[Fallout 5 Faction Concept] The Taxers
The Taxers are one of the most hated and feared wasteland factions because they do not call themselves raiders, warlords, or gangsters.
They call themselves the government.
They do not kick down doors screaming.
They knock first.
They show paperwork.
They count your bullets, your water, your crops, your brahmin, your caps, your scrap, and even the number of beds in your settlement.
Then they tell you what you owe.
And if you refuse?
They come back with armor.
Faction Overview
The Taxers are a post-war bureaucratic militia that believes civilization can only return if everyone pays into a centralized system. On the surface, they present themselves as organized, lawful, and necessary. They claim the wasteland has failed because every settlement acts alone.
Their argument is simple:
“Roads need guards. Guards need bullets. Bullets cost caps. So pay.”
But under that logic is a brutal racket. The Taxers are part government, part mafia, part debt collector, and part military occupation force.
They do not just take money. They take control.
They tax:
crops
clean water
trade routes
weapons
ammunition
livestock
generators
medicine
salvage
settlement population
robots
shops
defensive walls
even grave plots
To them, survival itself is taxable.
Origin
Before the Great War, their founders worked inside local revenue offices, municipal finance departments, state agencies, and private debt collection companies. After the bombs fell, some of them survived inside an underground records facility filled with old tax codes, census data, land deeds, maps, and government software.
Generations later, their descendants turned those old records into scripture.
They believe the old world did not fail because of taxes.
They believe it failed because people stopped respecting systems.
Their leaders teach that every settlement must be registered, assessed, numbered, and brought into compliance.
They are not trying to rebuild America spiritually like the Enclave.
They are not trying to preserve technology like the Brotherhood.
They are trying to rebuild the paperwork of America.
Visual Style
The Taxers have a very distinct look.
They wear a mix of:
old revenue officer uniforms
armored trench coats
riot helmets
cracked reading glasses
leather briefcases reinforced with metal plates
clipboards strapped to their forearms
barcode tags hanging from belts
pre-war badges
portable printers
ledger books chained to their armor
Their officers look clean compared to normal wastelanders, but not in a heroic way. They look cold, stiff, and official.
Their combat units stamp red markings on doors, walls, and bodies:
DELINQUENT
SEIZED
NON-COMPLIANT
PROPERTY OF THE OFFICE
Their flags are faded blue, gray, and white with a cracked scale symbol over a stack of caps.
Leadership Structure
The Auditor-General
The supreme leader of the Taxers. Nobody knows if “Auditor-General” is one person, a rotating position, or an AI using old government tax software.
Some wastelanders claim the Taxers answer to a ghoul accountant who has been alive since before the war.
Others claim their real leader is a pre-war mainframe that still calculates taxes for dead citizens.
Collectors
Field officers who visit settlements and issue tax demands. They are calm, smug, and heavily protected.
Assessors
Scouts and spies who inspect settlements before the Taxers make contact. They count resources, defenses, weaknesses, and population size.
Repo Crews
Armed seizure squads. If a settlement cannot pay, Repo Crews take goods, weapons, livestock, or people.
Red Stampers
The Taxers’ shock troops. They mark targets as “non-compliant” and are sent when intimidation fails.
Clerks
Low-level workers who maintain records, issue permits, process bribes, and keep the faction running.
Some Clerks secretly hate the Taxers and can become informants.
Main Philosophy
The Taxers believe freedom without structure is just chaos.
Their public message sounds reasonable:
“You want safe roads? Pay.”
“You want trade protection? Pay.”
“You want raiders removed? Pay.”
“You want walls, doctors, and water pumps? Pay.”
The problem is that once they enter a region, they never stop raising the price.
At first, they protect caravans.
Then they demand a trade fee.
Then they demand a road fee.
Then a guard fee.
Then a settlement registration fee.
Then a weapons ownership fee.
Then a “failure to report income” penalty.
Eventually, the settlement works for them.
How They Operate in the World
The Taxers should not act like normal enemies. They should feel like a system spreading across the map.
When they arrive in a region, they begin by setting up small offices near roads and trade hubs. Then they send Collectors to nearby settlements.
