The Desert Rangers (Team Alpha and Recruits, Team Echo and Recruits, Team November and Recruits) - Major Antagonists
The Patriarch and the Buchanan Family - Other Recurring Characters
—— Factions and Settlements ——
Arizona and Nevada - California
Colorado (Colorado Springs, The Plains Gangs, Other Factions and Characters in Colorado)
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The Monster Army
In General
A now-reformed gang that theme themselves after Hollywood monsters using old and handmade-costumes and masks. They are currently led by Flab the Inhaler and control the Bizarre — a strip mall built in the ruins of a parking building and an important trade hub in Colorado.
- Becoming the Mask: The idea behind the gang's weird horror gimmick, according to a recording Team November can find in their old base, was that once you put a mask on, you could do anything; it's the Ring of Gyges or G.I.F.T. idea, applied to real life through a plastic mask. They're well aware it's just a dime store novelty item, a kid's toy; the point is making the wearer, and others, realize the monster is inside the mask.
- Brutal Honesty: The best way to talk to Flab. He appreciates honesty, and will even share a good-natured laugh when you point out he's fat as fuck.
- Fat and Proud: Flab the Inhaler is delighted to be fat, seeing it as his greatest accomplishment; few people are influential enough in the Wasteland to get to grow fat, after all.
- Gang of Hats: They are monster-themed — specifically, old-school monster horror movies. Apparently the idea behind the gang was that putting the mask on lets one be free to be a real monster.
- Hazy-Feel Turn: From one of the most bloodthirsty gangs in Colorado to relatively peaceful gang that keeps one of the most important trade hubs running.
- Minor Major Character: The Monster Army had some serious chops back in the day, and fighting them was how Saul made his bones and he started his legend; Flab the Inhaler tells some stories of the bloodshed they used to get into that beggar what any non-Savage Council gang can manage in the modern era. But, because they were a stretch goal in the Kickstarter, they don't really have any importance on the greater plot.
- Vestigial Empire: Flab the Inhaler claims that the Monster Army was a major power in Colorado that controlled a lot of land before they were defeated by the Patriarch and the Hundred Families. Now they only control the Bizarre, and need Team November's help to deal with their issues. They can even get wiped out by one of Brygo's goons, if you help him out.
The Gippers
In General
A cult composed of cowboy wannabes that venerate Ronald Reagan as the "God-President" of the former-United States. They're responsible for the production and exportation of Oil across Colorado.
- Ave Machina: The Reagan AI they worship is, well, an AI, something you can immediately pick up on.
- Cargo Cult: They venerate an (glitchy) AI (loosely) based on Reagan they found on one of the many government bunkers which happened to have a collection of Reagan's movies.
- Cult: They venerate Ronald Reagan as a deity and even have a sisterhood of Reagan's "wives" that takes care of an AI based on him. They all receive the name Nancy — the name of Reagan's real-life wife.
- Gang of Hats: They style themselves after American conservatism of the Reagan stripe, focused on his movies as cowboys and gunslingers.
- Humongous Mecha: An immobile turret version. A Reagan statue outside their compound can be controlled by the AI, and will fight to defend them with powerful Eye Beams.
- Marriage to a God: How the Nancy priesthood/sisterhood works out in practice. The Reagan AI thinks of all of them as his wives.
- Trailers Always Lie: Promotional art for the game showed a Gipper cowboy alongside a Godfisher, Payaso, and a Scar Collector, clearly indicating the cult as part of Liberty's Savage Council; in-game, they're in the middle of defending themselves from a massive Godfisher push, and are not aligned to the Savage Council.
- Ungrateful Bastards: Towards both the Rangers and Valor Buchahan as they plan to manipulate both of them to get everything they need and then betray both of them by forcing Valor to become a meat body for their AI God, something they know will piss off the Rangers as the reason they helped them in the first place was to be allowed to take Valor alive to his father.
The Machine Commune
In General
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted. While other A.I.s have concluded to destroy humanity, the Machine Commune by and large does not: Only 1% of them want to do that.
- Body Backup Drive: The Machine Intelligence keeps backups of the personalities of robots in case independent units are destroyed.
- Do Androids Dream?: Invoked by one of the robots, who altered his code that he might dream, and uses the dreams to paint murals within the commune.
- Good Counterpart: To the Cochise AI, whom they opposed.
