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Peoples and Culture of the Island

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St. Lawrence Island is one of the few patches of land that the nuclear winter never locked in ice. Here, amid the endless cold, people survived: the native islanders, refugees from a ruined town, the inhabitants of a surviving shelter, and outsider raiders from the mainland. Here is who populates the island and how they live today.

The Yupik and the Nipait Hunters

The island’s native population are the Yupik. Their traditions did not vanish when catastrophe arrived: the hunters of New Gambell, for example, still adorn their clothing with protective charms traditional to the local Yupik.

The main strength of the surviving hunters is the Nipait society. It is not a separate settlement but a hunting brotherhood of New Gambell. The Nipait search parties were formed in the first years after the war to comb the frozen wastelands and underground ruins for materials, parts, and military gear. It was their rare successful expeditions that brought real sets of armor into the town. Over time the Nipait became a pillar of the independent city, and they sometimes hire on as guides for visiting traders, leading caravans along the island’s safest routes.

The Shelter Dwellers: the Legacy of Karma Industries

A distinct island culture grew up behind the walls of the protective shelters of the Karma Industries corporation. Since 2020 the corporation had been selling living spaces in underground bunkers all over the world; each shelter was designed for roughly 50 years of self-sufficient operation. They were built near cliffs, canyons, and mountains, and far from major cities, so as not to end up at the epicenter of a conflict.

Life inside a shelter was strictly regimented. An allocation commission assigned every resident to one of five specialization groups:

  • Entry — generalists: maintenance, cleaning, tending plants and animals. Equipment: the KS-1 jumpsuit.
  • Technical — repair and maintenance of life-support systems, fixing equipment. The KS-1T jumpsuit.
  • Medical — medics, nurses, and doctors with equipment from the Renascence Inc. corporation. The KS-1M jumpsuit.
  • Security — former soldiers, police, and law-enforcement personnel keeping order. The KS-1S jumpsuit and the KS-3 kit.
  • Command — the key management posts. The KS-1L jumpsuit.

The technological foundation of the shelters is the TEUS-1 atomic mini-reactor, capable of powering a small town on its own. This way of life lives on in the game today through Vault ED-17, which survived the bombardment: a medical bay, workshops, and barracks remain inside, and its inhabitants are still trading partners of the peaceful islanders.

The Island’s Settlements

Today life is concentrated around a handful of strongholds.

  • New Gambell — an independent fortress-city. Since its founding it has repeatedly fought off major raids by local gangs and roving bands from the Korka. The self-defense forces, hastily assembled from everyone who could hold a weapon, gradually turned into a battle-hardened unit. The first workshops ran on equipment evacuated from the civilian airport — and in those same warehouses they found a stock of radios, later issued to the guards going on duty.
  • Savoonga — a large neighboring settlement and a mandatory stop for caravans: markets, camps, and taverns. In the game it is a village faction with local self-governance, mutual aid, and hunting shops.
  • Vault ED-17 — a surviving Karma Industries bunker, a playable location with a medical bay, workshops, barracks, and an airlock exit to the surface.

Traders and Raiders

Besides its settled inhabitants, the island lives off its traders — caravaneers who cross the “Korka” ice bridge and link the settlements together. They are a full-fledged faction with supply lines, caravan guards, and trade.

Not all outsiders come in peace. Raiders arrive from the mainland across the Korka — the disciplined Battalion of former soldiers, the “Radio Rats” interceptors, and the “Headhunters” mercenaries. By default they are hostile.

Overall the island splits into two camps: a peaceful trade-and-civilian bloc (the Traders, New Gambell, Savoonga, and ED-17 are allies and do not fight one another) and the raiders, who are not united among themselves either — the Battalion and the Radio Rats are rivals.

You can join a faction: this is tied to a separate reputation system, and the conditions depend on your standing (the Battalion, for instance, only takes you in if you have earned enough respect). Each faction has its own joining threshold.