🏴 Glorislav – The Lost Stronghold

⚙️ Ratza – The Phoenix Guard’s Last Bastion

📍 Location: Western District
⚔️ Faction Control: The Phoenix Guard
💀 Status: Fallen
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 1: Glorislav

🔥 Overview

Ratza was a fortified metro station in the Western District, serving as a refuge for survivors and a strategic hub for The Phoenix Guard. Known for its skilled craftsmen and thriving black-market trade, it was a key stronghold until it fell to The Redline after a brutal siege.

⚠️ The Fall of Ratza

➡️ Aftermath of Glorislav: Following the massacre at Glorislav, refugees flooded into Ratza, overwhelming its resources.
➡️ The Redline Strikes: The station came under heavy attack, forcing the rangers into a desperate last stand at the eastern gate.
➡️ Evacuation Efforts: A train—RMS Endurance—was dispatched to rescue civilians, but many were left behind.
➡️ Final Collapse: After a catastrophic explosion at the western gate, Ratza was declared lost, and surviving rangers were forced to flee.

🎯 Strategic Importance

✔️ Defensive Stronghold: A crucial buffer zone between The Redline and the Phoenix Guard’s deeper territories.
✔️ Engineering Hub: Known for its makeshift armorers who crafted custom weapons and reinforced gear.
✔️ Transit Hub: Connected major metro routes, making it a key supply line for resistance forces.
✔️ Black Market Trade: A hotspot for contraband and underground dealings, attracting smugglers and traders.

🏚️ Aftermath & Consequences

🔻 Civilians Scattered – Some escaped on RMS Endurance, while others were either captured or killed.
🔻 A Devastating Loss – The Phoenix Guard suffered heavy casualties, losing one of their last remaining safe zones.
🔻 The Redline Expands – With Ratza fallen, the Western District is now mostly under Redline control.
🔻 Altor’s Guilt – The loss of innocent lives, especially a young boy caught in the chaos, deeply scars Altor, shaping his future actions.

🕯️ Legacy

Once a bustling safe haven, Ratza now stands in ruins, a symbol of The Redline’s ruthless ambition. The Phoenix Guard’s desperate flight from the station only underscores the bleak reality of the metro war.

There is no home left. Only survival.

🔦 Larston – The Abandoned Trade Hub

📍 Location: Central District
⚔️ Faction Control: None (Abandoned)
💀 Status: Derelict & Overrun
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 4: Larston

🔥 Overview

Larston was once a thriving trade hub in the Central District, a key waypoint for merchants, scavengers, and travelers moving between metro stations. However, after the catastrophe at Olakh, most of its population fled in fear of the Ravagers, leaving the station to decay. Now, Larston is nothing more than a haunted ruin, filled with the remains of those who never made it out.

⚠️ The Descent into Darkness

➡️ Once a Bustling Trade Hub: Larston served as a commercial center, linking the Central District to the greater metro network.
➡️ The Olakh Incident: After an unknown catastrophic event in nearby Olakh, rumors of unspeakable horrors spread, leading most of the population to abandon Larston.
➡️ Vanished Residents: The few who remained in Larston disappeared without a trace, leaving behind a station full of rotting corpses and eerie silence.
➡️ A Place of Nightmares: The station is now drenched in water, with its infrastructure in decay, malfunctioning lights flickering ominously, and unknown presences lurking in the darkness.

🎯 Strategic Importance

✔️ Supply Cache: Before its abandonment, Larston had an armory and medical facilities, making it a prime location for scavengers.
✔️ Trade Nexus: Previously connected to multiple factions, including black-market smugglers and independent traders.
✔️ Gateway to Olakh: One of the only accessible paths into the mysterious ruins of Olakh, though few dare to enter.
✔️ A Place Best Left Alone: Now considered too dangerous to reclaim, leaving its resources untouched—but at what cost?

🏚️ Aftermath & Consequences

🔻 Ghost Town: Once filled with commerce and trade, Larston is now empty, save for bodies and shadows.
🔻 The Dead Don’t Rest: Altor’s journey through Larston was plagued with hallucinations, strange visions, and an encounter with something beyond explanation.
🔻 A Warning Left Unheard: The station stands as evidence of something monstrous, but the metro continues to ignore its fate.
🔻 A Doorway to the Unknown: What happened in Larston—and more importantly, what still lurks within—remains a terrifying mystery.

🕯️ Legacy

Larston is no longer a waypoint for the living—it is a graveyard of those who failed to escape. The darkness that consumed it is not just rot and ruin, but something far worse. Those who enter do not always leave, and those who leave… are never the same.

❄️ Olakh – The Frozen Graveyard

📍 Location: Central District
⚔️ Faction Control: None (Abandoned)
💀 Status: Ruined & Overrun
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 5: Olakh

🔥 Overview

Olakh is an abandoned pre-war metro station, once a rail depot and transport hub. Unlike other stations, it was built with multiple control towers, storage areas, and large maintenance buildings, indicating it had strategic importance before the collapse. Now, Olakh is a frozen wasteland, buried under snow, death, and something far more sinister. The Redline ignored it—until they realized it held the key to Phoenix Guard’s survival.

