DayZRP Standalone Lore
What is the lore?
The DayZRP lore is a story that develops a structure for the server, and helps members develop their own characters and stories based around the timeline and story that the DayZRP lore provides. The lore is intended to ensure every roleplayer is on the same page in regards to the server's time, location, infection details, and the series of events that lead to the present day. If we allowed every player to create their own worldly lore story then it would make an unclear understanding of both time and place within the server, and lead to confusion. Following a single lore helps avoid conflictions between player's stories regarding the outbreak.
As a new member of DayZRP you will need to read the lore, and develop a character that can properly fit into the story, which does not conflict with the lore by a large measure. For example a new member may create a character backstory that states, "In 2010 Henry woke up in Russia finding out his wife turned into an infected, and he had to escape!" The issue in this example is that the infection did not start in 2010 or in Russia. This example is considered a confliction with the official lore. If this player were to state this in character it would simply confuse others because it does not follow the official lore scope.
This of course does not mean we are trying to limit creativity in player backstories. We still encourage players to have write a great backstory for their character as long as it is within the proper timeframe of the lore. Your whitelist can be denied if your backstory is too conflicting with the lore such as the example in the previous paragraph.
Remember this when developing a character and entering the server because your character should by now have adopted many survival skills. Your character does not have to fully understand Chernarus' history especially if the character is a foreigner, however, your character should be familiar with the infection as it has spread worldwide. You should not be acting as if your character just arrived on the shore of Chernarus, and has never seen infected before.
“In an urban society, everything connects. Each person's needs are fed by the skills of many others. Our lives are woven together in a fabric. But the connections that make society strong also make it vulnerable.”
- Threads, 1984
Not a soul could have possibly fathomed that a victorious Chernarus would ultimately sign the death warrant of all civilization. The world would appear dumbfounded as the work of rebuilding a broken country would eventually crumble. The peace that was achieved was really what doomed us all. Nobody thought something like this could happen, the stuff of movies and TV shows. And in the off chance that something catastrophic did occur most people trusted the authorities and government to do the right thing and protect their citizens. The connectivity of a modern globalized society had led humanity like lambs into a forest full of wolves. We assumed the best and did not pay attention to what was actually happening. Ignorant, self-absorbed people who knew everything and yet understood nothing. Those observant individuals that saw it coming were too few and were disregarded, branded as conspiracy theorists and nerds. What they saw coming was not the plague itself, but how humanity’s illogical handling of a logical crisis would ultimately doom it to near-extinction. Global chaos that had been seen in the past will not compare to what will be seen in the coming days… or after those days had passed.
Chernarus had made great strides in rebuilding since the conclusion of the bloody 2009 civil war and was on route to becoming something of a power in the region. Foreign investment in the Chernarussian coal, mining, gas, and agriculture industries had swelled the workforce and created many jobs in remote places where none before existed. South Zagoria was still a poor recovering province, the recovery period had ended and revitalization efforts were planned to revamp the area. Tourism had picked up as a result of the war as Chernarus got its name in the international headlines and people who didn’t know the country existed before 2009 became aware of it. While Chernarus had not officially joined NATO for fear of losing national sovereignty, it did agree to host several bases within Chernarus. International Airports were expanded allowing flights heading to Asia or back to Western Europe to stop and refuel at a central place without having to fly to Dubai for a connecting flight. In the wake of the civil war NAPA was disbanded by leader Josef Prizak and most of its members joined the CDF and accepted general amnesty from the government. The Chedaki were hunted down viciously by the State, capturing all of its leadership that was not apprehended or killed during the civil war and put them on trial. Many were executed for the genocide, insurrection, and murder conducted during the war. Despite Chernarussian-Russian relations being quite amicable immediately following the civil war, tensions would again rise to a boiling point between the two countries. Even with the election of a popular center-right statist nationalist party and a booming economy, military escalation was a frequent occurrence on the northern border. A marriage between a Chernarussian woman and a Russian man was attacked by right sector Chernarussian extremists in late April 2017. The attack was followed by protests, political demonstrations, and calls for secession of ethnic Russian territories in Northern South Zagoria and Belozersk. Ultimately the violence led the State to declare martial law in South Zagoria on May 3rd, 2017. The province was gripped with fear and tension and some citizens left to go to western areas that were considered to be safe, their belongings and vehicles left behind to rot, for fear of another civil war. However, the attention of the world was focused elsewhere and not on the developing situation in Chernarus.
