Hardboiled Android
Vault Fossil
Hmm. You do have a point. If you want to go that route, the nreally you could cut down on their backstory quite a bit to make way for more substance elsewhere - it doesn't really matter anymore to know in detail their theology, they're just tribals who worship stars - and even them worshipping the stars doesn't even really matter all that much anymore. But this would not be my preference, I say try and make them fit into the storylines more in ways. They're people with their own motives independent of other actors. And the USSA ID could be an interesting reward.
Sounds good.
Maybe not Sidewinders Mando, that's already taken by... well the Sidewinders, but higher level sure.
When I was initially doing this reread of New Mexico, I had this thought about why those Scorpions were at Vault 29: maybe the Scorpions have gotten too big for their britches. They've outcompeted most of the other tribes in ABQ, raided and destroyed everyone else. They used to have a system where youngsters made their bones by going out and conquering other tribes,but now there's nowhere left to go, the ABQ is conquered and then there's just empty desert. Everything else is too far away for the limited institutional means of the Scorpions to rally support. So, young people are going far afield to make their glory on their own. Further, people see the writing on the wall and that joining the Red Okies might be the only path to survival. Just a thought, nothing concrete here.
Ok, ok, here's two things.
Firstly, make them the main competitors of the Scorpion's Bite: the Scorpions hold the richer ruins on the east side of the Rio Grande, the Glyphers are a major tribes themselves who hold the desert to the East, which only has a small sliver of the city. They're raiders themselves, albeit not as savage as the Scorpions.
And this one is sort of the secret main reason why I want you to keep them in... a quest concept. I already brought up the Las Lunas Decalogue stone, which I thought was a cool thing that gelled well with the Glyphers. Well, it also happens to gel particuarly well with everyone's favorite theocrats, the New Canaanites, considering the stone was probably in the first place a hoax concocted to support the Mormon thesis of Israelites in the New World.
I've always found it curious that in New Vegas, outside of the name of Driver Nephi, absolutely no reference is made to those more peculiar aspects of Mormon belief that dominates the popular consciousness today. Instead they were treated like generic Christians, or even generic authentically religious people writ large. I think this was firstly because those strange elements of LDS weren't relevant to the story, and also out of a sense of politeness. While this is one of the partsI really like about New Vegas, its favorable depiction of Mormonism when there is a lot to recommend it despite their kookiness, I still feel like it should be addressed somewhere in the series.
This, I think, provides an opportunity to do just that. Plus, it gives an opportunity to haave anothere instance of Mormon missionaries, a running motif I'm quite fond of in this campaign.
So here's the quest: there are two missionaries among the Glyphers. They have discovered this stone and know it from ancient records to be a copy of the Ten Commandments, and they firmly believe it was left here by the Nephites. But they disagree over what to do with it: one wants to keep it here to preach to the Glyphers, who are interested in the stone but have a totally incorrect interpretation of it based on their mythology. The other would rather send the thing back to New Canaan as a glorious monument.
The former option would convert the Glyphers and allow the player to use an ideological bent to push the Glyphers towards one course of action or another beneficial to the players in New Mexico. Of course this comes at the cost of the Glypher's culture. The other option would get you massive accolades in New Canaan, some kind of more material reward (?), but it would throw the Glyphers into a rage. Depending on how the players handle this, this could result in the murder of the missionaries and hostility to the party... or the anger could be redirected elsewhere in New Mexico.
To achieve the conversion route there are a handful of options. First, simply make a convincing intelligent argument with skill and special checks. Failing this, use CODE to hypnotize the crowd. Third, use Hecate's same method of conversion. Fourth, have some display of high technology that proves you to be a god. To achieve the latter, you need to hire a Brahmin team from Quartz. If Ugly John is in charge, he'll charge an exorbitant rate unless you help him out. If you free the town, they'll give you the team for free out of gratitude. To avoid the worst case scenario with the glyphers, you can engage in a speech similar to the former but with the added option to frame some other tribe.*
*Maybe one of the social elements of the Glyphers could be big open forum meetings, primitive democracy, mostly centered around wise men interpreting the signs as proxies to make arguments for some course of action or other.
I know it's from Wasteland I said as much. Project Darwin, at least as you've rendered it here, I do think could fit fairly well, you really did do a good job with the concept of the android dungeon (though I should note in addition to treading on the toes of nearby Rebirth it treads on the toes of Utah Testing Grounds), but just doesn't happen to fit here particuarly well. Save it for another game - or, alternatively, you could ditch Utah Proving Grounds and replace it with this, extremely altered in terms of context, since it does feel odd to have a high-level quest from Granite fulfilled in mid-level Utah, and it makes New Mexico more connected to the rest of the world.
The Communists, I don't like at all. I'm not a fan of the concept in Wasteland, it feels silly, but doubly so here when it becomes a pop culture reference too, and an internal revolt rather than external invasion (which obviously doesn't work for New Mexico).
I do like the concept of another settlement, especially a 'civilized' settlement, just not in its current form.
I meant that it could be used as the opportunity to do the description of the Cheyenne Wastes that I so desperately crave.
Something worth noting: Almost all of the New Mexico content is in the Rio Grande valley or slightly east. West New Mexico is fairly empty.
I 1000% prefer this (and even previous iterations) to the Yesterday map. Just ask the krauts to remove the hex grid and then apply the same effects, should be trivial since I imagine the hex grid is all on one layer seperate.
