Factions

Hunters

Origins

When the world was collapsing into catastrophe, when cities were turning into one big grave, most people rushed to seek safety and shelter in bunkers. But some refused to leave the places they called home: forest rangers, hunters, residents of remote villages, gamekeepers. They tried to keep living as before, even as the sun and the collapse of humanity changed everything around them. It was these stubborn few who were the very first to witness the forest begin to change.

It started killing. It grew more dangerous, forcing people to gather into communities. Familiar life was being strangled by the forest; well-worn hunting trails turned deadly as anomalies took root, and the game people once hunted was replaced by disfigured mutants.

People died by the dozens, yet the very forest that killed them also shielded them from radiation. Saturated at its roots with phoenix particles, it protected the Hunters from radiation, and in turn they adapted. A human being always adapts. The Hunters learned to detect anomalies, to fight mutants. In the forests, a new generation was growing up that had never seen the old world. The human mind tried to explain to itself the reasons behind this new reality — and arrived at something resembling faith.

The Hunters' Philosophy

Within Hunter society took root the belief that the catastrophe — the black solar flares — was nature's revenge. Its conscious answer to everything humankind had destroyed. For every hectare of felled forest, for every animal driven to ruin. This is not faith in the conventional sense, but rather a portrayal of nature as a kind of living force, an entity in its own right. The role of the Hunters themselves is to return to their roots. They believe that humanity must return to assimilation with nature, must live by its rules, and accept the rights of the weak.

There is no conventional worship in their society. All that is asked of a Hunter is to live by the rules — to take only what is necessary for basic survival. They have no goal of deliberately wiping out mutants; they hunt only for sustenance or in self-defense. It is precisely for following such a simple rule that some Hunters, as they themselves believe, come to possess extraordinary abilities. Among the new, younger generation — and only among those born and raised in the forests — some can see anomalies or heal others with a touch.

Structure, the Chernovodsk Enclave, and Politics

The Hunters never establish permanent camps or bases, largely because of the forest's constant unpredictability. Instead, they set up temporary camps in the most suitable spots — near old abandoned watch huts or the remains of villages — until the forest begins to push the community out, forcing it to move on once again in search of a new place.

The unofficial leaders of the community are the Elder Hunters, the most seasoned and experienced members of the group. They set no grand goals for the community and give no orders about who should do what. For the most part, they coordinate the forward groups of Hunters who hunt and scout the territory. Otherwise, the community lives in an uncontrolled flow of life, simply trying to help one another.

Only a small group of Hunters lives in the forests around Chernovodsk itself; the rest of the community roams the deeper woods. When the Hunters learned that the Scavengers, and later the Dawn soldiers, had made their way into sealed-off Chernovodsk, the Hunters' chief Medium decided that their goal should be to convince the remaining people to return to assimilation with nature, as they had, and join the community. The Medium gathered those who agreed with him and set out toward the outskirts of Chernovodsk. Most were young, especially fired up and raised on stories that everything that had happened to a world they'd never seen was nature's revenge. Some of them believe that this vengeance must be carried even to the most stubborn holdouts. The elder Hunters, for the most part, tried to talk the Medium's group out of making any contact at all with the outside remnants of the world and human civilization.

The Scavengers were greeted by the Hunters fairly warmly, though the people of the forest didn't inspire much trust among the wandering technicians in turn. The group of Hunters trades with the Scavengers, has told them a great deal about Chernovodsk and its dangers, and has strongly urged them not to take certain actions.

Relations never worked out with the Dawn enclave that later made its way into Chernovodsk. The Hunters' ideology clashed sharply with Dawn's ambitions to restore the old world order. Dawn's deliberate extermination of mutants and their lairs was regarded by the Hunters as tantamount to a crime. This has led to clashes between forward groups on occasion, though the two factions have managed to settle into a state of cold war without direct armed confrontation.

The Lost, meanwhile, became the primary target of the Medium's group's recruitment efforts. The Hunters actively try to convince loners who, following the Scavengers, made their way into Chernovodsk, to join them. They are just as eager to engage in simple trade and mutual aid, though the Hunters are not above using various methods to remind others that nature's order must be respected. They allow themselves to confiscate mutant parts and artifacts collected by the Lost for the sake of plain profit rather than basic needs. There are also known cases of especially aggressive individuals, ungrateful toward nature, being killed by the Hunters. Bandit groups share the same fate, regarded by the community as nothing more than the filthiest relic of the old world.