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The Gamma World is a terrifying place
... hardly recognizable to those familiar with the America that existed
before the "Social Wars" of the early 24th century destroyed
world civilization. To the inhabitants of North America in 2450,
the time before the "Social Wars" is called the "Shadow
Years" since so little is known about it. Even the specific
events that destroyed their nation are all but forgotten by these new
Americans. Legends persist, of course, but the truth of those
legends may never be known. The world-wide holocaust simply wiped
out too much. Lasers, atomic warheads, chemical and biological
agents and geological weapons all did their terrible work. Oceans
boiled. Continents buckled. The skies blazed with the light
of unholy energies. By the time the violence subsided, the very
face of the earth had changed. Much of North America, including
most of Florida and the low-lying Gulf area, California and parts of the
Eastern Seaboard were under water. Mountains had fallen.
Rivers that had been tamed for 500 years careened wildly through the
ruins of broken dams. Not a single city remained intact. The
Black Years descended on the Land of the Free.
Less dramatic but more important than
the destruction of the continent was the alteration in its surviving
inhabitants. Not one in 5000 humans lived through the
upheaval. Those who survived witnessed a biogenetic
revolution. Animals began to repopulate the Earth ... and what
animals! Vast herds of jackrabbits the size of horses began to
cover the Great Plains. A strain of beetle appeared which grew to
a length of three meters. A mutated form of shark adapted to life
on land began to prowl the desert. But more important than these
physical mutations were the mental mutations which began appearing ...
lizards with
telepathy and
foreboding, plants able to disrupt the
molecular structure of their victims, a dog-man capable of
telekinesis. Nor was man immune to the effects of massive doses of
biogenetic chemicals and radiation. All manner of mutations soon
entered the gene pool. Most were defects that disappeared.
But in the 150 years after the holocaust many became a permanent part of
human breeding stock.
This, then, is the Gamma World ...
successor to planet Earth. It is a land of brooding forests, wild
unbroken plains and rugged mountains. In places the wilds give way
to man-made deserts where cities once stood. Scattered across the
continent are a few settlements where the heirs of America's industrial
barons force a precarious living from the hostile land. In this
place nature is merciless, death is quick and strangers are regarded
with suspicion. Faced with a harsh environment, the survivors of
the holocaust have joined together for protection in tribes, clans and
feudal states. Augmenting these social systems are the so-called
Cryptic Alliances ... secret brotherhoods devoted to the reorganization
of society according to their own beliefs. There are many of
these, some born long ago in the Shadow Years.
Journey now, into the far future where
life is both dangerous and exciting ... where those who lived before are
called "the Ancients" and are regarded with awe for their
dimly-understood art and science ... where the wonders of man's highest
technology exist side-by-side with the stone axe and the coat of
chainmail ... where exotic mutations abound and strange new powers of
the mind shape human life. Journey now to the Gamma World. |
