Fauna, Flora, Factions, and Facilities of the Wasteland

Just let people use a strength check to open locked doors

That's fair.
I was thinking a door equivalent of the "Ayyyyyy!" perk from Van Buren; but, yeah, it's rather silly for a tabletop setting.

Maybe it can be you always do maximum damage to locked doors?
 
On the topic of locked doors, it always confused me that Bethesda games have Cherry Bombs, but doesn't let you use it for explosive entry. Maybe I should make a mod of that for FNV.

Just let people use a strength check to open locked doors

Nothing wrong with alternative options though.

Forced Entry: You've learned the no barrier can stop the Order. (Can use axes to get through locked doors, or bonus to damaging locked doors?)

Should be named Here's Johnny. :wink:

First Responder: I don't the way you could get this, but maybe you could craft smoke alarms to distract enemies?

Could be something you learn generally from the tribe if your Sneak or Traps skill is up to snuff.
 
On the topic of locked doors, it always confused me that Bethesda games have Cherry Bombs, but doesn't let you use it for explosive entry. Maybe I should make a mod of that for FNV.



Nothing wrong with alternative options though.



Should be named Here's Johnny. :wink:



Could be something you learn generally from the tribe if your Sneak or Traps skill is up to snuff.
Yeah I agree about it being a perk I was just saying the mechanics should be you can hack a door down with a weapon
 
Vault 49
Just outside Lafayette, Louisiana, Vault 49 was pitched as a sanctuary for southern families, promising to preserve patriotism and pre-war American values. In truth, it was an ideological pressure cooker. Vault-Tec and federal intelligence designed it to test how a closed society would handle ideological shifts and internal subversion.
The vault began as a model of unity under Overseer Walter Connery, a former Air Force intelligence officer. For three decades, life was structured, disciplined, and soaked in patriotic nostalgia. The younger generation, born underground, inherited these values without context, and cracks started to form.
Everything changed when mysterious communist texts began appearing in the vault. Connery responded with book burnings, loyalty committees, and heavy-handed propaganda. But instead of stamping out dissent, his actions pushed the younger generation into rebellion. Over time, they organized as "The Collective," a movement advocating equality and communal living. By the vault’s fortieth year, tensions erupted into open conflict. Connery was killed during a revolt, and The Collective dismantled the Overseer system, replacing it with a messy but vibrant form of communal governance.
Vault 49 transformed into a cultural powerhouse: its people personalized their jumpsuits, painted murals, and created new, raw music and art that rejected pre-war conformity. For three decades, this experiment in self-determination thrived, unaware that Vault-Tec was still watching.
In its seventieth year, Vault 49’s automated systems triggered "Final Phase Protocol." Without warning, a lethal gas flooded the vault, killing every resident as data was transmitted to a dead regional hub. By dawn, the vault was silent, its history buried and forgotten.

 
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The Big Muddy Tradin’ Com’ny
Before the bombs, the Mississippi was the beating heart of the South, carrying everything from oil to culture. By the 2070s, it was more industrial machine than river, lined with levees, dams, and corporate ports. The Resource Wars only made it worse, turning it into a militarized shipping lane guarded by surveillance towers and defense contractors. When the Great War hit, the river was shattered by multiple nuclear strikes, flooding, toxic runoff, and radiation. What was once a powerful artery became a broken mix of swamp, sludge, and dead channels.
In the decades after, Cajun survivors and river workers tried to reclaim it, blasting through clogged waters and fighting mutant creatures to keep the current alive. Out of this chaos came the Big Muddy Tradin’ Com’ny, a rough alliance of rivermen and salvagers who built a new economy on the back of jury-rigged boats and dredging barges. These “Mudcrawlers” travel between New Orleans, Baton Rouge, and Jackson, but every trip is a gamble with raiders, mutant horrors, and radioactive waters.
The Com’ny is both savior and tyrant. They move food, tools, and medicine that keep swamp settlements alive, but they also dabble in slavery and extortion. Their boats are floating fortresses bristling with hunting rifles, pikes, and flamethrowers, and passengers are expected to work or fight for their passage. Every traveler signs a “mudman’s waiver,” which basically means if you get eaten by something in the river, it’s your own damn fault.
Locals tell stories of strange things lurking beneath the sludge: eel-bodied mutants or multi-limbed nightmares that drag entire crews into the depths. Sometimes a boat vanishes, and when it’s found days later, the crew is gone, leaving only muddy prints on the deck.
Like them or not, the Big Muddy Tradin’ Com’ny keeps the Cajun Wasteland alive. Without their patched-up boats and hard-bitten code, the settlements along the river would starve. As long as the Mississippi flows, no matter how broken or cursed, the Mudcrawlers will keep grinding forward.​
 
