Rust, City of Industry
Forced underground by their own pollution, Rust has become a beacon of hope and a bastion of disease.
from High Plains Samurai: Legends
Tall spires of scrap metal pierce the horizon in this pocket of the One Land ripe with strong electrical currents as bolts of lightning bounce from one tower to the next. These towers are a monument to a world of bizarre creations and marvels that cannot be found until you begin to look underground. Buried beneath the barren soil, everything that is this final City is concealed beneath the earth. That is perhaps its greatest defense. Blending salvage engineering with religious devotion, Rust is a beacon of hope, for those who can both physically and morally endure, in an otherwise dreary hellhole. Yet most would rather take their chances in the Wastes.
Every street, building, and construct in Rust was built from the wreckage of the world before Chaos’ wrath, and its people have completed wondrous feats with these remains. Despite the brown-flecked appearance of the metal applied in these inventions, its citizens have manufactured some of the most advanced forms of technology available today (some even more than what was possible before it was all destroyed). They even have the ability to harness the electricity flowing through the air around them (a lesser side effect of the storm-riddled northern landscape above) to provide heat and illumination. It is this ingenuity that makes Rust a powerhouse among the Five Cities as it sits on a powder keg of weaponry. While all the other warlords would unleash an army to seize this city for their own, none would dare face down a barrage of contraptions built for the sole purpose of tearing a man in half.
Ingenuity in the face of devastation is the signature conceit of this final City overseen by the Council of Iron and its messiah, the Minister. The people of Rust have built impressive technologies and architecture using the leftovers of the world before Chaos’ judgement and have dedicated themselves to the worship of the Minister as their guide to the afterlife away from all of this toil and death. Total subjugation is the price for living in a city of electricity and advancement, with the Council of Iron acting as the Minister’s voice. While they may seem to have it all compared to the remaining Cities, everything a family owns can be stripped at a moment’s notice at the Council’s whims. Those who have managed to flee with their lives intact speak of the Minister’s madness and the rampant disease from a life surrounded in rusted metals and an unkempt populace.