New Vance City

Once part of a sprawling Gear Rat refinery network, the Toxic Fume Pits are now a caustic scar in the Chem Zone—a toxic lowland of ruptured coolant chambers, collapsed silos, and waste trenches too deep to measure. During the Collapse, chemical vats chain-reacted in a superheated cascade that scorched the land and cracked the very bedrock, creating this volatile death trap. Now, the pits belch a thick, shimmering fume that ignites skin and corrodes bone, forcing even Gear Rats to mark it "unsalvageable." Those who enter unprotected rarely return whole—if they return at all. Crystal Wretches thrive in the acrid muck, feeding on irradiated sludge, while gas-bloated shamblers wander in slow, silent loops. Rumors swirl of old-world prototype tech buried in the deeper pits, but few dare test their luck. The Toxic Fume Pits are not just deadly—they're alive with heat, madness, and the memory of chemical apocalypse.

The landscape is a nightmare of industrial ruin. Gnarled piping juts from the ground like fossilized serpents, dribbling acidic ichor into neon-bright cesspools. The terrain undulates unnaturally, warped by pressure ruptures and chemical decay—concrete flexes like muscle, and steel has melted into unnatural waves. Visibility is ruined by a low-hanging haze of green and violet mist that ripples with heat distortion and smells like burning teeth. Pools of bubbling sludge glimmer with iridescent skins, occasionally flaring into spontaneous blue fire. Collapsed scaffolding forms skeletal bridges across the pits, their frames half-melted and draped in biofilm. Mutated plant life—slick, translucent stalks that hiss and retract from noise—lines the periphery. Through it all, shadows move: swollen figures with gas-puffed limbs, their outlines trembling in the vapor. The Toxic Fume Pits aren’t just corroded—they’re cursed.