After the End is a post-apocalypse total conversion mod for Crusader Kings II - Ofaloaf/postapoc. Clone or download. After the End - African Faces DLC. Oct 13, 2018 - After The End Fan Fork is a mod for Crusader Kings II, created by 9Kbits1. Fully compatible with CK2 Patch 2.8.1 and the Jade Dragon DLC. Report problems with download to [email protected].
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AfterTheEndACrusaderKingsIIMod
Go To
After the End: A Post-Apocalyptic America Mod is a Game Mod for Crusader Kings II, set in North America. In the far-distant future, centuries after the general collapse of society, the people of the North American continent have begun to rebuild their disconnected societies into something approaching civilization. However, quite a lot has changed in six centuries: The nations of the old world are nothing more than legends, and the surviving societies have had more than enough time to form their own identities and cultural and religious traditions.
Advertisement:
The original version of After the End went into hiatus in early 2018. However, a group of fans has revived the project as the After the End Fan Fork, which is available via the Steam Workshop and on a Paradox Interactive Forum thread dedicated to discussion of the Fan Fork.
The legacy version of the mod can be viewed the original project's GitHub, which is also where the last build of the original mod can be downloaded as well. A stable build is also available (current version 0.8), though this version is not compatible with Patch 2.7.1. The Paradox Interactive Forum thread for the mod (registration required to view) is the place to go for discussion regarding the original After the End mod.
Advertisement:
In addition to tropes present in the base game, these mods provide examples of the following tropes:
- After the End: Naturally. The exact nature of the event that brought about The End is deliberately left unspecified, but whatever it was, it was bad enough to knock progress back to the point where humanity (at least in the Americas) has only reached medieval level of development after six hundred years.
- All Hail the Great God Mickey!:
- Veneration of Mickey Mouse himself gets alluded to the Tribe of the Mouse, which rules a chunk of Florida.
- The Americanists have taken the Founding Fathers of the United States to be gods who once walked among men, interpreting the many monuments and statues to them as temples and idols. Their entire religion is structured around the interpretation of documents such as the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and the Federalist Papers as religious texts.
- The Sagrado Corazon faith venerates El Santo as an actual saint. Devotees take up the life and identity of a Masked Luchador to follow in his footsteps.
- Among the sects of Gracia Divina, there is a cult that worships Latin American revolutionary hero Simón Bolívar as an out-and-out Messiah.
- Occultists following the Lore of the Old Ones regard the writings of H. P. Lovecraft as sacred texts.
Advertisement:
- Alternate History: The devs have mentioned that the After the End timeline began to deviate from our own some time after World War II.
- Americasia: Californian culture has absorbed a considerable amount of East Asian influence, from the prevalence of kimonos and Hanfu clothing styles to a very syncretic mystical religion based on the wisdom of revered gurus to a political structure with a figurehead Emperor reigning (but not ruling) over a collection of powerful and power-hungry warlords.
- And Man Grew Proud: The very nature of the Event that brought about the End is so shrouded in myth that there are multiple versions of the story in-universe, each ascribing a different root cause to the total collapse of civilization.
- Apocalypse Anarchy: Varies from region to region. Some areas, like the Holy Columbian Confederacy and the Caribbean Empire, have been united under a strong central authority bringing law and order, while others remain divided among pirate marauders, fragmented tribes, and the occasional Feudal Overlord looking to eke out an existence while surrounded by enemies.
- Apocalypse Cult: Several, with the variation that many of them think the Apocalypse has already happened and that they're living through it. Somewhat justified by the fact that the setting takes place after a massive cataclysm that wiped out civilization as we know it.
- Authority in Name Only:
- The Emperor of California starts the game as one. In theory he rules all of California; in practice, the various Cali sub-factions are all completely autonomous, and the Emperor is purely a figurehead who only exercises any real control over a relatively small amount of territory.
- The Americanists still 'elect' their chosen to positions like President or Joint Chief of Staff. But with the United States long gone, these are little more than symbolic titles for what some realms see as a perverse heresy. At least at the start of the game.
- Awakening the Sleeping Giant: When Americanists murdered the last member of Deitscherei's founding dynasty, they provoked the Anabaptists of Pennsylvania into abandoning their pacifist ways and going on a full war footing to seek revenge, culminating in them sacking Washington DC.
