The Fallen Continent: South Carolina
Without much in the way of vestigial government, South Carolina is now a land of ideologues and crusaders.
Population: 100,000
Largest City: Anderson
On her brow there is no stain:
Our Carolina.
She hath poured out blood like rain:
Dear Carolina!
Vain her sufferings and her pains;
On her limbs are clanking chains,
But her glory yet remains:
Brave Carolina!
Introduction
South Carolina was a fairly densely-packed state to begin with, putting the Palmetto State in trouble right off the bat. Greenville served as the seat of the first rump government, but its relative proximity to neighboring NEZs (Spartanburg to the east and the Oconee nuclear power plant to the west) left it in an incredibly isolated position that limited the government’s ability to control the rest of the state. This didn’t bother the Acting Governor (the prewar State Commissioner of Agriculture)—he hoped Greenville’s isolated position would work to his advantage, as he belonged to the “hide from the rest of the population and sit out the nuclear winter” school of governance that served South Dakota and Illinois so well.
However sound the Acting Governor’s triage plan may have been, nuclear fallout still posed a major danger throughout the state. South Carolina’s many nuclear power plants were all targeted, and fallout remained a serious health concern even outside of the NEZs throughout the first half of the Starving Time. While the Acting Governor stayed holed up in Greenville, dissenting legislators, as well as defecting state troopers and National Guardsmen, set up a rival administration in Florence shortly after the destruction of Twin Falls. The federal government in Amarillo switched its recognition from Greenville to Florence—not that it mattered, given the increasingly desperate position South Carolina was in and the extreme distance between itself and the Texas Panhandle. In the Cold Summer of 2030, both cities were destroyed by secondary strikes, and Amarillo itself followed months later.
The South Carolinian Anarchy
The secondary strikes snuffed out the remnants of the antebellum government and brought to an end any attempts to keep it alive. Its scattered remains are sparse; a single county government endured as a legitimist dictatorship, while a few individual stragglers from the ruins of Greenville got picked up by the militia regime that later reconstructed their own state government from scratch. Military odds and ends caught up with an ad hoc naval administration in Myrtle Beach. The rest of South Carolina is all ideologues and warlords.
Given the density of South Carolina’s destruction and the severe want of living space after the fact, competition for the remaining scraps was extremely fierce. South Carolina saw relatively few refugees (mostly from Charleston, Columbia, and both sides of the Savannah River), but those they had were densely concentrated in a few small areas. General refugee unrest was made worse by the complete collapse of government authority and the bad fallout situation. Anarchy prevailed; few rationing programs were implemented, and fewer still succeeded. By the time the weather recovered well enough for agriculture to return, there was not enough seed, fertilizer, equipment, expertise, or labor left to till the remaining arable land—nor was there enough security for laborers to safely toil without fear of raids or kidnappings. South Carolina was plunged into a dark age.
For most of the thirty years that have passed since then, most inhabited territory was ruled by simple petty warlords controlling a single town or county. The sole exceptions were the east bank of the Savannah River between Oconee and Augusta and the Myrtle Beach naval clique. These factions were able to maintain agriculture and used their organizational and demographic advantages to grind minor warlords in the dust over the years, granting them a preeminent position. Through this war of attrition, the petty warlords’ numbers have been reduced to a mere handful at the fringes of the state, clinging to their little fiefdoms that are too remote for the big shots to conquer. In their place have risen new factions with their own claims to power: legitimist warlords and ideological factions that were once as tiny as the petty warlords, but managed to get the ball rolling during the Starving Time and its free-for-all anarchy.
State of South Carolina
Capital: Anderson
Classification: Right-Wing Ideological Faction (Reformist right-wing militia regime)
Allegiance: Congress of Southern States
The State of South Carolina in its current iteration does have limited prewar roots. A handful of its earlier members did, in fact, belong to the ephemeral Greenville government, and got picked up by the new regime after crawling out of the smouldering wreckage. But these were only minor figures—staffers, secretaries, and other low-ranking hangers-on that were left behind following the government’s destruction. Even still, many of these survivors perished in the coming years from starvation and radiation poisoning. The extant Anderson government of South Carolina’s real roots are in the Southeast Constitutional Militia.
