I'll be starting the IC on the 6th-10th of May as I'll be busy with work and I'll do a quick review of current character sheets this Friday so current applicants can have time to edit their sheets if needed.
A cursory assessment of Hog would not place him that far away from your average Super Mutant. With his bark-like voice and inhuman looks, one would perhaps not be blamed for thinking him not privy to the intricacies of civilized behavior at first glance. However, appearances can be deceiving, as Hog himself is all too aware and cautious about – as a result, he is deliberately and visibly gentle and kind, a behavior nurtured to find acceptance in the communities of the Wastes. Should he consider you an agreeable party, first contact with him is usually hospitable and improvised in ways that would prove him useful and harmless. The back and shoulders are hunched, the movement slowed. Words are chosen to imply softness of soul. Token amounts of necessities are offered. A look is offered into faulty machinery. All the evidence is presented for the onlooker to believe that hostility is not necessary.
However, beneath the facade of gentleness and simplicity, Hog is an educated, opinionated and jaded creature, although this quality seems to have manifested itself as distance rather than resentment or cruelty in his behavior. More than a hundred and fifty years roaming the lands has weathered the mutant in flesh and soul alike and as such, he has come to view humans as too hedonistic and short-sighted to produce anything but misery for themselves, not unlike animals – pets, in his words. Nonetheless, not being able to content himself with solitude has led him to seek communities in which he can belong and perhaps provide some degree of reason and stability, while keeping enough distance to shield him emotionally from what he thinks will be their inevitable and sad demise.
Should one somehow form a closer bond with him, Hog tends to drop pretensions of the gentle giant, save for the token offerings, and provide instead a steadfast if occasionally witty companion who is willing to fight and hurt for his convictions. Despite an appearance that would imply very much otherwise, Hog can be surprisingly sensitive on an emotional level when with those he feels an affinity towards. When hurt, the monstrous part of his Super Mutant nature shows itself the strongest as he tends to react violently and vindictively in such situations. More than one community has met its end at the hands of Hog for having wronged the wrong pet.
Background
Mariposa. That is the first thing Hog remembers. In the dim corridors of the military base was where he was first shaped and given purpose. To fight in the name of Master, of Unity. Armed with weaponry scavenged from the stocks of the compound, he like countless others was set out into the world to find souls worthy of ascending their humanity. He remembers his training with the gun, his yet virgin skin being first touched by the scorching sun, his forays against weak and strong men. He remembers when an armor-piercing round from his gun first pierced the softer abdomen plating of a Knight of the Brotherhood of Steel and spilled the man’s blood and guts and hydraulic fluid all over the the desert and the the red-black concoction sizzling and smoking as it heated up on the hot sands. He is not proud of those days, but they too were his days nonetheless.
He was not there for the death of the Lieutenant or the Master, he and his cohort having journeyed too far in their quest to provide specimens for their growing army. He remembers the news hitting them hard, too hard. A couple of them sitting dumb and unable to process the possibility, their squad leader weeping and sounding like a dozen animals being butchered – the first time he heard one of his kin cry. He remembers realizing there that not all they had been taught was true. Contention brewing in their hearts from then on. Suspicion. Selfishness. His squad dissolves bit by bit. A deserter there, one executed there. He decides to take the former route, suspecting that otherwise he will end up in the latter. He remembers taking the gun. It has stayed with him since.
He wandered the Wastes from then on, deciding to avoid most company after getting shot at during approach the third time. Making little sense of the world around him, he sought knowledge, seeking insight into the ways of man. He scoured markets, libraries, teaching himself how things worked. Machines, the men that made the machines, the men that made the men. After some years, with new understanding, he sought more nuanced ways of contact, such as rigging up a large picket sign on which he painted “I COME IN PEACE”. It was a slight improvement. Cautious contact with wandering parties eventually led to trade, and gradually, some semblance of acceptance. When he saved a trading caravan from a bighorner stampede via a generous administering of canister shot, their relationship even turned into one of gratitude.
Not long afterwards he was employed. It was with this caravan that he learned firsthand how men behaved. Their likes, dislikes. Their humor. Although a strange and barely tolerated sight in many communities, proper application of his expanding knowledge of human society slowly built a niche for him. As a force multiplier of his own, he provided a means for his caravan master to expend less on security, a fact which he quickly realized and used to increase his pay. As his financial position improved, he even went after certain luxuries to elevate his status. A hat. A pistol. A holster. An overcoat. It reached a point where whores in more destitute communities began hitting on him, which once caused such outrage that the town militia nearly run them out of town. Slowly and surely he made a name for himself in the Klamath-Oregon circuit.
Good times, he learned, were not everlasting. His first employer was killed in an ambush by the Jackals. While they paid dearly for it, a despondent Hog was still left aimless and took to drifting between towns until he was befriended by an innkeeper, though in a few years he too was killed in an altercation. Hog decided to stay around the inn nonetheless, for the sake of his late friend’s daughter and her wellbeing, though she would be consumed by her own vices. Outlasting his companions became a pattern and after some decades Hog grew tired of it, retreating to the wilderness of Idaho. Years spent in quietude taught him many valuable lessons, the most important being that despite his best attempts, he was still a social creature. Having grown tired of dog keeping, he wandered south once more, to a changed landscape. A world reconnecting, regrowing. Pretensions of statehood, civilization.
This time around, Hog decided to bond with communities, not singular people, reckoning them less likely to meet a sudden end. His skills made him useful to whichever community that would accept him, and he found that while his considerations regarding communities seemed to be correct, they were far more likely to fall victim to change. Sometimes for the better, often for the worse. Hysteria. Vice. Greed. More than once did he find a people worthy of cooperation to be worthy of reprimand, or worse. He came to tolerate this fact, gradually, but never did find his peace with it, becoming a drifter between communities, relying on the faults of memory to wash away the unsavory details of a place when in another. This went on for a while, although at some point, he found himself tired even with the land itself. The plains. The vastness of it all. Perhaps it was this that drove him to Hawaii. Perhaps it was a desire to begin again. Whatever the reason may be, he is on his way. Woe betide any who’d dare to stop him.
