Barogue: The Lost City
The subject of campfire stories and fever dreams, the Roving City is a tale as old as the Wastes, dating nearly back to the Fall - but exists in the memory between ancient history, the ageless days since, and the present. Armed only with these legends and snippets of a map won at the Dead Man’s Hand Tournament, Survivors began to delve West, looking for the lost passage between the San Saba Territories and the Burning Coast and it’s jewel, Hell Dorado. The location is still known only to the few that made the perilous journey to it’s resting place in the Dune Sea, but the artifacts and treasures flowing into the coffers of the Railroad Conglomerate are proof work is still underway to excavate the Lost City.
In the wild decades after the Fall, when the first generations of Strains walked the scorched earth in search of resources and renown, there were many more living people who struggled and strove in competition as the great populations who preceded the Fall had not yet died off to suit the new and leaner world.
Instead, there was chaos. Amidst that, a caravan of Rovers and their close cousins, the Diesel Jocks, banded together in numbers that would now be impossible to emulate, and constructed a raft between all their Rides, a kind of living and moving platform - and sailed into the unending desert that is now called the Dune Sea, to seek out resources and better land to cultivate.
But the intrepid band, of some two thousand, never found their new homeland. The Dune Sea is scorched and white and terrible - with only a few oases between the blast and death. Instead, they roved between these settlements and became a powerful and exclusive trade power. Their rickety platform of pick-me-ups, semis and RV’s became, in the space of a hundred years, an enormous and single-bodied municipality on tank treads individually the size of gymnasiums, a TITAN CITY.
The fuel source that powered Barogue, like much about the city’s history and culture, is a mystery. Some stories say that it was a great psion crystal, born from the brow of their first emperor, that powered the thing. Others, that they siphoned great quantities of crude oil from a wellspring of the stuff somewhere unmapped- a closely guarded secret that enabled their monopoly as a merchant kingdom.
But all stories about Barogue end the same way, with the exhaustion or loss of their fuel source somewhere deep in the Sea, a great and deadly exodus as thousands of its citizens struck out across the dunes in search of salvation they would, supposedly, never find, and eventually - the total abandonment of the largest single trade vessel to surely, ever exist.
Now, some hundred years later, Barogue is a cautionary tale told to children too ready to strike out on their own and to those who move too swiftly towards their goals - without the backing of their kin or clan.
Until now.
Barogue, Today
When Barogue was first found by Felicity Redfield and the map bearers two years ago, the city was buried under a massive sand dune, with an Elder Leviathan coiled around it like a nest. The first expedition fell through the opening at the top of the plexi-steel dome into the city, and the events of the first online event, “The Lost City” occurred inside. At the end of that episode, the survivors ascended a tall spire they named the Altar of the Scion Vossa to escape the city, fashioning a temporary crystal matrix to power the crystal plinths of the abandoned titan city. In the exodus they created a massive psionic blast that scattered the leviathans around the city. When the giant sandworms fled, they left in their wake a crater that exposed the majority of the moving city.
Over the last two years, the Railroad Conglomerate and other factions have worked tirelessly to uncover the bulk of the superstructure of Barogue, peeling back the layers of sand that hid the city’s secrets. In the shadow of the massive titan city is a small settlement fondly called New Barogue, the heart of the RRC operations at the Lost City. Settlement is perhaps too strong of a word, but the ramshackle array of tents and mining equipment at the excavation site is always changing as new work crews arrive from Essex and beyond.
The primary focus of the RRC is on scavenging the Lost City for usable salvage, scrap, and metals they can bend towards their ever-hungering needs of expanding the Oxline across the wastes. While most of the metal in Barogue is a very hard alloy similar to titanium, this crazy future metal is difficult to process with current technological levels. Instead, scavengers focus on panels, bolts, wiring, and anything they can tear from the superstructure to box up and ship out on the Oxline. Anything that can be melted down into a railroad tie is shipped back to Essex for processing, one more link in the chain of the Oxline network.
In the wake of this systematic dismantling are beleaguered archeologists from the RRC, the Grave Council and the San Saba Republic, uncovering new secrets of Barogue on a daily basis. While they contend with brutish laborers that trample on their archeological digs, the scientists and researchers of the expedition are slowly finding new ways to access areas within the city and struggling to understand the strange crystal psi-tech that once powered the mighty titan city.
