Sn1p3r187
Carolinian Shaolin Monk
Oh definitely. ill take some time putting it together in a doc. and throw some deets out there
Fauna, Flora, Factions, and Facilities of the Wasteland
- Thread starter PaxVenire
- Start date
Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
I don’t have a document written up or anything, but I’ve had an idea for a fire-worshipping raider tribe/cult for a while now. I like the idea of post-apocalyptic societies/religions arising from radically misinterpreted aspects of the pre-war world, so these guys would model themselves after pre-war firefighters. Though of course, they’d believe these ancient “Fire Men” were gods that once walked the earth, whom eventually burned the world down as punishment for not properly worshipping fire, subsequently abandoning humanity for some fiery underworld.
They’d believe that Fire Men created humanity out of ash, and when we die, our remains must be burnt to ash or else our soul will remain trapped forever. As such, they have a habit of ritualistically burning corpses of fallen comrades, innocents, and even enemies they consider worthy of the afterlife. Self-immolation is considered to be among the most honorable things a person can do, an honor that they gleefully extend to human sacrifices captured in raids.
Other than that, they’d worship firefighter paraphernalia (hats, extinguishers, axes, etc), regard the ruins of fire hydrants, fire trucks, and firehouses as holy sites (especially firehouses, which they believe to quite literally be former houses of the gods), and would believe in a bunch of esoteric nonsense, like thinking that doors are blasphemous (they’ve seen one too many “Do Not Block Fire Exit” signs).
I call them the Order of the Fire Chief, solely because I once saw a sign above a fire extinguisher that read “Do Not Remove By Order of Fire Chief” and thought it sounded cool. It follows the same naming convention used by Arefu and Novac, naming themselves after a faded sign. Naturally, their leader would be called the Fire Chief.
They’d believe that Fire Men created humanity out of ash, and when we die, our remains must be burnt to ash or else our soul will remain trapped forever. As such, they have a habit of ritualistically burning corpses of fallen comrades, innocents, and even enemies they consider worthy of the afterlife. Self-immolation is considered to be among the most honorable things a person can do, an honor that they gleefully extend to human sacrifices captured in raids.
Other than that, they’d worship firefighter paraphernalia (hats, extinguishers, axes, etc), regard the ruins of fire hydrants, fire trucks, and firehouses as holy sites (especially firehouses, which they believe to quite literally be former houses of the gods), and would believe in a bunch of esoteric nonsense, like thinking that doors are blasphemous (they’ve seen one too many “Do Not Block Fire Exit” signs).
I call them the Order of the Fire Chief, solely because I once saw a sign above a fire extinguisher that read “Do Not Remove By Order of Fire Chief” and thought it sounded cool. It follows the same naming convention used by Arefu and Novac, naming themselves after a faded sign. Naturally, their leader would be called the Fire Chief.
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
This is a neat tribe concept, I also like when tribes are formed from misinterpretations. If I might add onto it, perhaps their “knowledge” of what firefighters did comes from a surviving copy of the novel Fahrenheit 451 which they interpret as nonfictional.
This is a really dope detail.
Also really cool.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
I'd avoid pop-culture misinterpretations. The Kings being the exception that proves the rule.
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
I think it depends on the way you use pop culture. Using the Kings as an example since you brought it up, they talk like Elvis, dress like Elvis, dance like Elvis, but don’t even know the guy’s name. Talking to the King about his gang’s history, he mentions he just found Holotapes of some guy and fucked with his vibe. It’s stupid, but their faction is still compelling aside. Similarly, perhaps this tribe doesn’t name drop Fahrenheit 451 all the time, nor bash you over the head with the fact that it’s one of the inspirations their culture derives from, but rather talking to the Fire Chief about their history will reveal that book was amongst where the tribe gained their knowledge.
I kinda like this idea of a community that interprets the pre-war world's obsession with consumerism as a form of worship. Like they believe that material possessions hold spiritual significance, resulting in a community focused on hoarding and gathering relics of the past.
