The Coffin Club Presents

Decades after the last great war, the planet is still bleeding and battered. Less than a century ago, there was travel on and off the surface thanks to a space elevator. There was innovation, progress, plenty. Things were better, once. Now, the planet is fallen. Corporate arcologies dot the wasteland, seething against shortages and logistics. Hardscrabble towns crawl into their niches, and Union Crawlers dance the sands to keep themselves running. The world is on a slow path to ruin.

Says who, though?

Who writes the history books, who tells the stories the loudest? The planet is hurt; the oceans are polluted, the beanstalk has fallen, low-orbit is crowned with shrapnel and trash. Before, only a handful had plenty, progress only for those who could pay, innovation for the interests of the few.

The war wasn’t good. New ways forward are more achievable than they used to be. Both things are true.

Off on an island in the oil-slick seas, a corporate work prison is going to take their chances on a better life, see if they can’t walk to a better future.

Before you walk, you need to crawl. This is the story of how the mech pilots of the Bluebottle Union Crawler guided it across the continent, through dangers familiar and profoundly strange.

CHARACTERS

Sophie as call sign “COUNTESS” (she/her) the Soldier.

Appearance: Military jacket, dark skin, vitiligo over right eye.

Motto: “Duty burns bright.”

Keepsake: Virtue beads.

Background: Mercenary.

Bastion as call sign “FACS” (they/them) the Engineer.

Appearance: Tablet face/head, boring droid body.

Motto: “Those who have a “why” can bear any “how”.”

Keepsake: Thumb-drive.

Background: Semi-legal brainscan.

Lavender as call sign “HAM” (she/her) the Scout.

Appearance: Lanky, colorful, pig mask.

Motto: “Feel the fear and do it anyway.”

Keepsake: Stuffed alligator.

Background: Entertainer.

Grint as call sign “HAYWIRE” (he/him) the Hacker.

Appearance: Flashy, grimy, dazzle camo fashion, augmented.

Motto: “One life, one shot, take it.”

Keepsake: “Super Cool” sketchbook drawings of Cyborg Parts.

Background: Tech-head.

Salvage Union is an ongoing campaign in Salvage Union by Panayiotis Lines and Aled Lawlor. It is also played in Follow by Ben Robbins and Drink My Sweat by Dora Rogers.

It is also a sequel to our 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars campaign, though you can listen to this with no prior knowledge.

Content warnings include, but are not limited to: mech violence, prisons, dehumanization/depersonalization, mind control/perception editing, explorations of capitalist power dynamics, sex work, eroticism found in conflict/struggle, overt/persistent references to sexuality/eroticism, body modification/references to amputation, doomsday weapons, coercive/unfair power dynamics, handler/hound exploitation and themes from 3:16.

EPISODES

Construction of the Bluebottle

Follow / Session Zero / Drink My Sweat

Saltlick

Part One, Part Two.

Floodplain

Part One, Two, Three and Four.

Aspirate

Salvage Union was inspired by:

  • Turn A Gundam.
  • Friends at the Table’s Divine Cycle. I’m not gonna pretend it, and FATT, are not foundational texts to this. It’d be deeply disingenuous.
  • The Imperial Radch Trilogy and other books by Ann Leckie.
  • The Locked Tomb series by Tamsyn Muir.
  • The Masquerade series by Seth Dickinson.
  • The Dead Space game series.
  • The Lost Planet game series.
  • 1000XRESIST.
  • Warframe.
  • Sondheim’s “Into the Woods”.
  • Portal and Portal 2.
  • Mothership: Over/Under and other live-play mass-player games.
  • “Jess have you been reading online trans literature again” YOU BET YOUR ASS I HAVE, THIS IS THE SEASON WHERE I THINK ABOUT MECHSPLOITATION! To be less jokey: the expression of desire and asking for things within trans literature and processing where our lives go and what they’re worth within those spaces because it’s more digestible in smaller circles than the wider world.
  • Stabbing Westward, KMFDM and Bad Religion.
  • The nature of sequels and franchises and how they’re currently treated in mainstream media.
  • The experience of running 3:16 in 2024 and then living into 2026. What resonates, what I’d do differently, and what I wish the world would do differently.
  • The fact that at the end of the day, what we have on the ground are each other, no matter how much they want to take that away from us.