NEVADA
Nevada, never very populous before the war, is now even more empty. Irrigation once made semi-arid south Nevada fertile, but without water the land is rapidly returning to desert. The cities have largely been abandoned due to lack of food and clean water. The mountain ranges were home to ranches and drifters, and those that remain are secluded and fortified.
1) NUCLEAR TARGETS
None.
2) ORGANIZED MILITARY FORCES
777th Engineer Utility Company--Warms Springs (45 men)
3) LAS VEGAS
The war: Once the glittering jewel of the desert, this city is now demolished. After EMP knocked out electricity for pumping water, and the chaos removed any chance of it being fixed, Vegas was doomed. The city’s economy wasn’t based on anything useful, and few people were likely to put any resources into keeping the place going. Everybody who could, jumped in their cars and headed out into the desert, where many of them perished in short order as they ran into huge traffic jams out in the middle of nowhere. Those who remained in the city faced the threat of neither food nor water for an extended effort at survival. Once the water ran out in the middle of the hot summer of 1963, the last remains of civil authority pulled out west, leaving the city to the scavengers and die-hards.
The Mafia: The mobsters, rich with material and money, wisely evacuated Las Vegas as the chaos blossomed and moved south to where the water supply was more secure. By late 1962, most of the mobsters and their followers were out of the city. Today, they control the fertile area from Lake Mead down to Lake Mojave and Bullhead City, running it like a feudal state.
Those left behind: After the police with their guns and the Mafia with their money and leadership pulled out, the city was quickly looted by the scavengers. Whiskey and money being the first to go, despite the fact that money was then worthless. The looters wrecked the place in the process, with lots of infighting amongst the rival scavenging groups. The remaining power in the ruins of Las Vegas now is "Sheik" Abdullah X. Shabazz. The Sheik was once a low-level thug in a Vegas crime family. When the mobsters pulled out, he was left to fill the power vacuum. Consolidating all the criminal elements left in the city, he quickly took over, kicked out the scavengers and now rules with a firm if benevolent hand. He has dreams of reopening the casinos one day for the crowds of tourists that he is sure will return. His second-in-command, Randall Flagg, was once his boss, the head of the family that the Sheik worked for. Now he is bitter and plotting revenge against the Sheik. The Sheik has formed a militia of a rag-tag bunch of former Hispanic dish washers and janitors turned soldiers. Most of his soldiers are teenagers, all full of wonder and awe at having the run of this once fabled city. Their weapons are mainly old small arms, civilian mostly, with a few M-14s, one handmade mortar and one .30 cal LMG mounted on a beat-up old civie pickup truck. Shabazz's hangers-on included some smarter types and they have helped him restore some limited electrical power to his palace in the Desert Mirage hotel. The motel is surrounded by sandbags and barbed wire. Frank Sinatra is still in town and he still gives two shows a week at the Stardust, vocal only, of course, but the locals still flock to see him. Despite his best efforts, however, with the lack of steady water and the dwindling supply of food, there is little hope for Shabazz's kingdom. I-15, running through Las Vegas and across the state's lower point, is now a derelict-choked shooting gallery. Gangs of outlaws prey on the scant traffic on the road, avoiding only the areas controlled by the local powers. The largest gang, called the "Nine Hells" and led by a warlord named "Caliban" has been looking to clear out the area of competitors to make way for expansion of "the chosen".
Nellis Air Force Base: The Sheik's followers have also taken over the abandoned Nellis AFB to the north of the city and are currently trying to refurbish some aircraft that were left behind by the military when they left. These include three helicopters--two Huey gunships and a Navy Sea King--and three Nevada Air National Guard A-4 Skyhawks. They have had some success with restoring the planes, but only have one qualified jet pilot in the city. This man, a former Marine and PanAm pilot, is aware of his value to the Sheik and is maneuvering his way into a position of power within the Vegas scene. There are an estimated 150 to 200 of the Sheik's soldiers here now guarding his prizes. To the north of the base, the abandoned underground base beneath Nellis is now home to a group of Neoluddites who have renamed the base "Earthwomb". They basically just sit around and do drugs and wait for the spaceship to return for them.
4) REST OF THE STATE
To the northwest, towards the capital of Carson City and Reno, things are a little better than they are in Vegas. In the wild high desert scrub lands that make up about 90% of the state, most towns, like Ely and Wells, are deserted and looted.
