The Lost City of Barogue

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. 

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. 

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.

The Map Bearers

Here are immortalized those names which are on the Claimstone for the finding of the Lost City:

Gilt “Gillie” Lyanna Schwinehund of Steel Horse Crossing

Gentleman Commander “GC” DJ of the Baja 10s of Hell Dorado

Vaan, Rover Sólkeisari of Litur Efni

Niche Head Librarian of Hell Dorado

Hargrave Moss-Iverspit Mercenary from the Verdigrift Gardens

Kell Hyacinth Summer Storm of Hell Dorado

If you have spent any meaningful time amongst the dust of Lonestar, you’ve heard the whispers of the mysterious city of Barogue. The tales hold that whoever finds the city will be blessed with treasure unimagined, however, facts about The Lost City have been drowned out by a sea of legend. It is even unknown when the last Wastelander wandered out of the city, making even the most learned minds have to guess how old it might be.

After the Dead Man’s Hand Tournament ended, more rumors began to circulate. The entirety of the territories came alive with baroguian fever, as more and more people grasped that the tales may be more than fiction. The possibility of a glistening city filled with treasure drives many survivors to delve into the Dune Sea. For most, that is the beginning and end of their adventure, and you are left to guess what fate may have befallen them as many do not return. 

You are confident that your crew’s skill surpasses those of the unworthy treasure seekers before you. Your team throws itself into maps and ciphers, hears every old campfire tale around, and cracks open any dusty old tome you can find. Still all you get are the same fairy tales you’ve been told since childhood. The Draining of the Wellspring Eternal, The Stealing of the Scion Vossa, and The Tragedy of the Resonance Choir; none of it gives you any clues as to the true location of Barogue. 

Weeks would pass before word reached you regarding a breakthrough in the search. A group of adventurers managed to unite all six pieces of the map auctioned away at The Dead Man’s Hand Tournament and formed their own expedition. They were joined by Felicity Redfeild who has made her interest in the legendary city very well known. Supposedly she held a piece of the puzzle that the adventures would need to find the final resting place of the Treasure City.   The wasteland waited with bated breath to see if this group would fare better than those who journeyed before them.

After many days of wandering Gillie Schwinehund, Gentlemen Commander, Vaan, Niche, Hargrave Moss- Inerspit, and Kell Hyacinth returned victorious. They brought with them tales of shifting sands, gargantuan leviathans, and murderous bands of raiders, but eventually they made it to their destination and all (but mostly Felicity) staked their claim on The Roving City.

The way is now open, and just like the gold miners of old; you are drawn to Barouge to stake a claim of your own. But beware, the sands are ever shifting. Nothing--including the new City--is ever what it seems. 

A Lonestar Skies Text Adventure following the Events of Act 1: Journey Long

The first expedition to Barogue has identified several way points along the path to the final resting place of the Lost City. Starting from the RRC forward camp (on the bottom center map piece), you should head north until you reach the Obelisk, avoid the raider camps at the Valley of Bones, travel northwest until you reach the site of the Frigate, and continue west until you reach the shifting sands of Barogue.

Several known threats accosted the first expedition, including Firebrand Raiders, deadly psionic raiders that worship fire, superheated winds that render most airships useless to make the journey, and roving gangs of Roughnecks, diesel jock bandits that have a large camp near the Frigate. Nearer to Barogue, you should expect to encounter Leviathans- massive multi-eyed sand worms that hunt by vibration.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step!

A Lonestar Skies Text Adventure following the Completion of the “An Ancient Vein” ZoM.

The foremost minds among you have considered, reflected and reasoned and rallied. You know, by now, that you are stuck inside some kind of temporal prison, or perhaps a memory. This behavior, a nonstandard Grave Etiquette, is reflective of the nature of this place, its history and the people who left half a myriad ago, but lived here first.

Matter is Imprint, Imprint is Matter. Baroque is a cathedral of psionic crystals, latticed together like a terrible crocheted scarf. The crystals themselves; captured imprint - an intersection, a segment, a moment of thought. And all, once, belonging to the thinking minds of the people who built this city. This place is made of memories, taken from the gray matter of screaming citizens and wrought into new and useful shapes to keep the great engines of this place churning. The City remembers what it was. It remembers because its citizens, in their mad dash to escape, left so quickly as to never allow another imprint to take hold. The idea of Bargoue has endured, unchanging, locked in the image it was left in. But you are here now, in this place, with YOUR thinking mind and YOUR notion of time’s passage and Bargoue is beginning to realize how old it truly is.

The Scion Vossa, if it ever existed, certainly is not here now. But in their studies, the research teams of this Expedition have come to better understand the crystal network that once powered this city - now failing rapidly - and doubly come to realize that it flows both ways. And, that in the absence of a authentic Scion Vossa to create the necessary psionic charge to shatter the lock and fend off the Great Leviathan that, by all accounts, is probably still attempting to strangulate the city even now - the resources may exist to create a simulacrum of the same. A kind of false crystal. A way to exhume the stranded population of Barogue, and return to the Greater Wastes on level ground.

A Lonestar Skies Text Adventure following the conclusion of Act 5: Ride Boldly Ride