Wushu Skidoo

The high priest's muscles tense for the downward stroke, but the knife explodes in his hands! A gunshot crashes against the temple walls. The crowd parts to reveal a man with a mechanical eye and a drum-fed, laser-guided, .50 caliber smart rifle. He shifts his aim and a glowing, red dot slides onto the high priest's forehead.

"This is folly, diablero! Your weapon cannot kill every man, woman, and child between you and the shore! We are the children of Tezcatlipoca, He by Whom We Live, and we will not let this outrage go unpunished!"

Guards emerge from the crowd and surround the gunman. They howl like rabid dogs, waving their spears and antique handguns at the cyborg. Then, a soft whirring rises from the rooftops around the square and a quartet of military drones take flight. Their guns swivel around, tracking up to thirty simultaneous targets apiece.

"I brought enough ammo to kill nine hundred and forty two of you," the gunman replies. "Who wants to go first?"

The Aztecs were cool… tear-out-your-heart-and-show-it-to-you cool. Few historical groups scream Bad Guy with as much vigor, (except for the Nazis, of course, who had notoriously healthy lungs). However, I couldn't bring myself to write a straight-forward, historical setting. Oh no, I had to go all science fantasy on it. It's what I do.

Welcome to the Mesoamerican post-apocalypse!

From here to there…

Start with the Ghost in the Shell future: wireless net, cybernetic implants, virtual reality, the works. Then, release a network virus that locks up AIs and drives anyone with a cerebral net connection bugnuts insane. In a heartbeat, the world descends into bedlam. Violence and cannibalism flood the streets. Nuclear missiles and orbital weapons set fire to the sky.

Then, silence. Those too poor to afford implants, or too stubborn to accept them, crawl out from the rubble and try to rebuild. How do they make sense of what happened? How do they explain the feral cyborgs who still prowl the night? When all that lies ahead of you is desolation, it's only natural to look back. In Mexico, one group of new agers concludes that the Mexica (that's what the Aztecs called themselves) had it right all along: the world goes through cycles of destruction and rebirth. The apocalypse wasn't the end of the world, it was the beginning.

They resurrect the Mexica's pagan religion and set about reconstructing Tenochtitlan on the flooded ruins of Mexico City. Their leader proclaims himself the reincarnation of Tezcatlipoca, Lord of the Near and Nigh, He by Whom We Live. He sends his armies out in all directions to subjugate survivor communities and bring back tributes of food, water, and high-tech relics. Thus is the Aztec Empire reborn.

Those who resist are captured and brought back to Tenochtitlan as human sacrifices. Tezcatlipoca and his priests (ie. enforcers) cut out their victims' hearts with obsidian knives and offer their blood to the gods. They tell the people that these sacrifices are all that keep the next apocalypse at bay. In another ritual, they decapitate a woman and throw her body down the side of their ziggurat, then a priest performs a dance… dressed in the victim's skin. It's no wonder that the Mexica's neighbors choose to tithe, rather than fight.

However, rebellion brews in the south. When he proclaimed himself a god, Tezcatlipoca exiled any rivals who were too popular for execution. One of them found a new home among the Mayan villages that have survived in the Chiapas Highlands for centuries. Deciding to fight fire with fire, he took on the persona of Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent, and began raising armies of his own.

Violence between these resurrected civilizations is inevitable. Both leaders seek strategic advantages in the lost technology of a dead age. The gifted astronomers of the Mayan cities search the skies for orbital weapons platforms that their mathematicians and nahuals (see below) can hack into. The Mexica send salvage teams north to recover weapons from Aztlan, which is what they call the scorched wasteland that was once the United States of America.

Monsters of the New World

No one survived the apocalypse with both their cyber and their sanity. Over 90% of the global population died in a matter of weeks, victims of nuclear fire, biological weapons, or simple homicide. Most of the other 10% fell to starvation or suicide in the long, dark year that followed. Those cyborgs who managed to survive did so through might or cunning, talents which they now turn towards hunting their fellow men.

Tzitzimime

The Mexica refer to any random, feral cyborg as a Tzitzimime. Legend tells that these monsters would come to collect the living after the end of the world, so it's an apt comparison. Think of them as zombies of whatever breed strikes your fancy. Their cyber could be broken, resulting in slow shamblers, or it could give them superhuman strength and speed.

Civatateo

According to mythology, women who die in childbirth become Civatateo: demonic, skeletal entities that spread disease and steal children in the night. A group of nuclear survivors have acquired the name by virtue of their emaciated appearance and tendency to cause radiation poisoning in those who come too close. More than one has tried to steal a healthy child, and many more disappearances are blamed on their talon-like clutches.

