Jonathan ‘Sam’ Samuel Smith
Age: Pre-War
Gender: Male (Ghoul)
Height: 5’7”
Weight: 200ish lbs
“Good? Bad? Don’t really care unless you shoot at me.”
Short answer? He’s a ghoul.
Long Answer? Average height and what would best be called ‘solidly’ built. A life on the move, and with not always consistent rations, means he’s kept fairly ‘trim’ as it were. Other than that, he kind of looks like any other ghoul, flaking skin, some exposed muscles, no hair/ear/nose; the usual. The state of his body hides most of the scars he picked up throughout his life though there are a few exceptions; a burn up his left leg from a firebomb back in 2168 and a largish bite on his right forearm from a (newly hatched) deathclaw in 2250, being the most noteworthy.
To look at him one would expect Sam to be blind, as his eyes are almost totally opaque; in reality however his eyesight is fine, he can regularly hit targets at 2-300 yards over the open sights of his rifle.
- Cowboy Hat
- Riot Armour
- Flask [Moonshine]
- Pipe
- Tobacco
- Lighter
- Spare MFCs
- Extra 5.56 (Whatever he can find) - Backpack
- Water Jug [CAUTION: Radioactive]
- Pemmican [CAUTION: Radioactive]
- MRE (4)
- Bed Roll
- Tool Roll
- Microfusion Cells
- Extra boxes of 5.56 - Wattz 2000 Laser Rifle [Modified] 'Mercy'
- [Iron Sights] Found in a poor state of repair, he had to ditch the optical sight, fitting the weapon with simple but effective iron sights.
- [Hot Shot] Allows him to fire much more damaging shots. This however expends the MFCs much faster and greatly increases heat and wear on the weapon.
- [FC Conversion Kit] A belt mounted bit of kit that he made years back that lets him plug a Fusion Core into the weapon for greatly increased shot capacity. - 5.56 mm revolver
- Trench knife
Past/Current Affiliations of Note
[Past]
United States Army (Armorer - E.Weapons)
Dead Hands (Founder, Raid Leader, Destroyer)
New California Republic (Bounty Hunter, Courier, Mercenary)
New Vegas Families (Bouncer, Debt Collections, Mercenary)
[Current]
(None)
Strong Coffee
Stronger Liquor
Hot Food
Uninterrupted Sleep
Med-X
Brotherhood of Steel
Caesar’s Legion
Legion Remnants
The Regime
Anti-Ghoul bigots
The thought of turning ‘feral’
In a word? ‘Broken’. He saw the world die in nuclear fire, and even though some groups are trying to rebuild, he’s not sure humanity deserves another chance; not after what he’s seen…or done.
A long serving NCO in the US Army pre-War, Sam’s survival was largely down to luck. Luck had him on leave, hiking in the foothills of the Rockies when the bombs fell. It was about 9:30, he’d been up and moving for about 2 hours, when he saw the first flash through the trees; though it took him another hour or so to get to a clear enough spot to see what was going on. By then his worst fears had come to pass; multiple mushroom clouds dotted the horizon, occasionally being punctuated by the flash of either strikes on new targets, or follow up ones on old targets.
The next while was a blur; the mad dash down the hillside, not to go to war, but to find shelter. In the night and growing gloom he could see the glow of wildfires and he knew the rains, heavy with radioactive soot, would come soon. From there a mad scramble amongst the other panicked people to find shelter from the rains, dealing with fights, looting, a total collapse of law and order as the world burned. In that blur he did things for his own survival that he still regrets, though at times he’s still not sure what was worse; what he did, or how easily he found it to justify those actions at the time.
He’d assumed that the radiation would get him, like he’d seen to do to so many others, but that day never seemed to come. Eventually he ended up banding together with a few others like him; men and women who though obviously ravaged by radiation, still seemed to hang on. Calling themselves the ‘Dead Hands’, a sort of grim joke at their decaying appearance.
At first it was just a group that stuck together for security and survival; but as days became weeks and then months and then
years, they changed. At first they just scavenged like so many others, and did their best to avoid altercations, maybe trade with those that didn’t actively flee from their sight; the first time one of them shot someone it was in self defence. Sandy, a former receptionist, and Bill, a mechanic, had been out looking for anything useful. The pair spotted a group with packs and such, so Sandy stepped into the open and called out to them hoping to maybe trade. One of the group took a shot at her on sight, fortunately just grazing her leg; Bill shot the shooter square in the chest with his revolver.
After that it got easier and easier to justify the use of force, and after only a year or so they were nothing more than another band of raiders, no matter how much any of them denied it. Sam was just as in denial as anyone, but eventually he was forced to take a step back and see what they’d become. He’d gone out solo to scout a new spot for them to set up and due to weather and wildlife he was away for close to a month. After being alone for that long, and actually peacefully trading with a few other travelers, what he came ‘home’ to made him finally accept that ugly truth.
The bodies of a couple folks that’d tested them were strung across the walls of the old shop they were hold up in, there was no attempts to ‘build’ anything as it was easier to simply take it; these weren’t new things…it’d been like this when he’d left, he’d just been too in denial to see it. Making his way inside he found the rest of them either asleep or in a drug induced stupor as it seemed their latest catch had been a chem vendor. From the looks of things the poor bastard had taken some time to die.
Sickened to his core, and in the back of his mind wondering how they all could have fallen
so far, he acted. Taking a knife he made his way around and ran the blade through the heart of each one of the Dead Hands before tossing whatever he could grab that was flammable into the smoldering fire in the middle of the room and leaving. By the time he was half a block away the whole building was on fire. He nearly ended himself not long after, but his own stubbornness and maybe a need to keep punishing himself prevented that; so he kept walking.
Since then he’s walked much of the West Coast, finding ‘Mercy’ in an old Army convoy wreck just East of Seattle and his armor while heading South of Eureka. Keeping largely to himself since those early days, he’s hired himself out as a mechanic, hired gun or courier as local needs have warranted. More recently he’s done some work with the New Vegas Families, though as things heated up in the lead up to the Second Battle of Hoover Dam he got out of town as it were. He’s been less than impressed with what he’s found since coming back to the Mojave.
SPECIALStrength - 7
Perception - 7
Endurance - 8
Charisma - 3
Intelligence - 8
Agility - 5
Luck - 4
SkillsBarter - 10
Energy Weapons - 33
Explosive - 20
Guns - 32
Lockpick - 20
Medicine - 25
Melee Weapons - 15
Repair - 33
Science - 23
Sneak - 21
Speech - 10
Survival - 25
Unarmed - 18
Theme Song:
Don’t Believe a Word