By Tony Jones, 1991; Dragonyoung inspired by David Ball
Long ago, there was a nuclear war which threw most of the world back into the stone age, from which it has not yet recovered. Most of the worlds people, including the PC's, are primitive tribesmen who live off the fairly blighted countryside. In some cases, such as the PC's Tribe, who live on what was the Russian Steppe (thus their names - Khai, Rei from Andrei, Sha from Natasha, Tor from Piotor and Yana from Illyana), mutation has given people superhuman abilities.
The only surviving remnant of the world before the war is a base in the Urals which was inhabited by a large group of genetically altered soldiers (they have camouflage skin). This survived the war by luck and since then has been slowly expanding underground to meet the needs of its growing population. In the last two hundred years or so, the people in the base have been extending their hold over the countryside around the base, and exterminating the tribes there, seeing them as nothing but useless primitives. To do this they use vectored-thrust VTOL troop carriers armed with flamethrowers and troops in NBC suits.
IT IS VITAL that none of these things are described in terms the players will recognise - the aircraft are Dragons with their four vectoring jet nozzles as legs, which scream as they fly, are mottled green (camouflage) and have a single huge silver eye (mirrored cockpit window). The troops in NBC suits are Dragonyoung, as they come from the belly of the Dragons and have the same mottled green colouring and silver eye as them.
The party will cross the steppes, which are rolling plains with occasional small copses of trees to the Urals, then follow them north to the Dragons lair. As the characters get further away from their home territory the plants and animals in the areas they pass through will get more and more unlike those they know (they have never heard of the shapechanging wolves they meet, for example).