Nomads

> *"'Nomad' is a polite word for 'scavenger'. Nomads can be found all over the Wasteland, usually looking for the rare unopened safe at the bottom of an irradiated mineshaft."*
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Passive people who just want to live in the wasteland. Will not attack unless attacked first. Can be talked to for some interesting conversation, but usually will dismiss others, having more pressing things to do. They may come wearing anything they can find and with any assortment of weapons they can find. They often roam the old highways as travellers and motor-gangs. As life on the road is hard, they maintain strong family bonds. If a Nomad is in trouble, he can count on members of his family to watch his back.

## Background

The first nomads were farmers forced to leave their land by a series of natural disasters, wars and corporate machinations. They moved out, gathering in larger and larger groups, hoping to find a better home for their families. But what they saw on their journeys across the States convinced them they were better off staying on the move.

Historically, the nomads are divided into nations, each of which is divided into clans, and finally into individual families.

Nomads travel with their entire families in search of gainful employment; they rebuilt cities and factories after the Collapse, while also playing an important role in creating the maglev network. Some clans take jobs from corporations (seasonal ones, of course, so as not to stay too long in one place), while others work for local communities.

Nomads value the family and follow their own unique code, which places loyalty to the clan above all else.

All of the current salvagers were prisoners back in the NCR, and some even have connections with the Powder Gangers. Most of them were in prison, because they conducted a large raid on an NCR bank, primarily to seize their payroll. The raid was a failure and all the money was somehow destroyed, which only helped to further the destabilization of the eastern part of the NCR. This raid was lead by Porter, who still feels bad about the role he played in the NCR's problems. The soon-to-be salvagers were jailed at the Black Canyon facility. During those years in prison, several members of Porter's gang escaped on different occasions, but they didn't have anywhere to go, so they always got captured or just surrendered. After two years of escapes and imprisonment, Porter's group is put on work-release. This serves two purposes for the NCR: it frees up the overcrowded prison for more dangerous criminals, and the potential for supplies from Denver. Porter and his men spend a year traveling, dealing with tribals, slavers, raiders, and monsters, before finally reaching Denver. Only about half of the original group survived the trip. They set up camp, and set about establishing their goals of scavenging as many building supplies as possible, establishing a track outpost, and paving the way for NCR occupation.

## Structure

Nomad groups are divided into families, clans, tribes, and nations. Families can be as few of two people to as many as one hundred. Clans are made up of several families and can range from a few hundred to a over a thousand members. Tribes consist of several clans and can consist of several tens of thousands of members. Nations are the largest groups and number in the hundreds of thousands. The biggest nomad Nation has roughly one million members.

## Life and problems in Lamentus

The scavengers in Lamentus are like a tribe of blue-collar workers, working up to 60 hours a week for little or no reward, desperately trying to crank out a life for themselves and their families back West. It is a blue-collar colony, and everything in the their camp reinforces this, including the bus that takes them to and from their claims.

There are only 2 or 3 really good mechanics, and the rest are just good builders, scavengers, demolishers, and laborers. There may not be a good electrician among them (except for Wagner, who isn't very good, and Uncle Jim). They are not really skilled, most of them are just laborers, so they do not have the opportunity to go anywhere else and make a living for themselves. Also, the salvagers have been in lamentus for more than two years and have financial investment in what their achievements and progress. To leave now means throwing away two years of their lives and two years of work. In addition to their other problems, the salvagers have two splits in the group: "traitors", who want to abandon Denver for different reasons, led by Hardin and an "evil" group of former raiders, led by Anton. If all this is not enough, lamentus has been overrun by large packs of savage dogs.

## Notes

* Salvagers get their power from various confiscated generators. They get water from underground tanks, and from the river through Lamentus, run through several filters, and even boiled with various purification tablets.
* Even though they are sick of dog, the dogs in lamentus are a ready source of food. The scavengers in lamentus have to make do with dog meat (of which there is plenty, but cook it well) and canned food, if they can find it (which is rarer than they thought). As for trading, the salvagers used to trade with no one until Eddie and his truck made his way south and struck a deal with them.
* Some salvager sites have a stash of ammunition and supplies in case they get trapped there – and one salvager gives up the location of some of them in exchange for info.
* The lamentian scavengers talk about what the best buildings to scavenge are – hotels are not worth a lot, but hospitals and some office buildings with high computer connections are great. The following areas are gold mines: post office, construction building, manufacturing building, police station, gun stores, sporting good stores.
* It’s impolite to talk about past crimes or inquire too deeply into a character’s history in lamentus.
* Salvagers do not like to be called scavengers – that’s what revenir are, they’re parasites; they are "doing good work here". Calling someone a "scav" is fighting words in the camp. "Digger" as an acceptable term.
* "Building Crawling" - As a joke, the scavengers might say that "we’re doing a basement crawl, a subway crawl, a skyscraper crawl," basically scav talk for a "dungeon crawl."
* Slang: When solidifying a deal, they may say, "Will you guarantee it?" (Which reinforces the idea of "claims" in lamentus)
* Be careful looting in Lamentus, or you'll be marked as a Claim Jumper.