[OOC] Fallout: Cascadia

[Hexaflexagon]

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♫...Time goes by so slowly. And time can do so much...♫

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Prologue: Departures & Arrivals

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You are a new hire for the Happy Trails Caravan Company, the Company growing successful due to its strong monopoly over the routes in and out of New Canaanite territory along Highway 50. Happy Trails having managed to outbid the old NCR standard, the Crimson Caravan Company for the initial rights to established trade routes in Cascadia, the Crimson Caravan Company having fallen on hard times never having fully recovered after some disastrous mismanagement of their Mojave routes. You are a merchant, guard, or just some folk looking for a change in scenery. Yet your particular baggage train is different from the rest. While you are carrying with you cargo of various sorts, your most valuable "package" was, in fact, another human being. An archeologist of all things paying for an escort as they chase after rumors of a lost vault. A vault that if the rumors are true makes the squabbles of the NCR and the CF petty in comparison.

Welcome to Fallout: Cascadia, a roleplay run by your friendly neighborhood Hexaflexagon. Cascadia is a kind of soft reboot RP I ran on another site some number of years ago between the release of New Vegas and Fallout 4. That previous roleplay was fairly successful lasting just shy of three years upon its eventual completion. I hope Cascadia to be the refinement of that previous story focusing on the things that I believe worked the most. So rather than a massive wide-open sandbox experience as was its predecessor, I instead want to create a more character and story-driven game, the kind of game I find myself drifting more and more towards throughout my roleplay career.

The premise of this roleplay is simple; you are a contract hire for the Happy Trails Caravan Company heading north towards the region known as Cascadia. Taking up the majority of the Seattle metropolitan area, Cascadia is a region under the control of the aptly named Cascadian Federation. The Federation in many ways is a strange mirror to the NCR and fittingly the two have grown weary of one another as they compete for control of the surrounding Washinton Wasteland. Your story will run tangential and collide sometimes directly with these tensions as both the NCR and the CF and the many subfactions within them will try and use you for their gain, though ultimately the narrative of the war is not the primary focus of this tale. Instead, the focus is the hunt for a lost Vault-Tec Vault, which if the rumors are true is said to be the primary reason that Cascadia is all green and brown in contrast to the rest of post-apocalyptic America.

Experience with the story Fallout New Vegas and the rest of the games is recommended, but not completely necessary as it takes place some one hundred and four years after the events of New Vegas in the far off year of 2385. In this way, thematically instead of post-apocalyptic, Cascadia is closer to post-post-apocalyptic in tone. What that means is that while the world did go to shit, it is starting the slow process of rebuilding itself with the emergence of new governments and unified societies for better or for worse. So while the cynicism of a post-nuclear war wasteland is still present, there is a new undercurrent of hope or something resembling it as society continues to try and pull itself upward out of the ashes.

As a GM, I tend to align myself towards a playstyle that allows for a blend of GM direction as well as a degree of player freedom. What this means for you guys is that the RP is split between two categories of RP. The first are mission segments which are largely guided set pieces and gauntlets where you have set objectives, tasks, and whatnot. In these sections, you will either be put in one big team or separate smaller teams trying to complete some kind of goal or task. What that goal is will depend from mission to mission. Mission segments are primarily used to drive the plot forward and for other big dramatic moments. Inbetween mission segments you will have R&R segments. These segments give you more freedom to basically do what your want in camp or whatever town the group may be stopping in. These sections exist to give you as players a chance to explore other aspects of your character that the missions would otherwise not let you see, and more importantly, for me it gives you the chance for more collaborative and slower-paced writing between players as their characters interact with one another. While also providing a well-needed change of pace from the more high-intensity missions, peaks and valleys and all that.

In a perfect world, I would like at least one post per player every week. That being said, I also understand that once a week schedules can sometimes be too taxing on people. So instead we will be following a once every two-week posting policy. I will be enforcing this schedule with a two strikes policy, what that policy means is that the first time two weeks pass without you posting and you haven't given me prior notice you will receive one strike, if it happens again well you get voted off the island. So what that means is all you have to do is communicate with me, I'm typically a very understanding person who knows how hectic life can be, so as long as you tell me that "Hey Hex, something came up" then everything will be fine and dandy.

For the first round of applications, I'm looking for up to eight other players though that number may change as I get a feel for things. Applications will be primarily based on the quality of the CS submitted but also upon some player reviews which is mostly just me snooping around to see if you are a total arse or not. So here are my recommendations for you! Don't write a character just to "fill a gap" on the team, write the character whose story you want to tell, that will always be the better sheet. Take your time writing it, I'm partial to highly detailed sheets and sheets that are extremely evocative of the character they are for, make me want to know more about them, make them flawed, make them feel real, make them hurt. These applications are not first-come-first-serve, the name of the game here is quality.

The Cascadian Federation

The Cascadian Federation was once a worker’s paradise. Its original system of government resembled something similar to what in our modern world we would call Syndicalism. The basic unit of organization for society in the federation centered around guilds. Citizens would be grouped into a certain guild based upon their occupation and given a chance to vote on the leaders and policies of said guild. For issues beyond the scope of a singular guild, various representatives of the guilds would come together for a meeting at the Guildhall in Sea Town. The idea on paper allowed for the power to remain in the hands of the people, as at the end of the day, the votes still had to pass through the individual bodies of each guild. And as an additive bonus, since the guilds had predominantly specialized workforces, it encouraged cooperation instead of infighting amongst the guilds as they required one another to create a truly functional society.

Alas, the foundational dream of the CF was not meant to last. The very system created to promote widespread equality was instead used to create an Oligarchy. The dominant guild in a settlement through coercion or other means finding ways to amass all the resources and powers for themselves even as they still use the old language of radicalism and freedom to defend their positions. In the early days, their would-be fluctuation as these guilds competed for power, but over time the political environment began to stabilize as a handful of guilds managed to consolidate their gains.

Eighty years ago, these guilds would come together to form the first Cascadian Council, the ruling body of government in the Federation replacing its old Council of Workers. At its inception, the Council only contained representatives from the four key settlements of the Cascadia: Sea Town, Coma, Everett, and The Yard. In the intervening years since its foundation, two more settlements Seetak and Fall City were given seats on the council.

Despite the overarching structural changes to the overarching semantic core of the Federation, its citizens remain content. The people of Cascadia valuing the stability and the security that the Federation provided them more than its old revolutionary ethos. That and the Council has strategically and tactfully kept and promoted old Council of Workers policies that remained popular such as guaranteed housing and healthcare at end of a contract for all those that choose to enlist in the Federation Security Force for a tour of at least four years. These ancestral holdover policies allowing the Federation to keep its population complacent and willing to ignore the rampant corruption happening at its highest levels.

Major Settlements:

The largest of the Federation’s settlements, Sea Town is based out of the piers and warehouses that make up Seattle’s waterfront along the Puget Sound. With heavy fortifications built from large, disused shipping crates and other scrap metal, Sea Town is also one of the Federation’s most heavily defended settlements. Such fortifications being a necessity given the less than hospitable humans and creatures that tend to roam Seattle’s post-War ruins.

Sea Town lives off of trade and shipping, being the central exchange point for goods traveling in and out of Lake Washington area at the heart of the Federation’s territory. The Guild that controls all this wealth coming in and out of Sea Town are the Longshoremen. By controlling who gets to offload cargo when the Longshoremen have an effective stranglehold over the very lifeblood that keeps Sea Town prosperous and so their eventual control over the city came to no surprise to nobody.

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]Coma built amongst the ruins of old Tacoma is the Federation’s largest southern settlement and port and such is usually labeled as the “gateway” to Cascadia. As they are situated close to the Federation’s southern border there is a heavy military presence in Coma, especially as tensions with the NCR have grown increasingly worse over the years. The Federation Security Force using nearby Fort Lewis as one of the Federation’s major military bases.

The economy of Coma relies heavily upon its symbiotic nature with Fort Lewis, particularly by providing supplies, entertainment, and leisure to the soldiers stationed at the Fort. Overseeing this gambit of taverns, casinos, and brothels is the purview of the leading guild in Coma, the Courtesans, who control and police the sex trade across the Federation by providing guards and enforcers to their many licensed brothels and stamping down on those independents who try to operate outside of their authority. In this way, allowing the Courtesans to exert soft power across the rest of the Federation as well.

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Much like its predecessor, the Federation’s incarnation of Everett is a city of industry and production for the Cascadian Federation. The city itself centered around the old headquarters and petrol plant of the Northwestern branch of Poseidon Energy. Yet where the Everett of old’s industry was based primarily on petrol, the Everett of the CF thrives on its lumber industry. The roar of salvaged together sawmills echoing deep into the night. The harvest and sale of lumber in Everett are controlled by the aptly named Lumberers who have come to dominate the city.