⚠️ The Mystery of Olakh

➡️ A Pre-War Relic: Built as a railway depot, Olakh was designed to service metro trains, maintenance equipment, and storage facilities.
➡️ A Station Lost in Time: No one knows exactly what happened in Olakh—only that it was suddenly abandoned, its buildings left eerily intact.
➡️ A Battlefield of Corpses: The rangers discovered a courtyard filled with frozen, half-decayed bodies, with claw marks scarring the walls, vehicles, and even the wreckage of a train that had crashed into the station gate.
➡️ One Beast, Many Victims: The number of dead greatly outnumbered their killer. A single Ravager, its corpse lying among them, had done all this alone.

🎯 Strategic Importance

✔️ A Cache of Weapons: Deep within Olakh, a hidden armory remained untouched, filled with Phoenix Guard military supplies.
✔️ One of the Last Escape Routes: With the Redline controlling most transit tunnels, Olakh was the only path left for the rangers to flee.
✔️ A Natural Barrier: The thick layer of snow and collapsed structures slowed enemy movement, giving the rangers a chance to fight back.
✔️ A Death Trap: The same conditions that made Olakh defensible also made it a graveyard for those too weak or injured to move through the ice.

🏚️ Aftermath & Consequences

🔻 A Desperate Stand: With the Redline closing in, the rangers had no choice but to fight in the ruins of Olakh.
🔻 The Cost of Escape: The path to the armory was blocked, forcing them to use explosives—but at a terrible price.
🔻 A Ranger’s Sacrifice: One of their own, Romeo, chose to stay behind and detonate the charges manually, ensuring the rangers could reach the weapons cache.
🔻 The Redline’s Arrival: As the rangers scavenged what they could, multiple Redline trains pulled into Olakh, marking the start of another bloody battle.

🕯️ Legacy

Olakh is a place where the past refuses to be buried. The dead still whisper in the cold, and those who enter find themselves haunted—not just by the horrors they witness, but by the echoes of something deeper, something waiting beneath the snow.

It is not just a lost station.

It is a warning.

🔴 Noremberg – The Doomed Outpost

📍 Location: Eastern District
⚔️ Faction Control: Formerly The Redline
💀 Status: Destroyed & Abandoned
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 6: Noremberg

🔥 Overview

Once a fortified Redline outpost, Noremberg stood as a key stronghold in the Eastern District, positioned to reinforce Redline control over key metro routes. However, it became the site of a catastrophic event—a Ravager attack so brutal that even the Redline was forced to abandon it. Those stationed there never made it out, and the horrors that unfolded within remain shrouded in mystery.

⚠️ The Fall of Noremberg

➡️ The Southern Bastion: Noremberg was one of the last remaining outposts in the South, intended to reinforce Redline control over Voslok and surrounding metro tunnels.
➡️ Skeleton Crew: Following heavy losses, only twelve soldiers and one officer were left to guard the station—completely unaware of the nightmare waiting for them.
➡️ Psychological Breakdown: Isolation, poor conditions, and flickering lights left the survivors on edge, their sanity eroding as days stretched into weeks.
➡️ A Sudden Massacre: Whatever attacked Noremberg left no survivors. Something unnatural swept through the outpost, killing every soldier except for Baren Volkov, who was spared… for unknown reasons.

🎯 Strategic Importance

✔️ A Redline Stronghold: A key checkpoint for controlling movement through the Eastern District’s tunnels.
✔️ A Final Holdout: One of the few stations left standing after recent metro skirmishes.
✔️ An Isolated Deathtrap: Positioned far from reinforcements, making it vulnerable to an unexpected attack.
✔️ An Experiment Gone Wrong: Noremberg’s true purpose may have been something far more sinister than just an outpost…

🏚️ Aftermath & Consequences

🔻 Total Annihilation: The Redline never reclaimed Noremberg. Whatever happened there was too horrific to risk another occupation.
🔻 Baren’s Escape: The sole survivor, Baren Volkov, awoke in the ruins, haunted by whispers and visions of the massacre.
🔻 The Entity Known as ‘It’: Something far worse than a Ravager may have been responsible for the outpost’s destruction. It spared Baren—but why?
🔻 A Forgotten Horror: Noremberg was left to rot, its secrets buried under fear, blood, and silence.

🕯️ Legacy

Noremberg is a place of whispers, shadows, and unanswered questions.

The Redline speaks of it only in hushed tones—a cautionary tale of something they refuse to acknowledge.

No one knows what truly happened in Noremberg.

No one wants to find out.

☣️ Vostok – The Station That Broke Them

📍 Location: Undisclosed
⚔️ Faction Control: Unknown
💀 Status: Abandoned (Classified)
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 6: Noremberg

🔥 Overview

Vostok is a metro station shrouded in mystery and trauma. Officially, it's just another name on a patrol route—but to those who survived it, Vostok is a nightmare incarnate. The incident that took place there was so horrific that even those who made it out refuse to speak of it. Only Baren Volkov and Nemen survived the station, but neither emerged whole​.

