Oof, that takes 'degrading' to a new level there.

It's just occurred to me that that Mechanical Paradise could be where Shenzhen is ('Silicon Valley' of China). Considering Pangu Biology is north of a large mountain range (Himilayas?); west-ish of the Red River region (south-east China Red River?); and north-west of Redstone Settlement (Mount Danxia, Renhua County?); Mechanical Paradise being Shenzhen would make sense as Shenzhen is literally just south of Mount Danxia and on the coast.

It would probably be quite easy for people in this apocalyptic world to become religious, as most seem to lack proper education and have seen first-hand the powers Awakened have. It'd be easy to fall into the whole god-of-the-gaps thing, where things seem so unexplainable from their perspective that believing in one/several deities makes more sense than considering trying to find evidence to the contrary. Even with Jiang having had the benefits of a full curriculum of Old World education, it's impressive that she's still holds on to her atheism in light of the power Awakened have and presence she felt in the church. It goes in line with her character being staunchly evidence-driven.

My god, I hope not. That'd ruin the story for me.

I've been picturing it as China. The mountains in the south could be the Himilayas, the Red River is in east China, and now we have what seemed to be Russians from the North. It almost seemed guaranteed to be China. A quick search brought 'Renhua County' up for 'Redstone Park' in China, so maybe that's still an option?

For future readers, it's like those from the Life Ritual Church from Pangu Biology. Heart attacks and such.

*lampooned

Unlike with LoM, I haven't felt like there are high stakes involved here yet. I'm feeling like something 'big' needs to happen to shake up things.

If they are both the same kind of Awakened from the 'Last Man' Kalendaria, then why does fake 'Father' have this physical control ability whereas the real 'Father' doesn't?

The first potential boon this apocalyptic world has over the old one.

Which religions haven't had "perverted and violent practices" in some way shape or form?

As you bring all that up, I'm curious: I assume you're referring to all several thousand religions that exist, and not just one or a small handful of specific religions, yes? Also, your second point (that you failed to finish) — "religion in most cases is very beneficial" — does exactly the same thing you're complaining about with the other poster: you're literally asserting something without evidence! Ultimately, you didn't refute anything. You said a whole lot of nothing, and then parotted the same argument back in the end.

Like a glove!

I get the distinct impression that the only people chiming in with "bye teeth" are /iamverysmart folks who conveniently forget we're in a fictional setting with genetics/eugenics and mutants... why fret over it?

Same kind of post-apocalyptic setting; same hostile region called the 'Ashlands'; strong slaver faction presence; and now the 'Skeleton' race? I've said it before, but this is basically sounding more and more like Kenshi, that pc game from a few years ago... in a good way.

How do you think any weapon was created and used upon it's first inception? The primitive people that created the first bow and arrow tens of thousands of years ago didn't know how to use it until after it was created, right? Here we're talking about a world that has these weapons already in it, where a moving weapon has only a handful of moving parts. Even chimps and orangutans in our world likely could! Besides, in this story the humans are actively using those weapons, so it's not a stretch to imagine the Heartless inferring how to use them via observation. tl;dr : Yes, you CAN learn to use weapons by yourself.