Feel free to claim these characters.

[hider=Sandra Kerrigan]
[center][img]https://cdn.radiofrance.fr/s3/cruiser-production/2018/04/6e7be993-4ce0-4e5e-aab6-b909744eb4ae/838_portraitsapienza.jpg[/img]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEdPe1SxitI][i]Moon River,
Wider than a mile:
I’m crossin’ you in style
Some day.[/i][/url][/center]

Sandra Valles was born in Vault City, once a fiercely independent city state but now just another in the massed spider's web of the New California Republic. Her parents were traders, running a junk shop - they preferred to call it a 'store of all odds-and-ends' but it was, truly, just junk - in the heart of the City. She grew up learning her City's history, of its great feats of independence. But she also learned of all of New California, and the successes of the civilization that had been built by those like Tandi, and Aradesh, and all the others who had come after them.

She married quickly, at the age of 16, to one of the city's police officers. Gregory Kerrigan was his name, and he was everything a girl could hope for in a husband: faithful, dedicated, strong, and loving. They had dreams of a good life in Vault City, safe behind her walls from the wasteland. Of a family, of a nice little house, of all the pleasantries New California could hope to offer. But it wasn't meant to be. The couple failed to produce a child - whether it was on the fault of Gregory or Sandra wasn't important, or known - and soon he found himself drafted into the Army, as the campaign in the Mojave dragged on. Rumors of a final offensive circulated, but few believed them. The Mojave Campaign was just a part of life in the NCR, something that one eventually got used to as a fact of life.

Gregory Kerrigan left Vault City never to return. He sent a few letters, telling Sandra not to worry, that he was heading to the Mojave, and that he expected to win his fortune at a casino and return a rich man, and that it was only a year-long rotation before he saw her again. Then, suddenly, the letters stopped. Four months after he left - on January 13th, 2282 - Sandra awoke to knuckles loudly wrapping on her apartment door.

Standing there were two NCR Army Officers, looking somber. Her heart sank into her chest, as her world collapsed around her. They spared her the details of his death, but she wouldn't have registered them even if they said them. They told her that he perished three weeks ago, in an offensive on a town called Nelson, which was under Legion control, that his body was unrecoverable, that he died a hero of New California, and that he had been awarded the Cross of the Joshua Tree for his valor - presenting her with the tin button as a parting gift.

She floated about Vault City for a few days, processing his death as best she could. She tried to put it out of her mind, then tried to cry it out, or suppress it with alcohol. But nothing worked. She needed closure, something that the NCR had deprived her of - not even being able to grieve at his grave. Packing her belongings, and selling whatever she couldn't take with her, she stuck out with a caravan heading out to New Vegas. As they passed into the Mojave Region, under the watchful statues of the Rangers at the Mojave Outpost, news came flying through the post. 

The Legion had been defeated. And so had the NCR. 

The caravan laid over at the Outpost that night, unsure of what was going on. The troopers didn't either, their faces betraying concern and anxiety. But scenes in Primm confirmed it all. Heading southbound, columns of dejected soldiers marched with their trucks and their horses and their gear as locals shouted down from the overpass, cursing them on their way out. Had this been what Gregory died for? For a bunch of ungrateful backwater losers?

She left the caravan when it passed through Goodsprings, the Long 15 having been cleared by a mysterious Courier a few weeks prior. Sandra lingered at the town, trying to figure out where Nelson was and how to get there. They told her that it was over the mountains, pointing at the black mountains in the distance, and that it would be a few days' travel to get there. Out of supplies, and out of hope, she stayed at Goodsprings for spell, mostly bartending and collecting water from the local spring. But, once she scrounged enough money to buy for food and new gear, she set off towards Nelson.

Arriving there, she found it a practical wasteland. The town was wrecked, smashed to pieces like someone took a sledgehammer to it all. Just a little outside the town, looking over the Colorado flowing below, were a collection of ten graves, with wooden crosses affixed to them. She knelt down beside the first one, and read the inscription:

[center][i]Private First Class Gregory Kerrigan
4th Battalion, Eastern Regiment, NCR Army
July 6th, 2260 † December 27th, 2281[/i][/center]

She broke down weeping at his tomb, staying there for the rest of that day. When she finally mustered the strength to leave, she headed off back towards the main road, and towards the town with a rather large dinosaur in front of it. The residents were busy, with the help of some strange ghouls, rebuilding their town. It looked a little bit like Nelson, with some of its buildings destroyed. A rather large hole was blown in the dinosaur's side, and a collapsed thermometer lay some feet beside it.

