Jon Marshall
{ "History is something you make happen, or happens to you. You're the one who decides which way it is" }- General Characteristics -
Jon is fairly average in height, coming in at around 5' 7" but with a wiry, firm build, built over years of survival in the wasteland and outdoors. He has a body built for stamina rather than strength, and his complexion reflects his outdoor life with a tanned and weathered look that is complimented by an ever-present small smile. The same lifestyle has left him with various small scars and blemishes, with the most notable being one from the back of his jaw to hairline on the left side of his face. Otherwise his has short, dark, spiky hair and dark eyes.[.hr]
- Psychological Profile -
Jon is generally toward the opinion that, for the most part, people have the potential to do and be good. Individuals, however, are another matter. He generally tries to be helpful and do the best he can to help others, but past events of being betrayed and stabbed in the back (occasionally literally...!) have left him with a suspicious streak and his loyalty and trust hard to gain. If they are earned, they are firm and he will do a lot to help friends and allies. By the same token, however, anyone who turns on him or double-crosses him with be an enemy for life, and he will do his level best to hurt them, leave them hurting, and ensure whatever they betrayed him for never gets into their grasp.
Being a generally decent guy, and one who exhibits compassion and kindness, he has little time, sympathy or understanding for those who choose to bully, abuse, or mistreat others such as raiders and slavers, and will go to effort to aid anyone hurt by them, and to ruin or destroy their operations wherever he can.
Despite having lived and grown up in a fairly comfortable settlement, he has always had a sense of wanderlust and adventure, and a long-burning curiosity for exploring the ruins of the past, something that has lead to him enjoying his own company, and the open freedom and expanses of the wasteland, as well as the creaking canyons of ruined buildings.
| {Fears/Limitations} |Jon has a lingering fear of being captured and/or being enslaved as a result of past events. Seeing how slaves can be treated, abused and how even fierce, strong and independent fighters and survivors can be left a shattered shell has left him traumatised at the idea of being turned into the same thing, and he will violently and vigourously resist, to the point of near hysteria. This likely is tied to his being able to come and go as he pleases and to roam, and being tied down without even the freedom to leave a building is an idea full of dread. The added thought of being traded and owned like property is even more horrifying to him, and is like a panic or berserk button for him.
| {Place of Origin} |Jon is a descendant of the Vault Dwellers from Vault Thirty-Five. As such, he grew up relatively comfortably in a relatively developed urban environment, with a lot of modern conveniences and comforts, and is well aware what civilization can look like.
| {Background} |Jon is a descendent of the original inhabitants of Vault Thirty-Five. Educated with the latest patented Vault-Tec resources and with his childhood provided for by official Vault-Tec medicines and methodology, he was lucky to grow up healthy, strong, and fit with a good education.
Despite this, he found the experience somewhat unfulfilling, and was forever curious about the wider world, through stories and anecdotes from travelling traders and caravanners, many of whom he made friends with. Some of them gave him trinkets and other odds and ends picked up during their travels as friendly gifts, and they only encouraged his desire to explore further.
Time not spent in study or with chores was spent gathering stories and anecdotes, clambering through ruins and sites local to the Vault settlement, or in libararies and poring through old books and resources about the Old World.
Into his late teenage years, this more this romanticised view of the Old World and its' treasures persisted with him. Even with the injured people Caravans and travellers bought in, and the infalliable evidence of terrifying wasteland creatures - human and otherwise - he was enthralled by the knowledge in the libraries and books, and the artefacts and technologies recovered, and the places they came from. Under urging from friends and family he attempted to try and settle in careers suited to his personality, after trying and failing at other tasks and roles, such as maintenance and farming, the mundanity and repetition of them ending up being a grind for him, opposed to the ranging walks and exploration of his surroundings that filled his life with joy and excitement.
He ended up becoming part of the security forces, and this was something he enjoyed aspects of, but clashed and grated against the authority, especially over the minutiae of the role; the schedules and the minor day-to-day tasks and repetitive nature of the work ground him down and left him listless and frustrated.