⚠️ The Vostok Incident

➡️ Routine Patrol Gone Wrong: Baren and his squad were assigned to patrol Vostok. What was expected to be uneventful quickly turned into a massacre.
➡️ Screams & Roars: Survivors recall inhuman screams, bloodshed, and demonic roars—but no clear visual of what caused them.
➡️ Psychological Fallout: Baren suffers from severe PTSD when Vostok is mentioned, and Nemen describes it as “a nightmare you can’t outrun.”
➡️ Shared Trauma: Both claim to have seen a mutilated corpse walking upright, suggesting a shared hallucination or supernatural event.

🧠 Mental & Emotional Impact

✔️ Baren Volkov: Still haunted by memories of Vostok, with clear signs of trauma and survivor's guilt.
✔️ Nemen: His experience caused a breakdown during a later mission—he fired blindly at his own comrades during a panic attack when he believed he saw the same apparition again.
✔️ Undiscussed Horror: Neither survivor has revealed the full truth of what occurred there. Vostok is avoided, even in conversation.

🕯️ Legacy

Vostok is not marked on most maps. It’s a place the metro has tried to forget, and yet, for those who carry its memory, it never truly left.

Not because of what was seen…
…but because of what was felt.

🏴‍☠️ District Bravo – The Forgotten Zone

📍 Location: Undisclosed (Near Tunnel Intersections)
⚔️ Faction Control: Unknown
💀 Status: Unstable / Conflict Zone
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 7: Echoes of the Past

🔥 Overview

District Bravo is a little-known and rarely spoken-of section of the metro, associated with covert operations, betrayal, and black ops history. Though not directly explored, it’s referenced in the context of a train heist involving a special operations vehicle known as The Monolith. Conflicting accounts suggest a group of scavengers posing as officers hijacked the train during routine maintenance in or near District Bravo​.

This event has left the area surrounded by speculation and secrecy, its true condition and strategic role unknown to most of the metro populace.

🕵️‍♂️ Key Associations

• 🎯 The Monolith: A covert ops metro train that was allegedly stolen near District Bravo. The train is now operated by an independent faction referred to as the Venatores Mortis, who are considered thieves by the Redline and allies by NEXUS.

• ❗ Scavenger Sabotage: Rumors imply that the hijackers may have been survivors, defectors, or mercenaries, not official military personnel.

• ❓ Factual Ambiguity: No official Redline or Phoenix Guard records mention Bravo in any operational capacity—only rumors, field stories, and covert incidents.

❗ Strategic Relevance

✔️ Maintenance Zone? Some believe District Bravo was once a Redline maintenance sector, used for servicing covert trains and military-grade equipment.
✔️ Black Site? Others speculate it may have housed classified projects or testing grounds, due to the presence of advanced vehicles like The Monolith.
✔️ No Man’s Land: It is not actively patrolled, and no major faction claims it—making it a gray zone, possibly used for clandestine operations or hiding fugitives.

🕯️ Legacy & Lore

District Bravo is not charted on most maps, and its exact location is disputed. It exists as a whispered ghost story among metro veterans and scavengers—often invoked when discussing black market tech, stolen military hardware, or “trains that shouldn’t exist.”

Summary:
District Bravo is a mysterious and possibly decommissioned metro sector, associated with the origins of The Monolith and home to one of the most infamous train thefts in metro history. Whether it still stands or has collapsed into dust is unknown—but the shadow it casts is very real.

🚪 The Varanean Gate – The Forgotten Connector

📍 Location: Between the Western and Eastern Districts
⚔️ Faction Control: None (Buried/Abandoned)
💀 Status: Derelict / Hidden
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 7: Echoes of the Past

🔥 Overview

The Varanean Gate is a long-lost pre-war transit gate, believed to be the only direct underground connection between the Western and Eastern Districts. Its discovery was recorded in the journal of Petrov Einik, a Tunnel Stalker whose final expedition ended in tragedy. The gate is buried beneath layers of collapsed infrastructure, largely unknown to the general metro population.

It represents a strategic anomaly—a path that bypasses most known Redline or Phoenix Guard checkpoints, potentially shifting power dynamics if restored.

⚙️ Technical Description

➡️ Transit-Type Gate: Unlike standard station gates, the Varanean Gate was a fully functional transit system, capable of moving heavy-duty trains between major sectors.
➡️ Titanium Construction: Its durability and longevity suggest it was built using reinforced titanium, much like the older southern Transit Gates.
➡️ Remote-Controlled Access: Controlled from a dedicated control room nearby, which still housed power systems and emergency circuits at the time of discovery.

📜 Historical Significance

✔️ Unknown to Modern Factions: The Varanean Gate was forgotten after the Great War, and never recorded in Redline or Phoenix Guard maps.
✔️ Discovered by Tunnel Stalkers: Petrov Einik and his partner Olskin stumbled upon it during an expedition, as recorded in Petrov's journal .
✔️ Never Made Public: The two stalkers never returned home; Petrov died during the expedition, and Olskin's fate remains unknown, leaving the gate’s existence largely secret.

