New Vance City

Tripod the Scrap Titan was once a marvel of urban engineering, designed to stabilize quake-prone infrastructure using triple-jointed legs and seismic dampeners to redistribute weight. After the Collapse, a corrupted power surge froze its systems mid-stride, locking its towering frame in place along a shattered rail line deep within the Rust Belt. Now, this rust-caked giant looms like a dead deity above the soot-stained scrapyards and molten pits of Gear Rat territory. Its presence is more than symbolic—it’s sacred. Gear Rats treat Tripod as a holy relic of Old World muscle and engineering, conducting brutal salvage rites and leaving scrap offerings at its base. Some whisper that deep inside its chest is a power core still humming, drawing infected beasts and malfunctioning drones like moths to flame. Others claim Tripod’s optic flickers not from decay—but from something watching. Silent. Processing. Waiting to move again.

Tripod towers above the surrounding wreckage like the skeletal remains of a mechanical god. Each of its three legs—thick as shipping containers—plunges into fractured industrial concrete, their joints frozen at strained, unnatural angles. Hydraulic pistons hang like snapped tendons, and braided support cables twitch with phantom static. The torso slouches beneath layers of rust, overgrowth, and welded Rat graffiti, with panels peeled back to reveal snarled conduits and flickering gyro cores. A single red sensor glows faintly in its angular head, casting long shadows over the scorched concrete. Vents periodically cough plumes of ozone-scented vapor, and the surrounding air crackles with heat and tension. Beneath its chassis, crude altars have been fashioned from melted tools and spare parts, offerings twisted into the shape of mech gods. The surrounding silence is absolute—no insects, no machines—only the low hum of circuitry that refuses to die.