It all began with seemingly benign activity at an old storage base north of Severograd, the easternmost base in a chain of facilities that stretched West along the Black Mountains. After the fall of the USSR and rise of Chernarussian independence the base was handed over to the fledgling CDF (Chernarussian Defense Force), any memory of the base and its activities were forgotten. The sites were sealed to the public during Soviet times and the local populace knew little of the activities of these bases. Whatever the Soviets were doing here was done in isolation and rumors permeated through the region as to the origins of the operation, as it seemed as if the base had been there for an eternity.
On the 7th of July CDF troops were sent to the base where they established a series of checkpoints on surrounding roads, stopping all foot or vehicle traffic and turning it back. Foot patrols began to move through the woods around the base in an attempt to make up for the abysmal condition of the base’s perimeter fences. A video filmed of a Russian helicopter flying into the base was posted on Twitter the same night, igniting controversy. The following day the residents of Kamensk and Nagornoe were rounded up; those from Nagornoe were escorted south to Severograd and housed in the local school without any explanation as to the reason of their relocation other than their “personal safety”. The civilians from Kamensk who were the main witnesses to the whole incident disappeared completely, the most common rumor being that they had been held inside the base itself.
National outrage ensued. In the meantime events escalated considerably around midnight, when an apparent disagreement between the two sides of the base resulted in the departure of the Russians back across the border. In the early hours of the 10th, the Russian air force completely annihilated the storage base that was the source of the whole controversy, leaving only a couple buildings standing and fifty dead Chernarussian personnel within the base. In response, Chernarussian jets from the Vybor Airbase raided Russian border posts starting a back and forth between each country's military. Chernarus awoke to a war in South Zagoria as national demonstrations and outbursts of violence occurred in the morning.
Severograd began experiencing attacks from several soldiers that appeared to be rabid and unresponsive, the soldiers having emanated from the base. Many were severely burned or partially dismembered, and yet did not seem to care or respond with pain to their injuries. The first call came in from a farm North of the city, reporting three soldiers staggering out of the forest biting and attacking livestock. The station lost contact with the patrol sent to check on the farm. To make matters worse, following the bombing of the base and the subsequent dispersal of CDF troops in the area, Russian artillery launched an all-out bombardment of the Kamensk, Nagornoe, and Severograd countrysides. A man in Severograd who was interviewed by a local news station in Novodmitrovsk said the following about that morning:
“The Russian bombardment was a distraction from whatever went on in the base that night. They had some stake in the course of events there, after all the bombardment did little damage to any civilian or military structure. The goal was to distract the international press for as long as possible.”
The Russian ploy worked according to plan as the international news was fixed on the fighting and armed confrontations and not on the strange attacks taking place near the site of the bombing. In the afternoon a wave of infected hit Severograd from the North, overwhelming the already packed hospital. Many of the people brought into the hospital were bleeding from the eyes, and had developed rashes similar to poison oak that secreted a clear fluid.
On the 11th the North awoke to terror in the streets as those exposed to the virus on the previous day had turned. The authorities were completely caught off guard, the few police officers on duty were not nearly sufficient to respond to phone calls coming in from their precincts. Towns around the North-East were almost completely devoid of any military presence, putting them in a poor position to contain what was occurring. The virus was estimated to have a 6 hour incubation period, and that the average person would begin to attack non infected individuals 16 hours post exposure. Notably, within the first 6 hours of infection, coughing and sneezing were the most prevalent side effect. Any concentration of sick individuals seemed to focus the virus, making going into a hospital a near death sentence, especially with their patients so late into the stages of infection. On the 12th people in Turovo began to flee en mass, causing a massive traffic jam and chaos as infected began to attack those trapped while soldiers at the checkpoint desperately attempted to assist. To combat the spreading chaos two battalions of CDF troops from Miroslavl arrived in South Zagoria and assembled in the Chernogorsk area, manning an extensive string of checkpoints, military camps, and refugee safe zones, much of which was built during the period of martial law. Local units were mustered and deployed to other checkpoints and military bases, and all military operations in the province were directed from the Balota airfield.