As described previously in the Georgian article, the SCM was a right wing paramilitary of the “three-percenter” variety that gained traction during the Great 21st Century Crisis that preceded the Great War. It had a wide appeal throughout the American southeast thanks to its relatively moderate message and willingness to work with a great breadth of different people and groups. In a proper civil war, it might have lacked the ideological conviction to attract fervent militants and win out over the more extreme alternatives, but after the apocalypse, it was an attractive option for those seeking protection against survivalist bandits and raider gangs. In the absence of state authority, the SCM rapidly gained support throughout southern Georgia and northern South Carolina, winning town after town to their cause and integrating a kaleidoscope of police departments, vigilante gangs, and rival right-wing militias.
Much of the SCM’s appeal was derived from its decentralized, confederal nature. Assimilated factions could join the SCM without having to worry about losing much of their autonomy, and what exactly the SCM looked like varied wildly from county to county—the variation was even greater from state to state. Although the SCM spanned the entirety of the Deep South before the war, it really only took root in Georgia and South Carolina. The Georgian chapter trended more towards a centralized military government, which was ultimately fulfilled in the takeover of dictator Calvin Quade and the transformation of the Georgian SCM into a fascist, Spartanist state. The South Carolinian SCM took a much different direction, evolving from a confederal union of militias into a nascent republic.
From Militia Confederacy to Centralized State
Coming out of the Starving Time, South Carolinian SCM Captain-General Grayson Webb took stock of the regime that was nominally his. Anderson was firmly under the control of the militia proper, with its appointed captain and an elected advisory council of local civilian leaders (said council was originally only the board of education for Anderson County, but it had gradually leveraged itself into becoming a de facto legislature). Some of the nearby towns operated in a similar orderly fashion and faithfully obeyed Webb’s statues.
Yet most of the SCM’s theoretical sphere of influence remained out of his grasp. The outlying towns were ruled by elected Sheriffs and councils who resembled—or were directly descended from—the prewar government, and functioned as effectively independent city-states. The militia outposts at the SCM’s frontiers—many of which were ruled by former rivals who picked up the SCM flag—had descended into despotic, cult-like armed camps where renegade captains ruled with iron-fisted brutality. Just as was the case in Georgia, the SCM was severely wanting for cohesion, and would eventually disintegrate if no steps were taken to rectify the situation.
Webb’s solution came from outside the state. He had built up a strong working relationship with the Georgia State Defense Force across the Savannah River, which had pacified the nearby warlords with the SCM’s help. The two factions depended on their pact of mutual non-aggression to shore up their respective rear flanks, and now a blossoming trade relationship was bringing economic prosperity to both sides. With a stable domestic situation, Georgia SDF commander Paul Varney made a bold move to end martial law and hold state elections. Inspired by Varney’s meteoric rise in popularity and landslide electoral victory, Captain-General Webb made a similar move.
He empowered the Anderson County Board of Education and transformed them into a real legislature. Working with the new General Assembly, he drafted a state constitution and proclaimed the rebirth of the State of South Carolina. Running on the ticket of the new Constitutional Party, Webb was elected in a landslide comparable to Varney’s. The first round of elections also drastically increased the size of the General Assembly, whose new seats were filled by loyal militia commanders, giving Webb an entrenched political base to work with. The militia itself was retained and renamed into the South Carolina Constitutional Militia, and exists as both the state military and the paramilitary arm of the Constitutional Party. It might be more accurate to call the Constitutional Party the political arm of the SCCM.
Politics of the Anderson Government
Since this reformation, Webb’s political dynasty has gradually chipped away at the free towns and tyrant captains at the state’s fringes, while enforcing his own brand of measured rightism. Tenets of South Carolina’s Constitutional Party include hard money, laissez-faire rationing policies (the rest of the economy is still militia-directed, for now), conservative, patriotic education, a militia-centric society, and generally pro-white, pro-Christian, anti-feminist social policies. The Anderson government’s social policies are largely a matter of pragmatism, however. Ever since the Starving Time, the battle lines in South Carolina were largely drawn on the grounds of race and religion, and Anderson wants whites throughout the state to look up to them as the bulwark against Orangeburg’s black nationalism. Their religious position is more muted, as they have to walk a careful tightrope between anti-clericalism and the kind of ecstatic religious nationalism that could potentially result in a takeover by the National Salvation Front. That is to say, the Anderson government wants the NSF to follow their lead, and not the other way around.
