"Twenty years have passed since the dead first stood.
The panic is gone, the sirens are silent. What remains, is what survived."
Days of Reckoning is a grounded, character-driven Project Zomboid RP server set long after the collapse. The world was forced to become what it is now in order to keep going. Communities, people, pressure, along with consequences. What follows is a collection of accounts pieced together from radio intercepts, journal entries, and the stories of survivors. The official story died with the government. This is what we have left.
An Unreliable History
An unknown contagion spreads through Knox County, KY. The military establishes the "Knox Exclusion Zone." Official reports call it an aggressive flu. We know better now.
July 4th-6th, 1993: The Knox Event
Week 2: The Fall of the Wall
The exclusion zone fails. Breaches are reported across the state. The infection spreads like wildfire, carried by the desperate and the damned. The term "zombie" enters the public lexicon.
Month 1: Operation Fireline
In a final, desperate act, the military bombs the bridges over the Ohio River, severing Kentucky from the north. It was meant to be a quarantine. Instead, it was a death sentence.
Six Months Later: The Long Silence
National broadcasts cease. The power grid fails. The world outside Kentucky falls silent. We are on our own. The living are left to pick through the bones of civilization.
Three Years In: The CERO Initiative
A remnant of the government formed the Crisis Emergency Response Organization. They established watchtowers and mapped official evacuation routes—a last, desperate attempt to control a world that was already lost.
The Present: Twenty Years Later
Nature reclaims the concrete jungles. Communities rise and fall. Alliances are forged in desperation and broken by greed. Every sunrise is a victory. These are the Days of Reckoning.
The Communities of Kentucky
Survival in isolation failed. What endured were the communities and the ghosts of the old world. You are NOT required to join a community. But the world will move with or without you.
IMPORTANT NOTE FOR NEW SURVIVORS
Upon joining, you can spawn within a safezone community. These are for RP, with inter-world politics and storytelling. You may also lonewolf it or start an 'unofficial' community. If you choose a community, decide if you're a new arrival or a lifelong resident so others can RP accordingly.
"Forcing normalcy in order to survive."
The Homestead feeds the region. They farm, raise animals, and preserve food. Nested in Echo Creek and surrounded by impenetrable walls, they keep the idea of "home" alive.
This is where fresh survivors often begin, offered housing, opportunities, and relative safety. They are not soldiers, but their work keeps everyone else alive. They pay for protection and trade food for services.
Threats: Scarcity, rising protection costs, raids from the Alliance, and a younger generation wondering why they should stay.
"Strength through order. Safety through control."
The Coalfield Federation keeps the dead down and the roads passable. They patrol, train, and offer their services for a price. They maintain weapons and turn raw materials into tools for survival.
They do not farm or govern civilian life; they buy time for others to survive. Their authority comes from the security and force they can provide.
Threats: Overextension, moral drift, and internal dissent. To some, they are saviors; to others, they are one bad season away from becoming tyrants.
"Predators who understand the rules."
Scavengers, smugglers, information brokers - the Alliance is comprised of criminals and ne'er-do-wells that have survived long enough to learn restraint. The Alliance doesn't feed the world; it feeds ON it.
This loose banding of raiders congregates at The Hideout, a sanctuary for criminal enterprise where they trade in rumors, leverage, and fear. They do not hold traditional territory.
Threats: Infighting, betrayal, and the Federation breathing down their necks keeps them unstable. But that instability is part of their charm.
"What's left of authority, that never quite arrives..."
Formed in the early years of the collapse, CERO still exists... but as a fragmented, distant, and unreliable ghost. Their presence is felt through abandoned relay stations, outdated bulletins, intermittent broadcasts, and sealed caches meant to support communities.
CERO does not intervene, rescue, or save you from collapse. They observe, record, and warn — seeding rumors, intelligence, and conflicting directives into the world. Their shadow lingers: watching, waiting, but never quite stepping in.
CERO is an unplayable Faction