This is a play report of a Fallout sandbox, written by Mellonbread.
Your prairie village in Montana has been struck by plague. A burrowing creature with a glowing belly bit a child, who fell ill a few days later. By the time the town doctor noticed the swelling in the kid’s lymph nodes, the disease had already spread among the populace. It’s easy to treat with antibiotics, but the town doesn’t have nearly enough. The caravan was due a week ago, and hasn’t shown up yet.
You were spared the ravages of the disease. You’ve been sent South into the seething cauldron of Yellowstone, to search for enough medicine to save your town. You were given a healthy supply of bits (the silver tokens used as money in Montana) and the last of the stimpaks (a rare trade good from down South, since Broc Flower and Xander Root don’t grow in the tundra).
As you travel South from Gardiner along the 89, the air smells like pollen, flowers and sulfur. The peaks and valleys are covered with snow, but everywhere else you see evidence of Spring. You heard this place was spared the worst ravages of the nuclear dust storms that swept the region after the war, but you'd never seen it for yourself.
There's a fort up ahead.
The Posse approached the fortification. They hailed from Refuge, a mestizo community descended from American-Canadian refugees and Crow Indians, eeking out an honest life on the Montana prairies.
- Adam Iron Hands, champion wrestler and aspiring war chief.
- Doc Klover, Refuge's fiendishly lucky doctor.
- Slim Al Swaywood, a gambler originally from the PX, a merchant republic of raiders and slavers built in a Pre-War aircraft graveyard.
- Tex Infante, cowboy cargo cultist on a gun-toting pilgrimage across the Americas.
Satisfied, the gate guard opened the heavy wooden doors barring the fort. Inside were more armed tribals, some carrying wooden bats edged with prismatic obsidian. The guard hopped down and introduced himself as Ranger Brian, and the fort as belonging to the Yellowstone Rangers, an ancient military order stretching back even before the Great War. They were duty sworn to protect the park's natural beauty, and keep visitors happy and safe. Tasks easier said than done; the park was swarming with the advance scouts of foreign empires looking to carve it up.
Brian offered to exchange the Posse's money at their currency vault; their silver bits wouldn't fetch a fair rate with the traders in the park. The vault was a Pre-War cash-in-transit van cemented into a building of salvaged stone and metal. The Posse was surprised to learn the Rangers didn't charge a fee on the exchange rate, swapping their silver bits for an equivalent number of paper scrip and Hub caps. The former was the fiat currency used by the Great Khanate, an empire out of Wyoming who claimed Yellowstone Park as their territory. The latter, a water-backed currency from the far off Ennseear. Some Californian traders a day's walk south preferred dealing in the stuff.
Enamored by the Rangers' giant longbows, Adam gave Brian a fistful of bits in exchange for one and a few quivers of obsidian arrows. With his immense strength, the simple weapon was a terrible tool of war. Meanwhile, Slim examined the Khan scrip. It was printed in Xanadu, under the authority of the Kurultai. One side showed a snarling man in a spiked helmet. The other was a gruesome image of screaming women and children being gunned down by rifle-toting soldiers. The tableau was emblazoned with the words "NEVER AGAIN".
Brian recommended the Posse go meet Ranger Shim in the fort's bar, to wet their throats and get a lay of the land. The gang did exactly that, getting a free round of crisp, cool ale courtesy of the portly knight. Over drinks, Shim provided the Posse with a map of the park and explained the local factions.
- The Great Khans have claimed Yellowstone as theirs. They have a whole empire in Wyoming. They’ve taken over several road junctions but not seized control of the whole park. They brought a cult of doctors called the Followers into the park. They drive around giant iron brahmin that eat wood, spew steam, and churn up the earth into sod.
- The Loggers are a tribe of woodcutters. They traded timber with the Khans for a while to feed their steam engines, but are now at war with them over a labor dispute.
- The Roughnecks are an isolationist tribe of slavers that pump fuel from the earth. They sell it to wastelanders in exchange for goods they can’t make themselves.
- The Eighties are a raider gang that rides motorcycles. They’re bottled up somewhere in the East side of the park by the Khans.
- The White Legs are a tribe from Utah, driven North into Wyoming. The survivors of the first winter are somewhere in the South end of the park.
- The Prism is a psychic hive mind that controls West Yellowstone. The Posse was disturbed to learn the blue-bellied prairie dogs that infected Refuge were servants of the Prism, acting as its eyes and ears beyond the geothermal pools. Was it behind the plague?
