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Commonwealth of Free Cities
Born out of the post-Collapse Revivalist Movement, the Chicago-led Commonwealth of Free Cities is the newest American successor state, committed to the ideals of liberal democracy with the intent of to restoring the old United States.
- Animal Motifs: Crows, for their resourcefulness, intelligence, and being able to hold a grudge like no one else. Their squadron of F-16s are the Crows and their counter-terrorist team has the acronym CROWS.
- Arch-Enemy: The single greatest threat to ever face Victoria, the Commonwealth has made it no secret that they intend to utterly dismantle said nation for their crimes and bring its leaders to Justice. After the humiliation Victoria suffered in its first war with the Commonwealth, the feeling is definitely mutual.
- Badass Boast: Characters associated with the Commonwealth often have the Battle Cry of To the shores of Maine, making their intent to take down the Maine-centered Victoria very clear.
- The Federation: The Commonwealth practices a parliamentary democracy and holds close relations with their neighbors with some holding referenda to join the Commonwealth proper.
- More Dakka: The Commonwealth has a borderline obsession with heavy artillery from land-based howitzers to those mounted on boats. They are used to great effect against Victorian forces who can respond with little more than ineffectual mortar fire if they are in range at all.
- Pragmatic Hero: The CFC is explicitly a coalition of warlord states that have done a Heel–Face Turn to revive America, and is allies with and incorporates other despots, warlords, and bandits. While they are leagues better than Victoria, their hands are not clean and legitimacy is a recurring problem in squaring with the legacy of the old country.
- Schizo Tech: Being in a Scavenger World necessitates an eclectic mix of technology, from a great mix of aircraft ranging from P-51s to F-16s to coal-powered riverboats to the latest renewable power plants provided by foreign aid.
- Superior Successor: One of the Commonwealth's many aims is to avoid the mistakes and fix the flaws of the old United States.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Can't talk about Chicago without talking about deep-dish pizza.
Sara M. Johnson
A veteran of Chicago's war against the neo-Nazis, Sara Johnson rose to prominence as the Mayor of Chicago and oversaw the city's reconstruction. She currently serves as the President of the Commonwealth.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: She and Goldblum are old high school friends, and rarely seen without each other.
- Iron Lady: Sara is a shrewd, calculating politician capable of making bold speeches to push her policies and strong-arming neighbors and rivals.
- My Greatest Failure: Johnson had to do a lot of questionable things as Mayor of Chicago to ensure the city survived, but most of all was hosting the infamous Andrew Division.
- Our Presidents Are Different: President Iron, especially when it comes to facing down Victoria.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Blue to Goldblum's Red. She is more diplomatic and thoughtful, suiting her political skills.
Sara Goldblum
The former leader of the Iron Brigade, Wisconsinite Sara Goldblum is Johnson's most trusted advisor and friend, currently serving as her Assistant Secretary of Defense for Munitions. Hardened into militancy by the chaos of the American Collapse and the horrors inflicted by the "Wisconsin Landwehr", Goldblum seeks nothing less than Victoria's total annihilation.
- Action Mom: She has two daughters named Chaya and Layla, the latter she still enjoys pranking from time to time despite her having grown up.
- Heterosexual Life-Partners: With Johnson, to the point they're often referred to as "The Saras".
- Iron Lady: Goldblum escaped a concentration camp, threw out the Nazis out of Wisconsin, founded a political party, and dedicates herself to destroying Victoria.
- The Lancer: Goldblum is Johnson's hot-headed Number Two.
- Nazi Hunter: She made a name for herself as a guerilla fighter against the Nazis, and looks forward to continuing the fight against Victoria.
- Properly Paranoid: She sleeps with a live claymore mine to deter assassination attempts.
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The Red to Johnson's Blue. She is the more lively and upfront of the Saras.
Ron J. Burns
The Field Commander of the Commonwealth Army, Ron Burns is one of the few surviving officers of the pre-Collapse United States military. Following the fall of the Pacific Republic, he spent 25 years as the nomadic warlord leader of the "Devil Brigade" before settling in Chicago, whereupon he helped the leaders of Wisconsin and Illinois organize a constitutional convention to found the Commonwealth of Free Cities.
- A Father to His Men: Burns has somehow managed to keep his Devil Brigade, formerly the 1-16th Infantry Battalion of the 1st Infantry Division, alive and operational for 40 years.
- Cincinnatus: He publicly declared his intent to step down as President once proper elections could be organized. He followed through.
- Colonel Badass: Downplayed. "Hellfire" Burns built a reputation as a brilliant officer still fighting the good fight long after his comrades had died or gone to ground, but in some (mostly Victorian) circles he is seen as a coward who puts force preservation above all else. Later promoted to General.
