The Fallen Continent: Indiana
Many small factions and a few rising stars battle for control of the lands along the river Wabash.
Population: 360,000
Largest City: Muncie
Oh, the moonlight's fair tonight along the Wabash,
From the fields there comes the breath of new-mown hay.
Through the sycamores the candle lights are gleaming,
On the banks of the Wabash, far away.
Introduction
Indiana is one of the few states that has no civilian body claiming to be the rightful descendants of the pre-war state government. Two days after Indianapolis was destroyed, a new state government was formed in Lafayette. Five months after that, a secondary strike destroyed the city, and there was nowhere else for the state government to go. Indiana suffered its share of refugees and the resultant warlords, but a lot more people were fleeing from or through Indiana than to Indiana. Regardless, the state’s pockmarked landscape has made travel and communication quite difficult; nearly every faction in the state is hemmed in on all sides by NEZs and enemy factions. Interestingly, it has a higher population than neighboring Illinois, due to its more dispersed, agrarian population and higher survival rate.
Military Government of Indiana
Capital: Muncie
Classification: Military Faction (Reformist military government)
Allegiance: New American Alliance
Much of the Indiana National Guard was federalized and sent overseas during the pre-nuclear phase of the Great War as the 76th Infantry “Night Hawks” Brigade Combat Team. Their fate is unknown, and they were last seen in the Caucasus Mountains. Of the troops that remained in Indiana, their command staff was destroyed during the war. Various surviving national guard units coalesced around the towns of Richmond and Muncie, and greatly struggled to maintain order or effectively distribute food. With no one else to carry the torch for them, they took on the mantle of state succession and proclaimed the Military Government of Indiana.
The trials of the Starving Time, however, whipped the Night Hawks into shape, and a quasi-democratic structure emerged around the surviving military units. They established an impressive (for eastern American standards) military industry in Muncie and expanded into Ohio across state lines. In doing so, they came into contact with the Ohio rump state government and became staunch allies, despite their overlapping areas of jurisdiction. They also became fast friends with the Amish Country Emergency District in northern Indiana.
With the rising triple threats of the Second American Republic, the ASFR, and Salomon’s US government in Mt. Pleasant, the MGI signed a compact with Ohio and the Amish Country to establish a new, powerful faction: the New American Alliance. For now, the alliance is just that, an association of several factions with common interests and close military, economic, and diplomatic ties. They have ambitions of reforming into something more, however. They explicitly do not claim to be a successor of the United States of America, which they consider to be a dead nation. Instead, they claim to be a sovereign confederal state consisting of the successors of the prewar US states of Indiana, Ohio, and Michigan, with the notable addition of the State of Erie along what was once New York’s Lake Erie coast.
The long-term goal of the NAA is to reunify these states and create a new democratic faction spanning them all, without having to sacrifice the autonomy and agency of the Alliance’s constituent members. One of the principles is state divisionism, to account for the reality of the post-nuclear age by dividing Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio into several constituent states once they are in a stable enough position for permanent civilian government. There is already a precedent with Amish Country and the State of Erie, and there are increasing calls for western Ohio to become its own state. The NAA is not a centralized state and does not have an official capital, but the de facto capital is in Sandusky, Ohio, where delegations from the state governments meet to coordinate policy and resolve differences.
The Military Government of Indiana already includes a provisional council of civilian leaders, chosen by the military to represent the towns and counties of Indiana on policy matters. There are goals to gradually democratize this council and increase its power, but the MGI naturally has the most militaristic outlook out of any NAA faction, and wants to ensure the military has some kind of permanent voice in government affairs in the future.
Amish Country Emergency District
Capital: La Grange
Classification: Local Government (County alliance)
Allegiance: New American Alliance
Further north of the MGI is the Amish Country Emergency District, their partner in the New American Alliance. The “Emergency” in the ACED’s name isn’t because it’s an authoritarian emergency government, but rather because this alliance of counties and municipalities uses a state of emergency to justify ruling with state-level power in the absence of an actual state government. The ACED is the main democratic faction in Indiana, with a small (unelected) legislative council made up of local leaders, as well as an elected executive branch and a small military.
