What Is The Setting Of 'Before The Dawn'?

The setting of 'Before the Dawn' is a hauntingly beautiful post-apocalyptic world where humanity clings to survival in scattered enclaves. The story unfolds in the ruins of a once-thriving civilization, now overgrown with mutated flora and prowled by dangerous creatures. The main characters inhabit a fortified city called Lastlight, built atop the remains of an old metropolis. Outside its walls lies the Wastes—a desolate landscape filled with abandoned towns, toxic storms, and hidden relics of the past. Time is deliberately vague, giving the setting a timeless, mythic quality. The atmosphere is thick with melancholy and mystery, as characters uncover fragments of history while struggling against the harsh environment and each other. The blend of sci-fi and fantasy elements creates a unique vibe—think decaying skyscrapers covered in bioluminescent vines, with pockets of advanced technology buried beneath the earth.

'Before the Dawn' crafts its setting like a character itself—alive, evolving, and full of secrets. The core location is the city-state of Lastlight, a marvel of survival engineering. Its towering walls are patched together from scavenged materials, creating a mosaic of steel, concrete, and reclaimed wood. Inside, neon signs powered by geothermal energy cast eerie glows on bustling black markets where people trade everything from pre-collapse tech to monster parts.

Beyond Lastlight, the world is a puzzle of danger and wonder. The Crimson Forest spreads like a bloodstain across the northern wastes, its trees secreting hallucinogenic pollen that drives travelers mad. The Glass Plains to the south are exactly what the name suggests—miles of fused sand from some ancient cataclysm, littered with the shadowy imprints of people who vanished in the blast. Scattered between these landmarks are bunkers, research facilities, and military installations frozen in time, each holding clues about what ended the old world.

The time period is deliberately ambiguous, blending retro-futurism with stone-age pragmatism. Some enclaves wield plasma rifles, others fight with spears. This contrast makes every location feel unpredictable and ripe for discovery. Weather systems behave strangely, with electrical storms that whisper voices from the past. The setting isn’t just a backdrop—it’s the engine driving the plot forward, as characters explore its secrets and fight to carve out a future in its ruins.

Imagine a world where the apocalypse wasn’t just one event, but a slow unraveling—that’s 'Before the Dawn'. The story moves between two key settings: the claustrophobic, faction-ruled city of Lastlight, and the open horrors of the Wastes. Lastlight feels like a pressure cooker, with its stratified society living in stacked districts. The wealthy dwell in the upper levels near the geothermal vents, while the poor scrape by in the subterranean Warrens, where the walls whisper with the echoes of old subway tunnels.

The Wastes are where the setting truly shines. There’s the Dripstone Caves, where stalactites glow with embedded crystals that store memories like organic hard drives. The Rust Delta is a graveyard of half-submerged ships, their hulls converted into floating settlements. Each zone has its own rules, dangers, and bizarre beauty. Time doesn’t flow linearly here; some areas experience 'echo storms' that replay moments from the past like ghostly holograms. The lack of clear seasons adds to the disorientation—just endless variations of decay and regrowth. This isn’t a world you simply observe; it’s one you navigate carefully, where every shadow might hide a new threat or a fragment of the truth about what really happened before the dawn.