You are a prepper
They call you crazy. Mock you. Maybe you don’t reveal it, or have plans that nobody else knows about. Perhaps you’re going to bolt down your house, defend it with gun and explosive. Perhaps you’re heading underground, never to be seen until your cache finally runs out of supplies, and you face the new world. Perhaps you’ve rented a luxury survival condo, or are even planning on hitting the road. Nonetheless, this is you. Your life is influenced by the preparations you have made for the end- and you have stuck by your guns, perhaps literally, determined that you are not the crazy one, and that your preparations are important.

And, as it turns out, they just might be. The rumblings of something big are coming. Nobody knows what it is, but throughout the world, twinges of fear are felt in that core, reptilian element of brains. Animals are more skittery. Forests are subdued. Even on the seas, one can tell that things are… Different. [i]wrong.[/i] North America is the epicentre. The feeling of unease is greatest, but daily life is not yet affected. There has been no run on the banks. No stock market crash. Despite the unease in the guts of people, life continues, much as it always has. However, this is not to be for long. Every day, the feeling of faint dread grows. Time will tell what will come of it.

[hr]

Welcome to Life After. This will be a slightly unusual nation RP, in that it won’t actually handle nations at all. Instead, you will take the role of groups of preppers within the Continental United States (including Alaska,) and how they match up to the strains of life after a disaster that brings society to its knees. It is important that I am deliberately not revealing the nature of this disaster, to ensure disaster min-maxing does not occur.

For this RP, a number of stats will be used, but it will mostly, and indeed [i]heavily[/i] be about writing. This is advanced for a reason, and I would appreciate that people only apply if they are interested in an RP that will involve a fairly large amount of writing, and (I hope,) last for a fair amount of time. The stats will be:

[hider= Stats]
Number of Survivors: How many survivors are within your prepared area. This ranges from a single person, to a family of five, to even an entire community of people. In the case of the latter, I would prefer that only a few major characters are used for POV.
Nutrition: This will be somewhat abstracted. Food and water is combined into ‘units,’ and one adult can live off of one unit for a day. Babies (0-2) require 0 units, as long as there’s an adult female and children (3-14) require a half unit a day. A bunker for two people is likely to have around 1.2 thousand units. Storage will have to be determined.

Supplies: Again, this will be somewhat abstracted into four different types. [b]Basic[/b], [b]Advanced[/b], [b]Trade[/b] and [b]Tools.[/b] Basic supplies include wood, scrap metal, nails, lead and gunpowder. Advanced include medical supplies, mechanical equipment such as gears and motors, electrical equipment such as batteries and wires, and even medical supplies, especially antibiotics and serious medication. Tools includes everything from hammers to ham radios and generators. Finally, trade items include alcohol, cigarettes, jewellery, and more. Basic supplies are measured in rough amounts. Enough gunpowder for a box of ammunition, or enough wood to construct a shed, etc etc. Advanced is measured similarly. Enough mechanical supplies to make a combustion engine. Enough medical equipment to operate on five people. Tools are only given when extraordinary. We don’t need to know every hammer, wrench, and crowbar. Things that might be included here are ammunition reloading equipment, petrol generators, power tools and short-range radios. Trade tools are measured in $ worth, with new post-apocalyptic pricing. Give me a rough idea of what supplies you have, and I’ll do the maths for you. Once again, storage should be thought of.

Weaponry: Guns. Swords. Explosives. Hell, flamethrowers if you really want. Things you can use to kill, and kill effectively. Whilst some of these will be listed under supplies, a full arsenal is expected (unless you’re being a pacifist.) Storage of these weapons is also an important factor- not only how do you fit them into your shelter, but also how you ensure that they’re safe, secure, and yet can still be reached quickly in an emergency. 

Vehicles: Cars. Bikes. Horses. Gyrocopters. Preppers aren’t always fine to just have a sedan or a sports car. Hell, some have even been known to buy up old tanks, but [i]those[/i] tend to have other issues beside mere logistics.

Stronghold: Where you’re preparing to survive in. This determines how exactly you will play. Bunker dwellers will have a much more monotonous and, well, [i]boring[/i] time of it, but will be dramatically safer, whilst above-ground settlements will have far more interactions with the new world, but ‘enjoy’ a dramatically greater amount of danger. Walking nomads, road warriors, and more can also be played.
[/hider]

The meat of the RP will be, I hope, the daily struggle to survive. Just because one has prepared does not mean that the way of life they once enjoyed is still possible. Electricity and water will eventually stop, gasoline can take anywhere from 3-8 months to deteriorate, and life must continue despite this.  As mentioned earlier, the stronghold you pick will greatly determine how one will survive. For ease of communication, I’ll break down four subtypes, although don't feel restricted to just these four, or even one of the four, and discuss how playstyle will depend on this. These subtypes are: Suburban Siegers, Vault Dwellers, Road Warriors and Lone Rangers.

Suburban Siegers should be a large proportion of preppers. They involve any amount of people- from one individual to a large family, who have turned their home into their castle. Despite the name, this also includes those who have property away from society, such as a cabin in the woods. Generally, Siegers have a large amount of supplies, the ability to gather more, but are also restricted to one place and must deal with threats rather than fleeing from them. Be it desperate people asking for supplies, raiders attempting to steal them, or one of the myriad new factions who have sprung up attempting to converse or recruit them, Suburban Siegers are the beating heart of the Prepping community.

Vault Dwellers, on the other hand, choose a different lifestyle. Burrowed hidey holes, hidden underneath a basement or entire shipping crates submerged beneath pastures, they tend to have tremendous amount of supplies, but unless they are willing to leave their abode, no way of replenishing them. Furthermore, cabin fever and sickness are major issues, and the ever-present risk of someone discovering the bunker, or worse, flushing one out is a threat that cannot be discounted.

Road Warriors choose a different path still. Choosing life with the open environment around them, they take to the roads in large convoys, or the seas in vast boats, they generally have less supplies on them, but can acquire a large amount easily. What’s more, they have the capability to not only fight off threats, but also flee them, if they even have to encounter them in the first place.
Lone Rangers are a different breed. Usually only one or two people, and easily the smallest proportion of the prepping community, the only things they can carry is the things on their back. They generally have a much easier time of gathering food, but cannot carry as much. Thy have the option of fleeing, hiding or fighting off threats, but the latter is often risky, especially when one cannot carry huge amounts of ammunition stocks, so every bullet counts. 

If you can think of a different type of Prepper that I haven’t thought of, feel free to tell me, and I’ll attempt to include them. That should be all for the initial interest check, so feel free to ask me questions and express interest!