Post-Apocalyptic

I have always liked the magical "after the ancient empire fell" worlds of Final Fantasy and other Japanese games and shows. They have beautiful forests, shining medieval style cities, and wandering monsters. COmpare to the burnt wastelands of American post-apocalyptic worlds. These barren wastelands are completely unrealistic, if you look at places hit by superweapons/toxins in the real world.

Sites where dioxin has spilled have regrown, even if it killed many animals when it spilled. Chernobyl is a forest with wolves and owls prowling overgrown schools and soccer stadiums.
Then the biggie: Hiroshima. Looking at Hiroshima today, you cannot tell it got nuked, which is probably why the Japanese understand the truth that life goes on.

OK, so nukes are not a good lifecleanser long-term. Radiation doesn't make monsters, so if you want a world with monsters and old tech, whats a writer to do? Easy, get creative with the cause. OK, a world where trench warfare stretches on huge fronts, until one side invents a new poison gas. However, this stuff reacts with another poison gas, which no one expects. The strange substance created gets into the environment, twisting animals and plants, and the resulting mess led to the modern world of nomads and cities walled to keep out toxic creatures. Kinda close to Girl Genius, though.

A sci-fi world, where reality cracking weapons are used is another way to mix up post-apocalyptic fiction. Reality crackings lets us go full magitech mode. We can have biotech knights, mutant wizards, and robots fighting alongside and against each other. I know, kinda silly, but I'm just tired of the laziness. Evil robots and nuclear war are sorta overdone, after all.