Rivers in the Barrens:Ashbarrow

Bordering Puyallup City and Hell’s Kitchen, situated around the junction between the Puyallup River and East Prairie Creek, Ashbarrow is built from the corpse of failed 2020s and 2040s Puyallup revitalization efforts. Additionally, Ashbarrow slowly grows as outlying portions of Puyallup City are abandoned to urban decay. Buildings in the Ashbarrow range from rusting factories, to stubbornly defiant early 21st century apartments, to revitalization-era mass-produced concrete urban blocks dilapidating in the wake of SINner flight.

Economically, Ashbarrow exists on a gradient from “The Weeds” bordering Puyallup City and Loveland, which still has a degree of legitimate municipal services, to true barrens south and eastward, where most services are community provided or siphoned from “official” sources. Population density, on the other hand, grades from thickest in the west and falls off eastward as one approaches the uninhabitable Hell’s Kitchen. Major transport lines through Ashbarrow include the old state route 162 and river transit down the Puyallup River, though they are rarely traveled by outsiders since they no longer lead to anywhere of note (Petrowski Farms is a major exception). No train or bus lines pass through Ashbarrow given its status as a barren, though several bus stops in Puyallup City are walkable from The Weeds.

Owing to its nearness to Hell’s Kitchen and Mt. Rainer, Ashbarrow is subject to frequent and relatively intense ashfalls. In fact, the neighborhood draws its name from the lumpy mounds of “rock snow” coating streets and buildings after volcanic weather. Those who can afford to wear gasmasks or rebreathers on such days, while those who cannot make do with facemasks and scarves. The latter articles of clothing are an Ashbarrow cultural and fashion touchstone even for those able to get better protection. Despite protective measures, chronic silicosis is sadly common among longtime residents of the Ashbarrow.

Notable Places

Ashbarrow’s most important source of electricity is the Landsblood Artery, a refurbished geothermal station in Hell’s Kitchen run by the Rútsson family – rumored to have connections to the Stonecutter’s Guild. This station is augmented by solar panels lining the lava flows and adorning buildings, but ashfalls, the rainy season, and theft are a constant source of entropy for this aspect of the local grid. The Rútssons trade power for money, food, and favors, and also log contributions made by individuals supplying power into the system via solar panels, wind turbines, and generators. Efforts have been made to extend power lines out to settlements in Carbonado, but natural and man-made disasters have derailed every attempt thus far.

The Wall is a rough and tumble dive bar located in northeastern Ashbarrow along the East Prairie River, very close to the Cinders. Owned by local anarcho-syndicalist fixture "Crazy Ivan," purportedly an ex-Black Star agent, The Wall attracts hard talkers, hard drinkers, and hard leftists. The dive's signature drinks are unfancy cocktails made with various moonshines distilled from different barrens neighborhoods - most locals favor the varieties coming down from Carbonado. The bar is named for its singular brick wall, which extends to the first floor of the tenement above and is a stalwart remnant of the original pre-2017 building that once stood here. Those in the shadows know that Crazy Ivan keeps some of the rooms in the tenement unoccupied, using them as places to store contraband, set up meetings between interested parties, and hide refugees. Ushitara works as a bouncer here.

The Working Class is a restaurant and bar located in the Weeds just north of McMillin Bridge, where Ashbarrow grades indistinctly into Puyallup City. The joint is owned by a democratic socialist named Tylr Mikell (they/them), and purposefully courts both neo-anarchists and blue-collar wage slaves in an attempt to radicalize the latter. Interior decoration and staff dress evoke a proletarian parody of Downtown’s “classy” clubs – e.g., bartenders wear denim vests over blue-collar shirts and you can get your drink served in a plastic martini glass. Sometimes it even serves real food to boot. Iced tea of various flavors, hard or otherwise, is the signature drink at The Working Class – supposedly in remembrance of a runner the owner knew in the ‘50s. The Working Class began as a dive in the basement of an ailing carpenter's shop, but Tylr bought out and expanded into the ground floor - while also maintaining, supporting, and unionizing the carpenter's shop. Tylr is politically well-connected, with figures such as mayors Campa and Scholl being known to have patronized the restaurant.

Tylr's and "Crazy Ivan"'s strained and complicated relationship is low-key infamous within the Ashbarrow leftist community. Ivan has spit venom about "that class traitor" on numerous nights, while Tylr openly regards Ivan's approach as "all theory and no results." Despite the open ad hominem between the two individuals, their establishments have overlapping clientele and shipments between the two are regularly spotted moving along East Prairie Creek. The common scuttlebutt is that the pair were in an intimate relationship that went sour, but those in the shadows credulous of Ivan's Black Star claims have a different hypothesis.

Dr. Hajera Sultana’s House is the closest thing the Ashbarrow has to a proper doctor’s office or urgent care center (unless rumors about Icarus’ headquarters are to be believed). Most of the interior has been converted to medical facilities, with only half of the upper floor reserved for Dr. Sultana’s personal residence – necessary to even support eight beds in the small house. Dr. Hajera and most of her volunteer staff are members of the Black Crescent, with much of their work actually done via house calls. Non-member street docs around Puyallup sometimes refer patients who cannot pay to the Black Crescent. In turn, the Black Crescent often have to run patients they cannot provide care for across the barrens to Good Samaritan Hospital in Loveland or Deireadh an Tuartheil in Tarislar – the latter doesn’t ask as many questions as the UCAS military run Good Samaritan.