Equipment
The single most distinctive piece of equipment that Hog carries with him is what he simply calls the gun, a single shot, sliding breech anti-materiel rifle repurposed from an M61 Vulcan barrel. He does not know whether it was a pre-war invention or something come up with by the smiths of the Master’s army, but it has proved its worth by having served reliably over the course of Hog’s long and storied life. The years have taken its toll on the gun – its rifling is all but gone thanks to a lack of suitable ammunition driving Hog to build or commission reloaded, handmade cartridges, and more than a hundred years against the elements has nicked it in many a spot. Even though it no longer boasts its former range, the gun still functions as smoothly as the day when Hog first laid hands on it and is certainly his most prized possession.
Besides that, he carries a Ruger .44 Magnum revolver in a cross-draw holster, although this is mostly a status symbol, as he usually resorts to his “power fist” when unable to wield his 20mm – a massive brass knuckle on whose business end is written the word “POWER” in large, faded letters. Besides those, a bandolier, and the clothes on his back –specifically chosen to both be comfortable, durable, and respectable– he carries a large rucksack filled with supplies, tools for his repair work, a heavy-duty multitool, and some miscellaneous trinkets.
Alright, here we go. First round of approvals. Based on your character sheet, you will also get access to a unique perk that will affect rolls plus other mechanics yet to be introduced. I'm also going to provide you with your equipment stats in the Discord once I'm finished balancing them over the weekend. (Also dealing with IRL shenanigans atm but what else is new?)
@Abstract Proxy You are officially approved. You will get double approved and a second trait if you choose to make your character speak in a Bostonian Russian accent.
Your life of crime and brutality in the descendants of the Russian Mafia has lended you a keen sense of the local criminal underworld in the area. Whenever you commit an illegal act of crime that would be considered illegal by the laws of the settlement you inhabit or any other illicit actions that harm an innocent, you gain an extra dice to roll during any skill test. However, the challenge rating of any action which is lawful that you will undertake will increase by a level of one.
You are a Gen 1 Super Mutant made in the pits of Mariposa. You get an additional +2 to your Strength and Endurance and are immune to the effects of radiation. Unfortunately, you gain a +1 in DC in all interactions that involve humans and human NPCs are more likely to act negatively towards you. Seriously, dude, look at your skin, look at your lips!
@Eviledd1984 Everything is generally fine but I have several issues with the backstory of Aaron. His father’s status as an NCR soldier doesn’t make sense and if he was killed in the battle for Caesar’s Legion, does this mean his father migrated to Hawaii and then, all the way back to California? People just don’t do large migratory treks ala Oregon Trail in Fallout, especially to unknown lands like the Aloha Isles. It also doesn’t specify how your character managed to end up on the Green Horizon. Did they travel to the states to continue their dream of being a scavenger/part-time singer? The internal motivations in his backstory seem frankly sporadic as well. Putting aside the fact that juvenile detention in Fallout for most factions would equate exile, death or forced conscription; I find it hard to believe that a I get that you’re going for the archetype of a swashbuckling rogue but how does your OC decide to switch from a thief to a bard and then, to a scavenger? There needs to be a more consistent throughline and justification other than ‘just because’. This sheet remains unapproved for now.
@Letter Bee No problem with anything other than the fact I’m probably gonna use your takes on how FO4 and FONV ended in broad strokes for the timeline of Aloha. A New Vegas independence/Mr House ending would make sense for how I envision the NCR and the Institute are a bunch of silly nincompoops.
You are a member of the NCR military with all the training that suits you. You get +1 to your damage rolls whenever you use rifles, SMGs, ARs, grenades, revolvers or any old fashioned gunpowder weaponry. However, whenever you use a energy weapon or attempt to roll any other weapon skill, the skill test is increased by 2.
@DeadDrop Everything about the character so far is alright. Just keep in mind your skills can't be higher than 3 and you need to redistribute them. Approved.
You have an extraordinary silver tongue in the realm of bartering and trade. You get an extra die to roll during any dialogue with a merchant or tradesperson of some kind. However, any complications you generate during bartering will generate a scenario where an enemy NPC will attempt to rob you blind of all your caps.
@Randomguy Approved except just add a sentence or two about APGA and your OC’s history with them/
You gain an extra die on all rolls concerning interacting or interfacing with robots. Additionally, you now have the ability to hack any robots and recruit them as permanent companions. However, hacking requires a CR of 5.
You gain a +1 to your Speech, Barter, Repair and Science skills whenever you perform a good deed for others. However, breaking the law comes less naturally to you and thus, you gain a -1 to any skill and attribute checks that will be used to perform immoral deeds.
You are a Mr Handy produced by the finest at General Atomics. You require no food, water and are immune to poison and radiation. However, you take +1 damage from all EMP attacks. Additionally, you have four arms which can be customised to either have a claw, a buzzsaw or any small weapon which could be conceivably fitted on a robotic limb.
Malcolm can be described as a quiet and solitary person ever since leaving his raider life behind and while he does not seem like it. He can be a kind and friendly person. It just depends on how you act and treat people around him. Though he is no longer a raider, a part of him still feels guilty about what he did with the Red Scorpions, and he is determined to redeem himself. Along with being loyal to those treat him well and he calls friends. Especially if they know of his raider past, and while Malcolm does not talk about his days as a raider. He is hesitant to bring it up with new people. Still, you can find a fighting spirit in him and is keen on doing right by the world and the people he cares about.
Background
Malcolm has had an interesting life, born in a small settlement somewhere in Utah. He had a decent life growing up in his home settlement. His parents were the leaders of it and despite barely scraping by. The settlement survived, but one day, it was attacked by raiders and burned to the ground when Malcolm was ten. Though it was not a random attack, apparently how the raiders put it, Malcolm's father had a deal with the raiders, extortion really, and one day, his father finally said no to them, and the raiders wanted the settlement to be a message to the other settlements that they extorted from.