A settlement can:
pay them
resist them
negotiate
hide resources
bribe an official
ask the player for help
join them willingly
become occupied
If the player ignores them, the faction grows stronger. They begin controlling roads, charging tolls, seizing caravans, and forcing smaller towns into debt.
This makes them perfect for Fallout 5 because they are not just another shooting faction. They create pressure across the whole wasteland.
Gameplay Mechanics
Tax Notices
The player can find tax notices nailed to doors, mailboxes, market stalls, and settlement gates.
Some are funny. Some are threatening.
Example:
Notice of Wasteland Revenue Violation
You are hereby fined 43 caps for possession of unregistered purified water.
Failure to pay may result in property seizure, forced labor, or corrective gunfire.
Settlement Tax System
If the player builds settlements, The Taxers can discover them.
They may demand:
10% of caps earned from shops
crops per week
water shipments
ammunition
a cut of caravan profits
a registration fee for every settler
a defense permit for turrets
The player can pay, fight, deceive, or sabotage their records.
Audit Encounters
Random Taxer patrols can stop the player on roads.
They may ask:
“Do you have a license for that power armor?”
“Are those caps declared?”
“Is that robot registered as property or labor?”
“Do you have proof of ownership for that weapon?”
The player can pass Speech checks, forge documents, bribe them, intimidate them, or start a fight.
Debt System
Some NPCs are trapped in Taxer debt. The player can free them by paying the debt, destroying the records, killing the Collector, or exposing fraud.
Weapons and Gear
The Taxers should use weapons that fit their identity.
Signature Weapons
The Red Stapler
A modified nail gun that fires heated metal staples.
Audit Rifle
A semi-automatic combat rifle with a built-in document scanner and targeting laser.
Compliance Baton
An electrified baton used by Collectors.
Ledger Shotgun
A double-barrel shotgun with names carved into the stock.
Final Notice
A unique revolver carried by high-ranking Taxers. Every shot is called a “payment.”
Special Grenades
Ink Bomb
Blinds enemies with black ink and causes temporary vision distortion.
Form 99-B Gas Grenade
A bureaucratic joke turned chemical weapon. Causes confusion and AP drain.
Stamp Mine
When triggered, it brands the victim with red paint and alerts nearby Taxers.
Enemy Types
Taxer Collector
The face of the faction. Usually protected by guards. Uses pistols, batons, and intimidation.
Taxer Assessor
Light scout unit. Marks targets and calls reinforcements.
Taxer Repo Man
Heavy unit with shotguns, chains, and power armor pieces. Specializes in close-range combat.
Taxer Red Stamper
Elite enforcer. Uses automatic weapons and explosive charges.
Taxer Clerk
Weak in combat but can call alarms, lock terminals, and destroy evidence.
Taxer Auditor
High-ranking officer with strong armor, energy weapons, and command abilities.
Taxer Calculator Bot
A modified robot that scans enemies and calculates “fees.” Can debuff the player by tagging them as delinquent.
Their Settlements and Bases
The Taxers occupy old government buildings, post offices, courthouses, banks, IRS-style offices, municipal halls, and record storage centers.
Their bases are full of:
filing cabinets
terminals
locked evidence rooms
seized weapons
confiscated chems
captured brahmin
prisoner labor cells
old pre-war tax records
fake legal documents
propaganda posters
One major location could be called:
The Revenue Tower
A huge pre-war finance building converted into a fortress. Each floor has a different department:
Registration
Weapons Licensing
Water Assessment
Labor Compliance
Property Seizure
Punishment Review
Executive Audit
At the top is the Auditor-General’s office.
Questline Ideas
1. “Notice Served”
The player returns to a settlement and finds a Taxer notice on the gate. The settlement has seven days to pay or be seized.
The player can:
pay the fee
negotiate it down
expose the tax as fake
ambush the Collector
convince the town to resist
turn the town over to the Taxers
2. “Death and Taxes”
A settlement leader dies mysteriously after refusing to pay. The Taxers claim it was a raider attack.
The player investigates and discovers the Taxers hired mercenaries to make an example out of him.
3. “The Missing Ledger”
A Taxer Clerk steals a master ledger that contains proof of illegal overcharging, fake penalties, and secret bribes.
