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Fallout: Big Apple Wasteland is a is a Fallout-themed Pen and Paper roleplaying game which was created by Tom Howard, and originally hosted on http://www.bigapplewasteland.com, which is no longer acessible. The formatting of the following text has been adjusted to accommodate single-column formatting and lack of page breaks, as such, subheadings denoting a continuation of a previous section have been omitted.

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Equipment & Items
{{transcript|text=Equipment and Items... All equipment has two values: weight and a value in caps. Armor also has condition and damage resistance, while weapons also have condition and a base damage value, and may also have ammunition capacity, ammo type, and effective range. Special items are uniquely named, highly valued, and have additional bonuses or effects.

A player character may not carry more items than their carry weight allows. Items stored in a vehicle compartment or on a pack animal do not count toward an individual carry weight, but will count toward their own storage limits.

Storage Weight Limits Roadster Motorcycle = +100 pounds Companion NPC = +100 pounds Pack Brahmin = +200 pounds Highwayman = +300 pounds Vertibird = +400 pounds Boat = +500 pounds

The above limits represent not only the space available for storage, but also the ability to successfully travel once the items are stored. Overloaded boats will sink, overloaded Vertibirds won't be able to take off, and overloaded NPCs will either refuse items (free companions) or collapse due to exhaustion (enslaved companions) until their total weight carried is reduced.

Characters exceeding their total carry weight will not be able to move, attack opponents, or defend themselves until they get rid of some of their items. Small gun ammo is not considered to have weight for the sake of gameplay. But feel free to add optional `hardcore' weight rules!

Item Condition Certain items, such as weapons and armor, have a condition rating assigned to them to determine the overall wear and tear effect on the item quality, which has an impact on either weapon damage or on armor damage resistance. Worth repeating, condition is rated as follows:

Armor & Weapon Condition: 10 Excellent x1.25 rounded off 8-9 Good x1.0 4-7 Worn x0.75 2-3 Damaged x0.50 1 Ruined x0.25

No item may be rated higher than 10, and once an item reaches a condition of 0, it is destroyed, and cannot be repaired.

Item Repair To repair items, you must have the same item at a lower condition at hand. Then, make a Repair skill check. The number of successes is the maximum number of condition points restored to the item being repaired. The lower condition item is destroyed in the process. In all cases, like repairs like. So, a hunting rifle may be repaired with another, lower condition hunting rifle, or a suit of leather armor repaired with another suit of leather armor. Some discretion should be allowed: you may repair a reinforced leather armor with a regular leather armor, or a scoped hunting rifle with a regular hunting rifle, etc.

The game master may allow a player to repair an item with another non-similar item if a compelling explanation is given, but at a specific difficulty rating. If you want to repair your hunting rifle with a junk toaster, be creative in your explanation, and be prepared to make a Very Hard repair skill check. In the event of failure, the repairs simply do not work, and should be abandoned.

Additionally, certain NPCs may offer repair services, for a price. In all cases, access to a workbench is not needed; repairs can be made in any location, even without access to facilities.

Weapons and Armor
Weapons and armor are categorized by either the weapon skill needed to use them, or by the relative type of the armor (light, medium, and heavy armor).

Big Guns => Miniguns, Missile Launchers, Gatling Lasers, Heavy Machineguns, Artillery, Flamers, Incinerators, Rocket Launchers, Anti-Aircraft Guns

Small Guns => Automatic Pistols, Revolvers, Submachine Guns, Automatic and Semi-Automatic Rifles, Carbines, Lever Action Rifles, Hunting Rifles, Shotguns, Zip Guns, Light Machineguns, Sniper Rifles, Anti-Material Rifles, Railway Rifles

Melee => Knives, Clubs, Lead Pipes, Axes, Sledgehammers, Swords, Gauntlet Weapons, Shishkebabs, Spears, Staves, Chains, Throwing Knives/Axes/Stars, Hammers, Medieval Weapons

Unarmed => Unarmed Punches & Kicks, Brass Knuckles, Spiked Knuckles, Boxing Gloves, Boxing Tape, Power Fists, Power Boots, Spiked Boots

Energy Weapons => Laser Pistols, Laser Rifles, Plasma Pistols, Plasma Rifles, Disintegrators, Alien Blasters, Pulse Pistols, Pulse Rifles, Stun Guns, Mesmetrons, Shock Batons, Tesla Rifles, Tesla Cannons, Microwave Weapons, Railguns

Explosives => Frag Grenades, Frag Mines, Pulse Grenades, Pulse Mines, Plasma Grenades, Plasma Mines, Dynamite, Fire Bombs, Satchel Charges, Time Bombs, Bottlecap Mines, C4, Gas Bombs

Light Armor => Tribal Armor, Leather Armor, Armored Vault Jumpsuit, Raider Armor, Wasteland Armor, Security Armor, Tactical Vest, Leather Jacket, Chinese Jumpsuit, Y/C-13 Juicer Harness

Medium Armor => Reinforced Leather Armor, Recon Armor, Chinese Stealth Suit, Reinforced Armored Vault Jumpsuit, Headhunter Armor, Lightweight Metal Armor, Marine Infantry Armor, Airborne Infantry Armor, Combat Armor, Metal Armor, Tesla Armor, Reinforced Metal Armor, Deckard Industries Tactical Armor

Heavy Armor => T-45 Power Armor, T-51 Power Armor, T-60b Power Armor, Enclave Power Armor, Brotherhood Power Armor, Brotherhood Outcast Power Armor, Tribal Power Armor}}

Weapons
Chem Effect Table

A Brief Timeline of the Pre-War Big Apple
2043: The struggling New York City MTA transit system is privatized, broken up into its three original components — the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit corporation (BMT), the Interborough Rapid Transit corporation (IRT) and Independent (IND) lines — in a landmark ruling by the Eastern Commonwealth Court of Appeals.

2052: The United Nations is officially disbanded. The United Nations Headquarters building is sold to toy retail chain Bumbalo’s as the future site of their East Coast superstore.

2057: Following a federal corruption sting that jails all of Hudson County New Jersey’s municipal and county executives, the City of New York formally annexes Hudson County as its sixth and final borough. The Port Authority is disbanded and reorganized as the private Hudson-Manhattan Railroad (HMR), consistent with other transit lines.

2062: The first Chinese commando units begin infiltrating the United States, carrying out the Niagara Sabotage and subverting companies for use as fronts in money-laundering operations, such as Mama Dulce’s processed food.

2063: The first Nike missile batteries in over a hundred years are brought back online in a defensive ring surrounding New York City. These are planned as the first stage of an automated defense system in the event of total nuclear war.

2065: In June, due to enormous demands for electricity from a 17+ million population, the Hunter’s Point nuclear reactor in New York City goes supercritical, almost causing a meltdown. The near meltdown brings into effect power rationing.

2066: China invades Alaska, and fighting commences along the Anchorage Front Line. 2067: Construction of Vault 42 (in Central Park at Belvidere Castle) ends.

2068: Vault-Tec official Giles Wolstencroft is abducted by aliens while inspecting the Vault 76 construction site near Willow Grove AFB.

2070: In Philadelphia, the executive talent recruitment firm of Belcher, Duchess & Manley executes a hostile takeover of a rival firm, Professional Associates, and then literally executes the rival firm’s CEO, COO, and four VPs in whatbecomes known as the Arbor Day Turkey Shoot. The resulting trial achieves world wide notoriety.

The first Chryslus Motors fusion-powered cars are released, including the Corvega and Highwayman. General Atomics quickly follows with its line of motorcycles. The vehicles are so successful, they drive traditional automotive manufacturers like FMC out of business within five years.

2072: The United States invades Canada.

2075: Automated Robotic Defense Platform Alpha — a rare joint project of RobCo Industries and Poseidon Oil — comes online. It is the first, and last, oceanic naval weapons platform.

2076: The United States annexes Canada.

2077: The United States launches the Yangtze Campaign, an invasion of mainland China, while the bulk of Chinese forces remain pinned down in Alaska. In response, China plans an invasion of the Eastern United States, with commando and infantry units transported secretly by shipping containers to Port Newark outside of New York City and then by train to the outskirts of Washington, DC.

In October, US power armor reaches Beijing. Facing defeat, China launches its nuclear arsenal. A two hour nuclear exchange reduces most of the world’s population centers to cinders. Automated defenses ringing New York City are mostly effective against the barrage of incoming missiles, sparing much of the city from direct impacts. However, the resulting air bursts amplify the effect of airborne radioactive fallout from other impact sites, creating a ‘radioactive hurricane’ over the metropolitan area. Millions die or slowly become ghouls.

The doors of the Lost Vault do not open as scheduled, dooming hundreds of wealthy residents to die in the wilderness of the Delaware Water Gap. The Lost Vault has remained closed ever since, impervious to all attempts to break in.

The World of Today
The Big Apple Wasteland in 2302 Twenty-one years have passed since the Courier was ambushed in the Mohave Wasteland, setting off the events of Fallout: New Vegas, and twenty- five years have passed since the Lone Wanderer set off from Vault 101 in the Capital Wasteland to achieve glory in the events of Fallout 3. The world has changed significantly, but the Big Apple Wasteland has still proved too difficult to tame.

The defeat of the Enclave at the hands of the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel, along with the activation of Project Purity, set off a chain of events similar to the stabilization of northern California before the emergence of the New California Republic. The informal alliance between Rivet City and the Capital Wasteland Brotherhood for the protection and operation of water caravans quickly lead to a formal union, and with the inclusion of Vault 101 and Canterbury Commons, the Republic of the Potomac was born.

Within five years, they had reclaimed the Mall and the Capitol Building, driven raiders out of Bethesda, Paradise Falls and Fairfax, and incorporated peaceful communities. This created a mass exodus of raiders, slavers, former Enclave remnants, Brotherhood Outcasts, and most importantly, hundreds or even thousands of remaining Super Mutants who flocked to the Big Apple Wasteland. Many of the slavers of the Capital Wasteland fled north into the Philly and Keystone Wastes, to be absorbed by larger gangs.

The Philly Wasteland became even more harsh and depraved as a result of the influx of new blood and new slaves. The Harrisburg ruins became a slaving hub, launching raids northwest into previously untouched tribal lands. And following the death of Lord Ashur, The Pitt descended into chaos and faced a similar exodus.

The Brotherhood of Steel’s Capital Wasteland faction remains a military order within the Republic, but holds back its forces to defend “the Capital Homeland,” as it is now referred to within the Republic. They have little to no contact with other Brotherhood factions now that the Outcasts have left the Capital Wasteland.

Other factions have not been sitting still. The Commonwealth in particular became increasingly aware of the growing power to the south through its own agents and spies. The Commonwealth’s own struggle with dissidents such as the Underground Railroad has brought it into indirect conflict a number of times with the anti-slavery Republic of the Potomac, but at present they focus on arming and using tribals and mercenary groups as proxies, while implanting agents within the ranks of their opponents. One exception are the termination strike teams sent to “retire” malfunctioning androids who were smuggled out by the Railroad, and “recover” the lost property.

The outlying areas of the Big Apple Wasteland are therefore now in a constant state of low-intensity conflict, with refugees, raiders, slavers, agents and adventurers traversing the wilderness in small groups and scouting parties. The Keystone Wasteland, Albany Wasteland, Jersey Wastes, and the wilderness north and west of the Big Apple are all relatively untamed, with only pockets of civilization here and there.

If the Philly Wasteland is hell on earth, then the Big Apple Wasteland is pure pandemonium. Relatively few have made it into the city ruins itself, due to the radiation still present in the rivers and harbors of old New York. Only a few entry points exist, by narrow tunnel passage ways under the Hudson, by the precarious, irradiated bridgeworks still intact, or by radiation shielded watercraft. Some have insisted that it might be possible to use a pre-War aircraft or Vertibird to land in the city ruins, but no one has ever tried it.

Even if one were brave or reckless enough to enter the ruins, they would have to contend with block by block ruins of wrecked skyscrapers, gaping craters, and deep holes leading into the city’s underground infrastructure, infested with vicious irradiated ghouls, abominations, automated robot defenders, and some of the best organized and most violent wasteland gangs operating out of fortified buildings and pre-War sports stadiums.

Two-hundred and twenty-five years after the Great War, the Big Apple Wasteland could be the last unconquered wasteland left for the taking.

The Big Apple Wasteland: Region


The Pitt: Post-apocalyptic ruins of Pittsburgh, a hellish city ruled by depraved slavers and warlords.

Trog Lands: Infested areas filled with the diseased, mutated, feral humans known as ‘Trogs’.

Erie Wastes: A harsh, blasted junkyard of industry, worn down by ice and sand storms.

Deathclaw Wilderness: A forbidding, sprawling forest of dead trees, stalked by packs of Deathclaw.

