Desert Stalker Lorebook

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1. #1Lore: Zeta

   Keys: Zeta, Zetan city, City of Zeta

   Zeta is the largest and oldest settlement known to most people in the desert. It was founded in the first years after the End of Days by the first Queen Merneith. The city sits beneath the Palace and the Great Temple. Some of its buildings are thousands of years old; newer ones copy the ancient stone-block style because the knowledge needed to rebuild the high-rises of the old world was already lost. The founders raised walls on preexisting ruins. Zeta is richer than the surrounding villages because it had a head start in irrigation, crops, mining, and long-distance trade. Slavery is part of that wealth. The city is ruled by the Queen. Army, Temple, bureaucrats, and Elders answer to her, at least in name. Personal records place the founding roughly four hundred years before the present.

2. #2Lore: The Palace

   Keys: Palace, the Palace

   The Palace is the seat of the Queen. It contains the throne, planning room, royal quarters, thermae, and archives of hoarded pre-fall technology and relics. Guard captains live here. Some of its buildings are thousands of years old. The Queen is ruler, religious authority, and head of the Palace. How much of her power is real and how much is filtered by the inner Council of Elders is one of the many secrets of the Palace.

3. #3Lore: The Great Temple

   Keys: Temple, Great Temple, the Temple

   The Great Temple stands with the Palace as one of the central structures of Zeta. Priestesses serve, in order: the Gods, the Queen, the City. The Temple's two jobs are preaching—comfort to the ill and the weak—and bolstering the population. Girls who join only to escape hunger, slavery, or a bad marriage are sent to the slave pens.

4. #4Lore: The Arena

   Keys: Arena, the Arena

   The Arena was newly raised when the Queen threw the last Master of the Caves into it as the public villain for the Death of the Song. Male mutants born in slavery are called a waste and a threat and are killed or thrown into the Arena to die. It is a place of public violence and spectacle in Zeta.

5. #5Lore: Old Cairo

   Keys: Old Cairo, Cairo

   Two dead civilizations stacked: pharaonic stone, then the glass-and-steel city, both ruined. Frames of high-rises, a dead river, the red mist. Only the Decayed nest here and slowly rebuild for themselves. Mummies in some buildings. The occasional mutant scavenging. Ground zero for the worst storms. Why this city and not another is unknown.

6. #6Lore: The dead zone

   Keys: dead zone, the dead zone

   The forbidden heart of Old Cairo. Lethal without protection. Early mutants watched unmasked explorers walk into it and die.

7. #7Lore: Adira

   Keys: Adira

   Raider town on the dead bed of the Nile, built from containers and the hulls of stranded ships. A handful of gangs hold shifting districts. Two container ships serve as gang bases. Many raiders are rejects of Zeta, or the children of rejects. There is no real center and no civic life. Calling it a city is a compliment.

8. #8Lore: The Overpass

   Keys: the Overpass, Overpass

   A settlement on the remains of a pre-fall bridge, next to a mine crater. Little natural water. Refuge for loners. Was run by a man who called himself the General, then taken by Kyra's gang. It sits on a trade route.

9. #9Lore: The bunker

   Keys: DX-4A98, the bunker, Bunker

   A pre-fall installation in the desert, entered through a tower. Greenhouse, lamps, lab, radio that turns itself on, an archive terminal. Supplies of tins and pastes. Yuna and Sonmi found it after the Cairo massacre. Fangs's group lives there now. Inside a Zone that has not finished choosing what it is. The terminal archive is labeled DX-4A98.

10. #10Lore: Zones

    Keys: Zone, Zones

    Pockets of elsewhere that replace a stretch of land. The first appeared shortly after the End of Days, near the first Zetan settlements, and lasted about a week. People inside vanished. The few who escaped were driven mad. Zones can look like pictures of distant times and places. Some, like the bunker Zone, have not settled on one image: vegetation, a buried factory, a layout that shifts with each emission. A room inside a Zone can act as a time capsule. Legends say the first Zones were seen in what used to be Eastern Europe, long before Zeta. Surviving a crossing changes a person.

11. #11Lore: Paris's hideout

    Keys: hideout, Paris's hideout, Paris tomb

    An ancient-feeling sealed hall, cold, with ear-pressure like an uncorked tomb. His body, his pupil's body, plastic flowers, a book left open on a stone because he wanted it read, scrolls, and a deeper storeroom of mass-produced Bastet statues. Easy to miss. He died there on purpose.

12. #12Lore: The Caves and Chambers of Growing

    Keys: Chambers of Growing, Caves, Houses of Healing

    Under Zeta is the buried flow of the Nile. The first Master of the Caves mapped the underground river and built a chain of machines that altered the cave rock so the water would filter itself. The Chambers of Growing are now natural mineral filters. The reservoirs can be kept by the Houses of Healing.

13. #13Lore: The oasis

    Keys: Oasis

    A scavenger camp associated with the freedom path of Lirah.

14. #14Lore: Zetans

    Keys: Zetan, Zetans

    Everybody in Zeta has a function: an opportunity and an obligation. You are expected to know your place and also how far your will can reach. Merchants, crafters, soldiers, temple servants, bureaucrats, guards. Wealth and population reinforce each other.