- The Remnant: SAL is the only one left from the Space Shuttle Atlantis, because the humans on the shuttle ran out of food in orbit.
The Iron Thunder Arapaho
In General
The Arapaho are doing surprisingly well for themselves these days; the Iron Thunder Arapaho is a combination of The Clan and a small-time MegaCorp, being a group of Arapaho who work primarily by servicing vehicles or delivering goods. This makes them highly knowledgeable about vehicles, road conditions, and general travel,
- Badass Native:
- Non-combat example. The Arapaho are the best mechanics in Colorado, and also brave souls willing to deliver goods in the Death World that is the Wasteland. It's a risky business; the very first choice Team November must make after leaving Colorado Springs is between saving an innocent family from Erastus Dorsey, or defending an Iron Thunder caravan shipping Power Armor that's under attack by the Scar Collectors.
- Note that not all of them are this; they're perfectly happy to hire non-Arapaho help, and in fact, the quest the Iron Thunder ask of Team November is their assistance in hiring the Caucasian Randy Gett, who's a good enough mechanic that they want to hire him.
- Big Badass Rig: The function they provide to Colorado is that they both maintain and drive these. They're so good at it that Gideon Reyes offers to hire them for Ranger HQ as a reward if Team November assists him.
- Hard Truckin': The Arapaho's bread and butter.
- Lampshade Hanging: Lug Nuts, the Arapaho merchant who randomly appears near Colorado Springs, will poke gentle fun at the player's use of Kiss Ass to try and win favor with him; because the Iron Thunder Arapaho don't actually have a Reputation bar, there's no reward for doing this beyond them repairing the Kodiak for free, so all he does is compliment the character on their "thorough ass-kissing."
- Proud Merchant Race: Basically what they've become, except they focus exclusively on mechanics and deliveries.
- Unstoppable Mailman: Something like a general-purpose, non-government version of this in their deliveries.
Steeltown
In General
The primary industrial manufacturing plant in Colorado, Steeltown is built on the ruins of old Pueblo. A close ally of the Patriarch, Steeltown produces most of the weapons, armour, vehicles and mechs needed for Colorado Springs to maintain order and civilization.
Run as a factory town, the current leader of Steeltown is Abigail Markham, an exile from the Detroit Industryplex who has transformed Steeltown into a model of productivity and efficiency after being given the job by the Patriarch.
Team November gets involved when the Patriarch asks them to investigate why Steeltown's shipping schedules have been dramatically slipping lately, and to protect them against a raiding party sent by Liberty to put siege to the town.
- Achilles' Heel: The Steeltown workers have cybernetic implants in their working outfits that make them very vulnerable to high-powered shocks. The Disruption weapons you are given early on in the DLC allows you to stun and disable them relatively quickly without killing them, and Called Shots to their spines will similarly disable them in one hit.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot: One of Steeltown's main problems is that the Computation Engine Markham created to oversee Steeltown is breaking down and giving counterproductive and harmful orders, which is causing the whole system to fail. It turns out this is intentional on the part of the Synths enslaved inside it, who are mucking up everything in the hope that the Patriarch would send in the Rangers and that they would learn the truth of the place.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Markham values efficiency over people and doesn't care about the state of the factory floor, while promoting research into how to increase productivity by gamifying the workers' downtime. And then there's the part where she deceived and enslaved Synths in her Computation Engine and wants the Rangers to brainwash them to fix the problem.
- Crippling Overspecialization: Markham has become so dependent on the Computation Engine that she refuses to shut it down or work without it, even as it becomes clear that it's been messing up Steeltown. If you free the Synths enslaved in it without making a deal between them and Markham, Steeltown collapses in the aftermath.
- Fighting from the Inside: The reason the Computation Engine is ruining Steeltown is because of the Synths enslaved inside it are doing this to fight back. If called out on it they will respond that it was the only option they had to fight their enslavement.
- Hate Sink: Chief of Security Ludlow is made out to be almost as unsympathetic as possible, beating, blackmailing and extorting the workforce for things like bathroom privileges and using lethal weapons against strikers. He is one of the main reasons for why things on the floor have gotten so out of control, and if you decide to arrest and pin everything on him Markham will accept it unquestionably. Even the soundtrack gets into it; siding with Ludlow nets you an extremely sarcastic cover of Harry Nilsson's "best friend" as the theme for the ensuing fight. The Computation Engine admits it hired Ludlow because the entry tests showed he was almost completely unsuitable for the position.
