Sin of Man Worldbuilding Idea

After WW2 the name of the game in this world became "how do we unite all of humanity?" A massive project began to find a way to interconnect humanity on a massive level, most of the experiments of course were mechanical, early and failed attempts at something resembling the internet and the like. A few idea's about a biological link was involved however, many of these were very minor though one experiment proved interesting, as it created a race of physical inferior humanoids who seemed to have a very minor mental connection, like enhanced empathy.
However, there was one man who entered the scene in the 1950's, Graham, whose own ideas could be considered anything but minor. His extremely radical idea was to create a hivemind, one sight among a billion eyes, one voice in a billion mouths, one mind in a billion brains. Eventually, he created a chemical, one that would twist the flesh and kill the mind, the kicker being if two humans recently hit with enough of it were pushed together they fused into one being, do it with ten humans and they too would become massive deformed monstrosities; thought completely brain dead, not moving or doing anything. This did no discourage Graham, far from it in fact, if anything this complete absence of mind was perfect for him as he had another thought in mind. He got together his most trusted and supported colleges and explain his idea to them, the creation of the next step and final in human evolution, the "Perfects." The idea was simple, take dozens of highly intelligent brains hit with a good dose of his chemical and use technological means to attach them to a functional brain inside a highly altered body, his colleges to be the ones these slave brains were attached to, all of them communicated to each other via a single relay point, a purpose built building filled with hundreds of slave brains all attached to Graham himself.

No one could have been prepared for when massive creatures, looking like some sort of half melted humanoid dragons, ran through cities spewing great red chemical clouds that would turn any humans who caught a direct blast, or stayed too long in an indirect cloud, turned into malformed creatures that seemed to obey the Perfects through some telepathic link. Little could be done to stop the spread, by the time the military could be deployed the Perfects already had their own armies of extremely difficult to kill abominations, and though a cry for help was given to all countries that would hear them, even the Soviet Union realizing the massive threat and putting the Cold War aside to send aid (and perhaps for other reasons, in the end it really didn't matter), by the time any foreign armies set foot in America all they found was hundreds of thousands of abominations, some only two men fused together, some colossal monsters made from dozens of men, over running every dead city. America, and every country connected to it by land, had been lost in a matter of days. Seeing no other option, the last remnants of the government and all foreign powers decided the only thing to do was to destroy everything and hope it would stop Graham's work before his mad vision could be made whole, on that day, nuclear bombs destroyed everything they could; and by some small miracle, one of them had hit close enough to Graham's relay station to destroy the equipment allowing him to control the Perfects. The Perfects not destroyed in the massive bombardment were lost within their own minds, their reliance on Graham, which they themselves couldn't even admit to, proving to be so great that when they lost contact they simply gave up, crawling into the nearest buildings, and went dormant waiting for more signals.

Though the end of mankind as we knew it, it was far from the end of all things. Many of the more rural regions survived Graham's assault and the nuclear blasts, and were far enough from impact sites to avoid the deadly fallout. These humans were already quite connected due to the nature of the small towns they lived in, and joining together to become self sufficient and survive these uncertain times was quite a natural occurrence. They were not alone though, as a new threat emerged. Shortly following Graham's assaults, which in time would be come to known as "The Sin of Man" as man had committed the ultimate sin and attempted to become god, other "humans" began to attack the comparatively well off groups for food. These were not normal humans, their skin bore a strange red ting, their eyes were unnatural colours, and though quite hunched and degraded they proved far stronger and far more difficult to kill than normal humans. These viscous, almost animal humans were the result of the chemicals, or "the rust of man," catching just enough to have degraded minds and twisted and powerful bodies, but not quite becoming the abomination Graham has used. They wiped out many of the groups, and a few began to see the need for heavy militarization. By chance, one group, lead by a man named Doug McDowell, found a military truck from the war belonging to the USSR relief effort filled with AKM's and 7.62x39; using these rifles Doug's group managed to survive the worst of the attacks by these "ferals." Likewise another ground, led by a surviving member of the relief force, Artyom Dragunov, had managed to come across a manufacturing plant holding the then obsolete tooling to create M1A1 Thompson Submachine Guns. These two groups, armed as well as they were, swiftly grew to be as powerful as one could be in this new world overrun by feral animals and drowned in fire and radiation; and would later go on to be known as the most powerful of the Old Man Clans, the McDugglans and the Dragovskis.

