| abstract
| - The Water Tribals, as they have come to be known, originated in Berriman Biomechanics' laboratories originally in the cities of New York and Washington; designed as part of Berriman's "fishman" program, a super-soldier program largely thought up independently for the US government in order to fulfill multiple contracts for it, it was here that the first generation of these tribals would be created, mostly from the unfortunate political prisoners handed over to Berriman for testing. This first generation was left largely unstable, mentally and physically, through beatings and a constant supply of drugs designed to keep them docile, not to mention the volley of genetic tampering taking place, mixing genes of all manner of aquatic species in order to accrue a favourable outcome for these experiments; breeding between them was strictly controlled, with either natural or artificial means of insemination being used in ensuring the creation of a second generation of these creatures. The second generation carried over the first generation's "improvements"; namely the gills and webbed feet and all the so-called "perks" that these substantial mutations brought with them, themselves brought on by all manner of genetic and bio-engineering experimentation but also a firey hatred of their captors that the first had and did lack. Attacks on their captors, even when this second generation was only comprised of infants, revealed their strength and their cunning to be superior and on-par with Humans, respectively. This second generation was treated to all the harsh treatment their parents had suffered and more before the Great War, where-upon many of them escaped, both aided and aiding their almost equally as feral parents in the escape, in the ensuing chaos; naturally after savaging their former tormentors. Throughout the late 2070s and early 2080s, these tribals began to adapt to this brutal world that was now slowly emerging from the radioactive dust of nuclear armageddon; whilst their parents were useful only as adults, these young children adapted, albeit slowly, to their new world; although they were no longer provided their meals by lab-coat clad physicians, they knew how to hunt; fish and crabs, still going through the labours of mutation, were a prime source of sustenance. By the time these second generation "fishmen" were reaching teenage years, many were already beginning to breed in a way that their former captors had forced them to but a mere 10-20 years earlier. A third generation sprang from the loins of this second generation, once again adapting to the world of post-nuclear America; all the while hunting far more dangerous prey. By the onset of the 2100s, tribal communities had sprung up across Vermillion bay as packs of these almost feral creatures, only now just beginning to form the basis of a rough language crafted from a mix of English and other languages, began to break away from what was once a unified tribal system; some would search for meaning in their existence, scouring through the abandoned buildings littering the Louisiana countryside, enthralled by these aging structures and their interiors, sometimes watching Humans from afar with great fascination; most would simply exist as hunter-gatherers, regarded as feral beasts by the Humans and Ghouls of Louisiana as they carved their way across the coast, killing hapless travellers out of xenophobic rage. Some others even managed to branch out further inland, though sticking very closely to the swamps and waterways for fear of being on land where they could not see the water, though more often than preferring to remain in their "natural" territory of coastal waters, mostly for ease of access to bountiful, albeit heavily irradiated and dangerous, fish quantities and open waters, again with the minor caveat of heavy irradiation. The 2100s themselves were a period of time where the Water Tribals made their presence increasingly known along the coast, albeit in small pockets of wandering nomads. The largest congregations were notably located along the Southern and Eastern coasts of Vermillion Bay, though smaller pockets could also be found on the Northern and Western coasts with alarming regularity. The mid 2100s especially saw an alarmingly, to most of the "civilized" inhabitants of the bay, growing trend of increasingly territorial and violent Water Tribals tearing through land-based caravans and savaging lone travellers trying to travel the shortest route around the bay; the coastal areas where these Tribals congregated; by 2160, the largely empty pre-war ruin of Laramie Point had fallen into the hands of two of the largest Water Tribal groups, the Silver Fins and the River Men, whom were now locked in brutal fighting for control of the town. The few surviving citizens of Laramie Point would be driven into living in an increasingly smaller shanty town on the very farthest outskirts of the town, hugging the coast so as to acquire supplies that now increasingly came from Ewing Bay. With many caravans facing closure if they paid for extra protection or longer travel routes, many were forced to turn, cap-in-hand, to Ewing Bay's pseudo-aristocracy and rent out chartered boats to escape the clutches of Water Tribals. Despite this rather useful boon to Ewing Bay, many of the town's locals despised the Tribals and many of the more religious folk, Christians especially, viewed them as godless heathens in need of a damn good thrashing. This thrashing never arrived in the 2100s, though the odd battle between clans and hunting parties did sometimes become a cause for some relief, but did somewhat in the arrival of the Brethren of the Shroud, a maniacal mutant-supremacist cult, in the early 2200s. At first contact, many of this cult's priests and clerics sought to bring these Tribals, their strength and numbers a much sought after boon to the cult's plans, into the fold of the Shroud; this never came about, especially with the violent tendencies and extreme xenophobia of the Tribals themselves leaving many a cleric found floating face-down by fishermen further out on the bay, the mutilated bodies having been washed out into the bay after the Tribals were finished with them. As a result of this the Brethren of the Shroud, by the mid 2200s, had largely given up on the idea of conversion, though many the odd cleric would try, and instead turned to Badlanders and Swampers, an equally as common menace to the average Louisianan, to kill the Tribals in whatever way possible. These Badlanders and Swampers more often than found themselves fighting a particularly tough foe, with the former taking particular ecstasy in this fact, and many an overconfident Swamper or Badlander met their end at the end of a strudy spear, though equally so too did many a Water Tribal, gunned down from afar with the cackling of drunken inbreds or the roar of triumphant, drug fuelled miscreants ringing in their ears. Yet the Water Tribals spreading influence did not abate; increasingly, Water Tribals found themselves on the doorstep of many a shanty town of starving settlers, often times wiping these unfortunates out in their xenophobic rages against those who were not their own. Some packs, however, kept their distance entirely and instead stuck to immediate areas around the coast, like beaches or river mouths. Their spread further into land was largely prevented by their own desire to stay close to large water-sources and the actions of Badlanders, Swampers and other factions keen to avoid yet more hostile groups in their own respective territories whilst their spread further along the coast, whilst gradual and drawn out over many months, seemed all but inevitable. Increasingly bitter fights against these Tribals have become common, especially following the 2260s, with growing, powerful factions becoming increasingly keen to horde all the territory they can hold control of obviously not willing to share with uncivilized, brutish Tribals clad in lointcloths leering at them with sharpened teeth and spears. Swamper clans, also refusing to abandon hard-gotten gains on the lands near Vermillion Bay, proved the harshest in the fight against the encroaching Tribals; some doing so of their own accord, others with the backing of either the Brethren of the Shroud or even more economic interests, both keen to stem the slow but steady tide of Tribal advance for radically different reasons. With, supposedly, docile packs becoming more common along the coast,the 2270s became a time of apparent stalemate along the coast, with Water Tribals standing their ground against hired guns and desperate militias attempting to cleanse various locales of their presence; by the modern day, 2287,some had thought that the Water Tribals had largely undergone a period of pascifism; however, with the destruction of the miniscule shanty town of the last surviving Humans and Ghouls of Laramie Point, these thoughts were quickly dispelled. It has become quite clear to many along Vermillion Bay that these Water Tribals won't be going anywhere anytime soon, numbering well into the high-hundreds as their numbers are; not without a determined fight, at the very least.
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