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)
A character sheet for the raider gangs of the Eastern Plains from Wasteland 3.
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The Dorsey Clan
In General
"Are your garments all spotless, are they white as snow / are you washed in the blood of the lamb?"
Formerly one of the Hundred Families, the Dorseys were chased out of the city after an attempted coup against the Patriarch. This is quite a surprise, considering the Patriarch himself says they were his strongest supporters...
They were, but then they asked for old-school, American-style general elections. The Patriarch, given that he's a Tin Tyrant dictator and not nearly as noble as he pretends, ordered Lucia's father, Percival Wesson, to disrupt one of their meetings; Percival Wesson, who was fanatically loyal to the Patriarch, started shooting, and the Dorseys were driven out.
Thought to have been killed to the last man, they've returned from the hungry east as a cultish clan of raiders and terrorists intent of taking revenge on the city that forced them into the wilderness, bringing about a Deluge of Blood to match the nuclear fires that cleansed the world. They are fanatically religious about this concept, and have a tendency to dress in the bones and furs of their kills, displaying their skills as hunters.
- Ax-Crazy:
- This being before the second Ranger team have even arrived in Colorado and after the first Ranger team have gone silent, there's seemingly little reason for the initial ambush other than to feed the Dorseys' love of violence. Liberty even told them not to do it!
- This is later played tragically. The Dorseys, who were relatively soft city folk in comparison to the raiders and gangs they ran into once they were thrown out of Colorado Springs, had to turn into the worst monsters out there to survive. Even the attack on the Rangers wasn't really about bloodlust; Nelius thought he was cutting off reinforcements for the Patriarch... even though, as he belatedly realizes himself, they might have been better off trying to convince the Rangers about Buchanan's corruption.
- Color Motif: Muted, like the Scar Collectors, but brown and white show up a lot in Dorsey equipment; brown for their furs, white for the bones they wear.
- Disaster Democracy: It was campaigning for a return to good ol' American democracy that led to the Patriarch's forces driving them out from Colorado Springs.
- Hayseed Name: The named Dorseys all have made-up, vaguely Biblical, old-fashioned-sounding names: Jarett, Erastus, Emogene, and Nelius.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Through years of eking out a life of bloody struggle on the plains, the Dorseys survived by becoming one of the worst of the gangs themselves. Played for Drama; They were once decent people. It's clear Nelius hates what his family have become, to the point that he will kill himself rather than fight Team November, or let Lucia plug him.
- Hillbilly Horrors: With their twangy accents, obsession with blood and mayhem, and the way they treat all their members as part of one big family clan.
- Jack of All Stats: Don't favor one weapon type or another compared to the other gangs. The only exception is that they are never seen using energy weapons, probably to fit in with their "low-tech backwoods hillbilly" theme.
- Out of Focus: Jarett and Erastus's sister Emogene gets very little focus and only one brief, optional conversation during the King Cordite quest at Yuma. And if the Rangers don't bring Cordite along, she's only a named enemy.
- Religion of Evil: Their interpretation of Christian scripture branches from the local belief that the nuclear apocalypse was a second Deluge of Fire by adding a third Deluge, this one of blood, which they're going to bring about themselves by massacring anyone within reach. They dress like ancient pagans in furs and dried bones, and anoint themselves in the blood and fresh entrails of their victims. Their chants are taken from old Christian Baptist hymnal lyrics, albeit twisted to focus more on "the blood" than the actual religious themes behind them.
Jarett Dorsey
Jarett Dorsey
"And it all begins here, you little prairie dog. What I do to you, the Dorseys gonna do to all of Colorado, so squeal all you want."
The youngest son of Nelius Dorsey, and the leader of the ambush at the dam which takes out most of the Rangers before they even arrive in Colorado.
- Affably Evil: He's actually quite cheerful towards Team November's survivors, even answering one or two of their questions before launching into his (interrupted) speech that would have supposedly precluded him trying to kill them. Of course, getting close enough to actually speak with him involves running his gauntlet of rocket projectiles and gunfire.
