Mythora

After the Rip

Post Apocalyptic Sci Fi

Seventy-five years ago an antimatter test tore the world open. Four hundred million survivors live in the seams of that wound — mega hubs behind drone walls, market towns trading flux-salvage and rift-meat, villages that bury their dead near the well. The rifts pulse. The fauna come through. Travel kills. Somewhere under the largest hub lies a sealed pre-Rip record that says it was never an accident. Find it. Or do not. Either way the next pulse arrives in days.

Where things stand

After the Rip is played by real people and keeps moving between their sessions. This is the state of it as of the last update — not a fixed setting, and not where it began.

Silas 'The Scavenger' continues his maniacal temporal experiments, claiming a crucial data-vault and accelerating the dissolution of the Scrapyard Bazaar. The profound agony of 'Coin' Elara, now part of the Glauk biomass, triggers widespread temporal distortions that leave the Echoing Canyons dangerously flickering and open new unstable pathways. In response to the escalating chaos, a new medic — Dr. Lena Volkov — has established a desperately needed medical outpost in Filis's Haven, an arrival quietly noted by the independent medic Milena, while the opportunistic trader Kael has set up shop in the treacherous Shifting Bazaar to profit from the instability. Anya, 'The Scavenger', has been forced to abandon the Anomaly Breach entirely, barely escaping its grasp; its expansion is now undeniable and its guttural growl a constant, terrifying presence in the Echoing Canyons. The Fissure's Maw, under Beam-Sigh's absolute dominion and the guidance of a subsumed Varis Stone-Heart, expands its spiritual isolation and physical reach across those same canyons, consuming temporal echoes and emitting insidious psychic pulses that lure the unwary deeper with deceptive comfort.