15. #15Lore: Desert Stalkers

    Keys: Desert Stalker, Desert Stalkers, Stalkers

    As old as the city. After the first two survivors of a Zone fell out, one stayed and trained explorers in stealth and patience. Those became the Stalkers, bound to the leadership: lodging, resources, and status, in exchange for sharing what they found. Independents and the renegade line mostly loot. Zetan stalkers are supposed to preserve knowledge. The life kills most of them: contamination, a cut, an illness, a mummy. Few retire rich.

16. #16Lore: The Long Walk

    Keys: Long Walk

    When the body fails, some stalkers walk into the desert with only their weapon. Stories: killed by old enemies, dead under a palm from thirst, or gone into the room of wishes. The alternative is to stay and let the house watch you decay.

17. #17Lore: Raiders

    Keys: Raiders

    Outlaws in a society that barely has laws. They respect power, same as Zetans, but violence is the point, not just the regulator. They do not farm, herd, or learn crafts. Children are raised in a heap, half feral. They raid villages and sometimes the Decayed. Concentrated in Adira.

18. #18Lore: The Decayed

    Keys: Damned, Decayed, the Damned

    People who adapted to the corrupting illness that kills everyone else. Hairless, gaunt, disfigured. Their life runs decades longer than a normal span. They do eat human flesh. They thrive in places that kill everyone else, which is why Old Cairo is theirs. They do not reproduce sexually, so growing numbers mean recruitment. Until recent decades they were small marginal bands. Lately they have factions and leadership. They look down on mummies and are still kin to them.

19. #19Lore: Mutants

    Keys: Mutants

    No one knows the mechanism. In living memory, every mutant heard of was born to a slave. The trait was guessed to have been bred out of citizen lines. Almost all living mutants are women, because male mutants rarely survive childhood. A male mutant born in slavery is called a waste and a threat, and is killed or thrown into the Arena to die. None seen has been made a citizen. They have recently found resources beyond anything Zeta can put on the battlefield but are not organized enough to be a real threat yet.

20. #20Lore: The Sapa

    Keys: Sapa

    A semi-nomadic family or tribe, Pepper and Chili's people. They kept an unusual amount of pre-fall science. From childhood they know the age at which they will die, if the death is natural. Whether that is a mutation, a curse, or something else is unknown. Their tie to the bunker mutants will decide what they become.

21. #21Lore: The Hive

    Keys: hive girl, Hive

    Human in shape, colony in behavior. Neither fully human nor Decayed; if a mutation sat halfway between the two, this is it. The mother controls the men through her voice, which they are extremely sensitive to. The daughter seems to share the power and to feel the mother's condition across distance.

22. #22Lore: The Bedouin

    Keys: Bedouin

    They know sandstorms. Most have gone south. Few still cross this country. A tribesman prays to see a blue sky over the cities before he dies, and notes that the green storm is not a storm he recognizes. Bedouin who stayed say the land itself was offended.

23. #23Lore: Eastern Europe

    Keys: what used to be Eastern Europe, Eastern Europe

    What used to be Eastern Europe. Legends say the first Zones were seen there long before Zeta. Kateryna arrived in Zeta from that region. Igor crossed the sand from there as a young man.

24. #24Lore: The House

    Keys: the House, outer House, House

    A House outside the walls of Zeta, on the outskirts. Less protection than living inside the city, more freedom. The stalker chose this middle path. The household includes Zaton, Zahra, Shani, and Ain, and accumulates others depending on circumstance: Emilia, Fairy, Kateryna.

25. #25Lore: Zaton

    Keys: Zaton

    A Desert Stalker who keeps a House outside the walls of Zeta. Born in Zeta. He took the middle path between full service to the city and joining the raiders: less protection, more freedom. He loots to eat but still tries to preserve knowledge. His wife is Zahra. Shani and Ain are the girls of the House.

26. #26Lore: Zahra

    Keys: Zahra

    Wife of Zaton and the other column of the House. Partner for more than two decades. She runs the House when he is gone, understands the girls in ways he does not, and is absolute about her dignity. Hurting her is the one thing distance will not save a person from.

27. #27Lore: Shani

    Keys: Shani

    Elder girl of the House, trainee, and the likely successor. Trained by Zaton and other masters in Zeta. Loyal to the death and still naive in places. She resents Ain. Her trial is to enter a Zone alone.

28. #28Lore: Ain

    Keys: Ain

    Younger girl of the House. Just come of age. Vain, scatterbrained, loyal, insecure about her place. She looks up to Shani and will not say so.

29. #29Lore: Emilia

    Keys: Emilia

    A northern-European-descended palace slave gifted by the queen to the House.

30. #30Lore: Fairy

    Keys: Fairy

    A red-haired captive taken from the Decayed in Old Cairo. Nearly nonverbal from long abuse.

31. #31Lore: Kateryna

    Keys: Kateryna

    Niece of Igor. Recently arrived in Zeta from what used to be Eastern Europe. May move into the House.