The Ranger also mentioned that he was looking to open trade routes with Wyoming, eager for more brewing supplies for the fort. But the Roughnecks had closed the roads east, lining them with incendiary mines to dissuade the Khans from expanding into their territory. And the highway south was lousy with Tanaka, mutant flying buffalo that the Rangers crafted much of their equipment from. The beasts were ornery in early Spring; it was mating season and the males would strafe anything and everything. Travellers on foot were mostly safe - the aerial charges were a game of chicken, and easy enough to hop out of the way of. But pack brahmin and their carts were too slow, the stupid bison would slam directly into them in a bout of unintended murder-suicide.
If they could get the trade routes clear, the Rangers would owe them a big one. The Posse convinced him to support a plan of tricking the most aggressive males into killing themselves against a decoy - it'd be safer for the herds in the long run if they learned to not attack travellers. Shim begrudgingly sanctioned the plan, and supplied the group with ample paint to create an appropriate lure. They thanked him for his order's hospitality, and prepared to head south. They wanted to barter with the NCR traders, and then head east to reach the Khan's main settlement in Yellowstone - Canyon Village. Maybe their cult of doctors would provide enough drugs for Refuge, if the gang did some work for them.
After a few more hours of travel, the Posse spotted their first Tanaka. The huge beasts looked ridiculous in the air, even moreso when a particularly aggressive male rammed straight into a rival grazing along the roadside. The two bison were badly injured in the collision, and Adam surged forward to finish the aggressor off. Despite its immense size, the pugilist pummeled its skull into jelly. The other buffalo wasn't as badly injured, so the gang allowed it to trot away without incident. Eager for some spending money, the Posse began dressing the corpse and were immediately strafed by more Tanaka. They spent the next hour constantly dodging the clumsy beasts, with Slim occasionally taking potshots at their backsides with his laspistol.
Eventually they'd harvested all the hides and set off down the highway again. They soon spotted movement in the treeline, but were relieved to see it was a pair of Rangers. The Posse walked over to meet them and realised the knights had killed their own Tanaka, but had been smart enough to drag it into the treeline prior it dressing it. The pioneers recognised one of the tribals as Rhondie, the leader of the Buffalo Knights, the order's melee specialists. She offered a friendly greeting to the pioneers and they started quizzing her about the Khans. Rhondie fucking hated them; she and her protegee had just finished scouting the Museum of the Park Ranger, a sacred site of their order currently inhabited by a group of Khans led by a degenerate drug addict named Boris.
Her pimple-faced apprentice calmly explained that the Khans were split between two main factions - the Old Guard and New Bloods. The former were glorified raiders, only wanting to get high, get in fights, and cry when atrocities were committed against them in return. The latter were stationary bandits and enlightened imperialists, wanting to be masters of all they surveyed. Boris was an Old Khan, hence all the drugs. Slim perked up at the mention of sectarianism. A house divided against itself could not stand.
Thanking the Rangers for the intelligence, the Posse promised they'd try their best to oust the Khans from the Museum (without starting a war or getting declared outlaws).
The Posse were crossing a Pre-War bridge when they appeared; a good half-dozen wolves, attacking from both sides and cutting off any chance of escape. It was a perfect ambush, and the slavering hunters were upon the pioneers before any of them could react.
Except Tex.
The cowboy's scattergun roared, a critical hit dismembering two of the pack and sending a third fleeing. The remaining four attacked from behind, dragging Slim to the ground and savaging his left arm. But then Adam was upon them, pulversing a wolf's skull beneath a ham-sized fist. The retired raider whipped out his laser pistol and disintegrated a third. Tex and Doc chased the remaining two away, and Adam delivered a coup de grâce to the surviving attackers. After checking Slim's injury wasn't serious and cleaning the wound, the Posse made haste south before anything (or anyone) else waylaid them.
The gang breathed a sigh of relief upon sighting the tourist trap. The roads were cleared of vehicles and Pre-War town showed clear signs of habitation. The Museum was definitely occupied by the Khans - an armoured steam crawler sat idle in the parking lot and the sounds of a raucous party echoed from within. The Posse ignored it in favour of visiting the Yellowstone Forever gift shop.
The NCR traders had their shit together. Over a dozen armed security watched the area from fortified guardhouses or watchtowers. The caravaneers had raised a pen from local timber for their pack animals - Brahmin, Bighorners, and Javelinas. Broken windows were replaced with wooden shutters, and the parking lot was swept clear of debris. Over the store's entrance hung a hand-painted sign.