Everett also serves as the hub of the Federation’s northern expansion. One of the expressed desires of the Federation since its earliest days being the reunification of “true Cascadia”. A dream based on recovered pre-war secessionist literature that served as the foundational base for the Cascadian Federation’s conception. And these revolutionary pamphlets speak of an independent republic stretching as far north as old Vancouver. And while to this day, the Federation has continued to slowly push up Highway 5, the progress is painfully slow as the area is brimming with hostile tribals and wildlife.

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Based out of the surviving remnants Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton across the sound from Sea Town, the Yard is the largest shipyard in the Federation. The large presence of navigable bodies of water in the Washington Wasteland combined with its dense sprawling forest that makes overland travel exceedingly difficult for most, has lead to much of the major travel in and around the Federation being done on rafts, boats, and other aquatic modes of transportation. The Yard is where many of those ships end up being built, repaired, or scrapped to be built again into something else. As much of the remaining space in the Yard is used on repairs and construction, much of the homes and stores and other facilities are actually found in the water surrounding the yard. A floating city of sorts being a mixture of wooden platforms and tied together boats large and small connected to another via walkways and gangplanks. This maritime city is centered around Old Betsy’, a large pre-war oil tanker that sits half-sunken in the water and whose deck is used as an open-air marketplace of sorts. Predictably, the Shipwrights control the Yard and the surrounding area.

The Yard is also famous/infamous throughout Cascadia for being a kind of “freak city” having a sizable population of both super mutants and ghouls. The Bainbridge Society being a full-fledged ghoul-only community on nearby Bainbridge Island having a strong working relationship with the Yard. The super mutants had long-lived in the forests surrounding the nearby ruins of Olympia and generally minded their own business. Free from the control of the Master and the Enclave, they sought only to live their lives the best that they could. And the occasional hulking mass leading a herd of brahmin towards the Seetak market for sale was not unheard of, though rare given the mutants tendency to remain in isolation. This would change with the arrival of the NCR who would establish their Cascadia Operational Headquarters in and around the grounds of the Old Capitol Building in Olympia. The NCR didn’t take too kindly to their new neighbors, seeing them as a security risk and so the super mutants living in the area were pushed north eventually setting in the Yard where their large physiques were welcomed for hauling the lumber and metal required in shipbuilding.

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The ruins of the old Seattle–Tacoma International Airport began its new life as a safe hideout for scavengers pillaging nearby Renton and Kent. Over time, a community began to sprout up to support these scavenging endeavors such as doctors, merchants, gunsmiths, and other traders. This bustling ecosystem soon became one of the largest trading hubs in the area and a major pitstop and refueling point for traders and travelers heading out of the Lake Washington area and into the southern reaches of the Federation and beyond. The high walls of Seetak providing the protection needed for the community contained within the Airport to grow.

The ruins of the main terminal have been taken over by Seetak’s leading faction, the Merchant’s Association. Unlike the other major Guilds in the Federation, the Association does not represent a singular type of merchant, but rather the entire collective body regulating trade, prices, and competition between the tenants coming in and out of Seetak. The Association, of course, willing to strong-arm, threaten, and evict any of their tenants if they don’t play by their rules. Out of all the major factions in the Federation, the Association has the best relationship with the NCR as they most of all profit off the NCR Caravaneers entering into the region.

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The newest settlement to gain a permeant seat on the Cascadian Council and the furthest easterly settlement to do so. Fall City used to be raider territory, with bands of hostile tribals controlling much of the Interior of the Washington Wasteland. Over time as the Federation has expanded outward, homesteaders and settlers have come into conflict with these groups necessitating the military to get involved and push them back. Fall City was regained during the first Eastward Expansion as the military pushed up Highway 90 up into the Issaquah and Snoqualmie corridor, stopping at the western banks of the Snoqualmie River. The territorial gains were transformed into farms and herding lands to provide more foodstuffs. Fall City as the furthest point east, was named the new center of this newly acquired territory serving as both the seat of government as well as a waystation for expeditions heading further East.

Unlike the rest of the Council settlements, Fall City is not overseen by a particular Guild. Instead given its vulnerable position along the Federation’s eastern frontier, Fall City is under martial law being under the direct control of the Cascadian Security Force. Patrols guard the border of the settlement and the surrounding farmland on a continuous watch.

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The New California Republic

The great bear of the New California Republic has grown complacent in its elder years. The routing of Caesar's legion in the Mojave and the near-extinction of both the Enclave and the Brotherhood of Steel on the homefront left the NCR as the unchallenged regional power in the Southwestern united states. The loosening economic regulation and imperialistic ethos that began under then-President Aaron Kimball continued under his successors. The success of the former general turned politician prompted the slow regression of the NCR’s democratic functionality into something more closely resembling a military junta as the top military brass in the Republic became increasingly intertwined with the executive branch. Initially, this shift in policy was fought by a moderate faction of politicians and officials including the likes of Dennis Crocker, but the hawks having the support of the military and the financial backing of both the Brahmin barons that Kimball supported and the growing class of nouveau riche war profiteers based out of the newly-acquired Strip.

These policies combined with an ever-growing population that required more and more food to sustain itself encouraged the NCR to continue its imperialistic policies, policies which lead to the NCR’s expansion into Cascadia chasing after rumors of vast quantities of arable land. The Republic’s entrance into the Washington Wasteland began with its seizure of Olympia as its forward operating base in the region right along the border with the Cascadian Federation. The Federation initially welcomed the arrival of the NCR as a prospective trading partner as its arrival brought with it new caravans and traders to the region. The friendship only expanding as NCR Rangers were able to clear out the Lakelurk infested Mercer Island, the beast long having terrorized the fisherman and traders running routes across Lake Washington. As a gesture of goodwill, the Federation allowed the NCR to establish Camp Mercer on the island to allow them easier diplomatic access with the Federation than their headquarters at Olympia provided.

Ultimately as time has passed since their initial introductions relations between the two powers have only soured. The Federation flatly denying the NCR’s offers for a peaceful annexation into the Republic. At the current moment, the CF and the NCR have entered a climate of cold war. While the NCR is militarily superior to the Federation, the NCR military, unlike the Federation, is unequipped to deal with fighting in the vast foliage that made up the Washington Wasteland being used to fighting primarily in the deserts and badlands of the American Southwest. The Federation trained to travel in these wooded environments quickly and silently could easily outmaneuver the NCR and potentially cause devasting causalities despite their numerically inferior numbers. The NCR having learned the hard way not to underestimate the potential havoc caused by coordinated guerrilla warfare from their conflicts with the Brotherhood and Caesar’s Legion. So at the moment despite their hawkish tendencies, cooler heads have prevailed in the NCR’s leadership as they continue to exert their influence through soft power rather than military might as they continue to engage with talks with the Merchant’s Association as well as the Courtesans in nearby Coma.

Called the “Double O” by the troops stationed there, Olympia Outpost is the largest NCR controlled settlement in the Cascadia region. Before the NCR had arrived, the old state capital had been a bastion for raiders, slavers, and other undesirables using the ruins as a staging area for attacks across the various settlements. By the time the NCR had arrived, the dominated faction was a group of raiders called the Axemen. Jumped up on jet and pyscho, had somehow become convinced that the old folktale about Paul Bunyan was about an actual giant ax-wielding god that they began to worship.

No giant lumberjacks came to save the Axemen when the NCR arrive and soon enough they were either killed in the resulting battle or the summary firing squads that happened after the fact. Having cleared out the Axemen, the NCR began to set up shop turning the Old Capitol Building into their new headquarters. And as the old saying went, where the army goes, the Republic follows. Soon, a whole civilian ecosystem had been built around Olympia Outpost: Gun Runners and other traders, doctors, preachers, businessmen, and prospectors all venturing north to capitalize on the new frontier.

This thriving community is overseen by the head of the Cascadian expedition, Brigadier General Elias Brons.

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Under the treaty that granted Mercer Island to the NCR, the Republic is unable to station military personal on the island due to its position on Lake Washington. The security duties going to a dedicated branch of the Cascadian Security Force permanently stationed on the island. Instead, Mercer Island houses the residence of the NCR’s diplomatic core in Cascadia. The old country club being used as its central facility and meeting place between the NCR and the various dignitaries of the Federation. The simple fact of the matter being that Olympia Outpost is too inconveniently placed for them to travel to.

Camp Mercer is overseen by Lead Diplomat Amita Ducat. Born as an heiress into the lucrative Ducat ranching family, Amita access to the best luxuries the NCR had to offer including some of the best education in the Republic. Taking her skills, Amita joined up with the diplomatic core becoming a vital asset to the Republic. The Cascadia mission is her first time leading a mission of this scale and she is eager to prove herself capable.