The “Amish Country” name comes from Elkart and LaGrange County’s notoriety as the home of Indiana’s Amish community. The Amish don’t run the government, but they make up about half of the population and have contributed significantly to the region’s survival and current successes. They were essential in lending their agricultural expertise to a new generation of farmers after the Starving Time.
Although the Elkart-LaGrange Amish affiliation is Old Order, they are among the most modernist and progressive Old Order groups in the country. Not only are they more amenable to modern technology (though there are still clear lines they won’t cross), they are also more open to participation in government. Many of the Indiana Amish vote in local elections, and there is even a small advisory council of elected Amish leaders that can weigh in on government decisions, although they have no binding power. The ACED also officially accommodates the Amish population with a multilingual policy. In addition to English, the German, Dutch, and Pennsylfaansch languages (collectively spoken by about a third of the population) are enshrined by law as state languages.
Because the Amish cannot fight, they rely upon a small, professional class of non-Amish volunteer soldiers to defend themselves. Many of the people in this caste descend from Starving Time-era refugees who were pressed into service to defend the Amish farmers in exchange for food. They, too, represent a noteworthy political faction within the ACED and are closely aligned with the MGI.
Wabash Republic
Capital: Marion
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Neo-feudal rump state)
The Wabash Republic is one of the more powerful factions in Indiana, although it has seen much better days. They began as a militia founded by a popular high school football coach and rapidly expanded in both size and ambition as they grew. At its height, the Wabash Republic was two or three times as big as its current size and came close to overrunning the MGI. As is the case in many neo-feudal regimes, however, the system struggles to stay in place when the central figure holding it all together is gone.
For the Wabash Republic, it all started when Coach Cody Schilling’s son committed suicide (possibly due to a romantic dispute). Schilling fell into a depression afterward and removed himself from governmental affairs for several years. His two chief lieutenants—the Chief of Staff and Vice President—governed the republic in his absence, but were more concerned with competing against each other over the question of Schilling’s succession. When the Chief of Staff subtly suggested that Schilling retire and hold a new round of presidential elections, Schilling finally got the hint and took charge of his government once more. He arrested both his Vice President and Chief of Staff and had them executed for treason.
To try and avoid the problem of plotting officer cliques, Schilling adopted a revolving door system of successors, in which he temporarily promoted up-and-coming officers to the Vice Presidential chair for a period of months at a time before dismissing them. The goal was to get a feel for a true potential successor, but Schilling died before he could make a permanent appointment. In his wake, the young, inexperienced, and hedonistic lieutenant Matt Ackerman took over the republic as its second president.
Throughout his brief time in office, Ackerman served as the typical kind of degenerate warlord who is more interested in abusing his powers for pleasure than actually ruling. He threw lavish parties, polluted his territory with drugs, and legalized polygamy while abolishing the age of consent (bear in mind that he was twenty years old when he became president). Ackerman executed subordinates over the slightest infractions and attempted to rule through sheer intimidation, which naturally accelerated the end of his regime.
After three years of Heliogabalian rule, Ackerman was deposed and murdered by his Chief of Staff Adam Ridgeway, who he had initially installed as a spineless crony. As Acting President, however, Ridgeway proved to be a capable, ruthless, and coldhearted leader who did a surprisingly good job of cleaning up Ackerman’s messes. The scars of Ackerman’s rule remain, and the Wabash Republic has still not recovered from its territorial losses during the free-fall period, when several neo-feudal vassals broke off from the republic and the NAA launched a renewed offensive on the regime. Ridgeway’s purge-heavy rule has created problems of its own, but he’s at least stopped the bleeding and bought the hard-pressed republic time to rebuild and recover.
