The Vultures

### **Origin**

The Vultures are the largest and most organized Raider gang in post-Reclamation Day Appalachia. The group originated from Vault 76, and the core of the gang's leadership were all at one time, Vault Dwellers. The Vault 76 Chief of Security, Sean Healy, led a group of 76 residents east on Reclamation Day. During their travels, survivors and wastelanders who encountered them began referring to the group as the "Vaulters," a precedent to the namesake they later chose for their gang's identity.

While scouting ahead during their initial exploration of the Appalachian mountains, Sean was separated from the Vaulters by a violent Rad Storm. Seeking refuge in the monolithic Top of the World ruins Pleasant Valley Ski Resort, he met the Raider Automaton Rose. Rose convinced Sean to become a Raider, and taught him the history, methods, and secrets of the Raider gangs that were wiped out by the Scorched Plague. Regrouping with the Vaulters, he converted his followers and founded the Vultures Raider gang. Now called "The Warlord," their leader quickly established himself as a ruthless and uncompromising Raider Boss. The gang took residence in the abandoned fortresses and settlements of the Cutthroats and claimed the Savage Divide as their territory.

### **Rise of the Vultures**

The Vultures immediately began raiding nearby settlements, as well as conquering several smaller Raider gangs and absorbing them into their ranks. Now the Overboss of the Vultures, the Relic Raiders, the Grave Diggers, the Hyenas, the War Pigs, and the Laughing Skull Raiders, the Warlord rapidly rose to power in the wasteland. Establishing a capital in the Savage Divide called Bandit Town, the Warlord ruled a Raider empire with an iron fist.

It was at this juncture that the Libertarian Freedom Fighters of the Free States Militia formed a lasting and mutually beneficial alliance with the Vultures, owed to a binding pre-war friendship between the two faction leaders, the Warlord and Sgt. Spags. In exchange for combat training, protection, and free passage through the Savage Divide, the Free States regularly supplied the Vultures with arms, munitions, and medical supplies. In addition to this, the Vultures were granted access to one of their hideouts in Tanagra Town which was located in the Free States territory of the Mire.

### **Enter the New Responders**

Some time after this, the Vultures encountered armed resistance from the Fallout Five-0 New Responders, during raids on Morgantown. Believing the faction to be a threat to Vulture operations, the Warlord declared war and launched a full-scale assault on a Responder combat team at Big Bend Tunnel. Though caught completely off guard by the ambush, the Firebreathers of the Fallout Five-0 fought valiantly and defeated the Vulture warband, capturing the Warlord and taking him prisoner. Both sides suffered heavy casualties but the Responders managed to secure the Warlord and put him on trial for his crimes. Believing this sequence of events would create a power vacuum in the Vultures that would destabilize the gang, many were shocked to find instead that the Raiders united and launched a vicious campaign to free their leader from captivity. Notorious Vulture Bosses like the Condor, the Giant, the Bag Man, Reckless, Flint, and the Cavelord rallied the Raider forces and began a series of attacks that severely weakened the Five-0 and heralded a period of protracted warfare between the two factions. The sadistic serial killer Havoc, the "Beckley Butcher" began kidnapping, torturing, and murdering innocent settlers in an attempt to blackmail the Five-0 into releasing the Warlord. Soldiers of the Free States Militia began routine artillery bombardments on Responder facilities. While the Warlord awaits the verdict of his ongoing trial, his Raider armies wage war on his enemies in an attempt to return him to power.

### **Battle Tactics**

A vital component to the success of the Vultures as a Raider gang is their mastery of strategic combat. The gang and its subsidiary gangs are divided into specialist sub-factions. The Scavvers provide a vast network of scouts, spies, and assassins that range Appalachia in small groups, locating potential targets and gathering information on enemy defenses. The Psychos act as ferocious berzerkers in battle, taking combat drugs to drive them into frenzied rages as they hurl themselves at the enemy wielding melee weapons. The Wasters serve as the shock troopers of the Vultures, proficient in the use of Power Armor and heavy weapons. But the true advantage of their effectiveness in combat is a combination of the Vault-Tech training and technology utilized by the gang's Veterans, and the Warlord's extensive knowledge of ancient history.

Having long studied historical barbarian warriors like Ghengis Khan, Attila the Hun, and Hannibal of Carthage, the Warlord applies their teachings and strategies to his campaigns against hostile factions. Vulture Raiders attack in small units of highly skilled skirmishers, though usually outnumbered or outgunned, they rely on their individual combat mastery to severely weaken enemy defenses. Masters of the ambush, a Vulture warband will lie in wait for days, launching surprise attacks that send enemy formations into confusion and disarray. The Warlord maintains a strict adherence to the hit-and-run tactics first perfected by the ancient Mongols, feigning retreat to lure enemies into deadly traps, striking hard, and quickly melting away before a counterattack can be launched. This attitude towards warfare is what separates the Vultures from their less organized and more primitive Raider counterparts.

### **Present Day**

The Vultures are brutal and savage even by Raider standards. Murder, torture, rape, arson, slavery, and violence are the foundations of their society. Leadership and promotion are determined by strength, ferocity, loyalty, and determination. Treachery and insubordination are punished with humiliation and death. When a "Fledgeling," or recruit wants to become a Vulture, they must prove themselves by initiation, usually an act of cold-blooded murder. The Vultures are a "blood-in, blood-out" gang, meaning becoming a Vulture Raider is a lifelong commitment until death. Vulture Raiders wear the typical trappings of wasteland bandits, rusted metal armor dotted with bent rebars and jagged blades, gas masks, and ragged combat gear. Vulture Raiders commonly wear masks fashioned from human skulls and decorate their armor with bones, teeth, and severed fingers. Vulture camps and strongholds are surrounded by impaled corpses and severed heads, as well as human and animal bones. This serves as both a territorial warning to outsiders as we as a testament to the depravity and savagery of the Raiders.