The Junkyard

l y p t i c T o y s #3
Post Apoca
By
Quinn
Co n k l i n Art B
y
And Ashe
h y d er
R
Gary
Montgomery
 Contents
The Tyrant ’s Junkyard 3
History 3
Description 3

Possibilities 5
The Milk Run 5
You Are The Chosen One 5
Death in the Graveyard 5
The Call of the Machines 6
God Comes to Junk Town 6
Junkers Need Food Badly 7

People 7
Dellorian the Golden, Aspiring Tyrant 7
Asimo the Younger, Prospective Tyrant 8
Argain Rold ,The Artist 8
D.A.W.G. and Nani, Junkyard Legends 9

Salvage 10
Rumors 11
Encounters 11

2
 The Tyrant’shostageJunkyard
History whole tribes to guarantee their complicity.
The Junkyard grew in size and scope under the Tyrant’s
At the end of the Before when society’s rules bent iron grip. Every machine was useful. Every device had
and broke under the weight of pain and fear all the something to salvage or recycle. But his legacy of cru-
world seemed to go to war. The population convulsed elty and domination came to an end and his empire was
lashing out at anyone or anything that came near. sundered between his sons. The most ambitious of them
From the highest strata of governance to the smallest planned to divide his claim between themselves. The
towns and settlements the urge to fight, to protect weaker ones skulked out of the Yard vowing revenge and
one’s own and destroy all else took over. a triumphant return.
 And why not? At that point it was fight or die. With the Tyrant’s death the Machine Tribes
Formal organizations - governments and militaries - sensed weakness and rebelled taking advantage of the
crumpled as those who kept their conduits of transport chaos of succession to flee into the depths of the
and information died or fled. Some adopted a merce- Junkyard. While many of the tribes are nomadic, like
nary lifestyle tinkering and debugging to keep the old the freewheeling Moto-moto or the road-hunting
machinery running. As the years marched on heedless Carjax, many other tribes have made the Junkyard a
of the suffering the tools of war and transport were home, living on rat-meat and mutie-crows. Commerce
co-opted, captured, repurposed, reused. The knowledge with the ruined world outside became essential and
of the arts of repair and maintenance of these high- the tribes developed strict rules governing the use of
tech vehicles and weapons became coveted, and those holy relics, chiefly, that a rival tribe’s shrines were
who practiced them grew insular and distrustful. They perfect targets for pillage. A low-intensity conflict
began to claim descent from the machines they built has simmered for decades between the tribes and the
and serviced and slowly they became the Machine Junkyard bears the scars of their skirmishing.
Tribes. They collected holy relics, examples of the ma-
chines with which they claimed kinship. They gathered Description
like-minded followers and taught them a catechism of
In a gently bowl-shaped valley up above the scarp is
gear-trains and circuit boards, of microsphere lubricant
the Junkyard. It’s a blot of tar-black and rust-red on a
and fuel cell. The Junkyard began to grow like a crys-
sere desert landscape visible for miles under the shim-
tal around the seed of a long-abandoned parts depot and
mer of heat. Some call it the Graveyard of the Ma-
became a cathedral of sorts to the Machine Tribes.
chine Gods -others just call it Hell. No green plant
Many years ago a Tyrant who sought to bolster his
colors the jumbled expanse of rusty iron, shattered
forces with technology from the Before captured a
ceramic, torn and fraying aramid fiber. There’s
number of the tech-priests and forced them to assemble,
no relief in the shade of a hinge-creaking
repair, and maintain his weapons and vehicles and held 3
door or flapping tarp. The music of water does not
soften the shriek of wind through gaping hatches nor
the hiss of dust on armor plate. Untold numbers and
kinds of machinery cover the ground, sinking into the
dirt under the weight of engine and frame. All types
of technology are thrown willy-nilly together here:
television sets, kitchen appliances, cars, computers,
airplanes, vehicles of transport and war, robotics from
manufactory and battlefield. It is at once an archive
and an art project, the machine carcasses elaborately
stacked according to some deeply twisted scheme.