- Blood Knight: As a fanatical cultist who rains down rocket fire on the Ranger convoy long after most of them are dead, and is champing at the bit to carve you up with his knife before getting his head blown off, Dorsey loves him some fighting and killing.Jarett Dorsey: I'll sharpen my knife on your bones! And I'll wash it clean in your blood! For the Deluge is comin', you heathen, and I'm its harbinger!
- Blowing Stuff Up: From the sound of it, most of the rockets being launched across the reservoir in the prologue are being fired by Jarett himself.
- Boom, Headshot!: Killed Midsentence by a sniper bullet courtesy of a dying Major Prasad.
- Diabolus ex Nihilo: Nobody had seen or heard of the Dorseys in years, then a Ranger force some fifty strong gets cut down in minutes by this man and his fighters. Once the surviving Rangers make it to the top of the dam, Jarret Dorsey and his goons goes down like a chump, but by then the damage is done.
- Evil Is Hammy: Mocks the Rangers over radio throughout the prologue like a hyperactive country preacher.Jarett: The Dorseys are the harbingers of the Deluge! The motherfuckin' end of the old world and the beginnin' of the new!
- Starter Villain: As the leader of the initial ambush, he's the first major villain the players face.
- Tempting Fate: The very second he says that no one is coming to save you, his head is blown off by a sneak attack courtesy of your commanding officer coming to your rescue.
- The Unfought: Prasad shoots him in the head moments before what would have been the first boss fight of the game, starting a recognizable trend.
Erastus Dorsey
Erastus Dorsey
Jarett's older brother and Nelius's oldest son. Looking for revenge for his brother, he besieges the home of the Hoons, a local farm family, threatening to kill them all unless the Rangers come and stop him.
- Anticlimax Boss: By the time you face Erastus at the Hoon household, you're likely to have a full team of Rangers, weapons, supplies, and the Kodiak at your back, a far cry from your desperate straits in the prologue. Unlike Jarett, you actually get a chance to fight Erastus, but he's not especially tough even compared to the stragglers in the Garden of the Gods.
- Big Brother Instinct: He holds the Hoons hostage to draw the Rangers into a fight in revenge for the death of his little brother Jarett.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Losing Jarett to Team November devastates him. While he didn't harbor any friendly notions towards November before, the loss of his brother makes the beef between them very personal.
- Final Boss: Mixing weirdly with the below trope, and only on routes where the Hoon family are sacrificed. A high-talk skill party can avoid fighting Liberty Buchanan, who will go quietly. Of your two possible final fights, a high-talk skill can also avert a battle with Angela Deth; meanwhile, on November Reigns, you can avoid fighting the Patriarch. If Erastus is present in Yuma County, and you are not on the King Cordite path, he becomes the last enemy in the game that must be fought and killed to reach Liberty who cannot be talked down. He's not much of a Final Boss, though.
- The Unfought:
- Potentially, if November saves the Arapaho caravan instead of the Hoon farmstead and goes on to ally themselves with Cordite. Erastus agrees to leave his revenge until their business with Cordite is done, a moment which only comes once the end credits start to roll.
- Additionally, if November saves the Hoon farmstead and chooses the right dialogue options, Erastus and his group can be convinced to leave without a fight. He can then be found in front of the collection of murals at the Machine Commune in Denver, having found peace and his plan for avenging Jarett's death abandoned. Fascinatingly, this is the only way to fulfill Nelius Dorsey's own dying wish, that his son find a better life.
- Villain Forgot to Level Grind: Averted. If you fight him at Liberty's compound near the end of the game, he'll have considerably higher stats than if you fought him at the Hoon farmstead near the beginning.
Nelius Dorsey
Nelius Dorsey
"Mistakes were made, and people died. Story of the fucking world, right?"
The leader of the Dorsey family, returning after being chased out of the Hundred Families decades ago.
- Driven to Suicide: If you prevent Lucia from killing him, either to take him in alive or because there's no point in ending his life, he pulls out a pistol and shoots himself in the head.