Sandra lent her assistance with the townies, helping them as best she could. But she wasn't a builder, or a farmer, or any of those things. But the townies liked it nonetheless. When the ghouls moved off, returning from wherever they had come from, one of the locals offered her a house - the old owner had disappeared some weeks before and had been vacant for some time. She found it hard to refuse, being so close to Gregory.

And so she stayed, joining the local prospectors as they picked apart an old Ranger Station some ways down the road, and later helping the locals set up crops on that same location. But she returned to Gregory's grave every day, weeping as she did. The years dragged on, and the ritual remained the same. She awoke, tended to the crops, returned to Gregory's grave, and went to sleep. Day in, day out.

But something in her told her that it was time to move on. That her life was wasting away here, and that Gregory would not have wanted her to stay here like this - to pine over him long after he had gone. It had been ten long years since he perished. And when the Leader of the Free State's call for settlers in the East came, she took the opportunity.

She stopped at Gregory's grave one last time, collecting a little bit of the dirt above it and keeping it in a vial that hung around her neck. So that he would be close to her. Always.[/hider]

[hider=Esteban Figueroa]
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/b3ocbjP.png[/img]
[i][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNPXnAVyAUA]Soy el fuego que arde tu piel
Soy el agua que mata tu sed
El castillo, la torre yo soy
La espada que guarda el caudal[/url][/i][/center]

Esteban Figueroa was born just outside San Quintín, in Baja California. The entire peninsula was ravaged by scouring raider tribes, each seeking total dominance. Since the fires of Atomic Warfare, and - if the ghost stories of the elders were to be believed - long before the bombs fell upon the World, the tribes were each seeking to rule all of Baja. The situation across the channel, in Mexico proper, was believed to be not much better. Rumors of a bloodthirsty cult that had seized control of the old Mexico City, and were now ruling most of central Mexico, made certain of that.

Esteban joined his family in the fishing business. On old pre-war trawlers, they set off into the deep soundings of the Pacific to dredge up the food that nourished the town and indeed most of the region. Fish had, as his father told him, side-stepped most of the dramatic radioactive mutation that had struck the land creatures. The fish they were catching had, since God created them, remained the same. As if the warheads that bathed the surface in nuclear fire had never been dropped at all. It was a good existence, it paid the bills after all, and there was always fish to catch in the sea. 

When his father passed on, at the old age of 60, Esteban took over the family business. His wife Carmen kept the home, raising his two sons Diego and Mateo, while he set off each day into the blue waters of the Ocean. But one day, returning, he found a banner flying over the town that was unfamiliar to him. It bore a two-headed bear on a white background, with the English words 'NEW CALIFORNIA REPUBLIC' below it.

The Californians - The Norteños to the men of the Baja - had come to 'bring civilization' and 'secure peace' against the Raiders. But he always thought they had done well enough. In the last few years, after all, the Raider tribes rarely attacked the town. But that mission soon was shown to be a lie, as the Californians extorted "taxes" in the guise of funding their "protection." Soon, his business became untenable, with half of his earnings going to paying the taxes being levied against him. The heavy weight of the NCR boot wore upon him, and upon all the Mexicans of the Baja.

It would either break them, or force them to heave it off. 

Rumors of a revolution brewed throughout the land, and soon emissaries of the men of an organization calling itself El Ejército Mexicano - the Mexican Army - came to San Quintín. Within the week, the town was in full revolt, joining numerous other communities in the Baja in insurrection against NCR Rule. But the Norteños came down hard upon the Baja. First were the reprisals, with crops being burned and shops being smashed to pieces, but then came the Rangers. Esteban had heard that these men stood for freedom of people, securing roads against raiders, but here in the Baja, they resembled raiders themselves.

He was a half-hearted supporter of the Army, taking part in little of their raids unless directly told to, until they burned his boat. Esteban jumped into action, with nothing left of his life except a rifle and the old Green-White-Red banner of Mexico. But then they came for his family. In the night, while he was standing watch on their cell's armory, the Ranger-Raiders came and burned his house down. With his family inside. He came home to the smoldering ashes, with nothing left except the black-scorched outer walls. And a spray-painted message upon it:

[center][i]DONT TREAD ON THE BEAR[/i][/center]

Esteban, with nothing left to loose, led his cell to increasingly dangerous missions. Roadside bombs on NCR Army convoys, assassination missions on Ranger officers, bloody and brutal executions of sympathizers and collaborators. Nothing was too dangerous, nor unnecessary, in the mission of the Liberation of Baja. But it was all for naught. All of it rendered pointless when the Declaration was signed by the leaders of the Mexican Army.