Tex shouted a greeting to one of the guards, quickly striking up a rapport upon realising the man was a fellow Southwesterner. He and his family had migrated to California after the collapse of the Legion; the death of Caesar had taken his Pax Romana with him and left behind supernumerary warlord states that scoured the land with their violent squabbling over the throne.
Inside, the store had been properly refurbished and boasted a dizzying array of advanced technology on its wooden shelves. Guns, explosives, drugs, and even some tourist knicknacks from California. A heavily scarred woman in a well-ironed business suit introduced herself as Trova, the expedition's leader. She quoted the reasonable fee of 5,000 caps in exchange for enough antibiotics to save Refuge. The Posse blanched at the thought of so much money. Trova turned her nose up at them when they tried to sell her their stinky Tanaka hides, but a booming voice interrupted her turning them down. A huge man, only a few inches shorter than Adam, approached clutching a massive 6-gauge shotgun and excitedly asking if those were Yao-Guai pelts.
He was disappointed to learn they weren't, but Slim still managed to talk him into buying them for 150 caps. The big man introduced himself as Ardman, the Happy Trails security chief. He had a connection down in Ogden, where the clerical elite of the incipient Deseret were eager for trophies from the north. He'd happily pay them 1,000 caps for each bear corpse they brought him. The Posse considered having to fight a half dozen irradiated monstrosities to save their village. It wasn't an attractive idea, but at least they wouldn't have to collaborate with any local factions. They filed it away for later, and turned their attention towards some shopping. They bought a smattering of munitions and explosives, with Tex splurging most of their money on a brand new acoustic guitar - having lost his own two states back.
Thusly equipped, Slim set about convincing the caravaneers to fund the gang's attempt to clear Grand Loop Road of hostile Tanaka. The traders weren't impressed - the Rangers were only interested in bulk orders of foodstuffs, not goods from the civilised world. What good would opening the route to do them? But then the ex-raider mentioned the Roughnecks, a tribe of oil-drillers that pulled precious petrochemicals out of the earth's crust. That got Trova's attention, who begrudgingly admitted there could be some serious long-term profit to be made. But it was still mere speculation, so it was only worth 500 caps to her. The Posse were perfectly happy with that sum, and struck off to clear the road.
It didn't take them long to find a herd of Tanaka circling the air. With sunset fast approaching, the gang set to work assembling their decoy. They chose a Pre-War long haul truck, deciding to paint the engine block rather than the trailer out of fear the bison would plow straight through the latter. After smearing it with red paint in a vague facsimile of a bison, the Posse retreated a short distance and watched their creation do its work. Sure enough, a buffalo swooped down and loudly brained itself against the truck, eliciting a cheer from the assembled pioneers. Then a second, and a third. As the fourth swooped down to its death, Doc had a sudden realisation. He screamed a warning, dragging his confused companions behind a dirt berm right before-
Slim tried to spin the explosive solution to the Tanaka problem as a good thing for the Khans, but Boris wasn't having any of it. Maybe the young bloods gave a shit about "trade routes" and "safe roads", but he didn't need some jumped up foreigner irradiating his neck of the woods. Still, Boris had to admit that blowing up a bunch of the wildlife with a nuclear bomb was pretty funny. He'd let them off with a warning, just this once.
The Khans then attempted to turn the steam crawler around, but were clearly struggling to operate the dual tracks in the pitch darkness while fucked up on chems. The Posse took the opportunity to beat them back to the Museum, feeding Tex some Mentats to help him pop open the lock. Inside they found Boris' personal stash of drugs, whereupon Doc dosed a vial of Med-X with some death cap mushrooms they'd procured earlier from Ranger Rhondie. Plan in place, the gang stole back to Yellowstone Forever to claim their reward. As Trova was counting out their caps, a panicked Khan stormed into the building yelling about Boris having an OD. He grabbed Doc at gunpoint and forcibly conscripted him into saving his boss' life. The Old Khan was dead before he arrived, but the medic made a show of popping Mentats, taking a pulse, and performing chest compressions, so the Khans didn't smell a rat.
Sorrowful about the pathetic death of their friend, the garrison swore the Posse to secrecy. Tex volunteered a story that Boris died fighting an superpowered irradiated Yao-Guai, which the Khans then demanded he turn into a suitably impressive song. Capitalising on the soldiers' drug-fuelled paranoia, the Posse then spun a story of the Museum being haunted by evil spirits - undoubtedly the reason why Boris had died.
