Tannhauser. Human being, now forty, agender. Fallout New Vegas, Good Omens, Vegebul, kylux and other stuff that I'm in love with. I married Jean-Pierre Polnareff. Art blog, not a frequent poster, but I'm here. Visit me at @upandtannhausergate (different account).
Because it's been a long time since I have written anything in english, not my native language. I hope it reads well. And because I am advancing veeeery slowly with the comic, and I wanted to tell some kind of longer story. I do not intend to impose anything, nor the character's opinions are my own.
Warnings: mentions of violence and minor character deaths.
Courier Six
Name: Gura Kipling
Age: 43
Background: She comes from the Boneyard. She was an orphan educated and raised by the Followers of the Apocalypse, and due to
her skills, integrated in the organization. In her teen years she specialized in history, and because she wanted to contribute in creating new records, she became skilled with guns, so she could start going on expeditions. In her early twenties, and after a few short sucessful missions, she was preparing a more important one alongside her childhood friend. At the last moment, and because her gun knowledge and skills had reached the council ears, they decided to put her in another group destined to a more dangerous place. As a consequence, her friend departed alone with some mercenaries and a younger follower, and both were reported dead a few weeks later.
Grief and guilt consumed her, and she gathered a group of close friends and nonconformists to go and pursue the murderers. They wanted to get revenge, and show that if you messed with the Followers, you ‘ll get a consequence. After six months of going clue after clue, they had left a trail of blood that earned them the expulsion from the Followers. This originated a rumor, that spread quickly and reached the outer regions through The Hub. People told the story of a radicalized branch of the Followers that hunted down and killed who they considered to be «bad people», and for a year any murder or killing of thieves, raiders, drug dealers, and other morally questionable individuals were rapidly attributed to them.
When they were finally after ther objective they were ambushed and killed one by one, and Gura was left agonizing between the corpses. The leader of the attackers then revealed that they were the ones who assaulted their friends expedition. Then proceeded to kick her hard in the head, causing her a severe cranial fracture. For unknown reasons, they dragged her and throwed her in front of a group of travelling merchants.
They were from the Crimson Caravan Company, and as she was still wearing the Followers insignia, they applied some stimpacks and brought her to the nearest Followers post. From there she was transferred to a medical post, and nursed back to health. They had to put a metallic plate in her skull, and she never recovered psicologically. Later the council voted to admit her back, but she could only develop protection tasks for the expeditions.
Years passed, and she worked flawlessly, had two serious relationships and two daughters and a son, who were raised and educated in the Library, as both parents were Followers. But guilt never left her, both from her childhood friend getting killed and leading all her friends to death.
When she was 35 years old, and during an expedition near the territory where all her friends were exterminated, they were attacked by the same group. This time the Followers won the encounter. Their leader, still alive, recognized her, and spitted between broken teeth the truth: both the followers integrants of her childhood friend's expedition were captured alive, and sold as slaves to a tribe later absorbed by the Legion. And she was thrown in front of the merchants because they had mistaken them for a group of cannibals that used to roam the area, and they wanted to see the show. She felt horrorized, the truth stabbed her mercilessly and clutched her heart with an iron grip: her friend could have been alive all this time, and suffering.
This made her obsessively focused on the Legion, and during expeditions close to Legion territory, she started asking about the absorbed tribes, how they distributed them, and how they treated the survivors. All she got were rumours. Then her partner was killed in another expedition, and this shutted her down emotionally. Ensuring her kids were safe, she left alone and disappeared for a year.
During this period of time she worked for the Crimson Caravan and other companies, gathering information about the Legion and trying to elucidate if it was possible to rescue someone from those tribals if her friend had made it alive. The answer was negative.
When she returned nobody knew where she had been. She started asking Bill Calhoun about Edward Sallow and the Legion. He took her interest with a grain of salt, but he provided.
She was 38 years old. Life passed by, she studied, wrote, went on expeditions, raised her kids, while she battled with anxiety. One day, when she was 42, a council member approached her, and prompted her to attend a meeting on a delicate matter, and asked her to be discreet about it.
