Re: [HoE] Setting Question

[George Dorn <toadpooka@usa.net>]

Here's my vision of the 'average' town in HoE:
The bombs drop, the cities are taken out, but most of the suburbs remain.  The resulting anarchy is
far more harmful to these towns than the bombs were.  Raiders take their toll on the suburbanite
populace, then eventually, the residents of a few neighboring towns migrate toward a central point
(likely the county seat in the area) and band together against whatever bandits come through.  You
end up with an odd assortment of people, from housewives-turned-Law Dogs to backwoods hill jacks, a
la 'Deliverance.'  Also, I found a good use for street gang members: a cheap source of gunslingers
to protect the town.  They're already armed, and have no marketable skills except a willingness to
toss lead into the air, so they'll be more than happy to shoot whoever you want them to, in exchange
for a bit of food (or a 40 oz. of Night Train).  The townsfolk would send teams out to abandoned
towns to scavenge raw materials or foodstuffs from ruined convenience stores, hardware stores, and
such.  They'd also gather rubble and broken chunks of concrete to build a makeshift wall for
protection.
As far as economy goes, the only source of new goods is the salvage from other towns, so I see it
all working on a basically socialistic level, with everyone doing whatever work they're good at, in
exchange for a share of supplies from this week's salvage operation.
Hope this helps...

Don Schniepp wrote:
> 
>      So what is the "average" group of people like in terms of settlements?
> 
> Are most towns surrounded by walls or some sort of protective barrier to
> keep out outsiders?
> 
> I have this mental picture that all of the surrounding terrain is either
> rocky or just one big desert.  I am assuming that there are forested areas
> though somewhere or maybe streams.  I always think Mad Max where any sort
> of liquid is more rare than a One-armed non-gamblin' Huckster in HoE.
> 
> Say the posse walks into the "average" town.  Are we talking townsfolk that
> are living in the ruins of what used to be a smaller-sized town?
> 
> Don S.
> 
> "Facts are stupid things."  --Ronald Reagan, misquoting John Adams in a
> speech to the Republican convention.

-- 
Love,
Joseph Malik