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Kalmageddon
2016-01-15, 09:15 AM
I'm currently GMing a campaign set, as the title suggest, in the Northwestern part of North America, set in the Fallout World.

I'm not new to worldbuilding and I've previously created a rich and detailed setting for Fallout New York, which was a big success with my players.
But now I'm finding myself in a bit of trouble: I'm realizing that I'm far more familiar with the pop culture, urban mythology and history of the East Coast and thus I'm finding myself short of inspiration.

What I'm asking is: what kind of things are there in the Pacific Northwest that could be used as a source of inspiration for a Fallout post-apocalyptic scenario? I'm talking about urban legends, famous landmarks, historical events, famous people and populations and even stereotypes I can twist into a post-apocalyptic vision.
I'm ashamed to admit that, right now, I can only thing of Bigfoot as good Fallout material.

For reference, the campaign is going to take place in Oregon, Washington State, Idaho and possibily Alaska and British Columbia.

Any suggestions are welcome, especially those coming from people familiar or natives of the aforementioned states.

Jonagel
2016-01-15, 09:31 AM
1) Tons of Native American culture, compared to the rest of the country. There is a great linguistics map, that shows Native languages in the States, and in the Northwest there are a few dozen still spoken, which basically equates the rest of the US combined.

This could include Native American tribes that managed to live given how they lived out in reservations far from fallout / city centers. Alternatively, survivors might find totems and such as cultural points of worship (cults?). Hell, maybe there is some mutated Bear Hawk Turtle, that looks a lot like some real totem now.

2) Wind Storms. Around Seattle, wind storms happen once in awhile, and can known out power all over the place.

3) Washington alone has nearly every major biome available, except primary rainforest, and sand dunes. There is desert, alpine, tertiary rainforest, tundra, seasonal forests, etc.

4) Volcanic activity!! Geothermal Power!! Mt St. Helens, and the Pacific Rim of Fire. Who doesn't love a climactic fight in a volcano lair?

5) Wendigo could be an option too -- Algonquin culture. Interesting (terrifying) myth.

Beleriphon
2016-01-15, 09:33 AM
One word: Sasquatch

Seriously, can you imagine the zany fun a Fallout styled sasquatch would be? In that vein I think an homage to these dopes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Finding_Bigfoot) is completely in order.

GloatingSwine
2016-01-15, 09:42 AM
What I'm asking is: what kind of things are there in the Pacific Northwest that could be used as a source of inspiration for a Fallout post-apocalyptic scenario? I'm talking about urban legends, famous landmarks, historical events, famous people and populations and even stereotypes I can twist into a post-apocalyptic vision.
I'm ashamed to admit that, right now, I can only thing of Bigfoot as good Fallout material.


The NCR's northern border may encroach the gameworld. There is probably trade with NCR and so NCR$ might be a secondary currency.

RobCo's main software development offices make sense to be here. Seattle/Redmond is a huge centre for software (and games) development.

Lumberjack tribals. You know it makes sense.

Moose. Large, angry territorial moose.

Also wolves. Not the crappy feral dogs of the east coast area, full on wolf packs, make up some weird new social order for them (maybe they mutated and formed a weird parallel society. Fallout 2 had talking deathclaws after all).

StealthyRobot
2016-01-15, 10:50 AM
Can't help much with Oregon and Idaho, but I know Washington.

The Space Needle is iconic and was built to withstand earthquakes, so it wouldn't be a stretch for it to still be standing.

Seattle area has more technology jobs than anywhere in the US, and is home of Microsoft and Boeing to name two of them. Also, Costco was founded in the area, so that could easily be twisted into super-duper mart.

Forks is where Twilight was filmed, and also features some pretty nice cliffs on the ocean. Also, the ocean here is really cold and not enjoyable for swimming.

Capital Hill in Seattle is home to a lot of famous people.

That's all I got for now, but I'll post more as I think of stuff

Beleriphon
2016-01-15, 11:55 AM
The NCR's northern border may encroach the gameworld. There is probably trade with NCR and so NCR$ might be a secondary currency.

RobCo's main software development offices make sense to be here. Seattle/Redmond is a huge centre for software (and games) development.

Lumberjack tribals. You know it makes sense.

Moose. Large, angry territorial moose.

Also wolves. Not the crappy feral dogs of the east coast area, full on wolf packs, make up some weird new social order for them (maybe they mutated and formed a weird parallel society. Fallout 2 had talking deathclaws after all).

In addition Fallout: New Vegas introduces us to the idea of New Canaan being a caravan stop from the NCR/Mojave.

Aliquid
2016-01-15, 11:58 AM
1) Tons of Native American culture, compared to the rest of the country.
Very true. As mentioned there were lots of languages, and there was even a pidgin trade language that the locals used. The exploring white-men used it too, so they could talk to all the native groups. Many of the words are still used locally as slang.

Skookum - means "big", "strong" or "able".
Chuck - means a body of water (there is a place called Skookumchuck where there are crazy rapids)
Cultus - means "evil" or "taboo"

Lots of legends to draw from with the native culture. Animal totems being a common theme.
Raven was the creator as well as a trickster
Shark Woman or Dogfish Woman, was a powerful shaman deriving her energy from the Dogfish (part of the Shark family)
the list goes on and on

Just note, that the pacific north-west native culture is different than the stereotypical "cowboys and Indians" image many people have in their head.