But why leave Malcolm alive and take him in? As a twisted sense of revenge, what could be better than raising the son of a resisting settlement to be the very thing his father hated? So Malcolm was brought in to the raiders and raised as one of their own.
The raiders were called the Red Scorpions, and growing up with them was a hard life. The insults, the beatings, and other cruelty they did to him. But, as time passed, he slowly started to become one of them. However, there were some things that they could not beat out of him. Despite being apart of the group and going out on raids, a piece of his old self remained, and as the years went by. That old self started to resurface until, one day, it was fully unleashed.
That day was when Malcolm saved a group of captured survivors from the Red Scorpions. It nearly killed him, but the survivors managed to escape with him in tow back to their home settlement. There, he recovered at their settlement would welcome him as of their own. Though Malcolm would appreciate it, he would still feel guilty about what he had down under the Red Scorpions. The survivors, as Malcolm would learn, were former New Canaanites and introduced him to their religion. While Malcolm did not take it right away, the idea of redemption did help them to make feel better and decide on his next course of action. Though he would stay with the New Canaanites for some time before sending off.
But as one last token of gratitude to the New Canaanites, he agreed to do one last task for them. For they had a package that needed to be delivered to the far away Aloha Isles. Despite the distance, Malcolm agreed to it to without thinking about it. Though he was not told what the package was but he trusted the New Canaanites and so he did not asked.
Now, after learning about a ship heading to the Aloha Isles, he booked passage and is keen on delivering his package, no matter what it is.
Equipment Weapons Bowie knife .45 Auto pistol Service rifle Sawed-off shotgun
Ammo .45 Auto ammo x5 5.56mm ammo x6 12 gauge x24
Armor and apparel Traveling clothes Satchel with a package in it Leather armor Robe with hood
Consumables 2x RadAway. 3x Rad-X. 5x Stimpak. 2x Med-X. 3 days of food and purified water.
Misc 3 Weapon repair kits Gun cleaning kit Binoculars 4,000 Bottle Caps Lighter Basic survival gear and supplies Holy Cross necklace Set of Goggles
@Abstract Proxy You are officially approved. You will get double approved and a second trait if you choose to make your character speak in a Bostonian Russian accent.
Your life of crime and brutality in the descendants of the Russian Mafia has lended you a keen sense of the local criminal underworld in the area. Whenever you commit an illegal act of crime that would be considered illegal by the laws of the settlement you inhabit or any other illicit actions that harm an innocent, you gain an extra dice to roll during any skill test. However, the challenge rating of any action which is lawful that you will undertake will increase by a level of one.
Double approved you say?
Second trait, even!?
I was tempted to do this purely out of some probable personality flaw, but now, now you have my attention (after I find a picture and write up a sweet appearance).
A natural intellectual, her way of thinking offers a lot of insight into the world around her, but for the most part, Dr. Kinsley is private and withdrawn, and so very little is known of her, just that she is good at what she does and does it without much of a fuss.
What is known, however, is that she is direct in her communication, and does not mince her words. It is not too much of a secret that Dr. Kinsley glass is entirely empty. Her eyes are often glazed over with a gloom that transcends her social interactions. Her brutal honesty can be refreshing, and between the lines of melancholy, there is often genuinely helpful nuggets of wisdom that most certainly come from the little warmth that she does have left. Particularly for those who make an effort to get to know her beyond her outward quirks.
Life isn’t all a spiral of darkness, and there are brief moments where Dr. Kinsley will light up with joy, and smile from her heart. In those moments, colour seems to momentarily return and she possesses a maternal grace that hasn’t completely left her. But yes, those moments are fleeting and rare — but the longer she spends with people, being useful, the more such moments beat back the darkness.
Dr Kinsley can usually be found pacing back and forth, muttering her thoughts to herself, or perhaps to Chowder. She doesn’t really seem to care that she sleeps in short bursts. Her pacing and chuntering late at night might well bother others, however.
She has an incredibly logical mind, and is a fantastic problem solver. She enjoys intellectual puzzles, particularly linguistic or mathematical ones. Solving puzzles is one of the few things she presently takes joy in, and her skills translate beyond being able to figure out the answer to a riddle - but in the real world too. She can make logical decisions with ease, without being too tangled up in emotional aspects. She excels in analysing connections, linking together seemingly unrelated factors in a way that might confuse someone else.
Born Harper Howard in 2147 in the New California Republic, Harper had an affluent upbringing. Both of her parents were notable doctors, and she was destined for the same path - and maybe more. In 2164 she was formally learning the art of medicine and surgery from books, until she came of age enough to start practicing in clinics.
Her friendly demeanour and intense passion for her chosen science made her popular in the NCR, and her career grew very quickly. It was at some point that she met Alex Kinglsey, a fellow Doctor who travelled with the Followers of the Apocalypse. They begin a flirtatious friendship, wherein Alex would design and create various puzzles for Harper to solve. This went on for some time, until they confessed their feelings to one another, eventually getting married, and leaving the NCR for a nomadic life with her husband.
At the same time, Harper’s medical skills flourished - her expertise in the nervous system, and specifically, tumours, gave her a prodigious reputation. Her record exceptional, until she came across a patient with an impossible tumour. Dr Kinsley’s hubris got the better of her, and the patient died on the table. Her first, but not her last. A lesson, and yet a motivator to be better still.
It wasn’t long until Alex and Harper welcomed their daughter, Victoria to the world, and Harper took to motherhood well - doting on the child. She’d never known such love before, and that love drove her yet again to continue her work, to continue saving lives and preserving life. Their family grew when Victoria was a little older, and a blue heeler puppy was brought home, with their daughter naming him Chowder.
The dog terrorised Harper. He would only chew and piss on her things, and yet was such the perfect best friend to Victoria, practically shoving out the child’s mother. “I’m just not a dog person,” Harper would say, despite the challenges of the animal, she accepted that Victoria had chosen him as her best friend, and in that she was glad that they had each other.