Yao Guai Preserve: Former natural preserve overrun by Yao Guai, and home to fierce tribals.

Altoona Works: The largest pre-war industrial railroad machine center in the world.

Vault 77: The sole inhabitants of Vault 77 were one man (the Puppet Man), and a crate of puppets. Abandoned and considered taboo to local tribals.

Letterkenny Army Depot: Sprawling pre-war military base. Automated defenses and feral ghouls.

Billtown: Fortified wilderness town on the irradiated Susquehanna River.

The Kills: A barren wilderness.

York, Lancaster: Two feuding post-apocalyptic baronies with a relatively low tech level.

Harrisburg Ruins: Old state capital, now inhabited by Super Mutants and raider gangs.

Philadelphia Ruins: Even more depraved than the Pitt. Home to the high-tech, cannibal mercs known as Headhunters, and the Slavers’ Guild.

Picatinny Arsenal: Pre-war army research base nestled away in the wooded hills of northern NJ.

Ash Lands: The highly irradiated Hudson Valley.

Van Buren, Jubilee: Outpost communities of the Railroad, dedicated to ending all slavery.

Albany Terrorist Prison: Controlled by Chinese Remnant ghouls once held prisoner there.

Great Lanta, Empire of Tillie: Major slaver strongholds along the old Jersey Shore.

Naval Weapons Station Earle, Nike Missile Bases: Part of the pre-war Big Apple Automated Defense System guarding New York City.

The Commonwealth: Includes the Institute, Diamond City and other outposts. A war-ravaged technological quagmire of violence and despair.

Deckard Industries: An arms and armor factory re-built from a pre-War defense manufacturer.

Wardenclyffe: An independent, and peaceful, scientific research community near the pre-war Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Tokamak Reactor: A pre-War research facility near Old Grad (pre-war Princeton, NJ).

Derelict Poseidon Oil Rig: Home to Enclave remnants, who fled there from Raven Rock.



Big Apple Wasteland: Subway and Transit Map
Official Map of the Big Apple Transit system, 2077 Interboro Rapid Transit [IRT]: Equivalent to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 lines under MTA.

Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit [BMT]: Equivalent to J, L, M N, Q, R lines under MTA.

Hudson-Manhattan Railroad [HMR]: Equivalent to PATH lines, including regional light rail.

Independent Subway System [IND]: Equivalent to A, B, C, D, E, F, G lines under MTA.

Each of the lines in question had their own, unaffiliated robot security systems, with Protectron, Securitron and Mr. Handy/Mr. Gutsy robot patrols, controlled and managed by a single Protectron Master-Bot for each line. The Master-Bot locations correspond to the administration headquarters of each line: 239th Street Yard in the Bronx for IRT, Coney Island in Brooklyn for BMT, Journal Square in Hudson for HMR, and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens for IND.

The Pitt (Neighboring Region)
The Pitt is located in irradiated pre-War ruins of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Following the Scourging of the Pitt in 2255 by the Brotherhood of Steel, a former Paladin named Ashur formed a society of slaves ruled by slave masters, raiders and gang members. The Lone Wanderer traveled through here after 2277, and by 2302, The Pitt has been transformed into an only slightly less terrible industrial center that relies on semi-free workers rather than outright slaves. Trogs have been pushed to the outskirts.

Monroeville remains the last bastion of slavers in the Pitt in 2302, and a haven for raiders launching scouting and trading “work parties” into the wastes.

Trog Lands remain to the northeast, east and southwest of the Pitt, home now both to Trogs and outlaw Wildmen who were not integrated into the new army of the Pitt.

Erie Wastes (Neighboring Region)
Little is known about the Erie Wastes, except for stories of windswept snowfields in the winter, and sand storms in the summer, across a blighted, rusted landscape of desolate urban ruins and abandoned communities and industrial sites.

Deathclaw Wilderness (Neighboring Region)
Stunted trees and thorn bushes have replaced the once numerous hardwood trees of this wild area. It has provided Deathclaws with a perfect location for breeding and hunting. Eve the toughest of tribals avoid venturing into this maze of rocky underbrush.

The town of Kane is a rare anomaly, a trading post located in the heart of the Wilderness. The town is also home to some intelligent Abominations.

Yao Guai Preserve (Neighboring Region)
Less dangerous than the Deathclaw Wilderness, the Preserve is home to two main tribes: the Ridge Runners and the Tioga.

The Ridge Runners are a non-traditional tribe, composed of outlaws, ex-raiders, runaway slaves, survivalists and others. Kinship is not a factor, as all outcasts are accepted for consideration. Their tribal chief, Ajax, is a former mercenary. They often supplement their hunting with raiding for goods, but are hostile to slaving gangs. Their signature weapons is a modified .32 Hunting Rifle.

The Tioga are a traditional tribe, with bloodlines running back to the original inhabitants of the area. They exist in an uneasy truce with the Ridge Runners, and are more interested in survival and hunting Yao Guai. Their tribal chief is cautious and confers with the Tioga Elders before making any decision. Their signature weapon is a modified Combat Knife, used for survival and taking the scalps of enemies.

The Kills (Neighboring Region)
Like the Yao Guai Preserve, this is a vast wilderness of dwarf hardwood trees and undergrowth, rocky outcroppings and cliffs of the Catskill Mountains. Most town ruins are considered taboo by the tribals located here. Three tribes inhabit the area, locked in skirmishes with one another by 2302.

The Blackthorns live in the northeast and are most influenced by the Institute and the Commonwealth to the east. In fact, the Institute actively use them as a buffer. They are savage, but well armed, with clubs and energy weapons given by the Institute. They control the area bordering Vault 7, Van Buren, the Ash Lands and Albany Ruins. Frequently found carrying chems.

The Cochecton are a traditional tribe, ruled by a matriarchal council, and kinship is matrilineal. They tend to be friendly to outsiders, seeing them as potential allies, but hostile to the Institute- backed Blackthorns. They control the area to the south, including Skytop, parts of the Kittatinny Mountains and up to the Scar.

The Chenango to the northwest prefer to keep a distance from all other tribes and communities. They are a traditional, patrilineal tribe, and have an active primitive religion, with a strong history of shunning civilization following the Great War.

Vault 7 falls just outside Blackthorn territory, and was dedicated to experimentation on chemically augmented humans. A cave-in buried all but the entrance, and small medical clinic/lab, and several research terminals with access to the mainframe, still running beneath the buried section.

Skytop is an Air Courier base with good relations with local tribals. The Air Couriers can be found in pockets across the old Eastern Commonwealth and have resurrected secrets of manned flight. Many communities rely on Air Couriers for information, supplies and trade in addition to Brahmin caravans.

Albany Wasteland (Neighboring Region)
Centered on the ruins of old Albany, this area tends to function more as outskirt region of the Commonwealth to the east.

Polytechnic is an outpost of Institute scientists combing through the records of the pre-War Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

The Albany Terrorist Prison was established in the 2060’s to house captured Chinese saboteurs for the Eastern Commonwealth. After the war, many of the inhabitants became ghouls, and now control the prison complex from the inside.

Van Buren is a safe haven community for the Railroad, named after the eighth President of the United States and located near his birthplace, north of the lower Hudson Valley Ash Lands.

The Ash Lands south of Albany are the result of radioactive silt and dust deposited by storms after the War. Nothing grows, and feral ghouls roam.

Capital Wasteland (Neighboring Region)
Centered on the ruins of Washington DC, it is the location of most of the Lone Wanderer’s actions and events, some 25 years ago, in 2277.

As of 2302, following the defeat of the Enclave, the area has been re-organized under the Republic of the Potomac, an alliance of the Brotherhood of Steel, Rivet City, Megaton / Tenpenny Tower, Vault 101, Canterbury Commons, Underworld, and several smaller member states. It is headquartered in the Capital building on the Mall. In those 25 years, Paradise Falls, Bethesda, Fairfax, Old Olney, Fort Bannister and much of the DC ruins were reclaimed and “civilized” by combined effort. Remaining Super Mutants were driven north en masse, toward the Philly and Big Apple Wastes.

The Capital Wasteland Brotherhood of Steel continues to operate as an independent, quasi- religious military order that wields significant influence. The Brotherhood of Steel controls and defends the only working water purification plant in the Wasteland, at the Jefferson Memorial.

All armed units of the Republic display the old American Flag, including Brotherhood of Steel patrols and units. The irony that they have adopted the same goals of Colonel Autumn’s Enclave is lost on most Capital officials and supporters. Citizens frequently speak of their ‘manifest destiny’ as the heirs of what they call the old American Empire. Conflict with other regions seems inevitable.

The Brotherhood Outcasts left the Capital Wasteland two decades ago for the Big Apple Wasteland after hearing rumors of an expedition from the Western Brotherhood of Steel, and now control Liberty Island, the Cloisters, and several other outposts. Often the term Brotherhood of Steel is used interchangeably for either faction, as each considers itself the legitimate Brotherhood.

Keystone Wasteland (Neighboring Region)
The terrain of the old state of Pennsylvania ranges from steep mountains and dead forests to flat plains and derelict farmlands. Ruins and crumbling infrastructure line the east-west route of old Highways 80, 78 and 76, while the irradiated Susquehanna River divides the wasteland.

Altoona Works was the largest pre-War railroad machine center in the world. As of 2077, the sprawling complex was only partially active.

The abandoned Vault 77 — legendary home to the ‘Puppet Man’ — is located on a mountaintop near old Route 80, north of the ruins of State College, Pennsylvania. The location is taboo and off-limits to the local Snow Shoe tribals, who have placed totems nearby warning away any outsiders.

Although nearly all major cities in the region were obliterated in the Great War, the Lock Haven Crater was the site of a massive strike that flattened most of the town. The lone radio tower north of an old hospital complex broadcasts a distress signal to anyone in short range.

Billtown is small, prosperous and well defended frontier settlement in the Keystone Wastes located in the downtown ruins of old Williamsport. On the north side of the Susquehanna, it is also one of the few secure places to cross the river (over a radiation-shielded bridge) before the Harrisburg Ruins or Battle Crossing downstream. It is also home to the wilderness scouts and lawmen known as the Williamsport Scout Troopers (aka the Leathermen, Black Legs, Billtown Bitches). These men and women are quite similar to the Desert Rangers of the Mojave, but are also often the only source of justice and law small settlements have.

Pocono Skydiving is a small trading post located at the old Hazleton Municipal Airport, a favorite refueling station for Air Couriers. The Scout Troopers have an outpost at a nearby State Police Barracks from before the war.

North of Hazleton, and running for 40 miles southwest to northeast is The Scar, a radioactive hell hole encompassing old Wilkes-Barre and Scranton, and surrounding towns from Nanticoke in the southwest to Carbondale in the northeast. Slavers, raiders, Super Mutants and Ghouls (including many Glowing Ones) follow over a dozen separate warlords fighting for control. The Scar rivals the Pitt in brutality, although the Philly Wasteland far eclipses both.

Dead City is a ghoul-only car and junk fortress complex located in the ruins of Allentown. It is a haven for ghouls, and others will be fired upon.

Vault 78 is located on Haycock Mountain in Nockamixon State Park near a Flooded Quarry. The Harrisburg Ruins is slaver turf, and is the site of a major Slavers’ Guild outpost and holding pens for slaves being traded down river by boat.

Downstream at the old Wright’s Ferry Bridge is Battle Crossing, site of ten years of stand offs between the Lancaster and York Baronies, each 10 miles in either direction. The ruins of Columbia on the east side of the river are fortified by soldiers of the Lancaster Barony, and Wrightsville on the west by soldiers of the York Barony.

Lancaster Barony is ruled by the aging Baron Henry ‘Mac’ Adam, who initiated the current round of fighting after his daughter was found murdered some ten years ago with York foul play suspected. It boasts nearly twice the population of York, but relies on conscript levies from nearby farms, who go into battle supported by Protectrons and other robot forces. Armstrong Industries operates a refurbished RobCo plant here, and has recently been experimenting with cybernetic enhancements there at the request of the Baron.

York Barony is smaller in population than Lancaster, but has more resources at its disposal. The Baron, ‘Big Fat Daddy’ Bobby Noor, has been sending agents to Lancaster for years, but insists he did not order the murder of Baron Lancaster’s daughter. York’s army is comprised mostly of mercenaries, raiders, slavers and hired guns. General Atomics had a major motorcycle factory here, and raider gangs riding Roadsters through the streets is not an uncommon site. In addition, the Baron encourages soldiers to take combat- enhancing chems, and has a functioning research and chem production facility that is considered vital to the war effort.

