90 years have passed since the Rash, apparently originating somewhere in Africa, began spreading throught the world. It's symptoms appeared simple, if terrible. You (or any mammal species save felines) get a painful rash all over your body, and then you die, no known cures could save anyone that contracted it. So countries began closing their borders to stop the spread. Save for isolated island nations like Iceland and (maybe) Madagascar, however, it was too little too late.
Because, you see, the Rash didn't only affect the victim's body, but their soul. The souls of those that died of the Rash, without proper guidance by a priest or later on a mage, would remain stuck in the material world, slowly losing their memories and becoming afraid, confused and angry, lashing out and harming anyone that would come close.
Then, there were those that got the Rash but didn't die.
Their souls wouldn't leave their bodies, and the Rash progressed, deforming the bodies of the infected beyond recognition, turning them into mindless monsters, wild animals thinking only of food and shelter from sunlight or cold. In Scandinavia (where the original webcomic takes place) those monsters would be classified as Beasts (infected animals, sometimes appearing normal until you get close enough to see the uncomfortable amount of teeth coming out of a mouth in their ribcage), Trolls (infected humans, taking all sort of horrible forms, sometimes still being able to speak, begging for help or simply asking the people they are trying to eat if they are food) and Giants (amalgamations of infected humans reaching enormous sizes).
In the South Cone, the local governments were all but completely unprepared to combat the coming apocalypse. In the Malvinas/Falkland Islands, they lost contact with Britain shortly after hearing reports of the Icelanders shooting at any foreign ship that came close, an idea they would put into practice. Argentina and Chile fared much worse, only the rough terrain and cold climate of the area granting the survivors a fighting chance down in the mountainous forests and steppes of southern Patagonia. The Chileans became seafaring folk, sailing between their myriad of island-fortresses in the Pacific coast or hiding in mountain valleys and fjords from where they would venture out to hunt the Gualichos (local name for the infected beings) with a vengance. Meanwhile, Argentina would be reduced mostly to just the island of Tierra del Fuego, using liberal amounts of flamethrowers to keep the monsters at bay. As the years went by, much as with the rest of the world, people began manifesting magical abilities, varying from people group to people group (it is said that most Mapuche or Patagonian Welsh had some magical attunement to an extent, whereas next to none Kelpers or Argentines do). These wizards, shamans or druids became essential to some communities, increasing the normally barren land's fertility, making protective runes around villages, detecting Gualichos from afar, or tracking down lost souls to help guide to the afterlife.
90 years have passed since the Outbreak, and the world now is hardly recognizeable for those that came before.
Known nations of the world
Argentina: With a population of 30.100 souls, Argentina is the most populated nation in the known world, though at first it seemed like a nation doomed to extinction. Pushed back to Tierra del Fuego and the Isla de los Estados, the remnants of the Argentine armed forces, government and population had little hope for survival, as Gualichos managed to cross the narrow strait into the island, and all manner of infected seals and whales harassed the coasts. It was during that time of despair that a figure rose amongst the Argentine survivors.
Héctor Blanco, a suppoused Catholic priest (though nobody ever found any records of his ordination) began preaching to the remaining population about the end of the world, the Great Chastisement sent by God to punish a sinful world, and how the Argentines shouldn't fall to Satan's forces. The remaining Argentines, desperate to have anything to cling to, held onto the religious fervor, and a push to cleanse Tierra del Fuego, fittingly, with fire, was carried out. Blanco would die in those campaigns, turning into a martyr for the Argentines, who through the years would keep on pushing north, taking even large chunks of the former Santa Cruz province, inducting whatever scattered survivors remained there into the new faith. Despite their zealotry, they do not feud with the other human nations over religious matters, knowing the Gualichos are still the bigger threat, though they do send missionaries to "proselityze the heathens" fairly often. Argentina, now centered in Ushuaia, is still a democratic country with an elected president, though the Bishop of Ushuaia has also a considerable amount of power.
Magic was originally not seen with good eyes in Argentina, but it didn't take long for even the most zealous to know that their abilities would be practical in the long run. These "brujos" would mostly be inducted into the Church, trained to practice "exoricsms" on lost souls and to draw "saints' or angels' sigils" as protective measures around settlements. Secular brujos, mainly of Aonikenk descent, do exist in Argentina, but they aren't a common sight.
Falklands: The two controversial islands in the Argentine sea became a fortress soon after contact with Britain was lost. A small overseas territory of Great Britain, at that time it had some 2000 local inhabitants, plus 1000 British soldiers, garrisoned since the war with Argentina in 1982, and some 500 migrants from Chile. As the last message from Britain reached Port Stanley (a simple telegram reading "It is over. Good night and God save the Queen"), the Lord Governor of the islands knew that the islands could not afford to have even a single infected step on the islands. So, he gave the order to the remnants of the Royal Navy, and when refugees started pouring in from the mainland, they were sunken. For 50 years the islands remained isolated from the outside world, save for a few ships sent out to observe the coasts. Eventually, once the other nations seemed to be relatively stable enough to keep the infected at bay by themselves, the isolation remained and, though with leftover tensions after half a century of them killing whoever got close, trade began, with the Wladfan colony of Dinas Newydd serving as a quarentine center for anyone willing to go to the islands. For the 40 next years, people began flocking to the islands, specifically people with an inborn immunity to the Rash, in a government-led effort to breed immunity into the largely vulnerable Kelper population. This made the Falklands the only region in the world were the population grew instead of shrinking, even though some fear this means Spanish will eventually replace English as the language of the isles. Despite their still rather small population of 5200 people, the Falklands remain the most technologically advanced nation in the world, followed by Argentina, and the two formerly rival nations now cooperate in research and military developement, and even though some animosity remains, the growing interdependence is slowly turning these old enemies into close friends.
