THE YEAR WAS 2000

The Stagecoach Lot is a band of vagrants— outcasts and holdouts scouring a warming Earth for the last dregs of safety and comfort and joyous, guiltless existence. Even outside of smoggy cities, their home is being suffocated beneath the weight of an ever-growing machine infestation as if SHE, MOTHER EARTH, is the invader to the hive that hasn't always been.

Strong as their belief in their dear MOTHER to hold on just a little while longer is, it will never be enough to keep HER from one day being utterly consumed by disease and machinery. They will merely follow HER into the Beyond, when the time comes— trading one EARTH for ANOTHER.

All that the Lot asks of itself in the face of the oncoming heat death is to choose love, kindness and security— a safety in numbers beyond just that of a physical kind. Community is cherished and sought-after; no Vagabond goes it alone, even to explore a new Haunt and see to it that it is not yet touched by the Machine-Death.

Night-watches are maintained in pairs and a pair of eyes always stands opposite to another. Strangers and other bands of holdouts are welcomed with open paws and initially wary eyes despite their warm reception. Enemies are chased en masse, fled from, kept at limb's reach and watched from afar. The scent of sulfur and smoke raises alarm, and nature's cool breath is met with reverence and joy for as long as it can last. A Haunt never lasts longer than a few moons, for fear of expending all that SHE can manage to offer them all at once; but, they will always inevitably return to a known one, secure in knowing what SHE can spare for them. Not a droplet of water goes to waste, not a scrap of meat or bone— all returns to MOTHER, even in their own death, to nourish what little SHE has left.