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Rainier was one of the small communities that had switched sides to the NCR when they came into the region. The people of Rainier having long been harassed by the raiders in Olympia. The Federation had no real reason to clear the raiders out because they never ventured close enough to Coma or any of their trade routes, apparently too scared by the military presence at Fort Lewis. The Republic’s taking of Olympia changed all of that and the people of Rainier decided to throw their support with a government that seemed to actually represent their interests.

All was well in the Rainier after that point until the massacre. A band of raiders sneaked into the town in the dead of night and killed all of its inhabitants and setting its buildings to the torch leveling no survivors. The Rainier massacre has become a hot button issue between the NCR and CF ever since. The NCR believing that the Federation was somehow responsible for the attack on Rainier, while the CF claim innocence. And even now “Remeber Rainier” has become a new catchphrase of sorts for the NCR working in the Cascadia region as the divide between the two great powers grows further still.

Minor Factions

Minor Factions

More to be added as you run into them

With the helpful assistance of the Courier, the Happy Trails Caravan Company had slowly grown to become one of the largest Caravan operations working out of the Republic. Their major rival, the Crimson Caravan Company having never fully recovered from the near annihilation of their operation in the Mojave following their betrayal of Cassidy Caravans. Over the next century, Happy Trails would become the new transportation kingpins in the region, soon gaining the patronage of the coveted official NCR contracts that the Crimson Caravan once had a monopoly over, the contract to Cascadia being one of them.

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Facing near-total annihilation at the hands of the NCR, many members of the Brotherhood of Steel choose to flee instead of remaining in California. Many amongst their ranks chose to flee north into Oregon and beyond with the possible goal of potentially heading towards Alaska where the could hopefully find a large quantity of pre-war military tech that they could gather and potentially use in a second war against the NCR. This notion of a forever war with the Republic was not as enchanting for some of the Brotherhood as it was for others. A small but steady contingent of more moderate voices only wished to lie low and be able to start a new more peaceful existence.

These dissenters would break off from the rest of the Brotherhood once they arrived in Cascadia seeing its large forests as the perfect place to hideaway. The Remnant wishes to live conspicuously and unseen without drawing attention to themselves and so outside of their own base hidden somewhere in the Cascadian wilderness, the Remnant is more of a rumor than anything else. Tall tales from drunken loggers seeing large metal men stomping through the forest at night. And when the Remnant does approach local towns and settlements to trade, they do so always in small numbers and dressed in regular clothing that does not denote them as Scribe or Palladian instead they look like regular folks just looking to trade. But even so, the Remnant watches the political situation in Cascadia with interest and fear as the Bear of the NCR approaches ever closer, there are talks amongst their ranks about if it is time to move along once again.

1.Make believable characters. There is a time and a place for the beloved power fantasy, but that time and place is not here. This is a collaborative story-telling effort and not a dick measuring contest to see whose action star carriers around the biggest gun if you know what I mean. Know the limits of your characters because if you push past them, they will get hurt and it will be bad. No auto-killing npcs without effort, no metagaming and the like. Adversity is the best thing to happen to your characters because its how you get to see what they really are, don't run away from it. Your overpowered character will be mauled to death by a Deathclaw at your earliest convenience.
2.The writing standard for the RP is advanced. I'm not here to grade your English paper (trust me I do too much grading already) but try and at least put in an honest effort and we will be fine. Posting expectations are at least four solid paragraphs but will probably be more. I typically write much more than four but like you do you. Just like try your best. Failure to post within the 14 day period without notifying me as discussed above will result in an infraction, your second posting infraction will result in your removal from the game.
3. There is no set posting order, but please refrain from speed posting. Do not post two posts back to back without letting somebody else post. If you are interacting with another player and that's not happening in a collab and you are having a back and forth that is okay, But please make sure that those posts are up to standard. I don't want just one line conversations going back and forth, back and forth.
4.Communication is key. If you are having a problem with another player, the content of the RP, or for any other reason such as not being able to post please reach out to me. I can't help you unless you ask me. I understand for some people that's a hard task but I promise you that I'm here to help.
5.If two players are having a disagreement please take it outside to your PMs. Once you bring it into the RP space, it becomes my business and you will not like it once it becomes my business. That being said, I hope that everyone here can be nice and respectable to one another.
6.The world of Fallout is dark and depressing but that doesn't mean we have to be. I have a zero-tolerance policy for harassment based on gender, sexual orientation. religion or creed, race, etc in our OOC content. And I take these issues very seriously. You don't like that, you can go somewhere else because frankly, I do not want you here.
7.If you have a question on if you can do something and you are not sure for whatever reason please ask.
8.If you have any ideas about the plot going forward, potential side-plots, etc also please bring them up. Though if you want to keep them a secret from the other players, a PM will probably work best.
9. Be Fonz cool.

⧎ Salvaged

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These are the most common weapons you are going to find in the wasteland. Think a plank of wood with some nails in it or the pipe guns from Fallout 4. Civilian clothing will be found in this cateogry
⧎ Civilian / Recreational

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These are your hunting rifles, simple pistols, hunting knives. These weapons are also common enough that you don't really need an explanation for carrying them.
⧎ Energy Weapon 1

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These are your barely functioning plasma and laser pistols. They work...sometimes, mostly. Most energy weapons carried in the Wasteland will be in this condition.
⧎ Raider Gear

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Typically better quality civil and recreational weapons will fall under these quantities usually modified with more blood and spike motifs. Simple explosives such as grenades, Molotov cocktails, and regular frag mines will fall under this category. Most advanced melee weaponry beyond power fists will fall into this category as well. Raider gear while common also means you have either ran into raiders or was one at some point! You should explain how you got these
⧎ Energy Weapon 2

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Laser Rifles, Plasma Rifles, and their repeater variants. High-quality plasma & laser pistols. Energy equipment of this caliber is often rare, expensive or both. Not likely that everyone will be carrying gear like this around. Please explain how you acquired this piece of gear.
⧎ Military

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Assualt Rifles, Higher Powered Sniper Rifles, Machine Guns, Flame Throwers, Power Fists, C-4, etc. These are weapons that are usually only found in the hands of NCR and CF soldiers. You better have a very good reason for carrying one of these around.
⧎ Energy Weapon 3

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Gatling Laser, Tesla Cannon, Gauss Rifles, Plasma caster, etc. Exceedingly rare and very powerful. You will probably not have any of these on your person.
⧎ Advanced Military

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Power Armor, Fat Men, Archimedes cannon, etc. These are the types of things you earn, not things you start with sorry.

1.Don't be carrying around 300 pounds of gear on you. If you are carrying around a flamethrower there is a high likely hood that you aren't carrying much else either. Your character is a person and not a human pack mule. Try and keep their load realistic and try and make sure you have a good idea where they keep everything.
2.You aren't Arnold. If you charge at twenty guys with cover and sightlines on you, there is a very high likely hood that you are going to get injured or worse. Every fight should be and is going to be a life or death situation. Just one lucky bullet is all it takes to ruin someone's day and that someone could be you. You can still cool things and you can still fight back, just be smart about it.
3.Stimpacks won't heal you instantly. They will stop you from dying from an infected bullet wound or hemorrhaging on the spot but they take time to truly be effective. Sticking yourself with needles all day won't make you the immortal god of the wasteland.
4.Similiary to Stimpacks, lets talk about drugs. Drugs are nearly omnipresent in the Fallout universe and they do a lot of wonderful things but they also do a lot of shitty things. If your character religiously uses pyscho, for example, you may want to talk about their anger problems.
5.Having better equipment doesn't necessarily mean that you automatically win. Skill, strategy, and various other factors go into winning any battle. So if your plan is to just to give your character all the best gear so that they are walking death machines, I advise you to rethink your plan.
6.Equipment doesn't have to be specifically from the games themselves, but try and at least keep it lore appropriate.
7.b]Ghoul and Super Mutant characters are allowed but given the nature of things, their sheets will be reviewed with more scrutiny. Given the setting and timeframe of the story, any player history with the Brotherhood of Steel should be limited at best since the West Coast Brotherhood has mostly gone to ground at this point, and to keep things simple robot characters are not allowed.

_{[color=black]◄[color=lightgray]A telling Quote[/color] ► [/color]}

NAME

^{Age | Place of Birth | Height/Weight | Species}

_{A P P E A R A N C E.}

What do you look like? A detailed description of your charachter's physical characteristics

_{E Q U I P M E N T.}

Guns, Knives, Armor, Meds, Drugs, the important gear that is kept on your person.

_{M I S C E L L A N E O U S G E A R}

Rope, Lighters, Bedrolls, food, books etc. Remeber to consider how much stuff you are gonna be carrying.