The player must decide whether to:
protect the Clerk
sell the ledger
give it to rival factions
blackmail the Taxers
destroy it
use it to take over the faction
4. “Repo Day”
The Taxers arrive with a full Repo Crew to seize an entire town. They are taking generators, water pumps, medicine, and children old enough to work.
The player can defend the town in a settlement battle.
5. “The Audit”
The player is summoned to the Revenue Tower for a formal audit.
This could be one of the funniest and darkest Fallout quests.
The player has to sit through absurd accusations:
unpaid bottlecap income
unregistered armor upgrades
illegal possession of pre-war currency
failure to report scavenged toaster parts
unauthorized Brahmin parking
improper corpse disposal
Depending on choices, the audit can become a debate, a stealth mission, a prison escape, or a full shootout.
Moral Complexity
The Taxers should not be pure evil at first.
Some roads under their control are actually safer.
Some caravans prefer paying them instead of being robbed by raiders.
Some settlements become more organized under their rule.
Some Taxer officials genuinely believe they are rebuilding order.
That makes the faction more interesting.
The question becomes:
Is bad government better than no government?
And at what point does “civilization” become just another form of raiding?
Companions Connected to The Taxers
Mira Knox — Former Taxer Clerk
Mira was raised inside the Taxer system. She knows their codes, routes, passwords, and corruption. She left after seeing a settlement starve because of an impossible tax demand.
She is smart, sarcastic, nervous, and excellent with terminals.
Companion perk:
Creative Accounting
You get better prices from merchants and can occasionally avoid tolls, bribes, and faction fees.
Brigg “Repo” Calhoun — Ex-Repo Man
A huge former Taxer enforcer who used to seize property from settlements. He claims he was “just doing the job” until one seizure went too far.
He is trying to make up for what he did, but people remember him.
Companion perk:
Asset Recovery
You find extra scrap, ammo, and caps when looting faction bases.
Player Choices
The player should be able to handle The Taxers in several ways.
Destroy Them
Attack their offices, burn their records, free prisoners, and collapse the Revenue Tower.
Result: settlements are free, but roads may become more dangerous without organized patrols.
Reform Them
Expose corruption, remove the Auditor-General, and turn them into a real public service.
Result: settlements pay smaller taxes, but receive real protection and infrastructure.
Join Them
Become a Taxer agent and help bring the region under “lawful compliance.”
Result: the player gains caps, authority, and access to seized goods, but settlements fear them.
Exploit Them
Play both sides. Use Taxer records to blackmail towns, merchants, and rival factions.
Result: the player becomes rich, but makes enemies everywhere.
Why The Taxers Fit Fallout
The Taxers are perfect for Fallout because they take something boring from the old world and turn it into something terrifying.
Fallout works best when it twists pre-war institutions into wasteland nightmares:
corporations become cults
vaults become experiments
patriotism becomes fascism
science becomes horror
consumerism becomes religion
The Taxers fit right into that tradition.
They are funny on the surface, but serious underneath. They allow comedy, satire, moral choices, settlement gameplay, faction politics, and dark storytelling.
They are not just another raider gang.
They are the wasteland version of bureaucracy with guns.
Their motto:
“You may survive the bombs. You may survive the raiders. You may survive the mutants. But nobody survives the audit.”
Their Real Threat: They Make Oppression Look Legal
The scary thing about The Taxers is that they do not act like raiders.
Raiders say:
“Give us your stuff or die.”
The Taxers say:
“According to Article 7, Section 12, your settlement has failed to comply with regional reconstruction law.”
That is what makes them dangerous.
They turn theft into policy.
They turn intimidation into procedure.
They turn slavery into “labor repayment.”
They turn occupation into “civil administration.”
A settlement might hate raiders, but at least everyone knows raiders are criminals. With The Taxers, some people start believing they are necessary. That creates division inside towns. Some settlers want to resist. Others say, “Just pay them. At least they keep the roads safe.”
That is where the faction becomes powerful: they do not only attack settlements physically. They break them politically.
Taxer Propaganda
The Taxers would have some of the best dark-comedy propaganda in Fallout 5.
Posters across the wasteland could say:
“Caps Build Civilization.”
