A Guide to Surviving the Apocalypse(Basic)
Before we begin I'm going to have to state that most of what is said here is not from a professional's statement. I have considered all the things that are listed here in my free time and have done the various research to create the Basic Guide for those who wish to survive the Apocalypse. While this is both a Guide for RP survival and real life survival, I mostly intend for this to be used for RP survival. The majority of information which is placed here will pertain to Pandemic and Zombie survival as the likely hood of anybody surviving a Nuclear of Apocalypse is very, very low even if they are in a vault of some type. Now then, time to begin the Guide.
Food
Food is by far the most important thing you need in order to survive an apocalypse. While the average human can survive three weeks without food1 2 it is poorly understood how the bodies metabolism works and some people have reported surviving any where from twenty-eight to fourty days3. But, in the apocalypse one does not want to face starvation especially considering you'd be in need of more calories per day rather than less. When looking for food in an apocalypse it is best to look for what I like to call the 'E.C.P'. E stands for the experation date, C stands for the calories, and P stands for the protein. Protein is especially key to survival as you will need to get rid of the fat you do have and strengthen the muscles in your body.
After one year has passed since the apocalypse began, give up on eating foods which had been mass produced before the apocalypse. Most of these foods would have gone bad unless they were canned goods. What you want to do is set up a farm wherever you have taken residence. If you are inside a city, set the farm on the room and plant some corn, squash, or beans. Corn, squash, and beans are essential in that they have plenty of nutrients in them to keep you going and will be easy to circulate out. If you are in the suburbs or a small city, make a farm right in the backyard of a house or on the outskirts of town. Instead of circulating out corn, squash, and beans grow them all together so that all three will survive to adulthood.
Now, while the farm may set you up on the basic survival you'll need to learn to hunt animals and, better yet, practice husbandry on animals for a constant supply of meat. But, those will be covered in a more advanced version of this guide as those skills are for very long term survival and this guide will simply get you through years one through five at the very best.
Water
Water is essential to life. The human body is composed of water and a lack of water can damage the body quite a alot. But, water can be difficult to come by in the apocalypse as any open source of water could possibly be contaminated. If you are going to drink from a stream or lake, always check the area around the lake and walk at least a mile up and down the stream you are going to be drinking from. If any dead body is found in the water, don't drink it. Bottled water will only last so long and aren't likely to be found in any time after three to four months of the beginning.
The best way to get a clean source of water that you can trust is rain water. Set up a barrel, bucket, cups, and whatever else you have as soon as you think it is going to start raining. Collect all the rain water you can possibly have and use that as drinking water. If you don't trust the rain water than make a fire and boil some of the water and check the residue which is left behind. Conserve water as much as possible. This means you are going to need to stop showering, stop brushing your teeth, drink only occasionally throughout the day, and share your water only if it means they will be staying. Don't give away water to people unless they are staying for more than a month and even then watch them while they are with you as they may be a scout for some bandits nearby.
Location
So you live in a big city, a suburb, or a small city in the nation you live in. All of these places of viable for survival but it can be difficult to survive in all of them as well. A big city is likely to hold more infected persons, bandits, and generally twitchy survivors. But, a big city also has more places for you to safely shack up in for the night and more places where food and water can be found. A suburb is located outside the big city so it has the same downsides to it as the city itself. But, the suburb is smaller and generally less condensed and has more room for you to expand your territory once you get a group going. Then there is the small city. It will have less people in general but also less places to get your supplies at. It is overall a good place to set up a base if your group can control the entire city.
But, location is just not what city you decide to live in but also where in the world you decide to live in. If the place has cold Spring, Fall, and freezing Winters then you better be ready to survive with a very short growin season. If it is hot and dry three of the four seasons then you better be ready to ration water. What you want is a place where Spring is lukewarm, Summers are hot, Falls are cool, and Winters are cold. These conditions will be perfect for growing crops and should make life easier here. The only problem is that areas such as that are rare to find no matter where you live. Here in America, I live in the state of Tennessee and we have weather that is nearly like that but can sometimes be very wild. So, be careful where you decide to make camp unless you feel like you can live with the weather conditions.
Groups
You may like to believe that you can live alone throughout the apocalypse and survive perfectly but let me tell ya this, you are wrong. Humans are social beings and living alone for long periods of time without any interaction with an actual human being can damage your psyche. You want to make a group of people in the apocalypse not just because you can live by the idea that the slowest one will be sacraficed to a zombie so that the group may survive but so that you can create a new society. If your group is strong enough to control a town then you can control the town and set up whatever sort of laws and punishments you wish in the town. You can farm with your group making the yield increase and the work faster with every person on the farm. Everybody in your group must work though. You can't have that one guy who sits around all day complaining of a torn muscle in his leg just cause he is unwilling to work.