- Disaster Scavengers: He and his Devil Brigade used to be a band of this, fighting off Victorians and avoiding Russian airstrikes. They went from town to town, overthrowing petty warlords in exchange for equipment and manpower as well as parts for their precious Old World Equipment.
- Old Soldier: Burns and his battalion came home from an overseas tour to a collapsed nation. He then spent 14 years fighting Victoria alongside the New American Confederation, Cascadia, and the Pacific Republic before spending another 25 as a nomadic warlord.
- Rank Up: Twice; first as the founding President of the Commonwealth, and second as the General Field Commander of the Commonwealth Army.
- Red Baron: "Hellfire" Burns.
- The Strategist: Downplayed. During the Detroit Campaign, he achieved victory over the doctrinally incompetent and technologically inept Victorian Army using legitimate military strategy and tactics, a functioning logistics train, and a handful of priceless pre-Collapse military vehicles.
- What the Hell, Hero?: After the Battle of Detroit, Burns sends out a coded radio message to other military remnants in hiding and receives a response from a former Air Force officer who had F-22s. President Johnson is understandably pissed that he was sitting on these resources without telling anyone.
Stephen Romano
The Commonwealth's Chief of Naval Operations.
- Four-Star Badass: The years of brown-water antipiracy operations have made him skilled combatant.
- Frontline General: Frontline Admiral. He takes personal command of the Commonwealth fleet during the Buffalo Raid and the Battle of Lake Erie.
Daria Franks
The Commanding General of the Commonwealth Air Patrol.
- Anti-Air: She exploits the fact that Victorian F-16s fly in tight formation to devastate them with proximity-fuzed surface-to-air missiles.
- Four-Star Badass: Franks has spent years studying Victorian Air Force doctrine, and understands its doctrinal weaknesses perfectly.
- Heroic BSoD: Her Air Patrol's Heroic Sacrifice in the Detroit Campaign took a lot out of her.
Barack Williams
A young freelance reporter from Detroit assigned to the New Chicago Tribune, recently promoted to battlefield reporter. When he was a child, Victorian soldiers beat him up and did permanent damage to his leg after he tried to stand up for a woman they were harassing.
- Human-Interest Story: His "Dispatches from Detroit" are often filled with interviews from those who weathered the Collapse or escaped Victoria.
- Intrepid Reporter: He's highly resourceful in seeking sources for his stories, forming the Vox Populi to gather and distribute news around the region.
- Named After Somebody Famous: President Barack Obama, who has become a folkloric Arthur figure/King in the Mountain.
Victoria
Originally the Northern Confederation, Victoria was born out of the reactionary "retroculturalist" movement and far-right militias that rose up during the economic crises of the 2020s. Through a series of convoluted schemes and events involving global economic strife, U.S. government incompetence, Russian covert assistance, smuggled nuclear weapons, and revisionist propaganda, Victoria has crafted itself into a thriving totalitarian fascist state in spite of its massively backwards mindset, outdated technology, undereducated populace, and bafflingly nonsensical understanding of military doctrine.
- Achilles' Heel: Ignoring all other traits, logistics - Victoria's armies are explicitly meant to be sustained via living off the land (which, given Victoria's values, amounts to Rape, Pillage, and Burn), so if they are forced to mount offensives where supply trains are a necessity, they will get utterly wrecked once they lose their initial momentum.
- Easy Logistics: While this is not in effect for the quest, Victoria's combat doctrine assumes this as reality — they never establish supply lines on the belief that their soldiers can simply find the needed supplies by living off the land. Predictably, they suffer major logistics issues in protracted campaigns for this very reason.
- The Empire: One of the most powerful polities on the North American continent whose crimes and atrocities are no secret to anyone who has ever interacted with them.
- Elite Mooks: The Crusaders of the Christian Marine Corps are a cut above the rest of the Victorian military. That being said, they are still hamstrung by the issues of Retroculture and not a highly efficient fighting force.
- Fantasy Counterpart Culture: To North Korea - both are culturally and technologically backwards polities that boast of having capabilities to project force far beyond their actual skill level. Both also use intense amounts of slave labor and make claims of self-sufficiency they cannot back, aided by extremely pervasive propaganda and State Sec. And just like North Korea and China, Victoria only survives because it is backed by Russia as a way to secure its borders.
- Fascist, but Inefficient: Victoria has only survived by the grace of Russian aid. Domestically, its people are poor, malnourished, and kept under constant watch by the Christian Marine Corps. Militarily, it is technologically backwards, doctrinally incompetent, and logistically inept.
- Fatal Flaw: Victoria's greatest weakness is its absolute adherence to Retroculture regardless of whether or not it holds true. Victoria is functionally stagnant as a nation because it refuses to consider even for a moment that Kraft's ideology could be wrong, and this leads them into all kinds of problems, including getting their entire army virtually annihilated fighting the Commonwealth.