Edit: Or a group of wastelanders whom comes across a stash of old comic books, which they misinterpret the superhuman abilities of the superheroes as real historical figures and create a new religion around them, with each hero representing a different aspect of some divinity.
Edit: Or a group of wastelanders whom comes across a stash of old comic books, which they misinterpret the superhuman abilities of the superheroes as real historical figures and create a new religion around them, with each hero representing a different aspect of some divinity.
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Iprovidelittlepianos
Vault Senior Citizen
Thanks, and I like the Fahrenheit 451 idea (I’m sure my idea was subconsciously inspired by that book anyway) except that it almost gives them too much of a justification for their religion, if that makes sense. Like, I’d rather that the original founders took serious leaps in logic while crafting their belief system, like seeing the word “firemen” in a book or something and assuming it literally meant “men of fire” and then letting their imaginations run wild, then they’d extrapolate that the firemen must’ve been responsible for everything looking all burnt down and destroyed, and so on.
Anyway, it’s not the most fleshed out idea, I just wanted to come up with a raider cult like the Vipers were gonna be, one that you could transplant to pretty much any location in the setting because firefighters are universal.
It's amazing how your idea could link to a tiny thing in Fallout 3.
There's a pre-war poster with a fireman that asks "Where will you be when the holocaust comes?" that has a nuke explosion in the distance. If I were a tribal that worshipped firemen based on pre-war stuff, it wouldn't take much for me to see that poster and think they caused the apocalypse.
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
Despite being one of the most controversial additions to the Fallout lore, tribal shit is super fun to read and write about.
Vault Dweller Donny
Explorer of the wastes
For your rewrite of Fallout 3, I think having a major storyline for Talon Company could be cool. Talon Company is vying for control of the Capital Wasteland, They are battling and defeating Raider Tribes, and absorbing warriors from conquered Tribes into their ranks, Commander Jabsco views himself as some military dictator,
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
@Post-War Tribal
Some mutant ideas for Montana to accompany the fanastic Mutolark and Whooper:
Grizzly Beast
Grizzly Beasts are skinny mutated Grizzly Bears who've shrunken in size, growing only to the size of an adult human, but rapidly evolved a unique defense mechanism: back spikes made of sharp protruding bones to ward off attacks. They like to eat small rodents and fish as well as mutfruit and black hawthorn berries. Very territorial.
Spindler
Spindlers are large Black Widow Spiders. They grow to the size of radroaches, which is coincidentally one of their favorite meals. They're known as Spindlers for their unique back pattern which looks like a spindle and of course their silk which some tribes use to incorporate into their clothing.
Some mutant ideas for Montana to accompany the fanastic Mutolark and Whooper:
Grizzly Beast
Grizzly Beasts are skinny mutated Grizzly Bears who've shrunken in size, growing only to the size of an adult human, but rapidly evolved a unique defense mechanism: back spikes made of sharp protruding bones to ward off attacks. They like to eat small rodents and fish as well as mutfruit and black hawthorn berries. Very territorial.
Spindler
Spindlers are large Black Widow Spiders. They grow to the size of radroaches, which is coincidentally one of their favorite meals. They're known as Spindlers for their unique back pattern which looks like a spindle and of course their silk which some tribes use to incorporate into their clothing.
Looking good! Really digging the Spindler concept. Also the Griz' being smaller kinda reminds me of a Japanese bear attack story I heard a while back. I've been busy in rl the past couple of days. But I should be getting more time to write the next couple of days time.
Yossarrion
It Wandered In From the Wastes
This is all well and good, but is the deathclaw still top of the food chain as it rightfully should be?
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
I would imagine so.
I'm working on a list(also) of potential creatures.
I've thought about introducing a variant of the Deathclaw that is unique to the region but I haven't really fed the thought any further than that.