The Anderson government has free, democratic elections, but it is also a one-party state; there is no meaningful political opposition to the Constitutional Party within Anderson’s territory. Single-issue fringe parties can still win local elections, and there are a handful of independents in the General Assembly, but these parties all play ball with the Constitutionalists. There are multiple factions within the Constitutional Party however, some political and some oriented around personalist cliques (Starving Time-era militia rivalries die hard), so primary elections remain very competitive. These range from moderately rightist Republicans, to right-libertarians, to Tishbite Christian nationalists (see the National Salvation Front segment later in this article), to hardliner fascists, to the aforementioned apolitical militia cliques. Political participation isn’t exclusively restricted to the SCCM, but it is defined by militia politics and military service, much like politics in neighboring Georgia are dominated by the State Defense Force.
The Congress of Southern States
The stable relationship between the Anderson government of South Carolina and the Gainesville government culminated in a formal union between the two: the Congress of Southern States. The CSS has since grown to include other members in Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, and North Carolina, but Georgia and South Carolina together remain the organization’s principal members, the “Big Two.” This alliance put them at odds with their former Georgian SCM counterparts, which have now grown into the Fraternal American Republic: the CSS’ most existential threat.
The CSS’ current goal is to build a coalition that can overpower the FAR before it can grow too powerful to defeat head-on. South Carolina has little in the way of diplomatic, coalition-building opportunities, save for their complicated relationship with the strong-willed, unpredictable National Salvation Front. Still, they do possess a decent population, with a nascent agricultural and industrial base that can support a large army relative to its population. When the final showdown with the FAR comes, the CSS will need its South Carolinian troops to defend the light of Southern democracy.
Stone Cold
Capital: Barnwell
Classification: Warlord (Raider gang)
Stone Cold is a typical, unimaginative, leather-clad biker warlord based in the town of Gaffney. He’s brutal, and makes a strong, sadistic example of his enemies, but keeps things running reasonably smoothly, as biker gang warlords go. The best thing his gang has going for it is that they’re the only white militant group between Orangeburg and the Augusta NEZ, meaning many concerned whites who wouldn’t otherwise join with Stone Cold now see him as their savior. Living in perpetual fear of the Orangeburg black nationalists, Stone Cold and his gang have built up Barnwell as a fortress and scored an alliance of convenience with the Savannah River Reclamation Authority.
The Pyrates
Capital: Hilton Head Island
Classification: Warlord (Pirate haven)
In their lair on Hilton Head Island dwell the Pyrates, the only piratical faction on the American East Coast outside of Florida. The Pyrates are small fry; there is little for them to attack, with scant shipping out this way. The increased presence of the Elizabeth City government in East Coast waters has cowed the Pyrates into a much more subdued lifestyle. In effect, they’re just another warlord faction, but they happen to live on a South Carolina barrier island.
Coastal Patrol
Capital: Kiawah Island
Classification: Warlord (Vigilante gang)
In contrast to the Pyrates is the Coastal Patrol, a vigilante gang that secured Kiawah Island west of the Charleston NEZ. They got their start defending the island from pirate raids, but in recent years their attention has turned towards the Colored People’s Republic in Orangeburg. Don’t let the neutral, militaresque name fool you—the Coastal Patrol are the most ardently racialized faction in the entire state. Nobody in South Carolina hates minorities more than them, and any blacks unfortunate enough to find themselves in Kiawah Island are shot on sight. They’re remote enough that the DSCPR doesn’t want to spare the resources to go and crush them, but they trade blows through frequent skirmishes in the Charleston NEZ over salvage rights. The Coastal Patrol are amenable to the USA-Elizabeth City, but the naval government wants Kiawah to clean up its act and ditch the more extreme racism before making any kind of deal with them.
Democratic Socialist Colored People’s Republic
Capital: Orangeburg
Classification: Left-Wing Ideological Faction (Left-wing nationalist state)
Orangeburg, South Carolina, seemed like a natural haven for black people in the chaotic wake of the Great War. It was a historic center for civil rights and hosted two historically-black centers for higher learning: the Claflin University and South Carolina State University.
Even before the Great War, Orangeburg had become a hotbed of black nationalist and far-left revolutionary activity. Here, the surge of political radicalism that gripped the entire country was expressed in an affinity for anarchism as part of the African-American communal struggle. After the war, a clique of black bloc student revolutionaries—creatively named the Black Bloc—took over the town. Most of the Black Bloc was made up of African Americans, the organization had a notable presence of white leftists, fleeing the ruins of cities like Charleston and Columbia.