The islands are ruled by the Lord Governor of the Falkland Islands, a lifelong role with appointed successors, although ever since the Outbreak the Lord Governors began developing the tendency of appointing their sons, making foreigners jokingly refer to them as "Kings". Though some grumble about the somewhat authoritarian regime and ask for a democratic reform, those concerns tend to be brushed off as, according to the Lord Governor, "there are greater problems today that arguing about how to govern ourselves". Religiously, most Kelpers practice no religion, their Anglican faith dying alongside Britain, but lately Argentine preachers have been making inroads into Kelper society.
Chile: The second most populated nation, with 12.900 souls, the Chileans are a seafaring people, even more than the Kelpers, who remain content with fishing near their shores or raising sheep. The Chileans became seafarers out of necessity. Much like their Haush, Kaweksar and Yaghan ancestors, the Chileans inhabit the myriad of cold, forested islands that mark the border between the foreboding hinterlands and the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean. When the Rash became the apocalyptic event known today, Santiago was lost in less than a day, and whatever was left of the government was forced to relocate to Punta Arenas, the largest city in the Chilean South, as Gualichos proved to be averse to cold climate and sunlight. However, as the refugees from the rest of the country poured into Punta Arenas, its end was inevitable. In that case, it was an Engualichado, a mage whose soul succumbed to infection and, overwhelmed by the pain of the Rash, became a malicious spirit, possessing anyone that looks at it, and making it spread chaos. The Engualichado brought infected rats into Punta Arenas and released them into the city. In a matter of weeks, everyone in the city was dead or transformed, and it became an area everyone instinctively knew to avoid.
What remained of the Chilean military retreated, and the mantle of government fell unto the Minister of Transport, who was then at the small town of Puerto Eden, in one many rugged islands near the Chilean coast. The village was reinforced by the army, and from there, gradually, the Chileans began reuniting the scattered remnants of their people, huddled in islands, valleys and fjords from Chiloe to the Beagle Islands. By reason or by force, eventually most of the Chilean south was reclaimed, though at a great cost in population. The Chileans then, by sea or by land, became adept at hunting the beasts and Gualichos that roamed the mainland, their army, in most cases more influential than the president, began turning the country into some sort of militarism, though eventually that grew into a warrior culture, focusing more on hunting beasts than in defending against human enemies, as they all recognized their common enemy. The Chilean hunters roam sometimes as far north as former Valdivia, scouting and hunting, swearing to one day avenge their fallen nation.
Most Chileans today are irreligious, though increasingly more and more of the population is turning into Argentine Catholicism or the ancient beliefs of their Yaghan or Mapuche ancestors. Mages are more common than in Argentina, though due to the lack of infraestructure most are either trained in the native tradition of magic or sent to Ushuaia for religious training and ordination.
Y Wladfa: The Welsh Colony, it was called. Before the Rash, most of the cities in northern and central Chubut province were built and populated by Welsh migrants and their mixed descendants, making prosperous settlements and mantaining their language even into the 21st century.
Then the Rash came.
Chubut was on the way south, and the populous cities of Y Wladfa were right in the refugees' path south, and as such, in the path of destruction. One after another, the rich Welsh cities of Chubut fell into chaos, and the few survivors fell back into the barren Valdez Peninsula, taking over the town of Puerto Piramides, fortifying the land bridge to the peninsula and turtling down, living a simple existance as fishermen, foragers and shepards. When magic began manifesting itself, and with much more commonality than in other peoples, some say due to their mix of Celtic and native blood, the old God of the Old World was abandoned and replaced by the even older gods of the Celts, though syncretized and changed to fit this new world and continent. Rites to old Brythonic gods and native duendes, runes of protection and fertility, and the Wladfan population began growing again, the Druids of Pyramidiau Porthladd became known among the known nations, and the Wladfans became confident. Maybe, they thought, the gods favored them so much because they wanted them to grow. Maybe this was a sign that the time was now to advance, build new settlements and retake the old cities of Y Wladfa. So the armies of the Patagonian Welsh rode out of their peninsula for the first time in years. Dreadfully underequipped, with more horses than wheeled vehicles, but with confidence in themselves and their gods, they marched forth. They cleansed large tracts of land and established two new colonies, and then they headed south.
And it was a massacre.