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Yossarrion
It Wandered In From the Wastes
Good, scorchbeasts are cringe
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
I think in terms of a new mutated creature, they're actually pretty cool. I know a lot of people just equate them to Skyrim dragons and I suppose it's true, but I think they could be really cool enemies if tweaked a bit. What I would do is:
- Shrink them down to the size of New Vegas' Cazadores. Scorch Beasts are based off the Pygmy Bat, which are fruit eaters. I'd imagine there are no fruit trees big enough to sustain it's size in the post-apocalypse. Even if they are insect eaters in lore, I'd argue they're still too big compared to the size of the mutated insects of the wastes who could escape them easily.
- Remove the Scorched aspect from the creature, rename it something like Screech Beast. I personally don't care much for the Scorched Plague and hate how it just magically apparates Scorched when it attacks you. I do like it's main attack of just screaming at you though, thus Screech Beast.
- Make them nocturnal. Would make them much scarier, only coming out in the dark.
Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Concept I came up with talking to @The Dutch Ghost about his Texas setting.
Space Apes
Houston, the Drowned City, haunt of salvagers, fishermen, and masked merchants from the haunted lands of N'awlins. Peaking out of the endless mire are steel and stone skeletons, gothic and art deco corpses of the Old World. The denizens of the Drowned City make their homes and camps in these towering islands, but be warned - if you see a campfire burning bright in the night in one of these ruins, its tender may not be human.
Not far away from Houston was the United States Space Administration's headquarters, center of American starfaring for over a century. On its grounds was a large colony of chimpanzees, raised from the earliest days of space travel for testing. The colony has been maintained, both for space-related testing and more general experimentation. Following the war, a troop of chimps escaped. In a world nearly devoid of humans, they were able to survive by scavenging. They migrated to the ruins of Houston and have been there ever since.
The chimps are clearly not the same as wild, pre-War chimps. For one thing, they tend to stand on their hind legs a lot more often. For another, they use tools with some proficiency albeit rudimentary ones - spears, clubs, hammers. Tools in need of fine motor skill are largely beyond them, but salty scavengers will swear up and down that they've seen some of the wiser ones toting shot-guns. They do build fires, though not in any complex way - they usually just gather a pile of dried vines and garbage, and then repeatedly smash a power cell or microfusion cell until it explodes.
They seem capable of planning, setting up ambushes for unweary humans. They do not seem to have speech, mostly screeching at each other and humans, but a keen observer may note subtle movements of their hands. They have queer cultural customs, setting up shrines to apparently random objects - cigarette machines, Mr. Jangles dolls, Cat's Paw magazines. The apes leave 'valuable' objects (broken glass, distinctive rocks, energy cells) at these shrines in adoration, and will viciously defend them from any human interloper. Elderly chimps will come to these shrines and wait for death, leading to an accumulation of skeletons and mummies. The oldest and most elaborated of these shrines often center around objects bearing the distinctive seal of the USSA (much to the chagrin of the Signal-Listeners).
How exactly these chimps have taken a step up on the evolutionary scale is unclear. It would seem obvious that radiation played some role. Many speculate that there were pre-War experiments to boost their intelligence so they could be used for labor. Perhaps these are unholy human-ape hybrids, a warrior species of humanzees to destroy the ChiComs. More boring commentators postulate that their modest intelligence simply came as a result of selective pressures of living in a testing facility, and the accumulation of community memory thanks to the gift of sign language, allowing chimpanzees to build an actual culture.
These are speculations for the ivory tower set, however. Those humans who dwell in the Drowned City know Space Chimps only as an implacable enemy, savages with no desire to ever be at peace, and maneaters to boot. Indeed, the chimps have no compunction about eating men, though men are more than happy to return the favor - the chimps are not human, afterall. The chimps are valued as curios, jesters and colosseum fighters. The masked voodoo traders put the greatest value on chimps, paying top dollar for a live one to be exported back to the menageries of Louisiana warlords; though they're more than happy to by their hides, paws, or meat instead.
Conflict is never-ending between the humans and apes. As more salvagers and fishermen come to the Drowned City, the number of chimps has dwindled. Their eventual extinction looks to be a certainty, unless some benevolent wastelander manages to decipher their crude hand-gestures.