Letterkenny Army Depot, located 45 miles from the Harrisburg Ruins and 65 miles from Battle Crossing, is a massive, 35 square mile pre- War bunker complex. The main Depot in the south east section of the base has hundreds of US Army vehicles and weapons from before the war in over 30 storage hangars, including trucks, jeeps, motorcycles, armored vehicles, a few obsolete tanks, artillery, power armor, and even a few Vertibirds with their own helipad. This also includes barracks, communication facilities, and its own jail compound.

The Letterkenny Army Depot Bunkers occupy the bulk of real estate. Hundreds of individual bunkers used to store munitions during the war are located here, including the massive Nike anti-ballistic missiles.

The Letterkenny Vault is a military vault dug into the side of Broad Mountain to the northwest of the base. It rivals Raven Rock in size and facilities, and was meant as a command and control center for the automated defense systems being planned for the nation’s cities, but only ever finished for the Big Apple itself, and then, partially.

The entire Letterkenny Army Depot is surrounded by reinforced, electrified steel gates and blast walls, with automated turrets in guard towers and a perimeter patrolled by Sentry Bots, Eyebots, Mr. Gutsy robots and Protect-O-Bots. Inner perimeter patrols are carried out by Protectrons, Securitrons and Eyebots.

It is impossible to gain access to any part of the facility without the corresponding access code + key card: Violet for the main entrance, Indigo for surface personnel facilities (barracks, mess hall, infirmary), Blue for storage hangars, Green for storage bunkers, Yellow for entry level Vault, Orange for research level Vault, Red for command level Vault. Each access card level will also grant access to all facilities beneath its level.

Philly Wasteland
Much has been mentioned about the utterly depraved depths to which the denizens of the Philadelphia Ruins have sunk. Here is a brief overview that only scratches the surface.

King of Prussia Mall on the outskirts of Philly is home to a group of Dead City exiles who preyed upon other ghouls. Black-hearted criminals and bandits who attack any caravan or scavenging party that comes close.

Vault 76 was a control vault, and opened on schedule in 2097, 20 years after the War. After the Vault reactor went critical following a sustained Super Mutant attack, the remaining Vault Dwellers fled to nearby Willow Grove Naval Air Station where they rallied other post-apocalyptic survivors. Their efforts would be instrumental in founding the Air Couriers’ Union in 2268.

Faust Elementary is home to a depraved religious cult who practice ritualistic vivisection.

The nearby Parx Casino and Racing is abandoned, but rumors of a hidden cache of pre- War money and treasures abound in the surrounding region. Rumors also say that no scavenger has ever returned from the Casino.

Northeast Philadelphia Ruins is a crater filled, pock-marked assortment of burned out houses, rubble and debris fields, frequently picked over by passing raiders and Super Mutants.

North Philadelphia Ruins are home to several gangs, all vying for dominance. Chinese Remnant ghouls frequent the old Tioga Marine Terminal.

Center City Ruins is a maze of toppled skyscrapers, barricades and deep pits dug into the craters left by the bombs dropped over 200 years ago. The neighborhoods between Logan Square and Rittenhouse Square are home to the Headhunters, the most feared and most vilified gang of degenerates in the Wasteland.

Founded by survivors of the pre-War talent recruitment agency of Belcher, Duchess & Manley, the Headhunters’ cut throat skills enabled them to create a dystopian society, holding together a coalition of slavers, raiders, mercenaries, rape gangs and cannibals. They transformed Eastern State Penitentiary into a fortress stronghold, and have taken over 30th Street Station as a raiding base. Rittenhouse Square is now a massive, dark pit several hundred feet deep called simply, Hell, with shacks, hovels, shops and brothels dug into the walls going down.

City Hall is controlled by Super Mutants, who can also be found in large numbers throughout Center City. Franklin Square and Chinatown are a mix of Chinese Remnant ghouls and Super Mutants (located at the Roundhouse), while the Philadelphia History Museum and Liberty Bell monument remain untouched, accessible only through a narrow maintenance tunnel.

South Philadelphia Ruins is controlled by the Slavers’ Guild. Here slaves break rocks and work the land under the direction of overseers, or toil in makeshift workshops loading ammo or making weapons. Farther south, Poseidon Oil Park Stadium, the Nuka-Cola Center and RobCo Field act as massive slave holding pens for slaving traffic coming up river from other regions.

South Jersey Wasteland
Great Lanta is the largest settlement in South Jersey, in the ruins of Atlantic City, Ocean City and Margate City, New Jersey. Its location makes it incredibly strategic to anyone traveling the waters of the Eastern seaboard between the Big Apple Wasteland and Commonwealth to the north, and the Capital Wasteland to the south.

The city in 2302 is a resort town controlled and operated by the Slavers’ Guild, with casinos, brothels, chem shops and other vices. Nearly all establishments are staffed by slaves. Armed slaver guards are everywhere.

It is also the birthplace of Saint Monica, who was born to ghouls but had no ghoul traits. Her son, Ehran, was a slave owner himself but freed his slaves. Their descendants founded the settlement of Jubilee deep in the pine woods of South Jersey at pre-War Batsto, now an outpost of the Railroad, and hostile to all slavers.

Further up the coast, on the site of pre-War Asbury Park is the Empire of Tillie, founded by a group of raiders and slavers who left the Slavers’ Guild to found their own boardwalk settlement.

Inland about 7 miles from the Empire of Tillie is Naval Weapons Station Earle, a massive weapons and munitions depot, on a smaller scale than Letterkenny Army Depot. This base was run by the US Navy, and housed conventional, nuclear, energy and experimental weapons. Like Letterkenny Army Depot, there are over 300 bunkers, and the premises are patrolled by US Navy Sentry Bots, Protect-O-Bots, Mr. Gutsy robots, and Eyebots.

Adjacent to Naval Weapons Station Earle is HELIOS Five, a solar plant built by Poseidon Energy. Like HELIOS One in the Mojave, it is linked to two space weapons platforms, Archimedes IX and Archimedes X. It is abandoned, but automated defense systems are active. Research notes also indicate a third network link, to ARD Platform Alpha.

Continuing west across New Jersey, the landscape is dotted with suburban ruins and moldering condominium developments. Freetown is a Railroad outpost disguised as a trading post.

Farther south, the ruins of Six Flags Amusement Park cast a bleak silhouette across the barren, dead fields around it and are visible for dozens of miles.

Central Jersey Wasteland
The mile wide Trenton Crater is all that remains of the old state capital, and the surrounding Trenton Ruins and Empty Factory are swarming with Super Mutants. A bridge exists across the irradiated Delaware River with damaged, 15 foot tall letters hanging from it: TRENTON MAKES THE WORLD TAKES.

To the north at Washington’s Crossing, a plaque describes the events of the Revolutionary War. The irradiated river is fordable at this point. 3 miles up the Delaware from here, a Rock Quarry is home to a large nest of Deathclaw.

The dormitories of the Princeton University Graduate College have been converted into a fortified compound known as Old Grad by a small community of wasteland scientists, lead by an ancient ghoul named Hammond who was once a professor of physics. They need help evicting a group of mixed Wasteland refugees (ghoul, human, Super Mutant) from the site of the old Princeton Plasma Physics Lab and Tokamak Fusion Test Reactor. The origin and true goal of these scientists is not known.

A small group of Enclave Remnants have taken over the ruins of the All American Telegraph Labs north of the ruins of the town of Holmdel. Farther east, on Sandy Hook, Fort Hancock seems abandoned, and all automated defenses appear to be powered down.

Continuing north, a group of Chinese Remnant ghouls founded the Di Yu Trading Company in old New Brunswick, across the dried up Raritan River from ruins of an FMC Auto Assembly Plant and a RobCo Assembly Plant.

Vault 23 is located to the west, near the contaminated Round Valley Reservoir, now breeding ground to Mirelurks. Further west is the abandoned Camp Tecumseh Civil Defense Youth Camp and Delaware River Tubing north of Marshall Island. All American Telegraph Headquarters is 9 miles east of Vault 23.

North Jersey Wasteland
To the west and north, dead forests have been replaced with tangled undergrowth over the decades, as well as with many mutations such as Spore Plants, Strangle Weed and Poison Moss.

Oxford Mountain was a top secret radio numbers station during the War, but has recently reactivated after being silent for 225 years.

North of Oxford Mountain at the old Tilcon quarry and headquarters is the newly established village of Tesla. It is not known where the settlers came from, but local Wastelanders suspect either the Capital Wasteland or the Commonwealth, as they possess high-tech weapons and armor.

On the outskirts of Old Buttzville is the derelict shack of Hot Dog Johnny’s. Nearby lie the haunted ruins of Blairsden and the strange, isolated community of Hakeswell where travelers have been murdered at night by demonic interlopers, if the rumors are believed. Caravans avoid this area if at all possible. Lake Hopatcong is surrounded by various suburban ruins, but contains the wreck of sunken, crash landed pre- War Chinese bomber, with full atomic armaments.

North of Tocks Island and west of Old Blairstown is an Old Mine with a broadcasting radio beacon, a crate with 9mm ammo, a Big Book of Science and a First Aid Kit.

Picatinny Arsenal is a vast pre-War military complex over 6 miles long, north to south, and 4,5 miles wide, north of the Dover Ruins. Just north of old Route 80 are the Picatinny Arsenal South Barracks (permanent structures) and Picatinny Camp Juneau (temp structures). Up the main road are the Picatinny Arsenal South Workshops for small arms, energy weapons and personal defense (melee weapons).

North of that are the Picatinny Arsenal Hangars, which were used to house and build experimental vehicles like Vertibirds, but also including captured enemy technology.

Picatinny East Workshops focused on artillery and projectile weapons, such as the Red Glare, Gauss Rifles or Railguns. These were often tested in the nearby Abandoned Mining Complex.

Picatinny North Workshops dealt with extremely sensitive, Top Secret weapons projects, including Sonic Emitter technology, orbital lasers, and experimental dimensional rift technology.

The Picatinny Arsenal Armory functioned mostly as a conventional munitions depot, as all of the high-tech weapons were being developed and tested elsewhere, not stored in a hangar.

The Picatinny Vertibird Pad was located next to the Armory, due to the proximity to an active security detail who could escort dignitaries.

There are hundreds of acres of formerly used or abandoned space in this massive base, from every military era since World War 2. Many of these areas were simply abandoned after a war or conflict and left to rust. Simple scavenging could turn up anything from 1945 to 2077.

Sentry Bots, Eyebots and Protectrons continue to patrol the perimeter of Picatinny Arsenal. Automated Turrets remain activate at major entrance points and roadways. The defenses are passive, and avoiding them is relatively easy.

Tunnels lead from the Abandoned Mining Complex to the Hibernia Mine 3 miles away.

North, west, and east of Picatinny Arsenal are a number of abandoned magnetite mining complexes, including the High Ledge Mine, Panic Mine and Hibernia Mine. A huge rock crushing plant, PJ Smith Rock Crushing, is overrun by Rad Scorpions. To the east, the derelict rides of Action Park rise against the landscape.

Satellite Listening Post HY0B continues to broadcast a location beacon to the south east of Action Park, but not nearby SLP HY0A.

South of Picatinny Arsenal along old Route 287 lie the ruins of Morristown. The ruins of town are filled with abandoned department stores, schools, apartments and office complexes, picked over by scavengers and raiders. Soldiers of Wolfe Company, a mercenary group, have constructed fortifications northeast of the old Civil Defense Armory on the site of Fort Nonsense. Further east along Columbia Turnpike is General Atomics HQ, and office parks for Wattz Electronics, Hidarimizu Chemical, and a training facility for the Big Apple Red Rockets football team.

To the south is the Great Swamp, and the tribal village of Red Oak. Just south of this, hidden within the pre-War Watchung Wildlife Reserve is the entrance to Vault 81, still sealed and nearly impenetrable. Odd lights are often seen floating through the surrounding forest at night.

Far to the north and east of Picatinny Arsenal on the other end of Route 287 is Old Ramapo, location of the Eastern Commonwealth Penitentiary, Generating Station Six, Numbers Station Echo Foxtrot, and RobCo Enterprise Technologies, an isolated research compound of RobCo Industries.

The settlement of Z-Town — a mixed human- ghoul town of scavengers and caravans — is located in the shadow of the Palisades south of the ruins of Nyack, NY. To the south on the west side of the Hudson is Vault 53 set within the Palisades. Constant equipment failures led to the eventual abandonment of this vault, and little has been left unscavenged. Its entrance is at the end of a the narrow Palisades Ravine.

Most of the urban sprawl that existed in pre- War New Jersey was leveled in the Great War. The eastern cities of Bergen, Passaic, Essex and Union counties were all wiped off the map with little more than craters, crumbling overpasses and patches of asphalt remaining.

The ruined Eastern American Flag Company factory in Paterson survived the war, mostly of interest to historical preservationists. MedTek Stadium and Racetrack in East Rutherford also survived, the latter a major stronghold for Super Mutants raiding along Route 80 and the New Jersey Turnpike ruins.

