Kansas is a bastion of Krell power, with the Krell controlling all the eastern cities, including Kansas City. Further west, scattered settlements work the harsh land.
Wichita, SS-17
Kansas City, SS-N-8
Topeka, SS-17
Salina, SS-18M1
McConnell AFB (Titan II Missile Site),
10 SS-18M2
Discretionary nuclear target:
Fort Riley, SS-17
Krell, the man, the myth, the legend: Krell is a mysterious figure. He is known to almost everyone alive as a brutal warlord out to destroy the world. he was also once a dissolute member of the planning staff of the Project, fired for embezzlement and inefficiency. In the first year after the war, he and his followers went on a campaign against the Project which caused the capture or destruction of several Morrow bases. He captured one intact and had himself frozen. He arises every few decades to incite his followers to further expansion. The same followers guard his bunker while he "sleeps". Whatever he used to be, Krell is now a sadistic tyrant who enjoys torturing and killing on a whim. He is, however, also a coward at heart and behind the scenes is ruled by advisors and concubines.
The Krell Army of Kansas: The Krell Army in Kansas is large and effective, organized into "battalions" made up of basic cannon fodder with better-trained sergeants and officers. There are about 8,000 soldiers in the Army of Kansas, of varying degrees of effectiveness. The current overall Commander of the Krell Army forces is General Victor Daison, hand-picked by Krell himself. For the most part the average warrior does not wear uniforms, and there is no standardization of weapons. Weapons range from shotguns to assorted rifles, halberds to pikes and bows. The Krell armament factories are geared up and working daily. They produce fair copies of the WW2 British Sterling SMG, the M1917 Enfield, the BARs, and a .38 caliber revolver. Though the weapons are not of the most precise manufacture, they are adequate for the Krell Army. There are some heavy weapons platoons, mostly with machineguns and mortars (60mm and 81mm). Usually tactics are limited to human wave attacks. Most of the units are foot infantry with a few trucks. Some tanks and armored cars are being introduced.
Krell Heavy Weapons: One of the problems the Warriors of Krell face is a shortage of heavy weapons and armored vehicles in any quantity. The biggest news for the Krell Army is the slow but steady introduction of a tank. For the last ten years they have been producing a limited number of versions of the old M4 Sherman tank. So far they have only made High Explosive rounds for the 75mm guns. They also have some captured Morrow Project weapons, but the majority of these are low on ammunition, and supplies are not as plentiful as Krell would like, one of the big reasons Krell's forces are striking out to locate and capture MP caches, bases, and boltholes in a search for more supplies. Right after The War, Krell captured a number of National Guard armories and US Army Reserve Centers and Supply Depots. This was often easier then it sounds, as many such installations were under strength during the chaos following the end of the world. Thus, Krell's forces obtained large stocks of rifles and small arms, along with a good supply of "Obsolete" and "Removed from Service" weapons, such as recoilless rifles and bazookas. With these weapons Krell led his campaign against the Morrow Project; they supplied his army until several MP caches and bases fell into Krell hands. A number of these weapons are still around; the present push by Krell's forces has led to some heavy fighting, particularly between his advance patrols and a few, scattered Morrow Project Teams. These heavy weapons include various quantities of M20 3.5" Bazookas, M18 57mm Recoilless Rifles, M40A2 106mm Recoilless Rifles, Krell 20mm Anti-Tank Rifles (a weapon produced by the Krell to use captured 20mm ammunition), M30 4.2" Mortars, and homemade Armored Cars (trucks covered in boilerplates).
Way of the Warrior: The Krell do not built, they seize. They do not create, they prey. They are parasites. Where it possible to isolate them from the rest of humanity, they would die out in a generation. They move into an area that lacks any strong force, blow the local strongmen apart, and then re-organize the populace exacting severe taxes in the form of arms, grain, and most importantly, alcohol for their trucks. In exchange for the taxes the locals get no protection, most of their arms taken away (except for muskets and shotguns), and wiped out if the dare complain. The supplies are then sent back to the main Krell base to strengthen the Krell. Additionally, a selected number of young men are impressed into slave labor units back at the Krell bases. When they have served 15 years in back breaking labor, under brutal conditions, and have been thoroughly indoctrinated, they are turned into regular Krell soldiers. Mixed with them are various children taken by the Krell and raised as their own to be totally loyal to Krell and his appointed leaders. This system allows Krell to develop a totally loyal army, and with bonuses for spying on one's comrades, the system almost always insures total loyalty (Krell has gone so far as to fake the capturing of a unit, selected at random, and then execute via torture anyone who foolishly joins the capturing side). The Krell have a gangster mentality, trusting no one in their own leadership and frequently killing each other off to gain or protect power.