2) Wind Storms. Around Seattle, wind storms happen once in awhile, and can known out power all over the place.And don't forget the rain and clouds. You can go weeks without seeing the sun in the winter. The summer is fine though.


4) Volcanic activity!! Geothermal Power!! Mt St. Helens, and the Pacific Rim of Fire. Who doesn't love a climactic fight in a volcano lair? And EARTHQUAKES!! You can easily say there was a massive earthquake some time between the present and the time of your game setting.


5) Wendigo could be an option too -- Algonquin culture. Interesting (terrifying) myth.Ogopogo is another option for a 'monster'


If you want to just compare the west coast to the east coast, there is a big cultural difference today. People in the west are more health conscious. Things like health food stores are far more common and things like smoking are far less common. People are more laid back too. Dressing casual in an office every day, hippies all over the place. There is also more "alternative" people. Alternative medicine, alternative music, and so on. You can exaggerate all of these things.

Landmarks... Hydro is a major source of power, since there are so many rivers. Lots of Dams that can be a location for a story-line. Maybe a dam that is about to break and flood a community.

There are lots of island communities, so lots of boat travel. Lots of light-houses.

Togath
2016-01-15, 12:01 PM
Temperate rainforests!
Especially on the Olympic peninsula.
There's also bobcats and cougars, in addition to wolves and a few bears, and there's a ton of plants(even in most cities).

John Longarrow
2016-01-15, 12:27 PM
Coffee Shops.... Lots and Lots of little coffee shops. Not selling real coffee anymore, but the local 'Synth'. There is a reason one of the biggest coffee franchises came from up there.

Storm_Of_Snow
2016-01-15, 12:35 PM
RobCo's main software development offices make sense to be here. Seattle/Redmond is a huge centre for software (and games) development.

It might be in our world, but would that have followed suit in the Fallout world? Remember, they diverged in about the '50s.

Boeing existed in the area pre-that point, so it may well have been an area for aircraft production - and could still be (well, someone has to build all those Vertibirds :smallamused: - more seriously, there could be some scheduled air travel between a few major places).

Of course, if that's the case, it would probably have been a high priority target for the nuclear exchanges, so the Seattle-Tacoma area might have been obliterated, or at the very least it's defences overwhelmed so some warheads got through.

There's also the chance for remnants of a Chinese invasion, especially if they've been forced north by the NCR, or come around the coast from Alaska and been pushed south by the Commonwealth.

GloatingSwine
2016-01-15, 12:36 PM
In addition Fallout: New Vegas introduces us to the idea of New Canaan being a caravan stop from the NCR/Mojave.

Yeah, New Canaan is Salt Lake City. (Joshua Graham's armour is SLCPD SWAT armor)

Looking at the area a bit more, the northern end of Fallout 2's map intrudes slightly into southern Oregon (Arroyo and Klamath Falls), so if you're moving the timeline on I'd expect to have a considerable tract of NCR territory in your gamespace.

I'd look at making something relatively significant out of Eugene, it's nicely situated on the I5 to be a trading stopover on the way to NCR.

Tvtyrant
2016-01-15, 12:40 PM
With the exception of tundra, Oregon has it all. Want dunes? You got dunes. Red woods? Rocky desert? Majestic mountains? One of the largest rivers on Earth? All yes. And they are shoved painfully close together too, so going over the Cascade Range takes you from desert to highly populated plains, going over coastal range switches to sparsly populated rainforest.

Jonagel
2016-01-15, 01:13 PM
Think of major industries too.

Amazon - They own several city blocks in Seattle, and have Ops/Warehouses throughout WA
Nintendo - US HQ in WA
Microsoft - MASSIVE campus in Redmond, WA

Blossoming wine country just east of the Cascades!

Popular town in the Cascades called Leavenworth. Basically a recreation of traditional Bavarian Germany town in the Alps. They even have laws on ensuring buildings have the correct traditional German Architecture, no modern signs, etc.

Elvenoutrider
2016-01-15, 03:57 PM
I don't know much about the area but it probably would have been the site of a number of battles with the Chinese. Perhaps your villains could be operating out of some naval ships out at sea

TeChameleon
2016-01-15, 06:32 PM
Moving a little North, as a BC boy, a lot of things from Washington continue to hold true as you cross the border, at least for a little ways- basically the Lower Mainland (Greater Vancouver).

Vancouver is Canada's second-largest city and a major trading port, especially with the Chinese, oddly enough. It is also, in many ways, the Canadian equivalent to California. We ended up with a lot of leftover hippies there, and the archetypical granola-munching half-stoned peacenik would not look out of place in the slightest. However, it's also a major centre of commerce and trade, so it's not terribly unlikely to see a guy in a designer suit and Gucci loafers sitting next to (and trying to edge away slightly from) some white dude with bad dreads, a tie-died shirt and ratty jeans on the Skytrain (the local Elevated LRT). Speaking of which, Vancouverites tend to be very eco-conscious (thus the rich guy on mass transit), although that doesn't always translate into eco-understanding, unfortunately, much to the considerable frustration of those that actually have to deal with the ecosystem 'in the raw', as it were.