Pishtaco

Before the apocalypse, the human body had become a commodity, its parts (both organic and cybernetic) bought and sold all over the globe. Lingering high-tech facilities, and the nahual who run them, keep these markets alive by paying bounty hunters to harvest implants, nerve tissue, bone marrow, eyes, etc. These butchers are called Pishtaco, after the fat-harvesting ghouls of Mesoamerican folklore.

Black Dogs

The Armageddon virus often manifests itself as a pack of black dogs. Those with cerebral net connections experience them as controlled hallucinations, but they can also appear to common folk through holographic projectors and the "smart ink" displays that cover most pre-apocalypse buildings. Many nahual claim to have learned their "magic" from a black dog. This has lead the Mexica to equate them with the god Xolotl, who guided souls into the afterlife.

Nahuals & "Magic"

Rare individuals do manage to "make peace" with the virus and retain some fragment of control over both themselves and the net. Frightened luddites call them nahual, witches, or diableros. They can be found among both the Maya and the Mexica, who need their talents to harness high-tech weapons. In the untamed countryside, they either rule through fear or are hunted like dogs.

There are many tacks you can take with Aztech "magic." In fact, it's best to be vague; leave yourself enough wiggle room to make up any kind of miraculous technology you need: nanites, biotech, holograms, teleportation, you name it. On the flip side, even an Etch A Sketch can seem miraculous in a post-apocalyptic world. The bottom line is, if it's run by a computer, you need a nahual to make it work (or to stop it from killing you).

My short list of suggestions:

• Smartguns - They fire guided bullets. Exploding, guided bullets.
• Drones - Flying robots used for surveillance and ordinance delivery.
• Smart Ink - Digital paint that turns any surface into a TV.
• Subways - Give your PCs or villains an edge in transportation.
• Public Surveillance - Big Brother's eyes were everywhere.
• Brain Hacking - All nahuals have computers in their brains, by definition.

Most nahuals will be older than the apocalypse, but not by much. They'll have few recollections of what the world was like in the Before Time. Everyone else knows only faerie tales. In their minds, technology and magic are one and the same. Nahuals do little to dispel these superstitions; they derive as much power from peasants' fear as they do from the technology that inspires it.

Lair of the Spider Woman

The first battle in the war between Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl may be fought over a resort hotel in beautiful Oaxaca. It is the domain of an egomaniacal nahual who calls herself the Great Goddess. Owing to the bizarre, mandible-like nose piercing she wears, her enemies call her the Spider Woman.

Her lair contains two treasures and several horrors. Treasure the first is a fully functional medical facility with a decent stock of supplies. She has won the loyalty of several nearby communities by healing their sick and injured. Most of the actual doctoring is done by a team of robotic arms, but it takes a skilled nahual to run the expert system that controls them. Left to its own devices, it would sooner pluck out your eyes than give you a vaccination.

Treasure the second is an ultra-broadband satellite antenna. In its current state, the wireless net is only accessible in local chunks, but satellites can still be aimed anywhere on (or above) the planet. Obviously, this would be a major boon for Quetzalcoatl's orbital weapons program, but it could unlock potent surveillance capabilities for either side. Both would rather destroy it than leave it within the enemy's grasp.

Such concerns are mostly academic as long as the Spider Woman stays in control. She has a wide assortment of terrors to unleash on trespassers. First, extreme disrepair has turned the resort's many attractions into death traps. (Google up some Vegas resort hotels or amusement park rides and go nuts!) Second, the place is haunted by a pack of extremely creepy black dogs who enjoy harassing normal folks and driving nahuals mad. Finally, the hotel is serviced by a small army of robots who wield claws, nail guns, drills, blowtorches, and anything else your sadistic mind can devise.

Pick Me Ups

A team of Mayan warrior-scientists brave the lair of the Spider Woman in order to gain control of an orbital weapons platform. They must contend with the Great Goddess' faithful followers, her pack of black dogs, and her army of killer robots. If a nahual is in the group, a gang of Pishtacos will come calling at the most inopportune moment. When success is almost in their grasp, a Mexica raiding party follows in their footsteps. If the Spider Woman has been defeated, the raiders have a much easier time getting in than the PCs did!

A community of low-tech survivalists is visited by "diplomats" from Tenochtitlan. They demand tithes of food and blood, or they will take both by force. While our rebellious heros prepare their resistance, a band of Civatateo wander into their territory; missing children and wasting illnesses ensue. Then, with the community at its weakest, the bloodthirsty Mexica attack!

Independent salvagers journey north, into dread Aztlan, in search of lost technology. Hordes of savage Tzitzimime lie waiting on every desolate highway and in the shadows of every blasted skyscraper. They discover a McGuffin that both Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl would give their empires to possess. Taking it back to the south will mean ducking Mexica patrols, fighting off waves of subhuman predators, and surviving the biggest bidding war since the end times!

Next Up: Far East / Far Future!