Terrified of succumbing to ectoplasm-tainted narcotics, the Khans fled the Museum and took their steam crawler on a late-night booze cruise across the national park.
Packs laden with their new gear, the party set off down the road towards Canyon Village, eager to meet some of the New Khans and their cult of mysterious doctors.
Halfway there, the Posse spotted movement ahead. Half-a-dozen poorly armed wastelanders, milling about in the middle of the road. They nervously waved as the pioneers approached, hastily identifying themselves as lumberjacks in the employ of the Khanate, and thus under their protection. They had gotten hopelessly lost on the way back to their settlement on the shores of Yellowstone Lake, and were badly in need of directions. Doc demanded payment in exchange for their assistance, which the foresters replied with a threat to tell the Khans the Posse had tried to rob them if they didn't help.
The gang conferred on what to do next. These jobbers were clearly the Scabs the Khans had brought in after starting a labor war with the Loggers. They were laughably incompetent, but Slim had noted the size of their wallets. The Khans were clearly paying them well. Unable to agree on whether to rob them or not, the party instead decided to give them bogus directions and lead them straight into the territory of the Loggers. Surely the stories about them burning people alive in wicker men were exaggerated, and they could curry favour with the tribe by helping them rob these losers.
The gang split up. Doc and Tex would push ahead of the hapless Scabs and warn the Loggers of their approach. Meanwhile, Adam and Slim would follow from behind, ready to ambush the lumberjacks once they bumbled into the hostile tribals.
Things went wrong almost immediately. Doc and Tex were promptly chased up a tree by another pack of hungry wolves, which retreated into the undergrowth to wait them out after the pair fired a few ineffectual shots. Meanwhile, Adam and Slim realised they weren't the only ones following the Scabs. They spotted a pair of men dressed in green roadsigns and riding mountain bikes, stealthily observing the wagies clumsy trek through the woodland. Slim recognised them as Eighties, the motorised raiders from Utah. The pair of bandits were discussing among themselves what to do with the Scabs. They couldn't spend any of the scrip they were carrying. But the women among them weren't too bad looking. One complained that the Roughnecks wouldn't pay for damaged goods. His friend grinned, and asked who said anything about selling them? They'd kill the men, have their fun, and be on their merry way.
Adam had heard enough. With Slim covering his approach, he snuck up behind the raiders. But rather than smash their heads in, he rapped his knuckles against their helmets - a double counting coup.
Nick Eggenhofer
The Eighties spun around to behold the 6' 3" brave behind them. They swore and tried to draw their weapons, but Slim blasted one with a well aimed laser and Adam grappled the other as a human shield. Much to the dismay of his comrade, the injured raider jumped on his bicycle and furiously peddled away - expertly zigzagging through the trees to avoid Slim's follow up shots. The remaining Eighty broke Adam's grapple and tried to blast him with a shotgun, but the pugilist easily disarmed him - happily noting he'd now fulfilled half the requirements of becoming war chief.
Realising they had him dead to rights, the raider promptly surrendered. The pair stripped him of his equipment and debated killing him there and then, until the Eighty recognised Slim's airforce jumpsuit. He was from the PX? Why didn't he say so! The Yellowstone chapter of the Eighties were planning to head there to sell their services, they just needed to sell enough slaves to the Roughnecks to afford the fuel for the journey. His chaptermaster had even told him to look out for capable wastelanders to hire as pathfinders to help find a route through the Khan's blockade.
Impressed by the brigand's common sense and business acumen, and his seemingly honest description of the raider tribe's location in Pelican SPrings, Slim argued with Adam that they should let the man go. The brave relented, after relinquishing him of his gun and bicycle. The raider promised to put in a good word with his bosses, right after he beat his useless friend to death for abandoning him.
Meanwhile, Doc and Tex were wondering if they'd have to spend the night in a tree when the roaring of a chainsaw echoed through the forest. It was met with the terrified yelping of wolves, and then a sudden silence. The pair nervously observed the surrounding woods, and shouted out into the darkness. Voices called out from all around them, staggering their words to leave the pioneers confused as to their exact location. The chainsaw continued to rev, similarly swapping positions each time. The Loggers mocked the pioneers, promising to hang them from the tree. The duo hastily explained that they weren't Scabs, in fact they had deliberately led a party of the offending foresters right into the tribe's arms!