Eight years into parenthood, Alex and Victoria got sick, after an expedition out. They appeared malaised, coughing and wheezing. Their blood instantly coagulating. Harper diagnosed pneumonia. But the bleeding and rashes… It was more than pneumonia. The two were constantly confused, slurring.
”I don’t have the supplies out here to help them, and I don’t think I have time to collect anything — I don’t even know what this is. Parasitic pneumonia? Uniquely infects people of their blood type, because I’m fine, and I’ve been exposed to them for hours.
Why don’t I know what to do? Why can’t I figure this out?
It took only days for the sickness to take them. First Alex. Victoria held on for another 36 hours before passing in her sleep. Harper buried her next to Alex, where Chowder sat for days on end, crying occasionally. Harper had to drag the dog away, for both of their sake - taking off from the Followers.
For a long while, Harper wandered aimlessly as she could from place to place. Staying here and there, treating people where she could for caps in some walking, waking dream. She eventually stumbled upon a wounded youth in the wild, alone and hurt. Chowder seemed to take to him, and when Harper helped him back to his feet, she realised that he was a member of the Brotherhood of Steel. This awoke something in her that had long been asleep, a stirring to the reality that still existed even amongst her grief. Factions remained, and war never changed.
She’d travelled so far from anything that was her home, hell, she’d buried her home miles and miles gone, years ago. With something of a purpose, fate brought her to the strange shores of Hawaii.
A standard outfit consists of denim fatigues and a battered burgundy fedora. In a sterile environment, and when not out on the road, Dr. Kinsely can be found in a surgical jacket and scrub cap. Pocket Knife .44 Pistol Roll of Surgical Tools First Aid Kit
An 11 year old Blue Heeler. Dr. Kinsley's companion. Chowder makes himself useful in the field by sniffing out items that may be of use. Sometimes, anyway. He's 11 years old, that nose isn't as powerful as it used to be - or the ears for that matter. Still, he's a Good Boy and friend to all - if nothing else, he's a fantastic morale boost. Just don't leave your shoes unattended.
Over the course of her work, Innessa has 'worn' a great variety of personalities, and so those who have made her aquaintence over the course of the years may report wildly different impressions of the woman. In truth, she is intensely goal orientated, working to achieve whatever tasks have been set for her with a dogged insistence that is part personality, part indoctrination. The core of the person buried beneath this is a surprisingly frivalous and light hearted young woman, she finds great joy in moments of whimsey, in contrast to the enforced severity of much of her life.
In the years leading up to the resource wars which so dominated the international relations of the Pre-War world, traditional enemies often found themselves more aligned, while new threats and old friends turned on each other. No example of this was more obvious than the USSR and USA, while even the founding nation of the Soviet bloc was still the subject of significant anti-communist propaganda, relations had normalised to the extent that trade and international travel between the two nations was commonplace. This is not to say the Great Game of Espionage between the original Cold War foes ever ended, especially as the relatively neutral USSR attempted to scale down the conflict between China and the USA. Based out of the Soviet Consulate in Los Angeles, the Soviet mission largely consisted of genuine diplomats but certainly had members of the KGB attached.
These agents of espionage knew that the world was ending even before most of the relevant actors did, having access to both Chinese and American communications, and worked in the waning hours of the old world to secure their own survival and the continuation of the mission. Attempting to access or secure one of the Vaults within realistic travel distance of the Consulate was ruled out early on, a few members of the Consulate had already been added to the rosters for several nearby vaults and it was deemed an unacceptable risk to their own individual orders from command. Instead, as the first bombs began to fall, the Consulate forces siezed control of Griffith Observatory. Not an obvious shelter, the corporate espionage element of the agents had identified significant Vault Tech funding into the Science center, including secret improvements to the structure in preparation for the coming war. Whatever purpose Vault Tech intended for this, it was unprepared for the different threat of hostile takeover. With the building locked down, this small contingent of the Motherland survived the onslaught of the Great War upon American soil.
It was from this exclave that Innessa would eventually be born, generations later. The community had remained loyal to the principles of the USSR and to the aim of furthering the Soviet cause and so successive generations were raised as such. Under the belief that the higher ranks of the group were still in some limited communication with the homeland and receiving orders, the fervour did not dim through the years. The Observatory was abandoned after the initial decades (eventually leading to its occupation years later by the NCR) with the target of securing greater strategic assets within the American wasteland. Many ‘agents’ would be sent out across the ruins of California, acting as independent cells. The main bulk of the Consulate eventually took over the isolated Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center near Twin Lakes and remained there through the long years of the post-war centuries.
As the daughter of two successful field agents, Innessa was raised and trained for a similar role, learning much of the history of the distant Soviet motherland and that of America itself alongside more practical perperations for such a life. While Innessa had something of a rebellious streak, she was otherwise deemed one of the most promising recruits of her generation, and was already expected to take part in more local missions in her mid-teens. This is when she first adopted the Americanised version of her name, Kate Antony, for when it was preferable to not present as Russian, a strategy often used to spy on the major factions and settlements of post-war California.
Innessa’s success as an agent of infiltration and espionage soon proved to bite the hand that fed it, however, as the young woman uncovered the great secret of the Consultate’s Inner Circle. If they had once been receiving true orders and commands from the Motherland, that time had long since past. The often costly actions agents had been sent out on for the intervening years were at best simply for their own power and at worst simply red herrings to present the idea there was still some great wider aim. Still, loyal to her friends and family if not their leaders, rather than reveal this, Innessa simply left, abandoning her post on her next mission. Her plan now, is to make the great journey across the ocean, to find what has become of the homeland she has never truly seen, the journey to the Aloha islands a stop on this mammoth task.
Weapon: Circuitbreaker Pulse Gun: Experimental weapon designed just before the Great War intended as a counter to power armour. Uses energy cells as ammunition.
