// THE PREMISE
What this world is
Coldwater was forty thousand people, a hospital, a high school, two highway exits, and a river it was named for. Nine days ago it was unremarkable. Then the dead got up, the highways jammed into walls of stalled cars, the phones went quiet, and the town began to come apart house by house.
This is not a wasteland forty years gone. It is a collapse happening in real time, and the dead are only half the danger. The living have already clotted into holdouts that do not trust each other: Captain Elias Thorne's Provisional Militia, running martial law from the sheriff's station; Prophet Micah's Church of the Second Coming, who preach the outbreak is the Rapture; the Anvil Collective, mechanics and scavengers who have the tools and the lumber and are not sharing; the Wardens of Mercy, nurses rationing the last of the medicine in a barricaded hospital wing; and the Highway Dogs, a feral crew who stopped pretending to be anything but raiders.
You arrive with nothing. No crew, no walls, no plan beyond the next hour. You claim a defensible building if you can take and hold it, you gather survivors, you scavenge and fortify, and you decide, over and over, who to save, who to turn away, and how far you will go to keep what you have built. Winter is coming and the furnaces need fuel. Every survivor you take in and every group you cross is remembered. From a nobody hiding in a stairwell, you can become the person who holds Coldwater together, or the warlord who rules its ruins.
// PLAY PROFILE
What this world plays like
Your first ten turns are about surviving long enough to matter. You find a defensible corner, you meet the militia at the gate, you learn what a can of food and a box of ammunition are worth now. Nobody vouches for you yet, and the town is already keeping score.
By turn fifty you hold something worth defending, and your standing with the Militia, the Church, the Anvil Collective, the Wardens, and the Highway Dogs are all real, tracked, and often in tension. The survivor you turned away on turn twelve remembers it. A wall that held last week is tested harder this week. The medicine is running out and the cold has come in.
By turn one hundred the town is tilting toward one order or another, and you are the reason. The alliance you kept with the Wardens, or the raid you made on the Anvil, decides who stands with you when the militia comes to decide whether you are useful or a threat.
Coldwater does not reset between sessions. Close the tab. The dead are still at the wall, and they do not get tired.
// FACTIONS IN MOTION
Principal factions
Operating out of the fortified Sheriff's Station, the CPM sees itself as the sole legitimate authority in Coldwater. They enforce a brutal form of martial law, hoarding weapons and fuel to maintain their grip on power and project force throughout the downtown area. Their goal is not rescue, but indefinite, iron-fisted control.
This apocalyptic congregation believes the outbreak is the biblical Rapture, and the Turned are the soulless bodies of the unrighteous. Led by the charismatic Father Samuel from Saint Jude's Parish, they offer food and sanctuary in exchange for absolute faith and participation in physically and mentally grueling 'purification' rituals. They are preparing for the final battle against the 'unbelievers'.
A pragmatic group of mechanics, engineers, and scavengers based out of the fortified 'Anvil' hardware store. They value skill and tangible results over ideology, maintaining the town's few working generators and vehicles. They run the high-risk, neutral-ground market at the old Farmer's Pavilion, trading scavenged parts, fabricated tools, and precious fuel for food and medicine.
Comprised of the surviving medical staff of Coldwater General, the Wardens are dedicated to preserving life and medical knowledge. They operate a triage center in the barricaded west wing, treating injuries for all who can pay the steep price in supplies. Secretly, their leader, Dr. Thorne, is desperately researching the pathogen, dissecting Turned corpses in a sealed-off morgue, convinced a scientific answer is the only way out.
A feral pack of 'Stranded' survivors who were caught on the interstate when the town was sealed. With no local ties, they view the citizens of Coldwater as obstacles to their own survival. They are ruthless ambush predators, using the massive pileup as both a fortress and a hunting ground to prey on anyone scavenging for fuel or vehicles.
// KEY FIGURES
People you'll meet
// SITES OF RECORD
Places that matter
The heart of the old town, a grid of brick storefronts, the Sheriff's station, and the county courthouse. The streets are littered with abandoned cars and the debris of the first panic. The dead wander in small, aimless groups.
The dense, swampy forest that follows the Coldwater River's southern bank. The trees are thick, the ground is marshy, and the canopy blocks out the sun. It's eerily quiet, with the sounds of the town muffled by the trees.
A multi-mile-long snarl of crashed and abandoned vehicles on Interstate 84, where it bridges the river. The initial attempt to flee Coldwater ended here. It is a maze of rusting metal, looted suitcases, and skeletal remains.
A sprawling maze of cul-de-sacs and identical single-family homes, now unnervingly silent. Lawns are overgrown, and newspapers from nine days ago rot on driveways. Coldwater General Hospital and the High School are located on the northern edge.
Dominated by thick pine and fir forests climbing into the rolling hills west of town. The air is thinner and colder here. Old logging roads, now mostly overgrown, are the only way through.
An older, sparser neighborhood on the far side of the interstate, centered around a large stone church with a tall steeple. The area is eerily clean compared to the rest of town.
// LIVE TURN
A real turn from this world
Captain Thorne doesn't lower the rifle. "You want inside these walls, you bring something to them. Food, fuel, medicine, or hands that can fight." He studies your face the way you'd study a lock. "The Wardens said you came through their ward. That true?"
Behind him, the boy in the too-big militia coat watches you and says nothing.
Standing with the Provisional Militia: pending. Whatever you say next, the town writes it down.
// WHY IT HOLDS UP
Why Coldwater holds up over a long run
The factions, characters, and places on this page are live state the world tracks, not prose written once and forgotten. What you do changes them: what you own, who owes you, who has forgiven you and who has not.
Supported state persists between sessions. Leave for a week and the scene holds; come back and catch-up can resolve relevant elapsed changes. An established promise can remain available for a later consequence, though the Narrator may still phrase a smaller detail loosely.
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