The turmoil in the Northeast spilled into Berezino and Solnichniy, as infected spread into the two towns sending a wave of refugees down the coastal road as the pandemonium on the Eastern coast escalated. Luckily most refugees stopped at Elektrozavodsk and camped out on the eastern and western shore of the city. The situation worsened near Vybor, as the airbase was rushed by infected at the Northern and Eastern perimeter. A swarm of CAF (Chernarussian Air Force) aircraft conducted strikes all day trying to halt the takeover of the base, but the bombing, rocket, and strafing runs only attracted more infected to the base. By this time the much of western Chernarus had major outbreaks, many spurring from refugees fleeing west from South Zagoria. Even before proper border control actions could be taken many tourists and Chernarussian citizens had fled the country by air via the Novigrad and Miroslavl International Airports to Europe, and the Balkans, triggering outbreaks in those areas. Russia moved to close the border with Chernarus off completely, and Takistan shut down its border, boxing Chernarus in. Meanwhile, in Elektrozavodsk, a flotilla of privately owned boats and military vessels from Miroslavl and ports further South had sailed up the coast to attempt a mass exodus of the city. It was largely successful, leaving only a couple dozen civilians and CDF who stayed in the city. Unfortunately, this noble effort only served to move the outbreak to Miroslavl, where the docks were overwhelmed with infected and refugees fresh off the boats, as the CDF had not set up a virus screening area for incoming refugees. The only major cities left in South Zagoria by then were Chernogorsk, Elektrozavodsk, and Zelenogorsk, along with a handful of towns north of the coast.
On the 17th, the CDF was struggling to hold onto South Zagoria. Developing outbreaks in other areas of Chernarus was bleeding dry reserves, meaning that South Zagoria could expect no further reinforcement as units further west were busy containing the epidemic near their bases. Consequently it was on this day that help from abroad finally arrived in earnest. 200 UN peacekeepers and some 300 doctors and researchers were sent to Miroslavl where a large research center was established. A detachment of 100 were quickly dispatched to Chapaevsk where a base was created for treatment and research. A massive NATO fleet arrived off the coast of Chernarus, having been underway to the Green Sea earlier in the week, joining an existing flotilla of NATO ships that had begun to assemble during the previous months of unrest. Now the fleet's goal was securing ground zero and preventing the loss of crucial NATO bases in the area. The Russian Black Sea fleet was waiting for the arriving ships, and had also been slowly deploying ships to the area as NATO had. NATO operations on July 17th focused mainly on reinforcing CDF troops in South Zagoria, deploying troops from its Kirovograd base to combat outbreaks in the city itself. Mostly US troops from the Utes garrison were deployed to South Zagoria, US Army troops dispatched to Chernogorsk and US Marines to the Elektrozavodsk area. Russian strikes mostly targeted border areas closer to home, while NATO flies were in direct support of the CDF and its forces on the ground. The fighting prior to the epidemic was put on the backburner in favor of each side defending its interests, Chernarus and Russia agreed to cease hostilities as the Outbreak worsened.
The bombing carried into the 19th but the CDF and NATO defense line began to falter, falling late in the morning. A wave of infected headed towards Chernogorsk and attacked as US forces retreated from the city amid severe riots. By the afternoon Zelenogorsk was completely cut off, the CDF forces within the city eventually withdrew to the countryside in an attempt to ride out the crisis but refused to abandon the province completely. That night Chernogorsk was set ablaze, with many civilians ransacking stores of what supplies they had left while others locked up in apartments and partied late into the night. Around midnight, the downtown International Hotel was struck by a cargo plane carrying relief supplies that had veered off course, killing all on board. By daybreak on the 20th, Chernogorsk was in shambles, CAF helicopters continued to search for refugees in areas deemed to have been lost and were often seen flying at telephone pole height for maximum visibility.
The second wave of NATO, Russian, and CDF bombings began shortly after noon, spreading the infected westwards into the North Miroslavl province as they followed the bombing and fleeing people. On the 21st, the remainders of civilization within South Zagoria either gave up or were overwhelmed. Many civilians who had not already left or been evacuated fled to the Vavilovo and Kamenka checkpoints, bottlenecking the road and making it impossible for any vehicles to leave along the main highways headed into Miroslavl province. Thousands of foreigners trapped in airports across the country began to depart as their CDF guards left, hoping to find refuge elsewhere after being detained inside the airport for a week. Most of western Chernarus was in chaos, with only coastal cities being secured while the countryside was either bombed or fought over as the CDF slowly began to withdraw leaving many rural areas to fend for themselves.