The voices from the woods mumurred among themselves, then demanded the pair disarm. Doc and Tex dutifully left their weapons in the tree and dropped to the forest floor. They were soon surrounded by a small war party of flannel-clad tribals, armed with wood axes, spears, bear-trap-gauntlets and panoplies of beautifully carved wooden armour. Their leader was a burly lumberjack named Hardin toting a fusion-powered chainsaw with custom ergonomics that were obviously intended for felling men instead of trees. After a tense negotiation, Hardin sent a pair of his men to scout the situation. After they reported back that a group of Scabs were in fact heading this way, the tribals relaxed and allowed the Posse members to rearm themselves.
The ensuing violence could barely be called a combat. The wastelanders screamed and sobbed and died. When all was said and done, only two were left standing - sans a mortally injured woman that was brutally stabbed to death by a flinty-eyed spearman. True to the rumours, the Loggers immediately moved to burn the survivors at the stake. Their new allies brutality didn't sit well with the Posse. Indeed, even a few of the tribals looked a bit green in the gills at the idea of burning the poor bastards alive. With some sweet talking, the pioneers managed to convince the Loggers to postpone their brutal execution and bring the captives back to camp. This small act of mercy didn't stop the party from rifling through the pockets of their victims and looting a healthy sum of Khan scrip.
The Logger camp was a collection of timber-framed earth dugouts hidden in the woods. The tribe was clearly divided among gendered lines; the men performed manual labour and the fighting, while the women cooked, cleaned, and crafted equipment for the war effort. The Posse noticed a younger woman that didn't look like a Logger - she was dressed in the sort of clothing prairie farmers wore.
Soon the tribe's elected chieftain emerged from a lean-to, a man with a steel cant hook for a left hand. Hook Tender Michael listened to the briefing of Hardin, and asked the Posse what their angle was staying his underling's hand from killing trespassers. The pioneers explained that the tribals were doing it all wrong - it didn't matter how many Scabs they killed or how brutally they did it. The Khans would just suppress information and keep paying them more. They needed to change strategies.
Michael countered with the argument that leaving the Scabs alone would only make things worse. Sure some will always accept the Khanate's paper, but those would be only be the most foolish - incompetent idiots that were easily dealt with. He waved a hook in the direction of their captives to illustrate his point. Leave them to their own devices, and they'll only get more entrenched. Soon it won't just be woodcutters, but sawmills and lumber yards. They'll level the forest and tile the land with crops and then what will his people do? Where will they go? It'll be the Khans' yoke or the grave.
The Posse didn't disagree, but pointed out that he was still delaying the inevitable. They explained how they'd poisoned a Khan war boss, left him dying from an OD in his own vomit and piss. His men had packed up and left the next day. You didn't go after the underlings, you cut the head off the snake.
Some Loggers mumurred in assent, until Michael silenced them with a raised hook. He had heard their arguments, but now was time to confer with his lieutenants and wives. The tribal elders disappeared into a large dugout, leaving the pioneers to have their run of the camp.
The woman from earlier took the opportunity to approach the gang. She introduced herself as Freehand, a tribal from Tower Cap, a farming community built around the Devils Tower national monument in Wyoming that'd been conquered by the Khanate. They'd conscripted her and her sister as forced labour, then beaten her sibling to death after she refused to work. Freehand had run off and defected to the Loggers, but the tribe didn't let women fight. If the Posse were looking to tangle with the Khans, she'd be willing to join them. In need of a skilled guide, the pioneers happily hired her on.
At that moment, the chieftain reemerged. He had come to a decision. The Posse were led inside the dugout and shown an appreciable pile of loot, including a full suit of Pre-War combat armour that Adam eagerly eyed. Michael explained his proposition to the gang. He agreed with their strategy, that they needed to do something the Khans couldn't simply ignore. The Scabs had overrun the Logger's ancestral home by the shore of Yellowstone Lake. The community was kept together by Betty, a pimp and bartender that supplied the town with booze and women. The logging operations were run by Foy, a foreman hired on by the Khans.
Michael wanted both of them assassinated. He gave the party a pair of sharp hatchets to bury in the corpses as calling cards, to let the Scabs know they could kill their most influential and powerful right under the Khans' noses. That should buy the Loggers enough breathing room to prepare for a proper offensive against the empire. If the Posse succeeded, they'd get the pile of loot and the promise of military assistance if they ever marched to war against the Khanate.
The party agreed. The pact sealed, the Loggers hosted them for the night, providing a hearty meal of elk stew, roast fish, leafy greens, and mashed sweet potato. The Posse thanked them for the food, and tried to ignore the Scabs' cries as they were dragged away by axe-wielding tribals.
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