Apparel: Innessa travels with quite a variety of clothing suitable to various situations and covers, when expecting action she has an armoured jumpsuit of Soviet styling.
Aid: 5x Stimpack, 5x Radaway, 5x Mentats, 5x Jet.
Innessa usually travels with a modest amount of caps she has earned via work (or simply stolen) over the course of her travels, but she has likely spent most of it for passage to the Aloha Islands. She also prefers to travel with snacks, but as they're often eaten somewhat rapidly I have not included them here.
You have a dog, one of the many enterprising furry companions for any wasteland wanderer. Your dog is an NPC and can earn XP and attack enemies, albeit at a diminished rate compared to you. Once per scene, your dog can reduce the DC of any skill check you are doing by providing moral and emotional support in the form of cuddles.
You are skilled in the art of disguise and acting. You may reroll any Char+Speech skill check once when bullshitting and convincing someone while you are undercover. Additionally, impersonating someone while wearing the regalia of their faction will add one point to any skill and attribute check whilst performing any action under the watch of a member of that faction.
Heya, I absolutely adore the setting you built up for this! Even drew a sketch of my gal!
Note: I tried to keep the details of the NCR and its fate vague enough and coated in enough hearsay. If its not enough though, feel free to tell me so I can just scrub it all.
Inquisitive, spirited and hands-on; Helene is a a woman described by her peers as, either endearingly or with disdain, a nerd.
Helene loves to drown herself in dusty books and to lose herself in impassioned rants about the nature of the world around her. Maybe a few musings about both pre and post-war media, to boot. That's how she spent a lot of her early life, after all. That is, before Hoover Dam. Something sparked in her. A simmering desire to get out there. farther than the volunteer repair work she used to do for Shady Sands. A desire to not just learn from the wonders of people past and present...but a subconscious desire to make her own mark. To make a difference. And the NCR after 2282? It needed people like her, desperately.
Despite her wanderlust and desire to go out to experience the wider world, she still finds herself either frightened or overwhelmed by the horrors of the wastes outside of the heartlands of the NCR. Furthermore, she finds it difficult to connect to people unless they share at least a few of her core passions. Nonetheless, after her departure from the NCR, she found herself picking through ruined complexes for interesting old tech, having warm chats with Followers she meets along the road, and voraciously absorbing newly-uncovered issues of ¡La Fantoma!.
Background
Shady Sands. Home. Helene Liu remembers her childhood in vivid, dreamlike colours. How, despite days of sorrow and pain, she never truly suffered. The delicious fresh food, clean water, and her school with lovely Ms. Delgado. She remembered how, as a kid, she would jump up and down the public trams that passed by the streets that were constantly bustling with trade , or with new buildings being raised or restored. As she grew older, she wowed her peers with her knack for repair-work, and her technical acumen. She beamed with joy whenever her teachers or superiors would compliment her smarts. This was her life. Her life in the New Californian Republic. Who could ask for more?
Helene would turn 16. As she came of age, she began to have her eyes opened. As she read and talked and actually ventured out beyond Shady, she learnt how her comforts were even possible. A periphery of settlements that supported the comfortable lifestyles of the heartland, settlements that struggled with basic needs. That's not to say of the settlements outside the NCR; Hell. It could be Hell on Earth. It was wrong. It was unfair. Helene would continue to read her decaying science books and her dusty, torn superhero comics with increasing sadness. Was she in a bubble? Was her country, that she would still assert in the present day that she still loves, being fair? Not really, no.
Then she turned 18. The dream ended. If her sight was initially opened, now it was shattered. The second battle of Hoover Dam, New Vegas, the Mojave; a quagmire. A disaster. The less said of the details, her peers said, the better. The details don't matter anymore, not after so many young lives were thrown west, and for what? For the Corpse carts limping back over the I15?
Helene signed up to the NCR military sometime afterwards. It was certainly a time to join; morale was at an all-time low. Rumours of desertions and resignations abound, not that she could decipher how true or deep they were. Yet it was better late than never. She was too young to have served in the Mojave anyways. Her technical skill saw her climb up the ranks as a combat engineer, and she found herself dealing with maintenance and field work. Her personal favourite time was the repair work of the remaining NCR suits of salvaged power armour. While she eventually became familiar with their inner workings, she would never wear a suit, nor receive the training. Not that she even cared to; she just admired the wonderous pre-war tech behind them! She would spend a few more years on tour, as the NCR reoriented and reassessed. Life on the frontiers of the NCR was tough, and she gained her first taste of true violence and conflict. It was a taste she would never truly grow comfortable with. Was she even making a difference? In this case, sure. Maybe. Perhaps? It never seemed truly revolutionary to her.
She finished her tour of duty barely three years ago. She proved to be a decent enough soldier, although a far better engineer. Walking across California, she would become a drifter who sold her skills and her service in the NCR as a way to garner cash, caps and shelter. It was these years that proved to be Helene's most formative. It was in the digging, the scavenging, the amateur research, that she became obsessed with the old world.
Helene would have mixed fortunes. Some weeks and months would be nothingburgers. Wastes of time. Very occasionally, she would find something worthwhile; a pre-war book with useful information. Some intact conductors or fission batteries that could be solid for a cup full of caps. Yet one day, while exploring a Robco facility beyond the edges of NCR territory, she would come across a barely functioning Eyebot. It was not anything fancy; seemed to have been a service Eyebot, a humble worker of menial tasks and basic information gathering/dispersal. The plucky wanderer spent nearly a week, maybe longer, that old facility, digging through scraps and other now destroyed robots to nurse the Eyebot back to working condition. She finds it utterly adorable. While it lacks a true personality, Helene would end up talking to it on occasion, sometimes in endearing ways. It only beeps back. On starry nights, she would lay by a campfire and have the Eyebot pipe old, crusty songs from holotapes. Serenades of midnight-bound rangers. She wonders what those old, history-bound cowboys would think of her world. Of her Eyebot. Of everything that has happened since. She would do a lot of thinking in her moments of rest. Reflection.