- Balkanize Me: The United States isn't the only nation that has effectively shattered after The End. Canada and Mexico have also broken up along cultural lines, though a vestigial Mexico still survives. Interestingly, Central America and the Caribbean have actually inverted the trope, with several nations coming together to form new, unified kingdoms and empires (though Word of God is that if they can set it up properly the Caribbean Empire is intended to have this trope happen during the gameplay in most games, once the Empress dies and the kinslaying crown prince takes the throne). Averted as well with the UK, which over centuries has revived the British Empire and will attempt to reclaim the old colonies.
- Black Vikings: Even more prevalent than the original game, due to a few hundred years of North American interbreeding. Starting out the game, there are even the Ojibwe Vikings of Mille Lacs.
- Born in the Saddle: The Great Plains (or at least a large chunk to the northwest of Iowa and Nebraska) are dominated by competing clans of nomadic Horse Lords.
- Cain and Abel: Prince Barrington Stepping Razor murdered his older brother to become the sole child of the Caribbean Empress. Zolin Bello, a patrician of the republic of La Paz, also murdered his sister, though not before killing their parents, imprisoning her and fathering a bastard with her.
- Canada, Eh?: Like the United States, Canada has broken up into different factions largely along cultural lines. It has its own offshoots of Protestantism and Catholicism (the High Church and Ursulines, respectively) that can unify into a single Confederated Church under the right circumstances.
- Cargo Cult: The Rust Cultists of the old Rust Belt worship old machinery as the creation of a higher power but are incapable of operating most of it, due to equal measures of lost knowledge of their functions and the machines themselves being several centuries behind on their regular maintenance. The Atomicists, likewise, hold 'the power of the Atom' in reverence without any real understanding of the scientific principles behind atomic theory; one of their holy artifacts is a giant metal 'egg' which, according to lore, is destined to hatch a reincarnation of their god (and which savvy players will recognize is actually an unexploded atomic bomb).
- Church of Happyology: Alluded to by the Cetic Way of The Cowl, a philosophy that emphasizes ruthless ambition and gaining power by any means necessary. One of the Way's principal gurus is known as Hubbard.
- Cowboy: Western cultures have access to cowboy retinues, admittedly with horse archers rather than gunslingers. Some west anglo characters even wear stetsons.
- Creator Cameo: Some of the developers make appearances as characters in the game.
- Deep South: Much of the Old South is dominated by the Holy Columbian Confederacy. In addition to being an Expy of the Holy Roman Empire, the parallels to the ancient Confederate States of America are no coincidence either.
- Developers' Foresight: Since Pennsylvania has been taken over by the Amish, all place names are translated to Pennsylvania Dutch, at least while under the control of the Dietscherei.
- Divided States of America: The United States is nothing more than a memory at this point, with most of its former constituents having developed their own local identities into unique national cultures. There is an included optional submod that allows reuniting the United States, but the resulting Empire of the United States only really covers the rough area of the Thirteen Colonies.
- Dirty Commies: While Communism as an ideology isn't represented, the Americanists and Consumerists regard Communism as some kind of sinister supernatural force, and the Russian invasion seems to imply strong cultural memories of the Red Scare; the confirmation text for the event is 'Better dead than red!'
- Eagleland: Exaggerated, to the point that despite the collapse of the United States as a functioning nation the Americanists have turned their reverence for the Founding Fathers and other American icons into full-blown worship. Overall, it's presented too broadly for the whole thing to be labelled either Beautiful or Boorish; where individual characters fall depends, as with many other things, on the whims of the player and the game engine.
- The Empire: The Holy Columbian Confederacy, at least compared to the tribes and feudal realms that surround it. California at its height, as well. An optional submod also makes it possible to restore an 'Empire of the United States,' albeit covering the original Thirteen Colonies.
- Enemy Mine: Leonidas Royall, the founder of the Holy Columbian Confederacy, once tried to cement his empire's claim of being the true successor to the United States by conquering Washington, DC. His campaign ended up causing an unlikely alliance to form between the Americanists, the Pennsylvania Anabaptists and the Occultists of New England, which defeated him and ended his expansions.
- Expy: The Holy Columbian Confederacy manages to stand in for both the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire. The election mechanics mirror the HRE, while the structure of the Evangelical Church is more or less identical to the vanilla game's Orthodox Christianity.