She found herself inside a small room in the least transitated part of the complex, with five more followers, all known for being partidaries of direct action against the Followers principles, and with high old technology knowledge. She was the older one. Shortly four members of the council entered the room, Bill Calhoun was one of them. They spoke about the situation in New Vegas and Freeside, how the drugs were taking over the place and no improvement could be done because of the situation with the NCR and mr House. Mr House also encouraged prostitution and gambling, all tied to drug use and alcohol, and although everybody loves a good drink it’s a problem when becomes the main source of gratification in a population. And how this situation prevented the healing of the entire Mojave, being New Vegas their pivotal point. They didn’t touch the Hoover’s Dam subject, nor the Legion.
They had recieved information about mr House finding something very important for him, the rumour said that it would make him stronger than the NCR, thus sealing the fate of the New Vegas area and its inhabitants, dooming them to perpetuate their misery.
And because of that, exeptionally, and behind the other council members backs, they had decided to intervene. Although they could not stand the NCR anymore, in this case it was a question of choosing the lesser of two evils. The assistants agreed, making approval sounds. Gura observed it all, and soon realized Bill Calhoun was looking directly at her. The plan was simple. With a large amount of caps, they would infiltrate the Mojave Express with false identities, and get to deliver the six packages to the Lucky 38, thus one after another getting an opportunity to infiltrate it and try to deactivate mr House. The one carrying the real chip should hide it and deliver a false package.The assistants showed their agreement leaning foward. Gura didn’t change her body position, arms crossed, and didn’t look away from Bill.
They departed from the Boneyard one by one, to avoid suspicion. The concil members bought their false identities from the real couriers who had to pick up the delivery orders, paying very generously. They had to get the delivery orders in Primm, and then go to the Hub and pick up the packages. Gura was the last one to depart.
Once in Primm there was a problem: the sixth package had already a unknown courier assigned, a last minute change. Gura was at loss, the other followers had already departed, and she didn’t know if she should return to the Boneyard or wait. She was considering the first, when a tall stranger stormed out of the post office, banging the door and breaking the glass. She entered to ask if everything was ok, and she got the delivery order.
Because it's been a long time since I have written anything in english, not my native language. I hope it reads well. And because I am advancing veeeery slowly with the comic, and I wanted to tell some kind of longer story. I do not intend to impose anything, nor the character's opinions are my own.
Warnings: mentions of violence, minor character deaths, sexual violence and minor character suicide.
Vulpes Inculta
Name: Inculta
Age: 36
Background: He comes from a small and non educated tribe from south of Utah, absorbed by the Legion when he was eight. The
legionaries killed all the adult males and the few elders, and took women and children and transferred them to Arizona, where the male children where put in the training program, and the women and female children distributed as slaves. He lost contact with his mother and older sisters, and never saw them again: her mother died from a beating in hands of her owner, one sister from high fever and another giving birth. He learned this later, when he was made a full legionary at the age of 17, gaining the right to ask about them.
The training was brutal, not all the kids survived, and soon he learned not to make friends, because they would die the next day or betray him. Survival instincts took over him, and he exceled at hand to hand combat, and started to repeat all the doctrine the Legion imposed on them and memorizing it, so he would not be punished. But as years passed by the line between his own tribal identity and the one he was faking blurred somehow.
When he was 14 he was made cadet, and transferred to assisting older legionaries and learning from them. They taught the cadets what they could find in real combat situations, strategies and logistics. He was clever enough and seeked the older ones advice, the ones that had survived more battles, and learned eagerly from them. During these years he asked smart questions and made himself useful, so the legionaries took care of him and teached him willingly. This lead to recieving beatings from jealous peers, but he settled the matter killing them, and as it was self-defense, he was not punished.
When he was 17 he was made legionary and sent to serve under Centurion Aemilius, a harsh and strict man with an explosive caracter, born in one of the first tribes anexated by Caesar. His centuria was destined south of Legion territory, and he had no sympathy for the new incorporations. After barely surviving a year armed only with a machete and light armor, Aemilius promoted Inculta to prime legionary, increasing his chances of survival.
Due to his promotion, he gained the right and obligation of having sex with the slave women living in their camp. He complied, and soon one of the women gave birth to a blue eyed baby. The legionaries started to attribute the paternity to him jokingly, and Inculta found himself drawn to the kid. He smiled when he started talking, felt proud when he took his first steps, and gave the mother small amounts of meat and healing powder if the kid was ill. Later he knew the mother kept that for herself.
Aemilius always kept an eye on Inculta because he stood out between the other legionaries for his knowledge of tactics and intelligence, and as soon as there was a vacant he was promoted to decanus.