- Foil: He's The Patriarch of his own family, and sought to challenge Buchanan's power by instituting elections. He even has three children, Jarett, Erastus, and Emogene, and has watched them grow up into ruthless monsters by the life Nelius's decisions forced upon them. Unlike the Patriarch, however, Nelius seems to have come to a Heel Realization, and even before the Rangers track him down seems to be contemplating his own death to bring an end to the madness.
- He Who Fights Monsters: Agitating — peacefully — against the Patriarch's dictatorial rule led to a bloodbath and the Dorseys being banished from the city. Driven to the plains and wilderness, the Dorseys became a murderous raider gang to rival any of the other four; maybe worse, given that Liberty's personal bodyguards are Dorseys, including Emogene Dorsey herself, and it's hard to imagine she wouldn't pick the best of the worst.
- The Patriarch:
- The notorious leader of the terrorists-turned-raiders of the Dorseys, Nelius is viewed as a father figure by every Dorsey, even the ones not related to him by (actual) blood. As a Foil to Patriarch Buchanan, Dorsey even has two sons and a daughter, none of them the heirs he might have hoped. Though in Nelius's case, it's less about them being weak or ineffectual and much more about them being entirely too well-suited to the life of raiders to ever return to civilization and freedom as Nelius might have once hoped for.
- He's an even better Foil when his kids are taken into account. The two brothers have an excellent relationship, given that Erastus wants revenge for Jarret's death; both are fighters, with Jarret loving melee and Erastus having a personalized heavy machine gun; and the sister is the least important of the trio, barely having any dialogue, and only on one route. Meanwhile, Victory loves no one, not even his childhood friends/bodyguards, Valor is a tweedy little shit who hates both of his siblings, and Liberty is the Big Bad for most of the game, and clearly more important than either of her brothers.
- A Tragedy of Impulsiveness: He acknowledges that the Dorsey attack on the Ranger caravan ultimately amounted to this. Having been told by Liberty to let the Rangers link up with The Patriarch to be observed and dealt with at a later stage, he instead decides to try and destroy them as soon as they enter Colorado. All he ultimately accomplished was driving the Rangers to The Patriarch as their only means of getting support, the death(s) of one (or both) of his sons, and making enemies of the surviving November Team, who proceed to hunt down the remnants of the Dorseys in Colorado to the last man. If you point out how this all could of been avoided had he just tried to talk to them first, he has no defense and mournfully acknowledges that it was just one of a long series of mistakes and bad choices that has ultimately led his clan to ruin.
The Payasos
In General
A gang of Clown-themed spanglish-speaking killers, murderers and deviants that once ruled a part of Colorado before they were defeated and pushed away by the Patriarch and the Hundred Families. They're seem to believe that life is just a cruel joke and go around torturing and killing as many people they can, mostly just because they can.
The Payasos are the third-weakest Eastern Plains gang, a position they are somewhat touchy about; they are one of the four gangs that make up Liberty's Savage Council, alongside the Dorseys, Scar Collectors, and Godfishers.
- Ax-Crazy: A significant theme; they'll even laugh and crack jokes when they see their own friends fall in battle.
- Berserk Button: You'd think a gang that can laugh at the deaths of its own members would have nothing it would be so touchy about, but you'd be wrong. The Payasos are the weakest of the three major gangs of the Savage Council, not counting the Dorseys, and are intensely aware of it; they are extremely sensitive to any slights against their power due to this awareness. It's what lets them be manipulated into fighting the Godfishers on Sand in the Tank.
- Bonus Dungeon: The Payasos have the honor of having one of the game's optional dungeons devoted solely to them; they're the only Savage Council gang to get one. It's the Clown Museum, located near the Bizarre — in fact, you'll probably see it first.
- Color Motif: Red, specifically the reddish-orange of fire; the clown noses and clown shoes you pick up as junk from Payaso corpses are colored this way, they worship a Red Clown, and they use a lot of fire.
- Evil Has a Bad Sense of Humor:
- Payasos can laugh at anything; you can even find joke books, most of which aren't funny so much as violent, though they do get in some good zingers every once in a while.