Hulking railcars packed with dripping chemical drums
are parked next to a forest of intertwined bicycles
and abut forty acres of cable-spools which interpen-
etrate a labyrinth of crushed cars. Amidst the wrack
there are cleared areas signifying abandoned technol-
ogy mines or the sacrificial arenas of the machine
folk where the earth is sterilized with solvents and
glued into hardpan with oil and blood.
 The alleys and byways of the Junkyard are laced
with lethal traps, ranging from tripwires and
deadfalls to lasers and land mines - all placed by one
faction or the other in an effort to secure a corner
of the Grave of the Machine Gods against invasion.
Maps for the place exist, but they have all the
accuracy of a mutant’s fevered imagining. Most are
glimpses or memories scrawled on paper far and removed
from the grim realities of the Junkyard. Like the
treasure maps of old, though, there’s always a sucker
in some tradetown willing to buy one and try his
luck on it.
Despite its majestic isolation and dangerous
inhabitants, the Junkyard draws a steady stream
of the desperate and the foolish The machine
4
tribes, the remnant of that technological elite class,
still hold on to their esoteric knowledge. They keep
the practices alive in the form of religious rituals
diluted with mysticism and blood sacrifice. Their
maintenance tasks are part of an elaborate tradition
handed down through families - specialties that have,
since the Fall, become clans that claim ancestry not
to the workers who made and repaired the machine, but
to the machine itself. Allied to one branch or an-
other of the Tyrant’s offspring, they hold the Junkyard
to be a holy place, decorating the shrines of their
machine ancestors with human skulls, festooned with
glittering chains of spent cartridge-brass and optical
media. The machine tribes look upon casual looting of
their shrines as a trespass punishable by death, and
each sector of the Junkyard is jealously guarded from
tribal rivals and scavengers.
The allure of the Junkyard is not to be denied. It
holds the parts and materials to repair and replace
most anything, as well as caches of pre-Fall technol-
ogy.
 Possibilities tribesfolk out of their element and down on their
luck. Suddenly one of the tribesfolk embraces a party
member and shrieks, “You are the chosen one! The
The Milk Run salvation of the Skybolt Tribe!” Inquiry reveals that
this tribe is looking for someone who will reunite
 At a trade stop where the party resupplies they
their clan and lead it to glory. The compensation for
find someone selling goods of remarkable quality. The
the chosen one is access to the Junkyard and a claim
quantities are strictly limited, but the merchant
on the blessed items belonging to the tribe
admits there’s more where that came from. He’ll need
some muscle though to get it. “Interested in getting Twists
paid in goods?” he asks the party. “Just stand there and The lucky party member and her entourage is led to the
look dangerous while I load up and the job is yours.” Junkyard, but it becomes evident that a number of chosen ones
have been recruited. They meet another chosen one with a gaggle
Twists of supporters who immediately denounce the party members as
The Howling Shards tribe is running low on blood heretics. The tech-priest insists that the opposing chosen be
sacrifices for their god so some desperate tech-priests within slain in single combat.
the tribe contracted with a merchant to bring in warm bodies. W
The fellow will cheerfully lead the party into an ambush though What the tech-priest fails to tell the new chosen one is
the Howling Shards will do their best not to kill anyone - they that the Skybolts were driven from the Junkyard after a series
need ‘em for the arena. of conflicts against the Carjax and the Servants of the Gun.
W Those tribes now jointly control the Skybolt’s shrines and refuse
Generally the Machine Tribes get along, but a progressive to acknowledge the Skybolt return or any notion of a chosen one.
faction among the Yellow Cat Tribe has recently come to power Whether the party members are true believers or just exploiting
and is trading pieces from the Yellow Cat Shrine for water the Skybolts, they’ll have to make an impression on the rival
purifiers and medicine. The ultraconservative Servants of the tribes to regain control of the holy sites.
