These groups are the highly mobile, predatory, and materialistic survivors who dominate the ruins of cities and trade routes.
Necessity Over Morality: Their prime value is utility. If it cannot be used, sold, or taken by force, it is worthless. Morality is a luxury they cannot afford.
The Law of the Strongest: Leadership is based on brute strength, ruthlessness, and the ability to provide for the gang through raids and successful salvage. Weakness is purged.
The Cult of the Machine: They fetishize the remnants of the Old World, particularly working vehicles, heavy weaponry, and power armor. A working engine is a holy relic.
Trade is Hostile: They view all transactions—even peaceful ones—as a zero-sum game. The goal is to take maximum profit, even if it means crippling the other party.
Their combat is opportunistic, brutal, and highly mechanized.
Weapons: They favor jury-rigged firearms that are high-damage but prone to jamming (sawed-off shotguns, modified assault rifles). Melee weapons are highly customized and vicious: rebar maces, chain-wrapped fists, and knives made from broken glass and metal shards.
Tactics: They use shock and awe. They attack in noisy, heavily armed vehicles (often spiked or armored cars), relying on speed, intimidation, and coordinated fire to overwhelm a target before they can mount a defense. Their armor is patchwork: road signs, tires, scrap metal bolted directly onto leather or muscle.
"The Wall of Fire": Using flares, burning oil, or improvised explosives to create panic and separate a target group from their defenses.
To achieve total dominance over a regional resource or territory. Their dream is not to rebuild, but to establish a warlord kingdom where the flow of clean water, refined fuel, or reliable Old World tech is entirely under their violent control. They want to be the reason people stay inside after sundown.
Rust Red, Tar Black, and Faded Yellow (the color of old, oxidized warning signs). The color of decay and danger.
A mix of stale sweat, burnt oil, diesel fumes, and old leather, often masked poorly by cheap, acrid tobacco smoke or a thin layer of cleaning solvent and metal dust.
Scavenger names emphasize menace, occupation, and the brutal reality of their existence.
Functional/Occupational: Gear-Head, Patch, The Welder, Shunt, Rat, Pipe-Fist.
Descriptive/Brutal: Sledge, Scar, Grinder, Tooth, Rictus, Jaw.
Title/Prefix: Road-Dog Max, The Cutter Val, Warlord Vex.
Vehicle-Based: Diesel, Spark, Rotor, Hubcap.
These groups live in the wilderness, far from the toxic ruins, forming new cultures based on nature, resourcefulness, and a spiritual connection to the world as it is now.
Self-Sufficiency and Community: They believe everything they need must be created or grown by their own hands. They despise dependency on scavenged goods. The community's survival is the individual's survival.
Respect for the Old Ways: They hold onto fragments of pre-apocalypse knowledge—whether genuine or misunderstood—as sacred scripture. They also highly value an understanding of the new, dangerous flora and fauna.
Harmony with the New World: They often view the environmental changes (mutations, strange plants, clean water sources) as guidance from a new, harsh spirit of the world. Waste is anathema.
Their combat is guerilla, quiet, and precise. They use the environment as their weapon.
Weapons: They rely on silent, handcrafted weapons: composite bows, sharpened bone-tipped spears, slings, and traps. Their few firearms are old, meticulously maintained single-shot rifles, used only when absolutely necessary to conserve scarce ammunition.
Tactics: They use ambush, poison, and superior knowledge of the terrain. They rarely seek open battle unless defending their home ground. They favor camouflage, fighting at a distance, and debilitating their enemy with toxins derived from the New World's plants and animals. Their armor is often leather, hide, and tightly woven basketry, prioritizing mobility and silence.
To carve out a permanent, sustainable home. Their dream is to re-establish civilization on a small scale, in harmony with the natural world, without repeating the mistakes of the Old World. They seek to cultivate clean lands, purify water sources, and pass down the skills of genuine survival and craft.
Forest Green, Earth Brown, and the Natural Bone White of scavenged materials and animal skulls. The colors of life and the untainted earth.
A scent of smoke from wood fires, tanned animal hides, and dried herbs (medicinal or cooking). They often use natural oils, mud, or plant-based dyes for camouflage, giving them an earthy, sometimes resinous aroma.
Tribal names are usually earned through a significant deed, reflecting a connection to nature, a personal attribute, or a major life event. Names are fluid and can change as the person evolves.
Nature/Deed-Based: Wolf-Runner, Still-Water, Moss-Gatherer, The Tree-Talker.
Found Object/Attribute: Two-Finger, Shattered-Eye, Maker-of-Rope, Bright-Find.
Abstract/Poetic: Echo, Dusk, The Quiet, Sun-Chaser.
Combination: Finds-The-Way (The Scout), Sings-To-Rain (The Shaman).