During the Black Bloc days, Orangeburg pursued a course of anarchist communism. The Bloc favored African-Americans in regards to rationing, shelter, and work programs, but still declined to pursue any formal racial policies, and whites and Jews could still be counted among the city’s leadership. Officially, Orangeburg and its rural environs were a collection of anarchist communes; agriculture, when it returned, was practiced communally, and decisions were made through direct democracy in communal meetings. In practice, the Black Bloc was another militia group and used the anarchist councils as a rubber stamp.
This rugged alliance of agrarian communes and student militias was disrupted by the rise of far-right extremist factions further west. The Anderson government of South Carolina, the Fraternal American Republic, and the revived Confederate States of America all pursued some variation of exclusionary, white-centric racialism that led to a mass exodus of African-Americans and other minorities from their territories. West-bound refugees found a safe haven in the USA-Gadsden, but those heading east were bound for Orangeburg. Flush with fresh manpower and radicalized by a renewed racial conflict, the Black Bloc shed its anarchist trappings and embraced a more overtly black nationalist ideology.
The Colored People’s Republic
After a power play by the “People’s Militia” sub-faction of the Bloc, the anarchist communes were formally dissolved in their last rubber-stamp meeting, and the Democratic Socialist Colored People’s Republic was born. There was little change in direct governance, and the DSCPR’s non-black leadership was even retained (and grandfathered out, so that no more whites could take their place), but the new constitution granted the militia extensive powers that it only unofficially wielded beforehand. Following this paradigm shift, the People’s Militia went on the offensive, capturing small towns and crushing minor warlords and gangs throughout central South Carolina. Their expansion is reaching a fever-pitch as the Militia gathers more momentum, putting them on a crash course towards inevitable conflict towards their ideological opponents.
Organized religion is officially illegal in the DSCPR (often shortened to the CPR, or Colored People’s Republic), but this is more of an expression of racial identity than dedication to militant socialist atheism. Traditionally black religious movements, like black churches or the Nation of Islam, are unofficially tolerated. Orangeburg is even the headquarters of the African Tishbite Church of Zion, an African-American offshoot of the Tishbite movement that spread like wildfire throughout the Carolinas after the Great War. Although most Tishbite churches are militant and opposed to most ruling authorities, the ATCZ has been carefully pruned by Orangeburg to remain amenable to the black anarchist movement. Judaism and most Satanist movements are also allowed a presence in the CPR, in recognition of their opposition to white Christians. Although the CPR turns a blind eye to agreeable religious practices, they do not tolerate other forms of dissent. Conservatism, either religious, social, or economic, does not fly here, and the CPR still rigorously enforces communal agriculture as the bulwark of their economy.
Despite the rapid expansion of the Colored People’s Republic, they are in danger of overextending themselves. They have enemies in all directions and no allies to speak of; the nearest leftist faction is all the way north in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, and even the other black-led factions in the Deep South dislike the CPR’s anarcho-communist ideology. The CSS is too distracted with the FAR threat in Georgia to pay too much attention to Orangeburg, but that still leaves the white vigilantes and Tishbites as major short term threats, and the leviathan USA-Elizabeth City in the long term.
Williamsburg County Army
Capital: Kingstree
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Vigilante army)
The Williamsburg County Army is one of two legitimist warlord regimes based in South Carolina. It began as the Kingstree Neighborhood Watch, a vigilante gang organized by a rent-a-cop selling protection in exchange for food during the Starving Time. After supplanting the county government, the watch evolved into a county army and a small warlord faction in its own right. Although the WCA is exceptionally well-organized and professional for a vigilante faction, it wasn’t any larger than the other petty warlords until the rise of the Colored People’s Republic in recent years. Much of their manpower comes from white refugees driven out of their homes by the Colored People’s Republic, further fueling the fires of conflict. The threat posed by the DSCPR has encouraged small-time gangs and warlords to join Williamsburg in a neo-feudal arrangement, and the WCA is now the most powerful faction actively fighting against Orangeburg.
