RONTO
Flag: Solid dark green with a white painted outline of a tree growing out of water.
Territory and Geography: Located in former Lake Ontario, in what had been Canada. Xenophobic while highly self-reliant and sustainable, in other circumstances may appear to simply be a large settlement, Ronto was withstood the test of time as other, smaller, ground-up settlements have come and gone within the former city, itself. There is no access to or from the massive steel island on the outside, with the exception of a few drawbridges that can be lowered to passing ships. Rontonians trading with mainlanders take rowboats to the shore.
There are unassuming steel walls all around the perimeter, making it relatively impossible for passers-by to see any goings-on within the place. Ugly, repurposed and refit turrets claimed from old warships are installed in various places on the walls that shoot shrapnel coated in their homemade poisons. They serve the dual purpose of ripping enough holes in hulls to cause problems, and holes in people that allow the powerful mixtures to cause fatalities.
History: Ronto did not rebuild on the ruins of its city but instead on the very water of the Great Lake. The original founders crawled out of a Vault, its number and location long forgotten, when they came upon the decrepit mess of the former capitol of Ontario. Horrified by the mangled debris and fallen buildings, along with the dangerous, and hideous, irradiated creatures it hid, the founders fled to the docks. What had started off as a few boats crudely tied together, floating off shore, eventually, through time and necessity, became a veritable metropolis of ships, cargo containers, and war machines, repurposed into a large and thriving off shore colony-state.
Population: 5000
Government/Domestic Politics: A co-operative government of seven elected officials but no single overruling mayor or higher power. Each official has a single vote on all governmental operations. Political discord is rare, as a result of the deeply rooted and reiterated culture of xenophobia. Typical discussions revolve around growth planning and execution. They do not engage in the outside world and do not allow outsiders to come in.
Notable People:
Glenda Doren – 23 year old member of security and surveillance detail, daughter of one of the longest running members of the governmental council. She finds herself gazing out into the waters of the lake, or onto the ruined mainland of the former city, itching to leave Ronto and explore. When not manning one of their refurbished turrets on the perimeter wall, she prefers one of their native galvanized steel weapons, featuring several nasty looking serrated blades coated in a deadly poison that causes cardiac arrest in human victims within seconds of contact.
Wendy Doren – 48 year old full time botanist and biochemist. Major claim to Ronto infamy was having formulated the single most deadly poison ever seen on the colony, the major turning point of the near-invasion of 2258 at the young age of 16. Her personality combined the balance of intelligence, ingenuity, and grace, making her an excellent candidate for the government by the time she was 20. She has been voted back on to council consistently ever since.
Kenneth Morrison - 26 year old biochemist and botanist, Wendy’s best apprentice. Responsible for formulating the drug “Slick” permeating through the colony. Also the chief agitator for a new form of government that would give one person absolute power over an advisory council.
Military: Less than 1000 dedicated security/soldier types. Most of these people man the walls and watch those who pass by on land or by water. Very rarely they make up the shore parties to scavenge for junk materials needed on the colony.
Outside of their refurbished, or repurposed, turret systems, they have manufactured melee-style weapons of galvanized steel scraps. No two are alike; some appear to have a single blade while others are “spiky,” etc. Many elect to carry poison treated metal, as well.
Economy: Ronto is a closed system, for the most part. They raise their consumables and occasionally send shore parties to the mainland for scrap materials and textiles, though much of their clothing items are woven from hairs and hides of the beasts they raise for food and other such resources. Now and then they engage in trade for fine electronic parts in exchange for their food and medicines in barter, only. They have no currency, nor any use for such. If a person does not have an item for barter, they will offer labour or some refined skill or service.
Culture and Technology: Rontonians are racially diverse, for the most part – or, at least, their founders had been. They started off as a few dozen former Vault dwellers, so as much as they tried to keep inbreeding to a minimum, there are some distant cousins and the majority of the population are related to someone else, at least in some way. Most of their “culture” revolves around shunning the old world and its technology and horrors, as well as keeping out most of its results (settlers, traders, frontierfolk, hunters, and so on) with a focus on being able to rely on themselves and their own ingenuity. Years of cultivating crops and farm fishing also resulted in a focus on creating powerful, unique medicines derived from plants and marine life, which has led to better quality of life and lifespans.