_{S K I L L S.}

Alright, so skills are the crunchiest part of these sheet. For the sake of keeping everybody on the same page we will be using the New Vegas Skill list. From this last of skills including stuff like barter, guns, energy weapons, sneak, science, etc you will pick one skil. That is your Core Skill which represents the best thing your character can do. Then you get to pick 2 Good Skills. These are two skills you are still skilled at but not the best at. Then you get 3 skills that you are Average at which means exactly what it sounds like! Next to each of these from Core to average please briefly explain why they are good at these skills and not others. The rest of the skills not and that you don't have to list are the skills that you are poor at! Which you can still attempt but will very hard for you to succeed at without help from a friend!

So an example skill list might look like
Science (Core Skill) : Explanation goes here
Repair (Good Skill): as;;rjfafjsafjsa
Barter (Good Skill): askaksdjaslkdjal
Medicine (Average Skill): askdakdjald
Survival (Average Skill): aksdjaljdakjsd
Energy Weapons (Average skill): asjdajdajsdasd

_{H I S T O R Y}

How you got to where you are today. This should be your largest and most detailed section of the entire sheet and its strength or weakness will heavily affect how I regard the rest of your sheets. It should be several paragraphs in length and cover the entire arc of their lives. Things like how they were raised, life-changing events & people, how they got all the cool stuff they got and learned what they learned, and of course things like how they ended up working on the Caravan heading towards Cascadia in the first place. Really give this section your all because it will also help you get a much better understanding of who your character is and their place in the world. Make we want to find out what happens next to them.

_{P S Y C H E.}

Who are you? Their quirks, their likes, their dislikes, and their faults. Flawed charachters are always better than perfect charachters.

_{D R I V E.}

What keeps you up at night? What are your charachters long term goals? What do they want from the world? What do they desire above all else?

CS Code

[center][img]Image goes here[/img]
[SUB][color=black]◄[color=lightgray]A telling Quote[/color] ► [/color][/SUB]
[sub][/sub]
[sup][h1]NAME[/h1][/sup]
[color=#D98719][sup]Age | Place of Birth | Height/Weight | Species[/sup][/color][/center]

[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]A P P E A R A N C E.[/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
[/indent][indent][indent][color=lightgray]What do you look like? A detailed description of your charachter's physical characteristics [/color][/indent][/indent]

[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]E Q U I P M E N T.[/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
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[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]M I S C E L L A N E O U S G E A R [/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
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[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]S K I L L S.[/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
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[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]H I S T O R Y[/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
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[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]P S Y C H E.[/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
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[indent][sub][color=cyan][b]D R I V E.[/b][/color][/sub]
[img]i.imgur.com/QHrg7nB.png[/img]
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[Andreyich]

Damn this is sick bro, props. Have a few character ideas mulling about. First a deserter from some NCR armed force (either a trooper or a desert ranger). Undecided about motives, either self preservation, or some sort of moral objection, or simple greed. Alternatively a descendant of the few surviving Mormons of Zion/Canaan, either going out and joining Happy Trails in hopes of spreading the Lord's word or the polar opposite of trying to escape it. Finally some sort of criminal, maybe a drug cook or dealer looking to get a job to carry him far away from the Mojave or elsewhere he is wanted and after a door got kicked in saw his buddies shot. Having a lot of trouble deciding, any of these sound better or worse to you @Hexaflexagon?

[Dion]

@Hexaflexagon Just want to give a headsup that the second image linked doesn't work -- font meme?

[Lord Wyron]

This is p incredible! I'm gonna do some character thinking over the day and hopefully, hopefully start on a sheet proper after work tonight :)

[Admiral Moskau]

Awesome lore drop. :D

[Hexaflexagon]

@Andreyich
Honestly, they all could work! I'll just end up giving you the advice I give to everyone during the Character Sheet process. My advice is always to pick whatever concept you find the most compelling. Don't be afraid if it is a little out of the box or if somebody else created a similar concept. The character whose story you want to tell is always going to be the one that comes off the strongest and the chances are high if you are invested in the character and I can see that then I will be invested in the character as well. Also! (Интересный для вас факт: моя невеста из Витебска.)

@Odin
Thanks for the heads up! I'll take a look into it and see if I can't get it working again and yeah it is fontmeme.

@Ghost Shadow
Alright! Can't wait to see what you come up with!

@Moskau Spieluhr
Lore dump is indeed large. I think it came out to 10 pages in my word document and that was after edits? lmao

[Jarl Coolgruuf]

oh hell yeah
I've been itching to get into a good Fallout Roleplay for months

[spicykvnt]

I have a character from a Fallout RP that died a couple months ago that I'd like to still write, but I think my time is pretty much full up so I'll have to think about it.

A depressed, 40+ yr old surgeon with a super good boi doggo pal.

[Andreyich]

@Hexaflexagon alright, I took your advice to heart, made this fella

Hector Williams

_{◄That's pretty fucked up... but damn, I need those caps.... ►}

Hector Benjamin Williams

^{mid/late-30s | Boneyard | ≈181cm/≈85kg | Human (Wastelander, mixed/Hispanic)}

_{A P P E A R A N C E.}

There isn't much to make Hector stand out in the crowd. His skin is the colour of pre-war chocolates and eyes similarly dark with a faint squint suggesting some distant oriental or aboriginal heritage. He's a little taller than an average wastelander but somewhat shorter than Vaulters and similar well preserved people at 181cm. The man's darker skin has helped him weather the sun but it still hasn't been entirely successful in preventing the growth of wrinkles, though this can be somewhat masked by his thick hair and light stubble. His eyebrows are bushy but thin in contrast to his somewhat wider nose.

_{E Q U I P M E N T.}

Ranger Sequoia, Varmint Rifle (with full modifications), an axe, Veteran ranger armour (modified), a bowie knife, and a pristine pre-war Doctor's bag/medical kit. Improvised weapons are also very much enjoyed by Hector from thrown bricks to a loose rebar.

_{M I S C E L L A N E O U S G E A R}

A heavy traveling bag, stationery, a scientific striker, repair and maintenance kits for his weapons, an ornate flask, a large water container, an electric banjo and pre-war snacks. The former Ranger prefers to travel light and fast, but if this isn't possible then what he carries will change accordingly.

_{S K I L L S.}

Stealth (Core Skill): Stealth is important to all Rangers, and oftentimes more important than simple martial prowess. As such, Hector thoroughly cultivated this skill with a good head start thanks to his upbringing.
Guns (Good Skill): The brush gun and sequoia are iconic weapons of a Ranger and for good reason. If one can make good use of a firearm than from afar they can end most enemies before they can make a good attempt at retaliation. Hector wasn't the sort to be able to pop a botfly's eye from two kilometres away but he was regularly selected for sniper work.
Melee Weapons (Good skill): Sometimes you run out of ammo, or sometimes you don't want to. Sometimes you're just not as slick a shooter as you thought you were or needed to be, and as such the ex-Ranger can do good work with most things he can pick up for CQB, particularly he uses random items found like large sticks as if they were real weapons.
Unarmed (Average Skill): It often happens a Ranger will get disarmed or simply gets into trouble without a weapon. At these times grappling, kicking, and throwing a solid punch are all important skills. The former Ranger knows he's not going to be doing cool rolls and flips but he'll stand his ground in a bar brawl.
Medicine (Average Skill): Rangers are one of the most elite fighting forces of the Wasteland, but they're not invincible. Thus, an introduction to first aid was given to Hector. With that said, his lag in education limited his ability in medicine to not much more than that.
Survival (Average Skill): Life as a fugitive is not kind, and one has to learn certain things to be able to manage it. The fact Hector has survived all his trials and tribulations is a testament to the fact he can live off the land, even if he isn't going to be crafting bows and traps on the fly.

_{H I S T O R Y}

Hector had a rather vile start to life having been born in Boneyard, one of the worse off cities belonging to the NCR. His parents couldn't really offer him any life skills and his surroundings were such that he was lucky to not have been hooked on some sort of chems before he even hit puberty. That said, Hector was not able to avoid the fate of being a gang rat running little packages and odd jobs, getting into street brawls and stealing things. Now the boy had no education, but he was far from stupid. He remembered things very easily and he could do large arithmetics in his head from an early age. As such he was cognizant of the fact he was living in a shithole, a place in which his suffering would know no end unless he manned up enough to stick a gun in his mouth and pull the trigger. He lacked the schooling to do something with his head, but he knew that at the time the army was recruiting. The kid took his father's biggest clothes and padded them with paper, before grabbing his boots and likewise filling them. He enlarged his chin with some cotton in his mouth and he dyed the still light hairs on his face to make himself look far older. It wasn't perfect, but with a bit of lying and an aged recruiter young Hector managed to be taken in for training.

