S.M.Stirling's "Dies the Fire" Trilogy (cool new map)

[Michael Dean]

For those of you who, like me, are dying to do a setting for the "Dies the Fire" trilogy, there's a really cool new map of the United States 22 years after the Change.

http://smstirling.com/

If this link doesn't take you to it, click on "The Sunrise Lands" (his new trilogy set in the Dies the Fire setting), and then click on the "map" linky at the bottom of the page.

For those who don't know the books, the premise is that in the late 1990's, all electricity and gunpowder doesn't work anymore after "the Change". After a 90%+ die off of the world's population, the survivors essentially have to live using medieval technology. The main focus of the books is the survivors in the Portland, Oregon area, but a new trilogy starting this September will cover more of North America. Hence the new map.

 

[Rabelais]

I've been meaning to pick up this series... I really enjoyed the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy. I have some free time, I might just head down to Powell's Books to get a couple of em today

although this thread might be better suited in the Media Lounge catagory

 

[Banshee16]

I saw these books at Chapters, and was wondering if they were any good. How have you liked them?

Banshee

 

[Michael Dean]

I saw these books at Chapters, and was wondering if they were any good. How have you liked them?

Banshee

I've really enjoyed them. I love stories that deal with how people will react/live in an apocalyptic environment (which is why I think Stephen King's The Stand is my favorite King book). In Dies the Fire, there are several groups that form into different societies. There's the Bearkillers, who are horseriding tough guys. There is also the Clan McKenzie, who are led by a wiccan, and are mainly farmers and craftsmen. The professors and faculty of Oregon State at Corvallis have their own country, too. The bad guys are the Portland Protectorate Association, led by a former college professor and SCA buff, who tries to create a very feudal society comprised of former gang bangers and criminals as knights and lords.

By the second book, a former group of SAS officers flee England because King Charles (yes, formerly Prince Charles) is going insane and his wicked second icelandic wife (Camilla was pushed out) is plotting to kill anyone loyal to Prince Harry and Prince William. The second book starts off with the SAS guys breaking their leader, Sir Nigel Loring, out of a castle where he is held hostage by the Icelandic Detachment Force, who are nasty tough. The SAS guys make it to Oregon and put in with the good guys.

All in all, Stirling writes very nice battle scenes which really bring home just how violent and brutal it is to die with an arrow shot through you, or a sword stroke. He plays up the fact that people really don't want to get into knife or sword fights too much because the danger of getting seriously wounded is so high. Everyone wears lots of armor, because if you don't, you're as good as dead.

 

[Michael Dean]

although this thread might be better suited in the Media Lounge catagory

Sorry; I was probably stretching it to put it here, but I really wanted to know if anyone else out there has tried or wants to try a setting based on this series. At least now I have a working map of where to put different groups.

 

[Banshee16]

Sorry; I was probably stretching it to put it here, but I really wanted to know if anyone else out there has tried or wants to try a setting based on this series. At least now I have a working map of where to put different groups.

Sorry, I didn't mean to derail your thread. I was curious about the novels, and you're the first person I've seen mention them.

Anyways, would this be like a D20 modern setting? It sounds like it's rather gritty/realistic, etc.

Also, where would all the horses, swords etc. come from in such a setting, given there likely aren't nearly as many riding horses per capita as there used to be, and so few people would know how to create swords in the first place?

Banshee

 

[Michael Dean]

I've been meaning to pick up this series... I really enjoyed the Island in the Sea of Time trilogy.

The Island trilogy is based off of the same event that occurs in Dies the Fire. The modern Nantucket goes back in time thousands of years, and is replaced in modern times by the old Nantucket Island. There is even a bit character in Island that is mentioned in Dies the Fire because he's a brother of one of the McKenzies.

 

[Michael Dean]

Sorry, I didn't mean to derail your thread. I was curious about the novels, and you're the first person I've seen mention them.

Anyways, would this be like a D20 modern setting? It sounds like it's rather gritty/realistic, etc.

Also, where would all the horses, swords etc. come from in such a setting, given there likely aren't nearly as many riding horses per capita as there used to be, and so few people would know how to create swords in the first place?

Banshee

A lot of the horses were from herds in Idaho and the Northwest. Since well over 90% of the population has died from famine and disease, the horse to human ratio isn't that out of whack. The Bearkillers' main lieutenant was a former rodeo rider who also has blacksmithy skills. They made swords by taking leaf springs out of the suspensions of cars and trucks, heating them up, and putting an edge on them. The key is that a lot of the survivors were people who didn't live in big cities at the time of the Change, and many of them had odd skills that were useful because they lived on the outskirts of society.

Stirling makes the point that one of the coping skills of survivors is to mimic whatever societies they view as the best at survival. So for example, there are "new Sioux" tribes, composed of native americans and non-native americans who band together to live like the Sioux of old, or at least their version of it. The McKenzies are led by a wiccan of Scots-Irish decent, who used to be a folk singer that traveled to ren faires to perform. So their clan ended up mimicing a version of a scottish clan, even if the particulars were off from the real thing. And of course, the people all become wiccans because that's what their leader is.

Also, the skills for doing stuff comes mainly out of (real life) books that teach how to do stuff the old way. I think one of the books they mentioned was "Our Forgotten Arts & Crafts". Stuff like subsistence farming, making soap, grinding flour, etc...

 

[iwatt]

A large part of the survivors were also SCA types, or history buff types.

I'm in a PBP that's just staring in which we're playing in the Dies the Fire universe, using the True20 system. I'm playing a japanese-american college student who is deeply obsessed with samurai.

 

[mmadsen]

They made swords by taking leaf springs out of the suspensions of cars and trucks, heating them up, and putting an edge on them.

That's how high-quality blades are made in less developed countries today. For instance, the famous Gurkha kukri from Nepal is now made from leaf springs.