Lawrence: One of the towns under Krell control where many of the richer and more powerful now live, and the heavy hand of Krell is not a visible. It is generally known that this is because Lawrence was the home of Krell's favorite (and most manipulative) concubine, and her influence has allowed her to become almost an independent ruler in this town. This woman was born in 1971 and has been with Krell since the beginning. Some twenty years ago, Krell moved his command center to Lawrence, taking over the old University of Kansas library building. Its location on top of a hill in the center of town made it ideal for his purposes. This is where his cryotubes are kept and where he and his staff go into periodic sleep for decades at a time.
Endora: Location of Morrow Operations Rework Facility Alpha. In 1972, Cadillac Gage (a division of the Hughes Corporation) built a military vehicle repair and rework facility in Endora, just east of Lawrence. Ostensibly, the facility was an armor fabrication facility and their work was to outfit limousines, the V-150 series and other vehicles for paramilitary use and export to friendly foreign countries. Unknown to anyone at the time, the facility was in reality a Morrow Operations Rework Facility (known to the project as MORF Alpha). This full duty, heavy rework facility used the �hide in plain� sight concept to carry out their work. They reworked V-150s, V300s, M8 armored cars and every other vehicle in the Morrow Project inventory. The prize of the facility was the Top Secret Power Systems Division that made the fusion plants for the Project. No one outside of the Council of Twelve and the few workers in the power facility itself knew what was actually going on. At least, that was the plan. Anton Krell found out about the fusion plants in 1982, and this fact set his plans in motion. He and his loyal henchman would storm the facility after Warday, seize the fusion power facility and build a fusion powered war machine to take over the world. Unfortunately (for him) he was found out by Project Security and expelled from the Project in 1985. After he went into hiding, the Fusion Division was moved to the Beta site in Canton, North Carolina where it continued its work until the start of the war (see that entry). When the war started, the rework facility shipped the last of their completed vehicles to several boltholes for last minute burial, and the facility was shut down and evacuated. Unfortunately, two V150s were still being refitted and not completed before shutdown (belonging to team ND-R-3 in North Dakota). They were still there, conventionally powered, after the war. When the Krell stormed the facility four months after the war, they found the facility intact and ready, full of top quality machining and armoring equipment and a small supply of stock, along with the two V150s. The prize, however, the linchpin of Anton Krell�s plan, was nowhere to be found. The entire fusion production plant was gone, the former building just an empty shell with graffiti of a raised middle finger spray painted on one wall and a caption that read "Up Yours, Anton. Love, Bruce". Anton was so enraged that he killed five of his staff before he was restrained. In one stroke, the Project thwarted Krell�s plans for world domination. The facility is today used to armor the Krell army vehicles, but the machinery is worn out and the work quality is shoddy at best.
Topeka: Topeka should have been radioactive dust. The SS-17 targeted failed to deploy correctly in the upper atmosphere and the four warheads splashed into the Gulf of Mexico far to the south. Despite this, much of Topeka was destroyed in riots and rampages before the Krell arrive to take control. This town is now home to Krell's main armored truck facility, a huge factory of slave laborers and salvaged automotive parts. Production is about one tank every two months and five armored trucks per month.
Fort Riley Military Reservation: Though nuked during the war, this sprawling fort out in the open plains is now a major Krell military base, home to the bulk of the combat troops and much of the heavy weaponry. Abandoned in the nuclear winter due to the lack of food, the base sat empty for decades before the expanding Krell Empire moved in. A large number of hardened underground bunkers, built to store vehicles, equipment and weapons, are still in use as supply depots and grain storage sites. During the brutally hot summer months, the base is virtually empty, the garrison troops send further east to Fort Leavenworth or the Kansas City suburbs.
Fort Leavenworth Military Reservation: This old but vast prison complex was once the personal mansion of Krell, before he moved his base to Lawrence. The fort is still a major Krell base, boasting huge stockpiles of weapons and specialized machinery.