The lad lacked the muscularity given by age of the other recruits, but he overcame his physical inferiority with desire to escape Boneyard. Eventually he finished training, and was sent off to one of the frontiers of the NCR. While he had not too much experience fighting radscorpions, deathclaws, ants, and other monstrosities of the wasteland, Hector's experience of a gang rat let him do soldiery that belied his years and, to be frank, he loved it. He was doing what he was doing before except now he had at least some appreciation for what he did. He had friends that weren't out of it on chems cut with literal shit and he ate three times a day with water that was actually transparent. What was more, there were so many creatures out there in the desert you could hunt, kill, and consume in addition to what was served in the field kitchens. Hector was far too unsocialized, indulgent, and friendly to be promoted to a leader. But with a grand diet and constant use of his body he grew into a fit young man gaining more and more commendations for his work in the field. It was thus no surprise when he caught the eye of the Desert Rangers, and was eventually selected for entry into their elite formation. The training he underwent was exponentially more demanding than what he had to do to become a trooper, but he was now a man rather than a desperate youth. But there was a major roadblock to his ascension. With the end of the physicals came time for training in medicine, laws, weapon maintenance. A mere trooper could easily get away with being nigh illiterate and innumerate, but a desert ranger had to be far more knowledgeable.

It almost seemed that this was a hurdle that Hector would not be able to overcome, until a kindly fellow recruit decided to help him out. The woman named Margaret was kind enough to help the soldier get through the rather many difficulties he had, for which Hector was eternally grateful. The two developed a very close friendship (maybe something even more) which over the many years remained strong in spite of long times of separation for the now Rangers. Hector served the New California Republic as faithfully as one could, seeing the burgeoned state as his saviour from now lying in a puddle of his own piss. For this Hector was more than willing to weather bullets and blades and come out the harder for it. Yeah, the blood on his hands accumulated. But it was all his job he reasoned, and if he didn't someone else would. Besides, it wasn't as if he was blasting down a maternity ward — he was cleaning out the deserts from scum that was probably happy to die, given its situation.

The earth went about its orbit, and about two decades passed with the Ranger getting complacent as what was demanded of him was much of the same over and over. But a bright message reached Hector, he was to become one of the famed Veteran Rangers with the notorious black armour and big iron on his hip. He went to see his old friend to inform her of the news only to find that she had the exact same happen to her. They celebrated and they did so for vet long, knowing that after this their parting from each other would only grow more common and lengthy.

Duty called, and the bottles of good pre-war hooch were discarded for these were two Veteran Rangers off to keep the deserts safe. It was a comfort to the two that in their new positions it was far easier for them to at least exchange letters, their communication becoming far more common even if less personal. In a study of the history between the two Rangers one might consider it ironic that it was shortly after Margaret informed Hector she was going to be transferred to the same region as him and they would be regularly seeing each other, that they would ultimately come to part. Hector had hoped a rather inverse situation would happen wherein he would instead be transferred to her portion of the desert, for he had come to detest the leadership of his station. The commander he was with was a man of mercurial humours, though that was just the articulation of a bad gut feeling Hector had about him.

It thus heavily unnerved the Ranger when he was informed there was a large raider band operating in the area that had to be dealt with and that all in the area would have to go forth to combat it. The fact that along with the commander Hector would form a sniper team was only all the more unsettling. The two found themselves a little nest from which to rain fire and the operation began. All went to protocol, the raiders being picked off and their camp calmly taken apart without even a bell of alarm being rung. As the foe was almost entirely devastated, the commander asked for Hector's rifle and took two shots with the faintest sound of a chuckle from him. Taking back his weapon Hector saw that the commander had fired upon a mother and child in the camp, and he was now acutely aware that red lenses had hidden somewhat bloodshot eyes of his counterpart. Whether the man was sleepless, intoxicated, or just insane, he was clearly not sound of mind. Having spotted more targets the man reached for Hector's rifle again but the subordinate didn't let his superior have it. A struggle ensued with grappling which eventually Hector won out in, having pushed his commander away. He was no hero trying to punish a war criminal, the death of Hector's superior was an accident. The men fell and struck his head on a stone, and a cursory examination showed he was beyond any help.

The Ranger was at a loss for what to do, and he didn't even notice as enough time passed for the operation to end and a fellow Ranger to come forth to see what was up with the radio silent duo. The Ranger sent to check up on Hector and the commander found the corpse at the same time as he was informed that sniper fire had killed an unarmed woman and her babe. Hector caught the eye of the fellow, and as one they ran in opposite directions. The man had few choices of where to go and thus it was to the Ranger Station he sprinted. But upon his arrival he made sure to get in quietly unsure of what might have happened during his run. He was about to rise to speak when he saw his old friend Margaret. But these hopes of an ally against what was to come against him were instantly shattered after he noticed she was with some MPs, informing her and other Rangers of a skewed interpretation of what had happened. A split second decision was taken and Hector ran to the armoury. He grabbed as many guns and medicines as possible before getting traveling supplies and going off into the desert.

The now ex-Ranger walked for two days to a Gun Runners outpost, where he sold off the arsenal he carried off save for his Sequoia and instead bought a varmint rifle knowing it was far better for survival with the abundance of 5,56, lightness of the weapon and ease of its maintenance.

With that Hector went North, far away from the deserts. He knew he was not welcome anywhere in the NCR, and his appearance in settlements was rare. After a few months of adjustment he was able to get used to how it is to live alone in the wilds. Still, he needed caps and as such he ventured out to civilization every so often for odd jobs. A bounty collected here, a molerat den cleared there. At a certain point he had gotten far enough North and came to hear of two things of personal note. First, a different civilization to the NCR, one in a green land that was described by many as paradise. While certainly this was exaggeration, it was still very enticing. Second, he came to hear of the Happy Trails caravan company going to that very same place. With a few careful lies Hector managed to sign up to be a Guard for the caravan in hopes of seeing it for himself, and with he money he earns off of this gig perhaps finally finding peace in Cascadia.

_{P S Y C H E.}

Hector is not a particularly complex individual. His morality is folksy with a somewhat cynical and (albeit eroded) rebellious tinge. His understanding of right and wrong is very intuitive, though the idea of morality being subjective and in the eye of the beholder is - perhaps rather hypocritically - detestable to him. At the same time he convinces himself that he has to overlook qualms he might have with some actions if the pay is right. When you don't have dinner or a roof over your head, that is not the time to open up a bit of Aristotle to make sure you can justify what you're doing.

Hector is fairly prejudiced against supermutants and ghouls. There isn't any one particular thing that he really dislikes about them; he will only raise the typical arguments for anti-mutant rhetoric because he would feel silly saying that he just doesn't like them and that's that. Furthermore, while not particularly religious the former Ranger is fairly convinced at least something of the supernatural exists. He doesn't believe tales of haunting and ghosts, but he makes sure to pay homage to whatever spirituality represents a person or place.

A hearty meal, a drink, and soft sleep are all that he demands. The man likes to drink to the point of just bordering what one can call a problem and really likes money, but there is no other vice or desire that can sway him. Hector is naturally very extroverted, and he finds the fact he has to be the inverse one of the hardest things to deal with in his fugitive status. Similarly trickery isn't a natural talent of the man and his assumed identity is rather similar to his real one.

_{D R I V E.}

Really? It's very simple. He wants to survive, maybe make enough money to finally settle down in this Federation place and finally live in some peace. Unwilling to admit to himself he lives for the shit he does Hector has told himself this is one last gig to get him to where he wants to be before finally he quits roving across America. Really, all of this is in truth a strategy for escaping the nebulous concept of what he deems as "chasing" him, namely his past. It is simply that he is undecided on whether bunkering down or staying on the run is better; this indecision is often responsible for many hours of sleep lost. There is also somewhat of a hope that somehow Hector will be able to clear his name, although this has been repressed to the point of now just being a fantasy much like winning the lottery was to men before the war.

И уау, хорошая поговорка «смол уорлд» у Англичан есть

PS: any hope of a discord for quick communication?

[Rockette]

I have a couple days off to work up some ideas, I have a few Raider concepts in storage I may attempt to finalize. I’m inclined to psycho-abusers.

[Bork Lazer]

I have a most important question, @Hexaflexagon

Can my character have a pet radroach?

[DJAtomika]

Damn, so many roleplayers I know in this thread.

I may not be applying for a spot, but I'm definitely gonna be reading this one.

[Hexaflexagon]

Hey folks just a little update on my part so y'know that I didn't vanish or anything. Today was a big travel day for me because I had to go visit my mother for her birthday. I'm just getting back home now and it's close to 1:20 in the morning at this point and my eyes want to melt from exhaustion. So I'm gonna go hit the hay and I'll look over your burning questions once I'm up and moving again!

As always, if you need my attention tag me here or shoot me a PM and I'll try to get to it as promptly as possible. Good luck on your applications! I believe in you all!