The city is a treasure trove of archaeological secrets, psi-tech, and raw resources that will fuel RRC operations for decades to come. It is a deadly and mysterious site, but the risk of the city outweighs the rewards that await if the RRC can fully unlock the titan city’s many labyrinthine halls.
Surviving in New Barogue
There is a saying among the work crews in New Barogue: “If the heat doesn’t kill you first, the desert, raiders, or leviathans will get you in the end.” Simply surviving in the heat of the Dune Sea is a task not for the faint hearted or unprepared. While the threat of zombies and the undead is fairly low in the desert (but not unheard of), the other denizens of the dunes are more than enough for the camp to handle.
There are several major dangers to contend with in Barogue:
The Heat - The temperatures in the desert can soar into the 120s at midday, so much of the work done at Barogue is done at night or in the cooler parts of the morning and evening. Even still, it’s hard to sleep drenched in sweat and there are no real modern amenities at the camp. Water must be carefully rationed, and only the access to regular shipments from Essex makes the camp even possible. The few wellsprings the RRC have found are jealously guarded and sold as rations to their workers. Heat exhaustion and heat stroke remain the number one killer of RRC teams, and daily safety briefs are given to the workers to keep the very real danger of the weather in mind.
Sandstorms - In addition to the heat, the very desert itself threatens to reclaim the Lost City if not constantly battled. Periodically, the superheated winds of the Dune Sea carry enough force to scour flesh from bone in blistering sandstorms that wash over the titan city. The only hope of survival when a coriolis sandstorm arrives, or “Aranae Ramleh” in the language of the Anneh Yaba desert tribes, is to take shelter within the superstructure of Barogue. The mighty metal barricades allow for the survivors to withstand the biting sands and melting temperatures, though they must contend with the threats within the city.
Firebrand Raiders - A primary danger of the camp are the various clans of Raiders that make the Dune Sea their own. The psionic Firebrand Raiders make their homes in the carcasses of Leviathans and seem to worship those of their kind that develop the spark of pyrokinesis that marks the leaders of the clan. They can be a threat, but they seem to be largely spooked by the Lost City for some reason. While some brave bands of Raiders periodically test the perimeter, the majority of the clan leaves the camp alone for the most part.
Resonant Raiders - The crystal-encrusted raiders first discovered two years ago remain a major threat from within Barogue. There are several hibernation chambers that have been uncovered within the belly of the titan city that contain thousands of chambers where the unfortunate were kept as living batteries in the Resonant Choir. Each of these victims is a potential Resonant, and early estimates suggest that there are still dozens of more chambers that are unopened. From these strange hives and nests, the Resonant Raiders strike out into the world to drink in fear, terror, and anguish as the psychic vampires they are. Anyone that braves the interior of Barogue must be ready to deal with the eerily quiet threats within. Some ghost stories suggest that there are other predators within Barogue, but the Resonants are the true masters of the dead city.
Leviathans - The true natural predators of the dune sea, these giant mutated critters resemble nothing more than massive sand worms with bifurcated jaws. Some stretch thousands of feet in length, and the most dangerous of their kind are called Elder Leviathans. These mighty beasts are nigh-unkillable, and are a force of nature that must be contended with rather than overcome. There are Leviathan nests that surround the perimeter of the Lost City, offering some protection from raiders and scavengers that would plunder the work camp. The RRC has provided maps that mark out most of the major known nests, but they remain a regular threat to continued operation of the Oxline and the settlement of New Barogue. The massive Leviathan that once protected the Lost City has been sighted in the desert nearby and it seems reluctant to return to the former nest, but it remains an ever-present threat in the minds of the laborers in the salvage camp.
The Oxkiller Alliance - The technophobic crusade of the new Oxkiller Alliance has threatened Barogue, strangely enough. The soldiers of the Antler Tribe and Oxkillers strike out into the desert to deal with the “profane monument of man’s hubris” that to them is the Lost City. In their traditions, the titan city is a sacred and forbidden territory that none must disturb, and the zealots are a constant threat to the Oxline and any that try to travel to the Lost City. The few Oxkillers that have been willing to talk with the workers of Barogue have mentioned that they believe the city is cursed, and the RRC will doom the world if they are allowed to continue.