- The Fool: Victoria's entire existence can be summarized as this, having a self-defeating and completely inept governance, ideology, and military that only persists due to their patron Russia and not having a serious opponent until now. It would be hilarious if it weren't so horrifying.
- Hate Sink: The more we learn about Victoria, the more the players have expressed a desire to totally destroy the nation for its various crimes, as it has absolutely no redeeming features. It has gotten to the point that SV moderation staff had to put up a notice to avoid a He Who Fights Monsters situation, as some people were teetering close to calling for a Final Solution against Victoria. Even the QM refuses to depict the ignominious death of John Rumford, for fear that they would enjoy it too much.
- Human Traffickers: Victoria engages in a massive human-trafficking operation in order to sustain its slave markets, mostly via conquered peoples from the rest of North America.
- Humiliation Conga: The war with the Commonwealth does not go kindly for Victoria - their Air Force is sabotaged by California and takes heavy losses, their navy is destroyed twice, and their army is almost completely annihilated. The nation erupts into a Civil War shortly afterwards, with the Loyalist faction suffering a humiliating defeat in New York that forces them to accept a treaty lopsidedly in favor of the Commonwealth. And then Winter sets in, just when most of their harvest has rotted by this point.
- Hypocrite: Despite its Retroculture ideology, Victoria claims to have cracked fusion power and does use nuclear power - both of which would be considered too advanced to be acceptable according to Retroculture.
- I Reject Your Reality: Victoria's ideology on how to conduct warfare is so asinine and incompetent that it leans into this trope — they believe that SAM launchers can be fooled with a diamond formation (the missile would simply explode off of a proximity fuse, wiping out the whole squadron), that defense in depth will inevitably lead to a rout (not always) and that no war has been won by a navy (forgetting about the Pacific Theater of World War II). It is hardly a surprise that they tend to get their asses handed to them by the Commonwealth in a fair fight.
- Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: More like Small Fish In A Tiny Pond, but the Erie Campaign makes it clear that Victoria only holds hegemony over North America because of numbers, Russian backing, and the majority of their opponents being unable to mount a proper defense. Against a competent foe with technological parity (such as the Commonwealth), they are in for a Curb-Stomp Battle that is not in their favor.
- Older Is Better: Retroculture is this in a nutshell, which is why Victoria uses technology and tactics long after they've become outdated elsewhere. This is repeatedly shown to be a stupid idea and results in them suffering extreme losses when fighting their someone who has better technology than them.
- Politically Correct History: Ironically given their disdain for political correctness, Victoria modified all their remakes of old American television and radio shows so that they align with the new state's beliefs.
- Their version of The Lone Ranger has the titular character now opposing Black, Asians, Native Americans and other Victorian undesirables, with Tonto going from being the ranger's friend to owning him a life debt, and also being much dumber. In addition, the Ranger is now far more willing to kill.
- Their remake of Little Orphan Annie is significantly less altered, but does have Annie focus on teaching others how to make their lives better by following the Victorian way.
- Rather humorously, their explanation for the construction of most of the western railroads in the United States (which were made using significant amounts of labor from Asian immigrants) is that they were the result of a failed Chinese invasion.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: The Victorian government has reduced blacks to slavery in all but name and expelled all other minorities. They believe women should Stay in the Kitchen and anyone outside their borders are cultural and racial degenerates. They're also literal heteronormative crusaders, and treat anyone who isn't straight as a target for purges.
- Rape, Pillage, and Burn: The CMC Crusaders and the regular army roam America, destroying any advanced manufacturing technology and uppity polities they find and kidnapping women and children into slavery.
- Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: They originated as a far-right terrorist group. Once the United States disintegrated, they took advantage of the chaos to establish their own state.
- Sex Slave: Women captured by the CMC are either made into "war-brides" (essentially handmaids) or sold into slavery.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: They engage in just about every type of slavery known to man, even among their own citizens. An estimated ninety percent of their population are expected to be in some sort of coerced servitude at some point in their lives.
- Corvee labor, debt bondage, and serfdom are standard practice among the poorer classes.
- African Americans are held under a serfdom under the control of the "Council of Responsible Negroes".
- Political prisoners are sentenced to penal labor.
- The CMC calls the women they capture "war brides."
- Several foreign-owned luxury resorts have been established in the old national parks, all of which engage in chattel slavery to supply its workforce. The largest of these is Cape Cod Bay Luxury Resort, highly decadent source of profit with an international clientele.
- Internationally, Victoria is now the slaving center of the world, with international buyers and sellers trading, purchasing, and selling human cargo from across the world.
- Small Name, Big Ego: An impoverished, technologically backward Russian catspaw that claims to have invented cold fusion and united Christianity.
- State Sec: The Christian Marine Corps Inquisition maintains strict control over the Victorian populace from the Clergy to every function of government.