Space Apes
Houston, the Drowned City, haunt of salvagers, fishermen, and masked merchants from the haunted lands of N'awlins. Peaking out of the endless mire are steel and stone skeletons, gothic and art deco corpses of the Old World. The denizens of the Drowned City make their homes and camps in these towering islands, but be warned - if you see a campfire burning bright in the night in one of these ruins, its tender may not be human.
Not far away from Houston was the United States Space Administration's headquarters, center of American starfaring for over a century. On its grounds was a large colony of chimpanzees, raised from the earliest days of space travel for testing. The colony has been maintained, both for space-related testing and more general experimentation. Following the war, a troop of chimps escaped. In a world nearly devoid of humans, they were able to survive by scavenging. They migrated to the ruins of Houston and have been there ever since.
The chimps are clearly not the same as wild, pre-War chimps. For one thing, they tend to stand on their hind legs a lot more often. For another, they use tools with some proficiency albeit rudimentary ones - spears, clubs, hammers. Tools in need of fine motor skill are largely beyond them, but salty scavengers will swear up and down that they've seen some of the wiser ones toting shot-guns. They do build fires, though not in any complex way - they usually just gather a pile of dried vines and garbage, and then repeatedly smash a power cell or microfusion cell until it explodes.
They seem capable of planning, setting up ambushes for unweary humans. They do not seem to have speech, mostly screeching at each other and humans, but a keen observer may note subtle movements of their hands. They have queer cultural customs, setting up shrines to apparently random objects - cigarette machines, Mr. Jangles dolls, Cat's Paw magazines. The apes leave 'valuable' objects (broken glass, distinctive rocks, energy cells) at these shrines in adoration, and will viciously defend them from any human interloper. Elderly chimps will come to these shrines and wait for death, leading to an accumulation of skeletons and mummies. The oldest and most elaborated of these shrines often center around objects bearing the distinctive seal of the USSA (much to the chagrin of the Signal-Listeners).
How exactly these chimps have taken a step up on the evolutionary scale is unclear. It would seem obvious that radiation played some role. Many speculate that there were pre-War experiments to boost their intelligence so they could be used for labor. Perhaps these are unholy human-ape hybrids, a warrior species of humanzees to destroy the ChiComs. More boring commentators postulate that their modest intelligence simply came as a result of selective pressures of living in a testing facility, and the accumulation of community memory thanks to the gift of sign language, allowing chimpanzees to build an actual culture.
These are speculations for the ivory tower set, however. Those humans who dwell in the Drowned City know Space Chimps only as an implacable enemy, savages with no desire to ever be at peace, and maneaters to boot. Indeed, the chimps have no compunction about eating men, though men are more than happy to return the favor - the chimps are not human, afterall. The chimps are valued as curios, jesters and colosseum fighters. The masked voodoo traders put the greatest value on chimps, paying top dollar for a live one to be exported back to the menageries of Louisiana warlords; though they're more than happy to by their hides, paws, or meat instead.
Conflict is never-ending between the humans and apes. As more salvagers and fishermen come to the Drowned City, the number of chimps has dwindled. Their eventual extinction looks to be a certainty, unless some benevolent wastelander manages to decipher their crude hand-gestures.
PaxVenire
Vault Dweller
As a mega fan of Planet of the Apes, love it
FlukeboxHero
Bethesda Level IQ
I love all of this!
- This is a way to bring in the shishkebab ("Sword of the Old Gods" or "Sword of Fahrenheit")
- Potential Special Perks and Titles:
- Ashes to Ashes: Because of your cooperation with the Order of the Fire Chief, you have learned how to use ash to hide your self from unfriendly eyes. (New crafting recipe, if that's your thing; or a flat bonus to sneak)
- Forced Entry: You've learned the no barrier can stop the Order. (Can use axes to get through locked doors, or bonus to damaging locked doors?)
- First Responder: I don't the way you could get this, but maybe you could craft smoke alarms to distract enemies?
- Quenched: You have snuffed out the Order of the Fire Chief. (Increased DR against Fire)