Roughnecks - Not quite Raider, but not quite civilized, the Roughneck clan is a tribe of DJs, Tainted, and other scavengers that have loosely allied themselves into a roving band of misfits. From smoke billowing rides, they travel the Dune Sea as the nomads they are, seeking out travelers and raiders to salvage for scrap and resources. They are bloodthirsty killers, and care nothing for the law and order of the San Saba. They are known enemies of most San Saba DJ clans, including the Road Royals and the Sweetwaters.
Zombies - While zed are truly not much of a threat in the desert, the return of workers to New Barogue has awakened the Morgue within the city once more. Most zombies that threaten Barogue tend to be shamblers and recently departed workers, but a few desiccated corpses have been encountered from within the dunes itself, victims of the treacherous journey to Barogue.
Life is tough in Barogue, but the will of the Railroad Conglomerate is mightier. The wheels of capitalism keep churning amazing amounts of resources into leveraging the treasures of the Lost City of Barogue. No threat will truly slow the creeping expansion of the Oxline, and the continued successful salvage operations at Barogue are critical to the RRC’s plans of forging the future.
Travel to Barogue
Getting to the Lost City is a feat in and of itself. The Dune Sea is an unforgiving environment and it makes simply reaching the city an endeavor few can afford or are willing to risk. There are only a few reliable ways to reach Barogue, chief among them the momentous accomplishment of using the rail lines. The act of laying a new rail line to the Lost City by the RRC over the last two years is a vital connection to the greater San Saba and beyond.
By Rail - The only truly secure way to travel to Barogue is via the Oxline. Even so, the travel is slow as a “sweeper engines” must travel in front of the mighty locomotives to clear the tracks of sand and debris that gathers daily across the stretch of railway that runs towards the Broken Coast. These smaller locomotives push giant plows through the sand, keeping the rail clear for the engines that follow in their wake. The Oxline travel is expensive, but offers a mostly smooth journey to the Lost City. However, your personal finances determine if you get to ride in luxury in an ice-cooled luxury car, or suffer with the laborers and less fortunate travelers in the blistering heat of the passenger cars. Many travelers don’t make the trip to travel solely to Barogue, instead opting for passage to Oasis and beyond as the Oxline continues its journey west.
By Land - The second most dangerous journey to Barogue is braving the treacherous sands and the many threats of the Dune Sea by land. Desert tribes of the Cali*co Caravan and the DJs of the Sweetwaters offer protected passage through the desert, following the trail set by the map-bearers and Felicity Redfield on their first journey to the Lost City. Few travel on foot, but even vehicles need to be specially outfitted to survive the journey across the inhospitable sands. Those that journey across the Dune Sea tend to use the only major landmarks that remain, starting from the oilfield camps of the RRC to the west of Essex before leaving major trade routes. Two major points remain to reference on the journey – one a strange black Monolith that rises from the desert, and the massive metal behemoth known as the Frigate, a known Roughneck stronghold within the Dune Sea. Many that attempt the journey westward never make it to Barogue, as they are killed and eaten by Firebrands, Roughnecks, or even massive Leviathans.
By Air - The most dangerous way to attempt the journey to Barogue is attempting the passage by airship. The bone-scouring sandstorms and superheated winds tend to combine for a lethal combination for those that try to travel by air. The heat causes the air bladder-technology of most airships to expand out of control and burst, and the winds make straight navigation impossible. Even in a ship rigged for the journey, travelers must make frequent stops to refit and repair, leaving them exposed to the same dangers of traveling by land, but with less ability to evade the threats. Only the truly foolhardy attempt the journey to Barogue by air, and it is most often some DJ with a deathwish that is trying to make a name for themselves on the most dangerous stretch of the Dune Sea imaginable.
No matter the route, those that are lucky enough to survive the journey to Barogue soon find that getting inside the superstructure of the titan city is not as easy as it might appear.
