The Stormrunners are a Dutch-origin nomadic tribe that roams the ruins and flooded roads of former Western Europe. Born in the wake of the Climate Exodus, they are one of the most resilient and enigmatic mobile cultures to survive the collapse. With roots in lowland survivalism, machine salvage, and ancestral seafaring traditions, the Stormrunners have adapted to a life in motion, guided by the sky and the shifting seasons.
Origins
The Stormrunners descend from displaced communities in the Dutch delta—regions submerged or rendered uninhabitable in the mid-21st century. After the fall of the Western dikes, these groups refused to integrate into static refugee blocks. Instead, they formed caravan convoys that traveled by motor, sail, and amphibious crawler across the fractured map.
Structure
The tribe is divided into "winds," or migratory kinship clusters, each led by a seasoned navigator known as a Wegkapitein (Way Captain). Winds range in size from a few vehicles to massive convoys that stretch across kilometers.
Each wind is autonomous but meets during the Solstice Convergences—twice-yearly tribal gatherings where decisions are made, disputes settled, and stories shared.
Way of Life
The Stormrunners move seasonally, adjusting routes to avoid flooded zones, Veil storms, and regional patrols.
They maintain a barter economy, trading goods and services with outposts, Butcher Shops, and isolated enclaves.
Tents are woven from glimmer tarp and algae sailcloth. Their camps resemble nomadic starfields—glowing, kinetic, and eerily beautiful.
Vehicles include converted agricultural haulers, sand-slick hybrids, and amphibious rigs repurposed from naval wrecks.
Technology
Though not formally educated, Stormrunners are intensely resourceful. Children are taught to repair engines, recode scavenged Veil chips, and interpret weather by sound.
They use:
- Mesh-networked beacons for tribal comms
- Solar and kinetic power arrays
- Ritualized firmware cleansing known as "data saining"
- Old-world sensors and weather satellites hacked into tribal prophecy
Belief & Ritual
The Stormrunners follow a form of animistic techno-paganism. They believe storms are living entities—sometimes vengeful, sometimes guiding. Lightning is seen as a message from the ancestors. Each Wegkapitein carries a bone-soldered weather vane known as the Hemelspreker (Sky-Tongue).
They also revere drowned cities as sacred grave-sites. Some believe the lost voices of the past can still be heard through long-buried data towers.
Relationship with Neo-Europa
Stormrunners view Neo-Europa as both a mythic fortress and a cautionary tale. To most, it is a city of stillness—where people have forgotten how to move with the world. Yet every few seasons, one or two young Stormrunners peel away to chase the city’s lights, dreaming of data, immortality, or flame.
City authorities consider Stormrunners unpredictable but not openly hostile. Some sectors quietly trade with them for biofuel, rare salvage, or tracker-free passage.
Legacy
The Stormrunners have no flag, no territory, and no fixed archives. Their stories are passed through oral code-chants, etched into caravan walls, or encoded in flight patterns of solar kites. They survive not by conquering—but by never standing still.