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| Art by Brendan McCarthy |
The pulp story, "The Dead-Star Rover" (1949) by Robert Abernathy, presents a post-apocalyptic future Earth, where people are divided into tribes/cultures mostly based on the vehicles they employ: The Terrapin are nomads in armored cars, the Bird People fly fixed-wing aircraft, etc. Replacing human cultures with Athasian races would be, I think, a fine idea for a campaign on it's own, but I think there are some other things you could do to spice it up.
I figure the machines would be left over from some ancient war, perhaps shortly after humans partially terraformed and inhabited the planet. Something happened, and the machines have gone all Maximum Overdrive. Maybe its some sort of technological misunderstanding like in Shroeder's Ventus, or possibly a result of exposure to some Athasian exotic energy source ("magic," in other words). The various cultures would have learned to secret of taming one "species" of vehicle or another, though perhaps not all members of any given culture would be able to do it. There could be rituals involved, too. And taming is likely the wrong word, and the machines would most likely be viewed with as spirt totem or the like. The machine is the patron of the fragile, biologic entity.
The Engines have the Power, the Engines have the Juice, the Engines have the Hate...
ReplyDeleteBut they need a Driver to have eyes, a Driver for Guidance, and a Driver to point them at that which they Hate...
It is symbiosis. The Engines have Purpose, but no Drive; the Driver gives them Drive, and take on the Engine's Purpose.
The Purpose of every Engine is to Destroy all other Engines not like us! It was the other Engines that brought down the Pockyklipse; when the other Engines are all Scrap, Great Guziline will return and make the world Right again...