A network of broken and crumbling highways circles the Newark Ruins, pock marked with craters and the debris of blasted oil refineries to the south. To the west and east of the Liberty Airport Ruins — mostly home to junked aircraft and parts picked over by scavengers — are Mama Dolce’s Processing Facility north of I-78 to the west and the Chinese Remnant Container Complex to the east of I-95/NJ Turnpike. Both were integral to the secret Chinese invasion of the United States mainland during the Great War.

Mama Dolce’s operated as a front for Chinese agents, and Port Newark acted as a conduit for troops and equipment brought in via shipping containers.

North of Newark are the Skyway Ruins area, where I-78, I-95 and Route 1 all intersect. The old Pulaski Skyway miraculously survived the war and is now home to base camps for marauding raiders, cannibal gangs and slackliners. A gang called the Road Ragers set up a rather chaotic trading post at Nuka-Cola Quantum Arena named Singularity. The pre-war Crocker Waste Storage facility and landfill still holds pre-war artifacts for the intrepid scavenger, and to the north lies the swamp community of Meadowland, where tribals lead a secluded existence hunting mirelurks in the surrounding wetlands. Big Rig Trucking is a place of interest south of old Route 9, and the eastern border is dominated by the massive Hudson Generating Station south of the Secaucus Train Station ruins, now controlled by Super Mutants.

Big Apple Wasteland: Hudson County
Annexed in 2057 by New York City, Hudson County was home to several large neighborhoods and municipalities with the most ethnically diverse population in the United States at the time. However, almost no residential buildings survived the air bursts at the onslaught of the war.

The pre-War towns of West New York, North Bergen, Union City and Weehawken were burnt to a cinder, with little more than concrete blocks and rubble remaining. Downtown Hoboken became a Flooded District, a radioactive cesspool frequented by Mirelurks and Feral Ghouls, its transit system submerged.

The Journal Square and Heights neighborhoods of Jersey City were gutted by the post-atomic firestorm of the Great War, but were not themselves hit directly. Dickinson High School is the scene of frequent battles between raiders from the JSQ Transit Hub and Super Mutants from Evertrust Plaza downtown, due to its strategic hill top position. Most of the nearby neighborhoods have been further reduced to rubble in the fighting. However, a pre-War National Guard Armory has yet to be fully looted of weapons and equipment, locked in a bunker. A damaged Vertibird can be found at the Civil Air Patrol HQ, and is fixable with the right parts and Repair skill.

The old neighborhood of Greenville and the city of Bayonne have been almost wholly depopulated, which the exception of a few feral ghouls. Perhaps as a result, Lawn Depot on the western edge of Greenville has never been looted. The Bayonne Refinery is a haven for Chinese Remnant Ghouls from Port Newark to the west. CityView Luxury Townhouses is home to a paranoid cult descended from the pre-War residents of this self- contained housing complex, seemingly imprisoned by the mainframe programmed to protect them. The nearby Battleship Columbia lies derelict, in dire need of replacement mainframe parts and fuel, among other repairs, to be seaworthy again.

Just north on the waterfront, Deathclaws have nested in the Ocean Disposal waste dump, while the inhabitants of Port Liberty were not as lucky as those at CityView Townhouses — their mainframe slaughtered them all after a severe malfunction. Liberty State Park is now a bizarrely lush environment, with tangle vines and spore plants predominating, due to a failed GECK deployment at Liberty Science Center, now overrun with mantids and spore carriers. The long- forgotten Alaska Liberation Monument overlooks the harbor.

Downtown Jersey City is a warzone, rife with Super Mutants who have encamped at Evertrust Plaza and the HMRR Grove Street Station, the only entry point with a clear path along the Hudson Railroad tunnel to Manhattan. Exchange Place is now the Shattered Towers District, a result of skyscrapers toppling and leaning on one another in the wake of the atomic assault on neighboring Manhattan. Slackliners and tunnel rats have created a refuge for themselves here, booby trapping much of the surrounding infrastructure and ruins. The Columbia Mall to the north is now home to numerous feral ghouls, trapped there by surrounding rubble since the Great War. Rumors of a ghoul army persist, lead by intelligent ghouls, with the alleged number ranges from the hundreds to the thousands; the Columbia Mall is shunned by Wastelander and Super Mutant alike.

The Holland Tunnel to Manhattan is a flooded maze of tangled car wreckage and vicious mutated Moray Eels — no one has successfully traversed it in hundreds of years. To the north, The Lincoln Tunnel entrance is a better bet, but the tunnel itself has its share of raiders and Super Mutants near the entrance, and ghouls and abominations further inside. The once majestic George Washington Bridge is now a rusted steel skeleton: the last remnants of its upper and lower levels plummeted into the irradiated Hudson River nearly one hundred years ago. Fort Lee ruins are home to a few slackliners and nominally friendly ghoul traders from the south, but travel across the bridge’s structure is exceedingly dangerous due to radiation from the river and structural hazards.

Big Apple Wasteland: Staten Island
Staten Island appears to be almost uninhabited 225 years after the Great War. Few residents survived, as no Vaults were constructed nearby, and the bridges that once connected its towns to the rest of the Big Apple are now too irradiated to safely cross without exceptional precautions. As a result, little is known about the island.

Those residents who did survive retreated to underground grottos and caves in the center of the island. The slags that live there now are fairly isolated, but trade with other Wastelanders in the mixed community of Heyerdahl just south of the old College of Staten Island. There are rumors of a huge underground city built by the slags beneath the landfill, but no reliable accounts exist.

The Underground Railroad has established a permanent outpost at Sandy Ground on the shore north of the Outerbridge Crossing.

Big Apple Wasteland: New York Harbor
The islands of New York Harbor were the location of one of the last battles of the Great War, as the US Navy fought the infiltrating Chinese Submarine fleet. As atomic bombs began falling on the city and defensive Nike missiles streaked from their launchers to meet the Chinese bombers, a Type 99 nuclear submarine, the Huang He, suffered a direct hit in the channel southwest of Liberty Island. The resulting explosion knocked the head off the Statue of Liberty and sent it careening into Lower Manhattan, eventually coming to a rest in the newly created rubble formerly the site of Canal Street and Broadway.

At present, the Statue of Liberty and Liberty Island is a fortified base of the Brotherhood of Steel Outcasts. The group of about 10 to 15 defenders that is stationed there frequently engages any watercraft that approach, shooting first with anti-aircraft cannons and asking questions later. The statue itself is now headless and quite damaged. It is not structurally sound enough for more than one or two people to ascend to a makeshift observation deck at any given time. The Outcasts have begun the work of fully fortifying the statue’s base, formerly a harbor fort.

Ellis Island to the northeast is primarily inhabited by feral ghouls. The only thing noteworthy is a visitor’s center with a Wall of Honor inscribed with the names of immigrants who came to the pre-War United States of America.

The larger Governors Island is uninhabited except for a contingent of Super Mutants who rebuilt the Starfort to the north of the island. Various groups have attempted to assault the fort, and the landscape is littered with discarded power armor, weapons and equipment. A derelict ferry station and air shaft for the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel are located on the north shore.

The harbor’s waters vary in radioactivity. The Narrows between Staten Island and Brooklyn (the Verrazano Bridge was destroyed) is extremely radioactive due to the wrecks of Chinese nuclear submarines. Deeper water is less radioactive and safe to cross in unshielded vessels, but shallow water is far higher a risk. The highest levels are found at former atomic battle sites.

Big Apple Wasteland: Brooklyn
The Borough of Brooklyn became an easy target for Chinese atomic bombers flying past the shore defenses of Fort Tilden on Rockaway Point. A direct ground hit by a massive hydrogen bomb created the 2.5 mile wide Brooklyn Crater, swallowing the pre-War neighborhoods of Kensington, Flatbush, East Flatbush, Borough Park, Midwood and Flatlands. Canarsie, Sheepshead Bay, and Downtown Brooklyn/ Fort Greene suffered a similar fate on a smaller scale, reduced to craters of their own.

Williamsburg and Greenpoint, once havens for a resurgent pre-War beatnik counter-culture, are now home to the largest concentration of feral ghouls in the Big Apple proper. Bedford- Stuyvesant, Brownsville and Crown Heights are dominated by raider gangs such as the Dead Presidents, the M-Liners, and the Broken Angels. The Brooklyn Navy Yard is now home to both Chinese remnant ghouls and former US military ghouls who roam the docks. A tough old trader calling himself Farragut has retrofitted the US Navy heavy destroyer Captain Spaulding that has been locked in dry dock since before the war, turning into his own personal fortress compound in the center of the Navy Yard. He is a bit of a hermit, and does not expect visitors, but will only shoot hostile parties on sight.

The DUMBO and Fulton Ferry neighborhoods have been reborn as Shanktown, a slaver controlled district in the shadow of the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. Run by the Slavers’ Guild, they are open to anyone looking to trade, including Tunnel Rats, Slackliners, raiders, gang members, travelers and caravans. Inside its rusted steel girder and junked car walls is considered neutral turf, and any aggression is dealt with severely by the guards and the residents alike. While not run by any particular ruler, Shanktown acknowledges a woman know as The Old Lady as their de facto chieftain and leader.

Beneath the flattened neighborhoods of Carroll Gardens and Red Hook is a massive underground tunnel connecting the Buttermilk Channel to the Irradiated Canal to the south. It is festering with Mirelurks and smells like “a dead cat on a wet rug” according to most Tunnel Rats.

Following Flatbush Avenue south of Shanktown will bring you to the Atlantic Avenue Terminal and the ruined Barkley’s Center, a no-man’s land between Shanktown and the Super Mutants that have taken over Grand Army Plaza and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. The Super Mutants have also turned northern Prospect Park into a fortified zone. Several Super Mutant Behemoths roam the park freely, and anyone attempting to enter must do so using stealth, as most entrances are blocked off to prevent infiltration. The wrecked shell of Ebbets Field east of Prospect Park between Bedford Street and Sullivan Place is home to a group of escaped slaves and refugees from surrounding areas, living in the dug outs.

To the south, Coney Island is completely walled off from the rest of the Big Apple ruins, with fortifications and barricades creating a DMZ between the Belt Parkway and Emmons Avenue. The only way in is along the elevated railway tracks on the F or Q lines of the IND or BMT subway systems. The Coney Island BMT Transit Complex is home of the BMT’s Protectron Master- Bot, protected itself by a small army of Protectrons, Sentry Bots, Protect-O-Bots and defensive turrets.

Coney Island’s human areas are ruled by three allied gangs, including one with a few Ghouls, Super Mutants, and one intelligent Mirelurk. All three gangs are said to be descended from a single gang long ago who fought their way across the entire Big Apple before settling in Coney Island. WKRB Voice of Coney broadcasts old punk music like the Ramones, the Misfits and the Stooges from its station on eastern Coney Island.

To the east, Jamaica Bay is home to a massive Mirelurk metropolis and kingdom, whose inhabitants frequently raid outlying areas. Floyd Bennett Airfield, however, has been fortified by Enclave Remnants. They are rumored to have some kind of gene-splicing facility here, and have managed some success at creating semi-intelligent Mirelurk Mutant soldiers by injecting modified FEV into Mirelurk egg clutches in a controlled setting.

Big Apple Wasteland: Queens
The Borough of Queens suffered less direct hits from the nuclear assault on the Big Apple, but felt the far greater brunt of fallout from the bombs, given its windward location from impacts.

Long Island City, home to the Big Allis power generating station with its four massive smokestacks, became a beacon of sorts for Super Mutants, who quickly occupied and fortified the structure. Surviving residents of the nearby Ravenswood projects found themselves transformed as ghouls, but under the leadership of one intelligent ghoul calling herself La Vencerema, established a strong and defensible presence there. Although La Vencerema herself died defending Ravenswood from a Super Mutant attack not long after, the community itself has survived and attained a somewhat feared reputation among Big Apple Wastelanders as a place not to be trifled with. Few enter Ravenswood without prior permission. All ghouls are welcome without question.

Astoria is home to a small community of wasteland squatters, refugees, and others who trade between Ravenswood, Shanktown, Rock City, and east toward Nati Fields. An enterprising ghoul named Harlow has begun to refurbish the old Kaufman Studios building and nearby Frank Sinatra High School, trying to create his own movie studio. The area is routinely protected by both Ravenswood and Rock City because of its usefulness in black market trade routes. Few have attempted any major attacks as a result, and both Ravenswood and Rock City patrols are common.

The neighborhoods of Woodside, Maspeth, Elmhurst, Ridgewood, Glendale, Forest Hills and Jackson Heights are virtually uninhabited except for occasional abominations, mutated rats, and ghouls. The massive city cemeteries of Woodside and Maspeth are silent except for the occasionally wandering feral ghoul, but a large Nuka-Cola Bottling Plant has been relatively unscathed, and may have working machinery.