Another California-Vancouver parallel is that Vancouver is often known as 'Hollywood North', with a lot of things being filmed there, especially TV shows- Stargate (SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe) Smallville, Andromeda, Once Upon A Time, The X-Files, MacGyver, Supernatural, Arrow, The Flash, Sliders, 21 Jump Street, even Blade: The Series and Highlander: The Series (unfortunately). Lots and lots and lots of genre television and movies- basically, the nerdier it is, the more likely it was filmed in Vancouver. There's also a thriving animation industry, especially CG animation- ReBoot was created there, as was Beast Wars.

Climate-wise, Vancouver's a lot like Seattle- thus the old jokes "Vancouverites don't tan, they rust" or "Vancouver has two seasons- the wet season and the really wet season". It's also rather milder than most Americans think when they think 'Canada'- it rarely snows (and when it does, drivers all lose their friggin' minds... :smallannoyed:), and 'cold' is typically -5 Celsius at worst (as opposed to my current home in Alberta, where 'chilly' starts at around -20 Celsius...). Vancouver's also amazingly green, all year 'round- there are a lot of evergreens. Local landmarks include a whole lotta parks (Stanley Park being perhaps the most famous, especially since abso-friggin'-lutely everything gets filmed there at one point or another), Canada Place, Science World (leftovers from Expo '86), the Capilano Suspension Bridge, the Vancouver Aquarium, BC Place Stadium, Gastown ('historic' Vancouver, basically), and the Vancouver Lookout (the building you see on the skyline shots of Vancouver that looks like someone got bored partway through building a standard skyscraper and decided to build the Space Needle instead without bothering to start over).

Moving away from Vancouver, there's the islands- first the Gulf Islands, which I can't claim to be terribly familiar with; they've got an odd, insular sort of culture and seem a bizarre mix of the really, really wealthy (at least in summertime) and the relatively poor (all the time). Not a lot going on there, as far as I've ever been able to tell, and quite isolated. Secondly, there's Vancouver Island, which is larger than some small countries- it's about the same size as Israel or Taiwan. On Vancouver Island (often just called 'the Island' by locals), there's Victoria, the provincial capital, which used to seem to want to be London when it grew up... now, it seems more like it thinks that it's what London wants to be when London grows up! Again, very green city- Buchart Gardens are one of the most famous landmarks, with the harbour and the elegant and rather gothic Empress Hotel (which still serves High Tea each afternoon, to give you some idea of just how British Victoria can be...) as a few others. Considered a rather genteel, kind of snobby city by a lot of outsiders, although the crime rate is absolutely vicious.

The rest of Vancouver Island tends to be a bit more blue collar, with a heavy emphasis on fishing (naturally) and a bit of logging. Cathedral Grove is something of a standout for landmarks, with enormous, ancient trees, which I seriously doubt are going to let something as minor as the nuclear annihilation of the human race bother them :smalltongue:

Moving away from the islands, and generalizing somewhat broadly, there are really only two major 'areas' left, at least in terms of RPG-setting-flavour- the Okanagan and the Interior. Most of the coastal regions are going to be pretty similar in terms of 'feel' to the Gulf Islands (minus the vacationing rich people) and the non-Victoria bits of Vancouver Island- heavily water-based, lots of forested bits, sort of isolated.

The Okanagan is a bit of an oddity in BC- milder climate, less mountains, even a semi-arid 'desert' region. They're quite famous for fruit and a more laid-back lifestyle, and the huge Lake Okanagan is the home of Ogopogo (who was mentioned a ways upthread), the North American 'Nessie'.

The Interior (aka 'most of BC'... well, aside from the people. Greater Vancouver has more than half the population of BC) is mountains, forests, lakes, and more mountains. There's a grand total of three major roads through there, (which is why if the Chinese attempted to invade the US via Alaska, they're idiots. A handful of dynamite in the right places, and nobody is getting through the middle of BC), the main North-South one following the mighty, muddy Fraser River. A point of interest along the Fraser is Hell's Gate Canyon, where the Fraser abruptly narrows to 35 metres wide. Given that the Fraser dumps three and a half cubic kilometres per second into the ocean, you can maybe just barely begin to imagine what the rapids through there are like (to give some context, the water is so violent that spawning salmon- you know, the kind that will swim up waterfalls if they have to- sink to the bottom in a sort of coma).

There's also Whistler Mountain, which, if you ski, you've probably heard of. Pretty typical ski resort town, aside from maybe being somewhat politer than most :smalltongue:

People in the interior have a tendency to be self-sufficient, stubborn, proud in a quiet sort of way, and at least passingly familiar with the bush. Lots of loggers (and attendant industries like paper mills etc.), miners, ranchers, that sort of deal.

... that came out kind of long. Hopefully it was at least marginally helpful...