Getting Inside Barogue
Most of the city lies dormant still, the feat of psi-tech achieved in the discovery of Barogue two years ago still out of reach of the residents of New Barogue outside. Heavy steel doors lock away whole swaths of the city, and the research crews have only accessed a small portion of Barogue. While there are many levels of Barogue, with at least a dozen being accessible in one form or another, the interior of the city still remains mostly a mystery. While the dome level can be technically accessed from above, the difficulty of airship operations in the area makes this an inefficient way of entering the city.
The primary means to pass into Barogue proper is to use a series of wide passages in the interior that run the length of the city, first called the Nave by Felicity’s expedition. The easiest access to the Nave is through the Excavation Site within the salvage operation of New Barogue. From there, it is possible to take various stairways and what might have been functional elevator shafts to ascend to the surface of the domed city. Strangely, no rope or pulley systems have been found within the strange vertical shafts, and brave explorers that have followed the elevator shafts to travel between the sublevels of the interior report that they have yet to see anything resembling an elevator car either.
The curiously preserved city within is covered in a massive dome of a strange translucent material that has the strength of metal, but the visibility of glass. Salvaged sheets of the material are prized throughout the San Saba, and it was this technology that let Felicity first construct the submersible advances she has pioneered in Bravado. While many of the buildings in the dome are theoretically accessible, most are still locked down with strange crystal locks and heavy shutters. Some brave explorers have climbed multi-level buildings and successfully found routes inside but without an easy way to open main entrances they are left scavenging only the things they can carry with them down a rope.
Most of the surface city is constructed of thick stone and alloy metal in the main superstructure, but the lower decks tend to consist of more common iron and steel. Many of the metal doors and portals in the city are constructed of an intensely dense metal similar to titanium, hardened material that modern technology can barely smelt, much less recreate. The architecture tends towards a gothic appearance, favoring excessive buttresses, gantries, archways, and elaborate carvings. Crystals are a common theme in the decorations of the city, and can be found within every fresco, frieze, or bas relief. Colorful tiles are also used throughout, creating vibrant splashes of color that seem at odds with the deathly silence of the city.
The city was once powered by an elaborate crystalline matrix system, with doors and buildings controlled through crystal plinths that were presumably activated with smaller crystals. Now, without a suitable “key”, many of the tunnels and chambers of the city are inaccessible unless you can find a way to force your way inside. Even with crystals found nearby, many of the plinths appear to be inactive, drained of whatever ambient power they once held. The plinths seem to react to certain resonant frequencies of psionic crystals, but the modern world has long lost the ability to manipulate psi-tech with this kind of skill.
Some scholars of Barogue have had success using imprint crystals, festering crystals, and variant psionic crystals to activate some areas of Barogue, but there is no apparent logic to what method works. Some doors seem to prefer a crystal containing a memory or imprint, while others have been successfully opened with Amaranthite, an inert form of psionic crystal. Each time a method works on accessing a chamber of the city, new secrets and writings are eagerly pursued within to help them continue to progress in their exploration of Barogue.
There are no true lights that still function within Barogue. Usually explorers must bring some means of torch or lantern with them into the city. During daylight it is easy enough to navigate through the dead city provided you stay out of the buildings. Some buildings have feeble chemical lights that provide a minimal level of illumination, but most existing light fixtures within the city are either untrustworthy or non functional. Below the surface, the hallways of the interior are pitch black and only occasionally lit by a bioluminescent fungus or chemical light. The darkened halls are prowled by predators that no longer need eyes to see, putting most survivors at a disadvantage, particularly at night.
Inside the city, the temperature seems to be considerably cooler, a welcome relief from the scorching heat outside. Despite reports to the contrary at the exodus of Barogue, not much sand actually seems to get into the city from the gaping hole in the dome, though logic suggests it should. Paper and printed material within seem more resilient than they should be, and books taken from the boundaries of the city have been known to crumble and age as if the ravages of time are suddenly restarted when they leave. As such, many of the writings of Barogue are instead copied or kept with the city while they are being researched.
Much of the current knowledge of Barogue comes from the absolute volume of written materials within. According to the legends, the Prince Undying stayed within the city at the end of Barogue and it is the most obvious truth of the stories of the Lost City. Recorded on any surface or parchment that can be written on is the strange scrawl of a familiar hand. From walls to tables, notes can be found in virtually every chamber of the city, though most of it is either illegible or the mad ravings of someone left alone in isolation for too long. Thus, any new progress into the city reveals a new trove of language and learning of the ancient city, as well as new insight into the Prince Undying.