Essentially, they are a tribal colony, completely self-governing and shunning any and all outside interaction. They maintain high levels of literacy and productivity throughout their generations. By 2290, all of the crops are hydroponically grown using filtration technology ripped out of old warships, submarines, and the like. Not only do they grow food for themselves and for fodder, they also raise various plants for medicinal use. Many folk find a natural place within the state in the care and maintenance of the colony. Either they find themselves fishing, farming, crop development, or straight labour maintaining walls and infrastructure.
For the better part of the century, quite a bit of development has been towards creating poisons and other types of deadly modified weapons. These items tend to be the most valuable trade barter the colony use in the rare instances that they do engage in import/export.
Strictly xenophobic, Ronto does not actively act as an aggressor. They survey every person and ship that passes by, but they don’t shoot unless they’re shot at, first. If fatalities occur, on either side, the bodies are collected and turned into fertilizer for the crops and plants.
Another result of being so xenophobic is their total lack of knowledge on anything in the ‘real world.’ They have no formal intelligence and therefore absolutely no idea of the scale of generally known entities such as the Brotherhood or the Enclave, let alone cults or religious sects otherwise well established on the eastern seaboard and beyond. The general belief is there is no need to learn about the outside world, when the only thing that matters is the colony. Anything other entities know about them they would have garnered through direct trade or surveillance, but no outsider has ever been within the walls of Ronto and has no idea of what it looks like or how they develop the weapons and poisons they barter to the outside.
Minutely, there are waves of substance problems when a handful of folks will try to turn the poisons into recreational drugs. Typically, overdoses result in the users having extremely intense visions and/or “trips” that either kill the user from the inside, or find them dying by their own hands when they manage to escape the walls and drown in the lake. This has traditionally caused the interest to die off, as it were. In 2290, one particular powder called Slick has taken hold by being non-addictive, non-lethal, and popular amongst the younger generations. Those folks find themselves wanting to get high and check out, rather than work, making the older generations fear for the ultimate future of the colony.
Religion: They have no formal religion or deity, focussing only on their own people’s sustainability and the technology they have created.
Territory and Geography: Located in former Lake Ontario, in what had been Canada. Xenophobic while highly self-reliant and sustainable, in other circumstances may appear to simply be a large settlement, Ronto was withstood the test of time as other, smaller, ground-up settlements have come and gone within the former city, itself. There is no access to or from the massive steel island on the outside, with the exception of a few drawbridges that can be lowered to passing ships. Rontonians trading with mainlanders take rowboats to the shore.
There are unassuming steel walls all around the perimeter, making it relatively impossible for passers-by to see any goings-on within the place. Ugly, repurposed and refit turrets claimed from old warships are installed in various places on the walls that shoot shrapnel coated in their homemade poisons. They serve the dual purpose of ripping enough holes in hulls to cause problems, and holes in people that allow the powerful mixtures to cause fatalities.
History: Ronto did not rebuild on the ruins of its city but instead on the very water of the Great Lake. The original founders crawled out of a Vault, its number and location long forgotten, when they came upon the decrepit mess of the former capitol of Ontario. Horrified by the mangled debris and fallen buildings, along with the dangerous, and hideous, irradiated creatures it hid, the founders fled to the docks. What had started off as a few boats crudely tied together, floating off shore, eventually, through time and necessity, became a veritable metropolis of ships, cargo containers, and war machines, repurposed into a large and thriving off shore colony-state.
Population: 5000
Government/Domestic Politics: A co-operative government of seven elected officials but no single overruling mayor or higher power. Each official has a single vote on all governmental operations. Political discord is rare, as a result of the deeply rooted and reiterated culture of xenophobia. Typical discussions revolve around growth planning and execution. They do not engage in the outside world and do not allow outsiders to come in.
Notable People:
Glenda Doren – 23 year old member of security and surveillance detail, daughter of one of the longest running members of the governmental council. She finds herself gazing out into the waters of the lake, or onto the ruined mainland of the former city, itching to leave Ronto and explore. When not manning one of their refurbished turrets on the perimeter wall, she prefers one of their native galvanized steel weapons, featuring several nasty looking serrated blades coated in a deadly poison that causes cardiac arrest in human victims within seconds of contact.
