MARYLAND

Heavily damaged from numerous strikes and polluted by fallout, much of Maryland remains an intolerably bad place to live. A number of unique groups can be found in the state. There is a large Children of the Night colony in northern Maryland, victims of the nuking of the US Army Biological Warfare center in Fredrick. There are a few fishing settlements in the south along the shores of Chesapeake Bay, as well as a small pocket of Soviets. The USA is the strongest influence in the western half of the state.

1) NUCLEAR TARGETS

Baltimore, SS-17
Annapolis, SS-N-17
Aberdeen Proving Grounds, SS-17
Fort Detrick, Fredrick, SS-17
Edgewood Arsenal, Edgewood, SS-17
Fort George Meade, SS-N-17
US Naval academy, Annapolis, SS-N-17
Calvert Cliffs 1, 2 nuclear reactors, Lusby, SS-18M2

Discretionary nuclear targets:
Andrews AFB, SS-17
Dundalk Marine Terminal, SS-N-8
Fort Ritchie, SS-19

2) MORROW PROJECT ASSETS

Regional Command Base RCB-East: Location unknown, but somewhere in the woods in the extreme northeast corner of the state. The Command team frozen with the facility is Area Command Team VMDC-1 . 10 members, with two Humvees, one Huey helo, and one FAV. The Command team awoke close to 50 years ago and has had a very rough time of it, loosing nine men and nearly all the vehicles and supplies over the years with very little to show for it. The lone survivor is now Thomas Van Rodden, the Regional Commander of the Maryland/DC/Eastern Virginia/Delaware region. Radden is now just an old crippled 85-year old man in a wheelchair. He is cared for by the children and grandchildren of his former Project members, who all still live in the underground facility. All of their caches have been long ago emptied, and there is little left in the facility itself.
Sea Base Alpha 1: The mid 1980's found the Project in need of mobile regional command and control centers . Bruce Morrow appropriated the rights to the HSV design prototypes for future use as floating bases. They were outfitted as highly mobile offshore support bases that could range up and down the coast where needed, offering support for teams ashore. The 800-ton fusion-powered HSV was heavily armed itself, but was emplaced with two smaller 250-ton hydrofoil patrol boats which could act as a defensive screen and as recon boats. The very large bolthole located beneath a Morrow Industries tidal electric powerplant near Leonardtown, on Breton Bay near the mouth of the Potomac River. The 71 men of the HSV crew and the 16 men of the PHM crews were all placed in one cryo-facility, while teams assigned to be embarked were froze as individuals in the region.
Rapid Response Triage Team RRTT-2: 2 surgeons, 2 doctors, 4 nurses and 8 support personnel/ guards equipped with 2 Hummwv ambulances, a 5-ton truck with a towed MASH-type trailer and 4 unarmed Air Scouts equipped for stretchers. Team buried 20 miles north of Rockville. Team still sleeping.

3) EASTERN MARYLAND

The large urban areas in the eastern half of the state were horribly effected by the war. Nuke hits, radiation clouds, firestorms and rampaging refugees devastated the area completely. Even though radiation levels have dropped in the rural areas, few settlements of any size exist here. The most common human encounter might be salvage parties from surrounding territories gleaning the ruins for lost technology.

Interstate-95: Cluttered and weed-grown, yet passable in segments.

The ruins of Fredrick: Destroyed utterly in the war. The US Army's Biowar facility at Fort Detrick was the main target, and the stocks of biological weapons were released by the blasts into the air. Down wind, the Children of the Night were born (see below).

The ruins of Baltimore: Hit by five nukes, large parts of the central and eastern sections of the city were completely scoured from the ground. The entire harbor area was burned to a crisp by the nuking of Dundalk Marine Terminal. The area of total destruction extends from the waterfront west to nearly the I-695 loop. The harbor is full of sunken wrecks and hulks burned to the waterlines, preventing any deep-draft vessels from approaching the docks.

The ruins of Annapolis: Annapolis has largely ceased to exist. The Severn River has flooded much of the nuked peninsula, creating a marshy swamp filled with mutant plants.

The ruins of Fort George G. Meade: Along with much of the Washington-Baltimore corridor, this fort was nuked hard. The cavernous subterranean expanses beneath the National Security Agency's headquarters were presumably abandoned following the nuclear war. Rumors continue to exist, however, of fantastic finds to still be had.

Olney FEMA base: Located off the crumbling remains of Route 108 between Olney and Laytonsville is a former FEMA underground facility. It was at least 10-levels deep but its present condition is unknown.

The Virginia Resistance: A well-organized band of locals, led by "Duchess Ona", a young woman of great beauty and commanding presence. Her name is actually Elizabeth Keliman, the Duchess Ona bit is to help her in negotiations with other local leaders. She has about 110 people in her group, about 50 of whom are combat effective. They are currently occupying a former a secret biological research station known as HLV-17, located in extreme northeast Maryland. This facility was abandoned for a century before they found it.

4) THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT

The nuclear strike on the Germ Warfare Labs in Fredrick released a deadly mixture of gasses and microbes into the air. While most of these were short-lived, or mutated beyond danger by the radiation, a certain percentage of the population downwind were infected with various strains. There were many vile and nasty deaths in refugee crowds from Washington to Philadelphia, killing thousands of already brutalized people. Most of these deaths were relatively instantaneous, but in one case, the affects are still being felt by the victims 150 years later.