- Fandom Rivalry: In-universe, the Longhorns and Aggies aren't any friendlier in the post-apocalypse, actually starting at war with each other.
- Fan Sequel: The Fan Fork technically qualifies as one. While it uses the underlying code from the original mod, it is considered a derivative work independent of the original and is being developed by a different modding team (since the original mod has been on hiatus for quite some time).
- Fantastic Catholicism:
- Catholicism has experienced a massive surge in the American West, complete with a new Papacy in St. Louis and the revival of the Crusades. There's also two offshoots that refuse to acknowledge his authority as the 'true' Pope: The Ursulines of Quebec, who have their own all-female clerical hierarchy, and a Mexican splinter religion that evolved from devotions to the Sacred Heart and the veneration of saints. There's another sect as well, similar to but distinct from the Mexican Sagrado Corazón faith, in the form of 'Gracia Divina' in South America.
- In the Holy Columbian Confederacy, the Evangelicals had long since coalesced into a council of bishops that serves as a Protestant counterweight to the Catholic Papacy as well as the religious centre of the Old South (some events implies that the council started out as a broader pan-Christian co-operation, but ended up a basically Protestant thing when the St. Louis pentarch broke away and declared himself Pope). Same thing happens in Canada, where remnants of Anglicanism organise themselves into the 'High Church' headed by the Archbishop of Canterbury. Canterbury, New Brunswick that is.
- Not to mention even more stranger offshoots - like Revelationism (a Christianity-derived faith with such emphasis on strange/supernatural that it is regarded as pagan — Charismatics have many of the same ideas and influences, but remain close enough to the Christian norm to count as Evangelical heretics), Neo-Gnosticism (Christian tradition mixed with eastern influences from West Coast) and Falling Star (unique to the South America and barely considered Christian by anyone, worshipping 'fallen angel' that defend humanity from God's wrath)
- Fantastic Racism: In the opening loading screen, one of the images is of a map made by, and for, The Holy Columbian Confederacy. It gives something of an insight of what they think about their neighbors, referring to other autonomous but Evangelical southern nations on their borders as “Marches”, they refer to their Voudoun practiceing neighbors to the west as “fetishists”, and the Revelationists of Tennesi as “Snakemen”.
- Fantasy Americana: While the game's set squarely in a post-apocalyptic America, a number of event chains are inspired by various bits of regional folk tales in keeping with the Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane theme of the original game.
- Feudal Future: As in the base game, the game mechanics are based on a simplified version of feudalism.
- Future Imperfect: A great deal of knowledge was lost after The Event. Most knowledge of what American society was like has been lost, to the point where sports teams are assumed to have been famous warrior bands and the Founding Fathers are worshipped by some as gods who once walked among men. One possible 'heresy' than can emerge is even a corrupted form of consumerism claiming that the Event was due to people not giving enough reverence to the 'Almighty Dollar.' Subverted however with the British and Russians, who are at least aware that their ancestors did colonize the continent centuries earlier and are intent on 'reclaiming' them.
- God-Emperor / God Empress:
- The Cetic Californians worship their emperors as one of the chief Gurus, but this doesn't mean that they actually obey them.
- The British have adopted a religion based partly on the philosophy of Aleister Crowley, except the Queen is the main object of worship.
- Similarly, the Japanese worship their 'Undying Emperor', who we're told withdrew from public view for meditation and refuses all contact. This was six centuries ago, around the same time as the Event.
- Great Offscreen War: Many past military conflicts, some recent and others ancient, have set the stage for the current setting. These include:
- The wars of conquest that led to the foundation of California, New England, and the Holy Columbian Confederacy.
- The wars between the Anabaptists and Americanists, which led to a sack of Washington DC and the Anabaptists abandoning their pacifism.
- Albert Soady's long, bloody career as a viking raider, where even kings were sacrificed to Odin.
- The rivalry between Hudsonia and the Occultists of New England, which has led to many wars and conflicts in the past. Hudsonia was founded when Ellis Rodham led an army north from NYC and freed the entire state of New York from the Mahonics. There's also Zadok Mahonic's military campaign a couple centuries later, wherein he attempted to reconquer Hudsonia and restore his kingdom's prestige, but was defeated and killed at the Battle of Saratoga Springs, directly leading to the series of wars and dynastic conflicts that broke apart New England and reduced the Mahonics' holdings to just the Boston metro area. Comments in the code also show that Hudsonia deliberately encouraged and provoked this instability, often by assassinating rulers who were doing too good a job at holding things together.
