Furtive Faction: Suburbanites (Nuclear Families)

Group Goals and Beliefs: To live life the way it was prior to the Apocalygeddon. To live in suburban dwellings with other Nuclear Families. To congregate at neighborhood “block parteez” and “bar-bee-kyoos.” To strive for the “Merkin Dream.”

Identifiers: Suburbanites are usually found dressed in 1950’s retro fashions. (Dresses and heels for the women; sweater vests and slacks for the men.) Everyone is either wearing a pearl necklace or has a pipe clenched in his (or her!) teeth. There’s a cheerful grin on the face of everyone.

Group History: The problem with life in the Mutant Future is that everyone BELIEVES there’s a problem – or so think Suburbanites. They feel that, if everyone goes back to living in a manner similar to what it was like BEFORE the Apocalygeddon, then life will eventually return to “normal” – radiation levels will plummet, the skies will become blue again, crops will flourish, mutations will eventually vanish, and prosperity will one day return. Taking their cues from unearthed Civil Defense pamphlets and videos from the 1950s, Suburbanites go about a daily pantomime of what life was like in the Ancient days. Rarely encountered individually, numerous “families” of Suburbanites are usually found in the ruins of a bombed-out neighborhood, reenacting their own glorified version of The Good Ol’ Days. Pure human, mutants, even androids and plants will be found in these conclaves. Men will push their (non-working) mowers around yards. Women will busy themselves in the kitchen or “vacuuming” the house. Children will play on twisted, rusted swingsets in the backyards or sit quietly as they watch a non-functioning TV. The men have all taken one of three names: Bob, John, or Henry; the women are all Carol, Barbara, or Sally; all of the kids answer to Champ or Sport.

Game Information: Suburbanites should be played as the typical 1950s suburban family transplanted to the ruins of the wastelands. They will NEVER break character; to acknowledge the world as it truly is will be admitting defeat. This group delusion MUST be maintained at all costs. Visitors are usually referred to as “Cousin Oliver,” “Uncle Joe,” or other familial moniker. Suburbanites may actually possess some working Ancient tech that they will protect at all costs as “proof” that their way is revitalizing the world. If the neighborhood is threatened, Suburbanites will retreat to a fortified underground “bomb shelter” – the first thing they restore upon moving in – where they will wait until the threat has passed. Just as the original Burb Dwellers did. (In fact, some Suburbanites could be descendants of survivors from the original Apocalygeddon!)