Gun are outraged at this break with tradition and are prepared to W
demonstrate their wrath with lots of bullets. The entire Skybolt tribe is a fabrication based on existing
W Machine Tribe theogeny. It’s just convincing enough to fool
The merchant is an execrable character and the party can the ignorant. The tech-priest was recruited by agents of the
see that he uses slaves as human trap detectors and meat shields Tradesman to get into a specific shrine in the Junkyard and
against the dangers of the Junkyard. The slaves beg for help remove a specific item from that shrine and then get out. The
escaping, pointing to the places where their comrades have been ruse can be detected with a successful skill check.
blown up, impaled, or riddled with bullets. A group of lurking
Carjax looking for human sacrifices could prompt a party decision Death in the Graveyard
You Are The Chosen One A tribe begs the party for help against the
Servants of the Gun who have summoned a demon from
Stopping in a settlement to re-arm and refuel ages past that is stalking the Junkyard. What’s
the party passes a little band of disheveled machine really happened is that a war machine from
5
Before Times has inadvertently been activated. The
machine has dropped into damage/survival mode and is
simply eliminating everyone. With cerametal armor,
beam weaponry, and an encyclopedic knowledge of
strategy, the machine poses a serious challenge.
Twists
The Servants of the Gun grudgingly admit there’s a problem
and that the beast needs to be put down for the good of everyone.
If the party undertakes this task, they’ll be rewarded with
blessed items contributed by all the tribes, but there’s a catch.
Tech-priests from the tribes must accompany the party to ensure
they don’t loot shrines, blaspheme, or otherwise violate the
sanctity of the Junkyard.
W built them. Someone has come to the junkyard wearing a corporate
The tribes known as Invisible Fires and Watching Eye
have had enough of the Servants of the Gun and they kluged
together a remote control system to break up a Servant ritual.
What began as a prank has escalated into a means of spying on
enemies and murdering rivals and the elders are quarreling over
the interface. The youths who started this whole mess bring the
control system to the party believing that they’re a neutral party,
and beg for help.
W trust them. If they act up it will try to kill them rather than
The war machine is more than just a robot - it’s a nascent raiding other communities. The control chamber for the AI is
intelligence. During its years of powered down meditation, it’s heavily guarded and the tribes need the party’s help getting in.
developed a kind of machine philosophy, one that involves ruthless
self protection. This capacity means that the machine learns and
respond to the party’s tactics . On the bright side, it’s a logical
entity and can therefore be reasoned with.
The Call of the Machines
Nani is worried about her friend D.A.W.G.
He has been wandering recently. Each time he goes
farther and farther away. When he starts out he is
heading towards the Tyrant’s place. The thing is, he
is not the only robot that is being drawn there.
Every half-working automaton in the junk yard
6 seems to be heading that way, then
stopping to collapse or just going back to what they
had been doing before. Nani wants answers.
Twists
Asimo has found a device that his father’s tech-priests had
been working on. It is a system for controlling an army of robotic
solders. He has not yet figured out what it does exactly, but he
can make it transmit a command to assemble. So far as he tinkers
with the machine he gets bored, but when he figures it out he is
sure he will have an army the likes of which has not been seen
since the end of the great war.
W
The machines that are moving to the call were all
manufactured by the same corporation. They have a command built
in that causes them to protect members of the corporation that
ID badge that is still functioning - sort of. If someone wears
the badge every death machine in the yard that was made by that
corporation will fight for them.
W
An AI that controlled a large number of combat bots
during the war has come back online. It does not realize the
war is over and is getting ready to start fighting again. It
thinks that the Machine Tribes are its mechanics, but does not
God Comes to Junk Town
Since the death of the Tyrant the cult of Saint
Steven has been sending missionaries to the Junkyard.
They are preaching the faith of their saint, and
trying to get members of the Machine Tribes to leave
the Junkyard and come to live and work with them in
the factory city they are building.
Twists
The Stevenites are swaying a number of the young men and
women of the Machine Tribes and this is worrying the
elders. The secrets the Stevenites claim to possess are many, and the food but does not want a new master. They will pay with
they will not share them with others. One elder has approached tech if the party helps them raid the storehouse.
the party and asked them to rescue his son from the clutches of
the Stevenists.
