SPRAWL ZONE: THE SLAGS

The following is the latest installment in my "Cyberpunk City Generator" series for Chromatic Shadows. This entry describes The Slags, one of the principal Sprawl Zones, and adventure sites within the game world. The tables below can be used as adventure seeds, for generating random encounters, or for flushing out descriptions and textures within the scope of an existing adventure. It's written for use with Chromatic Shadows, but can be easily adapted for other urban or post apocalyptic adventure games.

Description

 The Slags are vast industrial liminal zones connecting major metroplex centers throughout the Sprawl. Before the collapse, this was the major manufacturing center, and primary place of work for the proletariat citizenry. This is now gone. Factories, transportation hubs, fabrication centers and energy plants have become looming husks. The Slags is an endless wasteland of industrial collapse, pollution, and in many places, striking natural beauty. Trees and wildlife have reclaimed much of what was concrete and paved-over. Wild animals prowl among the oily pools and weed choked rubble.

 

Mega Highways

14 lane wide arterial mega highways and desolate buffer zones carve up the zone and interconnect the various industrial sites. Deep gutters and drainage trenches run on each side of the roadways. Wrecks of vehicles lie in rusted heaps below. Where the mega-highways don't veer off to industrial sites, there can be found numerous exits and offramps leading to Fortress Estates.

Industrial Sites

The Slags are characterized by endless miles of defunct industrial sites. The state and megacorporate collusion of the early 2050s led to the rapid development of infrastructure at mass scale. These gigantic, larger-than-life complexes were built and maintained by various government sponsored SinCom subsidiaries. The corporate collapse caused reciprocal government implosion. As the bottom fell out, a cascade of system failure followed. Decades later, all that remains is the rotting footprint of derelict structures.

People

The Slags are inhospitable, but not uninhabited. Nomads, scavengers, and neotribes are among those known to shelter in various reclaimed spaces. Ferals in particular are known to have fled to the Slags to build a “wild” new society separate from the consumer glut of the Metroplex. Likewise, strange sects of Proteans have been seen prowling the ruins, adapting their customs and bodies ito the extreme and desolate environment. Scavengers and nomads also eek out a living by salvaging and looting various sites and “moving on" when the resources are exhausted. These groups in particular have a reputation for being violent and territorial.

The Strange

The Slags have long served as the site for numerous black sites and experimental labs. The remote and inhospitable location, even before the collapse, was perfect for staging various “shadow-ops”. Today, many secret research labs remain fully intact and sealed off from the world. Many dangerous occult assets remain at large, influencing the environment. Assets can be found affecting the natural environment, creatures, and communities, manifesting as “hauntings”, reality-warping effects, and even attracting outside beings and eldritch horrors. It is rare that the influence of an Occult Asset will not “disrupt” the environment in some meaningful and uncanny way.

Slags Sites

1. Warehouse complex: numerous hulking warehouses loom up from the grass. Huge concrete and aluminum buildings loom rust stained and bleak, their windows black and thick with grime. Trees and brush poke through the crumbling asphalt. Pigeons roost in mass on the roofs here.
2. Power transfer station: on a hill, behind a razor wire topped chain link fence a sprawling electrical complex. Massive machinery: grey blocks slitted with cooling fins,huge cylinder tanks, control valves, large black bushings The whole complex sits upon a large concrete slab. Heavy cables join the machinery to the nearby electrical towers.
3. Utility buildings: numerous small gray concrete buildings built out upon a concrete lot. The remnants of tube trailers upon blocks and old aluminum geodesic garages.A family of foxes live here and hunt fowl in the grass.
4. Overpass: a soaring loop of crumbling mega- highway resolves to a crisscrossing network of bridges and overpasses below. Dark drainage tunnels run beneath concrete vaults and arches. Camps and neotribal outposts shelter here.
5. Bridge: a long steel suspension bridge covered with graffiti, and light wooden structures.On a platform between the towers nomads set a guardpost and demand a toll of passers through.
6. Service station: a stretch of crumbling mega-highway exits into a fenced in lot filled with truck trailers and large warehouse garages. Rows of fuel service islands, and old charging stations beneath clattering aluminum roof shelters. Nearby a monolithic hexagonal parking tower rises up from a cave-like opening. A series of inner ramps and elevators lead to a glass pyramid-atrium above. The fast food restaurants and snack shops have been looted, but strange ornaments and old furniture remain.
7. Motel: complex of multistory blocks painted in weather stained whitewash. Catwalks and metal bridges interconnect the structures at each level, stairs run up and down on platforms. Steel chute elevator. Rooms are abandoned, and given over to rot. Nomads patrol the area and defend the motel from outsiders. They have cleared out several of the rooms, and rehabilitated them as living quarters.
8. Garbage dump: complex of huge concrete platforms, hulking rusted trailers docked in various bays filled with old metal, tires and separated industrial debris. Numerous wide dirt roads lead past the transfer station to the massive landfill nearby. It spreads out as acres of grey debris, some of it appears to be smouldering, sending up clouds of smoke. Old compactors and bulldozers sit dead and abandoned amidst the rubble field. Seagulls, bears, coyotes roam freely.
   
