The Perimeter Outskirts

Role and Purpose

The Perimeter Outskirts are the ground outside New Vance City where fighting never fully stops. This area sits between the city and the wasteland. Its only job is to keep threats from reaching the streets inside.

The Perimeter Watch controls this ground. They are not a political group. They exist because someone has to stand here. If they fail, the city is exposed.

Everything that comes toward New Vance passes through this area first. Shamblers, raiders, and wild creatures all reach the Outskirts before they reach homes and markets. The Watch is the barrier that keeps those dangers outside.

Ground and Defenses

The land around the city is broken and uneven. Old roads are split by craters. Buildings have collapsed or burned out. Overpasses hang in pieces or lie smashed across streets.

There are no clean walls. The Watch uses whatever is still standing. Concrete slabs, wrecked cars, cargo containers, and fallen towers are stacked into rough barricades. Some sections have real walls with firing steps. Others are shallow trenches backed by scrap.

Nothing stays finished. Barricades are repaired almost every day. Materials include welded cars, bent fencing, sheet metal, sandbags, barbed wire, and armor stripped from ruined machines.

Lights and sensors are mounted on towers made from scaffolds and scrap. Power comes from generators, solar feeds, or stolen grid lines. The lights fail often. When they go out, the Watch relies on flares, spotters, and gunfire.

Zones and Patrols

The Outskirts are split into numbered sections. Each section has a small post where orders are passed and supplies are tracked. Some sections face raiders. Others face open wasteland or shambler paths.

Patrol routes change based on where attacks are happening. When fighting increases in one area, that section is marked for extra ammunition and people. These areas are known to the Watch as bad ground.

The Perimeter Watch

The Watch is made up of former soldiers, ex-security workers, scavengers, and civilians who chose to stay and fight. Many come from nearby districts and have seen what happens when defenses fail. Some joined after losing family during past breaches.

The Watch is not well paid. Supplies are limited. People sleep in tight bunks behind barricades or inside old checkpoints. They stay because the work matters.

They do not control water, power, or trade. They do not take bribes. Their job is simple: keep the dead and the raiders out.

Daily Life

Life here is measured in bullets, working weapons, and people who will cover you when it matters. Coffee is traded and shared. Small habits keep people steady. Some units mark the wall for each night survived. Others raise a short drink for the dead or trade a joke before patrol.

Rank exists, but it means little without skill. People follow those who know how to keep others alive. Anyone who steals or abuses power is forced out fast.

Rotations are long and tiring. Some people last years. Others burn out in months and ask to leave. The Watch tries to move units between quiet and dangerous areas, but there are never enough people.

Threats

Shamblers are the most common danger. Some come alone. Others arrive in groups drawn by noise or movement. The Watch tries to spot them early and thin them out before they reach the barricades. Bodies must be burned and cleared, or they block movement and draw more infected.

Raiders are smarter and harder to predict. They probe for weak spots, ambush patrols, and try to slip teams past the line. Large raids use vehicles and armored scrap. When this happens, the Watch may call for outside support, but most fights stay close and brutal.

Other dangers include unstable ground, old minefields, mutant animals, and toxic weather from the wasteland. Silent Walker sightings are rare. When they happen, patrols tighten, rules change, and no one goes out alone.

Daily Operations

Mornings are for checking damage, counting ammunition, and fixing defenses. Day patrols push outward to clear nearby ruins. Evenings increase watch shifts. Nights are the hardest, when shamblers move more and raiders test the line.

Supplies never stop moving. The Watch needs food, fuel, medicine, parts, and ammunition. Convoys are always targets. Every delivery is treated as a risk.

Politics and Morale

All major factions depend on the Outskirts holding. None of them control it. The Watch can ask for help when things go bad, but they often get pulled into faction disputes they cannot resolve.

Morale shifts between dark humor and quiet fear. Everyone knows that if the line breaks in more than one place, the city may not recover. Some sections have fallen before without warning. The only sign was panic spreading inward.

People in the Watch talk about death without ceremony. They know why they are here. They stay because if they leave, someone else will have to stand in their place.