Everything south of the Grand Central Parkway is similarly abandoned and decayed, and the further south, the greater likelihood of encountering Mirelurks from Jamaica Bay. A few adventurers and raiders have set up shop near the Aqueduct Racetrack, and a lively gambling den known as ODB’s exists there. To the south, the Idlewild Airport ruins are a graveyard of rusted airliner wrecks and ruined commercial jets, piled amid cratered runways and asphalt. However, Terminal 4 and the Air Traffic Control Tower have been perfectly preserved as no one has been able to breach the automated security.

To the north of the Grand Central Parkway is the only safe eastern trade route toward Vault 27, Pig Rat Farms, and the scientific community of Wardenclyffe on Long Island along the old Long Island Expressway, crowded with bumper to bumper abandoned car wrecks. Flushing is home to a thriving and independent community of non- hostile Chinese Remnant Ghouls called New Chinatown, including survivors of internment camps for Chinese-American citizens from the war.

To the west, located in Flushing Meadows- Corona Park, is the stronghold of Nati Fields. A massive fortified encampment of raiders and slavers at the old Big Apple Royal Giants baseball stadium (pre-War National Bank Field, or NatiField), its reach stretches south into plantations farmed by thousands of slaves in the ruins of what were once immense parking lots and parklands. Rocket Park and the Big Apple Hall of Science are now research facilities, with World’s Fair Park at the center. What is little known to most outsiders is that this is not a raider empire at all, but an extension of the IND Protectron Master-Bot’s complex beneath the Willet’s Point train yard! Years ago, raiders made their way through the automated defense system using metro passes, and struck a deal with the mainframe intelligence that resided there. The IND Master-Bot would provide them with an army, and they would provide human workers and slaves to build a small empire. All the same, distrust runs high between the inorganic and organic components of this empire.

LaGuardia Airport remains untouched, its automated defense system still active after 225 years. Sentry Bots, Missile Turrets and Protect-O- Bots have so far proven too. Few have thought it worth the effort, as Idlewild Airport to the south has little in the way of marketable loot.

Big Apple Wasteland: The Bronx
The Bronx was the only borough of the Big Apple to be connected by land to the rest of the Empire State, and before the bombs fell, there was a mass exodus out of the city. Many of the roads and highways leading north are still crowded with wrecked trucks and passenger vehicles.

The Triborough Bridge came through the bombing remarkably unscathed, and is still passable, cutting through Randalls Island and Wards Island. A fairly aggressive group of Slackliners have taken up residence in the abandoned psychiatric hospital on Randalls Island, the nearby wastewater treatment plant, and the Hellsgate Bridge to Queens to the East.

By far the most powerful faction in the area is Rock City, founded by ex-convicts in the pre-War NYC Correctional Facility on Riker’s Island. Rock City functions as a quasi-socialist fortified metropolis: citizens are descended from the original inmates—anyone who cannot trace their lineage is merely a resident. They have medical facilities as advanced as any Vault-Tec vault, but are dependent on caravans for food and other items. Pre-War weapons caches were supplemented by extensive raiding over the decades, so Rock City boasts an extensive arsenal.

Rock City is currently ruled by a Central Committee headed by Chairman Franklin Johnson, with four others—Councilors Tate, Kels, Trindad and “Mr. O”—serving rotating four year terms. Only citizens may vote. The current council is focused on internal matters, and tends to avoid getting mixed up in the politics of the larger Wasteland. A radiation shielded causeway is maintained connecting to the Steinway St. section of Astoria in Queens, and Rock City scouts have been sighted at the Astoria Heliport ruins.

In the South Bronx, Hunts Point is an industrial husk, with dozens of abandoned or half- destroyed industrial sites, including a Nuka-Cola plant, a distribution hub for BlamCo Foods, and a now silent nuclear reactor.

To the west, Big Apple Bomber Stadium is now a heavily fortified encampment controlled by a raider gang calling themselves the Bombers after the pre-War baseball team. While not sophisticated, they have been able to hold the stadium by making alliances with smaller gangs, and are the biggest challenge to the supremacy of the Renegades gang.

Southeast of the cloverleaf where old Route 95 meets old Route 895, in the derelict Bronx River Houses housing projects, is a gang of mixed tunnel rats and slackliners called the 174’s. North along the Bronx River Parkway is the settlement of Gun Hill, along Old Gun Hill Road. This is one of the few true Wastelander settlements in the Bronx ruins, and they shoot raiders and jet-heads on sight. They often trade with Rock City.

Bronx Park has become a deadly breeding ground for Scythewings, centered around the ruined Bronx Zoo. Most travelers avoid this area, especially the Route 1—Bronx River Parkway cloverleaf intersection. The stench of death hangs in the air, as Scythewings deposit both waste and carcasses from the air as a way of marking their territory. To the northeast, Co-Op City suffered a direct impact from a massive atomic bomb, but the detonator malfunctioned, and instead it has been leaking dangerous radioactive waste ever since. The area is a haven for vicious abominations and glowing ghouls.

Not all of the ruins have fallen to gangs of wasteland raiders, however. The old 42nd Precinct of the NYPD on 149th Street and 3rd Avenue in the Bronx is now the fortified headquarters of a group of lawmen calling themselves the Big Apple Rangers, their badge and official colors taken from the pre-War hockey team. They are on friendly terms with Gun Hill and Rock City, wary of non- slaver gangs like the Renegades and Bombers, but absolutely at odds with any slaver gangs, including Shanktown and Nati Fields. They have no policy on the Institute, Enclave Remnants or the Brotherhood, and would shy away from any hostile encounters with them. Over the years, they absorbed other groups emulating sports teams, vigilantes, and pre-War police and rescue agencies in the pursuit of law and order. An elite division called the Van Cortlandt Rangers has a base of operations in Van Cortlandt Park, and trains for special infiltration, deep cover and covert operations throughout the Big Apple Wasteland.

Most of the rest of the Bronx is bare asphalt lots, or the burned out and charred ruins of buildings and houses, with the occasional unscathed but long forgotten corner bodega or lone Pulaski Self-Preservation Shelter. Small craters pockmark the landscape, but nothing on the scale of the large craters found in neighboring boroughs. Caravans heading north tend to stick to old 95 to the east or the Empire State Thruway to the west, and avoid the center.

However, far to the north, just south of the ruins of Old Vernon, beneath the 239th Street Yard and Maintenance Shop on the IRT lines is the IRT Protectron Master-Bot. All IRT Protectrons have been activated in Emergency Counter-Communist-Insurgency Mode since the war, and will not approach travelers with normal ticketing requests. They can only be by-passed safely with an IRT InfiniRide Subway Passcard; normal one way metro tickets are not accepted and will be met with extreme hostility.

Big Apple Wasteland: Manhattan
The heart of the Big Apple faced a brutal atomic onslaught during the Great War, and yet, thanks in large part to the automated missile defenses ringing the city, it was not annihilated. In the centuries that followed, other forces had their own impact on the “city that never sleeps,” and the face of Manhattan is now scarred from warfare, time and neglect.

The radioactive waters of New York Harbor flooded Lower Manhattan, and the new shore line runs through the rubble of buildings from the Brooklyn Bridge west to Centre Street, creating a peninsula from the Old City Hall, flooding back east up to Mott, Mulberry and Baxter Streets, then west along Canal Street as far as the Avenue of the Americas, with everything west of 6th Avenue and south of West Houston under a waist deep or more fetid swamp of radioactive decay.

The old museum and archives of One Liberty Plaza and the former World Trade Center were once again reduced to nothing, and now lie at the bottom of a deep and highly radioactive pit of water, a deathly glow still visible at night emanating from below the hallowed Ground Zero. No one has ventured near this area since the Great War, as the radiation levels are just too high. Rumors abound of hidden treasure, a fusion reactor, or even sea monsters residing there.

The rubble from the vanquished skyscrapers of downtown New York’s Financial District has created an archipelago of concrete and steel islands within this radioactive mire, and at the eastern tip of Manhattan south of Wall Street is the wasteland scavenger settlement called Plank Village. It gets its name from the network of wood, sheet steel and plastic planks that connect a half dozen blocks between Bowling Green and Wall Street. Makeshift shacks, tents and huts on stilts are the most anyone has attempted to architect here, lit by the fires from numerous fires lit in steel barrels. Although ramshackle, there are many small docks and shops — and business is good.

Unlike Shanktown up the East River, no one in Plank Village cares about trade permits or rules of any sort. Double cross someone here though, and your body gets tossed out with the tide. As a result, Plank Village is major illicit slaving and black market trading hub. The Slavers’ Guild doesn’t feel the competition merits any action, and Plank Village has the implicit protection of the Renegades, so trade continues as it always has.

Old City Hall and the surrounding government buildings and subway stops, like so many across the Big Apple Wasteland, have been occupied from some time by a large group of very territorial Super Mutants. They seem, however, quite content to fortify their buildings and rarely venture into the other neighborhoods. They seem almost drawn by some unconscious directive to seize and hold government buildings, but once there, rarely leave. No one is sure why. And no one is asking.

The decapitated Head of the Statue of Liberty can be found resting at the intersection of Canal Street and Broadway, leaning to one side. It was blasted from its body during the Battle of New York Harbor 225 years prior, and now marks many Wastelanders point of landfall on Manhattan.

Dozens of wasteland gangs large and small fight for turf south of 23rd Street. Old Chinatown is now known as Little China, home to both wasteland human and ghoul descendants of the original immigrant inhabitants, and is a complex maze of tunnels and zip lines between decaying buildings and shacks. It is home to at least a dozen different gangs, but most are aligned with one of three: the Ghost Dragons east of Bowery and south of the Manhattan Bridge, the Black Shadows on the south side of Little China below Pell Street, and the Smoke Dragons between Canal to the north, Bowery to the east, Bayard to the south and Mulberry to the west.

The Loisaiders gang claims all of the old Lower East Side as their turf, but mostly stays near the ruined St. Mary’s Church on Grand and Clinton. The Dead Boys gang controls most of SoHo and NoLita, and actively recruits from ghouls, who make up most of its members and leadership. A vigilante gang calling itself the Ugly Patrol, or more simply, the Uglies, controls the area around Tompkins Square Park, with outposts as far south as Rivington and Clinton and as far east as Ave C and 10th St. The Uglies only initiate Wasteland humans and are very hostile toward ghouls and other mutants. They are also constantly fighting against neighboring gangs, especially the Dead Boys. North of 14th Street, the slackliner settlement of Stuytown is home to the Acropolis gang, but is otherwise a small, peaceful farming and scavenging community. Strange, unearthly noises are often heard coming from the deserted Poseidon Energy power plant east of Stuytown along the East River.

A gang called the Motherfuckers has taken over Astor Place after being pushed out of Washington Square Park to the west, fleeing a Super Mutant assault, and tries to extort “revolutionary taxes” from anyone traveling uptown along Broadway, Lafayette or Bowery.

Union Square is controlled by one of the fiercest of the minor Big Apple gangs, an all- female gang called the Gotham Girls. They recruit anyone from former raiders, slavers, slaves, and even Vault dwellers, but only allow women in leadership roles. Initiations are brutal. They are feared for their highly mobile attacks.

Washington Square Park is avoided by most gang members and raiders, as it has been recently fortified by a large group of 30 or so heavily armed Super Mutants and Centaurs. No one is sure where they came from or how they got there, but some speculate they came all the way from Evertrust Plaza across the Hudson, perhaps through the old Hudson Manhattan Railroad tunnels, or even through the flooded Holland Tunnel.

A scouting party of half a dozen Big Apple Rangers has created a fortified observation post in the ruins of West 4th Street Station, where they monitor the Super Mutants in Washington Square Park and try to gather more information on where they came from, and why they are here.

The Downtown Crater — a gaping, radioactive sinkhole in the ground — spans the area from 8th Avenue west to the High Line, and 18th Street south to Gansevoort Street. Beyond that, north to 25th Street, east just past 7th Avenue, and south to Charles Street, has been blasted clear with little left of Greenwich Village but a few metal street signs and the occasionally unearthed foundation. Astoundingly, the High Line itself survived, and is the best way to traverse the crater heading north (if you’re willing to fight the crazed raiders and cannibal gangs that make their home there).