The story doesn't end there, because as the ferals and human survivors had their hardships and wars, something unexpected emerged from the laboratories, the earlier experiments. These humanoid creatures, far frailer than the average man, with extremely bright skin and hair, massive pupils that nearly made up their whole eyes, and curiously large pointed ears, would have stood little chance against the ferals had the ferals shown them any interest. What saved them was how weak and worthless they seemed, the ferals not feeling they had any food or resource worth taking and any humans who saw them ultimately waving them off but telling tales of "those weird elf things." Though they wouldn't call themselves elves in their own tongue, which would grow to be a bastardized mix of dozens of languages, the name stuck among all the English speaking creatures in the land. The elves survived off scavenging in the start but weren't very successful at it, they seemed to be able to sense the radiation near any city, as well as something even more sinister, and avoided them same as men and ferals. They took what they could from the feral destroyed towns, speaking in a crude English from the words they had learned listening to the scientists analysis, and gather what little food they could. Something else they gathered interesting enough were books, books being one of the things neither feral or man had any interest in, military trucks had guides and a few personal picks, towns often had a few. They did what they could to read, but with their limited knowledge of any language it proved an uphill battle, the few that could grow a decent grasp of the words on the paper given many books in the hopes of entertaining others of the group. Books however provided far more than entertainment, it was discovered that old books from what would later be known as "The Golden Age of Man" could at times hold very useful knowledge. How to clean water, how to grow crops, how to build houses, how to fight a war. Having no factions who showed interest in them, a lifespan of nearly 140 years despite a gestation time only a couple months longer than humans, and armed with a slowly growing plethora of knowledge, a few hundred elves quickly began creating a settlement as successful as any humans, more so, as ferals and humans alike failed to notice their quickly growing success for a few generations; that isn't to mention that more and more abandoned laboratories were opened by hungry elves. About half a century later the ferals and humans had took notice of the farms and the "city," a few hundred had become a few thousand in a very short span, and when the ferals attacked they were met with spears and bows. The elves could not figure out human guns as the humans had, but many books on medieval warfare had become known to them, and despite their lesser technology their numbers and tactics were strong enough to counter the feral attacks. The humans still payed them little heed, attempting conversation but not being able to get past their broken pseudo-English and deciding they were of little threat.
Unknown to the humans, the elves would go on to take the humans place as the dominant race of this world, their increase empathy giving them little desire to divide themselves as the humans and later the ferals did, under one banner they would create a society far greater in number than the old men, far more united than the feral who divided themselves into tribes that became known as packs. Their society, oddly enough, revolved around humans, or rather the golden age of man; all scholars of significance became noblemen granted funding directly by the king or queen at the time so long as they could provide a yearly finding of significant value in the study of mans past, significant value meaning anything that could help the elves advance their own society. Workers were considered important on paper, but in reality held little value to the society, they became known as dark elves after the deeply tanned skin from hours of working in the sun, though not a separate race they were almost considered as lesser beings to the scholars who formed the head of elven society, though direct impoliteness was considered uncivilized, at least towards other elves. The military on the other hand nearly was its own society separate from the elves, scholars and workers don't exist within it, how much or little you know about humans is irrelevant outside of how best to kill hostile ones and how to survive hell rattle (elven term for firearm) attack; the scholars looked down on them, the workers looked up at them, they didn't even notice them in turn however, all of elven society could fall so long as the general still gave orders and they wouldn't notice, their existence was the military and nothing else.


