Furrout: New Vegas
Prologue

Heat and sand.

These two simple things you can expect to experience in excess should you ever find yourself in the desert for yourself, skin roasting heat during the daylight hours and bitter cold that freezes to the bone during the darkness, an extreme on both ends of the spectrum with no real comfortable middle ground. These two simple things which haven't changed much in thousands of years, but one significant event 207 years ago would finally change all that, when nuclear fire rained down from the skies across the world.

Since the beginning of furkind, since our first ancestors discovered the killing power of rock and bone, the world to date has been built around the lives of those who have fallen and whose blood has been spilt. God, justice, greed, the list pretty much goes on for excuses and reasons why the world spilled blood and made the world dangerous and violent. Eventually on the 23rd October in the year 2077 the powder keg of tension between nations finally reached a boiling point of no return, exploding dramatically, and the one situation furkind had always predicted but never thought in reality would ever happen. Nuclear war.

Just two hours was all it took for the world to be changed forever as nuclear fire fell from the heavens across the world leaving great cities reduced to rubble and dust, millions of lives extinguished in the blink of an eye before man, woman or child could take notice. In a way it was almost biblical, as if god himself finally had enough once more, for once he flooded the world if you believe the bible. This time he sent fire to cleanse the world of evil, furkind nearly making itself extinct with the nuclear weapons each country held to defend themselves.

But what should of been the end of furkind was not quite as many would of predicted from a worldwide nuclear war, despite millions of lives being extinguished in a blink of an eye. Some of those who didn't die right away in the initial explosions did so days, weeks and months later from radiation poisoning and as those months turned into years did the darkness for the thirst of blood and violence arise like a phoenix from the ashes once again to take a strangle hold on the wounded and scarred world.

It has been told by the ghouls (those who survived the bombs but who were infected with large doses of radiation but didn't die or go feral like a lot would end up doing) who have remained sane and in control of themselves 204 years on from when the bombs fell. The stories they tell is that those first 20 years were the darkest and most violent before the first underground vaults opened up once more.

Not everyone was above ground when the bombs did fall, throughout the United States deep under the ground were massive facilities called Vaults. These Vaults were specially built in case nuclear war was ever to break out, they would house those lucky enough to meet the selection criteria. Those who made it into the vaults normally were selected for their specific skills, social standings and those who were deemed important enough to be needed and kept safe for the future. The idea was that they would be kept safe in their underground shelters to ride out the war, to stay under the ground until the world above was deemed habitual and safe once again when radiation levels dropped to survivable levels. The vaults themselves were a miniature haven for those lucky enough to live in them, well stocked with provisions and fresh water, filled with the most up to date technology to keep their occupants alive and comfortable for many years.

With everything on the ground being destroyed and with no functioning government, military or police enforcement to neutralize and control the problems, who was going to stop them? Gangs which were largely for the most known as raiders took to try and control what was to become known as the wasteland, though many split themselves into different groups such as the Khans who over time would finally be known as the Great Khans.

These raider groups would attack and raid settlements, hold up supply caravans, they weren't the kinds to shy away from violence and bloodshed to get their own ways. But along with the bad came the good, many survivors would band together and create functioning and thriving communities who branded out their own justice and laws throughout the destroyed lands and adapt to the new way of living. Eventually after a few years life pretty much seemed to go back to normality once again, an even balance between good and bad in a polluted and scarred land. The stubbornness and adaptiveness of furkind lived on much like it did in the past, and with that the new chapter in furkinds history had begun.

New Vegas. This is the name now adopted to the once great city known as Las Vegas, the city of sin as it was called and still holds to this day. A lively, bright and colourful strip of casinos and hotels where the tables are hot, the drinks are flowing and the girls, or guys if you prefer come cheap, if you've got the caps to hand. But not everything is bright lights and good times, the strip is surrounded by a slum called Freeside filled with those down on their luck, hooked on drugs or both. Step down the wrong alleyway, turn the wrong corner in Freeside and you could find a knife in your back and being freed of your hard earned bottle caps as well as your life. However, turn the right corners and you can find some good trade, bars and good times, like anything in the wasteland it's all about keeping your wits about you and having eyes in the back of your head.

The city of New Vegas itself managed to avoid a direct hit by any nuclear weapon, a few landed in the desert but far enough away to avoid causing the city too much in the way of problems, still for the next two hundred years nuclear fallout from the bombs that landed in the desert and the radioactive particles carried by the winds from all around the United States spread across the desert sands.

There are many strong patches of heavy radiation scattered around that will kill anyone who lingers in those areas for too long, for the most they are bearable and weak enough areas that you'd easily cleanse your body of any radiation absorbed with a foul tasting medical solution called rad-away. Till this day with the world being scarred by nuclear fallout even as far as the desolate sands there really isn't many clean and safe areas where you can feel content in being, even surviving meant keeping a good eye out on certain areas you were travelling as to avoid conflict with mutants or raiders. The main problems and reasons for death in the desert is all down to not holding the bare essentials you would need to survive and not end up like many who foolishly took to the sea of sand without enough, just ending up as bones after the wildlife has finished with you before being swallowed up from all existence by the sands.

The Mojave has seen in past years a great war between the NCR or New California Republic as they are known who control many areas throughout the Mojave and Caesars Legion who control a large majority of land and states ranging all the way back to the east coast of the United States. The legion felling a lot of clans and settlements in their drive across the United States, killing many and wiping all knowledge of their history and existence from memory, but more than most absorbing them into their vast army. The legion made an assault on Hoover Dam in an attempt to take it before making it's inevitable push and assault on New Vegas and beyond, the NCR had other ideas and stood their ground despite being pushed back from the dam at one point. With all looking lost that day, one master-stroke of a last stand was conducted in the small city of Boulder just beyond the dam. The decision was made to rig the whole city full of explosives, the trick to lure the legion in and blow the town up around them, the plan worked a treat killing a large majority of the legion as well as minor casualties to some of the NCR who sacrificed themselves to make the trap work. A counter attack began and the NCR forced the legion back across the dam and beyond, the day was won and the Legion fell back with their tails between their legs. Both sides suffered great losses that day, but luck and the day was on the side of the republic. The Legion set up camp just beyond the dam at a place called Settlement Hill which overlooks the dam and beyond, but for now they bide their time for the inevitable second battle for Hoover Dam.

And so this is where the story begins, with a young courier new to the sands of the Mojave and how a small, almost insignificant silver poker chip marked a defining moment in the wastelands history which would change everything.