Wushu Skidoo

On the first night, an animal kept scratching on the side of our wagon. A dust storm was raging, so we tried to ignore it, but not a' one of us got any sleep. Scratch, scratch, scratch on the roof. Scratch, scratch, scratch at the door. It was maddening.

On the second night, I scared it off with my shotgun, but it never stayed gone. Scratch, scratch, scratch on the roof. Scratch, scratch, scratch at the door. The storm had lessened, but I could never get a clear shot at the thing.

On the third night, I killed it. The storm had finally died down, so I set out some raw meat and waited. Scratch, scratch, scratch on the roof. Scratch, scratch, scratch at the door. I fired one round... and heard it scream with my dead son's voice.

The fourth and final article in this series covers steampunk revolutionaries. (Previous articles have already covered triggermen, alchemists, and the wild frontier.) I think you'll find it also blends well with the Tao of Steam. Again, my thanks go out to Vasco Brown, whose fevered brain first dreamt of these Bad Lands.

The Black Sands

The Rowan colony was the first permanent settlement in the New World. They were alone on an empty continent for three years before another ship could drop anchor, but the sailors found no sign of Rowan's wooden wall and log cabins. In their place stood a desert and the corpse of a great city. Its skeletal towers clawed at the sky. Railroads wound through sand-choked streets and leapt between buildings, held aloft by sinews of steel cable. The empty rib cages of fallen airships littered the ground. The only remains they didn't find where human. Even the catacombs had been evacuated.

The following years were a feeding frenzy. Moguls sent one expedition after another to salvage broken industrial machines, locomotives, and other tech. Some claimed to have traded with a band of desert-dwellers called the Technomongers, but that might just be a smoke screen for theft and claim jumping. Many an economic empire has been built be reverse-engineering such machines.

Now, the cityscapes of the East are beginning to resemble the corpse of Rowan with their dizzying thickets of smokestacks and skyscrapers. Deep in the bellies of these industrial beasts, legions of laborers and engineers slave their lives away. They suck down ragged breaths of black smoke and burn their retinas staring at vats of molten lead. The union movement was born out of their desperation and their dreams for a better future.

The Mechanologists' Union

This organization for semi-skilled machinists is often referred to as simply "The Union." They are the most vocal and idealistic of the unions; a few chapters keep full-time propagandists on staff. Their ultimate goal is the overthrow of the Moguls and the establishment of the New World as a glorious worker's paradise. For now, however, they'll settle for fair wages and safe working conditions.

Their most effective tool is collective bargaining; a Union strike can bring even the most profitable business to its knees. However, keeping up a united front requires constant peer pressure and, in extreme cases, intimidation. The Moguls use such incidents to paint the unionists as heavy-handed thugs, no better than the strike-breakers they revile.

The Union's second best weapon is the technological expertise its members have gained on the job. When it's time to fight back against strike-breakers, or spring one of their leaders from debtor's prison, Mechanologists can construct truly terrifying weapons out of scrap and prayers. The fruits of their labors have included steam-powered suits of armor, mechanical steeds (like this), and even a few flying machines.

They can also built weapons and armor that are small enough to conceal. Handle this the same way as shorthand equations for alchemists: A mechanologist can carry up to 6 "slots" of devices on their person at one time, but each slot increases the odds that they'll attract unwanted attention. The exact function of each device can be improvised at the time it's used. Building larger machines requires time and materials.

Some suggestions...

• Spring Heels - Bits of exoskeleton worn around normal boots. The springs allow the wearer to leap great distances or kick with lethal force.
• Sucker Punch - A lot like spring heels, but worn on the arm. They allow the wearer to crack skulls and cement with equal ease.
• Flak Jacket - Armored plates sewn into a greatcoat make one impervious to small arms fire, though they may be less effective against crazy triggerman contraptions.
• Sleeve Sword - A retractable knife or fencing blade. A similar device can conceal a small firearm or other tools up one's sleeve.
• Panopticon - Goggles are standard issue, but these babies are festooned with special lenses that reveal all sorts of things: residual heat, traces of gunpowder, etc.

The Order of the Golden Spike

Rail engineers are a different breed. They build and operate locomotives and the tracks on which they run. Their profession is the bedrock on which many Moguls have built their empires. Rather than use this power to force the Moguls' hands, the founders of the Order of the Golden Spike sold out their lower class compatriots and struck a sweetheart deal all their own.

Not all engineers are asshats, however. A few have been known to lend their expertise to the other unions from time to time. These so-called "rail hackers" know many useful tricks...

Tremography - Long distance communication in the New World is made possible by machines that can read minute tremors in the rail lines. Transmitters convert speech into a machine signal that travels down the rail line until it reaches the next station... or a rail hacker. By tapping into a tremograph line out in the wilderness, hackers can keep tabs on their corporate masters and even send false flag orders.

Pirate Trains - It takes a full-time rail hacker to run an unregistered locomotive. Pirate trains are perfect for smuggling people and contraband. They're also great for bandits, since they can bring their victims to a screeching halt just be occupying the track. Just riding in a pirate train is considered a capital offense.

Ghost Tracks - Similarly, rail hackers can build unregistered lines of track that may or may not connect to the legitimate network. Many are built flush with the ground, which makes them harder to spot, but extremely dangerous to ride. Others are disassembled and hidden nearby when not in use.

Rail Bombs - Take a few barrels of high explosive, attach them to a set of locomotive wheels, maybe throw in a small steam engine, and you'd got yourself a railbomb. They can be shot down a track to derail a locomotive or take out a train station.

The Black Hand

By far the most infamous of unions, the Black Hand is an underground network of unskilled laborers who operate more like a criminal organization than anything else. They use violence and blackmail to force concessions from Moguls, put middle managers in their place, and get bloody revenge on strike-breakers. Their calling card is a grimy hand print, usually left on a wall or a corpse.

In response, most Moguls have cracked down on the lowest of the lower classes, severely limiting their movements and confiscating their weapons. This has lead Black Handers to develop a series of martial arts based on tools and other materials that are so common no business can afford to outlaw them...

The Way of the Idle Hand is a method of stick fighting that works with any club-like object: hammers, wrenches, screwdrivers, leap pipes, you name it.

Flying Cinderblock Style is a devastating technique that involves holding a heavy block in each hand and twirling around like a dervish. It's hard to defend against, but even harder to keep up for very long.

Knotworkers teaches their students to fight with weighted rope. They can strike at range, defend on all sides, and restrain enemies by tying them up even before they've been beaten.

Pick Me Ups

The Black Hand has hired the crew of a pirate train to go on a rescue mission. One of their own is being moved from a high-security debtor's prison and their only chance to free him is on a desolate stretch of frontier wilderness. They'll need to chase down the prison train and either board or derail it, then fight off the guards and break open the cells. If that's not enough, mix in some Savages on the prowl for fresh meat. (PCs can be Black Handers and/or members of the pirate crew.)

There's been a revolt at a massive industrial complex. This leviathan of overlapping factories, warehouses, barracks, and executive offices is so massive and populous that the workers have declared it a sovereign city-state. The Mogul who owns it has raised an army of strike-breakers to either reclaim control or burn it to cinders. (The PCs could be soldiers of the revolution or union negotiators sent in to defuse the situations.)

Something valuable is buried in the Black Sands and a team of mechanologists is racing a Mogul's salvage team to find it. They both have copies of a map supposedly stolen from a Technomonger, but is it real? They could be on a wild goose chase into dark territory, or they could be headed into a Mogul's trap. Even if the map is real, you can bet the Technomongers will want to keep buried anything they couldn't be persuaded to sell.

Next Up: The world ends in beautiful violence!