The ongoing conflict between the NAA and the small warlords of Ohio has also brought them some reprieve from the eastern threat, but the real incoming opportunity is the brewing confrontation between the NAA and the communists of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Should it escalate any further, they may be distracted enough for Wabash to make a real comeback.
Cobra Nation
Capital: Warsaw
Classification: Warlord (Displaced street gang)
The Cobra Nation, originally the Insane Spanish Cobras Nation, is another one of the small warlord regimes descended from the few Chicago street gangs that managed to survive both the Great War and the subsequent period of famine and anarchy. The Spanish Cobras started out as a mostly Hispanic gang, but took on an increasingly Caucasian character over the years. They settled down in Warsaw, Indiana and were subjugated to the Wabash Republic by Coach Schilling’s forces. Under his very loose supervision, the Cobras dropped the Spanish part of their name and cleaned up their act as a “modern” warlord institution. In the process, they recruited many Hoosier survivalists, veterans, and law enforcement, and lost much of their street gang culture.
The Cobras rebelled against Wabash during the rule of Matt Ackerman and have been going it alone since. They know that Amish Country and Ridgeway’s renewed Wabash Republic have both set their sights on them, and are trying to extend the olive branch to the NAA and reach some kind of deal with them in exchange for their protection.
Colts
Capital: Plymouth
Classification: Warlord (Local warlord gang)
Much like the street gangs, doomsday cults, bartertowns, and insane despoiler warlords, sports-based gangs were once a common facet of Starving Time-era life that is now going by the wayside. Organizing a gang around a sports team is an easy way to identify people and build a rudimentary group identity in order to get the ball rolling in the earliest days of warlordism, but these gangs tended to fall apart quickly or reform into something else. Only a handful of such gangs still exist, and the Colts (named for the Indianapolis Colts, who—like their home city—no longer exist) are one of them.
Like the Cobras, the Colts were once vassals of the Wabash Republic before they broke away during the reign of Matt Ackerman. Living at the very edge of the Republic, Wabash’s rule was never absolute and more of an infrequent series of tribute missions. While the Cobras had to fight for their independence, the Colts simply stopped receiving visits from Marion one day and quietly left the republic after that.
Insane Popes Nation
Capital: La Porte
Classification: Warlord (Displaced street gang)
The Insane Popes Nation is the last of the Chicago street gangs that we will encounter, and are also the ones closest to Chicago itself. They closely hug the boundaries of the greater Chicago Exclusion Zone and, naturally, claim the exclusive right to harvest its bounty of salvageable materials. They spend more time fighting with NEZ dwellers and their gangs than they do other warlords, but it isn’t for a lack of belligerence on their part.
Back in the days of Coach Schilling, when the Wabash Republic was at its peak, the Insane Popes were their most defiant opponents. They built up La Porte as a fortress city and kept Schilling’s forces at bay with their formidable defenses. The Popes even harried Wabash territory itself with daring raids, although since Wabash’s downfall they’ve been less active players in the wasteland.
The chaos of the Starving Time and the intense struggle it provoked prompted a return among the Popes to their white nationalist origins. The Popes (or, more accurately, the specific band of Popes members that re-founded the gang and recruited new members among the refugee columns, as is the case for virtually all pre-war gangs that still survive today) expelled all nonwhite members and changed their name back to its original meaning: Protecting Our People Eliminating Spics. They preferred to recruit among Chicago law enforcement, firefighters, and survivalists, but took on their share of convicts, displaced gangsters, and other odds and ends as well.
New Jerusalem
Capital: New Jerusalem (Rensselaer)
Classification: Religious Faction (Messianic cult)
What happens when your theocratic army’s “second coming of Christ” gets sick and dies? In this case, these miles pedites unpacked their things and settled down in the town of Rensselaer, renaming it New Jerusalem. The ruling Church of the New Jerusalem behaves about how one would expect them to. Typical millenarian cult behavior combined with selective tenets from Christian fundamentalism. New Jerusalem is the type of place to live if you want to marry teenage girls or donate large sums of money to build the Third Temple, and not the best kind of place for people who like eating shellfish or wearing mixed fabrics.