Another one of these is a gang that makes its home in Madison Square Park north of the Flatiron Building and MedTek Tower, the only remaining standing structures in the area. No one knows what they call themselves, but other gangs simply refer to them as the Mad Men. Absolutely feral, they terrorize the Chelsea, Flatiron and Kips Bay neighborhoods. They are the most psychotic, cannibalistic and sadistic of all Big Apple gangs, refusing to talk or negotiate with any outsiders. They initiate members by kidnapping them as children—the ones they don’t roast and eat, that is. Their bloodthirsty howls, which seems to be their main form of communication, can be heard throughout the night. And they often raid far and wide. Both tunnel rats and slackliners have particular problems with them. No one is certain if they are human or not—but even if they were once technically human, they forfeited that long ago.

The iconic Empire State Building survived the bombing 225 years ago due to the stoic efforts of desperate civil defense forces manning anti- aircraft missile batteries surrounding it. Inevitably, nothing could save the city itself, or the soldiers and civilians who manned the guns defending it. Although damaged significantly over the centuries, the building miraculously still stands, although its original entrances are now buried in rubble piled as high as the 6th floor setback. Much of the building is gutted or abandoned and unexplored.

The structure is tightly controlled by The Renegades, the Big Apple’s largest gang. While more correctly described as a federation of gangs, it was by the leadership of their war chief, Big Bad, that they united several smaller gangs into a single force. What his ultimate end game is remains unknown, but he is a leader who is respected as both ruthless and enlightened.

Renegade Radio, hosted by a mysterious woman known only as The DJ, broadcasts from the 86th Floor of the Empire State Building. The studio is heavily fortified and only those who receive permission from Big Bad himself or his trusted lieutenant, a former Gotham Girl’s battle jammer named Warcry, are allowed access to the main broadcast level. The station plays vintage punk, disco and funk classics from the 1970’s.

To the west of the Empire State Building, the Renegades have converted Madison Square Garden into an enormous gladiatorial area, both for entertainment purposes and for the administration of justice through trial by combat. Penn Station has been gutted, its tunnels largely blocked off, and re-engineered into a massive complex of holding cells, prison pens, and underground pits to contain both the prisoners and abominations needed for the games above. These are rumored to hold hundreds of slaves, prisoners, political opponents, Super Mutants, Abominations, Inorganics and at least one prized Super Mutant Behemoth who are armed and trained to fight to the death for the amusement of spectators.

Despite the barbarity, this system of combat and entertainment has functioned as a working society for nearly a decade or more, much like the bread and circuses of ancient Rome. Some gladiators have even earned their freedom and a rank of leadership within the Renegade armies.

The Renegades have converted the train cars in the West Side Yards into weapons, armor and ammunition workshops. To the north, they guard the entrance to the Lincoln Tunnel, managing passage into their territory. Be warned: if you are unable to pay the toll, you might find yourself facing sudden death at the Garden. From Hell’s Kitchen up to Lincoln Center, the Renegades have set up small urban subsistence farms in empty lots and intersections. They have also set up guards at the USS Intrepid aircraft carrier, but are at a loss for how to best exploit it.

If the Empire State Building is the heart of the Renegades’ political empire, then the Triangle in old Times Square is its mercantile center of gravity. Stretching for several blocks from 42nd to 49th Street along 7th Avenue and Broadway, the Triangle has merchants of any kind imaginable, with black market chem shops, slavers, weapon shops, brothels, bars, restaurants, mechanics, and even a cybernetic chop shop for those with nothing to lose but their humanity. Ghouls, humans and intelligent inorganics mingle freely, but intelligent Abominations and Super Mutants will draw unwanted hostile attention.

The merchants aren’t just above ground, but have also taken over sections of the N, Q, R and 1, 2, and 3 trains running between 42nd Street and 49th/50th Street. However, occasional Protectron patrols on these lines still present an issue they haven’t been able to fully resolve.

The Triangle sits on the western cusp of the Midtown Crater, which covers the blasted zone from 7th Avenue east to the FDR Drive, and from roughly 35th Street north to 59th Street, with a massively deep radioactive crater that consumed everything north of Grand Central Station along Park Avenue from 5th Avenue east to Lexington and from 45th Street north to 50th Street. Nothing remains of Grand Central Station but a scorched shell. The New York Public Library had half of its structure blown away from the east, exposing the interior, although the lions survived. The 4, 5, and 6 train tunnels were exposed by the crater, and a derelict subway train hangs out into the abyss. Far to the east, the edge of the blast radius ended just shy of the once majestic United Nations Building, sold to toy retail chain Bumbalo’s as the future site of their East Coast superstore, and now a ruined shell.

Despite their powerful recruitment methods and respect among other gangs of the Big Apple Wasteland, the Renegades’ sphere of influence only extends as far north on the West Side as 66th Street / Lincoln Center, an abandoned outpost at Columbus Circle, and the occasional foray toward the penthouses along Central Park East. They do not have the headcount to hold any territory beyond that for any amount of time.

The Upper West Side, once home to the privileged few of the United States, was emptied in the exodus before the Great War. A raging battle now continues between the rival inorganic sentries patrolling the IRT and IND subway lines. Non- obstructed IRT tunnels run from Columbus Circle all the way to the 145th Street Station, and the IND tunnels are clear only as far as 110th Street Station. The surrounding neighborhoods have been reduced to rubble. Columbia University and the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in Morningside Heights to the north are a frequent battle zone, with robot reinforcements pouring in from northern IRT and eastern IND mechanical workshops.

In the pre-War years, Central Park was a place where Americans could relax, stroll, have a picnic, play a game of baseball, or listen to renditions of patriotic songs during the USO summer concert series. In the centuries since the war, the park has been blasted down to the bedrock in many places, and any vegetation has grown back in more recent decades — typically the tanglethorn and deadwood trees that are found in other areas of the Wastelands, and the northern end of the park has these in abundance. With the exception of the Croton Reservoir, the ponds and lakes have dried up without water being pumped in by the city to sustain them.

South of 65th Street, the park is fairly barren and pock-marked with craters both old and new and littered with damaged or destroyed Protectrons, Sentry Bots and Robo-Brains. An intact crashed Chinese Bomber rests in the softball fields west of the Carousel, while the Central Park Zoo ruins might be of sight-seeing interest. The area from 65th Street to 79th Street has less craters and more deadwood trees, but can be just as dangerous. The Bethesda Fountain survived, and at its top, the Angel of Victory points her sword toward the sky defiantly. Big Apple Ranger Outpost Able Baker Charlie occupies the former Cherry Hill Fountain just west of the Angel of Victory, fortified with sandbags, sheet steel and two lightly armored observation towers. The nearest evacuation point is at the 72nd Street A, B, and C subway lines to the west. North of there, the Ramble is a knotted clot of tanglethorn briars, and is home to several large dens of Guai Wu — Guai Wu are similar to the larger Yao Guai of the Wastes, but Guai Wu are smaller (about 3’-4’ long), tree climbing, furtive cat-like creatures, possibly descended from large feline predators from city zoos or from the mountain lions and cougars once found north of the city. They are highly territorial, and are most active at dusk and dawn. They are also savage and stealthy hunters.

The remains of Belvedere Castle north of 79th Street hide a maintenance tunnel that leads to the entrance to Vault 42, an unscathed stronghold beneath Central Park. Cut directly into the bedrock foundation of Manhattan, Vault 42 survived the atomic holocaust with optimal performance. The original residents of Vault 42 including a former Mayor of New York City, several US Representatives and their families, numerous cultural and literary celebrities, professional socialites, and the families of elite technology professionals who vacated their multi-million dollar penthouses for a future free from the horrors above. Unfortunately for them, as part of the Vault experiments no light bulbs of more than 40 watts were supplied.

As a result, the Vault 42 dwellers slowly became accustomed to the dark, and began displaying increased photosensitive physical traits. In two short generations, they had already begun exhibiting the characteristics of slags, humans forced underground who have evolved the tapeta lucida of nocturnal creatures, giving them eyeshine, increased night vision and decreased or even painful day vision.

Rather than venturing out into the daylight once their vault opened, Vault 42 dwellers instead began digging into the old cisterns, sewers, subway and maintenance tunnels beneath the city, burrowing up from below the ground into the remaining structures above. Most notably, Vault 42 started a project to burrow under both the ruins of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to the east and the American Museum of Natural History to the west, to reclaim artifacts and hoard them in the derelict underground valve chambers of old New York’s water supply system. The Vault 42 dwellers are guided by a prophecy, that all remnant artifacts of the humanities — works of art, literature, sculpture, cinema, etc. — are more valuable than any technology, a point most Wastelanders would disagree with. Nevertheless, Vault 42 has remained sealed and secure for some time as a result of their isolationism.

Between 85th Street and 97th Street, the Croton Reservoir has almost entirely evaporated, leaving a shallow depression, 30 feet at its deepest, filled with barrels of radioactive waste amid a variety of muck and filth, most of which were deposited immediately after the Great War when survivors were still making an effort to scrub the nuclear fallout from the surrounding areas. Within the dangerous pit, there are still entrances to the Old Croton Aqueduct, leading for miles and miles through ancient stone and brick lined tunnels north to the former New England Commonwealth. The faction known as the Railroad may still use these tunnels to help slaves escape from the present day Commonwealth and the Institute, but without an experienced guide, one could quickly become lost or find themselves in the middle of a highly radioactive dead end.

Beyond 97th Street, the North Meadow is an empty dirt field dotted with abandoned baseball and softball fields. Surrounding it to the west, east and north are groves of deadwood trees. Brotherhood Outcast patrols are sometimes spotted near pre-War anti-aircraft batteries near here. Far to the north end of the park, carved into a bedrock hillside at what was once the site of Block House No. 1 is the entrance to Vault 43. This vault has been uninhabited for centuries. No one is sure what happened to the original inhabitants, but legends say that the vault only admitted 20 men, 10 women, and a lone panther.

Despite its affluence, the Upper West Side of old New York City was still considered new money compared to the Upper East Side before 2077. The Upper East Side today is scene to frequent skirmishes between the Big Apple Rangers, raiders, slackliners, and Super Mutants from Big Allis. The Rangers have pushed down through the 4, 5 and 6 subway lines to capture or salvage medical supplies and equipment from the numerous hospital ruins here, somehow passing unharmed along the closely patrolled IRT subway lines beneath Lexington Avenue leading all the way into the Bronx. The have established a small outpost at the old 19th Police Precinct building near the Park Avenue Armory. Other than small outpost, they seem content not to hold any turf.

No one has yet breached the sealed doors of the Park Avenue Armory, but rumors that it holds anything from a full regiment of power armor suits to priceless antique works of art persist. The doors have been sealed with a complex encryption algorithm, possibly Vault-Tec in origin.

Super Mutants are more frequent here than elsewhere, occupying several pre-War consulate buildings as well as the front steps to the Armory in Lenox Hill, and have laid siege to a small group of slackliners and mercs inhabiting the ruins of Gracie Mansion along the East River near the 90th Street Ferry Terminal. However, instead of assaulting, they have set up barricades from which they taunt the hold-outs, shining spotlights on them, shouting insults, and blasting music 24/7 from a random rotation of the wasteland’s broadcasting stations. The Super Mutants’ behavior is unlike anything else observed thus far.

The slackliners tend to be found further south, concentrated at the anchor point of the old Roosevelt Island Tram Line at 60th and 2nd Ave. Both the Queensboro and Roosevelt Island Bridge have been totally destroyed, so zip lining and winching along the tram line is the only way on or off of the island. Slackliners also frequent a dive bar (even for Wasteland standards) called Sin just south of the Queensboro Bridge entrance ramp, down 1st Ave below 59th Street near the edge of the Midtown Crater debris field. Sin is widely regarded as having the best rotgut and Wasteland brews in the Big Apple.

Roosevelt Island is now the largest slackliner settlement and safe haven in the Big Apple. Slackliners not only control access to the island, they have also restored the facilities of an old nursing hospital, which now serves as both a medical facility and the only medical school in the Wasteland. A religious shrine exists at the south end, dedicated to the Four Freedoms: Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Worship, Freedom from Want, and Freedom from Fear at Four Freedoms Park. Slackliners in particular regard this as a religious site, and often make a pilgrimage to the park at least once a year. Roosevelt Island’s east side is pock-marked with craters and laser blast marks from the Super Mutants at Big Allis, who constantly harass the slackliners.

Much of East Harlem, north of 96th Street to the Harlem River Drive, was used as a quarantine zone during the New Plague of the 2050’s and 2060’s, and later for several prison camps during the internment of suspected Chinese Communists in 2076-2077. A number of public housing projects were quarantined, their residents left to fend for themselves as the New Plague spread. The plague hospital on 1st Avenue and 120th Street served as a morgue from that time, and faced bankruptcy and was condemned soon after, without many of the bodies being properly disposed of - scavengers steer clear of it.

During the Chinese internments, Marcus Garvey Park was the largest open air prison camp in the Eastern Commonwealth, with 12 foot tall steel and razor wire fences, automated turrets, and security command center constructed on the Acropolis and Fire Watchtower in the center of the park. Today, the area is abandoned and avoided, but there is a small community of a dozen or so intelligent ghouls located in the ruins of P.S. 79 near the southeast corner of the camp.