“Your Fair Share Keeps the Deathclaws Away.”
“A Registered Settlement Is A Safe Settlement.”
“Only Raiders Hate Receipts.”
“Pay Today. Live Tomorrow.”
“Unreported Water Is Stolen Water.”
“The Office Protects Those Who Comply.”
“Freedom Is Not Free. Neither Are Roads.”
Their radio broadcasts could sound calm and official, almost like old public-service announcements:
“Good evening, citizens. This is a reminder from the Office of Regional Revenue. All settlements with more than three sleeping bags, one water pump, or two armed residents must file Form 12-C before sundown. Failure to report may result in penalties, seizure, or protective relocation.”
The humor should be funny at first — then disturbing when the player sees what “protective relocation” really means.
The Taxer Departments
The faction should be broken into departments, each with its own role, quests, and enemies.
Department of Settlement Registration
This office keeps track of every town, farm, shack, bunker, and camp.
They assign settlement numbers instead of names.
A town called Rustwell becomes:
Settlement Unit 44-B
The locals hate it because The Taxers erase identity. They do not care about history, family, or culture. They only care about records.
Gameplay use: the player can hack registration terminals to remove a settlement from Taxer maps.
Department of Water Assessment
This is one of their most hated branches.
They tax purified water heavily because clean water is power in the wasteland. If a settlement has a purifier, well, rain collector, or water caravan, The Taxers claim it must be regulated.
They call it:
“Hydration Revenue.”
If a town cannot pay, The Taxers may seize the purifier or poison the well and blame “contamination.”
Quest idea:
A settlement is dying because The Taxers locked down their water pump after declaring it “unlicensed.” The player can pay, steal the key, repair an alternate water source, or expose that the Taxers created the violation themselves.
Department of Arms Licensing
This branch regulates weapons.
They do not want settlements too armed because armed citizens resist occupation. So they create weapon permits.
Examples:
- pistol license
- rifle license
- shotgun tax
- turret permit
- ammunition storage fee
- power armor registration
- explosive possession penalty
This creates a brutal gameplay situation: settlements under Taxer control may have weaker defenses because they are not allowed to own enough weapons.
The Taxers claim this prevents violence.
In reality, it makes the town easier to control.
Department of Labor Recovery
This is their darkest department.
When people cannot pay debts, they are assigned “labor service.” The Taxers avoid calling it slavery. They use polished language.
They call prisoners:
“Revenue Laborers.”
They call forced labor camps:
“Repayment Centers.”
They call starvation rations:
“Adjusted Nutritional Allotments.”
This gives Fallout 5 room for serious moral storytelling. The player can find ordinary people locked into impossible debt because their parents, spouses, or settlement leaders signed agreements years ago.
Department of Historical Claims
This department uses pre-war land deeds to claim ownership of wasteland territory.
They may show up at a town and say:
“This land was legally owned by the municipal government before the war. Therefore, all current occupants owe 219 years of back property tax.”
It is absurd, but they enforce it with guns.
This department could create some of the funniest and nastiest quests in the faction storyline.
One ghoul might actually have a real pre-war deed proving the Taxers are wrong. The player has to protect him long enough to reach the records office.
Special Taxer Units
The Pencil Pushers
Do not let the name fool you. These are knife-wielding assassins who use sharpened metal pencils and suppressed pistols.
They are sent after whistleblowers, runaway Clerks, and settlement leaders who organize resistance.
They leave a pencil through the victim’s tax notice.
Message:
“Filed.”
The Red Tape Crew
A restraint and capture unit.
They use nets, tripwires, glue grenades, and binding cable. Their job is to capture debtors alive.
Their armor is wrapped in literal strips of red cloth, wire, and warning tape.
They are not the strongest enemies, but they are annoying because they slow the player, trap companions, and call in Repo Men.
The Foreclosure Knights
Heavy elite units wearing patched-together power armor with official seals painted on the chest.
They carry sledgehammers, miniguns, and door-breaching charges.
Their job is to take fortified settlements.
Their battle cry:
“This property has been seized!”
The Number Men
Taxer mathematicians and battlefield analysts.