... right. Wildlife (sticking with stuff your players might actually take a marginal interest in): Moose (you have no idea how big the bloody things are until you see one up a bit closer...), Beavers, Bears (black, brown/Grizzly, 'ghost' bears... to the point that they're borderline considered vermin, with 'garbage bears' descending on dumps to feast at dusk), Wolverines (if you don't know the real animal, think a 'roided up weasel (built more like a bear, honestly) about the size of a medium-sized dog. Solitary, but incredibly vicious and tough if cornered- they've been recorded bringing down bears), Caribou (aka reindeer), Deer, Timber Wolves (again, utterly freaking huge), Canada Geese (geese are evil :smalltongue:), Lynx, Mountain Lion/Puma/Cougar, Badgers, Skunks, Elk (known locally as 'Wapiti', which is fun to say), Mountain Goats, Bighorn Sheep, and, on the water, Orcas (Killer Whales), Otters, and Sea Lions.

JadedDM
2016-01-15, 06:41 PM
You might want to check out this entry of the Northwest Commonwealth (http://fallout.wikia.com/wiki/Northwest_Commonwealth) from the Fallout wiki. It's bound to have some useful stuff you can use or at least provide some inspiration.

YossarianLives
2016-01-15, 08:32 PM
I live in the area, and everything TeChameleon says is startlingly accurate. I'm literally eating granola as I type this.

Ravian
2016-01-15, 10:15 PM
I've played an rpg with an interesting take on Seattle.

Two words

LARPer Gangs.

We are talking about one of the best cities for gaming companies in the world.

TheThan
2016-01-16, 01:39 AM
How about grunge music? Maybe there is some way to weave that into your game. it could work for ambient music etc.

kraftcheese
2016-01-16, 01:50 AM
As many Frasier references your players can handle.

dramatic flare
2016-01-16, 02:20 AM
From a more historical side, you could potentially reference (or completely rehash in the Fallout setting) the Oregon Trail and its video game spin off, from which you could easily derive several jokes, dungeons, or small quests.

Further east in central Oregon and Washington, and really all the way into North Idaho, it's important to remember that in summer HUGE wildfires can break out.

Togath
2016-01-16, 05:34 AM
A few more thoughts(regarding northwestern Washington, and possibly applying somewhat to southwestern Canada), Seattle seems to have a few areas with relatively strong influences from Japan(including a memorial to the lives lost in nuclear bombings), which could potentially be interesting elements, especially given what caused the fallout world to become a wasteland.
There's also a lot of sea-life, that could potentially end up featured, most of which has already been mentioned, but does also include a few dolphins, as well as salmon, seals, and a ton of shellfish(including geoducks, massive clam-like things), and crabs of varying sizes.
The forests are also home to weasels and flying squirrels. Both fairly harmless mundane things, but some mutated version could be an interesting creature to encounter.
Plant-wise, mutant stinging nettles might be interesting, and there are areas with large amounts of moss covering large stretches of forest(that could serve both as interesting scenery, and a possible hiding space for some sort of creature perhaps?). Berries are also very common, but that seems harder to incorporate unless characters end up needing to search for food.

veti
2016-01-16, 06:37 AM
As many Frasier references your players can handle.

I was thinking, ghoul Frasier. Still on the radio.

Beleriphon
2016-01-16, 09:19 AM
I was thinking, ghoul Frasier. Still on the radio.

I'd personally like to see Fallout 5 featuring Kelsey Grammer in just this role.

TheTeaMustFlow
2016-01-16, 12:16 PM
In one of their endings in New Vegas, the Great Khans and Followers of the Apocalypse make an empire in Idaho - so if the setting's late enough, that could be a thing.

VoxRationis
2016-01-16, 12:28 PM
One of the big things to remember with places like Oregon and Washington, especially compared with the Midwest or the East, is that the terrain is rugged. Travel is difficult. Building is difficult—there's barely a straight road in all of the Willamette Valley. Large regions of the states are only connected because of road systems that vault over canyon upon canyon in the mountains—if those were damaged or cut off, as seems likely in an apocalypse, it would be almost impossible to journey along that same route.

Also trees. Remember the trees.

I find that the "Chinook Jargon" is overhyped in discussions of the region. I grew up in Oregon and never heard of it except on a Wikipedia page.

NRSASD
2016-01-16, 03:45 PM
As a native Oregonian, I have to mention that Oregonians have a lot of pride in Oregon. Waaay more overtly than Idaho, Washington, or New York does. Washington and New York know they're awesome and thus don't talk about it, and Idaho doesn't really care.

Eastern Oregon, Washington, and Idaho have more in common with each other than the Western coastal zones. It's mostly dry grassy hills with nary a tree in sight. The western side is perpetually green and raining. Instead of beaches, the coast is mostly sheer basalt cliffs. There are lots of caves and lava tubes running throughout, and a fair number of them lead out into the sea. (One house I've lived in had a cavern directly below it. Whenever we had a really big high tide the house would shake and boom like thunder, from the waves crashing below).

For fun terrain types, out near the Three Sisters mountain area there are large volcanic fields that stretch for miles. Jagged, frozen waves of basalt with 5-20 foot deep trenches in between.
http://www.americansouthwest.net/oregon/photographs700/lava-field.jpg

There's also the Ice Caves in the same area, which is a lava tube that remains perpetually below freezing even in summer. I've no idea why it exists, but I've gone there on several occasions.