Caves: The resistance's main base of operations is within a small network of caves in the Kansas Ozarks in the southeastern corner of the state. The main base is in a well-disguised cave along Sugar Creek in Linn County, far off the Krell's usual patrol routes. It can hold about 100 people if needed, but there are usually just 20-30 there at anytime. There are large stocks of weapons and foodstuffs stored here, as well as looted and stolen hi-tech items.
Supply path: There is a foot trail from the caves east along the winding creek bed to the former Marais Des Cygnes Wildlife Area, now just an overgrown and flooded lowland area. The fish and game to be found in this area help feed the rebels living in the caves, and at any given time several people will be here, fishing and hunting after dark. Once they have a pack load of food, they make the trip back to the caves, traveling one at a time to avoid detection. The sparse population in this area makes it relatively easy to continue this system.
Wolf Creek Nuclear Reactor: Located just east of Burlington, Kansas's only nuclear reactor was put into operation in 1985, only a few years before the war. It was the proud recipient of a bio package during the war. The engineers were able to operate their emergency shut-down before they died of the sickness. The facility is relatively intact and only the reactor containment building is radioactive (don't go in).
The area is nearly devoid of human life due to the radiation from Wichita to the south and the Krell in every other direction. The exception to this is a small community that lives on the shore of Wolf Creek Lake. This group of 125 farmers/fishermen survives because they are infected with a disease that mutated from the bio weapon that fell into the lake. It's well known by the Krell that contact with these people causes you to die within 36 hours or some horrible "red sickness" that can be transmitted to other people. The Krell are terrified of the red sickness and will not approach within sight of the lake. Any Krell warrior who is suspected of getting too close to the lake is shot down at a distance (false accusations are a moderately popular way to eliminate a rival).
The truth is that the bio weapon mutated into two life forms, one is a virulent plague, the other is a symbiote that lives in the aquatic plantlife around the lake. The lake people are the descendants of a health commune who began making herbal tea from the algae and cat-tails around the lake when their supplies ran out after the war. They are not aware that regular doses of their "tea" is why they do not die of the red sickness. The occasional visitor (escaped slave of the Krell or traveler from the south) will contract the disease, but will survive if they drink the tea in the first 12 hours of incubation. A person who goes without tea for 72 hours will allow begin to die of the plague.
The people of Wolf Creek Lake have sporadic trading with northern Oklahoma when a bold Trader or quick Gypsy Trucker makes the winter run when the Krell are less active. A pair of trading rocks has been set up 2 miles from town where traders and townspeople can leave goods without coming into physical contact. Most commonly, the town trades books and other salvage from nearby Burlington and other towns for manufactured goods. They will not trade for food made elsewhere because too much foreign food is unhealthy, i.e. not enough local tea will kill you. The town has recently received a hand generator and radio receiver from Tulsa missionaries so they can hear "God's Station."
Silo farms: This area was thickly sown with empty and abandoned Atlas E and F ICBM silos of the Forbes and Schilling Air Force Base complexes. The Atlas F silos were located in the towns of Bennington, Abilene, Chapman, Carlton, McPherson, Mitchell, Kannapolis, Wilson, Beverly, Tescott, Glasco, and Minneapolis. The Atlas E Forbes complex silos were located in the towns of Valley Falls, Dover, Waverly, Osage City, Delia, Wamego, Overbrook, Holton, and Bushong. All of these missiles were deactivated and removed in the 1960s and the silos were nearly forgotten. Some of them have been used as safe havens over the years, and several are still occupied today.
The ruins of Salina: A big 25 megaton nuke landed a few miles to the west of here, landing on a barn and crushing a pony before exploding in a three-mile wide fireball of death. The nuke flattened the town of Salina and the fallout forced the surrounding area to the east to be evacuated. Nothing of Salina remains to be seen and towns to the east as far as Abilene are still empty and radioactive. When people slowly started to return to this area fifty years later, they found little value in anything left.
Site-Z: Located in Abilene, this full size Snake-eater (24 Green Berets and 6 support staff) facility was another hide-in plain-site base, in one of the 36 "abandoned" Atlas F ICBM silos around that township. They are still sleeping peacefully, but maybe not for long as the Krell have somehow figured out their approximate location and are currently dispatching a "supply team" to try and find it.