There are three main areas of Barogue that can still be accessed, the Interior Level of tunnels and hives within the bulk of the city, the Surface Level of antiquated buildings and structures within the massive dome, and the Excavation Site of New Barogue, the area near the back right track-structure where RRC mining equipment has accessed the interior of the city.
Barogue Surface Locations of Note - New Barogue
There are several locations of note on the surface of Barogue. This area includes the domed portion of the titan city as well as the RRC camp outside.
New Barogue or Oxline Station 346 is the heart of the RRC operations at the titan city. The only truly permanent structure in the camp is the RRC headquarters and Oxline station. From here, materials salvaged from within Barogue are packed into crates and barrels, loaded onto the Ox and shipped back to Essex. Travelers and tourists that braved the journey often don’t stay long, as the inhospitable conditions make even surviving in the work camp miserable. Blistering heat and the threat of raiders is enough to make most get back on the train and continue their journey to settlements with more accommodations like Essex or Oasis. The camp swells in size with new tent structures erected for housing as the work crews increase in size. For the most part, the total population of the camp tends to hover around 50 souls, though if a foreman has set a particularly tough goal for scrap collection it might crest 100.
The Oxline Station is the only permanent building in New Barogue, constructed of the metal pylons scavenged from the crawler track structure of the excavation. It has a small diesel generator, making it the only building with some electricity, though it is reserved primarily for sending telegraph signals up and down the Oxline. A post office provides for some measure of connection with the outside San Saba and RRC mercenaries are kept close by to guard valuable cargo of metal and scrap that is temporarily housed in the loading bays outside. A metal mechanical crane has been constructed outside to aid in the unloading of storage containers from the Ox, though it tends to be down for maintenance more often than not, as the scouring sands of the desert break down its moving parts. A small vestibule has been set up for receiving tourists and travelers to Barogue, to provide some measure of meager hospitality for important guests and dignitaries that dare make the trip to Barogue.
The Excavation Site provides some means of protection from the brutal sandstorms and deadly Raiders of the Dune Sea to the residents of New Barogue, but only a few explorers risk delving into the city proper without sufficient backup and planning. It is the bustling heart of New Barogue, as workers struggle to salvage metal and scrap from the underbelly of the city, pulling apart carcasses of old vehicles and ancient wrecks that once formed the original mass of Barogue before it began to travel the sands. Several tunnels have been accessed within, offering the only secure method of entering the heart of Barogue proper. These tunnels must constantly be patrolled for fear of Resonant Raiders sneaking into the camp in the night, and there is always activity in this area. A small bit of somewhat arable farmland in the shadow of the city provides some produce and food to the settlement, drawing the majority of the water supplies from the shimmering well spring that makes life in New Barogue even possible.
The Shimmering Sands is the real watering hole in Barogue, a tent bar pitched in the sand, lit by the shimmering sand glass. Using a massive discarded wheel from the ruined tracks of Barogue as a shelter from the worst of the sandstorms, the Shimmering Sands is the only truly social gathering site in New Barogue. With the crushing heat of the desert, water has become the drink of choice for most residents, but they still serve the usual mix of spirits, swill, and hooch to folks that really don’t have much choice otherwise. A true testament to the necessity of survival and capitalism, even the RRC can’t deny the importance of alcohol towards keeping their labor force from rioting.
The largest structure in the salvage camp is known as the Efflorescence Sanctuary, a large tent filled with the remnants of a crumbling temple within. According to the faithful that maintain the shrine, each stone was painstakingly carried from its home with the innermost chamber of the crumbling temple in the center of New Barogue. This new communal shrine is a reimagined version of that temple, lovingly maintained by a group of Final Knight Deacons. When workers are not frequenting the Shimmering Sands bar, many of the residents of New Barogue spend their last few hours within, deep in conversation or simply seeking the company of fellow survivors.