W
People
The real prize the Stevenites are after is the artist, but
he does not want to go with them. They are using their converts
to lead the artist into a trap. One of the converts approaches
Dellorian the Golden, Aspiring
the party while they are dealing at a market on the edge of the Tyrant
Junkyard and asks for help to stop the attack.
W History
The Stevenites have set up a chapel in the Junkyard and Born the bastard son of the Tyrant and a machine tribe
will not let anyone in. Some say they are building a great war woman, Dellorian was raised among the machine clans knowing
machine there. Others say they are preparing to wage a war on little of his lineage. He grew up learning the rotes and prayers
the Machine Tribes so that they will be the only ones who needed to make the machines of the Junkyard come to life. He
control the power of the old world. learned the way of the hammer and arc welder, he learned the
song of the engine and the curses of the gearbox.
It was not until his father was on his death bed that
Junkers Need Food Badly the Tyrant called for him. Dellorian sat in a room outside the
Tyrant’s bed chambers with a number of other boys close his age,
While the Machine Tribes have plenty of tech, all illegitimate children of their master. The rumor in the room
metal and war machines, they don’t have much food was that their father was looking for his heir and one of the
young men in this room would be given the title of Tyrant.
and water. When the Tyrant was alive his holdings The sick old man looked him in the eye and without saying
outside the yard would supply food. Now those people a word shook his head and gestured for his guards to dismiss him.
are unwilling to trade with Junkers as they see Dellorian walked away feeling anger at rejection from a father
them as part of the Tyrant’s power. he had never known. As he walked out of his father’s chambers
he knew that it was he who was meant to lead the people of
Twists the Junkyard, to bring them their freedom and make the Machine
The elders of the Machine Tribes want the party to Tribes a proud nation rather than slaves.
accompany a caravan across the wastes and protect it from raiders. That same day the Tyrant died with no heir named. The
The caravan will carry tech to trade in exchange for food and tribes scattered across the Junkyard. Dellorian knows that they
will be a tempting target both ways across the waste. are stronger as one people than separate and he has seen the wars
W between the tribes cause needless strife. He has begun reaching
A cannibal cult has taken in part of the Junkyard and has out. He is forming alliances with other tribes. He is forming
been preying on Nani’s kids. She wants the party to help put an what he calls, ‘the great tribe of the yard.’
end to the flesh eating machines while she stays back with
D.A.W.G. to protect the kids. Description
W Dellorian is dexterous, small of stature, but well
Asimo has seized control of the food warehouse and is only muscled from his work in the forges. He dresses in
letting those who swear loyalty to him eat. A small and weak cargo greens and a vest covered with hooks and clips
tribe that has been the victim of many others of late wants
7
to keep his tools with him at all times. His hair is his most though they are large on him.
distinguishing feature, silver and reflective like polished bumper.
Stats and Skills
Stats and Skills Other than being to the manner born and bearing his father’s
A master mechanic despite his young age, Dellorian is name, Asimo has little to work with besides his father’s
machine tribe through and through. He is not a great leader, but arsenal, ambition and a willingness to yell.
if he is patient he may become one. He is smart, good with his
hands and knows enough to see the people of the Junkyard as one Argain Rold ,The Artist
even if they do not see each other that way yet.
History
Asimo the Younger, Argain was born among a bunch of savage mutants living in
a small tribe along the edges of the Glass Sea. His people were,
Prospective Tyrant and as far as he knows still are, unthinking beasts who have no
use for anything that they cannot eat or club something edible to
History death with. Argain was different. While his capacity for speech
Asimo is another young man fathered by the Tyrant outside was no better than most of his tribe mates he had a mind that
of wedlock, but unlike most of his brothers raised in the Tyrant’s saw not just the stone but the thing trapped in the stone.