- They can even weaponize it; Payaso Bastards can use the Demoralize ability like players can, dropping accuracy and critical chance of those they hit with their mockery.
- Fatal Flaw: Their own eagerness to kill and slaughter, combined with their inability to handle being mocked, is what gets them all killed on the Sand in the Tank route. Team November are able to get a war started between the Payasos and the Godfishers by finding evidence that Star-That-Dreams, the Godfisher leader, turned a Payaso lieutenant into a kite for messing with his wives. The Payasos go straight to war as their first resort without even considering diplomacy; the resulting battle is a Mutual Kill that ruins both gangs, with the ending narration stating that the survivors either starved to death, were folded into other gangs, or turned into slaves.
- Laughing Mad: Payasos laugh constantly. It's an actual tenet of their religion; they think the Apocalypse was a joke, and they are meant to be the punchline.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Clown Burgers are people.
- Kill It with Fire: Payasos love burning things so much the entire gang has fire resistance. Also, they are notable users of flamethrowers and molotov cocktails both; more esoterically, Payaso Tricksters love using Smoke Grenades, which is still fire-adjacent.
- Monster Clown: The game's whole theme, just with a bit of Spanish tossed in. Amusingly, these Clowns are the ones attacking the Monster Army, which fits; back in the day, the horror movies of the Monster Army were terrifying to audiences, but modern audiences are more afraid of clowns than they are of vampires and werewolves.
- Pyromaniac: More prone to fire damage than other factions.
- Religion of Evil: Yet another flavor of horrible faith. They worship el Payaso Rojo, the Red Clown, who taught them that the apocalypse was a joke played on mankind, and that the Payasos were the punchline. They even dress up a statue of Jesus in clown makeup to drive the point home.
- Shout-Out: The concept of a Spanish-speaking clown-themed Gang of Hats in Colorado is based on the presence of Grampa Jerry's Clown Museum in the town of Arriba. In-universe, the still-intact museum serves as a Payaso holy site and Bonus Dungeon. The real-world museum closed in 2016, however, after the death of founder 'Grampa' Jerry Eder in 2010.
- Superboss: The Clown Museum ends under the Big Top, where a Clown Car with mounted gatling gun attacks you. The Clown Car is not only supported by a number of goons at the battle's start, but it can even interrupt your turns to generate more fire-obsessed clowns if you kill its current group. Winning gets you the giant Clown Head gun, called the Payaso Turret, that the vehicle mounts.
The Godfishers
In General
Not so much a gang as a tribe with a terrifying religion, the Godfishers are descended from survivors who emerged from their underground bunkers and were astonished by things like rain. They came to the conclusion that the sky-gods must be propitiated by human sacrifice in order to send their blessings. To that end, they decided that they must "fish" for the Gods by sending up kites with screaming human sacrifices strapped to them, shorn of limbs, dying in the cold Colorado wind.
- Ax-Crazy: Any religion whose main tenet is "chop off a person's limbs and strap them to a kite made of human skin" is not going to have the most well-adjusted followers.
- The Berserker: All Godfishers have Devotion, which grants them extra power at half health. It's described as a rage simmering just under the surface.
- Blue Is Heroic: Inverted trope, much like Liberty (who probably got the idea from them.) The Godfishers obsess over the color blue due to their sky-worship, and leave markings using the color in all their camps. They also have blue tattoos and/or warpaint on their own skin. As the other tropes here prove, they are not good people.
- Close-Range Combatant: Godfishers are big fans of melee, and have more melee fighters than the other gangs do. Even their leader, Star-That-Dreams, wields a personal sword. Which isn't to say they won't shoot you; like all the big gangs, they don't rely on just one tactic.
- Fatal Flaw: Their religious nature is used against them on both routes. It is Star-That-Dreams' decision to turn a Payaso lieutenant into a kite that destroys them in Sand in the Tank, while in King Cordite, they can be sent away by flying a kite at a specific place to trick them into seeing it as a sign from their Gods to abandon the Council.
