Castle Aviat (Settlement)
What we know so far:
"Settlement Name: "Well, from what my dad told me this place used to be just "The Settlement". Cared more about keeping us together than having a fancy ass name. But they decided to set up a perimeter, big enough to cover our territory. You know, to keep out raiders and animals and shit. Well, biggest bunch of scrap they found was what he said was called an airplane, and the biggest chunk was used as our main gate... you saw that, right? And that writing on it, "Castle Aviat"? Well, there's your answer. Welcome to the 'wonderful' Castle."
Population: "With you that makes... 72, I think. Most of us, I think a couple less than sixty, are all healthy adults, that's counting the seven with child but can still work. Oh, shit, I was supposed to say six... well, Carol's showing now anyway."
Cause of last major fluctuation: "Bout... six months ago? Bunch of asshole slavers came traveling by. They took some shots at us but fell back quick... pussies. Well, we voted not to let that shit slide, specially as we were pretty sure they had people locked up in those vans. So they sent a group of us to hit them back. I wasn't there, they had me watching the wall... they didn't want any of our women captured. The people they rescued came back with us. A couple of them were like "Wait, you said this was a CASTLE" and I'm like "What the hell, we just saved your ass from slave traders and you want to complain?" Well, they came to their senses. Good, we lost a couple good men in that run...
...
What? No, I don't want to talk about that. Don't you have better shit to do than bother me?" - OctoberRaven
What happened to the world: "Well, the barman of the local booze joint, Arthur, says he was born a coupla years after everything went to shit, and he turned 68 recently. He's the oldest person in town, but even he doesn't really know what happened. He can tell you lots of other stuff about the before times though, going on what his folks taught him, and he told us once about him rememberin' his daddy tellin' him about them all fleein' as the cities burned and the sky cracked and roared like the roof of the world was collapsin'." - Kittendumpling
Where do we get our water: "No, seriously, the big water's where it's at. It used to lie lower, of course, before the skybreak - but now half the ruins are in the water. Maybe the ancients had a dam upstream? Or maybe there's just more water now. Still, it ain't hard to quench a thirst, but you gotta be careful of the ruinwater. Sometimes stuff gets into it, from some wrecked shit in the buildings. You can either go out to the good clean water by the lake proper, away from the old ruins - but that ain't safe, not with the fuckin boat men cannibals and slavers out there. Or you can boil the water real good, which is mostly what we do. Or you can take your chances, see if you get away with it, or maybe trip balls, or maybe melt your stomach like poor Grid. I don't recommend the gamble, but hey, sometimes you ain't got a choice." - Chaomancer
"Well, welcome to Cross Block, first floor. Well, first floor officially anyway. I'm pretty sure you saw this even through the gate. The folk before the maelstrom made these structures last, if not in whole. That's what this place used to serve as to folk. Again, not in whole. You might hear people say it belongs to the people of The Castle, that this is 'the castle'. Hard not to think that with a few folk having their own shit farms, that workshop and, well, my humble abode. But this place really belongs to Ahk and the water. Ahk keeps this as a hold, but it's more like his fortress. He fashions himself a shogo, a war chief, but he's more just a despot. Still, you can stay if you like - I'll point you to a corner where you can set up. Well, hopefully a corner.
Of course, you could always go down the well. Kidding, of course. I'm sure you've heard about it, though. It's the tiniest shed around here, but you'd think it was still dry shelter. You'd think, but I'm sure you know. You know about the hole. Down in to the black eat water, a rope attached to an arch going all the way down, that infinite rope. That hole that you hear takes people at night. I there's bull there because I've personally been over those bodies. Not all of them, though. Maybe they heard about the treasure down there and went look, or maybe they were drawn by that song. You hear that song when you come close to the door. It's faint, but you can still hear that beautiful and haunting song." - Otogi
"What do I think about Ahk? Well, most people say he's a dick... and yeah, he is a dick. But he's a dick that gets things done. Don't get me wrong, I don't kiss his ass, and I don't agree with every decision he makes. Hell, I don't even agree with half of every decision he makes. But we don't need people in charge who does the popular things. We need a guy who does the RIGHT things. Like him or not, he's still better than the slavers, the cannibals, or just plain being on your own. So when he asks me to do something, I'll do it. Why? Same reason I volunteer to be on the wall instead of putting my name in the draft. Because The Castle's all any of us have in the end." - OctoberRaven
"Is this all of us? Well, yeah - but also no. There are outlying communities under Ahk's protection. They ain't Castle folk, not rightly, and he don't run them, though sometimes he get's that gleam in his eye. But while the Castle isn't much of a force, whatever Ahk'd like to say, it has pretty good walls, and the Cross is a pretty good storehouse - if people can get inside, they're pretty safe from the raiders. Course, he does squeeze them for that, and it can get pretty crowded during a raid - and the outsiders don't tend to like us. But it gets us enough extra food from the dirt-farmers to keep us going, along with the stuff we grow inside the wall and the cans we sometimes still find in the ruins." - Chaomancer