Myrtle Beach Special Naval Administration
Capital: Myrtle Beach
Classification: Military Faction (Elizabeth City naval governate)
Allegiance: United States of America (Elizabeth City)
One of the only factions in South Carolina with any trace to the prewar order is the Myrtle Beach Special Naval Administration. The MBSNA began with a damaged cruiser that put in at Myrtle Beach, the USS Leyte Gulf, a guided missile cruiser whose decommission was cancelled just in time for the Great War. She participated in the defense of the eastern seaboard, driving off the Chinese High Seas Fleet while narrowly escaping the nuclear destruction that befell most of the United States Fleet Forces Command. She suffered severe conventional destruction during the Third World War and could not follow the rest of the fleet north to Elizabeth City, North Carolina.
Instead, the Leyte Gulf landed at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. Myrtle Beach itself narrowly escaped destruction, as the plans to convert the Myrtle Beach International Airport back into an Air Force base were shelved before the Great War. Landing upon the Palmetto State’s shores, the crew scuttled their ship and salvaged whatever equipment and scrap they could strip off it. Under the leadership of Captain Henry Burchett, the stranded crew of the Leyte Gulf rallied retreating National Guard and Army Reserve units to their banner, as well as the aircrew of a B-21 Raider stealth bomber that crash-landed at Myrtle Beach International Airport.
Together, the rag-tag band of forlorn servicemen upheld Captain Burchett’s rule and established the Special Naval Administration, which served just as much as a vehicle for their own survival as a source of law and order for the civilian population. The new naval government proved to be extremely austere and paranoid, more so than other military governments across the country. Captain Burchett believed that the nuclear winter would be far, far worse than it actually was and only fed military personnel, their families, and a select few civilians with vital skills during the Starving Time. Others were expelled from the city, sent on their way and left to fend for themselves among the warlords.
Elizabeth City’s Southern Outpost
The military government struggled through the Starving Time, bringing in a sorry harvest thanks to the shortage of labor. When the Elizabeth City government made contact with them, they opened up from their isolation and recognized them as the paramount ruling authority east of the Hawaiian Islands. As could be expected of them, Myrtle Beach denounced the liberalization that followed the Hawaiian Spring and recognized the USA-Elizabeth City that was formed afterward.
The aid offered by the USA-EC allowed Myrtle Beach to steadily replenish its population and grind their way inland, putting down small warlords and gangs. Years of campaigning and pacification have resulted in a rendezvous with Columbus County in neighboring North Carolina. Columbus also recognizes Elizabeth City and is working to restore order to their corner of the eastern seaboard, although they have their reservations about working with paranoid Myrtle Beach.
Although the military government has endured for a generation, the Special Naval Administration’s hold over the populace has always been tenuous. They heavily rely on aid from Columbus County and reinforcements from Elizabeth City, and do not have much goodwill with the civilian population of South Carolina, both within their frontiers and beyond them. Elizabeth City’s present goals are to stabilize their foothold in Myrtle Beach and transition out of emergency rule back into civilian government (or rather, the peculiar blend of military-civilian governance that Elizabeth City prefers). Only with a semi-legitimate government can they build up enough public support to resume their inland expansion. As Elizabeth City wraps up other projects, more resources are being freed up to make these plans come to fruition.
Palmetto Republic
Capital: Dillon
Classification: Legitimist Warlord (Rogue county government)
The Palmetto Republic is the only extant faction that descends from the prewar government in any meaningful capacity. Local government is historically weak in South Carolina. Cities are small and weak, as annexations are difficult in the Palmetto State, and many decisions that would be decided at the county level in most states were handled by the General Assembly. Few counties in South Carolina had the authority or resources to effectively govern themselves during the great crisis following the war, but Dillon County held on.
It only managed to do so as a local dictatorship under the rule of an ambitious county administrator. Dillon received a small influx of administrators and soldiers after the secondary strike on Florence and took up the mantle of civilized government in the following years. They entered into a years-long feud with Marlboro County, ruled by its upstart warlord, “the Duke of Marlboro.” After finally dethroning the Duke and conquering Bennettsville, Dillon thought it appropriate to establish its own state government and secede from the United States, much as they had done before in 1860.
The Palmetto Republic (officially the Second Palmetto Republic) is not considered a serious contender for state unification by most observers, but it is still a significant faction within the state and has caught the attention of the USA-EC. Elizabeth City is interested in some kind of arrangement to unite Dillon-Marlboro and Myrtle Beach to create a new South Carolinian state government that can challenge Anderson, but Dillon has unreasonable demands and Myrtle Beach’s military rulers remain obdurate. The Palmetto Republic does have a decent working relationship with the Real State of North Carolina across state lines. This is extremely awkward, as the RSNC is a member of the Congress of Southern States, which recognizes the Anderson government and is supposed to treat Dillon as an enemy. But the Real State has always been the black sheep of the CSS and prefers to do things its own way; their membership was only an alliance of convenience in the first place, to thumb their noses at Elizabeth City.