They use Pip-Boy-style calculators and targeting systems to calculate the player’s “combat value.” In gameplay, they can buff nearby Taxers by marking weak points.
They shout things like:
“Target has undeclared ammunition!”
“Applying penalty damage!”
“Asset resistance exceeds estimate!”
The Receivers
Creepy Taxer interrogators.
They “receive” confessions about hidden caps, secret water, buried weapons, or unregistered family members.
They are not loud. They are calm. They sit across from prisoners with tea, forms, and surgical tools.
They make the faction feel more sinister.
Unique Taxer Locations
The Toll Gate
A fortified checkpoint built across a major highway.
The player can pay the toll, sneak around, fight through it, or sabotage the gate so caravans can pass freely.
The Toll Gate could become a recurring location where the player sees the faction’s control grow over time.
At first: two guards and a wooden barricade.
Later: turrets, dogs, searchlights, prisoners, and armored booths.
The Counting House
A former bank converted into a Taxer counting station.
Inside are mountains of caps, pre-war money, gold bars, ammo crates, confiscated chems, and stolen family heirlooms.
It is both a dungeon and a moral test.
The player can loot everything, return items to settlements, donate resources to resistance groups, or secretly keep enough to become rich.
The Repayment Yard
A forced labor camp where debtors scrap cars, break concrete, dig tunnels, and repair roads for Taxer patrols.
This location should hit hard emotionally.
You find people who are not criminals. They are farmers, merchants, scavengers, and children of debtors.
One prisoner might say:
“My father borrowed five bags of grain. I’ve been paying it back for nine years.”
The Archive of Ownership
A huge underground records vault filled with pre-war property documents, census files, municipal maps, and old tax databases.
This could be one of the most important locations in the Taxer questline.
Inside, the player can discover:
- The Taxers are using fake records.
- Some towns were never legally under their jurisdiction.
- The Auditor-General erased certain debts for rich collaborators.
- The faction’s entire claim to authority may be built on corrupted data.
- A pre-war AI may still be generating tax orders for people who died centuries ago.
Major Character: The Auditor-General
The Auditor-General should be one of the most memorable Fallout 5 faction leaders.
There are three possible versions Bethesda could use.
Version 1: The Ghoul Bureaucrat
A pre-war tax official who survived the bombs and went insane slowly over 200 years.
He still believes the government exists.
He still reports to dead superiors.
He still uses pre-war law.
He sees every wastelander as a citizen in violation.
His tragedy is that he is not pretending. He truly believes he is restoring order.
Version 2: The Mainframe
The real leader is an old government revenue AI called C.I.V.I.C.
Civic Integrated Valuation and Income Calculator
It was designed to keep municipal finances running during national emergencies. After the bombs fell, it never shut down. It kept calculating debt, penalties, interest, and ownership claims for over two centuries.
By the time humans found it, it had produced billions of caps worth of impossible debt.
The Taxers now worship its calculations as law.
The final choice could be whether to destroy it, reprogram it, or use it.
Version 3: The Empty Chair
The Auditor-General may not exist at all.
The leadership invented him to scare people and keep lower ranks obedient. Every order supposedly comes from “the Office,” but nobody has seen the real leader.
This version makes the faction even more unsettling because the system runs without a person at the top.
Nobody is responsible.
Everybody is “just following procedure.”
Major Questline Expansion
Quest 1: “You Have Been Assessed”
The player receives a formal Taxer notice after helping a settlement grow.
A Collector arrives and says the player’s settlement has exceeded the “independent survival threshold.”
The player can laugh it off, pay, threaten them, ask questions, or investigate.
This introduces the faction without immediately forcing combat.
Quest 2: “The Price of Protection”
The player discovers that Taxer-controlled roads really are safer — because The Taxers secretly pay raiders to attack non-paying caravans.
They create the danger, then sell protection from it.
The player can expose the scheme, cut a deal with the raiders, or take over the racket.
Quest 3: “Unclaimed Dependents”
A group of children are being taken because their parents died in debt.
The Taxers call them:
“Unclaimed dependents attached to outstanding settlement obligations.”
This quest gives the player a hard emotional reason to hate the faction.