☣️ The Incident

🔻 Train Breakdown: The stalkers' train broke down near the gate, and repeated repair failures left them stranded.
🔻 Psychological Collapse: Olskin reportedly began losing his sanity, murmuring to himself and staying near the gate at all times.
🔻 Unnatural Events: Petrov’s final journal entries describe strange roars, screams, and hallucinations, indicating a possible Ravager encounter—or something worse.
🔻 Violent End: Petrov was eventually killed in the generator room, his corpse later discovered by Baren Volkov. The control room bore signs of a savage struggle, with blood, claw marks, and destroyed electronics.

🕯️ Legacy & Theories

📌 Strategic Game-Changer: If rediscovered and reopened, the Varanean Gate could bypass faction-controlled lines, making it a tactical goldmine.
📌 Hidden by Design: Some believe it was intentionally buried or sealed, either by the pre-war government or early metro factions.
📌 Cursed or Guarded: Others claim it was left hidden for a reason—a place no one was meant to find again.

❓ Current Status

• 💡 Status: Abandoned and sealed

• 🧭 Access: Unknown, possibly only reachable via collapsed maintenance tunnels

• 📖 Knowledge Holders: Baren Volkov (survivor), Petrov Einik (deceased), and possibly Olskin (missing)

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☢️ Zorya – The Monolith’s Station

📍 Location: Not explicitly disclosed
⚔️ Faction Control: The Redline
💀 Status: Operational
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 8: An Old Friend

🔥 Overview

Zorya is a Redline-controlled station where the train known as The Monolith stops for maintenance and resupply. The station serves as a functional Redline base, featuring industrial infrastructure, supply stalls, and heavily reinforced access gates. It is active and fully operational, with a focus on logistics and commerce—albeit in a militarized, decaying environment.

🛠️ Infrastructure & Design

➡️ Massive Station Gate: Zorya is entered through a towering station gate equipped with a mechanical armature that retracts the heavy door into its steel frame.
➡️ Repair Zone: Upon entry, a parking area is present where makeshift repair stations have been constructed. Workers weld, hammer, and patch up train parts, including components of The Monolith.
➡️ Stalls & Market Activity: Inside the main station, there are wooden stalls, separated by chain-link fences, where Redline soldiers and scavengers barter for weapons, ammo, and pre-war relics.
➡️ Industrial Decay: The station suffers from leaking overhead sewage pipes, and the air is filled with the stench of sulfuric water. Lighting is provided by old fluorescent lamps, giving it a dim and gritty ambiance.

💬 Known Events at Zorya

• Arrival of The Monolith: The Redline train The Monolith arrives at Zorya carrying Baren Volkov. The train halts with violent force, knocking Baren from his bunk.

• Supply Run: Redline personnel, including Captain Lenan, depart for a supply run, while Choriski remains behind to perform diagnostics and repairs.

• Barter & Trade: Baren walks through the station, observing various transactions—ranging from ammunition sales to arguments over artifact pricing.

• Baren’s Resupply: He trades his Makarov pistol for 60 standard rounds, after initially being offered a lowball rate.

• Sudden Announcement: As Baren finishes trading, the station quakes, lights flicker, and the PA system issues a militarized command from Comrade General Nox, ordering all residents to report to the entrance and warning that anyone resisting will be eliminated.

• The Monolith Activates: Shortly after, The Monolith’s diesel engine roars to life, indicating rapid redeployment or extraction.

🕯️ Legacy

Zorya represents the functional but decaying machinery of the Redline war machine. It is not glamorous, but it is effective—a place of movement, metal, and control. It holds no warmth, only purpose.

🧬🔻 Alianka – The Edge of the Unknown

📍 Location: Eastern Fringe
🟪 Faction: The NEXUS
🚦 Status: Operational / Shadow-Controlled
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 8: An Old Friend

🕳️🧱 Overview

Alianka is a mysterious station located on the far edge of the metro and under the influence of The NEXUS — a reclusive and secretive faction known for its exile, isolation, and technological experimentation. While it receives occasional visits from trains like The Monolith, its internal workings remain largely obscured.

🔩🚉 Role in the Narrative

• Alianka is referenced by Choriski, a Monolith crew member, as the station where he intends to perform full maintenance and repairs on the aging train.

• The Monolith is en route to Alianka during Baren Volkov’s detour through Zorya, suggesting the station is equipped with advanced infrastructure or specialized resources.

• It is implied to be safer or at least more stable than surrounding Redline territory, despite the NEXUS connection.

📡🕷️ NEXUS Territory

• Alianka’s alignment with The NEXUS—based on its map location—places it within a faction notorious for its isolation, secrecy, and unclear objectives.

• NEXUS is believed to be the “Network of Exiled Underground Stations”, operating in defiance of Redline expansion and keeping their tech hidden and off-grid.

• If Alianka reflects those values, it likely hides more than it reveals, and any outsiders are allowed entry on strictly controlled terms.

🧯🧪 Atmosphere & Speculation

• While not visited directly in the chapter, the context suggests Alianka may be a semi-autonomous research or engineering station, maintaining trains like The Monolith that operate outside Redline doctrine.

