A Squad of Loners by a Campfire

C.E.Z: Short for Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, it is monitored by the I.P.S.F, or International Perimeter Security Force, a group dedicated to policing the border and internal happenings of the Zone. The C.E.Z itself is a large nearly 80 square kilometer area, with at its center the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant's remains from the original Chernobyl incident.

Lesser Zone: Every rookie with common sense starts in the Lesser Zone, mainly congregating around a town called Zalissya that provides everything a rookie could possibly need as they start out in the Zone. The Zalissya settlement is protected by the Ward faction via a town hall just up the hill from the settlement. The I.P.S.F presence general ignores the loners and other factions that pass through here if they keep their business to themselves.

Garbage: The graveyard for old Chernobyl liquidation equipment, the old clean-up equipment is piled high and still quite radioactive, rookies and the like often parse through the junk left behind for valuable parts and artifacts, while Bandits rob and murder those unfortunate to be lucky enough to find anything of real worth.

Chemical Plant: Home to Ward, the region earns its name for the region's clusters of chemical processing facilities. The faction that resides here, Ward, is a government-backed militaristic right hand to the SIRCAA agency. The only faction impartial or friendly to them are the Loners and Duty respectively. Although, plenty of Loners don't think twice about killing any Ward personnel due to their incredibly poor handling of their commandeering of the Chemical Plant at the center of this region. They're naturally at odds with Spark as Ward aims to maintain a micromanage-esque approach to the Zone while Spark wishes for the Zone to be a more liberated and "Brighter" place.

Wild Island: Home to a long defunct nuclear waste storage facility is Wild Island. This region is home to the Noontide faction, a group recovering from having been freed from "The Monolith"'s mind control, only to fall back into it in recent times. The Monolith is an anomalous obelisk-esque object with a rather despicable consciousness. People avoid passing through here due to the nasty rumors surrounding the occupants of the region, being the aforementioned Noontide group.

Zaton: Once a shipping center, the Chernobyl reactor meltdown caused waters to recede, essentially beaching any vessels left in the waters. Home to the Skadvosk beached cargo ship, which serves as Zaton's main hub, Zaton has become a place of commerce once more albeit on more violent grounds. The captain of the Skadvosk, Beard, often fights a bandit leader named Sultan over control and deals within the region, often drawing blood out of one another's men.

Swamps: The muddy marshes of which the water receded to, this mysterious place holds many a secret yet so few of any valuables. Many dreamers head here in search of a new "Klondike" of artifacts, in hopes of riches, or in search of answers for where the mysterious "Clear Sky" faction went, a scientific group whom disappeared without a trace left behind.

SIRCAA: Synonymous with the faction it protects and houses, this region is the only anomaly free, completely emission proof bastion of the Zone. The acronym "SIRCAA" stands for "Scientific Institute for Research of the Chernobyl Anomalous Area". The region is walled off and guarded with only the finest personnel on hand, making the only way in a hefty cheque or genuine scientific advancements, making the personnel there either the smartest guys you'll ever meet or the richest, whichever comes first.

Cooling Towers: Once a promise to the Soviet peoples that Chernobyl wasn't a dead nuclear powerplant, now is the region where the Monolith made its last stand before fading into obscurity of the Zone.

Cement Factory: A region whos infrastructure was made entirely to support the efforts of the Chernobyl liquidation teams, the region is now under Duty jurisdiction, a faction started by the remains of the first military expeditionaries sent into the Zone, Duty remains a player on the board even with diminished influence. Duty holds the firm belief the Zone needs to be destroyed or at least made safe to travel through.

Malachite: Home of the freelance scientific minds of the Zone, unbound by SIRCAA's regulations on such fickle things as "Empathy" or "Sanity", the scientific minds here can range from crackpot conspiracy theorists to anarchist Einsteins. Be wary, as an unknown patch has been sighted in these parts! A red backing with a white laurel surrounding a white microscope... Rumor has it these are old United Nations folks still looking on cracking the Zone open for true international expeditions. Best to never mention it if you see it, those who speak up usually never turn a corner without never being seen again...

The Duga: The giant radar array used to protect a Soviet Russia from aerial assault, it now lays rusting and mythical, with numerous folktales about it in every corner of the Zone. Despite being quite safe to travel through, the military insists on keeping this place under lock and key.

Rostok Factory: A Soviet era factory, Rostok now holds the home to the faction known as "Freedom" after the treaty signed between them and their normally hostile counterpart, Duty. Freedom is a faction believing the Zone should be open to all to experience, and that the contents of the area should be used to further human life across the globe. The factory buildings have proven themselves as protection from emissions, making the factory an ideal spot for settlement when coupled with its central position in the Zone. Home to the 100 Rads Bar, a communal middleground where a man can discuss business freely in a secure environment, or just grab food and drink from the trusted barkeeper.

Yantar: An aging husk of an industrial facility, everybody came and picked whatever shined, leaving only rust and concrete to stand as reminders of the past.

Burnt Forest: Disturbingly enough, a whole section of the C.E.Z has been overtaken by tree-esque foliage that grew to an unprecedented density. The I.P.S.F have set up a number of outposts here, practically claiming the region as its own. Despite the tree-esque appearance, between the scientific sampling and constant smell of burning, it is theorized these trees are the results of intense mutation of local species of grass.

Cordon: Once the home of every rookie, it's more or less a nostalgia-fest for still present personnel from the Zone's infancy. Even with the reputation of being the Zone's old bone home, there still lays treasures in the region if one only look... And Sidorovich, the quintessential trader of the Loners.