When the kid was five he joined the training program. During a few months Inculta felt proud of every achievement of the kid, and all the legionaries, even Aemilius, now referred to the young slave as Inculta’s kid. One day, when he and his contubernium came back from a survey, he found the kid’s body in the pile of trash outside the camp. He had been killed during an exercise by an older trainee. He asked Aemilius if he could bury him, and Aemilius gave him permission. He burned the body and kept the bones with his personal belongings, like his tribe did with the dead. From now on he only had sex with infertile women.
A year later one centuria destined north-west suffered great losses, and was patched up with other’s centuriae legionaries and decanus. Inculta was sent there, and found himself under the orders of Publius, older than Aemilius, who appreciated brute force more than tactics. Six months later, Caesar himself came to stay in their camp, alongside Legate Malpais. They were there to coordinate an ofensive, the forced assimilation of the Twisted Hairs, until now faithful allies.
Inculta obseved the arrival of the two men, escorted by praetorian guards, and the devotion he was taught to feel flowed naturally.
During the offensive at Dry Wells, planned by Legate Malpais and Caesar himself, Publius acted erratically, shouting contradictory orders. The legionaries, not coordinated because all came from diferent centuriae, were being crushed by the organized Twisted Hairs. Inculta, seeing a hole in their defenses, wento to Publius to warn him, but Publius ignored him and ordered Inculta to stand his ground. Angered at Publius incompetence, he lead his contubernium through the hole, capturing the Twisted Hairs chieftain thus ending the battle. His reward was to be crucified with the Twisted Hairs dissidents alongside the interstate 40, for disobeying direct orders.
When Caesar and Legate Malpais arrived at the foot of his cross, after taking a walk to admire the defeated tribals, Inculta asked for mercy. Caesar confronted Publius, who admitted the truth.
Inculta was transferred to the frumentarii, and started as an apprentice to an experienced member. His devotion to Caesar and the Legion was now consolidated, he was 26. Quintus, his tutor, teached him all the perks and took him on undercover missions. Inculta learned the power of deceit, lies, intimidation and scheming, and after a year he was already being sent alone. He discovered that the more sadic and twisted was an hostile action, the more fear induced against his enemies, and he acted in consequence. And he was very good at it.
Being a frumentarii also implied having contact with profligates, when they started moving into NCR territory. And soon he learned that the vast majority had no principles, and were motivated only by greed and self-preservation, being most of them addicted to drugs and alcohol, and easily manipulated. He started to despise them personally. Compared to the tribals absorbed by the Legion, that somehow had each one a code of conduct and only a few disident members, being the code in some cases the most primitive expression of a set of social rules, the Mojave and NCR territory felt like a grotesque caricature. And their reverence of the old world unsettled him.
When Quintus lost an arm and was left heavily scarred during an undercover mission, six years later, Inculta was summoned to Caesar’s presence, where he learned that Quintus had always been Vulpes Quintus, the head of the frumentarii. He had appointed Inculta as his succesor due to his intelligence, devotion and skills, both military and as a frumentarii, and now was the time to fill the vacancy. Quintus commited suicide after Inculta took the Vulpes title.*
Inculta, now Vulpes, got to work hand to hand with Lucius, head of the praetorian guard, Legate Malpais and Caesar. But after the first battle of Hoover Dam, he discovered that what had been until now a swift collaboration between the four was going to be from now on a constant clash with the new Legate. Lanius despised him and his tactics, and talked him down in front of Caesar. Instead of answering him, Inculta centered his efforts in demonstrating that his tactics were as good if not better than any military offensive, to shut up the man. Lanius insinuated several times that they should resolve their diferences in the Arena, but Caesar always cut their confrontation before things escalated. Soon Legate Lanius was sent to the east, to supervise the other Legion open fronts.
When the platinum chip rumours reached the Legion, Caesar ordered Inculta to find it and, by any means, bring it to him.
*Alternate version: Quintus is punished for the Hoover's Dam disaster, and forced to commit suicide, Inculta was appointed his succesor beforehand. He never works alongside Legate Malpais, and starts working directly with Lanius.
every time I start a project (most of them in pencils or thumbnails still, but my joy is to create the story) I make a playlist to help me with the mood.
kianamaiart
theartofmadeline
turnnoffyourmind