Two millennia had gone by, many things changed, many stayed the same. The ferals had changed the most, vicious packs of raiders still existed, but now rather than led by damaged brains they were led by far more human drives such as a desire for power and resource; the rust of man degraded within ferals as they breed new generations, they aren't old men, but they aren't truly subhuman anymore. Many of the packs farm and hunt for food now, have developed their own cultures (packs often distinguished themselves with colours and by filling their teeth to different patterns), they growl and bare their teeth when angered like animals but can speak English as well as old men and construct villages same as them.
The Old Men are one of the smallest factions in the world, but long ago they understood the importance of the rippers (human term for firearms) to keep themselves alive and never allowed the knowledge of their function and construction to leave them, capable of arming their small number of soldier all with a ripper, while still outfitting them with sabers and mail in case they should ever fail in the heat of battle. Smaller clans and the clanless exist, but ultimately the old men are divided into two groups; the hyper militant McDugglans lead by the war scarred Phillip McDugglan, who fight an endless war against the ferals, believing them to be nothing more than a vermin that must be eliminated if man is to ever begin recapturing their former glory; and the Dragovski's, the smaller of the two led by Natasha Dragovski, their views on the ferals being less severe to the point where they have even accepted a very small number into their ranks, believing simply in expanding territory to farm the most fertile of fields, if a feral pack happens to be there they ask them to leave, then they "tell" them to leave with the roar of dozens of Thompson's. Though the clans hold little hostility towards each other, their relationship teeters between indifferent to shaky.
The Sin of Man still haunts the world, cities are still considered no go zones and Graham's belief that the Perfects were the final step in evolution might not have been too inaccurate, the dormant abominations still wait, without food and drink, without breaking a single breath for millennia, they still live waiting for a signal. Only a few dare enter such place where the Memory of Man is so strong, the glass eyes, masked human scavengers often working under the employ of elven scholars to find anything of significance that has not already been studied, and sometimes they can walk directly into the lair of a Perfect, only to have their minds utterly destroyed by the sadistic monsters who have spent millennia waiting for nothing.

But new challanges arise, and a great threat has come indeed. Thirty years ago, a feral belonging to a raiding pack gave birth to a rather large boy, she named him "Grom." The boys power was a thing of terror, ferals, though quite stronger than the old men, are normally a head shorter, Grom stood at the height of an adult feral when he was thirteen, and could beat boys two or three years older than him to near death with ease. In a raiding pack, might makes right, so when Grom reached adulthood and stood a good seven feet, body hard with powerful muscles, he easily took the place of Alpha in a very short fight. Grom's ambitions were as great as his size, while the old alpha simply wished for food, Grom wanted the world and knew he could have it if he was clever. Rather than raiding a non-violent pack, his first target was another raiding pack led by the small but dangerous Lord Clint. Grom nearly killed Clint without even drawing his sword, and demanded the pack surrender to him, sensing that Clint may prove useful in the future he spared his life and allowed him to heal. This raiding for raiders and forcing them to join happen only a handful of more times, after the strength of Grom and his pack became known raiders would come to him wishing to join. The problem was that Grom's conquest happened to be just on the border of McDugglan territory, and when Phillip heard of this "raider lord" he knew that they would have to be wiped out immediately. This was when Lord Clint did in fact prove to be useful and became Grom's right hand, for Clint had his pack working on something specific he wished to show Grom tucked well away, hidden from sight. Clint had gathered together trucks from the golden age, and using whatever "resource" he could managed to get them functioning, mounted stolen heavy rippers on top of each, and armoured them well. The "hellriders" would become the backbone of Grom's army, when the first McDugglan attack was launched, a few dozen men and a handful of armored wagons, they were slaughtered by the hellriders with not so much as a single wounded on their side. Hearing this, almost all other raiding packs joined Grom, and many farming and hunting packs joined out of fear of destruction or slavery.
Now "The Great Grom" is known to everyone, though his forces use crudely made spears and swords imitating though of elves and old men and only a few get the stolen rippers of slain old men, their sheer numbers, and the fact that a couple hellriders are guaranteed to back any notable assault, have made them a threat to all. The elves hide behind their walls hoping if they ignore it that it will sort itself out, the Dragovski's rely too much on the McDugglans to solve this, and the McDugglans know that to fight Grom alone would be suicide, and rather try to slowly weaken and cripple him by stamping out any and all feral packs they find just outside their territory, not realizing that many of those packs oppose Grom themselves and they are simply helping Grom gain strength. Were it not for the fact that every other faction opposed Grom, he would have no issue destroying the McDugglans and then conquering the Dragovski's and the Elves, but sending forces into McDugglan territory would cripple him horrendously even if they were wiped out, far too much to stand against the elves or Dragovski's past that point.