Surviving Communities

Surviving Communities are small groups of men, women, and children who persist in the frozen world, working to build a fragile sense of life and livelihood.

While they may be used in story-driven conflicts or narrative events, they are not factions with any grand ambitions, and are not intended to be antagonists or direct sources of conflict with players. Their main role is to exist in the background of the world, maintaining vital infrastructure or guarding access to resources that would otherwise be inaccessible due to extreme danger, distance, or scarcity.

These communities are intended to remain neutral and cannot be taken over, conquered, or drawn into PvP disputes. Their purpose is to ensure that essential services, supplies, and travel routes remain available even when player numbers are low, and thus cannot be seized or controlled by players, as removing it would undermine the stability of the world.

It is not our intention to create conflict around them, deliberate antagonism will be met with a reasonable in-character response.

The Coal Miners

The Coal Miners are a primarily British community located inland. They are made up of men, women, and children who work the coal mine on site. Families labor together both underground in the shafts and above ground to provide the coal that keep the lights on.

The work is constant, dangerous, and exhausting, leaving little time for anything else. The miners do not have the manpower or energy to expand beyond maintaining their livelihood, and their focus is entirely on keeping the coal flowing.

The Harbor

Porte Dernière is a harbor settlement that serves as home to two closely bound communities, the Whalers and the Railmen.

The Whalers are a Creole people made up of freedmen from New Orleans who arrived in recent years. Upon their arrival, they encountered the Railmen, and the two groups formed an alliance out of necessity, some shared language, offering protection in exchange for resources. Over time, this arrangement became permanent, with many French soldiers from the Railmen settling down with Whaler families.

The Railmen began as French soldiers stationed to protect the engineers who maintained a trainyard. As the world ended and orders and communication from elsewhere faded, they became their own group. Their focus shifted to keeping the train operational, the tracks clear of snow, and conducting routine patrols of the routes. These patrols serve many purposes, such as searching for new communities to work with, locating old world technology or supply caches, and scouting potential dangers.

Together, the Whalers and Railmen sustain Porte Dernière. The Whalers brave the treacherous ocean to provide pemmican, oil, and baleen, while the Railmen see that these goods reach the coal miners inland. In return, coal makes its way back to the harbor, keeping both communities alive and driving one of the main engines of the surviving human ecosystem.

Nomads

Nomads is a broad term for the many hunter gatherer bands, pastoralist clans, wandering traders, and other itinerant groups that roam the frozen wasteland. Some follow the migration of game, while others travel vast distances to trade goods between scattered settlements.

Nomads rarely linger in one place for long. They appear at outposts only when ready to establish a temporary trading post, offering provisions and rare wares from their travels. Maintaining safe houses and waystations in the wasteland encourages these groups to visit more often, as they rely on secure shelter between long stretches of wilderness.

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