The NCR, a nation she still felt feelings for, felt like it had become increasingly lost. It needed direction. A purpose. Like her! And as she dug through old Repconn facilities and dived into scrapyards, she wondered if the Old World had the answers to questions that had gripped her. A way to make things fair, safe, colourful, to breath the same life she had in her childhood back into her world. Wanderers like her would accuse her of having Old World Blues. Helene would always spin it as a positive; that she merely wanted to look into the technological marvels of the past to help save the future. The fact that she nonetheless felt increasingly sad did not escape her. She suppressed those blues as hard as she could. Maybe she'll vent to her Eyebot, but never to a real person. Answers were out there. Answers to a colourful, right life for all. Out there in the dusty sands and farms of Californi-
Or maybe beyond. No, not the Mojave. Maybe it lies West. Further. Much, much further. Across that mysterious vast ocean...
Equipment
A jury-rigged AER9 laser rifle. Helene's prized possession, and the only reason she hasn't had her legs gnawed off by a radscorpion during her wandering days. Brought as a broken model she got from a scrapyard, she managed to cobble a surprisingly working model together after months of constant scavenging work. Of course she did; the lens were still intact! It would have been a waste otherwise. Helene spends hours of her free time every week maintaining and caring for it, in a manner that might be viewed by some as disturbingly possessive. She almost wanted to nickname it, but the laughter or raised eyebrows she got when she experimented with that shut that idea down...for now.
An old, worn set of recon armour. Actually a barely-armoured, glorified jumpsuit from the pre-war, meant to be an underclothing for armoured American soldiers. Many people in the current wasteland use it standalone though; some like the basic protection it brings from the elements, while others think its stylish. For Helene? It's both. Even if it makes her look a bit fat. Shame about the rust and the wear-and-tear. Many a night has been spent polishing and cleaning this thing.
A used 9mm Pistol. Helene carries no ammo for this thing. She has not shot it in years. It's kept as memorabilia, a living memory of her time in the NCR military.
Goggles. Used to shield her eyes from storms, or to protect her eyes during welding or soldering work. She also thinks it looks cute on her forehead. Helene is almost never seen without them, unless she's sleeping.
Water Canteen. She would be dead without this.
A Backpack. It's her backpack; there are many like it, but this is hers. Used to partially carry interesting scrap for eventual sale, but mostly to carry her survival gear. And a book. Several. It gets boring out there, ok?
Several old pre-war books. As said above. Dusty, old, crumbling and unsurprising when you consider it's been 200 years. She cherishes every one of them.
A book and pen. Used to record observations. A journal, of sorts. Occasionally insightful, mostly rambly.
A good number of microfusion cells. The bread and butter of her trusty rifle. She swears she has like..100? 120? Maybe less? She needs to start keeping track.
Name: Akane (Current assumed name)/"Monkey-of-Red" (White Leg birth name)
Race: Human
Gender: Female
Age: Due to bad record keeping by the White Legs, not helped by the fact that they are now destroyed nearly to the (wo)man, Akane is not entirely sure how old she specifically is. She knows she's somewhere in her mid to late twenties, and that's as specific as she can be.
Strength: 10
Perception: 5
Endurance: 7
Charisma: 3
Intelligence: 4
Agility: 6
Luck: 5
Unarmed - 3
Melee - 3
Throwing - 0
Guts - 2
Athletics - 3
Guns - 3
Energy Weapons - 0
Explosives - 0
Medicine - 0
Piloting - 0
Sneak - 2
Lockpick - 0
Science - 0
Repair - 0
Speech - 0
Barter - 0
Survival - 3
Personality: Akane is a turbulent, choleric woman who feels far more at home in the wilderness that she once called home, in the halcyon days in Utah. Back when problems were real, and solvable. Stuff like finding enough food for the day, or clean water, or protecting your land from the crazy Mormons who insisted your way of life was inherently sinful and the tribes that decided to butter up to them. You dealt with those problems as they came up, and they were finished after a day's worth of hard effort, and you didn't need to constantly stress over it. Life was simpler, and things just made more sense. And no one had to pretend to be anything that they weren't. You didn't like someone? You told them that to their face and punched them. Didn't need to worry about social standing or keeping the so-called peace. It was violent, it was often savage, but Akane argues it brought out the best in people.
But those days are long behind her now. Zion no longer welcomed her people, not after the Mormons and their accursed courier showed up and drove them away. And when they tried to return back to their ancestral homeland, the 80s also made sure they weren't welcomed there either. And as the Bear slowly made its way eastwards, and the Mojave turned on its glitzy lights and paraded itself as a den of sin, it became increasingly clear that tribals in general were not long for this world. So as much as Akane wishes she could have finished the job of Salt-Upon-Wounds, and burn down all the accursed relics and symbols of the evil Old World, to return everything to salt and ashes... she was just one woman. So now she's forced to wear their clothes, speak their language, and to respect these meaningless social constructs like "property" and "money".
And she hates it. Akane feels so fake, so artificial. The creeping encroachment of civilization might have put the trappings of modern society on her, but the savage raider still lives on in her heart, desperately wishing it could tear itself out in freedom. But she's not strong enough to do so, and it only drives her to hate everyone she met in New California... least of all herself. God she hates herself for how weak she's become. To let herself get so domesticated by her peoples' traditional enemies.
The worst thing is that she knows she wasn't always this angry. Not when she was in Zion. She was at peace with herself, next to the calm, serene flow of the Virgin River. She used to be happy, carefree almost. Conversely to what the civilized wastelanders would claim, not everyday needed to be a violent struggle for survival. Hell, besides the occasional raiding and pillaging (not like the civilized folk don't steal other people's shit; they just make legal fictions to justify it!), tribal life was actually pretty calm, from what she remembered. Akane wishes she could find that peace again, that feeling of belonging in a community, particularly one that viewed itself a part of, rather than above, the wasteland. But for now, Akane isn't sure she'll ever find that peace. And there's something about that which, rather than burning a fire in her stomach... just made her melancholic. Perhaps she had her own version of Old World Blues, just her old world being within living memory...