But, don't trust just everybody when you establishing your group and recruiting more people. Some people may be scouts of bandits and will run off as soon as you let them out of your sight. Some people may seem like they've got it all together but could only take one more stresser to cause them to snap and murder your group in your sleep. The people you know well should be the first ones to join your group followed by distant friends and then you can recruit random people. Always keep people in pairs when recruiting so that the new recruit is kept with anybody you trust. Keep a person watching new recruits every hour of the day and tell the new recruit that they are going to asses their skills and determine their job after a month or so.
Be wary of large groups of people, particularly those of families traveling together. While you may love to welcome a family into your group, don't do it. Families often come with drama of their own. Perhaps the Father is beating the Wife and is an alcoholic. Or the Son might be angry at his Father and could end up shooting him 'on accident'. Or maybe the Daughter seems like little miss perfect but is really out to sleep with as many men as possible to anger her father. If you do accept a family, seperate everybody from each other. They are all to live in seperate buildings, dorms perhaps, so that you can asses their mental state without the influence of the others. Dorms are generally a good idea here as, after getting comfortable with your people, the family members will start to trust the people in the dorms and will spill their guts about anything that could possibly be an issue or not. Anything beyond the five year range you should already have a good grip on when it comes to grouping. The advanced version of this Guide will go more into depth with controlling your group, rationing, and job assesments.
Medical Knowledge
When looking for medical supplies most people will take simple things like Neosporin, bandaids, bandage wraps, peroxide, first aid tape, pain pills, and so on and so forth. What is left behind is prescription medicines, maybe some gauze pads, self-adhering wraps, and pain relief ointments. What you don't want to do is collect the prescription meds. Prescription medicines might be a good idea short term but unless you have a medical professional with your group you don't want to takes pills just according to what you feel is fitting. Prescriptions can be highly addicting and what you don't want to deal with in the apocalypse is an addiction to a drug which has gone out of production. What you need will be the pain relief ointments, specifically the kind for joint pain. This way you can relieve the pain you endure from intense physical work everyday in your group.
If you find an unopened box of gauze pads or gauze wrap then take it. Gauze in general is a good idea to have as it is a sterile bandage that is very easy to use and very flexible. You don't want bandaids to cover large wounds on your body since they restrict the flow of air which hinders the coagulation of blood. To go on a short spiel here, oxygen sticks to blood causing it to turn red but also changes the density of blood allowing it coagulate better. Self-adhering wraps are mostly for covering over the gauze but some have bandaged sides so it can be used as a bandage. You want to pick up things for long term survival as well. These include fiber supplements, diarrhea relief, various vitamins and supplements, cold and flu medicine, and cough drops. If there is a person who smokes in your group, get nicotine and wean them off smoking so that they don't hinder the group.
When treating wounds one must be careful. The majority of anti-bacterial washes and peroxides will have been taken early on as well so you may need to turn towards alcohol here. No, not for drinking but for cleaning out wounds. You can generally clean out a wound using alcohol of 80 proof or more but the CDC suggest using alcohols containing 50-90% alcohol. The most common form of alcohol with 80 proof is vodka. Other alcohols with a proof of 80 or higher are bourbon(whiskey), absinthe, brandy(70-120proof), Everclear, gin, some rums, tequila, and Whiskey. So, if you ever need to clean out a cut in a zombie apocalypse all you need to do is find any of these alcohols and you can do as much. Though, Everclear and absinthe are illegal in the US so finding any of them probably won't happen. In order to determine the amount of alcohol present in any of the above refer to every 20 proof as 10% alcohol. The advanced version of this Guide will go more into depth of caring for wounds, broken bones, and the treatment of diseases.
Emotions
Emotions can be the most difficult part of the apocalypse. You watch millions die to a pandemic or zombies and you realize that your life could amount for nothing cause of one simple super bug. Within the first month of the apocalypse, suicides will increase in likelyhood as more people begin to fall into depression. But, you must stay positive to survive which means avoiding alcohol and cigarettes as comfort. You must abandon the idea that you will die as the world you were born into dies and adopt the idea that, while the world which you lived in before is dead, the world you live in now is going to be your New World. It will be a world where survival is key but doesn't mean killing other humans if they get in your way. In fact, killing people will make the apocalypse that much worse for you. It is difficult enough to kill a creature like a zombie which once and been a member of somebody's family. Just imagine how difficult it would be to kill a living person quite simply cause they were hindering your ability to survive.
