Raider’s Camp

Raider’s Camp
Wasteland Outpost – Unaligned

Beyond the last solid line of @The Perimeter Watch , where barricades crumble into scattered gunposts and the wilds swallow the road, the @Raider’s Camp spreads like a disease. It isn’t one place—it’s a sprawl of ruin stitched together with blood and bone: shattered overpasses turned into sniper nests, bombed-out motels doubling as slaughter pens, scrapyards where rusted engines are welded into kill-machines. Here, the air is thick with propane fumes and the stench of charred meat.

The Raiders who haunt this zone are too erratic for the Gear Rats, too wild for the Syndicate, too stupid—or too proud—to bend knee to any banner. They live for motion and mayhem, swarming in spike-covered war rigs, sunburnt skin painted in crude sigils of blood and ash. Every convoy is a mobile altar to destruction, its wheels wrapped in chains, its grills studded with the skulls of those who failed to outrun them. Their leaders—scarred brutes like @Furnace Faraday, @Glitch, @Inferno Iris, @Ironclad Krell, or @Skullbreaker Kael—rule through fear, betrayal, and a constant need to prove they’re the meanest thing still breathing.

The Perimeter Watch hits them when they can, but large offensives are rare—every push into Raider territory risks a counter-swarm that could breach the city’s edge. Inside New Vance, “Raider” is a curse. Out here, it’s survival, stripped of law, loyalty, or reason. And when the night burns red over the horizon, the message is clear enough without words: they’re hungry again.

Current State of the Camp. The Raider sprawl isn’t static—it shifts weekly as war rigs drag palisades and scrap to new choke points. Two semi-permanent nodes anchor the zone: Overpass Hive (stacked cars welded into a tiered sniper roost) and Fuelbone Yard (a butchered refinery lot with drum-racks and improvised stills). Between them runs a gauntlet of nailbeds, wire-whips, and rolling barricades that the Raiders call the Teeth. Shambler herds are “surfed” into the Teeth at dusk—flare pistols and loudhailers steer them toward Perimeter Watch lines to exhaust defenders before the real raids begin.

Perimeter Watch vs. Counter-Swarm. The Perimeter Watch has adopted a cut-and-scatter doctrine: tripline mines to splinter war packs, then fast hook squads to peel bikes from their convoys. When counter-swarms threaten the city edge, Watch captains call in Solar Guardians for radiant screens at pre-marked kill alleys. [Kara Solis, currently a member of the Solar Guardians,] pioneered Sunhook Runs—heliostat flashes that blind spotters while hand-cranked igniters torch spike barriers. It works—until night falls. Raiders retaliate with magnesium flares and mirrored scrap shields; at full dark they push in silence, engines idling downhill to glide through the smoke.

Hydro Hegemony’s Siphon War. A buried feeder to the Clearwater Vaults skirts Raider ground. Every Copper Sermon week (see Radio Silence Zone), pressure drops by 3–5%. Hydro Hegemony blames illegal taps hidden in wreck heaps; the Raiders claim “water is the wild’s.” [Gideon Rake, currently with Hydro Hegemony,] launched the Blue-Quiet Drags—armored valve teams with rope comms and riot pikes—only to lose two crews to chained shambler drives and burning tires. Since then, Hegemony runs decoy tankers to bait raids while leak teams reseat valves under foam cover. The Raiders answer with Thirst Nights, coordinated hits on ration queues at the edge wards to force the city to negotiate.

Shadow Syndicate’s Black-Route Compact (Broken, Again). The Shadow Syndicate buys safe passage across Raider ground with bribes—gasoline, morphine, and powdered proteins—then posts Black Ledger bounties on crews who break terms. It half-works. [Marius Vale, currently with the Shadow Syndicate,] tried a Black-Route Compact: marked corridors changing nightly via chalk-ciphers on mile stones. Glitch cracked the cipher twice and turned couriers into bait for ambushes; the Compact collapsed after the Motel Nine Butchery (eight bonded runners executed, receipts nailed to doorframes with piston rods). The Syndicate now fields eraser teams to wipe false marks and hires ex-Raiders as counter-ambush scouts—trust paid in food and dental work, trust lost with a rumor.

Gear Rats: Salvage vs. Scalp. The Gear Rats want wreck metal, copper, and intact axles—everything the Raiders mount into kill-machines. [Graft “Rat-King” Calder, currently a Gear Rats foreman,] offered a Scrap-for-Silence truce: Rats take dead corroded stock; Raiders keep live rigs and weapons. Ironclad Krell flipped the table and took a Rat crew’s thumbs as “toll.” Since then, Rats operate at dawn with wooden jigs and hand winches to avoid electronic signatures. They wear tin “rattle tags” on belts; if they go quiet, a nearby Rat hammer crew charges in with pry bars. Fights with Furnace Faraday’s fuel-gang at the Fuelbone Yard are routine—steel vs. oil, each claiming the other steals the city’s survival.