9. Industrial campus: expanse of broken parking lots. Bulkheads lead to underground tunnels, huge exterior ventilation ducts, and smokestacks. Grim factories and cement domes interconnect with overhead tubes and walkways.
10. Private airfield: high chain link fence surrounds area, accessible by several heavy rolling gates. Service building with air control tower above, fitted with satellite dishes. On the field stand multiple hanger bays, and an abandoned plane. Adjacent helipad.
11. Railroad Depot: vast expanse of railway track, several bridges cross the tracks horizontally leading to a huge concrete platform on the opposite side. A grouping of long concrete buildings, several tube lines run here over the bridge to the opposite side.
12. Shipping yard: gigantic concrete platform juts out into the river. Multicolor shipping crates piled high and into long rows. Large cranes loom overhead fitted with hooks and claws to move the crates onto trains
13. Garbage barge docks: long dock along the river built upon huge concrete supports. Red steel scaffolding overhead. Numerous cargo barges are drawn up with massive rusted chains. They are filled with piles of debris and industrial waste. Another barge has tipped on its side and half protrudes from the water. This area is frequented by local scrappers.
14. Tunnels: stretch of old mega-highway runs along the river and circles down past a series of control terminals to a sheer face of rock carved with several dark, cavernous openings. Numerous tunnels are carved into the cliff and run beneath the river. Along white tiled walls, access portals to several interconnecting utility rooms and service corridors. Several dozen cars are abandoned within.
15. Electricity farms: a massive installation of solar farms and wind turbines stretch out to the horizon. An electric substation is nearby. Rows of steel electrical towers laden with cables, march into the distance.
16. Waste water plant: ramps and steps lead up to a vast pool complex. The water of each is surprisingly clear and filled with carp, frogs and lily pads.. A strange neotribe lives here that wears wetsuits and goggles and supposedly cultivates the fish and frogs for food.
17. Industrial farms and greenhouses: 75’ tall x 150’ wide greenhouses made of glass and steel stretch to incredible lengths. All filled with dense plant life, brush, and trees breaking through the roof. Birds roost on the eaves and in the branches.
18. Oil refinery: vast complex built on a fenced off concrete pad, hulking storage silos with huge stenciled SinCom logo, looming smokestacks, distillation tanks, and extensive piping running throughout.
19. Commercial supply: Parking lot and train depot near a vast Artemis gigaplex. These are each looming gray edifices with the SinCom symbol painted across their side. They have all been heavily looted, but some remaining lesser valuables can be salvaged in the wreckage.Defensive dog and crab drones are active in the area.
20. Quarries: multi-acre areas excavated 50’ or more deep. Earthen ramps lead down. Huge SinCom machinery frozen at the bottom near high hills of gravel. Access roads run all between them.
    

 

Textures

1. Potholes filled with oily puddles.
2. Concrete rubble with high grass and small trees growing around it.
3. Small brick buildings covered with graffiti.
4. Running length of chainlink fence topped with razor wire.
5. A small polluted lake with industrial debris sticking out of it.
6. Abandoned industrial supply: extruded cement forms, blocks, reinforced concrete pipes, stacks of I beams.
7. Elevated parking lot with large sinkhole. Multiple cars lie ruined at the bottom.
8. Commercial complex: strip of mega-box stores, shopping mall.
9. Partially built hotel: lower portion is mostly skeletal steel framework, upper floors inhabitable.
10. Ruined buildings, collapsed concrete structures, rubble, and mangled steel.
11. Polluted river, A huge crain lies half submerged here.
12. Area of jammed up cars dead on the street. Overpass has collapsed nearby.
13. Impossibly tall data spires built upon massive concrete pads. Fenced off, perilous ladders, platforms, blinking lights and satellite dishes all along height.
14. Constructed wetlands: artificial channels, dredges and fens used to control the flow of industrial effluents. Strange animals and plants grow prodigiously here, often to unnatural size and appearance.
15. Drainage pipes: huge concrete pipes open up out of the ground here. Rusted grates choked with weeds seal off access. Rank brown water flows outward.
16. Rift in earth opens up to underground caverns. Evidence of subterranean tunnels and structures.
17. Ruined tenement blocks, and stacked employee microhabs. Efficiency housing for a long gone workforce.
18. Thick vegetation: trees, brush and high grass growing rampantly here amongst concrete debris.
19. Settlement: an active human encampment or outpost. Usually home to a neotribe or nomad group. Perimeter is monitored by lookouts, and whole area is fiercely defended against would be raiders
20. Blocked roadway. Yellow and black concrete barriers, and layered chain link fences block any through traffic.