At the beginning of the apocalypse your first idea may be to get to your family and join them in survival. I have to say that, despite the fact that I'm a family first kind of person, you shouldn't do that. Your family is great and all and sure you can trust them to help you survive the apocalypse together but you want to avoid favortism which most people can't do when it involves their family. You don't want to give you family members the lax positions in your group simply cause they are family. Give them jobs they are good at or jobs they feel they are good at. Avoid favortism at all costs since this will create dissention in your group if it is noticed.
Don't let the members of your group see your feelings if you are the leader. If you are on the verge of breaking down, don't let anybody see you do it. As leader, you must stay calm in basically any situation that you are placed in and you can't follow the negativity that your members have about a situation. Instead, stay positive and tell them that everything will be fine so long as you all work together to get through it. If you need somebody to talk to, get a good friend or a priest of some sort to talk to who you trust not to tell anybody else. In fact, have a person that you survivors can go talk to when they are in need of a person to talk to so that break downs are avoided. The hardest part of surviving can be coping with living in a world drastically different from your own though as roleplayers we probably have better skills at that than most people do.
Physical Condition
People say that the best way to survive the apocalypse is to be some muscular but lean beast at the beginning and stay that way all the way through it. I call BS on that as there shouldn't be a single sort of body build which allows you to survive the apocalypse. Sure you want to be strong, lean, and fast but you don't need to be that way to survive the beginning. As soon as you feel ready in the apocalypse, you want to begin a workout regimne so that you can strength your body. You want to take in as much protein as possible which means you might need a protein powder or supplement to help your body build stronger muscles. There should be no set regimne for working out that you took from somebody else as your body will differ from their body and the regimne may not work as well for you as it did for them. You want to at least be capable of lifting half your body weight within the first five years and capable of running a mile under ten minutes.
Clothing
This section is simple enough. Wear clothing that fits into the weather you are going out in. You don't want to wear all black if you are going out side and you don't want to wear winter jackets in the middle of summer. Keep to wearing jeans, khakis, athletic or hiking shoes, and a shirt whenever you go out. For shoes, if you are wearing hiking boots then you better be traveling long distances. If you are not, then you need to be wearing athletic shoes of some type. You want to have a backpack with you whenever you go outside of your zone and you don't want to wear solid colors. If you are going outside at night, wear colors with dark stripes otherwise the complete black clothing will simply cause a shadow against the actual darkness. It is the same way with white in the dark.
Weapons
Avoid the usage of guns at all cost. While a gun is a very efficent weapon to use now, if you can't find an ample supply of ammo then it isn't worth using. Don't give guns to those who have trained with them for long periods of time and only give guns to those who are patrolling the zone your group resides in or are leaving the zone to scavenge supplies. Melee weapons such as machetes, swords, knives, and spears are prefered weapons when combat can't be avoided. Heavy or blunt weapons can be used but the people using them better have a sharp weapon with them as well otherwise you have somebody who is nothing more than an open target. Always have somebody in the group travel with a sledge hammer in case they get backed into a corner and need an escape route.
There should always be people trained in using a bow in a group leaving the zone so that they aren't forced to take out enemies with a gun when at range. Training bowmen should be easy enough as all you need is a target, a bow, and arrows which can easily be taken from the target and reused. All arrows should be retrived when possible and should be unmarked so that if they can't be retrived, they can't be tracked back to your particular group. The advanced version of this Guide will go more into depth on weapons care, gun care, and possibility of making weapons.
Transportation
Avoid cars, motorcycles, and basically any motorized vehical. It is as simple as that. You won't be able to get the gas to make it worth while to use a motorized vehical so it is generally a better idea to just walk if you are going somewhere. Better yet, get a bicycle for each member of your group and use that as transportation. Have a couple of your members guarding a cart pulled by two bicycles which hold your supplies while the rest ride in front and behind the supplies in a formation so as to protect every inch of you view. But, avoid using these often as the tires and spokes will wear down for use. To put it simply, walking can be the best kind of transportation for the apocalypse even if it is going to make you tired.
Reference Points(Sub scripts 1-3):
1. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-a-person-sur/
2. http://www.livescience.com/32320-how-long-can-a-person-survive-without-water.html
3. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-long-can-a-person-sur/