Their military record is spotty. Obviously, if they were stronger, they’d have conquered a real empire by now and wouldn’t be stuck in the remotest city in Indiana. At the same time, they’ve survived for thirty years, when most messianic cults couldn’t make it to three or five, and they’ve even outlived their own messiah, which messianic cults almost never do. They stood up to the Wabash Republic in the summer of its life, and they’ve endured amidst the anarchy of the Great Lakes states.
Their staunchest enemies are Combat 110, who believe that they are a Judaizing force and must be eliminated, and Z, who hates religious people in general and wants to personally kill God.
Neil Adamczyk
Capital: Logansport
Classification: Warlord (Personalistic warlord gang)
Neil Adamczyk was once a loyal lieutenant of Coach Schilling, who gave him the town of Logansport in recognition of his service. Although he was a toady of Chief of Staff John Oberhelman, he always secretly hoped that he would be able to outmaneuver his own immediate superior and win the succession for himself. During the revolving door period after Oberhelman was executed for treason, Adamczyk himself briefly served as Acting Vice President, although he was never a serious contender for Schilling’s successor.
When it became clear just how ill-suited Matt Ackerman was for the presidency, Adamczyk was one of the first to openly defy him. He raised a private army in Logansport and attempted to march on the capital, but was stopped by Ackerman’s successor, Adam Ridgeway. Adamczyk’s clique had even captured Wabash City at one point and was about to drive on Marion itself, but a strong counteroffensive by Ridgeway and constant harrying from the other surrounding warlords has got Adamczyk on the ropes.
The situation is now getting desperate enough that Adamczyk and his closest supporters do not expect a military victory against Ridgeway and are drafting an escape plan. By sacrificing his least trusted subordinates and some fodder troops on the front line, he hopes to take the rest of his shrinking army and invade some other town elsewhere in Indiana—likely New Jerusalem—and start over.
Z
Capital: Frankfort
Classification: Warlord (Psychotic despoilers)
Z is the warlord who gives other warlords a bad name. This unhinged madman is genuinely insane and truly depraved, and it’s a wonder he’s made it this far at all. Most of the really, really bad warlords didn’t last much longer than the Starving Time, as most people aren’t that sick in the head, and state authorities or legitimist warlords tend to have a serious leg up over the petty raiders. Those that are still around usually exist in special circumstances, like the neo-nomadic climate of Texas and Oklahoma or the desolation of the Badlands. As insane as he might seem, Z has to be pretty good at what he does for him to have stuck around so long.
Just about any pejorative label you can attach to a warlord is applicable to Z. Satanist, cannibal, pedophile, rapist, torturer, mutilator, animal abuser, flippant murderer, pathological liar, betrayer, he’s done it all. He and his depraved band of soldiers (who fear him as much as they idolize him) are more dangerous to their own subjects (or rather, victims), as their foreign enemies are. One could say he didn’t quite get the “pillage, then burn” memo. On the rare occasions that he crosses paths with a Canadian, he reacts extremely poorly when they call him “Zed.”
Z used to be a completely nomadic, free-roaming warlord up until the collapse of the Wabash Republic. He capitalized on the situation by capturing Frankfort and transforming it into his own base, to the unceasing misery of the city’s inhabitants. Both the MGI and Wabash Republic would like to send a punitive expedition to put the mad dog down, but their hands are tied with more pressing matters. As evil as Z is, he unfortunately isn’t enough of an actual threat to warrant immediate action.
The Orchestra
Capital: Crawfordsville
Classification: Warlord (Semi-nomadic raider gang)
The Orchestra is the name of this semi-nomadic band of rogues, mercenaries, and survivalists who winter in Crawfordsville before spending most of the year out in the field. These raiders aren’t exactly good people, but they’re saints compared with the likes of Z.
