World Notes for Canada 2097:

To summarise, Earth got EMP'ed twice in 18 minutes by Jupiter becoming a brown dwarf star. So basically, nothing electrical worked for yonks. Between the EMP, the plagues, the bio-weapons, the nukes, the crop failures etc... the world became a really bad place .

Eventually between the survivalists, the Amerindian's, the nomads, and the remains of the authorities, the population settled into a neo-feudal agrarian society. Some highly technical areas still exist, and some people search for the knowledge of the past. People such as your character. A person with the right skills and knowledge could resurrect/repair much of the OldTech.

The vast majority of people however are ignorant, narrow minded, shallow, selfish, and easily intimidated by men with guns. To get the right feel, we're looking at a cross between:

"The Seven Samurai" (for the peasants), "Salute of the Jugger" (for the visuals)

and "Earth.2" (for the game's attitude)

Anyway, the locals don't really move much from their villages, the Overlords tax the crap out of them, the Juggers entertain them, and the Seers educate a few of them. Buildings are of wooden construction, often of the log-cabin style, with meals cooked over firewood stoves or open fires. Food consists mainly of root vegetables, with chicken, lamb, mutton, beef, venison, dog, and cat being eaten sparingly. Fish is however fairly common. (Fish and Chips is popular).

Horses are rare, but unpowered wheeled vehicles, such as bicycles or three-wheeled sail or dog-powered "skiffs" are more common. Dog sleds are popular in winter. The roads of old are still in reasonable repair, worn down due to erosion rather than use.

Trading routes exist, with seal oil, meat and skins from the north being exchanged for clothes, metalgoods and foodstuffs. An exciting time is to be had when the Caravan and the Juggers arrive on Market Day, where even the presence of the Overlords fails to dim the mood.

Metalworkers, Healers, Seers, Dogbreeders, and Boatmakers are all well-respected specialist occupations. Scroungers, Explorers, and Nomads have the same standing as used-car salesmen .The Overlords, whilst treated with deference, are generally despised but begrudgingly accepted for their ability to repel the Shiffen.( nomadic bandits).

You have heard of the Erocoy, a group of red-skinned people who live in tents and ride horses. They live to the W, NW and N, at least ten days travel away. Beyond them there are the Kimo's, a short dark people that live on the ice and never see the sun. Mothers frighten their children with stories of the Kimo's coming in the night to take them away if they misbehave.

The NE and E are the Forest lands, the home of trappers and loggers.

To the S are the Waste Plains, a truly dangerous place few are foolish enough to cross.

To the SW is the Republic of Gilead, where most of the women are barren. Deeply religious and rumoured to harbour stockpiles of OldTech, they raid to steal women for "Handmaids".

The Capital is to the SE, popular only with the desperate and the Juggers. Said to be full of opulence and power, the Overlords call this home (for your info: Capital is the remains of Montreal, which has had an entire underground city complex about the size of the CBD of Melbourne since 1990, and by the time of the disaster, should be three times the size.)

World Notes for Canada 2097 (cont.):

High summer can reach 38 Degrees C in Capital, but the winters plummet to 30 below. Further north where you call home, 25 in summer, to 40 below are the extremes. Snow is common, and falls 5 months a year. Summer is punishing however, with careless people dying of the Brown Waste, (skin cancer) after too much sun. Spring brings the thaw, and the Salmon! (just be careful of the bears fishing) Autumn/Fall turns the leaves brown, and is the time of peak logging activity. Winter is quiet, with little to do except wait for Spring. The Juggers are particularly welcome at this time.

Barter is the most common method of exchange, either of goods or services. If direct barter is unsuitable, barter exchange systems, like the ones popular in the 1990's alternate culture, are used. (Earn points doing a service / providing goods, spending them somewhere else). Coinage is used as a last resort, due to its easily taxable nature and lack of inherent value.

The local currency is called the Emery, equal to 10 Canfras, or 100 decims.

The Emery is a large rectangular coin of steel, the Canfra is a small gold coin, and the decim is a silver coin the size of an Aussie 10c. Surprisingly, the Emery is of lower quality, but has on one side the words embossed "The government promises the bearer to pay " then the value (1,3,7,10,100 M)

An embossed stamp of intricate design and the head of the Dauphin (High Overlord) completes the design. The Emery's purchasing value will buy you 2 days of good food and lodging, a field ploughed, or a barrel of Seal Oil.

Feel free to flesh out stuff by telling outlandish stories to the others if you like. It should keep them on their toes, and make you too useful to ignore. Just how much OldTech you know will probably develop during play and during character design. The one area your character would be scared witless of is the Waste Plain. Death awaits in more forms than you can think of. (Chicago had an old bio-research lab fail and spread Ebola virus, amongst others, through town.

Detroit was a major battlefield, Toronto had a "nuclear accident" a la. Cheyrnoble, and The Great Lakes were poisoned by Chicago's "problem")

Any questions are more than welcome, and I'll fill details where I can.