• Its distance from central metro hubs, limited accessibility, and lack of Redline presence point to a clandestine or protected status within the NEXUS network.

🕯️🧿 Legacy & Tone

Alianka stands at the edge of what’s known — a place where technology, purpose, and control blur into rumor.
It doesn't shout. It watches.
A gate to something bigger… or buried deeper.

🧪☣️ Radon-8 – The Origin of Evil

📍 Location: Eastern District (Isolated Branch Tunnel)
🟥 Faction Control: Unknown / Experimental Entity
💀 Status: Active / Hostile
📖 First Appearance: Chapter 10: Radon-8

🏚️🔬 Overview

Radon-8 is a classified pre-war facility, originally a maximum-security prison later repurposed into a biological experimentation site. Its existence is not officially acknowledged by any faction. Whispers describe it as a place where victims are dragged from their beds in the night, taken not for punishment—but for testing.

In the post-war era, it has become a symbol of evil, a name spoken with fear by those who’ve heard rumors of what lies within. Baren Volkov was one such victim—captured, bound, and transported deep into its bowels.

🚆🧷 Arrival & Atmosphere

• Prisoners are brought in by force aboard dedicated transports like the Lokomor, a Redline-operated train retrofitted for containment.

• The route to Radon-8 is marked by violent tremors, failing brakes, and sudden electrical surges, hinting at the instability surrounding the site.

• Baren’s train ride ends in horror: a decapitated head begins to move, revealing the reanimated visage of Nemen, signaling the start of something unnatural.

🧪⚰️ The Experiments

Inside Radon-8:

• Baren is strapped to a chair, hooked to machines, and subjected to electrical torture and surgical violation.

• He experiences lucid psychological disintegration, unable to distinguish between reality, memory, and hallucination.

• The staff refer to his condition clinically—he is not a man, but a subject.

It is revealed that the horrors at Noremberg were linked to what is being developed in Radon-8:

A new “stage” in evolution—It—a creature or force engineered to survive the metro’s most hostile conditions.

🧠📉 Mental Collapse & Flashbacks

During experimentation, Baren experiences:

• Hallucinations of his childhood, his lost mother, and memories of his father promising to return from the surface.

• Flashbacks to his Redline academy days, including his first meeting with Nemen, and the formation of friendships with Prock and Javier.

• These memories begin to fade and distort, as his identity deteriorates under the psychological assault.

🏚️🗝️ The Prison Core

Baren awakens in a cell suspended above a massive chasm, in a prison ring composed of:

• Steel walkways,

• Caged cells,

• And a lifeless concrete courtyard below.

He realizes he has nothing left—no family, no comrades, not even his weapon. Only questions. And across from him, a stranger speaks a chilling truth:
They both saw the same phrase written in blood.

“The ending is the beginning…”

☢️🕯️ Legacy

Radon-8 is not just a prison.
It is the incubator of the metro’s next nightmare, a place where science and suffering are fused in silence.

Those taken there are never truly killed.
They are unmade, then rebuilt into something else.

🟥⚒️ The Redline – The Iron Fist Beneath the Earth

📍 Territory: Central and Eastern Metro
🧠 Philosophy: Order Through Control
💂‍♂️ Known Figures: Colonel Holler, General Nox (unseen)
📖 Lore Sources: Chapters 1, 2, 5, 10

🏴‍☠️ Overview

The Redline is a powerful and militaristic faction operating in the metro system. Their doctrine revolves around total control, preemptive strikes, and assimilation or annihilation of rival stations. Redline forces are well-trained, well-armed, and relentless. They do not negotiate. They conquer.

🛠️ Origins

Originally part of the Greater Eastern Alliance, the Redline was once aligned with what later became the Phoenix Guard.

35 years ago, both factions shared territory and infrastructure.
However, the discovery of the Western District sparked conflict over expansion and control, fracturing the alliance.
The Phoenix Guard split off and declared independence.
The Redline, in response, branded them as traitors and began planning retaliatory campaigns​.

🧬 Ideology & Goals

• Unification by Force: The Redline believes the only path to metro survival is through a single chain of command.

• Militarized Doctrine: All citizens must serve the state. Rebellion, neutrality, or isolationism are not tolerated.

• Evolution of Humanity: Secret elements of Redline leadership support biological enhancement, evidenced by their ties to experiments at Radon-8​​.

🚆 Military & Technology

• Superior Train Systems: Redline covert trains (possibly including The Lokomor) are said to be faster and stealthier than anything fielded by rival factions​.

• Armament: Soldiers are equipped with pre-war rifles, makeshift RPGs, and standardized armor.

• Covert Ops: Units have been observed conducting blacksite operations, station infiltrations, and asset extractions (e.g., Radon-8).

• Commanders:

  • Colonel Holler – Tactical commander known for ruthless enforcement and battlefield dominance.

  • General Nox – High-ranking figure with an unknown agenda, mentioned in Redline broadcasts as the source of global orders​.