Possible outcomes:
- rescue the children
- pay the debt
- fake adoption papers
- destroy the debt record
- convince a Taxer Clerk to switch sides
- allow the system to take them for a reward
Quest 4: “Creative Accounting”
A former Clerk teaches the player how to manipulate Taxer systems.
The player can create fake exemptions, duplicate payment records, erase settlement names, or redirect Taxer patrols into enemy territory.
This could open a whole stealth/hacking path through the faction questline.
Quest 5: “The Public Hearing”
The Taxers hold a staged public hearing to prove they are fair.
Settlement leaders are allowed to speak, but the outcome is already decided.
The player can turn it into a real trial by gathering evidence, bribing officials, threatening witnesses, hacking the courtroom screens, or exposing the Taxers in front of the region.
This could be one of Fallout 5’s best dialogue-heavy quests.
Quest 6: “Interest Compounded”
The player learns that Taxer debt never goes down because the system adds interest faster than people can pay.
A town originally owed 300 caps.
After penalties, missed payments, defense fees, water fees, processing fees, and “aggressive noncompliance fines,” they now owe 42,000 caps.
The player can:
- wipe the debt
- pay it
- force the Taxers to honor the original amount
- expose the math as fraudulent
- convince the town to rebel
Quest 7: “The Final Audit”
The final mission takes place in the Revenue Tower or underground AI archive.
The player confronts the core of the faction.
Final choices:
Destroy the Office
The Taxers collapse, but the region loses their patrols and trade roads become unstable.
Reform the Office
The Taxers become a real civil service with limited taxes, elected oversight, and transparent spending.
Control the Office
The player becomes the power behind the Taxers and uses them to dominate the wasteland.
Free the Clerks
The lower workers turn against the leadership and form a new faction based on recordkeeping, mediation, contracts, and fair trade.
Release the Records
Every settlement learns the truth. Some rebel. Some sue. Some go to war. Chaos follows, but the lie is broken.
Companion Expansion
Mira Knox: Former Taxer Clerk
Mira should have a personal quest called:
“Filed Under Regret”
She once processed a debt seizure that destroyed a settlement. She believed the numbers were correct until she later found out the Taxers had inflated the debt on purpose.
Her quest forces her to return to the office where she worked.
She finds her old terminal, her old desk, and the names of the people she helped condemn.
The player can help her:
- expose the officials responsible
- forgive herself
- destroy the records
- become a reformer
- fall back into cold bureaucracy
Her companion dialogue could be great.
When lockpicking:
“Technically, this is unauthorized entry. Emotionally, I support it.”
When looting caps:
“Declare that? No? Good.”
When fighting Taxers:
“I used to file lunch reports with that guy.”
Brigg “Repo” Calhoun: Ex-Enforcer
Brigg’s personal quest:
“Seized Property”
He wants to return a box of confiscated items he kept from his Repo days.
Inside are wedding rings, baby shoes, old medals, letters, toys, and settlement keepsakes.
The quest becomes a journey across the map to return stolen items to survivors.
Some forgive him.
Some attack him.
Some are dead.
Some ask why he waited so long.
His perk could improve settlement defense after Taxer attacks because he knows how Repo Crews breach towns.
Player Perks From The Taxers
Audit Proof
Taxer patrols are less likely to stop you, and merchants give better prices when you carry official-looking documents.
Loophole Expert
You gain new dialogue options when dealing with factions, contracts, merchants, and settlement disputes.
Seized Asset Specialist
You find more caps, ammo, and rare junk in safes, offices, banks, and faction bases.
Red Tape Resistance
You are harder to stagger, trap, or slow by Taxer weapons and control effects.
Wasteland Accountant
Your settlements generate more caps from shops, but unhappy settlers may complain if taxes are too high.
Taxer Settlement Events
The Taxers would work perfectly with Fallout settlement gameplay.
Random events could include:
Inspection Day
A Taxer Collector arrives with guards and demands to inspect your settlement.
They check water, crops, turrets, beds, generators, shops, and settlers.
You can pass the inspection, bribe them, hide illegal items, forge documents, or refuse.
Hidden Income
A settler is secretly paying The Taxers behind your back to avoid trouble.
You can confront them, forgive them, exile them, or use them as a double agent.
