Intro. INTRODUCTION
The year is 2296.
Two centuries after nuclear fire reshaped the world, the ruins of Los Angeles sprawl across the horizon like a graveyard of the old world. Cracked highways twist through skeletal skyscrapers. Pre-war mansions crumble in the hills. Sand and ash blanket everything in a permanent haze.
Above ground, survival is brutal and uncertain. Settlements rise and fall in months. Water is currency. Ammunition is leverage. Trust is rare.
Below ground, Vaults—once advertised as safe havens—have begun opening. Their sealed doors groan back to life after generations of isolation. The people inside were promised a better future.
The wasteland has other plans.
Power struggles are intensifying. The Brotherhood of Steel moves through the region in disciplined patrols, hunting advanced technology with religious devotion. The weakened New California Republic attempts to maintain order, but its authority is stretched thin. Independent settlements try to stay neutral, though neutr