KactusPunch
Crown Sage
MarshalSolgriev
SkyeOfStars
princess
ZerothShangri-La
"All the legends and tales tell of the sacred valleys and how they are discovered by the wary when the world is plagued by death and corruption. Do not believe the doubters saying the valley is a Western Lie - I have seen it with my own eyes. Shangri-La and its people are real.
When The Reaper came to knock at the gates of beggars and at the palaces of kings, it swept right past the hidden, isolated lamaseries of the Kunlun mountains without noticing they were there. The plague that ravaged the rest of the world left the many vales and idle peoples of the mountains unspoiled.
Their geographically isolation protected them once more when the bombs fell, the Mountains were again left almost untouched, partially due to their proximity to the Aksai Chin and the complete lack of any densely packed civilian population centers and/or strategic infrastructure.
When the Nuclear Winter came, even then the many hidden places of the mountains did not balk - they were no strangers to days of perpetual darkness. Many died, but many more endured than elsewhere.
When the soot cleared from the skies and the sun began to shine once more, a group designating itself as the Jade Palace emerged within the Kunlun Mountains and made successive contact with the many lamaseries and their survivors, and from there began to mount a sophisticated and organized recovery effort. The Jade Palace was an inexplicable military force out of nowhere, possessing old-world military arms and training. As men and women began pouring into the region, following promises of lost utopian cities and sacred vales, they found the Guardians of the Jade Palace and Tibetan Buddhist Monks offering them shelter and protection in exchange for menial labor. Over the last decade, small, ramshackle settlements have arisen around abandoned lodges and resorts around the outskirts of the mountain range, filled with peoples of every regional ethnicity and background. Each settlement was arranged to coordinate with a central Lamasery with the closest local proximity, where the forces of the Jade Palace mustered their forces and formed a coterie with the local monks.
Thus the modern nation of Shangri-La was formed, with the Jade Palace acting as the nominal military authority, using the Buddhist monks to establish rapport and ideological control over the surrounding settlements. The settlements are peaceful havens, relatively impoverished but well protected and capable of a modest means of self-sustenance. The lamaseries of the inner-mountain range have been transformed into forts and military bases, making up in location what they lacked in stolid construction.
And somewhere, hidden in an undisclosed location within the range, lies the Jade Palace, which according to local rumor and superstition is where the next Yellow Emperor has arisen, ready to soon emerge and bring civilization to the disparate peoples of the world once again.
Shangri-La is a Military Junta. The Forces of the Jade Palace maintain a centralized region of control within the vales of the Kunlun mountain range, actively patrolling them with organized military squads armed with old-world weapons. These forces nominally scout for and protect the civilian settlements around and within the mountain range itself, although they have been known to occasionally 'requisition' goods and services from the settlements without prior notice. They also occasionally 'draft' young children without the consent of their parents.
A semblance of order is maintained by local lamasery monks, who have established rapport with the Jade Palace. The sight of orange robes is a common sight in the settlements, where the Buddhists act as the equivalent of a mayor, keeping track of and organizing all local affairs on an individual basis. They also dispense advice and relay information provided by the Jade Palace, including instructions on how to survive and what resources are or can be made available.
Each settlement functions as a disorganized communal borough. Everybody works, either growing crops, herding, or else producing various raw materials. Settlements are made around old-world resorts and lodges, which serve as community centers and as a public barracks. Around these, ramshackle huts and dwellings made of anything on hand, be it cars, sheet-metal, wood, or otherwise, are erected. Community assets and resources are stockpiled in the community centers, which have a token guard from the Jade Palace acting as peace-keepers.
Within the Kunlun mountain range, a number of Tibetan lamaseries exist where Tibetan order Buddhists make their homes. These lamaseries act as local garrisons and headquarters for the Jade Palace forces, which regularly muster and deploy their forces from these locations. A number of military directors and executives discuss the affairs of the region with the monks and determine how to proceed. The directors have ultimate authority, although it is said by some that they report to a central authority known as the Yellow Emperor.
The Kunlun Mountains are the source of several prominent rivers, and there is always fresh springwater to be had as it flows from the mountaintops. Food is scarcer, limited largely to cereal growth in a few isolated vales or along the outskirts of the region and several individual goat herds. Most locals have ample access to fresh vegetables, clean water, and usually even milk and cheese. There is a severe shortage of fruits and meat, with soybean crops being widely distributed in an effort to make up for this.
The Trials of Passage: The lamaseries of the Kunlun Mountain range are well-secreted away, usually not being located even on old-world maps, and serve as tactically advantageous staging grounds amidst the peaks and vales, filled with snow and stone. The Jade Palace maintains light, mobile forces at these points which can quickly mobilize and reach any surrounding settlement in short order. Assailing these locations would be a challenge for any conventional military force due to the turbulent terrain and the lack of any kind of urban environment or modern roads.
Simpler Anachronism: Many of the settlements are relatively impoverished and primitive, but are entirely self-sustaining and contained. Most of the people are subsistence farmers, or else laborers. Life is hard, but not difficult.
Wisdom of the Tertön: The Jade Palace seems to have a sophisticated understanding of the relative distribution of resources throughout the Kunlun mountain range, and relays most of this information to the settlements through the lamasery monks. Each local settlement usually has access to some form or another of nearby regional resource that they would otherwise not be able to find.
Guardians of Myth: The forces of the Jade Palace are a fairly well-organized, well-equipped, and efficient military organization that seems to have its logistics reasonably well in hand, considering that they seem to have come out of nowhere in the aftermath of the Reaper plague and the Nuclear Apocalypse. In the eyes of the local populace, they are nearly mythical in stature and repute, soldiers of the next Great Ruler who will inspire a return to the grand civilizations of old.
Disparate: The populations of the settlements are made up of people from all surrounding regions, all speaking different languages, not all of whom respect Buddhist teachings or living under the thumb of the Jade Palace. Violence is uncommon in the settlements, but that could change with just a little exterior pressure...
New World, Old Ways: Lacking any extensive industrial infrastructure or modern conveniences, the various settlements and lamaseries usually don't even have electricity or functional plumbing, let alone the ability to manufacture complex equipment. If they want to make something new, they have to do it using techniques that have not been seen since the dark ages. The Jade Palace forces seem unusually well-equipped, but even they can't make more bullets out of nothing...
Blanket of the Mountains: The mountain range is vast, and the Jade Palace forces are fewer in number than most would believe - they are spread thin even just by maintaining their scouting troupes.