Background: The woman presently known as Akane, was born as Monkey-of-Red (a name, in the White Leg pidgin language, roughly is meant to invoke "Angry Monkey"), as a freewoman of the White Legs. Originally raiders from the Great Salt Lake region, their ferocious temperament, complete cultural isolation due to their unique language they spoke, and access to superior weaponry due to strategic looting of Pre-War armories led them to become one of the most reviled and feared raider tribes in the region. Many communities in Utah and Nevada found their ruin at the barrel of their feared "storm drums", which paved way for domination of the region.
However, the White Legs did not see themselves as especially heinous or devil-like in the way they operated. The world was often a brutal and violent place, and they simply were just the best at dishing it out. They didn't particularly hate the people they raided, they just knew it was either them or the people they attacked, and they'd rather it be themselves. That was the mentality, at the very least, that Monkey-of-Red was raised in. Her people may be violent, sure, but they were honest and virtuous. They didn't pretend to be above the coyotes and yao guai, but viewed themselves as part of the very same wasteland that all other life came from. The predator eats the prey, but that doesn't mean that the predator hated the prey. It was all part of the circle of life, and Monkey-of-Red was eager to take her place in said circle. Indeed, to Monkey-of-Red, it was everyone else who was weird, for worshiping the crude, disgusting effigies of the old world that scarred and polluted the earth! Those monuments to man's sin needed to be destroyed, not revered!
Beyond the communities that they raided, however, the real enemy of the White Legs were the Mormons-- New Canaan, the largest settled society within Utah. Their settlers encroached on their traditional hunting grounds, and they branded Monkey-of-Red's peoples as unredeemable sinners for worshipping their gods and daring to defend their lands. So it should be no shock that New Canaan and its outlying communities were the most popular targets for White Legs raids. One of Monkey-of-Red's proudest days was when Salt-Upon-Wounds, the esteemed and respected war leader for the White Legs, noticed Monkey-of-Red's potential as a warrior, and personally bestowed her one of the tribes' storm drums. Soon enough, the tribal woman set off on raids, keeping her people well fed and free from the clutches of the evil Canaanites.
The constant raiding against the Mormons seemingly attracted the attention of a man named Caesar, a fact unbeknownst to Monkey-of-Red, ultimately sealed the fate of her tribe. He sent one of his emissaries up north to attempt to negotiate an alliance with the White Legs, one that Salt-Upon-Wounds was more than eager to make. Ulysses, his name was, was nearly revered as a god by Salt-Upon-Wounds, as the Legion represented the one known raider group that utterly dwarfed the White Legs; a sort of might-recognizes-might fanboying going on. Salt's love for the man rubbed off on many tribals, Monkey-of-Red included, who started to ceremoniously braid their hair in dreadlocks to honor who they considered to be the strongest warrior. Monkey-of-Red barely had a chance to talk to the Legionnaire, as he was more involved with the leaders of the tribe, but there was one night where she managed to corner him alone. She wish she never had. There was something in his eyes that terrified her. A look of disgust and regret. The former when he noticed her newly braided hair, and the latter when she mentioned fighting for Caesar. It was like he looked down on her, for reasons Monkey-of-Red never fully understood, but knew enough to realize she, nor the other White Legs, would be seen as equals by Ulysses, let alone Caesar.
It wasn't too long afterwards that the White Legs marched onto war. Their price of admission to potentially join the Legion was to utterly destroy New Canaan. And no amount of self-doubt inflicted by meeting representatives of the Legion was going to dissuade Monkey-of-Red from fighting the stuck up, hypocritical Mormons. And that day was glorious. Monkey-of-Red, to this day, would consider the sacking of New Canaan the greatest moment of her life. In one swift movement, they destroyed the capital of sin and decadence within Utah, burning their churches and other pre-war monuments, putting their peddlers-of-lies to the sword (or, more accurately, the .45 auto), and in an symbolic act of defiance, literally salting the earth to make sure that the accursed land could never be settled again, and would instead be returned back to the earth. Monkey-of-Red proudly bared a storm drum in the fighting, along with a power fist, and made sure to slaughter as much of her peoples' traditional oppressors as she could. But, unfortunately, they didn't get everyone. Survivors scattered to the four corners of the earth. And one that Caesar wanted dead in particular went southwards, towards Zion. So that's where the White Legs marched to.
If New Canaan represented everything Monkey-of-Red hated, Zion represented the good in the world. The former national park was beautiful, practically untouched even before the bombs dropped! The local tribes of the area, the Dead Horses and the Sorrows, weren't unlike the White Legs either, except that their relative isolation meant neither had the same proclivity to violence that the White Legs did. Perhaps, in another life, the three tribes could have been friends, maybe shared Zion together, kept the virgin pristine land safe from the encroaching settlers. But they were here to do a job. To kill the Burned Man. And the Dead Horses in particular took him in, and made him their war leader. What a sick joke. When they refused to hand him over... it was war. The White Legs, Monkey-of-Red included, did what they knew best: stormed the valley and took as much land as they could by force. Then they besieged the other tribes, taking what they needed to survive, before ultimately hoping to force the Burned Man to come out from his caves so they may take his head to Caesar.
Unfortunately, that day never came. Another wastelander entered the valley, a courier of some sort, and eventually helped prepare the two tribes to make war to the White Legs. Monkey-of-Red fought as valiantly as she could, but even despite their superior training and weaponry, there simply was not enough White Legs to hold off the Burned Man, the Courier, and the combined strength of two tribes. The war ended almost as quickly as it began, with most of the White Legs dead. A few survivors, Monkey-of-Red among them, managed to escape the reprisal killings. Salt-Upon-Wounds was another survivor; he claimed he was able to hold off the Burned Man long enough to escape, but there was something in his voice that Monkey-of-Red could tell that he was broken by whatever event transpired between the two. Others accused him of outright lying, that he actually begged for his life like a little bitch. To the Mormons! Monkey-of-Red knew that couldn't be true. Salt-Upon-Wounds wasn't a coward. It couldn't be true. It couldn't.
