[headquarters]

Your characters put bits and pieces of information togeteher as stated in the NDP thread and come up with a few chilling insights to th esituation :

AS you may well have gathered there is something really ,horribly wrong .The nuclear exchange might be the reason - but others could also be relevant .

Weather : California is experiencing weather anomalies the summer of 2019 (gametime). temperatures drop rapidly by as much as 2 C* a week in a steady decline -it just keeps dropping . The shift in temperatures means that several things occur.

the Pacific spawns several storms that batter the coast and much of the inland with unprecedented strength. In the interval between the sudden and freak storms , enormous fog banks build out to sea ,and cover large portions of the state in a greyish soup that is so thick that some places visibility is down to 15-30 feet max.

The sky is darkened by soot and ashes that form a haze over the days ,blocking sunlight out to a degree.

RADSTORMS:

with the massive amount of nebulized debris and dirt from the thousands of tons of ground and buildings that have been hit by Nuclear Weapons ,radioactive fallout is abundant.generally such fallout loose its radioactivity over time , but it is still dangerous to the health if exposed to it .The winds blow the dust here and there .Finding safe areas is troublesome.Sometimes the freak weather will create massive duststorms -so-called RAD STORMS - that can completely inundate an area in finely ground dust and ash before pewtering out .Leaving the fallout behind of course .

As time progress ,people tend to die more from the agressive forms of cancer produced by such radiation , and less by the radiation poisoning that is more common earlier on .The dust was hotter then.
being caught in the open by a rad storm creates extremely dangerous hazards to health in the near future for the unlucky souls.

Travel outside is not recommended.If nescessary , the best NBC protection available should be worn.

Flora/fauna: the beaches are awash with dead fish of all kinds as the effects of radiation and other types of pollution take effect . Some places birds litteraly drop dead out of the sky in droves .Many animals move east and north east to get away from the danger of radiated dust that swirl around and slowly withers trees,grass,crops .Livestock is killed by hungry people all over .As people loose control over the land ,animals take it over whereever they can .Packs of dogs -and hybrid wolfdogs - come snooping down from the mountains .Hungry as most everything is ,they will eat their way through whatever livestock,supplies or individuals they can wrap their canines around .Some well armed people welcome them.They havent had a decent bite of meat in weeks.

Population: The population of California before the disasterous summer 2019 was app. 5 000 000. Noone have the exact numbers as the chaos and the war displaced hundreds of thousands of people and destroyed records that were being rebuilt. A large portion of this figure are people desperately trying to get away - refugees. Most have no clear destination as there is little or no news about where it might be safe .They run from day to day .Trying to avoid the radiation (unfortunately the wind carries the rad dust around for hundreds and thousands of miles) , to avoid the famine and find food and water.Not easy when whatever you find that isnt sealed might be polluted by rad dust .

( there is a general desperation when it comes to food as eveyone can see that much of crops are destroyed by the radioactive dust that coats them and makes it wither .Also the steady fall in temperatures means that growth decreases or stops another thing is that the haze from a million fires lit by nuclear blasts means that photosyntesis is hampered ).

Mayhem: Many run for other reasons as well. The breakdown of control and command means that there is noone to keep military units from taking what they want from those who cannot defend it .Many turn to marauding as they grow desperate or when they realize that they will not be punished.Roving bands of former military or militia personell,armed and desperate citizens,all sorts of psychos who welcome the new climate ,all in all several thousand groups of armed people or individuals are out to take what they want and stay alive at the expence of anyone they can take .
The people that have banded together for self defense in small communes etc are no less dangerous to strangers - they are hostile in most cases out of fear and necessity.

Diseases spread in such circumstances ,and some thought a thing of centuries past reappear. Cholera,Dysentria,fevers,and others.

All the while your characters are regaining their strenght and chewing down corned beef cans and prewar whiskey in your hideouts.Wondering about what it is REALLY like out there.