This came to a head for him after turning twenty-six. After a wounded caravan limped into the settlement late one night with a desperate account of an attack and captives being taken, Jon's blood was up. Seeing an opporunity to do good, he was all ready to leap into action and lead a group out to the known hideout of the Raider group. The leaders of both the town guards and the settlement were less certain and decisive on how to proceed, further driving the young man's frustration. The few men he could gather left with him and they engaged in a bloody battle with the Raiders at their hideout in an old granary. Jon and all of the men were wounded, with three dead, along with two of the three captives. Nonetheless, they managed to recover them, if only because reinforcements arrived out of necessity, prompted by Jon's reckless but well-meant expedition.
The unexpected side effect was that the action drove off the raiders, as it was home to a local leader of raider bands, and their hideout sat on top of a cache of equipment and gear. His actions had an unexpected outcome that was a benefit, but the cost was high.
Jon was discharged from the guard, but the caravanners personally rewarded him with a substantial sum of caps. Once his period of healing was over, he took this money along with the remainder of his pay from the guard, kitted himself up with survival equipment, weapons and armour, and headed out with the next caravan. Splitting off their route, he set off into the wastes armed with maps and information from the Vault's library about an industrial park.
Returning two weeks later, caked in dirt and mess, near dehydrated and starving with bandaged wounds, Jon put off going to the medical center long enough to go to the trading post long enough to turn in a sizable stash of holotape blueprints, and other valuable salvage, as well as number of pip-boy tags and markers for new locations and places in the wastes. Not to mention, a moderate stash of wasteland critter meat...
Despite his fatigue and aches, he felt like he'd achieved something personally, and the experience of crawling through ruins and abandoned sites had left him feeling invigorated and eager to see what else laid out there.
That experience formed the basis of his following years, exploring and returning to settlements to enjoy and share the spoils of his explorations and adventures. Frequently he adventured alone, but sometimes teamed or partnered with others, and many times ended up getting inadvertently involved in trouble and dangerous situations, often coming to the aid of others or donating and trading supplies and salvaged equipment to help them.
His explorations lead him further from his home area and familiar territory, and further to the South. With his journies southward came more accounts of the hordes of Super mutants ravaging the area and steadily advancing northward, and the droves of raiders being pushed ahead of them, and making his salvage and exploration journies increasingly more deadly.
- Survival Characteristics -
- Fat of the Land: Jon's experience of hunting through old ruins and wastes has given him a keen sense of how to use the land to survive. Useful skills like hunting and trapping, how to make fires safely, where to camp, how to avoid dangerous animals and the like.
- Looking in all the right Places: Jon's familiarity with scavenging and exploring ruins has given him a knack for and familiarity with the way a lot of old-world or pre-war facilities tend to be constructed and arranged, as such giving him an understanding of where to find certain things that can be useful, and where things like utilities, generators and the like might be located.
- 'I know him from work': Through his travels, Jon has managed to make a few useful contacts, giving him places to shelter and to trade on occasion.
- Duct Tape and paperclips: Part of his scavenging and survivalist background means that Jon has had to 'make do' more often than not, with his gear, weapons and equipment breaking down on him or wearing out, often at the least opportune times. As a result he has learned to 'make do' by jury-rigging repairs from whatever he can find.
- Wary Explorer: Scavenging the ruins of a pre-war society that was growing ever-more militarised and paranoid can be a hazard to one's health. Learning how to disarm, disable, and avoid traps and security systems is a must, and Jon has gathered a useful working knowledge of the characteristics of various systems, though by no means an expert mechanical or electrical knowledge on how to manipulate more complex ones like robots and computer systems.
| {Possessions} |
- Pip-boy
Inherited as part of his growing up in a vault settlement, Jon has had a Pip-boy for all of his adult life and his teenage years. He finds the device pretty much invaluable... as much as he might resent it at other times. As much as it's a tool, it also has an emotional attachment for Jon. - Hip-flask
A battered old aluminium hip flask. Found in the ruins of an old Air National Guard base, Jon liked the eagle motif embossed on the front. After sterilising and cleaning it thoroughly and a good polish, he filled with it bourbon and has carried it since. - Deathclaw tooth pendant
A deathclaw's tooth on a simple leather thong, worn around his neck. He wears it under his shirt and armour, for 'good luck'. When asked about it, he'll give a simple story as explanation... though it might not always be the same story... - Music holotapes
A few holotapes of a random selection of music, often listened to when bedding down for the night or exploring on his own. Gathered at random from his various exploits or bought with the resulting bounty. - Bag of caps
A small Radstag-hide pouch with a drawstring to carry his money in.
| {Combat Skills} |
- Small Guns - proficient, and certainly competent, though not an expert; Jon is skilled and trained in the use of handguns, shotguns, sub-machine-guns and rifles. However, he most usually sticks to a simple semi-auto handgun and a battle rifle.
