowne population got sucked into the hole. So much for safety in numbers.

Rebuilding

With so much of the population gone, many felt lost. A few strong minds pulled themselves together, however, and set forth a plan. Technology was the enemy, or so the thinking went. The population of what the locals began to refer as simply “The Wastes”, decided that middle-out thinking was just the sort of thing to be avoided. So they found themselves an area not so destroyed and rebuilt, simply.

They built a massive windmill to carry out the various mechanical tasks needed to survive like pumping water, grinding grain and generated the little bit of ‘lectrics sanctioned by the new community council as not technology. (this included light sources and ways to start fires, not much else.) Community housing became preferred to opulent single family structures with only certain single use buildings allowed. (Smithies, bakeries, warehouses) And to ensure their complete safety, foreign trade was abolished. They became completely self reliant, and it was a crime to try to peddle any kinds of goods from parts elsewhere.
For some time, travel in or out of the Wastes was forbidden as well.

Afterwards

People outside the Northtowne region hadn’t the slightest idea what had happened, nor did they know what to think about this new and sudden isolationism. The few that tried to venture in from any direction found themselves chased away within moments of crossing the border. Soon enough most people developed a “good riddance” attitude and figured they would trade elsewhere. Others started to wonder what it was the Townies were trying to hide.

In many a bar across the Realm, talk of what might be there was rampant. Most speculated some vast treasure must have been found. There were, afterall, rumors about a giant hole being seen by some that made it farther than others before being chased out. Other speculations were actually a lot closer to the truth then they’d known. Most of the time, however, people with these views were accused of being too sober for intelligent conversation.

Time passed as it often did, and these barroom myths became legend. To this day there isn’t a child that doesn’t dream about hideous dragons (mechanical of course) guarding vast wealth.