The Orchestra’s “Maestro” is an Irishman who at least likes to pretend that he’s a pious Catholic, and he’s made it his duty to earn his redemption by taking on Z’s gang and putting them down. Although everyone hates Z, they’re the only faction in Indiana that’s actively working towards Z’s downfall.
The Orchestra has one ace up their sleeve: a working airplane. Salvaged from the ruins of Indianapolis, they’ve restored the last airworthy Lockheed PV-2 Harpoon in America to working condition and have christened it The Flying Dutchman. It flies irregular bombing sorties over Frankfort, though it’s failed to score any meaningful hits so far.
Clay County Emergency Administration
Capital: Brazil
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Rogue county regime)
The Clay County Emergency Administration is not the most dynamic or interesting faction in Indiana, but it is one of the best-functioning and is the only other faction (along with Amish Country) to descend from a prewar Indiana county government. The story here is a common one: a local strongman from back in the Starving Time abused his position on the county rationing board to recruit fighters in exchange for food, then overthrew the local government. It was more of a soft coup in this case, and most of the county board supported the move out of a genuine belief that he was the best man to save Clay County from the warlords and socialists.
The warlords haven’t been too much of a threat, but the socialists present a real challenge. They’re steadily losing ground to the SPRA and the Indiana Minutemen haven’t been as much of a help as they had hoped. Their last, best hope may be to work out an arrangement with the ambitious Edgar County across the border in Illinois.
Social Progressive Republic of America
Capital: Bloomington
Classification: Left-Wing Ideological Faction (Managerial socialist state)
Sometimes history repeats itself in humorous ways. Bloomington, Indiana, is home to Indiana University’s flagship campus, and gave rise to a socialist revolution that overthrew the local government. Across state lines in Illinois, their own city of Bloomington also hosted a university whose students established a socialist revolution. The two factions both recognize each other as legitimate, despite their differences: the Social Democratic State of Lincoln in the west, and the Social Progressive Republic of America in the east.
The founders of the SPRA didn’t originally intend to found a revolutionary left-wing state. They simply established a rationing board to distribute food across campus and throughout town, and then began organizing armed groups of students to defend their food stockpiles against looters, raiders, and survivalists. They soon began sharing their food with more than just campus personnel, and eventually rivaled the local government in influence and power. The already left-leaning faculty and students (a few prominent students in the defense force had strongarmed their way onto the rationing board by this point) developed a socialistic, technocratic bent to their rationing process.
With only so much food to go around, they were forced to choose who would live and die, which led them to develop a complicated social algorithm to determine who was productive or valuable enough to feed and who was merely a useless eater that needed to go hungry. The board was proud of its ability to devise a what seemed to be a fair and efficient scheme for food distribution, which they weighed against the brazen militarism of the MGI or the dystopian caste system of the Second American Republic.
When armed conflict inevitably boiled over between the University and the city, board member Paxton Hayes seized control, established himself as dictator, and proclaimed a socialist revolution and the birth of the SPRA. Hayes’ takeover did not come without its resulting Red Terror, but it manifested in its own particular form. Lafayette’s Red Terror was meant to cull the population and prevent counterrevolution. Green Bay’s Red Terror was an outpouring of violence from a prior civil war and St. Cloud’s invasion. The other Bloomington’s Red Terror was the over-enthusiastic implementation of progressive policies against “Christian fascists.” The SPRA’s Red Terror, then, was the removal of “irrational, regressive actors” that hold the Republic back from its full, futuristic potential.
After solidifying his position, the Supreme Chairman refined his ideology as “Hayesian Socialism.” The central dogma of Hayesianism is a managerial technocratic government whose purpose is to bring the greatest good to the greatest number of people. Despite the SPRA’s futurist, rationalist character, they have made their fair share of compromises and ideological sacrifices, as any other ideological regimes have done. They had hoped to replace the old food-based barter system with actual communism, but have had to settle on a Freigeld currency system as a “temporary” measure until communism can be achieved.1 They have also retained the US federal model against their true wishes, in order to win the support of the Social Democratic State of Lincoln.
