Oh, and something I was going to do earlier, but pre-Memorial Day things got in the way. So, without further ado, some "loose" NPC organizations that'd be relevant to this region:

[u][b][inheritors of] FEMA/The F5[/b][/u] - The former Federal Emergency Management Association had been created in the late 70's to manage disaster recovery efforts and to survey the damage for the federal government in Washington DC on the deceleration of a emergency in a selected region. The organization was split into eleven different bureaus to manage to the breadth of the United States.

However, the collapse of society and FEMA's ability to coordinate with itself and with Washington had greatly effected the organization's ability to operate. More so in the Great Lakes where nuclear fire reigned on Chicago, destroying their regional headquarters and further crippling their ability to operate to their full organizational potential. All the same they remain.

Scattered offices throughout the Great Lakes continue to operate, if with a crippled ability to coordinate their efforts. Loose, informal contact with the rest of what remains of FEMA continues on. Though as the generations within the organization change as they do outside, the use of FEMA as an acronym dropped or new names were given to them by post-black out communities across the region. Most popular of all being The F5.

The F5 continues a mission of teaching post-apocalyptic communities to survive in as loose a definition to before as possible. Though they may not hold the organization knowledge to keep combustion engines working or to even build new ones, the least they can offer is the ability to organize based in the rising Missionaries of the F5 and traveling medical care or training between communities. Often time the F5 serves as a politically neutral caravan, moving between communities to bargain between them the needs they both need.

From a political standpoint this keeps smaller communities from showing their hand to potentially predatory groups who would keep their distance base on the variety of unknowns this keeps. For the larger communities this puts in someone else's hands the methods to spread their influence through kindly donations.

[u][b]Aventurier[/b][/u] - Men of distant purpose, the Aventurier claim to be from a place known as the Kingdom of Quebec, though self-proclaimed. Often speaking the language of their own language in the post-apocalyptic landscape the actual intention of the Aventurier is a mystery of their own. Though their primary purpose seems to be that of scouts or explorers sent to learn and trade with the land beyond their own.

For the new communities of the Great Lakes, the Aventurier are a source of trade to and from far-flung places many of the new generation would never had heard of. Such places as Les Aungtupée or La Nouvelle-Orléans. Though their ability to find and sell such far-away materials is renown, it is hardly anything but a luxury market to many in the new world, and aesthetic baubles.

Though with a commercial role, many come with other services. A regimented, military society. The Aventurier may see fit to his own honor to contract his own services out. Though his true loyalty lies in that land of Quebec and its interests ultimately over ride its own.

The Aventurier hold a more central presence in the Great Lakes, and have set up their frontier forts at both Sault Ste. Maries and Detroit/Windsor.