- One was supposed to happen in the game proper but didn't end up implemented. When the game leads up to the Russians arriving, they were supposed to get into a war with a powerful Inuit kingdom which ruled Alaska, which is beyond the reach of the map. The winner would head south and invade the playable area.
- Grim Up North: The northern portion of the continent is by and large less developed, and full of fierce tribes and nomads.
- Heart Is an Awesome Power: The Anabaptists benefit from an increased demesne limit and a huge bonus to vassal opinion. While these might not seem as exciting as some other religious perks, they allow Anabaptist rulers to field and fund massive armies, as well as invest in province development, from a rock-solid leadership position. Anabaptist Hudsonia usually ends up the defensive juggernaut of the Northeast.
- Historical In-Joke: Loads, some with the implication that History Repeats.
- The Archbishop of Canterbury, New Brunswick is one Thomas Beckett, who is fortunate enough to be independent of any troublesome kings.
- The first, legendary emperor of California is known as Norton, a reference to Joshua Norton, California's best beloved madman and would-be monarch.note
- In the republic of Cartagena, the Barca family has produced a remarkable military leader named Aníbal.
- Dodge City is ruled by a man named Wyatt Masterson, a name honoring two of the city's most famous resident gunslingers.
- Game mechanics and various incidental references seem to imply that the Catholics were once part of the broader Evangelical coalition before splitting off and going their own way under a restored Papacy, essentially repeating the East-West Schism.note
- The leader of Little Egypt is one King Ramsays, celebrating one of the most notable Egyptian Pharaohs.
- Versailles (the name of the famous French palace) exists as a county, and its flag is a yellow fleur-de-lys on a blue background, one of the most famous signs of France.
- The adjectival short form for the Men in Black is 'Redacted.'
- Several titles in Fan Fork have 'legendary' figures from the past as holders in the title histories, including:
- Louis Riel, President of The Provisional Government of Saskatchewan who led a First Nations rebellion in Canada, as Duke of Sasketchewan.
- Quanah Parker, the last chief of the Comanche and first leader of the entire Comanche Nation, as King of Comancheria.
- Leif Erikson, the Viking explorer who landed in 'Vinland' (possibly Newfoundland)is King of Newfoundland.
- The House of Hapsburg works in some appearances as first Emperors of Brazil and as Emperors of Mexico.
- The Empire of Mexico has the original Emperor Iturbide, Emperor Maximillian, and the Aztec royal house as the first holders of that title. Similarly, the cultural empire of the Quechua is the Incan Empire, complete with the banner and history of all the Sapa Incas.
- The first, legendary Pope is 666-year-old Petrus Romanus, a reference to The Prophecy of the Popes, which claims that the Antichrist would become the final Pope and take the name of Petrus Romanus.
- Huey Long, the 'dictator of Louisiana', is King of Louisiana.
- Laurence de Graff, the fearsome pirate, rules off the coast of Newfoundland, his Acadien culture being a reference to the French colony that he served.
- In Fan Fork, the Iroquoian Duke Hiawatha Onondaga rules a part of old New York.
- Ada Lovelace is married to the Protector-General of Brazil at the beginning of the game.
- The House of de Braganca ruling Brazil, including the name Pedro, is directly taken from the first Empire of Brazil.
- The Hong Konger woman in the court of Gran Francisco bears the name Zhu Yijun, the personal name of the Wanli Emperor who saw the steady collapse of the Ming dynasty, in a similarly chaotic [[Americasia Celestial Empire of California]].
- The adjectival short form of the county of The James is Jacobite, in reference to the Jacobite movement to restore King James II and the House of Stuart.
- Hollywood Voodoo: Mostly averted; scrupulous attention has been paid to representing the Voodoo religion in Haiti and Louisiana correctly, though as with all in-game religions certain aspects have been simplified for the sake of game mechanics. You can zombify living prisoners to make them more obedient, but the process takes a serious toll on the victim's health, and all Voodoo practitioners disapprove of your hiring a bokor to perform black magic.
- Horny Vikings: In another case of Future Imperfect exaggerating local stereotypes into a full-blown cultural shift, the western shores of the Great Lakes are populated by Norse revivalists who have embraced both the old pantheon and the Viking lifestyle.