Only one woman returned from the southern expedition, and she took her own life a few months later. The Wladfan expeditions ended then, and the Wladfans' attitude became noticeably different. The optimisim of years past was replaced by bleak defeatism, and seeing themselves as the last members of a dying race. The few scouting missions sent after the Gorymdaith Hunanladdiad were carried out to gather books, recording, and anything else that might let them keep records of the Old World, of the good times before their end. This obsession with record-keeping became important once the Kelpers' isolation ended and all that hoarded information became more valuable than gold. With this new opening of the country, the younger generation of Wladfans started seeing the world yet again with different eyes to that of the defeatist older generation. With help of Kelper and Argentine expeditionaries, they reclaimed the abandoned colony of Rawson Newydd, and despite the very small population, a small baby boom began amongst the population. Were the gods smiling once again upon the last of the Welsh? Or was it just another trick, another lie to send them to their doom? Only time could tell.
Wallmapu: Among the lakes, mountains, valleys and thick forests of Araucanía and Newken, there dwells a nation older than all others. The Mapuche, the "folk of the land" lived there before the Rash, before even the white man, when the Old World was new. By the time the Rash came, however, most Mapuche lived in cities, alongisde most of the world, and as such, most died. Despite the lore of their ancestors becoming true, and the magic of their brujos and Machis (female shamans) became more real than ever before, they were not ready for the terror of the Rash, and they were pushed back. Few in numbers, under 2000 of them live outside of Chilean government authority, dwelling amongst the ancient forests and deep lakes of their ancestors, hunting animal and monster alike in their tall mountains, and bartering in their de-facto capital of Llao Llao. Slowly, they expanded. Small groups cleansing abandoned villages and guiding the lingering souls into the afterlife. Most Mapuche have attunement to the magical currents to an extent, though only the most adept get to be trained as brujos or machis. Thus, Mapuche mages, though seen as more alien and foreign than those of other nations, are usually also understood as more powerful. Unlike the "Christian magic" practiced by the Argentines, native and, mainly, Mapuche magic does not rely on runes or "saintly sigils" or other physical representations of spells. Instead, Mapuche mages can sense and even see lost souls, being able to more easily guide them to the afterlife, aswell as hearing their pleading, leading most Mapuche mages to be rarely able to sleep. Their magic can also be manifested in dreams, much like that of the Christians or Celts (which is something of a middle ground between the two other kinds of magic), seeing premonition and even being able to communicate with other mages through dreams. Much like other mages, Mapuche mages have their own guardian spirits (guardian angels, in the case of the Christians), who take the form of a specific animals and whom they can see in dreams or even call upon in desperate situations.
Wallmapu doesn't have a centralized government per-se, with each settlement having its own lonko, elected by the local community, though they all nominally respond to the lonko of Llao Llao. A more centralized army is in the process of being organized, but with the Mapuche's small population, it's barely a few hundred men strong, and defense and hunting of Gualichos is mostly left up to the local communities.
Coedwigoedd Alerces: The Atlantic coast was not the only Welsh colony in Patagonia. Further west in Chubut, near the snowy, forested Andes, were the two tourist cities of Esquel and Trelew. They did not survive the Rash, and a very small amount of survivors managed to flee to the forested Alerces natural reserve.
Fortunately for them, they weren't the only ones inhabiting the forest. Across the known world, regions of particular natural beauty or importance will be kept secure from Gualichos by whatever god, duende or spirit looks over the area, allowing uninfected animals to thrive (one good way of knowing if you're in one of these places is the presence of mosquitos, as they die if they suck a Gualicho's blood, so they cannot exist near them), and giving the humans shelter, under certain conditions and for a certain time. These were called by the Welsh Cartref Ysbryd, "spirit-houses", and humans are usually not allowed to remain there for more than two days, before the wildlife forces them out. However, after 90 years, the Alerceans still remained, isolated from the rest of the world, living primitively, their weapons mainly spears and arrows of stone or scrap iron. It is not known what deal they made with the local spirits to remain, but then again, many things are not known about the Alerceans. The "flag" depicted on the map is in reference to the white and green markings they leave on trees, marking the edge of their domains. Their exact number is unknown, and the very very few Alerceans that leave their forest to trade usually give conflicting answers. It is said they are all mages, not needing gunpowder as their powers protect them from the Gualichos. It is said that within the forest spirits and duendes take physical form, which is why no foreigner is ever allowed in. It is said that they were the ones that thaught the other nations how to domesticate cats, creatures immune to the Rash and innately aware of the infected, in order to have them work as detectors for Gualichos. It is said that they themselves employ domesticated pumas for such endeavours, aswell as as beasts of war. It is said that they have the cure to the Rash, but keep them to themselves.
If any of this is true, only the Alerceans know, and they are not willing to share...
For 90 years, these nations remained dealing amongst themselves. As far as they knew, the South Cone was the last inhabited region on the planet, so there they stayed, attempting to rebuild civilization in that cold corner of the world, in the edges of the Earth.
But recently, the radio antennas in the northmost settlements of Chile, mainly used for keeping contact with expeditions or with the Mapuche, began recieving strange transmissions. Intermittent messages, conversations between unknown people, Spanish spoken in foreign accents, and languages nobody had heard in almost a century: Portuguese, Guarani, Quechua...
The revelation ran like wildfire through all the known nations, and soon preparations began. One great expeditions, to reach the north or die trying.
Poll