Although they are surrounded by enemies, the SPRA is in a good position for expansion. They have a larger population and industrial base than most other factions in the region, and a loyal populace that supports the regime. Their enemies all fight each other as much as they fight the Reds, and each individual one is not difficult for the SPRA to overcome. The Second American Republic is not interested in northward expansion at the time, and the New American Alliance has more pressing threats to answer before facing Bloomington. The SPRA is roughly on par with those “competent dictatorship” legitimist warlords and keeps things functioning smoothly; if their enemies remain divided and there are no major upsets, they may be able to seriously challenge the NAA for dominance of the Great Lakes someday.
Indiana Minutemen
Capital: Columbus
Classification: Right-Wing Ideological Faction (Right-wing militia regime)
The Indiana Minutemen are the principal right-wing faction in the state. They were founded by survivalist bandits with a right-wing bent rather than true far-right ideologues, so their ideology is poorly-defined and is often warped for pragmatic purposes to uphold the rule of their Commanding General. That is to say, ideological struggle is less of a central imperative for the Minutemen and more of a common cause that they can rally around.
Nevertheless, there are a few right-wing policy projects they’ve implemented over the years. They’ve made a few experiments in the direction of a free market economy, but lack the precious metal supply to return to a gold or silver standard. The Minutemen are opposed to feminism and homosexuality for reasons both dogmatic and pragmatic, and support traditional Nicene Christianity at the expense of new religious movements and Messianic cults. The only truly fervently-held belief of the Minutemen is to destroy what’s left of “Big Pharma” and prevent it from ever reemerging again. They go hard against fluoride, vaccines, and birth control, and destroy most pharmaceuticals that come into their possession (not that many of these things are still around, but they prevent their circulation when trading with other factions). They burn fields of GMO corn, “rescue” factory-farmed livestock from SPRA territory, and charge extra duties on plastic goods. Even still, one can see the practical benefits of the program and why a survivalist bandit would adopt them.
Growing fearful of the SPRA’s increasing momentum, the Minutemen are now trying to make peace with the neighboring warlords and draw the NAA into the conflict on their side.
Greensburg Neighborhood Watch
(And a side word on survivalism)
Capital: Greensburg
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Rogue law enforcement regime)
The Greensburg Neighborhood Watch is a legitimist faction that can be classified as either a law enforcement regime or a vigilante gang, depending on how one sees it. The Watch was established by a prewar police officer who recruited a gang of vigilantes to stop looters, raiders, and survivalists.
The term “survivalist” is thrown around quite a lot in Fallen Continent, and an explanation of what exactly is meant by this term is quite overdue. There are a handful of words that carry different meanings to the post-nuclear society, such as “fundamentalist” or “legitimist.” Survivalist is one such word as well. It refers not simply to people who were prepared for the Great War with emergency stockpiles and survival training (survivalists do meet this criteria, but so do many other people), nor does it apply to extremist militia movements. Instead, “survivalist” refers to a certain kind of individual who prioritized his own survival and security over those of others, and engaged in antisocial behaviors like hoarding and raiding to meet those ends. A popular term for these types throughout the wasteland is “LMOE,” or Last Man on Earth, which reflects their solipsistic attitude. Survivalists may work independently, in small gangs, or outright control their own factions as kleptocratic, isolationist leaders.
There is some overlap between looters, raiders, and survivalists, but there are a few key differences. Survivalists possess survival training, tend to prioritize emergency supplies, and have a more militaristic temperament, often fighting as small armies or one-man armies with guerilla tactics. They are the most sophisticated of the three “antisocial bandit” archetypes, and tend to present the greatest long-term risk. They also tend to come from white rural and suburban backgrounds, and some harbor extreme religious or political beliefs.
