The Northern Wastes
Description
The Northern Wastes is a vast dumping ground used by the Empire to deposit old tech and trash built up by the consumerist society, as it was often deemed easier to discard and build or buy something new rather than repair something old. The area is completely overrun by piles of garbage the size of small foothills. Small pathways weave their way between the valleys of these massive hills, made more traversable every passing week by the quantity of people passing through them. A single thoroughfare leading from the company town of Salvager's Respite traverses the wider of these valleys from one end of the Wastes to the other, with the smaller pathways branching off from it.
In the modern era, the site claim has been purchased by Blacksteel Industries and operated as a massive salvage operation. Those of scarce means, or those trying to earn a living and get ahead with a big break, scour the hills of garbage looking for salvageable parts, functional tech, and anything of potential value that they try to sell at the Requisitions Office in Salvager's Respite. The high levels of human activity, pollution, and the manufactured windbreaks and shelter offered by the trash heaps has helped to raise the temperature of the region, and reduce the impacts of northern storms.
History
Before it became a junkyard, the Northern Wastes was known to the people of the The Frostbarrow Coast as the Iron Peninsula. It was an extension of the tundra landscape that earned its name due its particularly harsh conditions, requiring an iron constitution to brave a traversal. It was rish in minerals just below the permafrost surface, upon which very little vegetation grew, and was mostly used by amphibious creatures like seals and sea lions as a place to rest and nest. It was regularly hit with massive northern snow and wind storms, and often the site of the lowest temperatures in the region.
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