The Engine Block, a shrine to the massive powerful engines of Barogue serves as a destination for traveling DJs and vehicle enthusiasts alike. While the massive cowling and manifolds are formed of the same strange impenetrable alloy as the city, the arcane structures of the engines seem to defy conventional logic for modern combustion engines known to survivors. While it appears that some of the engines could be powered by liquid fuel, there has been some retrofitting completed on the engines if the techno savants are to be believed. There are long dormant cylinders, pistons, and dusty cooling systems that continue to amaze and confound those that make the climb to the top of the superstructure. At the heart of the engines seems to be a large crystalline lattice structure, which researchers suppose is some sort of transformer or capacitor to translate psionic energy into chemical energy. If the city could be powered, it’s possible that the engines are still functional, as they appear to be well shielded from the ravages of heat and sand. The fabled engines of Barogue remain a mystery, though major advances in psi-tech might reveal more as the years pass. For now, the RRC has ruled the area off limits to salvage teams, as Felicity dreams of one day potentially restoring motion to the Roving City.
The Legends of Barogue
The following legends exist about the Lost City of Barogue. Which are true and which are merely myth lies on you, survivor, to decide.
legend of The Scion Vossa
The story of the Scion Vossa begins deep in the bones of the earth, where the First Emperor bestowed the denizens of Barogue with power given physical form. This resulted in a crystal so massive it took a thousand souls to wretch it from the ground and incorporate it into the superstructure of The Roving City. Tapping into the crystal’s power allowed for miraculous feats of Psi-tech engineering, and the individuals with whose inventions led the city to the most glory became the dynasty that ruled Barogue.
Over the decades the city became more and more reliant on the crystal, eventually converting their engines, defenses, and even irrigation to run off of its power. All ran well until the day of The Great Betrayal. At the behest of demons, Sister Mammon infiltrated the city, slaughtered the dynasties final generation, and stole away the Scion Vossa. Most people in the city remained clueless to the great conflict that had just occurred till the city ground to a screeching halt, their water stopped flowing, and leviathans approached unimpeded by defenses.
The only royal to survive the slaughter, The Prince Undying, did everything he could to operate the city without the Scion Vossa. He funneled all of his psionic energy through generations of gilded circuitry, but it was nowhere close to enough and the Prince had to watch helplessly as his subjects were chased out of the city by terrible beasts. When the next dawn broke, the Prince descended into the city and was forced to confront the reality of his abandoned kingdom.
Decades would pass, and in his isolation the prince would dive into deep study of all the knowledge contained in Barogue. He had hoped that somewhere in the vacant streets the secret to resurrect the city would reveal itself. Eventually he came to realize that the foundation of the city had been too integrated with the Scion Vossa; The city had bet all of their chips on the crystal, and now it could never be undone. With no other options, the prince sealed away his research and left the city in search of the one thing that could bring power back to his home. Legend has it that he still roams to this day, searching tirelessly for the stolen Scion Vossa.
legend of The Draining of the Wellspring Eternal
The City of Barogue was the collective dream of our ancestors to seek life somewhere new, somewhere better. In many ways, the Roving City became just that to its inhabitants. The collection of caravans precariously combined together and built atop of was an ever-moving paradise. Even in its prime, Barogue was already a place of legend.
Such a thing seemed nigh impossible to keep moving with the traces of fuel salvaged from the ancestors before our ancestors. What sustained the city was the Wellspring Eternal, a fuel source purer than oxblood proprietors could ever hope their product to be. Its location was a closely guarded secret, for should anyone else have learned of its location, Baroque would not have been able to prosper as it did.
And it did. That is, until Sister Mammon infiltrated the city. Unlike many others who flocked to the city, she saw it as a place of perpetual stagnation. Believing the world would not be able to move on under its shadow, she sought to undo the great city. So she stole the one thing that could cripple such a great city, the secret location of the Wellspring Eternal. She dispersed the information to the masses, and everyone flocked to get their hands on the legendary fuel that powered the Roving City. Before long, the Wellspring Eternal dried up.
For the first time in ages, Barogue faced a fuel crisis like nothing else the city had seen before. Its people were scared, and the merchants that once flocked to the city for trade and respite found better places. With little trade coming in, the people soon began to starve in the unforgiving Dune Sea. The Prince, seeking to save his populace, began looking for a new fuel source that would keep gargantuan city afloat.