- Human Sacrifice: The Mictlantecs of Mexico have revived the old practice of cutting out hearts and sacrificing them to the gods, as they believe that the interruption of these sacrifices caused the apocalypse to happen. Also, the Norse revivalists of the Great Lakes retain the blót festivals and associated sacrifices from the vanilla game.
- I Know Madden Kombat: Over hundreds of years, the remnants of various sports teams evolved into actual mercenary bands. Military helmets also incorporate face masks obviously derived from those of American football helmets.
- I Love Nuclear Power: In-universe, the Atomicists seek to invoke this trope, as they deliberately expose their young to still-radioactive nuclear fuel rods in order to receive the 'Blessing of the Atom.' This runs a small risk of tainting them with radiation poisoning for life, lowering some of their stats, but a successful ritual boosts the character's opinion with other Atomicists.
- Injun Country: Available in six main flavors: the Catholic Comanche in Texas and Oklahoma; the rest of the Plains Indians, following a revival of the Ghost Dance in the Great Plains; the Haida, in British Colombia and Washington; the Mormon Navajo and Hopi in southern Utah/northern Arizona; the Cetic Paiute in Western Nevada; and various First Nations in eastern Canada, who are mostly assimilated with their neighbours.
- Jidai Geki: California's political set-up is based on a mix of this era and Three Kingdoms-era China, with a powerless figurehead emperor in Sacramento, and five warring kingdoms (Gran Francisco, The Valley, Jefferson, Socal and Baja) that only pay lip-service to him while constantly warring for actual control. In backstory provided by flavour text in the game over screens, California's backstory is described as being akin to the Sengoku period, a long period of constant civil war between numerous feudal lords vying for power, with Emperor Elton the Lawgiver playing a role similar to a composite of Toyotomi Hideyoshi and Tokugawa Ieyasu.
- Language Drift: Some events imply that present-day English is effectively a dead language and must be studied as such by scholars.
- Last of His Kind: In the current dev build, the chief of Boston is Paul Mahonic, last living member of the House of Mahonic, founders of New England and a dynasty which once ruled everything from Buffalo to New Brunswick under the rulership of the legendary Vincent Mahonic.
- Lost Technology: The Rust Cultists venerate ancient tech and can undergo expeditions to try and find Pre-Fall technology. Characters of any religion can discover old technology, but only the Rust Cultists actively search for it.
- Lovecraft Country: New England has become the centre of a new Occultist religious movement that takes a number of cues from the works of H. P. Lovecraft.
- Masked Luchador: Followers of El Santo can become masked luchadores and have the option of challenging one another to unmasking matches. The Sagrado Corazon faith also has a holy order of El Santo devotees, mask-wearing knights known as La Orden de la Mascara (The Order of the Mask).
- Matriarchy:
- In contrast to how most of the rest of post-apocalyptic America favours male succession, the Gaians of the Pacific Northwest tend to favour female succession because they believe that the Event was caused by the men screwing things up. They view the ideal as an Enlightened Matriarchy, but given the game engine on the whole ensures that individual women can get the same traits (positive and negative) as individual men, the net result is somewhere between Original Matriarchy and Patriarchy Flip.
- The Ursulines also have a matriarchal clergy, though plenty of feudal holdings under their sway are still under male-preference (or at least gender-equal) succession.
- Medieval Stasis: Downplayed. The mod uses the base game's technology system, so technology does advance as time passes, but aside from a few rare artifacts that can be recovered from old ruins, society can't progress beyond the equivalent of the early Renaissance.
- The Men in Black: A secretive order that can be founded by Americanists based on corrupted memories of the FBI and CIA that serves as a prototypical State Sec (and, in game terms, corresponds to The Hashshashin of the base game). Members engage in such shady and underhanded dealings as assassinations, targeted abductions, secretly intimidating rulers into giving them 'favors,' and getting high on the order's secret stash of 'Ultra.'
- Modern Mayincatec Empire: Downplayed. They hardly form a single empire (or, for that matter, a unified religious or cultural bloc), and calling them 'modern' is a bit odd in the context of the broader setting, but a number of Mesoamerican societies both survived and revived many of their ancient beliefs.
- Name That Unfolds Like Lotus Blossom: The Popes of the reformed papacy do not take on the names of saints like their predecessors in Rome, but instead, they seem to have gone the way of the Puritans, taking names like Praised-Be, Blessed-Be, and Hallelujah.