Three Block Park is a relic of and memorial to the town called Orting that died here when Mt. Rainier erupted. A narrow strip 1500 ft long and 150 ft wide, split into thirds lengthwise by roads, this city park is adorned with the melted and fused remnants of its pre-2017 incarnation. Since the metroplex government doesn’t send parks and recreation employees out here anymore, it falls to local residents to keep the park clean of trash and clear of ash. Far from being joyless and somber, Three Block Park features a playground, basketball court, and several small parkways between rows of hardy trees that have grown from the ashes.

The Cinders are a combination small shantytown and refugee camp on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen. The settlement is primarily home to those displaced SINless who don’t feel welcome in Carbonado or Tarislar, and don’t feel safe in Loveland. The inadequate infrastructure combined with local seismic and volcanic activity leads to regular building collapses and fires. Hydrogen sulfide gas seeps pose a more subtle threat to the residents, prompting many to loft up beds and carry around small pieces of metal as crude detectors.

Market Square is 4 blocks of solid brownstone townhouse/apartments with a central courtyard, another result of the attempts at post-volcanic revitalization. The courtyard between the rows of houses is locally known as 'The Goblin Market,' with an ever-shifting assortment of peddlers, dingy stalls, and carts hawking things from handcrafts to handguns. The ashfalls regularly force the merchants to scatter, and it's never quite the same assortment after they return. There are a few long-time regulars, such as Sam Liberty the ironmonger (a norm who is trying, with middling success, to look like Sam Adams as he appears in portraits) and Melinda Beasley, an elf who sells kitschy antiques and has a knack for knowing everyone at the market no matter how new they are.

Sideras Repair and Body, which started as an auto garage about a century ago and has since expanded into all kinds of repair work.

[Players, please add people and places of interest or importance to you!]

Notable Groups

Icarus

Icarus are a faction of green neoanarchists who are largely endemic to Ashbarrow, though city travelers report they also have bases in the Everett barrens and have been seen moving goods through Tarislar and the Underground. Going hypothesis for these sightings is that Icarus smuggles plants, seeds, and farming supplies in from Salish-Sidhe. Following the ideological theory and praxis of their founder, Alarota, Icarus seeks to encourage sustainable living in the Seattle barrens. This mission is centered around developing farming techniques and communes both in the urbanized zones and, without much success, in Hell’s Kitchen. The organization mostly focuses on hydroponic farming, to preserve water, but has also been experimenting with the volcanic ash enriched soil.

In addition to organizing farming communes, Icarus also: runs food drives; teaches water conservation, green magical praxes, and ideological seminars; assists unions while lobbying them to promote sustainable manufacturing; and attempts to co-organize with other local leftist groups. The latter efforts are hindered by the suspicion among many residents that Icarus is a cult, owing to the reverence members express towards Alarota. There are also concerns about where Icarus gets its resources from, or the funds to obtain them.

When they want to be, Icarus can be identified by their armbands depicting a horizontal red band over a horizontal green one, with a black wing in the foreground. The group is spread out over the ashbarrow, where members have turned their homes into farms, greenhouses, and meeting centers. However, Icarus also has a large enclave situated in the ruins of Orting Middle School, which has been converted to communal apartments, greenhouses, and hydroponic farms. This enclave is rigorously patrolled and defended by militarized security; non-members are not allowed inside without invitation, and even then are closely supervised during their visit.

Icarus occasionally stirs up trouble with Petrowski Farms, on the basis that the Petrowski family is hoarding and commodifying their crops. Petrowski Farms largely ignores Icarus in return, given that the anarchists just make noise (or hire precise shadowrunners) instead of assaulting their fences like the more violent barrens gangs. Despite this strained relationship, there are rumors the two factions have secretly assisted each other in the past.

The Reality Hackers

This gang of runaway corp kids and barrens techno-geeks is largely responsible for much of Ashbarrow having wireless Matrix connectivity at all. Spread over Ashbarrow, Loveland, Puyallup City, and even parts of Tarislar, they consider the AR and VR net of Puyallup district their territory more than any piece of tangible real estate. The Reality Hackers are perhaps best known for dropping cheap wireless relays around the Puyallup barrens. Though the devices are often snatched up by scrappers or whatever passes for local security, the Reality Hackers routinely make it "rain toasters" throughout Puyallup to replace losses. They also search for, refurbish, and maintain the remnants of the 30s - 60s wired Matrix network wound through the city. This is not an act of charity: the Reality Hackers largely fund themselves via piracy and other cybercrime, and most rely on the Matrix in one way or another to defend themselves.

The Reality Hackers began as a small time collective of small time hackers, but their ability to punch above their weight class against corpro cybersecurity (often owing to members being runaways from said corps) drew Yakuza attention. The Reality Hackers were captured and groomed as a weapon by the Watada-rengo for a time, until Hanzo Shotozumi usurped control from the Watada family - at which point the presumed disloyal Reality Hackers were repeatedly sent on suicide missions. In a self-fulfilling prophecy, the surviving Hackers escaped deeper into the barrens, rebuilt, and never forgot. The Reality Hackers hate the Yaks, and readily team up with anyone looking to take a bite out of the Shotozumi-rengo. The gang is also a haven for Japanese and Japanese-corporate exiles.

The Reality Hackers' colors are gold and chrome. Most are as cybered as the individual member can afford, electing for sleek and "electronic" aesthetics prominently displayed. Those who cannot adopt the gang's "fashion" in reality apply it in the Matrix instead.