[Peik]

Wow, what a fucking nerd

_{◄No no, you see, you have to place the battery the other way in...►}

Sidney Ackerman

^{26 | Arroyo, New California Republic | 5'9/160lb | Human, Caucasian Male}

_{A P P E A R A N C E}

Were one to get a proper glimpse underneath the tinted plexiglass visor of the all-covering radiation suit that he seems to wear 24/7, the first impression would likely not be a horrible one, as would be expected from the man’s attire, but a neutral, or even a rather positive one – in fact, one could say that Sidney is actually a rather handsome young lad, although perhaps not the most stylish. Beneath auburn medium length hair swept aside for convenience, his face stands quite conventional, if not somewhat unblemished compared to the average wastelander; he’s pale skinned, clean shaven, aquiline nosed and slightly droopy eyed. Save for a jaw of ‘Habsburg’ size (in his own terms), his looks are plain, maybe somewhat attractive thanks to his fair complexity, although nonetheless, nothing stunning.

Sidney’s physique is, similarly, nothing stunning – he’s lean, and while he’s not exactly what one would call muscular, he’s just fit enough to endure the physical exertion required by his line of work. He’s accustomed to walking long distances while carrying heavy objects on his back, and is known for his competence at running towards safety in dangerous situations (although that hasn’t exactly done wonders for his reputation). His lack of scarring and deformities alone could count as testament to his danger avoidance skills. Nonetheless, Sidney does not rely solely on pure luck and competence for his safety – his mysophobic tendencies have led him to don a faded, rubber covered radiation suit at all times (bearing the emblem of the Followers of the Apocalypse on the right shoulder), over which he’s recently begun wearing a breastplate, after an incident with raiders in which he was shot at.

_{E Q U I P M E N T}

• A radiation suit with a closed-circuit air system
• A metal breastplate, with a gap cut into its right side to allow proper aiming of a rifle
• A Wattz Pattern laser rifle, old and used, with a wooden replacement stock
• A homemade coil pistol, built out of spare parts from a broken Gauss Rifle
• A doctor’s bag, full of implements, syringes, gauze and rubbing alcohol
• A bottle of iodine tincture
• A bottle of MedX
• A bottle of water purification tablets
• A satchel of five Stimpaks
• A packet of RadAway

_{M I S C E L L A N E O U S G E A R}

• A large rucksack
• A toolbox
• A roll of gaffer tape
• A wrapping of spare cables
• A box of spare electronics
• A handheld vacuum sealer
• A vacuum pack, full of dried meat
• A vacuum pack, full of dried vegetables
• A homemade six-pack of canned food
• A large canteen of water
• A bottle of isotonic drink
• A bag of wet wipes
• A tube of toothpaste
• A toothbrush

_{S K I L L S}

Repair (Core Skill): Having grown up amongst the Followers of the Apocalypse has allowed the mechanic inside Sidney to flourish – the man knows how to make things work.

Medicine (Good Skill): Sidney knows that reassembling people is just as important a skill as reassembling machines – aren’t people just machines of a different make, anyway?

Energy Weapons (Good Skill): If a man in the Wasteland wants to live long, he needs knowledge on how to disassemble things as much as reassembling them; in his case, vaporizing is the easier option.

Science (Average Skill): While he’s not well educated on chemistry or abstract physics, his knowledge of machinery and anatomy lets Sidney take some fine educated guesses about related topics.

Sneak (Average Skill): Discretion is the better part of valor, isn’t it? Sidney doesn’t like high-risk encounters, and would rather take his chances in life without being perceived by possible threats.

Speech (Average Skill): “Good day mate, how’re ya doin’?”

_{H I S T O R Y}

Frankly speaking, compared to most other citizens of the Wasteland, Sidney’s had it pretty good. Born in Arroyo, the resting place of many Wasteland legends such as the Vault Dweller and the Chosen One, by the time of Sidney’s birth it had long become a settled, civilized city, with most of the population having descended from the inhabitants of Vault 13. Sidney suspects possible Vault dweller ancestry thanks to his relatively unblemished body and fair complexion, although he’s never asked his parents about it – for all he knows, he was born to doctors Lauren and Gavin Ackerman in Arroyo, members of the Followers of the Apocalypse, an organization in which he would be raised as well; despite some ideological differences, it’s an identity that he’s accepted without issue.

With his parents constantly overworked and exhausted from tending to unending droves of patients, Sidney was often left alongside a family friend, a budget supervisor named Lilian Modi, whose collection of books and broken tools became companions for the young Sidney in his lonely nights, and sparked an interest in learning and engineering within the boy. Having been born into a scientific organization within a booming town meant that Sidney was able to grow up relatively sheltered from the horrors of the Wasteland – while not obscenely rich or anything of the kind, Sidney nonetheless had access to luxuries such as a proper education, healthy food, and running heated water, to an extent that he was able to take them for granted. Thankfully, the environment in which he raised was not one to tolerate privileged behavior; the Followers were, despite their dreamlike goals, composed mostly of worldly individuals.

Perhaps because of his days spent fixing broken toys and tools, or perhaps because he had not received enough social experience in his youth, he decided to pursue a career primarily in mechanics as he grew older, rather than medicine or education. From what he had observed in his youth, machines were more reliable and predictable than humans, and that was something that appealed his goal-oriented character. By the time he turned 18, Sidney had gotten quite adept at fixing most of the faulty machinery that caused problems in the Followers’ Outpost, even if temporarily. Nonetheless, not satisfied with being a wrench monkey, he eventually took permission from his parents to leave Arroyo, and pursue higher education at the Followers’ University in the Boneyard.

Setting out on the road to the University as part of a trade caravan was the first time Sidney got a taste of what the Wasteland was really like. Preyed on by mutants and raiders, the journey marked the first time in Sidney’s life in which he witnessed combat and death. Sidney suspects that the first time he took another man’s life was at some part of this journey as well – a rather anticlimactic experience, compared to the cathartic and soul-crushing tales he’d often heard. While the journey was not very remarkable, save these skirmishes early on, and an infected foot on one of the caravan guards that he, as the second most medically knowledgeable member in the caravan (the surgeon being amongst the few casualties), had to partially amputate.

By the time the caravan reached the Boneyard, Sidney was more weathered to the realities of the Post-War life, yet interestingly enough, this fueled a drive in him to better himself for the people around him, rather than lead him further down his asocial side. He came to terms with the fact that, while the work the Followers did was perhaps ultimately pointless, it was still the best and noblest goal that people like he and his parents could strive towards. This drive led to him taking extra classes in medicine, although the detailed studies of infected patients gave him a somewhat unhealthy obsession about keeping himself as clean as possible.

Eventually, Sidney returned to Arroyo, having found that not much had changed since his leave. The Followers greeted him warmly when he return, and as he looked around to reorient himself with the place, had responded to his leave with finding another wrench monkey, and pinning a photo of him on the cork pinboard on the wall of their outpost headquarters, alongside a bunch of encouragement notes. He found himself surprisingly content with this legacy, and, after some time, decided to leave once more. While his parents objected at first, they could not argue with his reasoning – the more folks like him were around, the better it was for the inhabitants of the Wasteland.

After preparing himself for the life of wandering, Sidney set out once more, earning his living as a traveling mechanic and doctor. However, the endeavor was nearly stopped dead in its tracks right off the bat, when Sidney found himself ambushed by a bunch of raiders, who’d thought of him to be part of the security detail of the caravan they were planning to hit. Somehow managing to hold his own against the raiders until the target they’d been aiming for ended up coming in as the cavalry, Sidney thought perhaps that this was a sign for him to return to Arroyo, yet, realizing that he’d saved plenty of lives even if by accident, he decided to accompany the caravan to the end of their journey, making money off his professions in the trading posts, and even getting payment by the company once the caravan reached its destination.

Finding caravan work to be a safer and more profitable way of going about his goal of wandering the Wastes and providing aid for those who could not afford to travel, he decided to join the caravan that’d saved his life near Sac-Town – and thus began Sidney’s employment with the Happy Trails Company.

_{P S Y C H E}

Sidney isn’t exactly what one would call gritty. While he doesn’t have the most cheerful disposition, he seems to treat the grim realities of the Wasteland as granted, even if not welcomed. His view of life seems to have a rather cynical undertone to it; it’s not great, it’s not terrible, it’s just what it is, and everyone does what they have to do. Yet despite this rather grounded assessment of life and circumstances, he’s a fairly kind and amicable person, even if that part of him is somewhat muffled by the ever-present plexiglass visor that covers his face when out in the wilderness, and as long as it’s not borderline suicidal, will go to lengths to help people. Still, his selfless side aside, Sidney is not a brave man, let alone one all that used to situations that necessitate bravery, and prefers to avoid dangerous situations to the best of his abilities. He has an inherent fear of mutants and is often on edge around them, and is also heavily anxious in environments that are irradiated, filthy, or just contaminated in any other way. Nonetheless, perhaps his most valuable skill is that, so long as there’s other lives at stake, he does not let his fears take over his actions – how else could one explain such a squeamish man successfully performing field surgery?