Kalmageddon
2016-01-19, 06:35 AM
Wow, you guys gave me a lot of stuff to work on! This is awesome!

So, what I was thinking about was modeling Oregon after a more rural/tribal (in the Fallout sense) feeling, with Native American populations having survived the apocalypse and becoming a major faction once more, allying themselves with the various post-apocalyptic tribes typical of the setting. Do you have any ideas on how I could portray such a thing?

Washington State could have a more technological vibe and I could definitely do something with the whole "software developement" angle. I was also thinking about putting some Japanese and Chinese influences in there.

MrZJunior
2016-01-19, 09:23 AM
I'm fairly certain that the US Navy maintained a mothball fleet somewhere in either Washington or Oregon.

A Tad Insane
2016-01-19, 10:45 AM
The Willamette (pronounced Wil-Am-et) needs to be absolutely toxic. Not necessarily radioactive, but just toxic.
Northwest Yao gui need to be able to take on deathclaws.
Also, a vault in Portland filled with nothing but hipsters who always talk about how everything they like is 'underground'

russdm
2016-01-19, 08:03 PM
If you are using Seattle, don't forget to use the Shadowrunners, because that would be epically funny.

Also, Seattle was originally built such the city starting sinking and the second floor became street level. (Hence the Seattle Underground tours) That would still suggest and things could have sunken further. Maybe most of Seattle sunk thanks to the bombs.

I think a weird Fallout take on Shadowrun would be interesting somewhat, as you would lose some stuff.

D+1
2016-01-19, 11:10 PM
I'm fairly certain that the US Navy maintained a mothball fleet somewhere in either Washington or Oregon.
Bremerton, WA. Not as many ships there now as there used to be. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naval_Inactive_Ship_Maintenance_Facility



Also, Seattle was originally built such the city starting sinking and the second floor became street level. (Hence the Seattle Underground tours)
Not at all correct. I grew up in Seattle. The Seattle Underground is a direct consequence of the Seattle Fire of 1889. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
Seattle did do some other interesting things with terrain too. Denny Hill, one of the original seven hills that Seattle was built on, was removed by washing the dirt and rock into the bay to create much more useful flat ground. It is now referred to as the Denny Regrade neighborhood. Seattle also originally had a huge tidal swamp south of downtown. That was also filled in, again to provide useful flat land which has traditionally been used mostly for industrial businesses, and starting with the construction of the Kingdome it became the site of Seattle's professional sports stadiums as well.

For Fallout purposes I think derelict ships would be a good start - container ships, fishing boats, and ferries in Seattle though. Military vessels would be found in other communities - Bremerton, as mentioned (more than just the mothballed ships); Everett, and most importantly Bangor for the 8 ballistic missile subs, two guided missile subs, and the Carter which is a sort of special-mission (ROV's and Seal deployment) Seawolf variant. Lots of other military facilities in and around Seattle too. In the city you have (or would have had in the '50's) Fort Lawton (now Discovery Park), Sand Point Naval Air Station (mostly now Magnuson Park, but part of it is NOAA facilities); south of Tacoma you have McChord AFB and Fort Lewis;

Just as important would be planes and associated buildings: Boeing's main plant at Boeing Field; the largest building in the world (by volume) which is the 747 plant in Everett at Paine Field, and the Renton plant (and I'd note that nearby that is the Kenworth truck manufacturing plant), with, of course, facilities ALL OVER the greater Seattle and Puget Sound area. Plenty of railroad facilities. And you'd REALLY be missing a trick not to include an expanded Monorail system (or the ruins of it).

Obviously, the Seattle Underground would be something you'd want to expand for purposes of the Fallout setting. Most of the surrounding area ought to have reverted to evergreen forest or something. I might suggest the idea of lowering the sea level to isolate Lake Union and Lake Washington from Shilshole Bay. There are a number of Indian reservations and tribes. All of the NW has a great many lakes of various sizes and plenty of rivers. Of course there are also the Olympic Mountains, the Cascades with active and inactive volcanos. For critters I think the best target for a radiation warped threat would be a mutated cougar of some kind, along with some sort of really bad-tempered Elk, and for a change of pace I'd go with mutated crows, seagulls, and hawks/eagles.

TheStranger
2016-01-19, 11:15 PM
A couple thoughts from a recent transplant to the northwest from the northeast:

Culturally and ecologically, Western Oregon/Washington (Portland, Seattle, basically the I-5 corridor) is the northwest. Big trees, lots of rain, hipsters, technology. Eastern Oregon/Washington (east of the Cascades, basically) is the west. Cattle ranching, wheat, sagebrush, tumbleweed.

