Editing Amazing Deliveries (section)

==Dangers of the Road==

Larger settlements have security forces that regularly sweep their surroundings, but even these do far ranging patrols only on special occasions. There are very good reasons why Deliverers are known as the ones who travel. For there are threats on the routes.

===Rough Going===

In the past, paved roads and rail lines connected the communities. Today, if two Dome Cities are close enough to each other, they may build an underground tunnel to connect each other. Otherwise, maintaining roads between settlements is not seen as cost effective. Surface conditions would cause constant wear and tear, and need of maintenance, and work crews would risk exposure. What roads exist are mainly trails left by Deliverer rigs. Where traffic is heavy, this results in a packed trail, equivalent of a dirt road. On less used routes, the rigs are practically driving off road.

Deliverer rigs are built for that though, and settlements are not normally built in inaccessible locations – and when they are, they have a depot nearby. The routes may be circuitous to avoid terrain obstacles, but in most cases a way to the destination exists.

===The Storms===

Weather has become more extreme, and storms can be truly terrifying. The lightning messes with communications, navigation, and electrical systems. The rain drops visibility to next to nothing. The winds are powerful enough that even a carelessly driven rig risks toppling.

===The Outlaws===

Desperate, armed groups. Some are composed of people who have been exiled from their settlements for crimes, or who fled to escape punishment. They live in makeshift shelters within abandoned mines or past era subway tunnels, or other locations providing some protection. Such hideouts rarely have more than the basic necessities, and usually do not provide enough to support the people using them. Some forage, others sneak to settlements and farms to steal, but the most ambitious or desperate ones go for cargoes. They build barricades, set up ambushes, and the most powerful gangs even have fast vehicles they try to chase Deliverer rigs down with. The risks are high, but so are the rewards.

There are also entire settlements hostile to outsiders. Cult compounds, extremist communities, hideouts or paranoid militia. Usually these places are isolationist and only a danger if you venture near, but occasionally some send out raiding parties. According to rumor, particularly those who have taken to cannibalism.

===The Monsters===

You are laughing now, but just wait.

It is true that while some of the fauna – even some of the flora – can be dangerous to people, nothing on the surface can really threaten a rig. Some things can be a nuisance, crawling all over the rig, trying to nest, nibbling here and there, but those are usually easily chased away and only cause minor damage at best. Nothing that lives on the surface is big enough to stand up to a rig.

But the ocean is right there. They too have changed. Water temperature, acidity. The surface waters are largely lifeless, but it is known that life still exists in the depths. Only, what lives there now is not what people of the past were used to. Boston is right on the coast, but the city itself is bright, loud, and well defended. Nothing ever approaches the Dome City.

Yet sometimes, near a storm or when food under the surface has been scarce, something crawls out of the ocean. Something big and scary that can survive on land.