Economic route
Trade relationships, supply access and the Coalition’s transport network create a route through economic influence.
Track 3 ready
Original IP · Post-collapse frontier RPG · World bible v1.2
Dead
Barren
A Moon-born soldier is erased from every system and stranded on the Earth his society abandoned.
Creative directionGame designNarrative designWriting
01 · Game overview
Game
overview
Dead Barren is a grounded open-world RPG set on Earth during the third era of the Exo-Genesis universe.
The player is a Moon-born transport soldier serving a minor Earth posting. After seeing Commander Bernard Depore’s private ledger, he is removed from MoonGov’s biometric systems and marked for disposal. His vehicle fails before the execution can be completed. He begins on foot, without a valid identity, trying to reach a fortified travel station and return to LunaTerra.
The route home can be built through trade, armed resistance, institutional infiltration or technical fraud. Each path ties the personal journey to the world’s economy and political conflict.
02 · Lore and backstory
World lore and backstory
Humanity did not leave Earth because it was empty. Governments decided that saving selected populations elsewhere was more achievable than repairing the planet everyone already lived on.
LunaTerra began as a research settlement and became a refuge for political, technical and economic elites. Earth supplied the materials that allowed the Moon to grow. When Venus terraforming began, MoonGov returned for water, metals and fuel. Its stated role was stabilization. Its practical role was keeping launch sites, extraction corridors and supply routes operating.
Most people remained on Earth. Communities rebuilt around farms, wells, repairable vehicles, rail tunnels and defensible roads. The Milk Farmer Coalition connected agricultural settlements through trade. Tingrad survived underground by restoring old technology. Frontier formed around the demand that Earth’s resources remain on Earth. The Murati Bridge incident later divided that movement and produced the more violent Splitters.
LAB represents another answer to collapse. Its researchers believe present-day humans and animals cannot survive the worlds being prepared for them, so adaptation has to be engineered. Their creatures were designed, tested and released through programs financed indirectly by Moon pharmaceutical companies. Depore became the broker between corporate funding, MoonGov logistics and illegal human acquisition.
Towns still raise children, move livestock and hold markets. MoonGov convoys use the same roads. People can condemn extraction and still need goods that arrived through it. The setting grows from these practical contradictions.
03 · Main story
Main story
The Mooner needs to reach a fortified travel station. The destination is established early; the route depends on relationships, information and leverage developed on Earth.
Depore’s edit turns a legal person into an anomaly. At first, erasure protects the Mooner because patrol drones find no matching identity. The first red scan marks a clear transition: Depore has learned that he survived and has entered him into the regional hunt.
Military route
The player can work with both movements until their schism becomes violent, then must decide which former allies to support.
Infiltration route
Evidence, clearances and procedural knowledge let the player move through the institution that erased him.
Technical route
A fabricated identity and regional-cache manipulation provide access while Depore continues the pursuit outside the database.
The conspiracy
Moon pharmaceutical companies need adaptation research for off-world settlement. LAB can perform it but needs equipment, supplies and human subjects. Depore reroutes MoonGov crates as decommissioned stock, takes a cut and arranges disappearances when LAB requests people. Moon Pharma avoids examining how the research is produced. LAB sees only the broker below the corporate chain. Depore is dangerous because he understands the whole transaction.
His soldiers also operate off-book shops that sell stolen equipment for Stock. The player may use those shops for much of the game before discovering that each purchase financed the man who erased him. The economy carries the revelation through a rule that was already useful.
Endings and consequences
Returning to the Moon resolves the immediate objective. The broader outcome depends on promises made along the route. A player who accepts Frontier support, retrieves his family and leaves Earth has adopted the same logic MoonGov uses. Another may remain and join LAB because it offers food, equipment and purpose. The endings follow the player’s relationships and actions instead of correcting them into one approved answer.
Narrative artifact · Dialogue encounter as songA Wasteland ProphecyAn old prophet tries to assign the player a destiny. Hear the encounter and see how it establishes the project’s dialogue tone. ↗
04 · Art direction
Visual direction
The frontier combines North African and Mediterranean building traditions, the material language of the American frontier, and repairs made from whatever survived. The mix is driven by scarcity rather than regional decoration.
