Whipstitch Whitehall, Western Transplant & Settlement Leader.
Im embarrassed that I haven’t posted all my new fallout characters yet…this is Whipstitch Whitehall, from Vault 49 out in OK originally, but she’s made her way through to the Commonwealth & has made a living setting up small communications relays between settlements in the northern Commonwealth. She’s got a little arms dealing business on the side but that’s for later, details under the cut!
Vault 49 was established under a private airstrip used for politicians & eccentric billionaires living in the Four Corners region of the pre-war western United States. With a focus on preparedness and wilderness training, Vault Tec’s plan for 49 was to initially shock the well-to-do political class into a proverbial state of “freeze-fight-or-flight” following the inevitable nuclear apocalypse. Herded into Vault 49 alongside these social elites were a selection of local farming families chosen by a quad-state area Super Duper Mart raffle, who would be dispersed throughout the same living quarters as their former governors & elected officials. Intermarrying was highly encouraged, and living standard incentives were even instituted in the early phases of Vault Tec’s V49 Overseer Agenda to establish families of mixed parentage; results were mixed for several short generations, but Vault 49 eventually came to be known in the middle territories as one of the more successful experiments surviving into the new post-nuclear landscape.
Much of the senatorial & gubernatorial class died out in the first few decades; pampered lifestyles with extensive robotic assistance led to a group that could not handle the stressors of Vault life. Those few hardier families who could handle themselves mingled with the general population & within 2-3 generations Vault-Tec Overseer reports would have been full of rigorous training regiments, roll call counts, test scores and biometric data. The program for V49 dictated that all inhabitants be trained in extensive wilderness preparedness (akin to pre-war Eagle Scout programs) for the first 150 years after initial sealing—after which control over the vault’s main door would be relinquished to the current Overseer via a Vault-Tec official password transfer. With the Overseer’s discretion the main door would be allowed to open whenever necessary, and a system of scouting parties would be established shortly after. Phase 2 of Vault-Tec’s program would come into effect here.
Whipstitch’s parents were both particularly talented community leaders; her mother was head technician in the V49 Water Processing Plant, and her father was on the Science & Exploration Board for several years before they had little ‘Stitch. She grew up as a talented target shooter, an excellent swimmer, and with a propensity for tinkering which carried her through V49 “Blue Ranger” training; a gauntlet designed to harden potential scouting party members. Whipstitch took her chance when she could to leave the vault and see the greater world, only bits of which she’d seen previously from others’ scavenging hauls—and never came back. She feels pangs of guilt from time to time when the skies hang red with radiation storms, reminding her of the dusty prairie sky back in O-Kay. Stitch took all those skills from V49 and trained up her people skills along the way, managing to gain some small notoriety as a handy builder/engineer & quite nifty with small energy weapons.
Early doodles for Whipstitch while I was trying to figure out her build & her vault 49 jumpsuit design. I knew I wanted to pull from Adam Adamowicz’s Fallout 3 concept art with the rugged & utilitarian feel he gave his characters….miss that guy :’(