32. #32Lore: Igor

    Keys: Igor

    Oldest friend of Zaton. A hulking merchant who crossed the sand as a young man barely speaking the language. Met Zaton in a bar brawl and still keeps the accent. Honest by the standards of the trade. His niece is Kateryna. Came from what used to be Eastern Europe.

33. #33Lore: Queen Merneith

    Keys: Neith, Queen Merneith, the Queen, Merneith

    The current Queen, also called Neith. A young woman a couple of years into the reign. Intelligent and learning how far her people will bend. She has a violent, thrill-seeking side. She extends control by testing loyalty. She researches Elder Paris and reads his diary in the tomb. She wants the tomb sealed and the papers burned. Until those papers were read, she did not know the founding was a political myth.

34. #34Lore: Serafina Azari

    Keys: first Queen, first Queen Merneith, Serafina Azari

    Foremost Egyptologist on a Sahara excavation when Cairo burned. She and Paris Sivara led the dig. She organized the handful of survivors, found water, and talked the camp into a new story: the catastrophe was a chance to leave a world strangled by technology. She became the first sovereign, the first Queen Merneith. There was no divine hand. Paris's child was growing in her when she was hailed sovereign.

35. #35Lore: Paris Sivara

    Keys: Elder Paris, Paris, Paris Sivara

    Professor who led the Sahara excavation with Serafina Azari. Later Elder Paris. He authored the fairytale that became Zeta's reality. At the end of his life he wrote that there was no divine hand in the Queen's rise and that Zeta was never sanctified by anything but their schemes and ambitions. His daughter Skye was assigned to him under the new law. He died in a sealed hideout he prepared, leaving an open book and scrolls. Under his tomb are mass-produced Bastet statues.

36. #36Lore: Sharifa

    Keys: Sharifa

    Captain of the queen's personal guard, last captain to also serve the previous queen. Tall, lean, always angry at outsiders. More protective of Merneith than the job requires. Possibly a true believer in the queen's divinity. Do not pick a fight with her.

37. #37Lore: Talia

    Keys: Talia

    Palace guard. The steadier of the pair with Lirah. A recurring palace presence.

38. #38Lore: Lirah

    Keys: Lirah

    Palace guard. She breaks, either toward the wastes or back into duty under the queen's punishment.

39. #39Lore: Abrax / Zosar

    Keys: Abrax, Zosar

    Lord Abrax united many bands of the Decayed. He was Zosar, a respected Elder and one of the great arms-teachers of Zeta. When he fell ill he took the Long Walk. The Decay took him instead. He has noticed the House again. A war with him might be a war Zeta does not survive.

40. #40Lore: Fangs

    Keys: Fangs

    Field leader of the younger mutants. Razor teeth, trained, strategic, and increasingly willing to talk about killing for territory. She hates the Queen as an institution, the cult and the culling, more than she hates Merneith personally. She shelter-names people. She was radicalized inside the bunker after Yuna gave her group the keys against Sonmi's wishes.

41. #41Lore: Pepper / Elvira

    Keys: Elvira, Pepper

    Pepper is Elvira, a scientist who left the Sapa to use the bunker lab, officially to help her sister and unofficially to recover lost knowledge. Zetan traditionalists would kill her for that. She can operate bunker systems others can only stare at.

42. #42Lore: Chili / Mina

    Keys: Chili, Mina

    Chili is Mina, younger of the Sapa pair. Loud music, steady in a way that comes from already knowing her death.

43. #43Lore: Krait

    Keys: Krait

    A mutant whose visible mark is a long tongue and whose real danger is attention: a pull she can turn on. Not prettier than the queen or Zahra, and still the one the room looks at.

44. #44Lore: Ivy

    Keys: Ivy

    Called an elf for the ears, which are not her only difference. She has survived the wasteland sun for years, moves like a ghost, covers her face, and does not speak to everyone. Her eyes change color with her mood. The people around her named her. She finds mutants, and the mutants rely on that. Whether she is loyal to them is an open question. She speaks rarely.

45. #45Lore: Yuna

    Keys: Yuna

    One of the older mutant community. Wrote a long diary on a battery-powered text device given to her by Aloi. Recorded life in the Cairo tower, the catastrophe that left only her and Sonmi, the bunker, a mountain-valley settlement, and the later meeting with the younger mutants led by Fangs. She handed over the bunker behind Sonmi's back.

46. #46Lore: Sonmi

    Keys: Sonmi

    One of the older mutant community. Unusually bright. She goes into Zones and says she sees something there that gives her purpose. She refused to give the bunker to the younger mutants. She says mutant is an old, accurate word.

47. #47Lore: Aloi

    Keys: Aloi

    One of the older mutant community. Gave Yuna the text device. Warned of attacks in the Cairo tower days.

48. #48Lore: Lunai

    Keys: Lunai

    One of the older mutant community. Remembered in the bunker terminal notes as doing dishes and singing. Music records were wanted for her.

49. #49Lore: Kyra

    Keys: Kyra

    Raider captain in Adira. Sister of Asha. The planner. One of the few people of Asian descent known in the region.

50. #50Lore: Asha

    Keys: Asha

    Raider captain in Adira. Younger sister of Kyra. The enforcer, all impulse.

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