The mountains are a big deal, and represent major geographical barriers as opposed to the minor obstacles that eastern mountains are. The Cascades are rugged in a way I wasn't equipped to understand when I had only seen the Appalachians. The roads (even major highways like I-90) through the passes are pretty treacherous, and there are relatively few passes that it's practical to travel through. In the winter, they're pretty much impassable without snowplows or serious skills. A faction could gain substantial power from controlling the passes and keeping them open. Ditto the Columbia River Gorge. Post-apocalypse, river travel would be very appealing, as would electricity from still-functioning hydroelectric dams. I would expect one or more powerful factions controlling the river out of higher-tech bases near dams. Also, river pirates based out of canyons along the sides of the gorge.

Espella
2016-01-19, 11:30 PM
From what I understand, Fallout has nukes in it? Surprised no one's mentioned Hanford yet.

TeChameleon
2016-01-20, 09:41 PM
From what I understand, Fallout has nukes in it? Surprised no one's mentioned Hanford yet.

Fallout's less 'has' nukes and more 'had' nukes. Then some numbnut decided that the world would be pretty if it glowed in the dark, and now they have scorpions the size of minivans.

... speaking of gigantic arachnids, scorpions don't do that well in the Pacific Northwest. It might be wise to replace the radscorpions with radspiders of some kind, or, if you really want to send your players screaming into the streets, radmillipedes (especially since at least one kind of millipede in Washington State secretes cyanide :smallamused:)

EDIT- and, upon a brief bit of further reading, apparently the Yellow-Spotted Millipede (the one that secretes cyanide and lives in the Pacific Northwest) basically has a giant, wriggling bug-orgy during mating season. They gather in groups that are at minimum tens of thousands strong, and can exceed a million mating bugs. Wouldn't your players just love coming upon that unexpectedly? Especially if it was radmillipedes and the things were the size of station wagons?

VoxRationis
2016-01-21, 01:51 PM
As a native Oregonian, I have to mention that Oregonians have a lot of pride in Oregon. Waaay more overtly than Idaho, Washington, or New York does. Washington and New York know they're awesome and thus don't talk about it, and Idaho doesn't really care.

NPC natives will become hostile if you say "Oregon" in a way that does not rhyme with "gun" or "bin."
In a violence-heavy world like Fallout, this will probably mean they shoot you mid-dialogue.

Coidzor
2016-01-21, 08:17 PM
Mutated, semi-carnivorous blackberry brambles. They're basically the kudzu of the PNW.

Make for lovely pies and such, tho.

Meth is huge on the West coast, so expect some level of places like The Den from Fallout 2 in the PNW, I guess.

Everybody, even the sober folk, will be smoking whatever mutated forms of cannabis they can get their hands on.

There's more Native Americans, so the tribals are going to have likely started out latching onto them as/for symbols. If not just started out as the actual tribes returning to a more traditional way of life.

I know an improbable population of raiders has been a thing since at least Fallout 3, but it'll probably be even more improbable there.

For Eastern Oregon, uh, play Fallout, Fallout 2, New Vegas, and a little bit of Wasteland, Wasteland 2.

NPC natives will become hostile if you say "Oregon" in a way that does not rhyme with "gun" or "bin."
In a violence-heavy world like Fallout, this will probably mean they shoot you mid-dialogue.

Nah, this is Fallout.

Oregon has been corrupted into Ore-gone. Or just Gone.

For extra punishment.

VoxRationis
2016-01-21, 09:06 PM
Mutated, semi-carnivorous blackberry brambles. They're basically the kudzu of the PNW.

Make for lovely pies and such, tho.


Nah, this is Fallout.

Oregon has been corrupted into Ore-gone. Or just Gone.

For extra punishment.
I agree with you about the blackberries—just regular, non-mutated blackberries are bad enough, threatening to devour everything during the summer—but Oregonians would only forget how to say their state's name if the unthinkable happened: all the Oregonians have been replaced by Californians.

Coidzor
2016-01-21, 09:31 PM
I agree with you about the blackberries—just regular, non-mutated blackberries are bad enough, threatening to devour everything during the summer—but Oregonians would only forget how to say their state's name if the unthinkable happened: all the Oregonians have been replaced by Californians.

That was actually the experiment in the Portland Vault. Hypnotize Californians into thinking they're Oregonian.

VoxRationis
2016-01-21, 10:16 PM
That was actually the experiment in the Portland Vault. Hypnotize Californians into thinking they're Oregonian.

That's the worst thing Vault-Tec's done by far.

A Tad Insane
2016-01-22, 12:49 AM
but Oregonians would only forget how to say their state's name if the unthinkable happened: all the Oregonians have been replaced by Californians.
So the NCR is making head way in Oregon, and sends a diplomat to what ever hippie hipster government has sprung up in it. How ever, the diplomat accidentally said Ore-gone. Now, the only answer is war.

Aldurin
2016-01-22, 03:00 AM
I'm more familiar with the stuff in Eastern Washington than the rest of that region, but you have a few good things to hook details on for that area. We get a whole class in high school about how rad the Pacific Northwest is, and you should look up some of the educational videos about the area to get more familiarity with the place.