- Only in Florida: Most of Florida is controlled by a tribe that worshipsMickey Mouse.
- Outside-Context Problem: The British and Brazilian invasions replace the invasions of the Ilkhanate and Golden Horde from the base game. Later updates include similar invasions by the Russians and Japanese from the west.
- Pirate: There's an entire religion based on golden age piracy, most active in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Saint Lawrence.
- Politically Correct History: The Holy Columbian Confederacy seems to either be unaware of the racial issues of its pre-calamity predecessor, or has deliberately adopted a more egalitarian philosophy while still appealing to the past to legitimize its existence. In any event, it's very common to find black rulers and even emperors.
- Pro Wrestling Is Real: Devotees of El Santo don't bother with things like Kayfabe or scripting matches, they just get in the ring and beat the hell out of each other for real.
- Ragnarök Proofing: Mostly averted; as the Rust Cult can attest, most machinery has long since degraded to the point of being non-functional. Certain small artifacts can be recovered, but the events involved mention that that's due in part to some careful restoration work done by scholars and expert tinkers. Played straight with firearms, however, as each one is apparently found with an infinite supply of ammunition that hasn't degraded.
- The Remnant: A handful of realms still claim some sort of legitimate succession to the old United States, by that point mythic. Mexico to the south still survives as a rump state centred on Mexico City and its surroundings; it used to not be a rump state at all, as the ruling House Iturbide once controlled the entirety of present-day Mexico, but has fallen on hard times as of game start.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: In the backstory, the murder of the last member of the Kingdom of Deitscherei in Pennsylvania's founding dynasty by Americanists provoked the kingdom as a whole to embark on one of these, ending in a brutal sack of Washington, D.C. This also serves to explain why the Anabaptists are no longer Actual Pacifists in this universe.
- Sadly Mythtaken: The Revelationist faith is a form of backwoods Christianity that has essentially evolved into a distinct religion after a few hundred years of isolation, forgoing the holy trinity in favour of such divine emanations as the Burning Bush and the Serpentine God.
- The Founding Fathers and Carl Sagan would certainly want to talk with Americanist and Cetic followers.
- Sequel Escalation: The Fan Fork features this by design, as it was created specifically to incorporate content from subsequent Crusader Kings II updates after the mod's main branch went dormant.
- Shout-Out: Chock-full of little 'easter eggs' that serve as references to other media:
- The Duke of Philadelphia is based on Dennis from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Other characters from the show appear in his court.
- Thom and Martha Wayne are patricians up in Gotham. Random dynasty names for Gothamite characters also includes various surnames of Batman villains.
- What's more, Thom and Martha Wayne are scripted to die in the first year when coming home from the market. Their young son, Bruce Wayne, will take up the mantle. Some days later, he will receive an event that will give him traits like duelist, just, and shy, and he will be known as 'The Bat'.
- Likewise, if you take a peek at the courtiers present in Dallas, Texas, you can find a certain Jayarr Ewing.
- As if the shout-out for the Tribe of the Mouse weren't obvious enough, it starts out being ruled by one Elias Waltney, with the Disney castle as his coat of arms.
- The prevalence of Catholicism in Texas and the Great Plains, as well as the Pope in Missouri, have been admitted by the devs to be a reference to A Canticle for Leibowitz, as is the Tribe of Tenesi in, well, Tennessee.
- And tying into the sports theme as well, St. Louis is the home of the Pope and the College of Cardinals.
- One of the possible event chains features a mysterious figure (implied to be Satanin disguise) who challenges the player to a contest for their soul, with the prize if they win being an instrument relative to the nature of the contest made of gold (golden sword for fencing, golden chalice for drinking, etc.). If you win, the confirmation dialogue states 'I've shown him how it's done.' (The fact that the mysterious stranger is clad all in black may also double as a reference to Johnny Cash ).
- One of the saints a follower of the Sagrado Corazon can choose as their patron is El Santo.
- The ruler of the Maritimes (encompassing the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island) is Caitlin Beaton. One of her vassals is Anne of Green Gables.
- No one rules Baja California like King Gaston!
- Descendants of the survivors of an SCA kingdom have banded together in the Northeast and formed a mercenary band of knights errant, known as the Anachronists.
- One ruler of one of the Tex-Mex border states is a certain Gonzalo 'the Speedy.'