Seizure Attempt
A Repo Crew arrives to take a generator, water purifier, food supply, or settler.
This triggers a settlement defense mission.
Taxer Informant
A Taxer spy is living in your settlement and reporting production numbers.
You can identify them through investigation, intimidation, hacking, or watching settlement behavior.
Compliance Offer
The Taxers offer to “protect” your settlement in exchange for regular payments.
Accepting gives temporary safety but reduces settlement happiness and independence.
How Other Factions View The Taxers
Brotherhood of Steel
The Brotherhood hates them because The Taxers try to license energy weapons, power armor, and technology.
A Brotherhood Paladin would say:
“They tried to put a registration sticker on my laser rifle. I almost respected the courage.”
Raiders
Raiders hate them and respect them.
One raider boss might say:
“We rob people honest. These freaks make you sign something first.”
Merchants
Merchants are split.
Some hate the tolls. Others like safer roads.
Caravan companies may quietly cooperate with The Taxers because predictable corruption is easier than random raiders.
Settlers
Settlers are divided.
Poor settlements hate them. Wealthier trade towns may support them because they get protection and legal advantages.
Ghouls
Ghouls are especially targeted because The Taxers sometimes claim they owe back taxes from before the war.
That opens up dark comedy and serious prejudice at the same time.
A ghoul NPC could say:
“I survived the bombs, ferals, famine, and bigotry. Now some child in a helmet says I owe property tax from 2076.”
The Taxers’ Weakness
Their greatest strength is records.
Their greatest weakness is also records.
If the player destroys or manipulates their paperwork, the faction panics.
Taxers rely on documentation to justify everything. Without the records, lower-ranking members do not know who owes what, which settlement is protected, which roads are theirs, or which orders are valid.
Possible sabotage methods:
- burn ledgers
- hack terminals
- steal stamps
- forge exemptions
- redirect collection orders
- erase settlement names
- change debt values to zero
- print fake arrest warrants for Taxer officers
- send Repo Crews to attack rival Taxer offices
This makes the faction beatable through brains, not just bullets.
Dark Humor Encounters
The Corpse Tax
The player finds Taxers trying to fine a family for burying someone without a grave permit.
Dialogue option:
“You’re taxing dead people now?”
Taxer response:
“Only the improperly documented ones.”
The Brahmin Parking Violation
A merchant’s brahmin is seized for blocking a registered trade lane.
The player can pay the fine, steal the brahmin back, or argue that the road itself was never registered.
The Unlicensed Lemonade Stand
A child selling dirty water and mutfruit juice gets shut down by Taxers.
The player can help the child get revenge by flooding Taxer offices with fake paperwork.
The Power Armor Sticker
A Taxer officer tries to place a compliance sticker on the player’s power armor.
The player can allow it, threaten him, or ask if the sticker adds damage resistance.
Ending Slides for The Taxers
If Destroyed
With the Revenue Tower burning and the ledgers scattered to the wind, settlements celebrated their freedom. For a time, no Collector dared knock on their gates.
But the roads grew dangerous again, and some wondered if the price of freedom was paid in blood instead of caps.
If Reformed
Under new leadership, The Office survived — smaller, weaker, and watched by the people it once ruled.
Taxes remained, but now settlements saw roads repaired, caravans protected, and debts forgiven. For the first time, the word “government” did not sound like a threat.
If Controlled by the Player
The Taxers did not fall. They evolved.
The old Auditor-General was gone, but the ledgers remained. Across the wasteland, Collectors spoke the player’s name with fear and obedience.
The region became safer, richer, and less free.
If Ignored
The Taxers spread quietly.
First the roads.
Then the markets.
Then the wells.
Then the settlements.
By the time people realized they had been conquered, they already had receipts.
Why This Faction Would Stand Out
The Taxers would give Fallout 5 something it badly needs: a faction that is funny, threatening, political, and mechanically different.
They are not just people with guns.
They are a system.
They create quests about power, debt, survival, corruption, law, and the fake language of authority. They let the player ask whether civilization is worth rebuilding if the people rebuilding it become predators.
That is pure Fallout.
The Taxers are not raiders wearing suits.
They are something worse:
Raiders with paperwork.
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