Six months ago you were a normal person, living an average, if slightly dull life. Never paying too much attention to the news, you didn't hear about The Comet until a week before you heard it. The Earth rang that day, and the ground danced. Every fault line in the world let go while the tsunamis pounded the shores. It rained for forty days, but for uncountable nights, and the sun is still gray and sickly. You've lived a hell, but now, finally, you know you are going to live.

The village has no name; you and the others simply know it as the Valley. The local mountains kept away most of the rain, and most of the sea water that fell for weeks. Crops are growing sickly, but growing. Food, an all too precious luxury is on its way.

At the high end of the Valley is a weather scarred old mansion that serves as the local seat of government, if you can call it that. Around it is the village made up from whatever rubble could be scavenged. What couldn't be saved had to be built, making an odd hodgepodge of information- and iron-age technology.

The fields lie to the north, the pathetic scratching in the dirt that will feed the Valley. Behind the mansion are rugged, densely forested mountains. Occasionally one sees signs of life in them, passing bands of other survivors. And sometimes those very strangers attack. Food is life. To the northwest is the town you used to live in, a lifetime ago. Not completely destroyed, it is now deserted -- for the most part. The parts that didn't collapse in the quake were flooded, but the city remains. At night lights can be seen... Beyond the city to the north and northeast is the vast inland sea which is only now starting to recede. Although usually no deeper than ten feet the islands it creates are no less isolated.