- The Rust Cult worships the Omnissiah, calls its priests Tech-Priests, and one of their lesser god names is the Machine Spirits. Another of the lesser god names is Father Ford.
- One Texas county is called the 'Kingdom of Possum,' a dual reference to Possum Kingdom Lake and the song that briefly brought it into the national spotlight.
- The County of Covington in Kentucky is ruled by Count Cincinnatus Driver of Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory novels. His son Achilles, and daughter Amanda are also present.
- The Count of Talladega is a slow-witted man named Ricky Bobrell, a reference to the main character of Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby.
- While, in California, many mercenary bands are based off of sports teams, such as the 'Oakland Raiders' and the 'Forty-Nine Giants' (since San Francisco has two teams), there is also a rather interesting band called 'The Cult of The Apple', whose banner is the old Apple Inc. logo (the one with the rainbow-colored apple).
- There's a certain Sander Harlan hiding out in Corbin, Kentucky.
- Jojo and Loretta from 'Get Back' are rulers of a tribal band based in Tucson, Arizona.
- The entire US west coast is depicted as having embraced elements of Japanese culture, such as Kimonos, Oriental-styled coats of arms, and the Sengoku-Japan style Californian Empire. This is a possible reference to The Man in the High Castle, in which Japan wins the Second World War and assimilates the west coast of America into its culture (although in this universe, there is no evidence of Nazi Germany having gained any sort of foothold).
- It could also be a reference to the Ace Attorney games, which famously explained the Woolseyism-filled yet still notably Japanese setting of the translation with loosened immigration laws allowing Japanese culture to flourish in California.
- One of the vision quest outcomes has your character fighting and winning a fierce duel in a cave against a hated enemy, only to discover that said enemy is actually himself. Another has the character witness a band of ghost riders in the sky, chasing a herd of demonic cattle.
- House King rules over the County of Bangor, where Stephen King currently lives.
- There's a Garrison Krebsbach kicking around northern Minnesota — and all of his children are above average.
- The Count of Pittsburgh is a certain Ishmael Ashur, and he has a young daughter named Mary. Unfortunately, as a Catholic entirely surrounded by more powerful Rust Cultists, he usually doesn't stay in power for very long.
- Many of the mercenary outfits take names and/or colours from Real Life groups. Examples include:
- Others take names and/or colour from groups from fiction:
- The Steel Brotherhood who also fly the winged sword and cogs and, to no-one's surprise, are heavy infantry specialists. So does, with different colours, the Chicago-based breakaway Midwestern Brotherhood that forms if the Rust Cult is reformed. And in the Capitol Wasteland, you can find Reilly's Rangers.
- Harvard University's library system seems to have survived, and is known to the Occultists of New England as 'the Crimson Library'.
- While Mormonism as a whole could be treated as a nod to Fallout: New Vegas, there is much more direct reference in the county of Grand Staircase. It's not only ruled by certain scarred man named Joshua, but also features kind, yet defensive apostle Daniel of Zion.
- Among the east coast mercenary bands are (all with the appropriate insignia):
- Within the court of the Trailblazers and the County of Tillamook in Oregon are a certain duo named Chloe Pricer and Maxine Coalfield.
- The County of South Platte is ruled by TreystonStotch
- The Duke of the Catskill Mountains is one Rip Ranvincle.
- John Lee Pettimore is a Revelationist tribal leader in the Appalachians.
- The fallen kingdom of New England, which once ruled everything from Buffalo to New Brunswick and was a major regional power, was founded by legendarily strong warrior Vincent Mahonic. The Mahonic banner is the inverted WWE logo.
- Cuba's aristocracy includes Lucy and Ricky.
- Transylvania is ruled by a cruel Count with the Impaler trait.
- One of the duchies along the Mississippi is the Duchy of Twain, and the shield for it features a picture of a young boy in a wide straw hat.
- House Rodham is listed as as a politically-prominent historical dynasty that ruled all of Upstate New York.
- An audio example: One of the tunes included with the Fan Fork is the 'Fisher's Hornpipe,' best known to videogamers from the old classic Colonization.
- A Canuck count is named Picard John-Luke.
- A standard name for a Wastelander (ie, Australian Outback) character is 'Steve Irwin'.
- The name for the Ozlander cultural empire is Dreamland.