The survivors of the Zion expedition came back as failures, and with it, the infamous reputation of brutal invincibility died with it. Another tribe, the 80s, took advantage of the weakness of the White Legs and the deflated leadership of Salt-Upon-Wounds. It didn't take long before their main camp was being razed, Salt-Upon-Wounds meeting a brutal end as his throat was cut upon by a tomahawk. Monkey-of-Red saw her idol being cut down, and knew it was that moment the White Legs were dead. She wanted to stay, to avenge him, to avenge the White Legs... but she couldn't. She felt too scared. She ran. Ran as far as her feet would take her, away from Utah, away from this accursed place. Her first thought was to go south, towards the Legion. Sure, they didn't kill the Burned Man, but maybe Caesar would have appreciated the attempt? But then she remembered the face Ulysses made, and remembered to go south would mean to go to Zion again. No, she couldn't. There was nothing for her there. So she just kept running in the direction she already was running. Which just so happened to be westward.
Wandering the wasteland as a tribal woman who didn't speak English was... hard. No one could understand what she was trying to say (if they didn't immediately run away in fear if they recognized her appearance as a White Leg), so many encounters just ended up in bloodshed since it was either her or them, and she didn't live this long by accepting the answer as them. She wasn't exactly proud of this era of her life, but she was willing to do what it took to keep food in her stomach and .45 auto in her storm drum. Eventually, though, she ended up finding the largest settlement she ever encountered in her life. A settlement that she would eventually get well acquainted with: New Reno.
Perhaps in any other settlement, Monkey-of-Red would have been casted away as the brutal tribal she was, shunned or even outright killed. In New Reno, however? A brutal ex-raider was exactly what the gangs wanted in particular, an enforcer that was powerful yet disposable. And the Yakuza in particular, they claimed they saw some kind of kinship with Monkey-of-Red. After some extremely extraneous translating that was awkward for all parties involved, they claimed her facial features and skin tone marked her as a daughter of a mythical faraway land called "Asia", where their ancestors ultimately came from. They were willing to take her in, make her one of their own, and teach her the language of the civilized people, in return for her bringing her tribal savagery to their gang wars. Monkey-of-Red, not having much else to live for, accepted.
So the next few years of her life was spent in this den of debauchery and gambling, as she slowly become acclimated to civilized life. Her tribal clothes were discarded for uncomfortable, stiff suits. Her war paint was eventually washed off. Finding her name ridiculous, the Yakuza even bestowed her a "proper" Japanese name, using Akane to roughly match the "red" part of her name. The one area she refused to compromise on was the dreads: she nearly killed the man that approached her hair with scissors. Even if she didn't revere Ulysses, she revered Salt-Upon-Wounds, and Salt loved the dreadlocks. Its why the rest of the tribe followed him in suit with adopting them. If this was the one way she could appropriately honor her White Leg heritage, then so be it. The dreadlocks stayed.
Life in New Reno, however, never felt the same to Akane. She hated how fake everyone felt, the Yakuza especially. They cared so much about honor and "bushido", yet acted no different from the other gangs that ran the city. And why does everyone care so much about bottlecaps? You can't eat them, you can't hunt with them, they're bloody useless! But everyone acted like they were more important than life itself! What the actual fuck? And whilst she didn't mind the killing, in a vacuum, a lot of the fighting felt pointless. A coyote doesn't kill for the sake of killing! It kills to eat!
Eventually, enough was enough. Akane took whatever caps she saved up, and in the middle of the night, left New Reno. She needed to get out of there. Away from that place. Away from the sin. Anywhere would have been better than Reno. So she continued to wander westward, towards California. Now being able to speak English, moving around didn't necessarily need to be so violent. But there was a part of her that wishes she didn't understand what the Californians had to say. They were some of the most vapid, pretentious people she ever met on those trails. Part of her wish she could have just raided them conscience-free. But life simply didn't work that way anymore, unfortunately. Instead, the woman simply moved from community to community, doing odd jobs (mostly of the violent persuasion) before moving on to the next community, refusing to settle down in one area for too long.
Through her wandering, Akane learned of a new frontier, over in the ocean. A place known as Hawaii, which was untouched by the ravages of so-called civilization, a pristine, virgin land for the taking. Compared to everything she experienced since leaving Utah, this Hawaii sounded like paradise. A second chance for Zion, even. Using all the caps she could scrounge up, the woman made her way to the coastline, and bought herself a ticket to this new land. Whatever was in store for her, it had to be better than California.
Equipment:
Brahmin-skin suit: A compromise between the tribal clothes she actually feels comfortable with, and the expectations civilized society has on people to dress modestly. These overalls-and-shirt combo is dirty and perhaps not the most well maintained, but it is uniquely hers, and a statement of trying to live closer to nature rather than pre-war society.
.45 Auto Submachine Gun: Known by the White Legs as a "Storm Drum", these were the signature weapons of the White Legs tribe. While Akane prefers, in a vacuum, the thrilling rush of personal combat, keeping her storm drum around gives her a comforting continuity with her heritage. This is their weapon, and she was going to honor them by maintaining it as long as she could.
Makeshift Tomahawk: Akane is somewhat embarrassed by the fact she wasn't exactly the best at throwing tomahawks like others were in her tribe, but that doesn't mean that she can't just walk up and slash someone with it up and personal. Not an actual relic of Utah, but instead improvised in the style of tomahawks from that region.
Her fists: Akane was a brawler. While going around and punching people in a war scenario isn't exactly the smartest idea, even Salt-Upon-Wounds had to concede Akane was far better with her hands than any particular weapon. She was perhaps the strongest warrior in personal hand-to-hand combat in the entire tribe.
Thank you @Butteryicarus for drawing my character for me :)