Solar Fire vs. Raider Smoke. The Solar Guardians torch shamblers and barricades alike when the Perimeter calls; Raiders paint rigs with matte soot to break the mirrored glare and hang chain-curtains to scatter flame. Inferno Iris is infamous for smoke-lure tactics—she lights tires upwind of a sweep, then hits the squad’s flank with Molotov bikes while Skullbreaker Kael rams the line. Guardians now seed approaches with dumb igniters (friction-fuse jars and paper maps) to keep their timing when radios are jammed, and they travel with foam monks—two-person hose teams trained to smother burning rigs before the gas tanks cook off.

Raider Politics (Why They Don’t Unite)

  • Furnace Faraday controls fuel and punishes deserters by chaining them to radiator grates—alive.

  • Glitch runs the comm-hijack crews, spiking signals, replaying Watch orders, and faking Ledger stamps.

  • Inferno Iris leads torch-riders: fast, high-casualty raids to keep everyone afraid.

  • Ironclad Krell builds the armored spearheads out of refrigerator doors and rhino bars.

  • Skullbreaker Kael favors ritual duels and random cruelty to cull “soft” recruits.
    Any alliance lasts only as long as a shared target. The moment tribute flows thin, leaders maul each other’s camps—fuel seized, lieutenants poached, prisoners swapped for tires.

Recent Notables (last 6–8 months)

  • “Char Day” — A daytime push against the Teeth ended when Kara Solis used angled mirrors to bounce a four-block flash into Overpass Hive, detonating two gas bowsers; Glitch retaliated by replaying Perimeter withdrawal orders over loudhailers, almost opening a gap.

  • **The Valve Massacre — A Hegemony drag found eight leak techs head-down in a sump, throats cut, ration tokens spilled into the trench like scales. Blue-Quiet teams now travel with pike cages and leather gorgets.

  • Market of Knives — The Syndicate staged a hostage swap at the Motel Nine; Marius Vale double-booked two Raider bands to turn them on each other. It worked until Ironclad Krell drove straight through the lobby with a plow-truck, killing three bonded clerks and torching the ledger tent.

  • Rattle-Run — Rat-King Calder led a dawn salvage sprint under a rain tarp; Rats pulled a full spool of intact copper from a collapsed billboard. Krell’s crew ambushed the tail; three Rats lost, but the spool reached a tram depot and restored two blocks of Undernet fans.

Shamblers as Weapons. Raiders pen herds in chain corrals baited with carrion. At moonrise they open one side and ride the panic toward floodgates or ration lines, letting the dead soak bullets before the bikes strike. Solar Guardians counter with stasis minutes logged by Kara Solis—predictable lulls when herds falter—timing torch runs to burn corridors between the living and the dead. The tactic saves lives, but it makes the Raiders’ leaders paranoid; Shamblers that don’t obey spook their riders, and fear makes them sloppy.

Drugs & Disease. The stimulant Spark has entrenched here; Raiders swear it “keeps the screams out.” Shadow Syndicate chemists say the current cut includes coolant scraped from old chiller coils and a glittering dust that looks like chrysal filament. People who chew it complain of metallic taste and nosebleeds by dawn. Hegemony med-techs warn that Spark users “lose track” mid-raid—eyes glaze, hands shake in sync. No one agrees on what that means; everyone agrees Spark keeps killing the ones it doesn’t enthrall.

Why Tension Endures

  • Perimeter Watch needs the Raiders contained to keep the wards sleeping at night.

  • Solar Guardians need predictable fire-lanes; Raiders thrive on chaos and night pushes.

  • Hydro Hegemony must protect pressure and purity; Raiders see water as tribute and leverage.

  • Shadow Syndicate requires stable corridors and honored markers; Raiders loot the signs and the signers.

  • Gear Rats need safe salvage; Raiders need the same metal for war rigs.
    Each faction’s survival logic collides with the Raiders’ appetite. No treaty can hold because the Camp’s economy is predation: take fuel, take water, take fear—and ride.

Rumors

  • A NV-series drum stamped with biohazard glyphs changed hands at Fuelbone Yard—payment to Furnace Faraday from an unknown broker. The drum sloshed.

  • Glitch supposedly captured a bonded typewriter from a Syndicate clerk and now uses it to forge perfect Black Ledger receipts—except the commas are wrong in the same way, a tell for anyone who was there.

  • A water tanker seized at dusk had ration tokens melted into its hull, then welded over; Hegemony enforcers read it as a declaration of permanent war.

  • Someone—Raiders say Inferno Iris, others whisper a foreign crew—has been teaching riot pikes to sing, striking hull plates in rhythms that panic Shamblers faster than flares.