Red Forest: Once a section of Limansk, the Red Forest was once home to the Limansk Nature Preserve, but once the emissions began, so too did the mutations... Red Forest today is a vast expanse of well, red forest, home to some of the strongest mutants known to the Zone, with even a Pseudogiant being a regular adversary... A terrifying one at that, as its frontal skull is the thickness of a tank's frontal plate.

Yanov Station: The region once known for its rail system is now the wall between the Zone and Pripyat, and even further, the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant itself. It is enforced by a secretive paramilitary group led by a Loner as old as the C.E.Z itself. This group is known as the Corps, with its leader, Degtyarev, being made up of the most tireless experienced people in the Zone, all of whom working day and night to keep people from reaching the innermost areas of the Zone.

Jupiter: The region between Yanov Station and Pripyat, and the old staging grounds for liquidation efforts. Winding roads and dozens of aging blockades create a hedgerow maze that even catches the most veteran of Zone dwellers off guard. The path to the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant itself is blocked off by an unprecedented amount of anomalies, leading many of even the greatest Zone dwellers to speculate what the Zone decided to hide in its Sarcophagus to warrant a complete lockdown.

Pripyat: The 2nd most legendary part of the Zone yet the most dangerous. Those who venture here often never return or hold harrowing tales of the things encountered here. From entire nests of the monstrous humanoid Bloodsucker mutant, that as the name implies, will suck the blood from its victim post-mauling; to the dense population of Controller mutants, humanoid entities with the capability of leveraging psionics to control their victims, often forcing them into suicide.

Dead Valley: A divot in the land wide enough to be seen from orbit, this no man's land is what keeps the people of the Zone from reaching the fabled "Generators" region. No man has ever crossed its stretch.

The CNPP: Shorthanded name for the Chernobyl Nuclear Powerplant, The CNPP is the region previously called the Sarcophagus, after the construction that had contained Reactor 3, protecting the world from the reactor elements still radioactively hot to this day. Only a few groups have ever made it this far, being the old Monolith faction, the legendary Loner "Strelok"'s group, and members of the mysterious Clear Sky, with only one known survivor left in the Zone, being a man going by the name "Nimble".

Iron Forest: Another new addition to the Zone, like the Burnt Forest, but nowhere close to the same danger level. The Iron Forest is just what it is, tall ironclad powerpoles connected with webs of exposed power cabling, the anomalously charged copper wiring incessantly sparking on the ground below. The Zone has apparently hidden something within this region, as the known entrances have been closed off by anomaly clusters.

The Generators: Only one group has ever made it to this area and lived to tell the tale, being Strelok's group. Nobody else knows what happened here, but they know for a fact that every emission comes from this area. Emissions ravage the Zone's surface, like an immune system trying to flush out an infection. Every 4 or 5 hours, the sky turns a deep reddish orange, signalling the beginning of an emission. To stay safe from an Emission, one must shelter like it were a storm, but those unfortunate enough to be outside at the peak of an emission will have their brain essentially fried, reducing them to a zombified state. The only people who were immune to this were the Monolith when they were under its wishes. It also appears mutants shelter from emissions as well.

Clear Sky: An old, archaic faction, apparently older than the Zone itself. They were among the first boots on the ground when the Zone first manifested, and coordinated with the state military to try and eradicate the Monolith, but of course, failed due to the first emissions claiming personnel and equipment due to anomaly shifting positions. Rumour has it the remnants of Clear Sky were picked up by the UN for their own operations, but what is known is that some Clear Sky remnants form the spearhead of Spark.

Spark: Led by probably the most veteran man in the Zone, a man named "Scar" whom has at least a novel's worth of legend and folktale about him, Spark is a faction much in line with that of the scientific crowd and as such hangs around them in the Malachite region. They're in pursuit of a better side to the Zone, and are as amicable as can be to expedite this process. They're at odds with Ward due to conflicting interests regarding the future of the Zone.

Monolith: A name synonymous with the anomalous Wish Granter anomaly last seen in the confines of the CNPP by the legendary Loner known as Strelok, and the faction the Wish Granter commanded. The Monolith faction was made up of unfortunate souls whom upon suffering too much Psi-Radiation at the hands of the Emissions or other mean, would turn into zombies... The Wishgranter chose those whom had succumbed to this radiation that had the greatest willpower and skill and took them in, partially revitalizing their consciousness to make them more fanatic pawns of war than zombies. After the Wishgranter was dispelled by Strelok, the brainwashed members of the Monolith were free from its influence, albeit they no longer remembered who they were, just who they are now and when they were under the Wishgranter's control. Today, these freed minds are under the faction of "Noontide".

Noontide: Under the leadership of a man known as "Strider", the Noontide faction lived in relative peace in the Wild Island region. Recently, as a result of unknown Psi-Radiation emitters, pretty much all Noontide members have fallen back under the Wishgranter's influence, except for a few and far between cases.

Mercenaries: A loosely interconnected group symbolized by a blue Eagle head emblem, the Mercenaries faction is, despite being the most clear with its goals, one of the most mysterious factions to ever exist in the region. Without even a local rallying point, the average Mercenary will have a wildly different story as to how they got into the Zone from the next. One thing is clear though, they are some of the best pairs of hands to get by your side, with many of their exploits changing the Zone entirely.

UNISG: A group not even the wisest and most veteran dwellers of the Zone know, the UNISG is a shadowy group represented by a red backed patch with a white laurel surrounding a white microscope. These guys are often inserted with Mercenaries, as the two go hand in hand in terms of operations. Nobody knows their goals, only that they might exist and that they're as deadly as they come in the C.E.Z