Indian Springs Air Force Base: Abandoned and utterly stripped and looted, having been swamped by refugees and marauders that overran the remaining guards in 1963.
Nellis AFB Test and Bombing Range: Now home to only one soldier, the rest having fallen prey to a rat-borne plague.
Reno: Reno, with some 16,000 people, is a gambling city still run by gangsters and drug dealers. Four crime families control Reno today--the Mordinos, the Wrights, the Bishops, and the Salvatores. The Salvatores control the illegal weapons trade, the Mordinos control drugs, the Bishops deal with prostitution and the pornography industry, while the Wrights try to grab whatever is left. The street violence can be severe in a place like this and lot of the buildings have been burnt down or blasted. The main drag is pretty well cleared of rubble and garbage to allow some peaceful trade. It also serves as a base for the "Slavers Guild", a group that deals in Hispanic slave laborers. Without any police at all, Reno exists in a state of near anarchy, although a street-smart person could do very well here, especially if they found work with one of the crime families.
Jackpot: Jackpot, on the Idaho border, was once a gamblers paradise. Many nature lovers would visit here to experience nature at its best and have a chance to win it big in the casinos. After the bombing stopped, the survivors, the majority of them being citizens of Jackpot, dug in for a long winter. Now Jackpot is a thriving community with a solid work force of 3,000 and plenty of food. Jackpot has survived as a thriving community mainly due to the Sawtooth National Forest (found in Idaho), located fifteen miles east of Jackpot, which is rich in wildlife and has a few clean fresh water streams still running.
Ruth: Home to a growing “pseudo-society” of nearly 1,000 refugees, raiders, and slavers, all from a number of now-emptied towns and cities all over the state. The indistinct leadership of the town is currently converting a massive copper strip-mine on the town’s outskirts (almost five miles wide at its largest point) into a huge, open-air “tent city” for incoming refugees. The copper pit itself lies in the shadow of a great mountain, surrounded by old walls of stucco reinforced with metal plate, razor wire, and even the odd mine or two to keep out marauders.
Nevada Nuclear Test Site: Well-known among the local survivors in southern Nevada are the so-called “Mercury Caves ”, located near Mercury in the heart of the nuclear test site. The caves are said to cover hundreds of miles underground beneath otherwise unassuming desert country. Wild stories abound of hideous, super-powerful creatures with batteries of mutations caused by the radiation of the tests that every now and again find their way out of the caves and into the desert to prey on outlying communities.
Dust Devils: The central Nevada towns of Battle Mountain, Austin and Winnemucca have been recently overrun by a largish marauder gang called the "Dust Devils". This has resulted in large numbers of refugees immigrating eastward to the towns of Elko and Wendover. Population levels in these towns have reached dangerous levels.
Warm Springs Prison: On the same day that the US and Russia were attempting to extinguish each other, the Nevada National Guard 777th Engineer Utility Company was in the southwestern Nevada deserts building transportation bridges over dry river beds. They worked deep in the inhospitable desert valleys, surrounded by a number of survivalist communities. Located directly north of their position on that day was a newly constructed federal prison at Warm Springs. In addition to housing many of the nation's criminals condemned to death, the prison contained light industrial manufacturing facilities. Shortly after the nuclear attack began, the Engineers, seeking shelter, took over the federal prison and expelled the prisoners into the desolate desert to complete their sentences. As the weeks passed, and it became obvious that they were on their own, they invited the nearby survivalist communities down from the mountains to join them and to help them build a new society. Because of each community's suspicions towards one another, times were difficult at first. As time nurtured trust, however, this settlement--which has come to be known as "Ranger Center"--grew to be one of the civilized strongest outposts in the state. Ranger Center even proved powerful enough to repel the bands of rancorous criminals who repeatedly attacked in attempts to reclaim what was once "rightfully theirs." The citizens of Ranger Center, after first believing that they were the only ones who survived the nuclear maelstrom, soon realized that communities beyond the desert's grip had also survived. Because they had such success in constructing a new community, they felt that for the time being it would be unsafe to seek contact with other survivors for fear of loosing what they have built. There are now only 45 members of the company still alive, but there are five times that many residents of the enclave. The base commander is named Whittington.
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