Raiders are a step down from survivalists; they lack the convictions or skills of survivalists and are less antisocial. Survivalists often spend long periods of time in solitude, while raiders are almost always part of a gang and spend most of their time lurking in the towns of other factions as criminals. Some people view survivalists in a sympathetic light, but few harbor the same sympathy for raiders.
Looters are the lowliest of the lot, and had largely disappeared by the end of the Starving Time. They were common people, usually poor urbanites, who capitalized on the immediate chaos of the Great War to loot and pillage whatever they wanted. They tended to prioritize luxury goods, cash, and recreational materials (jewelry, consumer electronics, alcohol, narcotics, clothes, etc.) over things like medicine, ammunition, or hand tools. They caused the most short-term chaos, but burned themselves out quickly and were put down en masse by more organized gangs and surviving government authorities. Individuals from all three categories have found their way into the ranks of militias, police departments, and warlord bands, but some still try to go it alone.
The Greensburg Neighborhood Watch gained the favor of the local populace through its hard stance on these antisocial bandit types and quickly supplanted the local government. Public opinion has softened on the survivalists in recent years, however, and some now view them in a romanticized light as something akin to a noble savage. The Watch has offered amnesty to survivalists throughout Indiana and is now trying to recruit them into their ranks, to prepare for a possible onslaught by the SPRA.
Blood Brotherhood
Capital: Scottsburg
Classification: Warlord (Raider gang)
The Blood Brotherhood is Indiana’s oldest, most well-established raider gang, initially made up of escaped prison convicts and refugees from along the Ohio River. They’re a formidable force compared to other minor warlords, although they never set down strong enough roots to take the legitimist route and really get the ball rolling. Similar to the Texas Brotherhood, the Blood Brotherhood isn’t actually one single gang, but an alliance of several other, smaller gangs united under a loose central authority in Scottsburg. The Grand Master of the Brotherhood gives a lot of autonomy to his subordinates, but makes very harsh examples out of those who break the few rules he actually cares to enforce.
The Brotherhood is a bunch of vicious raiders, sure, but they like to think of themselves as righteous enforcers and make a very big display of publicly executing degenerates. They indulge their sadism by torturing and executing people that no one will miss: pedophiles, enemy raiders, traitors, and other hated deviants. Their signature act is to castrate their prisoners and stuff the severed genitals in their enemies’ mouths before executing them.
They enjoyed being the top dogs of southern Indiana for some years, but it seems as if the writing is now on the wall. The SPRA is growing in strength, and with their backs against the Ohio River EZ, they have nowhere to run. Their last bet is to put up the fight of their lives and hope the SPRA picks enough fights to bite off more than they can chew.
Gondor
Capital: French Lick
Classification: Warlord (Vigilante gang)
Gondor is among the most curious vigilante regimes in the country and can best be described as LARP taken very seriously. These vigilante militiamen modelled their organization after the Dúnedain Rangers of Lord of the Rings and raised up their captain as King Eldarion of Gondor. They use modern weapons but are also proficient with the bow and arrow and the machete, wear shrouded ranger uniforms, and fly the Royal Standard of Gondor as their banner. Unlike the fictional kingdom of Tolkien’s work, this Gondor is not a hereditary monarchy, but an elective one, in which the heir is chosen by seven electors from the Rangers’ officer corps. Nevertheless, the current heir apparent is the King’s son, who is himself an elector.
Despite the virtuous appearance of Gondor and its Rangers, they aren’t that much better (maybe a little bit better) than the surrounding warlords and are just as warlike. The SPRA hates them, but considers them a convenient-enough buffer with the Second American Republic to not immediately remove them. The Rangers understand this and wisely choose to avoid poking the socialist bear; instead, their wrath is directed towards the SAR and chiefly against the Blood Brotherhood.