1. The Hanford reservation: There's a lot of radioactive waste due to the now-decommissioned nuclear plant resorting to overproduction to delay the inevitable job loss after the material was in less demand, and figuring out how to deal with that is a big deal that hasn't been properly addressed. Building facilities around it has had problems (in one case they were still designing a treatment facility as it was being built, which led to problems) and they're too scared to try to move it because if that stuff spills on its way to the bottom of the ocean or space then it gets even worse. In a post-apocalyptic situation, the normal maintenance to keep that waste from bursting out of its own storage containers will be neglected, and people who won't know any better will crack open those storage facilities and try to take a look inside those barrels. The area will inevitably end up densely irradiated and will in some ways end up worse than actual nuclear warhead blast sites in that case. Fallout radiation is less persistent than toxic slime that slowly self-boils from its own radiation output.

2. The power boom: Washington is a clean power workhorse between its multiple dams and all of the real estate that is useful for windfarms (they're everywhere now). Electrical infrastructure will likely be more prevalent in colonies in this region, with many different ways to get power that can create more complicated situations than the struggle for the Hoover Dam in Fallout: New Vegas. Washington state also has some of the cheapest electricity in the world right now due to all of this production, so data centers are being built up a lot more. This can lead to survivor settlements being very likely to retain the benefits of the digital age with the abundance of electronics available to salvage. The bulk of this growth is happening in the Grant County area, most notably near the town of Quincy, but it can very reasonably spread around.

3. The Lewis/Clark Valley: Currently, the Lewiston/Clarkston valley on the border of Washington and Idaho is the furthest inland port on the west coast that can be accessed from the ocean, and there's plenty of smaller rivers that feed into the Columbia all over the area. Boats will be more relevant in this region for trade, travel and security purposes in a post-apocalypse scenario, especially for the people who benefit from the first-come-first-serve of taking control of the boat construction businesses that appear in towns along these rivers. The Lewis/Clark valley isn't big enough to be a big nuke target, and with the terrain any sort of large bandit movement would have trouble taking over the place, so there is likely to be very little disruption to the original resources there. It also has one of the bullet manufacturing facilities from Avista Outdoors, which is a huge company that develops sporting equipment, and the ammunition production equipment will be very valuable for a survivor colony, even if there's no way it will run at its original capacity with the available resources.

4. The Columbia Basin's terrain: Due to several glacial floods far in the past, eastern Washington has what is basically a giant set of ripple marks. Large, sprawling hills and very little land that is consistently flat. This will lend greatly to guerilla warfare tactics in a post-apocalypse scenario, at least against settlements that don't possess some form of airborne scouting. There's quite a lot of area that has sagebrush as the tallest plant around, and open farmland as well, which isn't great for hiding from any repurposed drone or aviation resources in use.

5. Pullman/Moscow: About 30ish miles north of the Lewis/Clark Valley is Pullman and Moscow, two college towns that are about 10 miles apart and in hilly areas. There's not much military or industrial around there, but the important thing is that the towns are too far apart to reasonably merge, but also close enough to be easy to fight each other regularly if the survivor settlements that set up in those towns end up on bad terms. This can be a good setup for a regular conflict zone or a thriving economic area.

Beleriphon
2016-01-22, 08:15 AM
5. Pullman/Moscow: About 30ish miles north of the Lewis/Clark Valley is Pullman and Moscow, two college towns that are about 10 miles apart and in hilly areas. There's not much military or industrial around there, but the important thing is that the towns are too far apart to reasonably merge, but also close enough to be easy to fight each other regularly if the survivor settlements that set up in those towns end up on bad terms. This can be a good setup for a regular conflict zone or a thriving economic area.

I'd go with some kind of Moscow is infiltrated by Commies idea by the residents of Pullman, based entirely on the name of course.

Thrudd
2016-01-22, 09:19 AM
Forks, WA: the real town which was used as the fictional site for the Twilight novels. Today, it is visited by Twilight groupies as though it was an historical site. After the Fall, it could be full of real vampires. Not the sparkly kind, either. The "weird family" who live on the outskirts of town and run people off their property are normal humans with an arsenal of vampire-killing equipment. Everyone on the streets of Forks just assumes everyone else is a Vampire. If they get wise to the presence of a living human, it turns into a bad scene (or maybe like the party scene from "What we do in the Shadows" with Stu).

NRSASD
2016-01-22, 12:34 PM
@Everybody else: Listen to VoxRationis. I can 100% confirm everything he's said about Oregon. Pronouncing Oregon incorrectly is why we have a National Guard unit. Also, it's common knowledge that blackberry bushes today will grab you if you pass by them, and respond with force if you try to trim them.

When we say Washington, we mean the state, not Washington D.C. This confuses East Coast/West Coast communications to no end.

Inaccurate stereotypes from a Western Oregonian's point of view:

Idaho is full of odd people a little too in love with religion and potatoes. Not bad, just odd.

Montana is uninhabited. Small bands of cowboys wander the landscape, fending off wolf packs and searching for their lost cattle.

Washington is our NW sibling. We like them and they like us. Their main city Seattle is a bit dreary though (in comparison to Portland), and the Seattle-ites all seem faintly depressed.

Canada is cool. We like them too, especially BC and Victoria.