At night a massive storm erupted across the entire region with tumultuous seas and raging winds. Only adding to the catastrophe, a cruise ship, the Costa Risacca carrying some 3,000 passengers, struck a rock formation during the gale and went down several miles off the coast of South Zagoria. The ship sank to the bottom, leaving those who hadn't gone down with the ship or drowned to try and bring their lifeboats ashore. A large cargo ship was forced into Chernarussian waters by the storm. Instead of risking life and limb, the crew chose to beach the ship. The storm raged into the early hours of 24th, and by morning Chernarus was eerily quiet. Novigrad, Primorsk, and Miroslavl prepared for the worst. Russia moved in and enforced a no-fly zone over South Zagoria. After two weeks, the majority of Chernarus was a desolate burnt-out shadow of its former self. By the conclusion of week two, Ukraine and Turkey were suffering from a total societal breakdown, and many areas across Europe, Asia, and the Americas were containing major outbreaks in and around transportation hubs.
So it was, the decline of humanity was insured by the failures of our own arrogance. While our globalized society connected people in ways unfathomable by our ancestors, it also revealed a vital flaw in our very being. As a result of our interconnectivity, the infection was able to travel far and wide before anyone was able to throw the alarm. From Tokyo to Paris, Anchorage to Buenos Aires, the infected walked among us and war raged. Our nature of abstract blindness made us weak and vulnerable, and thus we suffered. Even what was occurring in one's own country was secondary to the drama unfolding right in their own neighborhoods. Similar stories would play out within nearly every country and continent on earth, all with one inevitable final climax. After a month, the remains of a global society was crucified on the graves of those who built it. However, resistance to the virus and its after effects remained as entire nations attempted to eradicate the threat in the midst, the winners and losers of this titanic clash yet to be determined.
General Lore FAQ:
How much of this lore would my character know in character?
It could be considered metagaming to take all of this information in character unless your character happened to personally experience everything written in the story, which is plausible if they lived in Chernarus. All survivors know of the infection, and many also know that the outbreak began in Chernarus. Take this into consideration when developing a character. Consider how much information from the lore your character would have legitimately acquired through in character means such as the news media or broadcasts. You are not expected to know the entire history of the outbreak in character, that can always be learned later through interaction with other survivors.
In terms of technology what is still working and usable?
With the electic grid turned off within South Zagoria, technology such as cell phones and laptops would only work until a charge has ran out on them. If by chance you properly RP out getting a generator running, then you would be able to charge those devices. If you did however, you would find after a few weeks from day 0 that the internet is gone and cell towers are offline. You would however be able to use GPS. It would however eventually become wildly inaccurate.
How far has the infection spread?
The outbreak of the infection begins in July of 2017, and due to Miroslavl and Novigrad being international hubs, the infection was able to escape chernarus and spread globally. By July 24th, there are outbreaks in most major countries, some big and some small. Turkey and Ukraine are almost completly overrun.
What exactly is the infection, and how does it work?
A large part of the DayZRP lore is leaving the origins of the infection open ended. It has never been revealed even on an out of character level how the infection originated, but there have been countless theories. For equally unknown reasons many survivors (roleplayers like yourself!) have an immunity to the infection. Roughly less than 1% of the entire population is immune. Of course you do not have to roleplay as someone immune to the infection and instead could play a character that merely has not been attacked by the infected, and yet to turn. How the infection transmits can be found within the lore.
Where is Chernarus?
Chernarus is a fictional country created by Bohemia Interactive, the developers of ARMA and DayZ. There are a few important details to know about Chernarus, which many players have misconceptions regarding. Chernarus borders both Russia, Takistan (another fictional country), and the Green Sea. It does not border the Atlantic Ocean nor is Chernarus an island as shown in the map below. Although Chernarus features many airstrips, the the nearest international commercial airport would be in Miroslavl. The northeast airfield is a civilian airstrip, but only for small aircrafts.