_{D R I V E}

As cliché as it sounds, as much as he does not want to admit it, Sidney believes in the sanctity of human life and dignity – maybe not in an individual capacity, for he is of the belief that some people are just not worth the effort to try and save, but as a rule, he tries to see in every hypothetical human being a person worthy of certain basic rights; even ghouls and mutants, as much as they trigger his anxiety via mere presence. He does not like the Wasteland very much, seeing it to be a brutish place, and considers himself, in perhaps a vain way, to be unfortunate for knowing too much about what ‘could have been’, and suffering from the difference between the possibilities and the realities. However, he is also of the opinion that one has to be the change that one wishes to see in the world, and knows that, were he to ignore the call that’s led him to wandering, he would live the rest of his days as an unsatisfied, bitter man. Thus, he goes on, hoping to make some visible difference to the Wasteland, one broken machine at a time.

[Admiral Moskau]

I'm working on a Boomer Tribal who views Alfred Nobel as a saint and is on a quest to discover more bombers (the aircraft) for her proud tribe. Unsurprisingly she will specialize in explosives.

@Hexaflexagon Speaking of the Boomers and Nellis Air Force Base, do you have any thoughts on what happened to both (if they both got merced by the NCR, I can always write up some lost tribe of wandering Boomers)?

[Hexaflexagon]

@Andreyich@Peik
I need to finish looking over both your sheets but what I'm seeing so far looks pretty good! Since you guys got them in early, I might be able to do beyond my official final one to give you guys a chance to clarify any questions I have. Though I'm not going to make any promises to that regard because that really depends on how quickly everyone else gets their sheets in because If I do give them, I don't want to do a half-assed job on them.

And we will be getting a discord server soon. It will primarily be used to coordinate things and for off-topic banter, while the OOC will remain the place to go for official communications and questions. I'm just hesitant to make it right away because I have run into that awkward situation where somebody joins the discord, but I end up having to reject them from the roleplay and then that's just awkward for everyone, so I'm probably gonna wait until we have our established final roster before it goes live.

@Jarl Coolgruuf
And maybe your wish will be granted if you submit a sheet that is ;]

@Stormflyx
But can doggos never not be good? He says having ever only owned cats.

But yeah that's completely understandable! Overextending yourself is never a good thing.

@The Bork Lazer
I don't see why you can't have a pet radroach people have tamed crazier things before.

@Moskau Spieluhr
That's an interesting question! My primary assumption for Cascadia's "canon" is that the Courier recruited everybody they could. So the Bommer's wouldn't have been outright killed, as we know for a fact that the Boomers become good trading partners with the NCR and the Gun Runners in particular after the battle. So over time what that means for the Boomers is that they can't maintain their isolationists' policy forever, the very act of trade itself creating a system of interdependence that is hard to wiggle yourself out of, because once you start trading with a force like the NCR its only a matter of time until you become the NCR. So you might have Boomers that decide to leave or more strangers coming along with the caravans to integrate with their community. Until finally, I think over time, Nellis becomes just another settlement in the Mojave, just one that happens to be much more heavily defended than the rest of them.

All that being said, the question I would ask you then when drafting up this character is to consider what Boomer "culture" would look like in one hundred years. What parts of their heritage would they retain and what parts would they lose? As after all, the NCR as much as it has the trappings of democracy, it still at is heart is an empire and is defined by associated avenues of power: land acquisition, goals of an ever-expanding regional influence, and of course a cultural hegemony that for the NCR is based on its military and land-owning elite. And so the question I ask you to wrestle with is what parts of their culture did the Boomer's hold onto and in some ways solidify them even further to the point of near-mythologization and what parts have been eroded away?

Sorry if that explanation is a little wordy and wonky. I'm reading a book right now called Slavophile Thought and the Politics of Cultural Nationalism as part of a bigger project for work right now, So I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about the interplay between cultural identity, national identity, and the hegemonic pressures of Empire.

[Andreyich]

@Hexaflexagon glad you like what you see! I think my dude was pretty straight forward but I'm happy to clear any questions and concerns with the Hector that you might have

[Searat]

Huh. Been a while since I've seen a Fallout RP with this many players.
I may not be applying, but I will be looking forward to reading the stories you all weave.
I do hope this will be a lively RP and a long-living one at that. Cheers!

[Lord Wyron]

Been racking my brain for days and just haven't been able to settle on any ideas! I'm probably gonna back out of this one and free up space for someone who has a more solid character in mind. Good luck everyone!! :)

[Bork Lazer]

Here's my CS so far. I'd call this a Draft 1.0 given that I want to tweak the backstory and especially the psyche and drive some more. It's complete but not complete if you get my drift.

Anyway, Gong Xi Fa Cai and have a happy Chinese New Year everyone! I'll be off RPG in the meantime.

Ghoul Boi

_{◄The old world is the new gold in this new world. ►}

ALAN GORSKY

^{120| Big Sky, Northern Commonwealth | 169.5 cm / 155 pounds | Ghoul}

_{A P P E A R A N C E.}

" Yeah, yeah, I see the way you're eyeing at me, smooth-skin. You're probably thinking a few things about me right now. A talking Brahmin testicle. A piece of mutfruit that was left out in the sun. A shriveled cave fungus that grew legs. Trust me. I heard it all. So try to be more creative the next time you try to insult a ghoul."

A common adage in the ghoul town of Gecko is that every ghoul looks alike and Gorsky believes it. No nose. Mummified skin. Radiation burns. Simply put, Gorsky is about as off-putting as any ghoul could be. His balding head contains wisps of sandy hair growing at the fringes. If one were to use their imagination, perhaps, they could craft a human simulacrum of what Gorsky once looked like in their minds. The only feature that distinguishes Gorsky from other ghouls is his glowing eyes. No, not metaphorically, literal glowing in the dark pupils. This freaky mutation is a reminder of the circumstances that resulted in his ghoulification.

Due to living as a Old World prospector and scavenger, Gorsky has developed a weathered yet still-emaciated physique with a stout stature that belies hidden cunning and tenacity. With time, he has gained numerous scars from his misadventures that are in a constant state of flux, closing and reopening at ill-opportune times. Though his choice of apparel varies depending on the climate, he is never seen without an white-star ushanka on his head.

_{E Q U I P M E N T.}

Orion - A hand crafted scoped crossbow cobbled together from a makeshift selection of gun parts, energy weapon parts and scrap waste found littered in the Wasteland. Silent and deadly at a range of 50 yards.

Quiver Belt - A belt that allows Gorsky to access and load his bolts easier.

Homemade Arrows

Scrap Bolts - An eclectic collection of crossbow bolts composed of bone, steel, rebar, wood, glass and whatever detritus of the wastes Gorsky happens upon. Gorsky has approximately 20 scrap arrows with him and has the capacity to craft more easily.

Microfusion Bolts - A microfusion cell capped with a electrical fuse replaces the arrowhead of the crossbow bolt. Contact with the head of the bolt will release the full charge of the microfusion cell in one thermal blast. Depending on the internal charge of the cell, this can range from the power of a fiddly firework to a bastardised plasma grenade. At the start of the journey, Gorsky has brought only 5 with him due to how time consuming it is to craft these arrows.

Trenchcoat - A furred long-coat tailored from rad-elk leather and partially fortified with laminated polymer weave plating. Comes with extra pockets for storing small objects.

Portable Repair Kit - An old Vault-Tec Lunchbox that contains all the necessities of post-apocalyptic DIY repair such as WonderGlue, Duct-Tape, wrenches, a soldering iron, screwdrivers and all the tools needed to fix up anything you need.

Lockpicking Kit - A leather wallet containing bobby pins, staplers, tension wrenches, screwdrivers and enough picks to crack open any safe with the exception of Fort Knox. If it's still standing.

Collection of Poisons - A satchel containing three 500 ml ampules, each containing man-made poisons known as Bleak Venom, Mother Darkness and Sliver Sting. Bleak Venom acts as a lethal cardiotoxin, Mother Darkness is a potent neurotoxin and Sliver Sting is known to be an easily acquired cytotoxin. Gorsky most often dips his arrows in poison whilst hunting for food.

Talon Knife - A one-edged five inch curved ivory knife carved from the bone of a deathclaw talon. It's sharper than it looks.

Dog Whistle - A high pitched dog whistle that transmits a specific frequency only a mutated giant cockroach would hear.