- A count named Scott Pilgrim exists in northern Canada, and is married to a Americanist named 'Ramona'.
- Shown Their Work: There are tons of examples, given all the regional references, and fairly detailed geography. But one of particular interesting note linguistically is that, at least when the Dietscherei is in control of Pennsylvania, all the place names, down to city and town names, are translated to Pennsylvania Dutch.
- Shrouded in Myth: This is generally the fate of any pre-Event person or group that gets directly referenced. In particular, the Americanists have elevated the former Presidents and Founding Fathers to literal godhood, with their deeds blown up to mythic proportions. For instance, according to them Theodore Roosevelt didn't just commission the Panama Canal — he built it himself, single-handedly.
- Southern Gentleman: Six centuries in the future, this archetype has become the basis for a new knightly tradition in the Old South. Likewise Southern Belle.
- South of the Border: Mexico is represented by a rump state around Mexico City, but as with America and Canada, most of the outlying provinces have become their own independent factions. Most follow either the Sagrado Corazon cult of saints or one of a number of Mayincatec or syncretic faiths, but there is some Cetic influence from the north in the Baja California Peninsula.
- Unspecified Apocalypse: The nature of The Event is deliberately left vague and up to the player's interpretation. One event involves a conversation on the subject, with suggestions including Gaia's Vengeance, the Nuclear Option, a Zombie Apocalypse, and a civilization-breaking Bolt of Divine Retribution.
- Vestigial Empire:
- Mexico, while considerably smaller in size, nonetheless managed to survive as a country, Hispanic culture is still prevalent in some parts of the lost Mexican territories.
- The Americanists claim to be this for the old USA. But by the time the game starts, only scattered memories, Future Imperfect records and largely symbolic titles like 'President of the United States' remain. It's up to the player whether those claims have any solid foundation.
- The Holy Columbian Confederacy tends to see itself as the sole legitimate successor to the old United States, or rather a new incarnation of the ancient Confederate States of America.
- The Mormons of Deseret are arguably this, given how they see themselves as a direct continuation of their pre-Event ancestors.
- California is on paper still a powerful empire, but the actual Emperor has been reduced to a figurehead who only governs Sacramento and its environs while his notional vassals squabble amongst themselves as de facto independent warlords.
- Averted however with the British, who have managed to rebuild their old Empire...and set their sights on the New World once more.
- Vision Quest: Various pagan, Afro-Syncretic, and Native American religions all allow vision quests as a rite of passage. You can get various bonuses or penalties depending on what your character sees, and how you interpret the visions.
- Voudoun: Voudoun and Santeria have grown to become the dominant religions in parts of the Louisiana and the Caribbean, respectively.
- Wacky Americans Have Wacky Names: In full force.
- Among the Southron culture the classic Southern Gentleman names are commonplace, including archaic names like Augustus, Justinian, and Saturn.
- Their Dixie relatives include Colquitt Rootes, Cleavon Candler, and Jubal Blythe.
- Beltway culture features names derived from the legal system, like Justita and Habeas.
- “Literal translation names” common among the Puritans have made a comeback in the Northeastern US, such as Increase and Onesiphorus, as well as virtue names like Patience and Charity. Alongside common names like Paul and William are names like Jeroham, Lazarus, and Saltborn.
- Most natives have untranslated names, like Zepko-ete and Pawuurasumununa of the Comanche, Obwole of the Ojibwe, Tasinagi and Tokala of the Sioux, and Will-usdi of the Cherokee.
- The Caloatian people are unique among former US cultures in that they follow East Asian naming customs of surname-name, like Tubrog Ekam 'the Simple'.
- Mountainer culture includes names like Hoss, Vrain, and Trommel, while Coloradan contains Mineralis Haggot, Bessemer Suaso, and Bolder Flatiron.
- Also in the spirit of the Puritans, the Popes in St. Louis have started taking hyper-religious names, such as Praised-Be, Blessed-Be, God-is-Great and Hallelujah.
- Basically, the whole game is an encyclopedia of truly grand, if not somewhat stereotypical, regional American names.
- You Have to Have Jews: Averted in the original mod, which did not include Judaism as an in-game religion despite Judaism being present in Crusader Kings 2 as a playable religion. Played straight in the Fan Fork, which includes Yiddish-speaking Jews dotted across the East Coast and Canada, as well as the occasional Yiddish or Neoladino Jewish courtier showing up.