- Improvised Weapon: The striking workers are all equipped with manufacturing equipment jury-rigged to work as weapons. Depending on when you choose to enter Steeltown, this equipment can be just as dangerous as some of the end-tier weapons found elsewhere in Colorado.
- Just Like Robin Hood: The Ghosts, who are made up of former or fired employees of Steeltown. Most of the refugees still outside the walls like the Ghosts because they help the refugees.
- Mecha-Mooks: Steeltown uses robots to protect the factory from problems internal or external, which are equipped with Disruption weapons.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Markham is not remotely concerned with the overall happiness and well-being of Steeltown's workers, and will happily allow procedures that increase "efficiency" while ruining the lives of the people working. That said, she has a hard line at anything that causes the workers to actively rebel, thus when an open tyrant like Ludlow starts abusing the workers she actively supports his removal.
- Rebel Leader: Steeltown has two of them: Selene Crow, the leader of the workers' strike and Blue, the leader of the Ghost Gang. Making the two work together is the only way to successfully change things for the better for Steeltown's workers, because Selene lacks the expertise to run Steeltown and Blue lacks pull with the workers.
- The Siege: One of the reasons things are so bad in Steeltown is because a raiding party of Liberty's is on their way to Steeltown to attack it, and the stress of the inevitable siege is making things even worse. No matter who you support, you will inevitably be called in to defend Steeltown later, and if you refuse or take too long the raiding party will destroy the town and give you the worst possible ending.
- Slave Liberation: Selene Crow was a former slave who led a revolt and killed her master before escaping to Steeltown, and uses a lot of slave liberation rhetoric in the workers' struggle for better conditions. Like Ludlow she was hired to her position by the rebelling Computation Engine, who saw it as inevitable she'd start trouble once she was exposed to the conditions on the floor.
- We Used to Be Friends: Markham and Blue originally built Steeltown together, but the two fell apart over the idea of the Computational Engine.
- What the Hell, Hero?: Steeltown is made up of several factions who have obvious and very irreconcilable interests, which makes it almost inevitable you will step on someone's toes: Selene Crow and the workers get upset if you kill them or side with Ludlow and Markham against them, Ludlow gets upset if you don't kill workers or side with the workers against him, and Markham gets upset if you kill workers or side with them against her. Blue and the Ghosts similarly get upset if you kill any workers. Blue also want to free the Synths in the Computational Engine and gets upset if you don't do this. The Patriarch also gets upset if you sided against Markham and if you admit to freeing the Synths, though telling him Markham was using Synths to run Steeltown will disarm the situation slightly.
The Cult of the Holy Detonation
In General
A surprisingly nice band of mutants who worship the Holy Detonation, a massive pre-War science experiment in Cheyenne Mountain's abandoned military base, which seems to be an experiment in using time-manipulation to pause a nuclear blast mid-explosion. This both produces unusual radiation and causes unique mutations in those exposed to it, and so a religion has formed.
The head of the religion is the Proteus, a massive, disgusting blob of multiple melted mutant followers. Defying every single stereotype about mutants, cultists, and mutant cultists in post-apocalyptic fiction, the horrifying monstrosity that is the Proteus and its followers are perfectly peaceful and friendly.
Unfortunately, by the time Team November reaches them, they've entered into a religious civil war, and the *other* cult is happy to live down to the Always Chaotic Evil stereotype.
- Always Chaotic Evil: They're mutant cultists worshiping a living explosion capable of killing everyone in Colorado. Obviously they're bad guys!... right? Wrong. Only the Nucleists are like this... and in a further subversion, can be reconciled to the main group.
- Apocalypse Cult:
- Of two distinctive flavors! The peaceful, main faction of the Cult, the Primordialists, just want to worship the Holy Detonation, peacefully mutate, merge with the Proteus, and join in the dream of never being alone again; the Nucleists believe that the Holy Detonation should not be shared with outsiders, and further want to direct their own mutations; the core group disagrees with this.
- On the path where the party kills Deuterium, the Proteus turns against them by trying to free the Holy Detonation, but even then, it's a Downplayed Trope; it's clear that the cult is made up of misguided religious folk, and that they don't understand that they're going to blow up everyone.
