Well it's not exactly that rules were relaxed more like there were less members therefore it would be easier to slip out of the camp without being noticed. The flipside though is that because there are less members it would take less time to realize someone is missing.

It's less that they survived because they were chosen and more because they survived and the Annihilator said they were chosen. In my mind he was already a little deranged to begin with and then when the Apostate happened his own psyche led him to believe that he was left there for a purpose. He was however charismatic, leading many to join his cult and as his own legend grew more wanted in. He then became somewhat of a profit, having the final say in choosing those whom he thought had been chosen by a higher power to stay to defend what he sees as "the good" and those whom he thought were the evil. That's all I'll say for now without getting into pre-Apostate background, because that'll ruin the fun of finding out through playing now won't it.

The story will basically take place in the NYC area before branching off to a bit of the surrounding state. Characters will find themselves in that area and I would recommend finding smaller groups between everyone before the stories eventually intertwine with that of The Seer's group. That being said it doesn't have to be that way, we can have the characters all meet up at the very start and then they start to learn the character traits of others before finally setting off as bigger group.

As an aside, if no one signs up for the Children of God I think I'll go about controlling some characters for that, they won't be initially present but there may be some random encounters along the way.