National Salvation Front
Capital: Camden
Classification: Religious Faction (Fundamentalist militant movement)
The National Salvation Front begins with the incredible, yet mysterious figure of Brother Elijah and his followers, the Tishbites. Much debate rages throughout the American South over the nature of Brother Elijah, the wandering mystic who transformed the spiritual landscape of the lowland coastal South after the Great War. The NSF maintains that he was simply a divinely-inspired preacher. Other Tishbite sects, including the Brethren Knights in Christ, believe he was a holy prophet sent by God, in the manner of the Biblical Prophets and Apostles. Others still, such as the Tishbite Sisterhood, say that Elijah is the same Prophet Elijah from the Bible, who returned to earth in an hour of need as one of the Two Witnesses from the Revelation of St. John.
What is known about Brother Elijah is scant and unsure, but it is at least undisputed that he was a millenarian preacher and faith healer who emerged from the Appalachian Mountains and travelled throughout the coastal South. He purportedly performed many miracles: healing the sick, multiplying food, and casting out demons in the Lord’s name. He preached that the Great War was a minor judgement upon mankind, a forewarning of the true, Biblical apocalypse yet to come, and that men must prepare themselves through prayer, purity of heart, generosity, and self-sacrifice. Elijah’s ultimate fate is disputed—either he perished from malnutrition, having given away all his food to the needy, or was martyred by a godless warlord (who may have been a socialist, Satanist, black nationalist, or simply greedy or insane), or was taken up as if to Heaven by God.
The Tishbite Movement
Though Brother Elijah’s ministry was short—just over two years, having begun during the nuclear winter period—he left behind a massive movement of followers and disciples and revolutionized Evangelical Christianity across the southeastern United States. Numerous schools and denominations have emerged based on his teachings, with varying views regarding said teachings and the nature of Brother Elijah himself. His followers, the Tishbites (named after the Prophet Elijah, introduced as “the Tishbite” in 1 Kings 17:1), were originally one organization, but they split along doctrinal, geopolitical, and ethnoreligious lines shortly after Elijah’s disappearance. The Tishbites generally bear similarity to the Charismatic movement and the Restorationist churches, but have divulged greatly in theology and praxis over the years.
The Evangelical Tishbite Church is the largest and most moderate (for a certain definition of moderate) successor of the original Tishbite movement. The head of the church is Brother Asher, the youngest disciple in Brother Elijah’s inner circle at the time of his disappearance. The ETC professes a conservative, fundamental theology that plays down the Millenarian elements of the Tishbite movement and functions more as another Evangelical church with a post-nuclear character. The ETC holds Brother Elijah in high regard, but stops short of ascribing him with prophetic status and believes that he died naturally in an act of charitable self-sacrifice. The ETC is closely intertwined with the National Salvation Front.
The Tishbite Brethren Church, based in North Carolina, is smaller and more fervent than the ETC. The Brethren (described in much greater detail in the North Carolina article), led by the older disciple Brother John, are closely tied with the Brethren Knights in Christ, a religious militia based in the city of Smithfield. They revere Brother Elijah as a true Prophet sent by God, and believe that he was martyred by the “antichrist agents” of the Real State of North Carolina. They are much more radical and militant than the Evangelical Tishbites, but are still open to reasonable dialogue.
The Tishbite Sisterhood is a female order of what are effectively Protestant nuns, led by female disciple Sister Hannah. They are small and not connected with any one wasteland faction, but still have a notable influence throughout the lowland South. The Sisterhood is the most radical and mystical of all the Tishbite sects. They perform (or claim to preform) miracles and faith healings, enforce strict ascetic discipline, and generally take the most extreme, arch-reactionary possible stances on all social and religious issues. The Sisterhood has an auxiliary mixed-sex Inquisition that enforces religious law throughout the territories in which they are present. Witchcraft is punished by burning at the stake, homosexuality and adultery by stoning, parental disobedience by beatings, et cetera. Their draconian punishments aren’t frequently enforced, due to their small size, but the wrath of the Sisterhood is nonetheless feared throughout the Carolinas. The Sisterhood believes that Brother Elijah was the literal Prophet Elijah returned to Earth and that he was taken up as if to Heaven by God at the end of his second ministry.