🔥 Key Conflicts & Invasions

🧨 Glorislav Massacre

• Redline stormed the peaceful station of Glorislav.

• Civilians were executed, and Altor was spared only to deliver a message of conquest:

  “Surrender and you will be spared. Resist and be annihilated.”​

🏚️ Ratza Siege

• Redline launched a two-pronged attack on the strategic hub of Ratza, assaulting both eastern and western gates simultaneously.

• Civilians were killed in chaotic crossfire; an RPG destroyed the western gate mid-evacuation.

• Despite the Rangers’ efforts, Ratza fell—the final radio order was given:

  “RMS Endurance, leave the station now. Ratza has fallen.”​

💣 Battle of Olakh

• Redline pursued Rangers to the abandoned station of Olakh.

• After a brutal siege, Captain Mirov confronted Colonel Holler, threatening to unleash Ravagers upon them by blowing open the tunnel gate.

• Mirov was shot; Ravagers attacked; Redline suffered catastrophic losses due to their own aggression​.

🧊 Psychological & Moral Themes

• Redline soldiers are often portrayed as reluctant conscripts, bound by duty, not ideology.

• Rangers express guilt at killing them—recognizing they are not monsters, but men following orders​.

• Colonel Holler and Captain Mirov were once comrades—highlighting the tragic fracture of shared history into civil war.

🕯️ Legacy

The Redline represents power without restraint, survival without mercy, and order through fear.
They are not monsters in form—but in ambition.
To stand against them is to gamble with annihilation.
To surrender to them is to become part of the machine.

🦅🔥 The Phoenix Guard – The Shield Against Tyranny

📍 Territory: Western District & Allied Stations
🟦 Faction Type: Military Alliance / Defensive Coalition
📖 Primary Sources: Chapters 1–5 (Glorislav, Ratza, Olakh), Chapter 3, 4

🧬📜 Origins & Philosophy

The Phoenix Guard was once part of the Greater Eastern Alliance, sharing roots with the Redline. Following internal divisions and ideological clashes—especially regarding expansion into the Western District—the two factions split violently. The Phoenix Guard rejected Redline authoritarianism and formed an independent defensive alliance, prioritizing civilian protection, local autonomy, and resistance to tyranny​​.

Their motto:

“If not us, then who?”

This reflects their belief that they alone stand between the innocent and annihilation.

🛡️🪖 Military Structure & Tactics

The Phoenix Guard is a decentralized military force made up of elite Rangers, engineers, medics, and survivalists. They use a mix of:

• Pre-war firearms and armor

• Improvised weapons (pipe rifles like the PR-76)

• Salvaged tactical gear including road sign armor, riot helmets, and modified metro tech​.

They specialize in:

• Defensive station control

• Urban ambushes

• Tunnel-based guerilla warfare

• Scorched-earth fallback strategies

They are frequently outgunned and outnumbered, but rely on terrain knowledge and unity.

🧑‍✈️🔥 Notable Leaders

🟥 Captain Mirov

• Tactical commander of multiple Ranger deployments.

• A former Redline officer who defected after witnessing war crimes.

• Led the defense of Ratza and the fallback operation through Olakh.

• Known for his battle-hardened demeanor, leadership under pressure, and personal guilt over fallen comrades​​.

• Survived a Ravager attack at Olakh as a young sergeant, earning a scar across his eye.

“You are rangers of the Phoenix Guard. You have survived worse battles than this—now hold your ground!”​

🟦 Doctor Tallen

• Lead medic and surgeon within Phoenix Guard ranks.

• First introduced tending to wounded from Glorislav and Ratza.

• Calm and composed under fire, Tallen provides field surgeries, trauma care, and emotional support.

• Personally administered care to Altor, patched wounded Rangers, and remained behind during key battles​​​.

🛠️ Engineer Gage

• Specialist in pre-war tech, including mechanical levers, train systems, and barricade controls.

• Repaired Olakh’s final lever system under fire, with just 20 minutes to spare.

• Trusted by Mirov during crisis command. Level-headed and focused.

• Helped scavenge and maintain covert ops trains and heavy weaponry for the Guard​.

⚔️📍 Major Events & Battles

🟥 Battle of Glorislav

• A Redline surprise attack annihilates the civilian station of Glorislav.

• Few Rangers survive; survivors flee to Ratza to warn the Phoenix Guard​.

🔥 Siege of Ratza

• Captain Mirov organizes a two-gate defense, directing Rangers to delay Redline long enough for the RMS Endurance to evacuate civilians.

• Despite heavy casualties, the Phoenix Guard holds until the train arrives.

• Multiple Rangers, including Romeo, die heroically in the defense​​.

💥 The Olakh Stand

• After retreating from Ratza, Rangers take refuge in the abandoned weapons facility of Olakh.

• Using hidden passages, covert ops trains, and secret armories, they restock and prepare a last stand.

• Romeo sacrifices himself detonating C4 to unblock an escape route.

• Mirov and Altor hold the upper floors while Gage repairs escape systems under fire​​.

