Replacing New America for my Campaign

[WallShadow]

Originally Posted by Enfield

That's a neat idea. The Morrow Project, with all the caches, boltholes and bunkers of various kinds is great for that. It provides useful NPCs and ideas as well. I'm using some of that stuff for the Reductionists too.

I dunno. They would be seriously in the advantage when the ball drops. Instead of contentious racist nutjobs backstabbing each other to get higher up, you'd have a truly dedicated group of somewhat rational nutjobs that is truly focused on their mission and has lots of high tech toys to accomplish it.
Survivors will have plenty to struggle against, without having a "noble evil empire" trying to make the world better in their own design. Now that's scary. Give me racist redneck crackpot conspiracy theory followers to fight anyday.

[Enfield]

Originally Posted by WallShadow

I dunno. They would be seriously in the advantage when the ball drops. Instead of contentious racist nutjobs backstabbing each other to get higher up, you'd have a truly dedicated group of somewhat rational nutjobs that is truly focused on their mission and has lots of high tech toys to accomplish it.
Survivors will have plenty to struggle against, without having a "noble evil empire" trying to make the world better in their own design. Now that's scary. Give me racist redneck crackpot conspiracy theory followers to fight anyday.

Very dangerous indeed. But in a way my scenario requires it. You see, I have a hard time believing that an Infection outbreak, 28 Days Later/Crossed/Crazies style, could defeat human civilization so easily as movies depict. I tend to prefer the old George A. Romero stuff where it is really people defeating one another, but that the plague is a kind of environmental effect.

So the Reductionists make it more likely and they don't even have to physically present themselves to have a reverberating effect on the setting. They just have to foster the plague and then damage infrastructure and agricultre. It does however give the pcs a number of targets of different kinds to fight against from time to time, a set of bad guys not easiy defeated or brought down.

[Raellus]

The video game Farcry 5 features, as its antagonists, a doomsday cult called Project at Eden's Gate (locals call them Peggies) that takes over a county in rural Montana in the run up to the fulfillment of various prophesies in the Book of Revelations. The game came out shortly after the current POTUS took office, generating a fair bit of controversy. Some took the premise/antagonists as a jab at the fundamentalist Christian element in the Alt Right. Others felt that the developers missed an opportunity to say something really relevant (and far more controversial) about the current political climate in America.

Anyway, I can see a group that incorporates elements of millennialism (belief in the End Times/Armageddon and a group of "chosen" people who will be catalysts in bringing about the new age), survivalism/prepping (stockpiling food, fuel, weapons, ammo, etc. in preparation for the prophesied end times), and certain political views becoming a powerful regional force, if unified under a driven, charismatic leader.