The word came down that the high-ranking officers of the Army had signed a ceasefire with the NCR. Baja California would retain some semblances of independence, that NCR Army troopers would evacuate the peninsula, but it would be under NCR jurisdiction, and subject to NCR taxes. All freedom-fighters were to be granted amnesty, so long as they did not continue the insurgency. 

It was an intolerable betrayal. The local cell disbanded shortly after, all the men except Esteban preferring to get on with their broken lives. With nothing left to go back to, and with his support long gone, Esteban fled into the wastes. He traveled northwards, up to New California proper, passing through Tijuana and into Dayglow. He heard the rumors of the Mojave, of Vegas being free of NCR control - a Free State, and began striking it out there. 

He arrived in time to hear the Courier's plea for settlers in the East. Signing on with one of the expeditions, he joined them heading East, wanting to put as much distance between him and California - and all of his past - as possible.
[/hider]

[hider=James Spears]
[center][img]https://images.fineartamerica.com/images-medium-large-5/1950s-smiling-man-farmer-wearing-hat-animal-images.jpg[/img]
[i][url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFsbAuX9P4w]
It's a hand-me-down, the thoughts are broken 
Perhaps they're better left unsung
I don't know, don't really care
Let there be songs to fill the air[/url][/i][/center]

James Spears was born in the north of New California, up near Klamath. His family, as far as anyone could remember, were ranchers. His pop had been one, and [i]his[/i] grandpop had been one too. Their vast stretches of pasture land were the envy of most people, but they were a kindly folk. James took over from his father when he passed on, running the farm just as he did. He didn't marry, preferring the vast fields to womanly company, but let his family stay in the house to keep him company

He could've been like the Barons of the Inland Empire, who were as cutthroat as they were rich, but he wasn't. He paid his farmhands squarely, made his deals with the local traders fairly, and lived simply in that old farmhouse on the hill. But his easy-living, his honest way of life, had the habit of attracting envy. And no more so that the Barons of the South. One of them, some fellow by the name of Gunderson, offered them a terrible sum for the whole land - half of what it was really worth. James refused, and he swore he would get the land, one way or another.

It started slowly, with some Brahmin getting mutilated in the fields. They first chalked it up to wild coyotes, or to a roving Deathclaw, but soon it became deliberate - with their bodies being dumped on their front path. Then, their windows began getting shot up by a traveling car in the distance. Soon it escalated, when the fence to their enclosure was cut and half of the Brahmin escaped into the distance. It ruined the family financially, gutting them almost entirely. They were forced to sell to Gunderson, at 1/4 of the true price. The family was moved off their land, and soon forced to settle in Klamath. 

James picked up some odd jobs, working as a caravaneer sometimes and as a veterinarian-for-hire elsewhere. But it was never quite enough to pay the bills for everyone. Soon, with the bills stacking up, he left on his own to head South. He told his family he was doing it for their own good - one less mouth to feed - and he would return with money. He traveled down the Stretch to New Vegas, hearing of the rumors that one could strike it rich.

All it did was make him poorer. In the slot machines and the card tables, he squandered what little of his money he had left. And he was forced off into Freeside, squatting in ruins and working jobs as an escort-guard for travelers passing through or as an armed guard at the NCR food outposts. When the Free State was declared, he found work in the Freeside Militia - organized by the King - and helped keep the peace in those anarchic days. He earned enough money to survive, but not enough to travel back to Klamath - or to give his family the money he told them.

When the request for settlers came down, he signed up right away. It would be a chance to find riches, and to bring his family back together.
[/hider]

[hider=Danielle Keeler]
[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/risJQjk.jpg[/img]
[url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-aK6JnyFmk][i]All the leaves are brown
And the sky is grey
I've been for a walk
On a winter's day
If I didn't tell her
I could leave today[/i][/url][/center]

Danielle Keeler was born like all the other children of the Brotherhood of Steel: in a cold bunker deep underground. While she didn't know it at the time, her birth coincided with great upheaval within the Western Elders. Fraught with disagreements that went back to the Great War itself, they tore themselves apart in disagreements as the conflict with the NCR grew more and more tenuous. One Elder in particular, a gifted man by the name of Elijah, rallied the more "forward-thinking" of the Brotherhood and brought them out of their cloister in the Lost Hills, moving under cover of night to the East.