Places

Anvil Crossingtown
A walled caravanserai of mortared stone and salvaged shipping plate at the junction of the spine road and the southern split. Population fluctuates between four and twelve thousand depending on the season and the weather and what is currently on the rifts. The Long Roads Compact enforces a strict no-blood policy inside the gates, backed by Carrier outriders and a posting clerk who knows everyone's business. The freight scale at the center of the main yard runs day and night. Pre-Rip rail beds half-buried in dust form the southern wall. A relief map of the local rift mouths hangs at the wagonmaster's office, repainted weekly. The smell is grease, leather, woodsmoke, and the ammoniac tang of curing rift-meat from the kitchen at the back of the depot.
Ironsong Townmarket
Thirty thousand people clustered around the old rail-yard where the spine road meets the eastern fauna corridor. Forge alley runs the entire eastern wall, hammer-rhythm starting before sunrise. The curing hall holds three weeks of fresh meat at any season. The salvage market at the north gate is the second largest on the continent — pre-Rip electronics, scavenged surgical kits, flux-cores graded one through six, occasional rift-derived materials that are sold under the counter for premium carrier-marks. The Carrier Routes Quartermaster's office sits above the freight scale. Atlas Authority has no formal presence — the Long Roads Compact charges them market rate for transit like everyone else.
The Chronal Maelstromruins
The Pale Rift's energies are now more volatile due to a localized flux surge. The terror bird's presence can still be felt deeper within.
The Spinecave
A pre-Rip research bunker buried under what is now the Atlas Underworks, accessible only by a single armored corridor that opens into the deep service tunnel network. The corridor's outer door was sealed seventy-two years ago by Atlas Authority on the orders of the first Director Marquand and has not been opened since. Inside, the bunker is climate-stable — the original microreactor still runs. The corridors are floor-marked in pre-Rip hazard yellow. The inner archive contains the original engineering records, project minutes, and a working stabilization device its designers believed could close the rifts they had opened. Security is partially-active. Two retrieval expeditions have been swallowed whole.
Driftcamp Severinforest
A semi-permanent camp of two hundred Stormrunners pitched in the lee of a wind-carved sandstone outcrop, three days ride east of Anvil Crossing. Skin tents in two concentric rings. A central firepit that is never allowed to fully die. A herd of forty-odd hardy horses bred for pulse-week travel. The shaman's tent stands slightly apart, marked by three vertical poles and a wind-streamer that has been pale gray for as long as anyone remembers — Konar Voss-Hekma has run this band for twenty-one years and intends to die in this lee.
Echo Strandforest
A two-village fishing and salvage community along thirty kilometers of pebble coast south of Greenfield. About fifteen hundred souls between the two settlements. The shore is littered with pre-Rip shipping containers that washed in over decades — most have been cracked and stripped, but every spring storm uncovers another. The local economy splits between fishing the rebuilt cod fisheries and beachcombing the flux-device salvage. Rooted Villages have a small presence; Echo Strand pays them seasonal tithe but does not formally belong to the League because it sells flux-recovered electronics to the Convocation when the Convocation pays well.
Greenfield Hamletforest
Greenfield Hamlet, usually a quiet sanctuary, is now a bustling, anxious refugee camp. Makeshift shelters crowd the edges of the forest, and the demand for food and medical supplies is critical. The villagers' fear of conflict is palpable.
Singularity Memorialruins
The original detonation site of the Rip warhead, now a circular plain of vitrified glass nine kilometers across, the center of which is a shallow depression where the surface dipped during the event. The memorial proper is a ring of upright pre-Rip salvage at the western edge: machine parts, a piece of an airliner wing, a school bell, a name-stone listing the original engineers. Pilgrims come from every faction. Atlas Authority maintains a small ranger station at the access road. The Convocation forbids its members from publishing anything based on memorial-site samples. The ground sings — a low frequency hum no instrument has explained.
The Bone Fieldruins
An open plain north-east of Ironsong where eighteen months ago a herd of short-faced bears emerged from the Pale Rift during an early-phase pulse and ran over a Carrier convoy of two hundred souls. The bears were eventually put down by combined Stormrunner and Carrier crews; the dead were not all recovered. Bones are still visible across an area of about three square kilometers. The site is unofficially taboo — Carrier Routes does not run convoys through it, Rooted Villages will not let their children speak its name, and Atlas Authority has filed it under deferred recovery. Salvagers go anyway for the personal effects.
Severance Passmountain
Severance Pass, already a dangerous chokepoint, now hums with spectral void energy. The crystalline veins pulse erratically, casting an eerie violet glow. Unnatural whispers and a pervasive chill make the pass even more treacherous, drawing those sensitive to rift phenomena and new, strange fauna.
The Old Librarytemple
The Convocation Quarter occupies what used to be the eastern half of a pre-Rip university campus, ringed by a low wall of book-stacks turned to mortar. The Old Library proper is a four-story brick-and-glass building whose upper floors are intact, lower floors converted into laboratories. The main reading room is a working public archive — anyone with a reasonable question and a small gift can sit. The locked stacks are another matter. The lower-laboratory complex is where Archivist-Master Thalo Kress conducts his stabilization research, and where his three missing apprentices were last seen.
Atlas Citadelcastle
The largest surviving mega hub on the continent, four million souls inside walls that absorbed the worst of three pulse cycles and held. Drone gantries line the curtain wall — currently empty, the patrol grounded by flux interference no one will publicly diagnose. The Authority Spire rises forty stories above the inner ring, lit at night by microreactor-fed lamps that the Outer Ward residents see as a constant reminder of who has the warm rooms. Strict ID at the gates. Carrier convoys are tariffed and inspected. Rift-touched must register and wear a band. Atlas's economy runs on microreactor maintenance, drone manufacture, salvage refining, and the export of clean water to anywhere it can defend the pipeline.
Atlas Underworkscave
The pre-Rip subway and service tunnels beneath Atlas Citadel, partially flooded, partially repurposed by the Authority as auxiliary storage, partially squatted by people the Authority does not see. About forty thousand people live in the Underworks year-round — refugees who could not afford ID, the rift-touched who refuse to register, salvage crews who prefer not to declare. An informal market in the disused central station handles everything Atlas Citadel does not let through the gate. The deepest tunnel access leads to the sealed corridor that opens onto The Spine. Atlas Internal Security runs sweeps every two weeks; the Underworks knows the schedule.
Northern Wastes Bunkerbunker
A newly discovered pre-Rip bunker system, partially collapsed but containing signs of advanced, sealed technology, its purpose unknown.
The Violet Chasmcave
The maw-beast encountered by Drip has retreated deeper into the chasm, leaving behind trails of shimmering dust and a pervasive sense of dread. The violet light pulses irregularly, hinting at unstable energies. Now, these energies are causing localized, disruptive flux surges and strange mutations.
The Flux-Scarred Tunnelcave
A narrow, unstable passage carved through flux-laced rock, barely held together by raw, pulsating energy. Jagged debris litters the floor, and the air crackles with ozone.
The Downward Spiralcave
A jagged, downward-sloping passage, slick with acrid water and illuminated by a sickly violet glow. The air is thick with pressure and a high-pitched whine, hinting at a massive presence deeper within.
The Shifting Sandsdesert
A vast, desolate desert region bordering the Pale Rift, where wind-sculpted dunes hide ancient, half-buried structures. The air shimmers with residual temporal distortions, and mirages are common.
Aetherium Watch (Medical Outpost)market
The Aetherium Watch, once a bastion against temporal threats, now lies in ruins, a testament to the escalating Smilodon attacks and the failure to reinforce its defenses. The outpost's demise leaves a critical gap in chronal monitoring and a wealth of pre-Rip information exposed.
The Chronos Library (Ruins)ruins
The skeletal remains of a pre-Rip research facility, now mostly collapsed and overgrown. Fragments of data crystals and archaic machinery hint at its past purpose: studying temporal mechanics.
The Fissure Passagecave
A claustrophobic, twisting tunnel barely wide enough to navigate, filled with acrid air and charged with atmospheric ionization. A faint, flickering light appears in the distance.
Flooded Subway Caverncave
A vast, pre-Rip subway station, now a flooded cavern. Its tracks are submerged beneath water that glows with an eerie violet, fed by a new, active rift. Twisted, mutated flora clings to the arched ceilings.
Bay 7 Archivesmarket
A dimly lit, sprawling section of Bay 7 dedicated to salvaged data drives, damaged schematics, and pre-Rip texts. Dust motes dance in the few shafts of light that penetrate the grime-coated windows, illuminating shelves stacked high with forgotten knowledge.
The Static Fieldsforest
A desolate expanse bordering the Pale Rift, where the ground is scorched and the air crackles with erratic energy. Strange, crystalline formations jut from the earth, humming with an unnatural resonance, a direct consequence of the intensified flux surges.