🧭 Territorial Control

The Phoenix Guard once held:

• Ratza (central Western District hub)

• Glorislav (destroyed)

• Olakh (abandoned, now reclaimed)

• Multiple smaller frontier outposts, later overrun

Their forces now operate from mobile trains (e.g., The Exodus), scavenging resources from ruins and retreating deeper into the metro.

🕯️ Legacy & Identity

The Phoenix Guard is a symbol of resistance.
They don’t claim power. They protect people from those who do.

Their soldiers are battle-scarred, haunted by loss, but united by one creed:

“If not us… then who?”

🧬⚫ The NEXUS – Network of the Exiled

📍 Territory: Eastern Fringe & Uncharted Sectors
🟪 Faction Type: Isolated Technocratic Collective
🧩 Alias: Network of Exiled Underground Stations
📖 Primary Source: Chapter 3: The Passenger, Chapter 7: Echoes of the Past

🧱📉 Origins & Meaning

The NEXUS originated as a cluster of stations and bunkers once affiliated with the Greater Eastern Alliance, the same post-war coalition that birthed both The Redline and The Phoenix Guard.

After a catastrophic "incident", the group was exiled from the Alliance.
Rather than dissolve, they renamed themselves:
NEXUS – Network of Exiled Underground Stations​.

Their presence faded into myth. Even the Redline refuses to enter NEXUS-held sectors, suggesting something deeper… and more dangerous.

🔇👁️ Reputation & Secrecy

• Highly secretive, NEXUS avoids all formal contact with other factions.

• Their actual numbers, technology, and leadership remain unknown.

• Even Altor, an experienced Ranger, only knew of them through rumors and sparse intelligence​.

• Their zones are so feared that alternate tunnels are used to avoid crossing into their borders (e.g., Sector B route)​.

🧃🔫 Venatores Mortis

One known NEXUS-affiliated group is the Venatores Mortis (“Hunters of Death”), a rogue combat unit and train crew led by Captain Lenan aboard The Monolith.

The Redline brands them as thieves,
but among NEXUS circles, they are regarded with respect and purpose.
Baren is told:
“Our friends back at NEXUS call us the Venatores Mortis.”​

This suggests NEXUS maintains a network of black-ops or mercenary units acting independently but with aligned ideology.

🛰️🔧 Territorial Influence

While few NEXUS-controlled stations are directly shown, the following are confirmed or implied:

• Alianka – A station currently used for repairs by The Monolith. Notably outside Redline control and within NEXUS territory, as shown on your metro map.

• Sector B – A disputed and unpatrolled tunnel system. Even Rangers avoid it due to uncertainty about NEXUS presence.

• Possibly stations in eastern and northeastern branches, where no major faction presence is recorded.

Their locations are not defended by battalions or walls—they are protected by reputation, rumors, and what lurks beneath.

🧪🤖 Philosophy & Speculation

While NEXUS’s internal goals are unclear, their severance from the Redline, avoidance of politics, and association with elite rogue forces suggests a faction focused on:

• Preserving forbidden knowledge

• Rejecting authoritarian governance

• Advancing covert or experimental technologies

Their name and behavior imply a cold, system-based worldview, where logic and exile birthed independence.

🕯️🕳️ Legacy

The NEXUS does not shout. It watches.
It lets the Redline and Phoenix Guard burn each other out.
Its silence is a shield. Its myth is its defense.

But when the time comes… it moves.

☠️🕸️ The CRUX – Cult of the Ravaged Underground

📍 Territory: Northern District (Unconfirmed)
⚫ Faction Type: Cultist Collective / Territorial Claimant
🧩 Full Name: Coalition of the Ravaged Underground X-Zones
📖 First Mentioned: Chapter 3: The Passenger​

🧩🕯️ Name & Identity

CRUX stands for the Coalition of the Ravaged Underground X-Zones—a faction steeped in myth and dread. Their name is rarely spoken aloud, and when it is, it carries the weight of cult-like fear and territorial paranoia. They are described as religious extremists or cultists by Rangers who dare to speak of them at all​.

🕳️🌑 Territorial Influence

• Said to inhabit the Northern District, particularly in areas long abandoned or deemed uninhabitable by other factions.

• Their exact borders are not officially recognized by any major power.

• Sector B, a dangerous and disputed tunnel system, is rumored to be under partial control of the CRUX—or at least claimed by them.

• Even Rangers avoid Sector B if possible, citing that the region is either CRUX- or NEXUS-owned, but too dangerous to verify​.

🧠⛓️ Beliefs & Behavior

Little is known about their internal philosophy, but what’s implied suggests:

• Cultist behavior linked to the Ravaged zones—areas believed to be mutated, corrupted, or spiritually contaminated.

• They may worship, experiment with, or even attempt to become like Ravagers, given their territory and name.

• CRUX may revere the collapse of order as a divine or fated process—believing humanity’s fall is the birth of something greater, or monstrous.

No formal communications, demands, or treaties exist from CRUX. They do not negotiate. They exist beyond diplomacy.

📛⚠️ Threat Level & Rumors

• No confirmed encounters have been documented in full, but sector disappearances, train sabotage, and missing stalker teams are attributed to them.

