Max Setting

                When an asteroid fell from the sky and landed in the middle of the Indian ocean, the world was drastically changed forever.  Worldwide tsunamis obliterated most of the old-world nations in a single day.  As soon as Challenger Deep no longer held the title, “deepest point in the ocean”, the Atlantic Ocean shrank considerably as its waters drained away into the deep crater left behind.  Large land masses that had previously submerged were above water again for the first time in millions of years; and the ocean was no longer contiguous.  The Great Circle land route now connected eastern and western continents in a way never seen before.  The remnants of the civilizations in the far north and far south staggered on and slowly recovered.  Trade routes were reestablished, and the world is now encircled by a rail network laid upon this new land mass.

                South of the Atlantic Route lies the Caribbean Badlands; huge salt deserts raised from the shallow waters of the Caribbean.  Sparsely populated by a mix of the desperate and the ruthless, there are a small handful of settlements eking out their living from resource extraction, what farming is possible in this brackish land, and the Arenas.  With the lawless nature of the badlands, televised blood sports (especially motorsports) are rapidly becoming their chief export to the remnants of the so-called civilized world.

                The few roads and trails between these settlements are plied largely by trucks and couriers of the Brotherhood Union; a loose confederation of traders who work to move goods between the settlements.  They work together to help find work for one another, keep an eye on bandit numbers on their routes, and to protect their own from the gangs of bandits and desperados who prey on these vital trade links.

                What passes for the law is enforced by the Rangers.  Their primary responsibility is to protect the Great Circle Rail, though there are a small handful of offices and checkpoints within the Badlands to at least give the impression of keeping order.  The quickest way for a Ranger to be fast-tracked to a promotion to a Badlands station is to displease the owners of the rail companies, who are only too happy to rid themselves of troublemakers and those who threaten their profit margins.  There are never enough Rangers available to do much actual policing (a situation that gest worse the farther south one goes) so they mostly organize scouting parties, create posses to try and keep vital routes open, or post bounties for particularly notorious criminals (or at the very least those that someone with money is willing to pay to have apprehended).

                But Max doesn’t really care about any of this.  They are mostly worried about trying to figure out who they are, how the hell they ended up in the Deep Badlands, and why this smarmy bastard is waving a contract at them claiming they had signed up to fight in his arena tonight…