Mazelton comes from a clan of radiation wizards who harvest the cores of living beings to power their magics, but he's not really in to it.  Not that anybody cares about his opinion when they send entire armies to exterminate his family.  He has to run- from mobs, cannibals, soldiers, sailors, cholera, cattle, thieving sales-monks, starvation, mechanical horrors, vengeful spirits, negotiating your own marriage, and poison of every sort. Fortunately, his not terribly nice family has trained him to survive apocalypses.  A world recovering from the last apocalypse should be easy.