Gideon Blackwell
The former commander of the Victorian Army's 8th "Thomas" Division, Major General Blackwell was evacuated for injuries before the front collapsed entirely and was to be scapegoated for the defeat before his convinced his superiors otherwise.
- Big Bad: After the war with the Commonwealth ends, circumstances result in him become the new de-facto head of Victoria.
- A Father to His Men: His men greatly respected him.
- A Lighter Shade of Black: He prohibited the practice of "war brides" in his division, but he's ultimately loyal to Victoria and its fascistic retroculturalist ideals.
- Internal Reformist: An odd example. Following the fall of Detroit, he attempted to convince the Victorian Army high command of the need to adapt and modify their 4th-Generation Warfare doctrine for new tactics and heavier equipment to combat the Commonwealth "Machine State" in a war of annihilation.
- Insane Troll Logic: Blackwell concluded that Victoria lost to the Commonwealth... because he believes the CFC's embrace of technology and materialism must have caused the minds of its citizens to coalesce into an "Atheist Machine State", an inhuman pseudo-Hive Mind entity that turns humans into living automata.
- Overly Long Name: Gideon You-Would-Be-Damned-If-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Your-Sins Blackwell, AKA Damned Blackwell.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He's a Christian fundamentalist who supports a totalitarian fascist state and wholeheartedly believes in Rumford's paleoconservative "Retroculture" ideology.
Free City of New York
When Victoria swept up state after state following the collapse of the United States, Rumford and Kraft set their eyes on New York City as their next target of conquest. Their Russian advisor "Father Dimitri" however recognized that the size and scope of the metropolitan area, in addition to its international significance, was overwhelming, and barely managed to convince the two to leave NYC alone. Today, the Free City of New York is the home of several million refugees, subsisting entirely on imports from Europe and warily watching its Victorian neighbors.
- Mega City: NYC has urbanized and integrated all of Long Island as its new boroughs.
- The Remnant: The FCNY is the last surviving bastion of the old United States.
New California Republic
The California-based Pacific Republic was once the most likely successor of the United States' legacy. Following their defeat against the Northern Confederation however (in reality, a failed invasion by a Russian-fielded mercenary force led by Rumford combined with a Russian naval blockade), the NCR now exists as a Russian client state, forced to construct fighter aircraft for Victoria.
- Fake Defector: While on the surface a (mostly) compliant client of Russia, their first involvement in the quest is offering to sabotage Victoria's planes and munitions for Chicago in exchange for support in their future uprising against Russia.
- The Friend Nobody Likes: Years of serving as Russia's enforcer in the western US has tainted its image in the eyes of many. Unsurprisingly, its overnight purge of Russian influence does not instantly improve its reputation and is quickly upstaged by the CFC.
- In-Series Nickname: "Sister Cali."
- The Puppet Cuts His Strings: Their first diplomatic interaction with Chicago has their representive reveal that they are covertly planning to get out from under Russia's yoke, and has even set a secret timetable of three years before they begin their uprising in earnest.
- Puppet State: After they "lost" the war with Victoria, Moscow now has direct control over their political affairs.
New Russian Empire
Born in the wake of the Russian Federation's collapse in 2022, the revanchist New Russian Empire is now the dominant hyperpower in global affairs. Its reigning monarch, the former warlord Tsar Alexander IV, has spent the last 50 years ensuring Russia's global supremacy by destabilizing any and all potential rivals and enemies.
- Greater-Scope Villain: None of Victoria's successes would have been possible without Russia's covert and overt assistance. It is now the largest obstacle to world peace and the reconstruction of North America.
- Invincible Villain: Since Russia still has nuclear weapons, they're effectively untouchable by anyone, even those with nukes of their own. All of their "defeats" so far have involved defanging their proxies, and while it looks like things are going to fall apart sometime after Nicholas takes the throne, this isn't any consolation to the Commonwealth.
- Keystone Army: Downplayed, but it is made painfully clear that once Alexander passes, Russia is going to start crumbling, because the most likely candidate for his successor is not suited for the role.
- Make the Bear Angry Again: The economic crisis of the 2020s caused Russia to collapse into anarchy, paving the way for an anti-Western warlord to violently seize power and declare himself Tsar Alexander IV of the House of Romanov.
- Slavery Is a Special Kind of Evil: While Russia doesn't appear to sell slaves, it's all but outright stated to be one of the Victorian slave trade's biggest customers.
- Succession Crisis: Tsar Alexander IV is old by the time of the story's present and is not long for the world. His appointed heir, his daughter Catherine, is by all accounts an excellent choice for the throne, but doesn't want to rule; his son, Nicholas, does want to rule, and has the support of the nobility to account for his lack of competence. When Alex dies in 2076, his daughter vanishes as Nicholas ascends to the throne.