His search, however, would be in vain. The city was in its death throes. Its people died of hunger and thirst alike, leaving the Prince the sole inhabitant of an empty kingdom. The Prince left the city behind, eventually, to spread the tale of the city’s downfall as a caution. Too many people in one place leads to too many mouths to feed. Towns must be kept small and supplies carefully rationed to prevent its people from starving, and to prevent unwanted attention from those like The Great Betrayer to prevent sabotage.
legend of The Tragedy of the Resonance Choir
While many legends of ancient Barogue have been told, few focus on a single uncontested fact: Barogue was a menace and a threat to its enemies. At least 200 years ago but perhaps more, before the blastlands became the Dune Sea, the city of Barogue moved with impunity around the wastes. While it is known that the Roving City was mounted on giant wheels or treads that moved it around, the fleets of scavenger vehicles that roved out from the city were a true threat to settlements in the Lone Star in ways that raider or zed could never hope to achieve. You see, the Roving City was powered by the Resonance Choir - a combination of psions working in concert, pouring their effort and will into the singular task of charging the psi-tech that empowered Barogue. And the largest source of those psions to power the engines? Captured psions, turned into living batteries against their will. Their fleets captured any that showed the spark of psionics, and brought them to serve Barogue.
Chief of its enemies was the great state of Mammon, led by the Witch Queen. The Witch Queen was a powerful psion and worshipper of the Damned 33, and realized the nascent threat the Roving City represented to the wastes. She realized that the only way to threaten the powerful moving fortress that was Barogue was to corrupt it from the inside. It started innocently enough - she introduced an addictive new serum, capable of “super-charging” any psion into a mighty mental juggernaut… for a time. A wealthy city like Barogue didn’t care about the duration, as it was cheap enough to rotate out psions from their stable of “batteries”. For a time, life was good as newly powerful psions weaved the song of energy that moved the Roving City. But, the poison pill that was the Witch Queen’s creation was insidious - each time the psion took the drug, it sapped a bit of their life away and hastened their demise as they lost the ability to channel psionic force at all. Soon enough the plague of the drug addiction melted away the Choir bit by bit, until Barogue could no longer rely on their choir of psions to power the city.
Faced with dwindling reserves of survivors to scream their wordless energies into the hungry void of Barogue’s engines, they did the unthinkable. Instead of trying to find a new or different source of power, they simply began taking the undesirables and the unlucky from their own population and giving them the drug to power their unholy crystal tech. Before too long, it was any that opposed the collection - even the scions of the elite, or any that opposed the Prince Undying, the leader of Barogue. Like short-wicked candles, their own people were cast as new victims into the meatgrinder of Barogue’s unceasing demands for power. While the drug did not work as strong on non-psions, the feeble spark it lit was enough - provided they poured enough bodies into the Choir. Few can say if it was this cannibalism of their own people that caused the Exodus, or it was simply their people fleeing certain death at the hands of the elite of Barogue. But the population dwindled, scattered to the wastes, leaving only one man - the Prince Undying, to solve the eternal riddle of Barogue. How can a city form a choir without the harmonies and melodies of the psions within? The Prince sat with the decaying corpse of Barogue for generations, seeking an answer that could not be found.
As the wastelands turned to dust, and the hills and valleys of the scorched land to dunes, the city of Barogue sat as a reminder of the terrible cost of the psionic technology they sought to master. Psi-tech always has a cost and even if you think the price is easy at first, it is never sustainable. When you view people as property or things to be consumed like living batteries, you can never outrun that corruption. Eventually, even the Prince Undying abandoned the dead city, proving the truth that the Witch Queen of Mammon knew all along - when you rely on the power of others to survive, you don’t recognize your own powerlessness until it is too late. Seize power from those not worthy of it, but most of all realize that the true strength is in a community that does not feed on itself or a community that relies on cheap tricks to stay off the decay. Barogue was dying long before it fell, and once the wound grew septic it was their end. Barogue was doomed to fail for its sins, and many are glad that it suffered the ignoble fate of a quiet and soundless death, alone and unmoving in the sands.
Pieces of a Map
Armed only with these legends and snippets of a map won at the Dead Man’s Hand Tournament, Survivors began to delve West, looking for the lost passage between the San Saba Territories and the Burning Coast and it’s jewel, Hell Dorado. You can learn more about what they discovered there in The Lost City.