The Keelers, Chris a Knight and Lisa a Scribe, left with what would soon become the Mojave Chapter. They traveled through the wasteland, hiding from NCR Army patrols and caravans alike, passing through the canyons near the Divide, until they reached old Army bunkers tucked away in the shade of Black Mountain, at Hidden Valley. The Chapter formed itself around Elijah, and they soon discovered great potential in the old Army records with a place not too far: HELIOS One. Soon, while Elijah and the scribes toiled themselves sick trying to resurrect the old solar array, the NCR Army arrived, carrying the banner of New California. It was all but an open declaration of war, as the Californians set up at the Old World Wall not too far away.

But all of this was of little consequence to Danielle. She grew up, as most Brotherhood children do, learning the Codex, studying the ways of the rifle and the ways of the pen in equal measure. Her path seemed clear from the start, that she would grow up to be a Knight in the ranks, that she would patrol the wastes, protecting man against itself. And she believed it too, but most of her time was really spent playing with the other children, running through the bunker and exploring what little hadn't already been repurposed.

While she played and enjoyed her youthful life, the tide was about to shift. The arrogance of Elijah had caught up with him in the form of the Two-Headed Bear, as it came down dreadfully upon HELIOS One. Most of the garrison of Brotherhood Knights and Scribes were slaughtered mercilessly by the NCR soldiers - the order was clear: no quarter - and Elijah was presumed among their fallen. Sentinel McNamara, and what few survivors that broke through the Californian lines, returned with dreadful news. The bunkers shut down one by one, as they all congregated in the main nexus. Casualty lists came out: Danielle's parents did not survive.

Her heart turned to stone, at the young age of 16. She felt bitterness, hatred, and it consumed her with every fiber of her being. She watched as her family shut itself away in the bowels of the bunker, fearing what could come next. She watched as scouts left - and never returned. Indeed, she watched as a strange Courier came with one of the weakest-links in the Brotherhood: Veronica. She distrusted him, and in the end, she was proven correct.

While out on a routine patrol through what used to be Powder Ganger territory, the Courier - who was now a Knight in the Brotherhood - came once more to the Bunker once more: on a mission of mass-murder. She felt the earth shake as they returned to Hidden Valley, and saw the survivors flee out of the surviving access tunnels hidden in the mountain sides. Very few had made it out alive. The survivors, congregating around Paladin Ramos, sought direction. They sought, moreover, revenge.

They wanted to march on New Vegas, come what may. Whether they lived or died mattered not to them, so long as they died on their feet, and joined their brothers and sisters in death. Danielle preferred this view, and cursed Ramos with every fiber of her being when he said he would have no part of it. He implored them to think "rationally" and said that they were all better off heading back to Lost Hills. Some of them joined Ramos on that trek back westward, their tails between their legs as they thought of how to beg the Western Elders to take them back. Others decided to strike out East, the rumors of the Midwestern Brotherhood and indeed of Sentinel Lyons' detachment in DC too tempting to ignore. 

But Danielle, and a few others, remained in the Mojave. She abandoned her power armor, blasting the fusion core with her rifle and fusing the suit so it was unusable, and fled into the wastes. She traveled for a little bit, roaming rather endlessly in the wake of the Courier's wrath upon the Brotherhood, robbing a caravan merchant of wasterlander clothing and her caps, and eventually settling down at Primm. She still kept her laser rifle and her old holotags, not that they were worth much. Offering her services to the local Sheriff, she watched as the NCR was forced out of the Mojave, watching as the Primm citizens poured paint upon the retreating troopers and pelted them with rotten fruit. It brought her a distinct sense of joy, even though it had been the Courier who had done it all.

She stayed in Primm a bit longer, ten years to be exact, the years flying by as if they were a dream. But she never forgot the Brotherhood, and the Brotherhood never forgot her. Danielle received a message, a cryptic one hand-delivered by a Mojave Express courier who vanished after she received it, from [i]Sentinel[/i] Ramos. He told her of the Courier's expedition plans to the East, and of Prescott, and how it was necessary for the Brotherhood to know of what happened.

Danielle signed on right away, doing one last duty in service of the only family she ever had.
[/hider]