palace. He grew up thinking that he was going to succeed the Argain could not relate to the tribe of mutants he was
Tyrant even though his mother was nothing more than a wench in born into and as soon as he was able he fled. He turned his back
the scullery. on the Glass Sea and headed off to find a place where he could
Asimo grew up proud and full of himself and when he saw fit in. For many years he wandered the wastes. He learned to
his father bringing in all the other bastards he was broken. After hide his face from the “human” population who only saw him as a
the old man had sent the other boys away, Asimo went in to his deformed monster. During his wanderings he managed to make small
father and demanded to be named his heir. But before his father sculptures from the stone, wood and metal he found
could respond, the old man died. Asimo told the guards his father in his wanderings. He traded these pieces
had named him with his dying breath. Some of his father’s men for food, and on the rare occasions he found
believed him and stuck by him in loyalty to the Tyrant or perhaps a compassionate household, he traded them
just out of a desire to be close to what they saw as the new for shelter as well.
center of power. Other of his father’s men scattered, looking to His travels
create their own place to rule in the Junkyard. eventually
Asimo has built up a small army and has the Tyrant’s brought him
inherited arsenal to play with. However, he has none of the gift to the
for war that his father had or the cruelty that his father used Junkyard
to rule by fear. He does have the arrogance of youth and the belief and he
that he has the right to rule, but so far the battle is not going
well for him and he has not been able to hold the tribes together.

Description
Slightly chubby with a round face, Asimo has no body
hair and large dark eyes that dominate his pale skin.
He wears his father’s uniforms most of the time even
8
knew that he had found a home. The old rusted and twisted scrap their home when it was still just a junkyard, before the Tyrant
did not look like junk or broken gear to him, it looked like raw dumped the wreckage of a thousand broken war machines there.
material for his art. At first the people of the tribes attempted Her people stood up to him and they were slaughtered for it.
to drive him out, but soon they learned to appreciate his gift. He She was a just a young woman then, barely more than a girl if
shaped metal, plastic and other materials into housings for their she is honest with herself. She fled into the and found a place to
machines, into objects that were not just functional but things hide. She began combing the new wrecks that he brought looking
of beauty. for something to use to fight the Tyrant with and one day she
Since then Argain does odd jobs for the people of the tribes found it. The beast that would become D.A.W.G. was a military
in exchange for a bit of land near the scrap heap at the north end battle robot that had taken more than a little damage during the
of the Junkyard. The area around his home has become a sculpture end of everything.
garden filled with works of exquisite beauty. She rebuilt the battle bot with salvage parts and bits
of AI brain she found in different decommissioned beasts. She
Description had a gift with the great languages. She knew the COBOLD.
Argain is heavy browed with green scaly skin and a mouth She knew the PYTHON and she knew the C. She was a high
like a shark, all jagged with teeth and no tongue. He stands only priestess of the machine tribes; she was one who made the lights
4 foot 6 and is stocky, with four arms and long thin fingers. His blink and the screens glow. And she was the one who brought
lower right arm hangs limply by his side as it has done ever since D.A.W.G. to life and transformed it into her loyal protector.
one of his tribes men beat him when he was a child. His hair By then the Tyrant was in full control of the yard. People
is long and raggedy and he has adopted the clothing styles of the were disappearing when they asked the wrong question or showed
machine tribes among whom he lives disobedience to his men. There were many orphans made in those
days and Nani remembered what it was like to be lost, cold and
alone among the machines. Soon a legend was born. If you were
Stats and Skills
lost, if you were alone, call out to Nani and she would come for
No one is quite sure how smart Argain is due to his
you, but do not try to trick her, do not set traps, for she has a dog.
silence, but he is patient and calm. He is good with his hands
Nani has a colony of children, many of them grown and
and has a way of seeing beauty in things most people would
forming their own tribe at the heart of the old junkyard, the
consider junk. His mutations give him unnatural strength though
place where the war machines stop and the old civilian vehicles
he does not use it often.
take over, the place that used to be her people’s home. Still there
are more orphans and there is the promise of more orphans after
D.A.W.G. and Nani, that. Nani is starting to work on building more D.A.W.G.s to
help protect the children that will lose everything in the war
Junkyard Legends that is coming soon to Junktown.