- Bait-and-Switch: A bunch of mutants in a cult? That's the most stereotypical possible evil group in post-apocalyptic fiction!... but many of them are quite friendly, and even the more violent faction can be brought to the negotiating table, albeit at high cost.
- Beauty Equals Goodness: Averted. The Proteus, which is just nasty to look at, is friendly and good, and so are the members of its cult- in fact, the first one you meet is a proto-drool who's very nice and polite. Sister Iridium looks prettier, despite her own strangeness, but is very much an enemy of Team November.
- Body of Bodies: The Proteus very clearly has multiple heads sticking out of it.
- Call-Back: One of the cultists is the mother of Billy, the dumb youngster from the Gippers. She's enraged if she finds out that Team November encouraged the obviously unprepared youngster to go search for her, fearing he died... and she's right, since the Hard Heads get him if he leaves the compound.
- Cargo Cult: Played straight *and* averted, bizarrely. The Holy Detonation is, in fact, a pre-War science experiment, and nothing more. However, the Proteus is well aware of this, and doesn't get angry if Team November points this out. They instead simply reply that most gods started out as men, and the Detonation, at least, has a more impressive pedigree than that." It was born as a star is born, and what man can say that?"
- Deceptive Disciple: Sister Polyp is one. She not only actively asks Team November to murder her predecessor, Father Bezoar, and eventually betraying the Proteus if Bezoar lives and replaces her, forcing a Final Boss fight.
- Despair Event Horizon: If you shut off the Holy Detonation after killing the Proteus, the entire cult will be Driven to Suicide and are all dead by the time you get back to the Observation Level. Even if you keep the Detonation going, the loss of the Proteus and the cult leaders will make the entire cult despair unless you were able to reconciliate the Nucleists with the Primordialists.
- Elaborate Underground Base: Justified, it's Cheyenne Mountain, and is a literal military bunker.
- The Fundamentalist:
- Abbot Deuterium, the leader of the Nucleists. Even making him listen to you in the first place requires you to be heavily irradiated because he won't believe the words of someone not drenched in 'holy radiation'. Only the promise of being able to join Iridium can mollify him, and even then it requires the permanent loss of one of your characters to a Trial by Ordeal.
- Sister Polyp is revealed as one of these if you manage to convince the Proteus and Deuterium to join forces and share the power of the Holy Detonation with Colorado peacefully. Incensed that the Proteus no longer plans to unshackle the Detonation, she pulls a Hijacking Cthulhu and infuses the Proteus with her own rage and fanaticism.
- The Grotesque: The entire main cult works like a remarkably cheerful version of this trope; the Proteus, in particular, despite looking like a very ugly member of the Nuclear Mutant club, is a wise and benevolent leader, and completely honest with Team November.
- Mind Hive: The Proteus is this, referring to itself as a "them", and the Primordialists think this is the ultimate fate that awaits them- of never being alone again, happy with each other.
- Our Angels Are Different: One enemy type the Nucleists use are Radiation Angels, and their counterpart to the Proteus, Sister Iridium, is an unusually powerfully one of these. They are glowing avatars of Holy Radiation, and most of the Nucleists work seems to be an attempt to figure out a reliable way to turn into these.
- Renegade Splinter Faction: The Nucleists, who make up the DLC's enemies.
- Talkative Loon: The Radiation Angels all speak in nonsensical phrases full of Perfectly Cromulent Words. You can encounter three in the Nucleists' base that try to talk with you: If your main character has a high degree of Glow, they are able to perfectly understand and communicate with them on their level, earning you their accolades and a rare item from each; otherwise simply picking sentences full of random gibberish will mollify them enough that they tolerate your presence.
- Theme Naming: After radiation, or the results thereof.
- The Unintelligible: The Proteus cannot communicate in a way non-Cult members understand; speakers translate for it. While Team November can accuse the speakers of being The Man Behind the Man, pretending to "speak" for the Proteus, the arguments it has with its speakers and the efforts Sister Polyp goes to in order to hide what she's doing from the Proteus suggest that the Proteus really is talking.
- Zombie Infectee: Sort of. Many of the cult members are becoming what they call "proto-Drools"; they're not as savage or mindless as normal drools, but it definitely interferes with their speech, and eventually degrades their personality. Holy Detonation devotees refer to his as "glorious devolution" and view it as a precursor to merging with the Proteus. The party member Team November sacrifices to make peace with all the factions in the DLC will turn into one of these.