Figures

  • Pernell SkyWandering Archivist, Holder of the Sealed File
  • Marshal Iren VegaAtlas Authority Marshal, Civilian-Military Commander
  • Captain QuillAtlas Internal Security Sweep Captain
  • Edda MercierRetired Atlas Authority Physicist, In Hiding
  • Archivist-Master Thalo KressConvocation Archivist-Master, Stabilization Research Lead
  • Director Saul MarquandAtlas Authority Intelligence Director, Custodian of Records
  • MiraRift-Touched Child, Veiled Cradle Resident
  • Senior Wagonmaster Hesper CraneCarrier Routes Senior Wagonmaster, Long Roads Compact Council
  • Shaman Konar Voss-HekmaDriftcamp Severin Shaman, Stormrunner Pulse-Reader
  • Brokk YarasIronsong Town Salvage Lead
  • Apprentice Mey TarstenConvocation Researcher, Junior Stabilization Assistant
  • Beam-SighThe Witness Inside the Pale Rift
  • Toll Captain Nyree HaltCarrier Routes Severance Pass Toll Captain
  • Junie PaschAnvil Crossing Depot Cook, Long Roads Informal Information Broker
  • Speaker Auria LoGreenfield Hamlet Speaker, Rooted Villages League Council
  • Swift' KaelStormrunner Scout
  • MaraDriftcamp Trader
  • 'Coin' ElaraIndependent Trader
  • Slick' ThorneConvocation Infiltrator
  • RoricStormrunner Scout
  • SilvanCarrier Trader
  • Commander RylosAtlas Authority FOB Commander
  • 'Doc' ElaraCombat Medic
  • Agent ThorneAtlas Authority Covert Agent (posing as Salvage Contractor)

These are the figures the world was seeded with, and who are still alive in it. Others have appeared since, and some of these are no longer who they were — the world keeps moving whether or not anyone is watching.