Claggettsville: In this tiny town, just a dozen miles east of Fredrick, a cloud of microbes from the destroyed labs settled in the thick air over the town. The effects varied, with about half the people dying a horrible death of frothing blood and dissolving internal organs. The other half would come to wish that they had been so lucky. For whatever reason, the microbes turned about 150 people into blood sucking vampires. They were not immortal, and could breed and grow, but they were no longer human in the traditional sense. These people are slightly empathic and telepathic, and as such were drawn to each other. They are light sensitive, and generally keep to the night, which has led to their being called "The Children of the Night". They can only ingest fresh blood, which is seemingly enough to sustain them. They can infect anyone they come into direct contact with, turning them into Children.

Karel, Queen of the Night: One of the first people infected was a young high school girl named Karel. The Children colony in Claggettsville might have died out on its own had it not been for this girl. Infected and slowly coming to terms with her affliction, Karel rallied the other infected people together and fortified the town. The first year was brutal, with refugees swarming and violence and bloodshed common. It was Karel who organized the defenses, whipping the Children into a frenzy of isolationism and xenophobia. To her, their affliction was a good thing, a positive human evolution towards a higher state. Filled with a sense of the "New Humans against the unwashed heathens", the Children fought in the darkness, killing and converting anyone who came into their town. Their power and numbers grew that first winter, as people infected seemed strangely more resistant to the normal diseases and radiation that were killing off people by the thousands all around them. By a year later, there were some 500 Children in Claggettsville. Karel was still in charge, by now elevated to Queenly status. In this role, she excelled, keeping the community together and focused on survival. She herself took the freshest kills, favoring particularly the blood of young girls, and demanded the choicest of loot. Her megalomania grew, but the Children still followed her every order.

Expansion: Within a few years, however, there was simply not enough fresh blood to feed them all anymore. The refugees had all died off or had left for other areas, and the infected were facing a looming food crisis. From their nexus in Claggettsville, the Children of the Night spread slowly out into the surrounding countryside, looking for more victims to feed upon. As this area had been hard hit by the war, victims were rather scarce, and they had to travel even further afield to quench their thirst. Soon, they established small bases in outlying areas, from which to expand out even further.

Death of the Queen: Karel, First Queen of the Children, died in 2031 from a riding accident. A ripple of empathic energy spread through the Children, reaching everyone no matter how far away they were. Instead of stopping their expansion, the death of their Queen only drove them to expand more. By today, 150 years after the initial infection, the Children of the Night have traveled across most of the nation, and can be found in most states. In the last 50 years, they have mostly moved out west, where the number of people is greatest. Despite their beginnings in Maryland, there are just a few Children colonies to be found east of the Mississippi River today.

5) SOUTHERN MARYLAND

The swampy coastline of the Chesapeake Bay is home to a scattering of fishing settlements and a few unique groups.

The Hounds of God: A small band of religious zealots roaming the southern part of the state. They are attempting to obliterate anything the Bible outlaws, but since they number just ten men, they have not had much luck.

Patuxent River Naval Air Warfare Center: This old experimental and training facility has been the home of a group of Soviets for some 140 years now. There are about 100 people here, all descendants of a Soviet Commando unit that was landed by submarine off the Virginia coast in the years after the nuclear exchanges. Tasked with destroying military assets surviving in the area, the team wandered around Virginia and Maryland for ten years, killing a few hold-out soldiers and destroying a few old tanks and planes stranded on airfields. They then decided to find a place to set up a permanent base to conduct further operations from. Settling on the abandoned Patuxent River site, they moved in and ran off the few remaining survivors. While long ago assimilated with American girls, these Soviets are still loyal to the "Motherland" and still believe they are at war with America. At the base, the Soviets, have gathered an impressive amount of naval weaponry from raiding the surrounding military installations over the last 150 years. This treasure includes small arms, machineguns and support weapons and the like. There are some ageing ships still here as well, though they rarely sail anymore except to occasionally scout the coastal areas. Relations with the USA are understandably strained, though outright conflict has been avoided so far. The Soviets realize that they cannot compete against the US Army, and are looking for ways to event the odds.

Salisbury: Now home to the "Order of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary", a religious group based in an old Catholic Cathedral. This group of a dozen Monks has for 100 years kept the flame of knowledge alive, hoarding books and technical information deep within the Cathedral. Salisbury is also a thriving trading center, with a reasonably defensible perimeter enclosing about 30 homes and other buildings with a total of nearly 250 residents. About 30 of the locals are organized into a militia under arms. A few times a decade, the Soviets from across the Chesapeake Bay come to raid, but they rarely have much success.

6) WESTERN MARYLAND

Along the western arm of the state, there are just a few settlements. This area was flooded with refugees after the war and most of the small rural towns were burnt down when the food ran out. Over the years, people have returned in small numbers. The new United States Government in Virginia (see that state) is active in the region, trading with and monitoring the towns. Most people live on family farms or in small towns along the rivers. Regional government is nonexistent, and most people consider themselves part of the USA anyway.

Cumberland: The current population is around 400 people, mostly farmers and traders taking advantage of the river. The militia has been trained and organized by advisors from the USA in Virginia and is capable of defending the town. Several ferries operate here, taking passengers and small vehicles across the Potomac River in exchange for food and barter.

People who have contributed to this entry:
John Raner
James Barnwell
Ken Portz