Intro

I wrote a blog post and then noticed that there are a hundred failed careers over on the Bastion blog. I rolled 3 times, started writing and here’s what came up in the end.

Skyscraper Tombs

Skyscraper Tombs is an abandoned district of Bastion that was cut off from the city since the earthquake that caused the Iron Lich Gorge  to open up like a skull’s mouth, creating a seemingly unbridgeable chasm between the Bastion and the S.T.

Status Quo

18: Qualified Deconstructor

Before the new can arise, the old must come down.

Doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it.

• What resources have to be in this area of the Deep Country for that career to have such influence?

Abandoned buildings. This village is clearly a part of Bastion that was cut off from the rest of the city and is now considered only a village, abandoned by the powers-that-be from the City.

• How does that industry make its money?

They bring down buildings and pillage the pieces for rare metals, art, useable textiles and Arcana.

• What are they pushing for to try and fortify their power (and can the players be drawn in to their attempts to hold on to their status quo)?

The Deconstructors spend as much personnel policing unqualified deconstruction as they do deconstruction, making sure that only well trained and fully bonded members of the Crowbar and Hammer Union take the buildings down.

Fading Glory

68: Small Town Refugee

Your Deep Country home was awful.

Finally, the railway came, and you headed to Bastion.

• What changed to cause their money to dry and influence to fade away?

Some kept going once this village was cut off from Bastion-proper and others just stopped identifying as a refugee as this place became their new home and they made their way into the Deconstructor’s organization, founded by refugees, the Crowbar and Hammer Union.

• What desperate and doomed gambit are they working on to try and regain former glory (and can the players be drawn into this hot mess)?

One group faded into another but there are Bastion die-hards who are trying to get reunited with the endless government councils that govern Bastion. There is a secret society within the Crowbar and Hammer that is setting aside material in order to attempt to build a bridge across Iron Lich Chasm.

Future Profits

58: Corpse Collector

More of a Corpse Transporter, but the other name made it easier for people to despise you.

• What is changing to cause this industry to begin its rise?

As the Iron Lich becomes more and more of a threat and cyborg-undead boil out of the Iron Lich Gorge, moving the dead back to Bastion where they can be put to rest will become an industry needed to keep the village safe.

• Who is the prophet who sees this rising coming and is preparing for it (and can the players be drawn into their ascension)?

Jyn Schulmeister is changing the family caravan business to carriages that will move the undead that leave the gorge and hunt Skyscraper Tombs to Bastion, where the necrotech will be torn from the rust-ghoul’s bones and sold as Arcana. They are already making plans to be paid to move the dead with village coffers so that they cannot be eaten by rust-ghouls and digested into a cyborg-undead by the Iron Lich’s Mausoleum Factories.

Finishing Touches

• What weird shit do these industries suggest is in this area? Write that down.

Rust-ghouls, undead of all kinds mixed with Arcana-tech embedded in bones and rotting flesh. Explosives and demolition-mechs easier to find than they usually would be.

Maybe a memorial of the village where the refugees came here from? What were they running from? Was it the Iron Lich or something older and stranger or just mundane humanity being awful?

• Daydream about any other ways these neighboring industries might have caused strangeness to bleed, collaborate, mutate and maybe synthesize into something new.

Do they take pieces of wreckage and make something from their homeland? Maybe a hunting tradition that has carried over to the demolition teams.

• Daydream a bit about what it’d be like to grow up in a place with these industries. What children’s games are in this area? Maybe come up with a festival or strange civic ceremony that isn’t found elsewhere.

Lots of games about building something and throwing rocks at it until it falls apart with rules for claiming the most valuable pieces as they fall.

Once a year the biggest building in the area is brought down on the anniversary of the refugees first settling here.

• Lastly, how does Bastion, the only City that matters, cast its shadow over this place?

When they left the atrocity that brought them here they thought they were coming to the only City that matters. Now they are just another village. Some are nervous that what happened before can happen again and they will be driven from this place without Bastion’s ample resources to protect them.

Pictures

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Showing devastation by Earthquake and Fire, building containing the Municipal Records.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1906. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-5ff2-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “San Francisco’s Six-Million Dollar City Hall, containing the Municipal Records wrecked by Earthquake.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1906. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-5ffa-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

The Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Division of Art, Prints and Photographs: Photography Collection, The New York Public Library. “Wreck and ruin of Chinatown district in San Francisco, destroyed by fire and earthquake April 18, ’06.” The New York Public Library Digital Collections. 1906. http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e1-6042-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99