Architecture from three material traditions
Whitewashed adobe, stone arches and courtyards sit beside timber porches, corrugated roofs, dead vehicle bodies and salvaged concrete.
Technology at different levels
Horses and patched trucks share roads with MoonGov EV convoys, drones and laser weapons. Neither world treats the encounter as spectacle.
Light and maintenance
Dust, whitewash, rust and faded paint dominate. A generator bulb or clean surface stands out because someone maintained it.
05 · Timeline
Timeline
The first game occupies one era of a longer history. Earlier decisions explain the institutions visible in the present; later eras remain outside this project’s playable scope.
- Era 0 · 1950–1990
Divergence and dependency
Energy geopolitics deepen fossil-fuel dependence. Inertia becomes the root condition for later collapse.
- Era 1 · 1990–2030
Climate stress
Resource conflict and border militarization grow. LunaTerra is proposed publicly as science and privately as fallback.
- Era 2 · 2030–2100
The Great Abandonment
The Moon becomes habitable for selected populations. Earth is mined to finance the Moon and the Venus program.
- Era 3 · 2100–2200
The Dead Barren
MoonGov keeps extraction moving. MFC feeds the frontier. LAB creatures enter the ecology. The game begins here.
- Era 4 · 2200–2300
Rise of Hyperion
The MFC’s logistical power later develops into an urban political order. This city does not yet exist in the game.
- Era 5 · 2300+
Tri-world order
Earth, LunaTerra and Venus carry different versions of the original escape plan and its consequences.
06 · Map and locations
Map and locations
Regions are defined by resources, travel risk and political access. Geography supports the economy and determines why settlements endure.
- The Milk RoadMFC convoys, farms, fuel stops and fast-travel outposts.
- Membrassa ruinsScavenger territories, Murati Bridge evidence and the Embrosa terror.
- Canyon settlementsDefensible towns controlling wells and narrow routes.
- MoonGov corridorExtraction facilities, biometric checkpoints and launch logistics.
- Tingrad entrancesVault towns linked by the underground Rail.
- Oil countryValuable crude pools guarded by Sloogh colonies.
07 · People and culture
People, culture and daily life
The world is meant to feel inhabited between missions. Work, water, speech, clothing, transport and local obligations establish culture before exposition does.
Work and exchange
Farming, convoy protection, repair, salvage and fuel processing organize the week. Noticeboards and conversations refer to jobs that continue without the player.
Water and hospitality
A filled cup can be courtesy, payment or obligation. Bottled mineral water is a luxury; ordinary canteen water is part of survival and trade.
Speech and identity
Frontier speech blends communities that converged after collapse. Moon speech is cleaner and institutionally standardized. “Mooner” carries class resentment before anyone knows the player.
Public memory
Old MoonGov recruitment boards promise life on Venus. Frontier marks and Splitter graffiti contest those promises. Murati Bridge survives through incompatible accounts.
Dress and equipment
Long coats, scarves, canvas, leather and repaired boots respond to dust and travel. Armor uses vehicle panels and reinforced workwear.
Travel
Horses, camels, diesel rail and repaired vehicles coexist. Fuel, heat and safe routes determine which is practical.
Settlements
Courtyards, shaded markets, timber awnings and welded additions show how buildings passed between uses and generations.
Ordinary conflict
A missing animal, altered toll, broken pump or delayed convoy can expose relationships among factions without becoming a speech about politics.
08 · Factions
Factions
Every faction offers a coherent response to collapse. Their beliefs become playable through access, prices, companions, patrols and the work they ask the player to perform.
MoonGov
A technocratic Earth administration protecting extraction and launch infrastructure. Many officers believe triage is the last remaining form of responsibility.
LAB
Experimenters who engineer organisms for hostile futures. Their work is internally rational, materially useful and responsible for every monster in the world.
