Every day this week I’m writing about Beacon City 3, a setting for Spencer Campbell’s excellent Dusk RPG.
Dusk is a minimal rule, minimal prep, RPG about a world where the Sun has gone out and the things in the dark have come for the people who are left. It’s a lovely, clean system that does a lot in a small space of time and can be bulked out with additional modules if you want. It also scratches the Destiny 2/Dustland Runner/Mad Max aesthetic I love. That sense of something new being in a world that’s no longer quite yours. I like it and, as the TTRPG part of my brain wakes up a little, I came up with something for it. Welcome to Beacon City 3.
Today we’re looking at the city itself, some locations within it and what it does.
Description
Picture a 15 storey tall wheel, studded with buildings and antennae. As you watch, it rolls over the desert, it’s hub lights illuminating the ground around it. Look closer and you can see small vehicles detach from it’s lower decks and race off into the night. Every mile, one of the twinned construction facilities on either side of it swings out and drops a cylinder the size of a house onto the frozen ground. The cylinder grows, deploys a complex flower of power panels from its roof and illuminates the ground around it with something close enough to sunlight to make you relax, just a little. The lights stretch out across the countryside behind the wheel, vanishing off into the distance.
As the wheel rolls by, its outriders find you. Vehicles of every sort, a cobbled together fleet. Armour welded over construction vehicles and civilian buses. Racing bikes reimagined as scouts. Tanks with bags of seed on the seeds, spewing out into the dirt. Shards driving, walking, hovering, flying.
Then the wheel itself rolls by, you get snatches of music, the sound of people talking, a hundred types of food. As it rolls off into the distance and the rear guard pass you, one of them hands you a radio and a bottle of water, pats you on the back and grins.
‘Have a good morning. We’ll see you soon.’
Purpose
Beacon Cities are mobile construction platforms. They’re self-sustaining, running for years at a time on deep range exploration and construction operations. Their original purpose was to lay down infrastructure for future explorers. When the Sun faded, four Beacon Cities were out, all of them working on establishing communication networks for the continent. Beacon City 3, out by the forest coast, was the first one to react. It had been sent out to establish a Suntech powered network of lights and basecamps. It was uniquely positioned to assist in the relief effort and immediately contacted its three counterparts and turned for home. Their mission hadn’t changed, just evolved. They were still building the bones of the nation, but now they were setting them too.
That was two months ago. In that time there have been intermittent communication from the other cities but nothing more.
Mission
Beacon City 3’s mission is to build a communication network behind it. Every mile, that means a lightpost. Every ten miles it means a basecamp. Every one hundred miles a lighthouse. The latter two are crewed stations. Basecamps are supply dumps and manufacturing points. Lighthouses are just that; massive points of suntech which double as refuges, forts and hospitals.
It’s mission remains the same. But now it’s shards must also defend the city and keep it moving on its long journey home.
Cost
At the core of Beacon City 3 is the solarium. This is a colossal greenhouse lined with suntech. It’s oxygen famr is here. It’s heat comes from here. It’s light. And it’s sacrifice. The solarium panels are used to power the suntech lighthouses and radio stations that Beacon City 3 builds. The idea was that the suntech would be replenished on the city’s return to the capital. Now that idea has become a hope. Because Beacon City 3 was at the furthest point of it’s run when the Sun fell, and it’s Solarium is half gone.
Locations
Alpha and 1
The sides of Beacon City are defined by it’s twin factories. Alpha and 1 are multi-storey construction facilities that produce lightposts, basecamps and lighthouses. Each one has a vast network of cranes that hold their constructions in place and them lower them into place.
Bridge
At the top of the wheel, the bridge deck runs the width of Beacon City 3. The centre of it is a transparent, lowered cartography deck which updates the crew in real time on everything around them. Steering is done via twin helms, one on each side.
Shardtown
One deck below the bridge, the Shards all have personal quarters. These have shared kitchens but each Shard has their own personal space. They also have a private medical clinic.
The Solarium
One part church, one part garden. The Solarium is where Beacon City’s garden grows and where its suntech is stored. It’s the most important room in the city, and also the most open. Daylight is a ration in this world. People consume it carefully.
The City
Four decks, bustling with life and energy. The crew of Beacon City 3 live in the hub of the wheel in a vertical world full of open spaces, vertical farms, theatres, restaurants and apartments.
The Machine Shop
Replacement treads for the city, parts for the Shard’s vehicles and a rolling museum of improvised transportation can all be found at the base of the city.
References
Upcoming video game The Alters features a fantastic looking colossal rolling vehicle/base. That was one of the big inspirations.
The Mortal Engines series in general and Ian McQue‘s concept work in particular. These two pieces are near perfect.
This Secret Wars toy from the 1980s.
I’ve collated a lot of my visual reference for this on Pinterest. Updated daily this week.
Tomorrow, we’re going to meet some of the inhabitants of Beacon City 3. See you then.