McPherson: The dusty ruins of McPherson are home to the westernmost year-round garrison of Krell soldiers. They have a fortified base on the top of a hill that was just south of what was once McPherson College. A few undiscovered treasures may be still found, but nothing of a military nature, mostly books or other such things that the Krell Warriors have little interest in.
Concordia: This past summer, this small Kansas town resisted an order by the Krell to turn over its last few cows. A company of Warriors descended on the town, tortured and killed everyone, and buried them in a mass grave. Posted signs tell anyone who visits that this is what happens when you resist the Krell.
Hutchinson: Hutchinson was the home to the only sizable group of KKK/Aryan Nation members in Kansas before the war. They have always had survivalist tendencies, so they had two years worth of food and supplies as well as plenty of ammunition on War Day. In the aftermath of the war, they were able to establish an Aryan Nation in Hutchinson and the surrounding territory for about 30 miles. Their descendants are a xenophobic bunch suffering the effects of too much in-breeding. Hutchinson and its surrounding countryside is currently home to about 2,000 Aryans. Their street names and leader titles are in bad "WWII movie" German. Anyone wanting to settle in their area must pass a Hitler-esque racial purity test (skull measurements, skin tone charts, nose shape comparison to photos etc.). Members of impure sub-races are driven off. Interestingly, slavery is not practiced by the Nation as it is considered a weakness to depend on sub-races. The Nation has a limited number of prewar weapons, but a generous supply of cap and ball black powder weapons. The linchpin of their defense is a well-preserved Panzer V "Panther" that was owned by WWII re-enactors before the war. Ammunition for the Panther's 75mm gun is limited to low grade HE packed with black powder. The largest trade item is salt from the mine in town. Salt being a valuable commodity in the post war world, the Nation has become a regular stop for Gypsy Truckers with trade routes northwest towards the ruins of Denver and southwest following the old Santa-Fe trail to the Texas panhandle. The mine was used for cold storage before the war and most of the government records and many other interesting things are still there.
Pittsburg: The largest survivor community not under Krell influence is now Pittsburg, a town with a very effective militia that has kept the town free of marauders. Population is several hundred people. The Krell have this town up next on their target list for next spring. Flight is the only survival option.
The ruins of Wichita: Wichita has long been the "Air Capital of the World" producing more light planes than any other city in the world. Wichita is also home to a SAC base, McConnell AFB. The city and the entire area was pounded by over a hundred nuclear warheads, seeking to root out the Titan ICBMs in their silos spread in cornfields around the city. Ironically, as part of the SALT II treaty, the Titan II missiles were removed from the surrounding area in 1985, but in some quirk of Soviet planning, the empty silos were still hit by ten SS-18 MIRVs in 1989. The massive amount of fallout covered a huge swath of land to the east, poisoning it for hundreds of years, killing all the grass and trees for miles and miles. For nearly a century, few living creatures could be found, but in the last generation some people have returned. Currently, the only settlement near Wichita is a family clan of about 35 people in the far northwest part of the city, near Maize, who mine the landfill ("Mount Sunflower") for salvage. They trade salvaged goods to the Nation in Hutchison for extra food.
Eldorado: Eldorado was originally captured by a Soviet paratroop regiment. They were eventually killed over the course of 20 years of guerilla fighting by the angry farm folk who have always been well-armed with civilian hunting weapons. Eldorado was the center of southern Kansas oil production. Three major refineries processed the oil from the surrounding counties as well as what was pipelined in from Oklahoma. In the early 1980s, many of the local wells were capped because the pipeline oil was cheaper. Those wells have been the source of oil for southern Kansas ever since. What will Eldorado do when they run dry? One of the refineries is still in operation, the others have been stripped for spare parts to keep it running. There is a Krell garrison, but the town has some limited independence as long as they can keep the fuel flowing. They have hidden one cranky BMP that still runs and a few prewar side arms and shotguns. Black powder muskets are available, but not carried openly for fear they will be confiscated by the Krell garrison.
Pratt: The present population of this small river town is struggling to survive a local drought. The militia, based in the old police station, has been accused of hoarding food by the citizens. The militia leader and his "officers", many dressed in uniforms modeled on ones found in the police station, have nearly all the firearms in the town and seem to hold all the cards.