MFC
The Milk Farmer Coalition runs convoys, outposts, currency and depot ledgers. Reliability has turned a trade network into informal sovereignty.
Frontier
The original Earth Liberation Front demands an end to mining and water extraction. Its local cell favors sabotage with restraint.
The Splitters
The Murati Bridge faction holds collaborators responsible for the extraction system. Their missions accept casualties Frontier refuses.
Tingrad
Vault towns use closed farms, water recycling and restored technology to build self-contained survival beneath the political conflict.
Scavenger crews
Crews claim territories in ruined cities and sell recovered technology. Ownership, reputation and buyer relationships govern the trade.
Settlements and warbands
Independent towns protect wells and routes; raiders live from theft. Neither category is politically uniform or automatically hostile.
09 · Economy and trade
Economy and trade
The currencies expose affiliation and risk. Where money can be spent matters as much as its numerical value.
- MTC · “Cow”
- MFC currency accepted across the wasteland. Its stability comes from food, transport and the coalition’s depot network.
- STK · “Stock”
- MoonGov service tokens paid to laborers and informants. Frontier refuses them, LAB values them, and large purchases can trigger identity checks.
- Water
- Canteen water is common and necessary. Mineral water carries higher healing value and social status.
- Fuel and crude oil
- Fuel powers vehicles, generators, rail and workshops. Oil lakes are valuable harvesting sites with their own creature risk.
- Depore’s shops
- Off-duty soldiers sell advanced gear without identification checks. Using the network quietly finances the central conspiracy.
10 · Core game systems
Core game systems
Systems carry world information and consequence. Survival pressure remains readable and avoids turning travel into constant inventory maintenance.
Biometric checks
Face coverings prevent casual recognition. Formal scans compare the player against a regional cache that changes through the story.
Witnesses and reporting
Hostility follows observed actions and transmitted identification. Escaping unseen prevents a permanent abstract crime score.
Beliefs observe behavior
A Splitter companion reacts when the player spends Stock and recovers trust after witnessing action against MoonGov.
Outposts, horses and vehicles
MFC outposts enable reliable long-distance travel. Horses cover uncertain routes. Vehicles trade fuel and visibility for speed and storage.
Dehydration and weather
Hydration changes slowly enough to shape route planning. Heat pockets and rare storms create location-specific preparation.
Schedules and supply
Convoys, patrols, markets, animal movement and local work continue on schedules that can be interrupted by the player or other conflicts.
11 · Creatures and encounters
Creatures and encounter design
Every creature has a LAB origin, habitat, behavior and gameplay purpose. Each one is a deliberate adaptation whose consequences escaped the facility that produced it.
Sloogh
Organic hydrocarbon detectors that congregate around crude oil. They remain passive until the resource is approached and can ignite the entire pool.
Jerboa
Fast, low-health attackers that leap toward the face. Their distraction becomes dangerous when paired with a larger enemy.
Kitmaw
Fennec-derived predators with enlarged sensory organs and erratic lunging movement in canyon country.
Plated Lizard
Frontal armor resists small arms. Joints and the underside create anatomical weak points that reward positioning and ammunition choice.
Hyena Hound
Wild animals remain calm while feeding. Raider-owned variants wear collars and scrap armor that imply a human threat nearby.
Nagabu Beast
A camel-derived hunter capable of pacing vehicles, turning long sightlines into pursuit spaces.
Brute
A failed super-soldier whose remaining insignia can connect an encounter to people taken through Depore’s pipeline.
Embrosa Terror
A location-specific creature that turns one ruined city into a remembered place with its own preparation and folklore.
Manhunt Spider
A rare engineered hunter built around pursuit, tracking and fear rather than repeated ambient combat.
World bible · Design portfolio
A condensed view of the full world bible.
This portfolio selection condenses a longer bible covering history, narrative routes, character identity, factions, economy, language, locations, creatures and living-world rules.
Next world · Blood of Babel →Original concept, worldbuilding, creative direction, game systems and writing by Hamza Trabelsi. Concept imagery includes AI-assisted visual development.