Wendy Doren – 48 year old full time botanist and biochemist. Major claim to Ronto infamy was having formulated the single most deadly poison ever seen on the colony, the major turning point of the near-invasion of 2258 at the young age of 16. Her personality combined the balance of intelligence, ingenuity, and grace, making her an excellent candidate for the government by the time she was 20. She has been voted back on to council consistently ever since.
Kenneth Morrison - 26 year old biochemist and botanist, Wendy’s best apprentice. Responsible for formulating the drug “Slick” permeating through the colony. Also the chief agitator for a new form of government that would give one person absolute power over an advisory council.
Military: Less than 1000 dedicated security/soldier types. Most of these people man the walls and watch those who pass by on land or by water. Very rarely they make up the shore parties to scavenge for junk materials needed on the colony.
Outside of their refurbished, or repurposed, turret systems, they have manufactured melee-style weapons of galvanized steel scraps. No two are alike; some appear to have a single blade while others are “spiky,” etc. Many elect to carry poison treated metal, as well.
Economy: Ronto is a closed system, for the most part. They raise their consumables and occasionally send shore parties to the mainland for scrap materials and textiles, though much of their clothing items are woven from hairs and hides of the beasts they raise for food and other such resources. Now and then they engage in trade for fine electronic parts in exchange for their food and medicines in barter, only. They have no currency, nor any use for such. If a person does not have an item for barter, they will offer labour or some refined skill or service.
Culture and Technology: Rontonians are racially diverse, for the most part – or, at least, their founders had been. They started off as a few dozen former Vault dwellers, so as much as they tried to keep inbreeding to a minimum, there are some distant cousins and the majority of the population are related to someone else, at least in some way. Most of their “culture” revolves around shunning the old world and its technology and horrors, as well as keeping out most of its results (settlers, traders, frontierfolk, hunters, and so on) with a focus on being able to rely on themselves and their own ingenuity. Years of cultivating crops and farm fishing also resulted in a focus on creating powerful, unique medicines derived from plants and marine life, which has led to better quality of life and lifespans.
Essentially, they are a tribal colony, completely self-governing and shunning any and all outside interaction. They maintain high levels of literacy and productivity throughout their generations. By 2290, all of the crops are hydroponically grown using filtration technology ripped out of old warships, submarines, and the like. Not only do they grow food for themselves and for fodder, they also raise various plants for medicinal use. Many folk find a natural place within the state in the care and maintenance of the colony. Either they find themselves fishing, farming, crop development, or straight labour maintaining walls and infrastructure.
For the better part of the century, quite a bit of development has been towards creating poisons and other types of deadly modified weapons. These items tend to be the most valuable trade barter the colony use in the rare instances that they do engage in import/export.
Strictly xenophobic, Ronto does not actively act as an aggressor. They survey every person and ship that passes by, but they don’t shoot unless they’re shot at, first. If fatalities occur, on either side, the bodies are collected and turned into fertilizer for the crops and plants.
Another result of being so xenophobic is their total lack of knowledge on anything in the ‘real world.’ They have no formal intelligence and therefore absolutely no idea of the scale of generally known entities such as the Brotherhood or the Enclave, let alone cults or religious sects otherwise well established on the eastern seaboard and beyond. The general belief is there is no need to learn about the outside world, when the only thing that matters is the colony. Anything other entities know about them they would have garnered through direct trade or surveillance, but no outsider has ever been within the walls of Ronto and has no idea of what it looks like or how they develop the weapons and poisons they barter to the outside.
Minutely, there are waves of substance problems when a handful of folks will try to turn the poisons into recreational drugs. Typically, overdoses result in the users having extremely intense visions and/or “trips” that either kill the user from the inside, or find them dying by their own hands when they manage to escape the walls and drown in the lake. This has traditionally caused the interest to die off, as it were. In 2290, one particular powder called Slick has taken hold by being non-addictive, non-lethal, and popular amongst the younger generations. Those folks find themselves wanting to get high and check out, rather than work, making the older generations fear for the ultimate future of the colony.
Religion: They have no formal religion or deity, focussing only on their own people’s sustainability and the technology they have created.