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Always nice to see a Vault Experiment that’s an actual social experiment.

Regarding the “mudman’s waiver”, I find that to be a little humorous. What are they gonna do, sue the Big Muddy Company? Is there some kind of inter-settlement law enforcement that would enforce such a thing? The Tinmen maybe (nope, they’re just in Orleans, right)? Or is it more like a meaningless formality, almost like a relic of such concepts from before the war? Apologies if I missed something that explains this.
 
Regarding the “mudman’s waiver”, I find that to be a little humorous. What are they gonna do, sue the Big Muddy Company?
You're not far off. A wealthy merchant’s son drowned during a Mardi attack while traveling on one of their boats. The merchant, furious and influential in both Jackson and Baton Rouge, rallied other traders to boycott the Big Muddy, claiming negligence. The dispute was settled through a tense arbitration where the company was forced to pay a ruinous compensation. A hundred barrels of fruit, ammo, and metal, nearly bankrupting them. After this, the Big Muddy began requiring passengers to sign waivers. The document declares travelers accept the risks of the river, and no settlement can claim damages or hold the Com’ny accountable for acts of nature, raiders, or river beasts.
 
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New Orleans
New Orleans was already a hollowed shell by 2077, its culture sold to corporations and its levees barely holding back the rising Gulf. When the bombs fell, nuclear strikes shattered its riverfront and oil depots, flooding the city and killing thousands. Decades later, survivors rebuilt the French Quarter as a fortress, its wrought-iron balconies turned into sniper nests and its streets armored with scavenged plating. The city is ruled by the Tinmen, descendants of Coast Guard units who wear salvaged T-38 power armor and enforce harsh order under Marshal Kincaid. Fuel from partially restored refineries and armored rivercraft make New Orleans a powerhouse of Gulf trade, though slavery and extortion thrive under the Tinmen’s watch. Music and food have returned in mutated forms. Jazz played on scavenged steel drums, gumbo made from mutant crayfish and brahmin sausage. The Big Muddy Tradin’ Com’ny and Shreve Republic trade warily with the city, but raiders, smuggling, and resentment of the Tinmen’s rule keep tensions high.

 
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Memphis
Before the Great War, Memphis was a hub of music, freight, and river trade, with the Mississippi serving as its lifeblood. By the 2060s, the city had become a key distribution center for military and industrial shipments, including West Tek “environmental chemicals” that were actually viral containment experiments. Memphis avoided a direct nuclear hit in 2077, but nearby strikes shattered its infrastructure and caused catastrophic flooding. The survivors endured famine, disease, and viral contamination that scarred and deformed many.
A group of survivors fortified the Great American Pyramid, turning it into both a refuge and the foundation of a new society. From this fortress rose the Pharaoh, a plague-ravaged leader sustained by chemical stabilizers. He forged Memphis into a neofeudal city-state where every citizen had a role: farmers in the Silt District, artisans and traders in the Market Halls, and the Machimoi (elite warriors clad in scrap armor and red fez-like caps) serving as enforcers and protectors. The city thrives on agriculture, scavenging, and trade along the Mississippi, its districts interlocked like the parts of a living machine.
By 2283, Memphis is less a city than a fortress-kingdom, its Pyramid gleaming with scavenged plating and solar panels. Blues music drifts through its markets, artisans craft weapons and tools in the Iron Spine, and the Machimoi patrol its levees and barracks. Though harsh, the Pharaoh’s rule ensures stability in a wasteland that offers none. His legend is as much a symbol of Memphis’ resilience as the Pyramid itself, but whispers of his failing health hint that the city’s future may one day be tested.
 
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