- Knife skills - as much a skill for every day survival as it is for combat, a useful, strong, and dependable knife is an essential in the wastes as a tool, let alone a weapon - but it certainly makes a good one when needed.
- Nasty Surprise - his experience of tracking and trapping, as well as that with pre-war buildings and facilities and their systems has leant him a good deal of knowledge on how to create a good ambush. Jon often uses cunning traps, lures, and devices to even the odds with enemies, when possible.
- Bang for the buck - While not skilled with larger explosive weapons like grenade, rocket or missile launchers, and certainly not au fait with the Fat Man, Jon has some experience with use of explosives, such as thrown hand grenades and mines as well as placed charges, often using them in his exploits to clear rubble and breach otherwise inaccessible areas.
| {Gear} |
- Canteen
- Bedroll
- Backpack
- Load-carrying belt - a modified climbing harness belt with additional pouches for other survival equipment and a holster for his pistol and magazines.
- Personal medical supplies - a pouch set aside for personal medical gear, such as a small bottle of medical alcohol for cleaning and disinfecting, tweezers, bandages and dressings and barrier ointment for burns/scalds/etc
- Medical kit - supplies for more serious medical situations; six stimpacks, two bottles of Rad-X pills, and three pouches of Radaway.
- Personal multi-tool - a swiss army-knife or leatherman-style multitool with screwdriver, file, folding saw, folding knife, can-opener, bottle-opener, and sharpening stone.
- Fire-striker and flint
- Water purification filters
- Needles and thread - for repairing his clothes in the field
- 'useful' Kit - not a standardised kit, but something gathered together from his experience. Put into one of his pouches, it has a roll of duct tape, two larger screw drivers (flat head and phillips head), a small adjustable wrench and a pair of pliers.
- M-14 Battle Rifle - 7.62mm caliber battle rifle with a mid-range telescopic scope. Carefully and lovingly looked after, it's use as a tool for hunting, the scope for scouting, and as a weapon of defence and attack is important to Jon. The rifles' cherrywood stock is lovingly oiled and maintained along with the metal parts, kept in as rust-free a condition as possible. The gun also has an olive-drab ballistic nylon sling and a folding bipod under the barrel.
- 9 x M-14 Magazines - 8 kept in pairs in pouches across the bandolier around his chest and on his belt. 1 additional in the rifle.
- Box of 7.62mm NATO rounds - carried in backpack
- .45 caliber semi-auto handgun - less pristine than his rifle, but still carefully looked after, this handgun is reliable, effective, and practical, if not especially beautiful. A workhorse, it is kept on his belt at all times, and within arms' reach at all other times.
- 5 x handgun magazines. 4 in pairs in a two compartment pouch on his belt, one in the gun.
- Box of .45 caliber ammunition - carried in backpack
- Gun cleaning and maintenance kit - carried in backpack
- Machete - a simple heavy machete-type blade, formed from an old truck leaf-spring, with a bolted-on wooden grip wrapped in leather. The reverse edge is cut with serrations to function as a saw. Heavy enough to use for chopping, and with a rounded, jutting pommel to use for breaking glass. It's a tool as much as a weapon.
- 4 x frag grenades - carried on his bandolier
- Modified riot armour - formerly worn by riot police in the pre-war era, it has been remodelled and salvaged for use in the wastelands, with added riveted panels to replace lost or worn areas on the left shoulder, and a chest bandolier for ammunition and equipment, which also has the sheath for a machete on the reverse. The forearm guard on the left forearm has also been rebuilt to allow access to a pip-boy, while still protecting the left hand. Dusty black/brown/grey in colour.
- Dust goggles
- Shemagh-type scarf; can be used to block dust or as a hood, etc.
- Rec-and-black flannel shirt, worn under armour with jeans and hiking boots.
- Not always worn, but forage-style cap in washed-out olive drab, usually worn to protect from intense sun, or when it's cold or wet
- Rain poncho, usually carried in backpack, simple black poncho made of waterproof material. Also can be used to make a simple shelter.
- 100ft coil of nylon paracord.
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