The Tishbite Church of Christ is another smaller Tishbite denomination, led at first by the disciple Brother Bartholomew and then by his successor, Brother Luke. The TCoC is the most pacifist and humanist sect, with a heavy emphasis on charitable acts and a decreased emphasis on mysticism and miracles. Similar to the Faithful Disciplines of Christ in Portsmouth, Ohio, the TCoC is big on social gospel and anti-warlordism. They aren’t fully pacifist like the Anabaptists (or, at least, most of the Anabaptists) and stop short of total nonresistance, but they do not endorse any degree of religious violence to expand the church. The African Tishbite Church of Zion holds similar theology as the TCoC, and only split off at the behest of the Colored People’s Republic.
There are a dozen smaller Tishbite splinter churches, but these are the relevant ones worth mentioning, as they are the only ones that affect factional politics in any meaningful way. The Evangelical Tishbite Church is the denomination sponsored by the NSF, but adherents to other denominations—and non-Tishbite Christian denominations—can be found freely practicing throughout NSF territory. The inter-denominational situation regarding the Brother Elijah movement is a massive mess and is a lot more complicated than any article or map could succinctly explain.
American Crusaders
The National Salvation Front is the military-political arm of the Evangelical Tishbite Church. Although Brother Asher remains the head of the church, he is only a spiritual advisor for the NSF, which is officially led by the Grand Master, Joshua Lambert. Lambert’s rule over NSF territory is similar to that of Grayson Webb and the SCM prior to his centralizing reforms: some towns are run by orderly militant captains, others by civilian governments much like before the Great War, and others still by cult-like pastor-warlords. The NSF is numerous, well-organized, and generally has its act together, more so than most other theocratic factions. They leave military strategy to the experts and prefer to keep their pastors at the pulpit, where they belong. They aren’t as utopian as, say, the Portsmouth Army of God, which has put their main focus on the social gospel, but they aren’t quite an American Taliban either.
The imperative and ultimate goal of the NSF is somewhat unclear, and changes depending on who you ask. What they can all agree upon is that they believe it is their duty to purify the United States, hoping that their virtue and purity of heart will translate to success on the battlefield. In achieving this end, they are stern and austere, but not as violent or insane as America’s many “Kingdom of God” or “Army of God” factions, who are usually little better than the warlords they fight against. Exactly how far the NSF should go in their quest, however, is a matter of debate. Some what a reunified United States of America with a renewed moral character, some want to throw their lot in with the CSS or USA-EC, some want a fundamentalist crusader state, and others still want a Kingdom of God on Earth.
The NSF’s core powerbase lies in the north central South Carolina region, but they have followers far and wide throughout the Carolinas and neighboring states. Their core territory boasts a strong, professional, though lightly-equipped military. This fighting force has steadily eroded the presence of warlords throughout the state; their presence has grown to the point where other powers, such as the CSS, DSCPR, and even Elizabeth City can no longer ignore them. Even if they can overpower the Front’s army, they will have to contend with their prolific and devout laity, as the Evangelical Tishbite Church’s reach extends far beyond Camden, South Carolina.
Hopefully, such a war will not be necessary. NSF leadership understands the value of diplomacy and are trying to leverage their spiritual soft power in CSS territory to get a favorable deal with Anderson and Gainesville. These pro-CSS pragmatists hope that they can join the alliance and hold its members’ feet to the fire, gradually converting it into an alliance of Christian nationalist states.
Old Smoke
Capital: Gaffney
Classification: Warlord (Personalistic warlord gang)
Old Smoke is a venerable, respectable, and gentlemanly old warlord holed up in the northernmost corner of South Carolina. Though he’s one of the oldest warlords around, he hasn’t conquered much, and wishes simply to defend what’s his and protect his own community. He’s the rare example of a decent warlord, though he has a strong sense of personal honor that he will not hesitate to defend; he’s killed dozens of men by giving satisfaction through formal duels.
Whatever the personal character of Old Smoke himself, it remains to be seen how much longer his regime can last, once larger powers start expanding in his direction. He has a strong enough reputation that he has a reasonable chance of getting a good deal with whatever faction he chooses, but he’ll have to choose carefully. Whether he sides with the CSS, NSF, or the Appalachian Free State, he’ll be sure to offend the other parties in doing so.
Index
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