We don't really like California. If push comes to shove, we'd grudgingly admit that Californians are West Coasters too, and we'd stand with them against anyone else, but we'd complain about it the whole time. Since Oregon and Washington generate (at least) some of the power California uses, we feel that we're responsible for their prosperity. While we don't begrudge them their happiness, a little recognition would be nice. Anyone who is rude, or a reckless driver, is assumed to be Californian unless proven otherwise (even though in my experience Idahoans are worse drivers).

New York is a city on the East Coast, along with Washington D.C. and Boston.

Chicago is east of us but not on the East Coast.

Las Vegas is south of us somewhere (maybe California?).

New Orleans is south east, but more east than south.

Texas is full of very loud people who get excited/angry over strange things. We don't want them to leave the US, but if they did we wouldn't miss them.

Mexico has good food and doesn't speak English, but that's ok. They're not bad.

*Disclaimer: I actually know where these places are (I've visited most of them), but I'm trying to portray the POV of a generic Western Oregonian if you stopped them on the street and asked their opinion. These aren't my actual opinions.

NRSASD
2016-01-22, 01:04 PM
Answering OP's question: There's three areas where I could see a Native American nation reappearing: Eastern Washington, the Pudget Sound, or along the Eastern section of the Columbia.

The Columbia river is tremendously important in Native American culture, because of the mind-bendingly large salmon harvests they use to gather before the dams went up. In a Fallout world, these salmon bounties might appear once again. The American/Oregonian power center would certainly be near Portland and control that stretch of the Columbia, but I can easily see the Native Americans taking territory further upstream. So long as everyone plays nice, they'd probably get along just fine.

Eastern Washington would be a much more nomadic nation (Native American biker gangs...?) because they spend winter in the valleys and summer in the mountains. There is a sizable native American population present, but they mostly keep to themselves.

The Pudget Sound natives would be very ocean-faring, with communal lodges and fish providing the majority of their diet.

VoxRationis
2016-01-22, 05:16 PM
So here's my question:
What does the post-War Northwest look like? I can see the following ideas for ecology:

Fallout Classic: Everything is radioactive and burnt to a crisp. How anyone still has anything to eat 200 years later is a colossal mystery.
True Northwest: Trees are everywhere; presumably, the region escaped most of the fighting, or at least enough of it that the environment got to bounce back. The entire place is covered in conifer trees, except for the places that are covered in oaks (and the places east of the Cascades, obviously).
Blackberry Hell: The bombs wiped out the trees, and the mutant blackberries took over the vacant land. Humans fight the blackberries (which are the foundation of the food chain, being the primary producers), but blackberries fight the humans.
Evil Forest: The trees came back after the bombs fell, but they aren't the same trees that were there before.

Espella
2016-01-22, 06:05 PM
Seattle should be ruled by an oligarchy that controls the last remnants of Starbucks coffee

goto124
2016-01-22, 09:19 PM
Would the coffee be 90% water?

Thrudd
2016-01-23, 12:38 PM
Seattle should be ruled by an oligarchy that controls the last remnants of Starbucks coffee

Yes. Another version: They should enter a town with a vicious ongoing feud between people living on opposite sides of a street. It turns out they are the descendants of the employees of rival Starbucks that are less than a mile apart, one on eastbound side the other on westbound side. They fight over who has the true favor if the mermaid goddess, and claim the others to be pretenders. And the westbound clan has a clover brewer machine, which they repeatedly mention to mock their rivals as the clearly inferior clan.

The Fury
2016-01-23, 01:03 PM
Most of the main points have been hit-- flannel, Sasquatch, volcanoes, Frazier... not Portlandia thankfully.

Could bacon maple bars still exist in Oregon? It's our main contribution to the world of doughnuts. Canada's jealous that they didn't think of it first.

Also, maybe Powell's Books still exists as a secret underground tinderbox archive.

I know it's after a gigantic nuclear disaster but I think Portland's flag should still be used for something. It just looks cool!

http://cdn2.bigcommerce.com/server1400/a03c0/products/4387/images/8020/Portland_Flag__17859.1433258460.150.150.jpg?c=2

Jeff the Green
2016-01-23, 02:56 PM
Could bacon maple bars still exist in Oregon? It's our main contribution to the world of doughnuts. Canada's jealous that they didn't think of it first.

Also Nyquil and Pepto Bismol doughnuts. There could be Mentat doughnuts in the future.

Don't forget that the rain forest (seriously, it's a rain forest) occupies a fairly narrow band along the coast and (in Oregon) the Willamette Valley. If you go east of the Cascades, you hit high desert. South and east of that is the Great Basin. To the north and east are plains. Plus there's two mountain ranges—the Coast Range and the Cascades. Oregon's Southwest begins the transition to Mediterranean.

There are a ton of ghost towns and haunted places in Oregon, particularly Eastern Oregon. In Portland there are tunnels where they'd keep people who'd been shanghaied and they're supposedly haunted by the victims. Seriously (http://www.shanghaitunnels.info/).

Oh, in Pendleton, our Northeastern corner, there's the Round-Up (http://www.pendletonroundup.com/), one of the older and larger rodeos around. A large contingent of our state likes to pretend that they're cowboys once a year and do extraordinary damage to their livers. It would be funny to have brahmin roping and bareback yao-guai riding.