_{M I S C E L L A N E O U S G E A R}

- Rolled Up Sleeping Bag
- Electric Lighter
- Box of Spare Electronic and Mechanical Parts
- Satchel of 100 Caps
- Brahmin Leather Waterskin
- Container of Coyote Tobacco Cigars
- Frying Pan
- Compass
- Packet of Kindling
- Army Brand Ushanka
- Tribal Dreamcatcher Necklace
- Pet Brush for Chaff
- Journal and Charcoal Pen
- Fishing Rod, Line, Hook and Sinker

_{S K I L L S.}

// SURVIVAL (CORE) - Having been raised in the harsh wildernesses of Montana and ran solo scavenging operations for nearly most of his life, Gorsky knows virtually every survival trick in and out of the book to prevent your ass from being gnawed off by a mole rat. Crafting poison, making poisons, identifying plants that don't poison you; Gorsky is a natural outdoorsghoul. Also, it doesn't hurt to know how to make a good bloatmfly brisket every once in a while.

// REPAIR (GOOD) - " Duct Tape and Wonder Glue. Two things everyone needs in life."

// SCIENCE (GOOD) - " My scientific methodology? Throw it at the wall and see if it sticks. Try to relate it to physics, biology, chemistry, astrology.....wait, scratch that last one. "

// BARTER (AVERAGE) - " 1500 caps? How about we lower it down to 500 caps if I buy a bottle of Sarsparilla for you?"

// GUNS (AVERAGE) - " N99. 10mm semi-automatic. 12 round magazine. You can do a nice little magic trick with it. Point the barrel at someone and you can make a dead person."

// LOCKPICKING (AVERAGE) - " A safe is just a birthday gift wrapped in deadbolts, cams and mortises."

_{H I S T O R Y}

2385, August 5th

Thought I might start writing down stuff, in case I forget. Doc I met in Vault City said that ghouls don't have eidetic memory. That common symptoms were dementia, amnesia, a Sugar Bombs box of mental illnesses. Might be good to have things written down in case somebody finds my grave. Can't rely on Chaff to tell my story anyway. Doubt anyone can speak Radroach.

I was born in the Rockies 120 years ago, somewhere north of the Great Salt Lake and westwards of NCR territory. Everyone called it the Big Sky. It used to be part of the pre-war Northern Commonwealth before the last war happened. Luckily, the surrounding mountain ranges allowed us to escape the worst of the bombs. Some of the elders had stories around what happened that time, when the Black Rain poured down from the clouds and flooded the valleys, when the Wendigos came from the forests to feast on us, when the six moon snow silenced the sunlight. It's been....40 years since I last visited there. All I know about them is through word of the monthly supply caravans that go there. They're still doing good. Best as you can out here in the wastes.

I grew up in a tribal village where blood didn't matter and everyone shared everything. The origins of our founding are spotty but our archive keepers agreed that some group of outcasts from the eastern continents moved into the USA and hid in the mountains during the Pre-War. My father worked in the coal mines while my mother worked as a hunter. Me and the rest of my five siblings simply survived. I learned what plants I could eat, how to skin a giant rat, how to fish for mirelurk pups and making fire from sticks and stones. Anyway, Big Sky was boring. In the sense that our neighbors were unfriendly, the air was cold enough to freeze your balls off and there were bobcats in every bush you wanted to take a dump in.

That was until the first caravan came. I was at the ripe old age of 18. Old enough to be independent yet young enough to be stupid and dumb. I made a promise to myself then that I wouldn't die languishing in Big Sky. I wanted to explore. I wanted to live. In the morning, I left a note on the table for my parents and sneaked onto a supply caravan that was headed California by bribing one of the guards, with nothing more than a bindle and a crossbow on my back. One of the head merchants found me in the back gnawing on their tato crops but I soon silenced their complaints about extra weight by rustling up a few gecko steaks for them when we hit the border of Klamath.

I was dropped off at the Hub. The Hub. One of the Five Great Territories of the NCR. I got my first job in a 'prospector crew' there. Some people saw it as dirty but it was the dream for some tribal out lander like me. Exploring pre-war ruins. Cracking open safes. Unearthing treasures? It was more than I could ask for. Life was good. Caps were flowing in. I grew older. Fell in love. Bought a house. Got married. Thought of retiring. Same story you hear nowadays from every citizen of the New California Republic. Back in Big Sky, retirement wasn't an option but here in California, it was a land of opportunity.

Then, it happened.

December 24th, 2299. Christmas. The dawn of the next Millennium. The day that I became a ghoul.

The old ruins were becoming sparse now. The NCR was grabbing onto every territory it could and promising spots became blocked off by garrisons. The only choice was to go to more further and dangerous places.

I chose to do a job in New Mexico. Five man crew. Pre-war military site. Unlooted. Unscathed. Only problem was that there were enough rads to make a man grow extra arms. A nuclear warhead struck the coastline of the base and turned it into freak central. The facility we entered into was some kind of some old vehicle manufacturing factory. Tanks the size of freaking cottages. Wandered around for a little bit until we hit a vaulted door. Nothing I couldn't handle. A little bit of thermite and picking later, fell apart like cotton candy.

We went inside and hit the jackpot. Blueprints. Safes. Enough loot to make a man rich for lifetimes.

I only had five seconds to react before the bullet tore through my chest.

In hindsight, it made sense. Get rid of the extra weight and split the loot between themselves. My death could be written off as an accident since I was travelling into a high risk area. No one would try and bother to find my body too. The perfect plan.

Instead of putting me out of my misery, they stripped me of all my gear and left me to rot. While they looted the room. Last thing I remember before blacking out was the sound of my Geiger counter screeching, the burning pain in my chest and how my head pounded like a drum.

I woke up. Afraid, hungry, thirsty and alive. I was still inside the loot room. It’d been stripped bare to the walls. My voice sounded like I’d been gurgling stones for a lifetime, I had no nose and the hole in my chest was missing. I didn’t have time to come to terms that I’d become a ghoul. I was only concerned about finding a way out of this place.

That was when I was attacked by the biggest radroach the wastes had ever conceived. My Chaff. We got off to a rocky start but eventually, things settled between the both of us after I gave her a little bit of food from some expired MRE I found in a storage locker.

I crawled my way out of New Mexico and walked back to the Hub on foot. Me and Chaff fell a little bit off course every once in a while but we pulled ourselves back towards our goal. When I finally reached there, I was prepared for the worst. What would you do if your husband or wife suddenly became a ghoul? I opened the door, Chaff behind me, expecting to be screamed at and tossed out from the house.

Nothing, in fact. My wife told me to stop with the self-pity, move on with my life and that I was still the same old dumb tribal underneath that skin. To this day, I never did manage to find those guys who shot me and I never will. Revenge is fool’s gold. By now, they’re either old men waiting to die or two feet under already. Seems petty to hunt them down.

In spite of common sense, I returned to work as a prospector, albeit with caveats. I never took group contracts again and went solo. Well, semi-solo. Chaff doesn’t get a part of the profits. I continued to live and continued to work, looking for pieces of the old world to collect.

Time moves differently when you’re a ghoul. Wife died from a nasty bout of pancreatic cancer when I was 60. My two sons became water merchants when I was 85. I became a grandfather at the age of 100. My trips became further. I returned back to Montana for a bit and then, went back to the Hub. I……I can’t remember. It’s like an old reel movie in my head. A collection of moments. I can barely even remember her voice anymore.

There’s word spreading around the Hub right now. Rumours of a Vault in Cascadia. Untouched. Lack of NCR presence.

Perfect for prospecting.

_{P S Y C H E.}

Gorsky’s takes a sardonic yet professional approach to his work as a prospector, viewing the wastes as a land of opportunity rather than a land of desolation. His only concerns are the wellbeing of his own relatives, Chaff and his own collection of items. He distances himself from other people out of reflex and often uses acerbic jabs as his weapons to keep people away. However, those who earn Gorsky’s trust and loyalty earn themselves a friend. Gorsky also holds a relative dislike of government authorities and inefficencies, particularly the NCR, holding nothing but contempt towards their imperialistic policies which he sees as strangling the freedoms of the Wasteland.

That is not to say Gorsky is without his imperfections. Gorsky is a prospector and a scavenger at heart, willing to haggle and bargain for anything. He hold a streak of being greedy and the promise of treasure and old world tech will dissuade any moral qualms he may have about committing any act, albeit to a point. Good luck on trying to get him to commit murder. Gorsky believes in defending himself from danger and never attacking in response to danger.

_{D R I V E.}

Other than surviving, Gorsky’s main incentive for living the way he does is for the pathological thrill of adventure he gets whenever he happens upon an artifact of the Old World. He believes that the Óld World’ is the new gold and that it holds power and value over caps, money, armies and wealth.

However, the truth is more complicated than it seems. Gorsky also collects artifacts of the Old World, not out of the thrill, but out of fear for his deteriorating memory. He’s not sure how ghouls can stay sane for but he’s not willing to rot in safety and wait for his mind to disintegrate. Taking advantage of the long life span of ghouls, Gorsky continues to explore and search for nuggets of the Old World, hoping that he can stay ahead of memory loss one treasure at a time.

---

_{◄hissssssssss ►}

CHAFF

^{N/A | New Mexico | 60 cm / 30 pounds | Radroach}