Capital Wasteland
The Capital Wasteland is a nearly inhospitable and violent area. It is not uncommon to find dead bodies that have been victims of raiders or desperate wastelanders. Few materials that are encountered are freshly manufactured in any way and scavenging or trading is the only reliable mean of find materials to survive. Traders are typically found all over the wasteland and sell their wares to travelers, most commonly in the D.C. ruins and metro tunnels.
Slavery is a common occurrence as it is fairly easy, pays large amounts of caps (which are the standardized currency in the area), slaves are always needed and is an easy way for someone to quickly gain powerful weapons. Groups of marauders called raiders attack unsuspecting or weak travelers using tactics similar to guerrilla warfare. The raiders take pride in strength, attack anyone who is weak, and their favorite pastimes are torture and killing.
Drug use is still a common occurrence in the Capital Wasteland. In fact, its one of the few things that are being freshly produced along with medicinal drugs for medical needs though they are pretty expensive.
Murder is a common occurrence as well. Either because a person needs to kill another in order to get a precious scrap of food or water, to show a power of dominance or just simply because they don’t care about other people’s lives.
Super mutants are far more common in the DC area then in the west and as there is little in the way of an effective military, a person must either have extreme Luck, be heavily armed or hope they run into a Brotherhood of Steel patrol in order to survive an encounter with a super mutant.
Not all residents of the Capital Wasteland are violent. In fact, there are a fair number of settlements with a population of civil (sometimes unsavory) people (examples: Megaton, Rivet City, Tenpenny Tower).
Some of the inhabitants even try to keep some form of order in the Capital Wasteland. The Regulators seeking out criminals and killing them. The Temple of the Union that tries to help runaway slaves. The East Coast Brotherhood of Steel contains a large portion of the super mutant threat with regular patrols in the DC ruin.
The old world is still prevalent in beyond the bombed out building and radiation. Ghouls are fairly common, partly due to the large pockets of radiation, irradiated food, and the large population of people during the Great War. Ghouls, although having better knowledge of the terrain and its technology that has survived, have become the points of ridicule among the various denizens, to the point where one could easily see similarities to racism.
