Community world · Churnside Hinterlands · 1348

Run of the Week

The Boiler Plague Exodus, 1348

Cinders rise where hope once burned

A plague that preys on the poor has driven whole rural communities to abandon their homes. They now crowd into the industrial city of Churnside, where steam-automated foundries and pressure-locked tenements strain under a swelling population. Racial tensions flare between displaced rural folk and the established urban underclass, while the city's power brokers and religious authorities blame each other for the crisis. Your survival depends on finding allies, work, and a place to hide from the looming purges.

Created by Dawk Diggler

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World premise

A playable world seed with consequences.

The year is 1348, and the world runs on steam. Brass pistons hiss, pressure valves groan, and great iron boilers breathe fire in the forges of Churnside. Yet this wonder is a gilded cage—the plague, born in the soot-choked slums, has crept into the countryside, driving whole villages from their homes. Now the refugees pour through the factory gates, hoping for a day's wage or a corner to sleep in. But the city's old families, the guilds, and the priesthood all scent blood in the water—and they are not kind to those without papers, without kin, without coin. The air thickens with coal smoke and desperation. Where will you carve your place?

Rising hardship is tightening daily margins across Churnside Hinterlands.

Local survival pressures are reshaping who can take risks and who cannot.

Authority, rumor, and household expectation are all moving faster than comfort allows.

Most openings depend on local trust, timing, and somebody else's favor.

Map

Locations

rural

Foundry Row

A string of abandoned steading outbuildings converted to leaking workshops where desperate refugees take piecework under faulty pressure valves.

market

Cinder Market

A blackened square where rural refugees trade scrap, outdated tools, and even their own labor.

residential

Grease Alley

Cramped rooms above boiler rooms, let to families who cannot afford better and must endure constant hum and soot.

authority

Pressure Office

The local inspectorate that allocates work permits, housing stamps, and decides who gets quarantined.

social

Steam Chapel

A converted warehouse where the Steam Orthodox distribute charity and sermons, and where workers gather to trade news.

travel

Axle Road

The main thoroughfare out of Churnside, patrolled by guards checking for plague passes and deserters.

Power

Factions

economic · influence 66

Foundry Foremen

They control piecework and fuel allocations, and are happy to exploit desperate laborers from the countryside.

political · influence 63

Pressure Office

The official gatekeeper of permits and quarantines, even as its clerks are overwhelmed by the refugee tide.

social · influence 55

Street Households

Long-standing Churnside families who resent the influx of refugees and fear the plague they bring.

Pressure

Opening rumors

Credibility 78

market talk

Foundry Foremen are cutting piece rates again, but they're still hiring—if you can pass the steam-cough test.

Credibility 65

street gossip

Pressure Office is planning a sweep of the tenements, demanding plague passes and work stamps—those without will be hauled to the quarantine yards.

Credibility 52

travelers

There's a route out of the city through the old steam-tunnels, but it costs copper and a guide who knows the way past the patrols.

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