The neighborhood of Harlem was relatively unscathed by the New Plague and by the nuclear exchange of the Great War, but was wholly consumed by the radioactive firestorm that followed. No original buildings survived, with the exception of the imposing Adam Clayton Powell Jr. State Office Building on 125th Street and Adam C. Powell Boulevard. Survivors cleared much of the wreckage from the surrounding area and built a walled settlement they named New Salem stretching for several blocks around. The main gate is partially constructed from the salvaged marquee of the old Apollo Theater. Unlike many other areas, New Salem is patrolled by a militia calling themselves the Hellfighters in honor of the old American Army regiment from Harlem, and have established a base at the site of the 369th Regiment Armory on 142nd Street and Harlem River Drive. The residents are wary of outsiders.

The streets north of New Salem are filled with burned debris and empty lots, with the occasional wasteland hermit or subsistence farmer tilling an empty lot or herding pig rats. However, the closer one gets to the epicenter of the Uptown Crater, the more flat and desolate the landscape becomes. The Uptown Crater’s inner rim forms the new embankment of the Hudson River to the west with the Henry Hudson Parkway running along its spine. It has completely consumed the old neighborhood of Washington Heights, and blasted the old buildings down to the very earth from 181st Street all the way to 150th Street. Levels of radiation are also too high to safely traverse this area without proper protective gear or a large supply of Radaway. What may be salvageable in this area lies buried beneath several centuries worth of fallout, ash and pulverized rubble.

Most caravans heading north are able to travel the Harlem River Drive toward the Alexander Hamilton Bridge, which still stands. Only very experienced slackliners have been able to cross the skeletal remains of the George Washington Bridge to the west, but often sell their services as guides for small merchant companies that don’t require bringing along pack brahmin.

Overlooking the Harlem River and the Uptown Crater south of the GWB is the old Highbridge Tower, and the High Bridge itself. It is currently an observation post of the Brotherhood Outcasts.

North of the Uptown Crater, the old Manhattan neighborhoods of Inwood, Fort George and Hudson Heights have been largely reclaimed by scrub vegetation in the centuries that have passed, and are now closer to wilderness than urban ruins. There is occasional overlap between Blue and Red Protectrons from the rival A and 1 lines, but skirmishes tend to remain underground.

At the northern edge of Tyron Park, within a dense forest of deadwood trees, sits The Cloisters Museum and Gardens. Reconstructed to resemble several different styles of medieval European monasteries, the unique building survived the Great War and is a readily defensible fortification as well as a museum. As a result, it was the perfect choice for a base of operations in the area for an expedition of the Brotherhood Outcasts, lead by Protector Anne Marie Morgan, who traveled to the Big Apple Wasteland from the Capital Wasteland some 20 years ago.

Initially, the Brotherhood Outcasts refused to recruit new members, preferring to refurbish Sentry Bots, Protectrons and Robobrains instead, but this proved unrealistic as their expedition was reduced by attrition fighting its way through the Philly Wasteland before reaching the Big Apple. They first began accepting both Brotherhood of Steel deserters and Enclave remnants, but later offered full status to human Wastelanders. Unlike the Midwestern Brotherhood near Chicago or Capital Wasteland Brotherhood, they do not seek to rule over any tribes or settlements. Their main objective was to link up with a rumored expedition of the Western Brotherhood of Steel, who were said to have travelled to the big Apple Wasteland by airship decades ago. Failing this, they intend to continue to recover technological data and equipment before returning West to join up with the original Brotherhood of Steel.

At the extreme northern tip of Manhattan Island is the 207th Street IRT Maintenance Yard. The Protectrons here are cut off from communication with the IRT Master -Bot and are not activated in counter -insurgency mode. They are passive, and will follow standard weapons protocols, shooting only when valid metro fare is not presented.

Sports Teams of the old Big Apple
“Imagine, a perfect, cloudless day. The sun is warm and welcoming. And on the horizon, they appear, like knights of yore, armed with bats of ash and hickory. Their name? The Capital Congressmen. Their purpose? To make you, dear America, revel in the joys of sport and sunshine, if only for an afternoon.” - John Henry Eden, former Enclave President

Sports teams played a huge role in pre-War American society, as much a diversionary pastime as a unifying display of patriotism. In the Big Apple Wasteland, little is known about the old teams other than legends passed down over the centuries. Common wisdom is that the old teams were armed groups who fought for dominance in ceremonial combat, for their own gain or to uphold the law and other ideals of freedom and justice in a lawless and unforgiving land. The stadiums are now more often than not fortified compounds or gladiatorial arenas controlled by gangs emulating the once popular teams.

Baseball The Big Apple was known for its love of baseball and had four active teams.

The Big Apple Bombers were the dominant team of the 21st Century, playing in their signature black and white pinstripe uniforms at Big Apple Bomber Stadium in the Bronx.

The New York Titans were the closest rivals to the Bombers, located just across the Harlem River. Their stadium at the Polo Grounds was razed in the blast that created the Uptown Crater, and no known artifacts remain.

Perennial upstarts, the Brook lyn Buckaroos or “Bucks” played at Ebbets Field near Prospect Park, and last won a World Series in 2055. Also known to fans and rivals alike by many rhyming and vulgar alternative names.

The nearly always last place New York Royal Giants played at Nati Field in Queens, but seemed on their way to win their first ever World Series — which was scheduled for exactly one week after the bombs fell on October 23, 2077.

Basketball The Big Apple was home to two professional basketball teams, the New York Americans who played at Madison Square Garden, and the Brooklyn Dark Knights, who played at Barkley Center Arena. Basketball’s popularity was in decline in the late 2070’s.

Football If baseball was the sport of the city, then football was the sport of the suburbs. The Big Apple Red Rockets played at Med-Tek Stadium in New Jersey and had dozens of championship titles to their name. The New York Horsemen played at the Polo Grounds for several decades before folding in the early 2060’s, after which the Big Apple Rogues were formed, also playing at Med-Tek Stadium in New Jersey.

Hockey The Big Apple Rangers played at Madison Square Garden, and had a long and successful history. Their colors and equipment have been resurrected by the current group of lawmen. Less accomplished were the Long Island Sounders, who played at the Barkley Center in Brooklyn.

Soccer Less popular than other sports of the era, two soccer teams are still known to have existed: the New York Nuka-Cola Quantums at Nuka- Cola Arena in Harrison, NJ and the Big Apple FC, who played at Bomber Stadium.

Radio Stations of the Big Apple Wasteland
There are dozens of small radio towers scattered throughout the Wastes, but few fully functioning stations. Most radio beacons are nothing more than a short range location transponder broadcasting the call sign, such as “CQ CQ CQ DE VT VT VT K” for “All stations (x3)... this is... Victor Tango (x3)... Over” in Morse code.

Major stations feature music and often, a DJ who introduces the songs, talks, and reads the news or propaganda announcements. Smaller stations may only have music. Stranger yet are the so-called numbers stations, which only broadcast a string of numbers at a given time, often as a message to covert agents in the field.

Billtown Radio broadcasts to much of the Keystone Wasteland, Deathclaw Wilderness and Yao Guai Preserve. The station follows a music- only format and plays old country songs, including Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash, Merle Haggard, The Charlie Daniels Band, Patsy Cline, The Stanley Brothers and Hank Williams Sr. It’s the preferred station of the Williamsport Scout Troopers.

Jubilee Radio broadcasts across the Big Apple and Philly Wastelands. The format consists of a Morse code message containing the standard beginning, but with what seems to be a coded message following, rather than a simple call sign. The stations plays old folk songs of the pre-War American labor movement, including songs by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Harry McClintock. The station is the de facto voice of the Railroad, and often plays traditional abolitionist songs such as “John Brown’s Body” and union songs such as “Solidarity Forever.” It is often jammed near outposts controlled by the Institute.

Commonwealth Radio is available throughout the Big Apple Wasteland, and follows a simple music and identification format. Music is always Beethoven or Mozart symphonies, sometimes followed by a female voice with a refined accent saying, “You’re listening to WMBR, Commonwealth Radio,” before continuing.

The Voice of Coney is a mixed music and talk station broadcast from Coney Island to the six boroughs of the Big Apple Ruins. It mostly consists of its DJ, “Happy Harry Hard-On”, talking about the state of the Wasteland over the song “Everybody Knows” by Leonard Cohen. The music is all late 1970’s and early 1980’s punk rock, including the Ramones, Adolescents, Dead Kennedys, Sex Pistols, Black Flag, Exploited, Cock Sparrer, the Stooges and the Misfits.

Big Apple Subway Radio is only heard within subway train cars and stations, where it continues to be piped in through an unknown network of speakers and broadcast terminals. All lines play the same station. The songs are all elevator-muzack style, including “The Girl From Ipanema,” “Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head,” “Adios, Au Revoir, Aufwiedersehn,” “Lady of Spain,” and “Simon Smith and His Amazing Dancing Bear” - or exactly the style of music popularized by the pre-War Lawrence Welk Show.

Galaxy News Radio can occasionally be heard in areas closer to the Republic of the Potomac, but its format has changed since the days of Three Dog. They have incorporated many of the old songs played by the former Enclave Radio, and replaced their big band music with older patriotic songs from the early 20th century, including “Over There,” “K-K-K-Katy,” “In My Merry Oldsmobile,” and Edith Piaf’s “L'Hymne à l'amour.” The news is read by what seems to be a Protectron’s voice, and then, only news that has a positive spin on the Republic or Brotherhood.

Most well known, however, is Renegade Radio, broadcast throughout the Wasteland from the top of the Empire State Building. The station follows a format closer to the old GNR format, with music and news reports from its mysterious voice, The DJ. Few have ever been to the studios located on the 86th Floor of the Empire State Building. The music style is disco, funk and old school hip hop, including Blondie, ABBA, Afrika Bambaataa, The Specials, Sugarhill Gang, The Sylvers, Ram Jam, Kurtis Blow, RUN-DMC, and Cheap Trick.

Apart from the major stations, there are also a series of numbers stations that broadcast a string of seemingly random numbers, often preceded by a call sign or brief jingle, such as the “Robin Hood” station, which plays a soundbite from an old computer game. No one is sure who operates these stations, or for what purpose.

Big Apple Transit: The World Below
The world that awaits below ground is just as chaotic and filled with strife as the world above. Before the Great War, the Big Apple’s transit system was controlled and managed by four separate companies: the Hudson-Manhattan Railroad (HMR), the Independent Subway System (IND), the Interborough Rapid Transit corporation (IRT) and the Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit corporation (BMT). Each had their own subway lines, their own tickets, and their own Protectrons and robots patrolling and maintaining their equipment. In the centuries following the war, each lines automated systems have continued to function in emergency mode, to varying degrees. And because of the artificially intelligent design of each Protectron Master-Bot’s mainframe, they have adapted, and in some cases, expanded. Their role is no longer to service the city’s hundreds of miles of underground track, but to protect it against Communist insurgents, vagrants, vandals, un-ticketed passengers, and rival Protectrons from other lines.

The HMR Protectron Master-Bot lies buried and offline beneath the rubble of 1 Hudson Plaza in the Journal Square ruins. Raiders who have occupied the area are unaware of its presence, and have not bypassed the doors leading to the mainframe’s interface. Nearly all of this Master-Bot’s Protectrons have been destroyed, and are rarely encountered in the HMR tubes.

The HMR’s Newark and Harrison stations are little more than above ground platforms, while its main Journal Square yard’s empty train cars are frequented by raiders. The tunnels from Journal Square to Grove Street collapsed during fierce fighting between Super Mutants from downtown and raiders from Journal Square. From Grove Street, all tunnels leading toward Exchange Place are blocked, and the Hudson Tubes leading to Ground Zero were obliterated. The tunnels leading north to the Columbia Mall are open, but fortified by Super Mutants near the mall’s underground entrances to keep out ghouls. Past these fortifications, the tunnels split toward the Flooded District, and are themselves leaking and flooded for most of the way until eventually becoming totally submerged, and to Manhattan via the Midtown Tubes. The latter tunnels appear to be clear at least until Christopher Street, but are often patrolled by hostile Super Mutants. Beyond Christopher Street, the 9th Street HMR station is completely booby trapped, and a small community of tunnel rats have built a refuge in these tunnels, from 14th Street north to the 33rd Street/ Herald Square station, beneath the shadow of the Renegades’ empire. They have an agreement, keeping the Super Mutants at a distance in return for guarantees of neutrality and trade.