• The faction is spoken of in the same breath as the NEXUS, but with a more religious or fanatical edge.

• Altor references them as something most Rangers "avoid discussing" unless absolutely necessary​.

🧃💀 Relation to Ravagers

The CRUX's connection to Ravagers remains speculative—but heavily implied:

• Their full name references "Ravaged Underground", suggesting either proximity to Ravager nests or even reverence.

• The cult may see Ravagers as divine figures or symbols of transformation, similar to how others view angels or demons.

• If they are conducting experiments—or engaging in rituals—they may be responsible for escalating mutations in their zone.

🕯️🧨 Legacy

The CRUX is not a faction to be understood.
It is a warning whispered in tunnels, a claim staked in fear, and a shadow that lives in the unlit corridors of the metro.

If the Redline is tyranny and the Phoenix Guard is resistance…
Then the CRUX is what waits after both collapse.

☠️ Venatores Mortis

⚙️ Identity & Origins:
To some, they're outlaws. To others, freedom fighters. The Venatores Mortis—Latin for "Hunters of Death"—are a rogue faction operating out of a heavily modified covert ops train known as The Monolith. Originally rumored to have stolen the train during a Redline maintenance operation near District Bravo, their reputation has only grown since. They are considered a blacklisted group by the Redline, who brand them as nothing more than heavily armed thieves. But among scavengers and survivors, they are legends.

🛠️ Structure & Gear:
The group’s members are heavily armored—some even wear armor crafted from the hides of Ravagers, using their mutated, hardened flesh as makeshift plating. Gas masks, military fatigues, and full-body armor obscure their identities. Their mobile base, the Monolith, is retrofitted into a self-sufficient combat train with an armory carriage, mounted machine guns, and quarters for their nomadic crew.

🔥 Leadership:
Their leader, Captain Lenan, is an older man with a sharp military demeanor and a tactical mind. Despite their outlaw label, he operates with a code. He refers to the group’s allies at NEXUS, a hidden station, suggesting that the Venatores Mortis aren’t entirely cut off from the metro’s shadow alliances​.

📛 Reputation:

• Redline View: Criminals and traitors.

• NEXUS View: Trusted operatives and allies.

• Metro View: Dangerous but honorable—if they deem you worth saving.

🧪 Encounters:
Baren Volkov encountered the Venatores Mortis after a Ravager attack left him stranded. The Monolith’s crew—led by Captain Lenan—rescued him, albeit after some betting on whether he’d survive. Their relaxed but ruthless camaraderie speaks to years spent surviving together, with shared trauma and high-risk missions forging unbreakable bonds.

💣 Special Notes:

• Operate exclusively on the Monolith, their armed metro train.

• Known for salvaging Ravager remains.

• Possibly associated with intelligence or special operations prior to the collapse.

☢️ Tunnel Stalkers

⚠️ Origin:
Little is known about the true origins of the Tunnel Stalkers. Operating deep within the forgotten arteries of the metro, their presence is shrouded in secrecy. They move silently, unseen, through zones deemed too dangerous for even the most seasoned rangers. Many believe they are myths—ghost stories whispered to children. But the truth, as always in the metro, is far more unsettling.

🎯 Function and Role:
Tunnel Stalkers are believed to be elite operatives, scouts, or agents tasked with high-risk missions across uncharted or quarantined areas of the underground. Their assignments likely involve long-term solo expeditions, recon, or maintenance of lost infrastructure. Few know who they truly serve, and fewer still survive long enough to ask.

🔧 Equipment:
Recovered remains suggest that Tunnel Stalkers carry standard-issue dog tags, survival gear, firearms, and journals. There are signs that they travel in custom-modified metro trains, capable of navigating collapsed or hostile territories. Their gear is practical, robust, and always ready for the worst.

🧟 Encounter:
Baren Volkov, a Redline soldier, discovered the body of a Tunnel Stalker named Petrov Einik near a derelict transit gate. The area showed clear signs of combat: bullet casings, claw marks, and blood stains littered the control rooms and generator corridors. Evidence pointed toward a confrontation with a Ravager, and a desperate last stand.

📓 Recovered Documents:
A journal found near Petrov’s remains details his final mission. Alongside a second Stalker, Olskin, he had located the long-lost Varanean Gate — a transit gate that directly connects the Western and Eastern Districts. Their train broke down shortly after arrival. Olskin began acting erratically, sabotaging repairs and muttering to himself. Petrov reported hallucinations, unnatural roars in the dark, and growing dread. The final entries spoke of fear, isolation, and an unknown force hunting them.

💀 Rumors and Mystery:
Tunnel Stalkers are often dismissed as legends. Some say they work for a hidden faction or pre-war remnant. Others claim they guard ancient technology or forbidden routes. What’s clear is this: wherever they go, silence follows. And when they fall, no one comes looking.

✅ Confirmed Facts:

• Petrov Einik was a Tunnel Stalker who perished near the Varanean Gate.

• His journal confirms both the existence of the Gate and the presence of another Stalker, Olskin.

• Evidence of a Ravager confrontation at the site has been verified.