My Own Dystopia
Setting
My Own Dystopia is set on a future earth approximately three hundred years after the alien horrors known as the Other Beings came to the planet and caused a series of natural disasters, plagues, and monster attacks. The world's geography and climate have changed as a result of many factors, most notably due to the return of spirits, gods, and magic to the world. A multitude of biomes have become extreme: woodlands have become thicker with taller trees, mountains larger and more treacherous, swamps wider and deeper, and arid locations have become deserts.
The remaining people in the world live in towns and cities that are separated from one another by treacherous distances that discourage frequent travel. As such, each location has a particularly isolated feel as the majority of citizens prefer safety over movement. Technology exists, but it is rare, large, and awkward.
The ungracefulness and unavailability of technology gives the setting a steampunk dystopian feel. The setting itself has a mix of Renaissance textile and mercantile equipment with more-advanced technology only existing in the larger cities. As such, there is a vast gulf between the "enlightened" city dweller and the "simple" townsfolk who live in villages away from cultured society.
Other than a mix of high-fantasy, sci-fi, and a number of dying earth themes, the setting also took a small amount of inspiration from Wild West fiction, The Dark Tower series, the Final Fantasy series of video games, Hellgate: London, The Dunwich Horror (and other Lovecraft stories), the high fantasy of Lord of the Rings, The Road, Bleach, and even elements taken from The Sopranos.
=The World
The geography and climate of My Own Dystopia's futuristic/far post-apocalyptic setting differs from the United States as it is today. California has broken apart, and those pieces that did not sink became a cluster of large islands. A massive quake opened up an ocean inlet from the southern part of Washington State to mid-Wyoming. Middle America has become a vast desert, the Northwest has become a sprawling expanse of extreme forests, rivers, hills, and plains, and the southern coast of America (specifically around Louisiana and Florida) has become a set of islands similar to California save with a much more heavily-forests, swampy climate.
All of the standing cities, organizations, and governments in America have dissolved save for an offshoot of The Stonemasons, who, during the apocalypse, took to calling themselves the White Martyrs and traveled the world at great personal risk to collect and store whatever bits of scientific and historical knowledge they could find. As such, a larger number of smaller nations and city-states exist in the world.
