Merkland

Sometime ago, I came across a site somewhere that had, I believe, a map of North America with toggles that allowed one to modify the map based on rising sea levels. The highest setting produced a map whose outlines I liked, because they struck me as a more plausible one for a post-apocalyptic Earth than the one included in the first two editions of Gamma World. This was during the days when Google Plus was still around and someone there – I regret that I cannot recall who – made the map above for me. 

Lest there be any misunderstanding, I have always loved the North America map in Gamma World, particularly the blank version included in the first edition, shown here.

I spent untold hours staring at the Gamma World map, which I hung on my bedroom wall. I felt then, as I do now, that it invited imagination about what lay within its 43.7 km hexes. In the years since, I've regularly contemplated starting up a campaign using a map like this one, whether for Gamma World or some other game I've toyed with a D&D campaign idea I call "Rex Futurus" that transposes the myth of Arthur to post-apocalyptic North America, for example. I find something strangely compelling about a (science) fantasy game set in real world locations that have been altered almost to the point of unrecognizability by a disaster of some kind (whether natural or manmade). 

Like so many of my ideas, it'll probably never go anywhere, but it's fun to dream nonetheless.