Duvoch

"Most folk don't want to think about where we came from - how young this city is. Empires with hundreds of years on Duvoch fell to the trappings of time, and it's pure arrogant spite that keeps the Sovereign City protected. Well. That, and the fuck-off huge defense turret you and I call the Citadel.   "After a world-wide war ended with the Silence, the land left behind was discarded as a wasteland. Nobody even bothered to name it until refugees and those desperate enough to suffer radiation poisoning made their homes here. Matter a fact, you should know the Espirillano - those folk you lot like to call Draugrlanders, as though they were born from the scabs of this dead land - they call it Tierra de la Vida Neuva. Hell of a mouthful, that. When the refugees from the Scandanavian Imperialism made their way over, they started to call the place Valhalla. Nowadays most folk just call it the Draugrlands, but that's colonizer horseshit. The land ain't been dead for centuries.   "But that's the way, innit? No land ever stays dead. People began inhabiting the less desolate parts of the California Islands ever since they figured out that sliver of countryside broken off from the mainland proper wasn't as irradiated as the rest. Thank the ocean for that, I'd wager. And now, 50 years back, a bunch of upstarts decided to make their stand here against the Combine. Found the Citadel and made it the center of an autonomous city-state. Duvoch, the Sovereign City, founded on the blood and sweat of people who sought liberty from the rest of the world."