M.A.D. Monks

M.A.D. Monks (Mutually Assured Destruction) - group of monks from south Arizona that are part of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud cult.

Background
A radical offshoot of the Servants of the Mushroom Cloud, the Monks were formed around 2087, after Brother Ramirez discovered a crumbling nuclear missile base in a canyon in eastern Arizona. The Servants did not believe him, save for a small group of radicals who joined him in voluntary exile. They journeyed to the canyon under Ramirez's leadership. Finding it to be overrun with raiders and other lowlifes, the Monks appropriated the decommissioned Titan-II missile as their God and threatened to unleash it on the Canyon if the people within did not comply with their demands. The bluff worked, and the Monks instituted a martial order enforced by the threat of nuclear devastation - if not by the missile, then by suicide attacks carried out by the most devout brothers. They maintained the pass for fifteen years, protecting all who bore their mark and the passage between western and eastern Arizona.

Ideology
These monks worship radiation itself, which they refer to as the Great Glow, as well as their hidden guardian whom they refer to only as Titan. It is the Monks belief that the only way to ascend to the afterlife is to absorb enough radiation into their bodies that they become one with the Great Glow, or better yet, to be destroyed in a nuclear event while protecting the order. This leads their warriors, or M.A.D. Monks as the locals refer to them, to the practice of strapping radiation filled dirty bombs to their chests and self-detonating at the first sign of conflict.

Behind the scenes
M.A.D is the acronym to signify Mutually assured destruction, a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy in which a full-scale use of high-yield weapons of mass destruction by two opposing sides would effectively result in the complete, utter and irrevocable annihilation of both the attacker and the defender, becoming thus a war that has no victory nor any armistice but only effective reciprocal destruction.