- Human Sacrifice: The main and most important tenet of their religion is the need to fish for the Gods by flying human sacrifices on kites, with their limbs shorn off. The kites themselves are made out of cured human skin, so more than one human has to die for each sacrifice.
- An Ice Person: Notably, the Godfishers seem to like using Cryo Grenades, and are the only group to regularly do so; it seems to be an extension of their sky-worship and blue color theme.
- Noble Savage: A horrifyingly nasty subversion. The Godfishers have a lot of traits stereotypically associated with the Noble Savage; they use every part of their kills, they are deeply spiritual, and they use a lot of warpaint. The thing is, the kills they use each part of are human, the deep spirituality is why they kill people in the first place, and the warpaint is just that- warpaint. There's also the matter that they are clearly descended mostly from white people, given how starkly the blue paint is on their pale skin, further subverting the trope.
- Religion of Evil: Of a different flavor from the Dorseys. The Godfishers literally fish for their Gods, tempting them to bring rain and good fortune... by flying human sacrifices up on kites to the clouds. They also wear a lot of blue paint and mark their stuff with blue as a sign of sky-worship. They are led by prophets; the current leader is Star-That-Dreams.
- Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: None of the Savage Council gangs like each other much, but the Godfishers in particular are noted as hating having to work with the other gangs; as far as Star-That-Dreams is concerned, he'd rather just make murder kites out of the other guys and fly off into the sunset. He's only with them to get revenge on the Patriarch, considering them to be beneath his holy status. Notably, they are the only gang that Cordite cannot ally with; he views them as uncontrollable and untrustworthy. Again, Cordite thinks they are more untrustworthy than the fire-obsessed clowns... and he's right.
The Scar Collectors
In General
A gang of murderous cyborgs that was taken over by Liberty Buchahan. Steel-Trap runs the gang's day to day activites for her; Ironclad Cordite used to be their king, and he really wants his throne back. The biggest and most powerful gang, the Scar Collectors would rule the whole east if it wasn't for their incredible propensity for infighting dragging them down.
- Action Bomb: Some of their slaves have massive bombs strapped to them.
- Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Given that the King Cordite path ends with Team November helping Cordite to literally battle it out for the throne, and that the Scar Collectors all follow him afterwards, it's fairly safe to say that this is inherent to the Collector's philosophy on life.
- Blood Knight: Scar Collectors come off as not quite as crazed as the other two groups; they still love violence, though, and enjoy a good fight.
- Color Motif: Much muted compared to the Payasos and Godfishers, but black is a significant color for them- particularly their cybernetic enhancements.
- Cyborg: The gang's main theme. Every Scar Collector is a cyborg; you even have to get cyborg tech done on yourself to pass a check in King Cordite. Well, that, or kill an innocent slave; but given you are on the King Cordite path in the first place, that's probably not a barrier.
- Enemy Civil War:
- The Scar Collectors are the most fractious of the three gangs, lacking the Godfisher's religiously-driven unity or the Payaso's cheery unity. Steel-Trap is apparently dividing opinions even more than usual; he has serious detractors, most prominently Dee Sharp, who ran a lot of pleasure services and was tremendously popular with the rank and file. She recently disappeared, giving Steel-Trap a reprieve, and causing a lot of searching and grieving amongst the Collectors.
- Of course, Steel-Trap's behind it. He attacked her in secret and, feeling vindictive, had her thrown into the "mine" the Collectors are running out of an old crashed Soviet satellite, shorn of most of her cybernetics. This leads directly to the gang's downfall if Team November can find her.
- Fatal Flaw: The constant low-level infighting they go through becomes this on Sand in the Tank. If Dee Sharp is saved from the mine, she immediately provokes a huge revolution against Steel-Trap. The gang ends up mostly destroying itself, and both Dee Sharp and Steel-Trap die in the fighting.
- Long-Range Fighter: They like ranged attacks, particularly their cone-headed Cyclops snipers. Even the saw-handed Collectors have ranged attacks, launching energy from their saw blades to slice you from afar.
