[HOE] Law Dogs

[Dusarat@aol.com]

Whenever you discuss 'the major players', you should remember that 
communication is totally down in the Wasted West and as a result, there is a 
very limted ability for groups to get more members.  

    This means that groups like the Cult of doom just don't have the ability 
to become an everywhere plague on the entire watsed West, yet.  They're 
messing up southern Nevada real good, but beyond that, they have their 
occasional mutie village and their occasional missionary band.  So a couple 
hundred actual robes plus maybe ten thousand believers in Souther Nevada plus 
believers here and there.  
    Templars? One or two hundred of them MAX
    The Chamber, maybe two hundred folks.  
    The Purple Grapes?  also very few.  maybe one hundred.  

    Now Junkyard actually has quite a few people and resources, so they would 
be a MAJOR player, but their direct influence is very localized.  I'd say 
more than 150 miles away, they're little more than legend.  Except from the 
point of view of The Convoy.  
    Throckmorton, well, it's more fun if he has LOTS.  He does have the 
resources to ravel the wastes despite the road gangs and to do so quickly, 
and recruit and give them big guns, and to bring resources back and to turn 
them into unstoppable robotic war machines.  

    So, what does this have to do with the Law Dogs?  They gathered BEFORE 
communication shut down.  They were a nationwide group BEFORE communication 
shut down.  and when the bombs fell, they lost many members, but they still 
had contacts, methods, and abilities to rebuild.  These guys were not founded 
by some Accountant from Boise, no, these guys had been organized for 
centuries, and they had to rebuild before, and they would know how to do it 
again.  
    I would say in just about every town, would be a tin star, just one, 
owned by someone whose predecessor says 'when someone else comes with one of 
these, help them'.  
    Remnants of the texas rangers, to The Agency, to FBI, to the ATF.  These 
men and women have been getting posse's together for centuries, deputizing, 
expanding, organizing.  
    They're not flashy, but if any force of good would have tendrils 
everywhere, it would be the Law Dogs.  Most in the Wasted West have only 
heard hushed rumors about Templars, but the vast majority have seen a Law 
Dog, or bands of them.  

    So, what do the Law Dogs bring to the table?  Manpower.  These guys Run 
the River Watch.  Think about how many men and resources The River Watch 
would take?  Even done poorly!  When I run the  Boise Horror, Cole Ballad 
will find it funny that his group wasn't invited to the meeting.  "Don't 
worry'" he'll say, "We'll save their asses anyway".  
    Law Dogs simply outnumber everyone else (Except the Combine).  They're 
spread out, everywhere,  They're ignored, which suits them fine, it lets them 
do their damn job.  But of the forces of good, I think the Law Dogs are the 
only one which could field 10,000 armed men.  

    Each with a Tin Star.