Arkansas City: One of the largest survivor communities not under Krell influence. The town's very effective militia has kept the them free of marauders for many years, allowing the people to concentrate on improving food production. Population is now up to several hundred people, double what it was twenty years ago. It is rumored that the Krell have this town up next on their target list and people are scared. Flight is the only survival option, though a vocal minority are pushing to militarize the town and fortify the approaches. They really have little to fear for the immediate future, as the Krell are leery of crossing the radioactive wastelands east of Wichita to get to the area.
Dodge City: A "free city" with no law where anything goes. There are stalls in the center of town where a brisk trade happens during the day, and at night the streets fill up with partiers and the bars keep the ale flowing. Dodge City is a place where travelers can refuel their tanks and get some rest, but no one would want to stay here long.
Hays: This small town on the old ribbon of I-70 and the immediate area are currently the home of a slaver clan working for the Krell to the east. They use Hays as a collection point for slaving raids throughout the region. Currently there are some 320 captured men and women in a holding area in the town, waiting for the last few raiding parties to return before a convoy will be organized and sent east.
Wheeler: As the chaos reigned in the 1990s, a wealthy and well-known Wheeler rancher organized his neighbors into a vigilante group to combat the wandering bands of marauders and refugees. They were successful enough that to this day, the descendents of these men still keep the town and much of the open plains around it safe for travel. Not that there is much out in the open prairies to protect, with its sparse patches of sunflowers and occasional devastated farmstead barely breaking the flat expanse of nothing. The "Ranchers", as they have been called for the last century, have a standing force of 40 horsemen, with most everyone in the area pledged to join in if needed. They are undoubtedly destined to get their butts kicked by the Krell sometime in the future, and flight west is their only option.
Liberal: This small town out on the open plains suffered many deaths after the war but managed to keep from falling completely apart. Liberal has since slowly recovered and is now home to around 1,000 people, many of them Oilers. The lure of the numerous natural gas wells in the area have kept people here. Security is provided by the "Dragoons", a 60-man strong militia-type organization. A century ago, the Dragoons went on an extensive plan to collect every operational vehicle it could find in the area and store them in the town. The many state highways and small towns yielded dozens of working cars and trucks, a few of them still capable of driving. Many more were hitched up to horse trains and towed back to Liberal, where they were cannibalized to keep others in service. While few have seen the roads in the last fifty years, there are still about seven working cars garaged in various locations around the town.
Planes of fame: As well, Liberal was home to the Mid-America Air Museum, holding a nice collection of old planes and helicopters in an old Beech aircraft facility. The museum just opened a few years before the war, and the collection was just beginning to arrive. A wildfire in 1990 destroyed several of the planes, but one of the main hangers survived the worst of the chaos. Once things settled down, the remaining staff of the Museum, together with the town's leaders, recognized the incredible value of what they had. The town's two surviving pilots took to the air, flying scouting missions over the region for many years. Eventually, however, the specialized fuel ran out and the planes were put back in the hangars for good. Here they still remain, slightly rusty and faded, but basically airworthy.
Elkhart: A walled town of around 1,000 with a lot of problems, Elkart is the center of a local feudal system of slaves and serfs who work the farms surrounding the town. Elkhart's current leader is Big Ben, a ruthless autocrat with a violent streak, and his second is Alexander, an cold-blooded ambitious man with power plans of his own that don't involve Big Ben. There is a small industry that reloads ammo and trades for other goods, and most of Elkhart's food comes from local farms that are surrounding the town or trade that comes from north, east and south of town. A small cult runs the water treatment plant in Elkhart. No one, even Alexander, is allowed to enter the water plant. Elkhart was visited by a MP Team decades ago (Science Team Omega-117), and the Project has become legendary to the town's people. There are rumors of a "Treasure of the Ancients" that the Project people knew of, though no one knows where it is anymore.
Elkhart Militia: Big Ben's militia is around 150 men, most surprisingly well-trained and disciplined. They are armed with an assortment of weapons from shotguns, long rifles, pistols, to some semi-automatics (M-16's, AK-47's), as well as spears, machetes, knives, etc. Big Ben also "employs" wasteland-trash biker toughs. He lets them eat and drink in Elkhart in payment for their support in enforcing his despotic rule. They range out around the area of Elkhart, and also help provide support and protection for incoming and outgoing goods and supplies, including new shipments of slaves for his projects. There are around 40+ in and around town usually, but their numbers fluctuate.
People who have contributed to this entry:
John Raner
Colin Castelli
C. Robert Grier
Steve Craven
Brad Sanders
Da Kine
Karl Zohler