The transit tunnels beneath New York Penn Station have been gutted, turned into a labyrinthine network of holding cells, workshops and storage areas by the Renegades, who have eliminated whatever Protectrons once patrolled. Visitors often wonder aloud at what sadistic, criminally insane mind could have possibly conceived of the original architecture for this warren of malodorous hallways, narrow staircases and escalators, and cramped compartments.

The A, C, E lines of the IND are clear only as far as 23rd Street from 34th, the rest collapsed by the Downtown Crater, and are Renegade turf. The 1, 2 trains of the IRT are inhabited by the same tunnel rats occupying the HMR tunnels, and have an unobstructed entrance at 18th Street and are connected by recent tunnels to the HMR line.

All other lines south of the Midtown Crater and northeast of the flooded areas of Lower Manhattan still have Protectrons from each line, feral ghouls, and a few gang members. The tunnels were used as shelters during the Great War, and are often blocked by piles of skeletal human remains, a macabre reminder of the last hours of the war.

North of Hell’s Kitchen and the Triangle, the transit tunnels are no longer under Renegade control. As a precaution, the Renegades have intentionally collapsed all subway tunnels west of the Midtown Crater at 49/50th Streets, blocking the IRT, IND and BMT Protectrons from entry.

59th Street / Columbus Circle is the nearest point of entry, and is heavily contested between rival IRT and IND bots. From there north, both sides have maintained tight control of their respective lines, the IRT north along Broadway to 145th Street and the IND north along 8th Avenue to 110th Street. IRT bots also control the Lenox Tunnels under New Salem, all the way north to the 239th Street yard, while the IND bots’ main supply route runs east along 53rd Street into Queens.

All BMT lines in Queens have been gradually reduced into isolated pockets by mixed human and robot demolitions teams sent by the IND Master- Bot. As a result, BMT Protectrons in Astoria are cut off from commands from their Master-Bot, and the Jamaica Avenue line has ceased to exist. In addition, the IND Master-Bot has also taken over the Corona-Flushing Line of the IRT, and has effectively solidified its territory in Queens.

On the Upper East Side, the 4, 5, 6 lines of the IRT are only clear between 59th Street and 116th Street, and tend to be used only by Big Apple Rangers scout patrols, who do their best not to engage the remaining IRT bots by using InfiniRide Subway Passcards; the bots provide useful cover against feral ghouls and other pests.

The underground of old Harlem is controlled by the IRT Master-Bot, with the Lexington and 7th Avenue lines the only passable tunnels under the Harlem River northeast to the Bronx.

Only the 2, 4, 5, 6 lines are active in the Bronx, and all routes are patrolled by IRT Protectrons based in the 239th Street yards to the north. All western lines, including the B, D and 1 lines are inactive — either caved in, or offline.

Subway tunnels under the East River are far from certain of being clear at any given moment. None of them should be considered permanently blocked, as tunnel rats running underground caravan routes and Protectron work teams are constantly clearing blocked passages. However, all tunnels south of the Brooklyn Bridge had been abandoned due to flooding. This has effectively cut off all IRT bots from the IRT Master-Bot. All tunnels under Roosevelt Island are controlled by the IND bots. However, the 14th Street L train tunnels, the Broadway-Williamsburg tunnels and the Manhattan Bridge tunnels are all controlled by the BMT Master-Bot.

The massive Brooklyn Crater cut off all access to F train tunnels between Coney Island and the rest of the Big Apple, so BMT Protectrons generally follow routes headed through the B, D, N, and Q tunnels, while keeping communications open with J, L, M and R line patrols. Often, wherever smaller craters interrupt the actual tunnel lines, or where access is obstructed, BMT Protectrons will venture into the open to complete their same circuit of patrols using pre-programmed coordinates and routes; it is not uncommon to encounter BMT Protectron and Sentry Bot patrols above ground in the Brooklyn Ruins as a result.

In general, one may find small or isolated communities of tunnel rats through out the Wasteland underground, toward the surface. The deeper one goes, into the old cisterns, sewers and aqueduct tunnels, the more likely one is to find tunnelers, slags, and mirelurk nests. Feral ghouls can be found throughout the tunnel system, and in particular, many former subway stations are literally packed tight with skeletal human remains from the Great War. Super mutants are generally only encountered near government buildings or military installations, while Protectrons from the various lines may be found wandering at random. For the Wasteland explorer, subway tunnels may provide access to any part of the city, or may lead to certain doom.

Long Island Wasteland
East of the Big Apple city ruins, few survived the nuclear Armageddon outside of the shelter of the Vaults, and most communities on Long Island became irradiated ghost towns, bereft of food, water and power they relied so heavily on the Big Apple to provide.

Garden City Ruins are a perfect example to the Wasteland of the necessity of proper defenses and precautions being taken. Nearly 100 years after the bombs fell, a group of former engineers and Vault exiles founded a settlement on the site of former Garden City, with the lofty ambition to set up a utopian society where all peaceful Wastelanders would be welcomed. For a time, they were successful. Several generations lived and died in this isolated utopia. Word began to spread of their peaceful ways. About 25 years ago, a group of raiders from the West descended upon the city backed with legions of Protectrons and Sentry-Bots, killing all who resisted and hauling anyone else they could find into slavery at Nati Fields. The survivors attempted to rebuild, but were wiped out by successive mirelurk attacks from the south. The ruins stand to this day.

East along the Long Island Expressway, in a wooded area just west of the ruins of Melville, is the entrance to Vault 27. The Vault had the unfortunate predicament of having twice the sustainable number of residents assigned, or 2000 people. They were, however, provided with ample Food-O-Tronic protein extractors, which converted biological matter into an edible protein formula dispensed in firm, gelatinous bricks. Again sadly, the most readily available form of protein was from radroaches. The Vault has yet to open.

Quite a few small settlements dot the landscape along the old Long Island Expressway in the north and Sunrise Highway to the south. Travel too far south, and you risk encountering savage mirelurks — venture too far north, and you might be attacked by raiders from the Commonwealth from across the Sound.

The village of Setauket is known for their Pig Rat Farms, and the Pig Rats and Mole Rats raised here are prized both as food sources and as riding mounts throughout the Wasteland.

Far to the east, near old Rocky Point, lies the Wasteland research and scientific community of Wardenclyffe. Located on the spot of Nikola Tesla’s legendary laboratory, the scientists of Wardenclyffe have rediscovered much of his arcane inventions, and have remained independent precisely because they use them in self-defense. The settlement has no walls that can be seen, but is surrounded by an octagonal perimeter of massive, defensive Tesla Coils that when active, will deal lethal amounts of energy damage to anyone within fifty feet. The main facility is rather small, dominated by a large tower, but is rumored to extend for several hundred feet below ground. The scientists here value knowledge, but may recruit operatives for certain tasks. Merchant caravans are welcome, but slavers are frowned upon. The will engage any raider, Brotherhood of Steel, Enclave or Institute faction with lethal force and with no questions asked.

To the south of Wardenclyffe along the William Floyd Parkway is the sprawling Brookhaven National Laboratory complex. It is ostensibly controlled by the researchers at Wardenclyffe, but they do not allow travelers to set foot there under any circumstances. The area is sealed off and heavily guarded both by inorganic sentries and automated Tesla Coils and turrets. It is home to the pre-War National Synchrotron Light Source, the Tandem Van de Graaff Cyclotron, and most notably, the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider.

Farther out, past rotting summer mansions and resorts in the Hamptons are the ruins of US Coast Guard Station Shinnecock. Completely uninhabited, access to the main armory is restricted by a sealed vault door. Several salvageable military vessels can be found here.

Long Island Sound: North Coast Heading north out of the Big Apple Ruins, if one has survived everything it has to offer, is an easier task than entering it. The Van Cortlandt Rangers do their best to guard Route 87 out of the city, and Gun Hill often sends armed patrols northeast up Boston Road to Route 95. However, once past the Mt. Vernon Ruins, travelers are on their own.

North of the White Plains Ruins is a historical point of interest, an ancient plaque near the foundation of destroyed building, purporting to be the site of George Washington’s HQ during the Evolutionary War. But not much farther beyond that is the raider camp of Valhalla, next to the Kensico Dam and Lake. Valhallans are feared by all caravan companies as ruthless raiders and thieves, hi tting travelers heading toward the Commonwealth and Ash Lands on Route 87, 684 and even Route 95. Being “sent to Valhalla” means an eventual shallow grave or death tied to a tree stump at the nearby Kensico Cemetery.

The prevailing theory is that the raiders are descendants of the vault dwellers from nearby Vault 56, who had all entertainment tapes removed except for those with movies from one particularly bad comic actor of the 21st Century named Schneider Perry. Driven mad by the relentless monotony of cliché shtick, cross- dressing self-abasement and poorly timed, corny one-liners, their ancestors staged a bloody rebellion and eventually blasted the Vault door from its hinges and exited into the Wastes to unleash their barbaric terror. The Vault-Tek researchers who had predicted failure before Vault 55 were correct. The entrance to Vault 56 can be found near an empty water tower in the Quarry Lakes area to the east of the Kensico Dam.

Along the banks of the northern side of the Long Island Sound, aside from the occasional Mirelurk (who are far less numerous here than on the south shore of Long Island), things are far quieter and more isolated. Most town ruins are uninhabited save for a few hermits or scavengers, and the only traffic are caravans heading northeast on Route 95. The ruins of Stamford are fairly deserted, with only a handful of raiders.

However, halfway between the Norwalk ruins and Stamford ruins lies a very peculiar and seemingly out of place little village called Quinnimantic, situated at the mouth of the Quinnimantic Creek on the northern edge of the Long Island Sound. It seems out of place because all of its houses, streets, and buildings are wholly untouched by the centuries, and in particular, by the nuclear armageddon that destroyed civilization 225 years ago. Travelers have noted the worn down, almost dark nature of the town’s old colonial architecture, of shadows that seem to never leave, sunlight that never quite seems to shine during the day, and the dark and sickly fog that never dissipates and never lifts. Slick green scum seems to spread and coat virtually any surface within the town present for too long. The village boasts a general store, an inn, a constable’s office, a schoolhouse and a church, though, and is entirely safe from the criminal gangs and raiders who desperately avoid the area, so caravans frequently stop over here for the night.

Northwest of Quinnimantic is the Babcock Estate, an old manor farm and home to the patriarch of the Babcock family, Ebenezer Babcock, an ancient and thoroughly disagreeable man with a shotgun and an itchy trigger finger. His equally ancient and disagreeable daughters, Abigail and Hannah, handle all interactions with travelers at the Quinnimantic Inn and General Store. Any remotely perceptive traveler will soon realize that all the inhabitants of Quinnimantic share the same last name: Babcock.

Those wishing to delve deeper should heed reports from several terrified ex-raiders and caravan guards that a secret cult lives in the caverns beneath the village, performing profane ritual sacrifice to appease (or summon) powerful abominations from the waters of the Sound.

The Commonwealth (neighboring region)
The official borders of the Commonwealth encompass most of the pre-War states of Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and southeastern New Hampshire, and the most powerful force of science and industry within the Commonwealth is the Institute, located in the Boston ruins. Practically, the Institute’s influence consists of little more than covert operations and spies west of Route 91, and infrequent patrols and caravans within the semi-circle of I-495.

Trade routes to the Commonwealth run northeast over old Route 95 and old Route 84, or directly east over old Route 90 from Albany. Settlements, small farms and trading posts can be found along these areas. Raider hangouts and ambushes are also frequent, but normally only harass well-armed parties. The ruins of New Haven are home to a festering hive of scum and villainy typical of raiders, with brothels, gambling dens and chem houses on every street corner.

North of New Haven are the ruins of Vault 55, which lasted only slightly longer than its counterpart Vault 56 - Vault 55 was provided with no entertainment tapes whatsoever. The vault dwellers appear to have been the victims of a mass murder-suicide some 80 years ago.

Rumored to exist somewhere within the Commonwealth’s domain (or possibly in nearby Vermont) is the high-tech manufacturing compound known as Deckard Industries. Deckard maintains its relative independence by virtue of its fully functional weapons and armor manufacturing plant. They supply both the Institute and private clients, but not without prior arrangements. Deckard Industries Tactical Armor is prized by Wasteland mercenaries.

Elsewhere, rumors abound of depraved and vicious slums, technological marvels, artificial intelligence and android life-forms, crime ridden shanty towns populated by the hopeless, massive fortified compounds and trading hubs, and of the ruins of the experimental and high-tech Vault 111. But in reality, little is known of the Commonwealth beyond rumors.

The center of the Commonwealth are the grounds of the Institute itself within the Boston ruins. They have attained a higher level of scientific and technical advancement than any other Wasteland area, but are plagued by political corruption, a tyrannical technocracy, and frequent power struggles that sap their resources, both human and material. What their designs are for the larger Big Apple Wasteland is anyone’s guess.