Baal’s Army
Capital: Vincennes
Classification: Warlord (Satanist raider gang)
Baal’s Army is a Satanist warlord faction. While some self-described Satanists across the wasteland are just using the religion as a justification for their degenerate behavior, and a few others really believe in its message, Baal’s Army is a truly depraved band of devil-worshippers. They are everything that conservative Christians claim them to be, human sacrifice and all. Their deeds pale in comparison to those of Z and his followers, but Baal’s Army is more ideologically devoted to their cause and has goals beyond simply mutilating people for fun. Their small but devoted sect in Vincennes is in the crosshairs of several surrounding factions, but their fierce band of warriors and the defensible position afforded by several encircling NEZs makes them a tough opponent to root out.
State of Indiana
Capital: Evansville
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Neo-feudal vassal realm)
Allegiance: Second American Republic
Although the 76th Brigade Combat Team survived up north in a greatly reduced form, the 81st Troop Command in Evansville was the largest surviving formation of the Indiana National Guard after the Great War. Although they were larger than the 76th, there were other military remnants in the 76th’s vicinity that joined with them and were greater in numbers overall. This, combined with Evansville’s isolated position, led to the 76th establishing the state military government up north in Muncie, while the 81st Troop Command stayed in Evansville down south to establish a military administration in the MGI’s name.
Although they officially recognized the Military Government of Indiana, the 81st Troop Command rarely cooperated with them on any level and effectively ran the area around Evansville as their own military dictatorship. Despite ruling over what was then Indiana’s largest surviving city (Muncie and Bloomington have since overtaken it), the 81st struggled to control their territory. They were hemmed in on three sides by hostile geography and had little interest in expanding south into the warlord free-for-all of western Kentucky. The tidal wave of refugees from the Ohio River Valley kept their hands full for many years, and prevented them from ever achieving a solid position in Evansville.
Years later, the Kentucky anarchy gave way to a single, extremely formidable faction: the Second American Republic. The SAR was founded by prewar physician Edmund Meryll, whose neo-feudal regime toppled the remains of the prewar Kentuckian government. He reforged that neo-feudal patchwork into a centralized dictatorship that claimed the succession of the United States. Although Meryll didn’t have much interest in conquering the Midwest—his focus was always on securing Kentucky and then Tennessee—he was drawn into conflict with the 81st due to their support for a rival Kentuckian government led by State Police remnants in nearby Henderson, just across the Ohio River. Working with the traitorous military governor of Santa Claus, Indiana, Meryll established a foothold in the Hoosier State and enveloped the vulnerable National Guard regime in an ambitious pincer attack.
Faced with an untenable position, most of the 81st surrendered then and there to Meryll’s republic. The remainder fought their way west into Illinois, where they are keeping up the fight against the SAR to this day. Back in Evansville, Meryll’s conquests were reorganized into the legitimist State of Indiana.
The State of Indiana in Evansville lacks the rights or agency of an antebellum US state, but does nonetheless have some genuine autonomy under Bowling Green’s watchful eye. The old military regime has been reworked into a stratocratic oligarchy ruling the land on behalf of the late Meryll’s successor, and the instability of the refugee period has been swept away. Because Indiana-Evansville isn’t meant to be much more than a buffer region, Bowling Green has not yet exported its unique political system of hereditary castes to the state, and it simply remains a neo-feudal vassal realm for the time being. The SAR does have plans to eventually centralize the state and dispense Ranks to the citizenry, but for now they’re content to let the Indiana oligarchs run things their way, as long as they prop up the Ohio River trade, defend the border with their own troops, and pay their fair share of taxes.
Index
Click here to read the master post of the series, with links at the bottom of the page to all other Fallen Continent entries.
Previous Entry: Illinois
Next Entry: Factional Allegiances
See the Trade & Currency article for an explanation.
Pretty good map, only questions are what happened to the whole ohio river border region for it to be a gray zone (i assume that means wasteland) and how did a place like Bloomington survive compared to a much smaller place like terre haute? Though if any college was going to have it students form a socialist government it would definitely be IU.
Pretty cool, the only group that makes no sense to me is Baal's Army in VIncennes. Also, where is the Hoosierborean Reich? Dropped the ball there, methinks. Rushville would be a good seat for them.