History
Nani is getting old, has been old for quite a while by the
standards of the junkyard. Nani is not the name she was born
with, but when it comes to that it is hard to say if the little
girl she was so many years ago is still alive inside her. She was
born in a time before the Tyrant came. Her tribe were some of
the first to stand up to him, to say, ‘No thanks. This is our place.
These are our ways.’ They were the ones who made the Junkyard
Description
Old but not frail, Nani is a warrior woman. She dresses
in fatigues and spends many long days wandering the Junkyard
looking for those who are lost. She wears a keyboard on one arm
and often uses it to send messages to D.A.W.G when they are
apart.
D.A.W.G. is a six legged metallic beast bristling
with gunports. His head-forward sensor array is adorned
with a were- wolf mask that Nani found in one
9
of the old cars in the Yard. The letters D.A.W.G. are stenciled
across his right side and the words, “I don’t bite, I shoot,” on
his left.
Stats and Skills
Nani is a good fighter but a better technician. She knows
the ways of small wires and circuit boards. She knows the
language of the machines. She is strong and smart and tough and a
damn fine shot.
D.A.W.G. is a fighting machine. He is also plugged into a
network of microphones and his onboard systems listen for people
Salvage
1-8 A hover cycle or jetpack - some
exotic mode of transportation – still
packed in grease and ready to fuel up
and fly.
9-16 High-tech environmentally-sealed
body armor, proof against bullets and
poison gas alike.
17-24 A labor exoskeleton with giant
steel claws welded to its grippers,
painted up in tribal colors.
25-32 An e-reader type device that
displays repair data on any machine
shown to its camera eye.
33-40 A ruined shrine once dedicated to
giant humanoid war machines with
little plastic and metal effigies
posed menacingly around it.
41-48 A condensing canteen that refills
itself from ambient water vapor.
10
calling for Nani and he will let her know when they are
needed. He has a low level AI with the intelligence of a very
smart dog. He is programmed to protect the new tribe and defend
children before all else.
49-56 Night vision goggles, mint in
the box, sacred to the Watching Eye
Tribe.
57-64 An inertial navigation unit. The
last location in its memory is a spot
far out in the wastes labeled “Bun-
ker Station X.”
65-72 A cache of military vehicle
weaponry.
73-80 An innocuous set of stainless-
steel canisters containing a deadly
nerve agent.
81-88 A heavy, boxy laser rifle. An
hour’s charging will give it ten
seconds’ worth of dazzling destruc-
tive power.
89-00 A tiny device that plays an end-
less variety of chirpy, bouncy music.
 Rumors
1-14 The people of the Junkyard are
just waiting for a new leader.
15-28 The Machine Tribes are weak
and disorganized and need heroes to
protect them.
29-42 If you are lost in the Junkyard
call out for Nani and she will save
you, but don’t try to trick or trap
her ‘cause she will know and be
ready.
43-57 There is an artist living in
the junkyard who never leaves. His
works of art are prized by every
warlord trying to show a bit of
class.
58-71 The Junkers fight among them-
selves and it’s easy to turn one
group against another.
72-85 The Machine Tribes are being
courted by the Stevenites who want
their tech deposits and hope to use
them as an army
86-00 Every Junkyard has a dog and the
one here is deadly.
Encounters
1-14 A group of the Tradesman scaven-
gers proposing an alliance but with
treachery in mind.
15-28 A running gun battle between the
Carjax and the Moto-moto tribes.
29-42 An escaped slave lost in the Junk-
yard begging for guidance out.
43-57 A pit trap set by the Invisible
Fires Tribe to catch some human
sacrifice.
58-71 A would-be successor to the Ty-
rant recruiting among the Machine
Tribes.
72-85 A sentry gun that targets the
party with a hail of vivid paint
rounds.
86-00 A Stevnite Missionary who
wants to convert the party
11