what if the battle is a trap again like Boulder City? What will Caesar do to you if you lead yourself and others into a trap like Joshua Graham did? Caesar was willing to throw his right hand and closest friend into the Grand Canyon for his failures, can you be certain you would survive like the burning man did?
A trap? I've heard the Legend of the Burned Man enough times to recite it in my sleep. I've sent hundreds of Frumentarii into the dam to investigate and understand their ideas- I know of at least 137 different traps and defenses they plan to use against us.
We have Archimedes II.
We dug out, made airworthy and spraypainted the Bull onto that crashed Vertibird near a nuclear test site- repulsive old world technology that we would normally abstain from, on my orders.
I know a special technique involving the Hopeville silo that Courier 5 keeps talking about to wound the NCR should the Legion fail.
We've defused 8 rigged buildings that we will pass by right before the invasion started.
We sabotaged the Howitzer atop the dam.
We've armed several dozen Legionnaires with nuclear catapults and power armor I personally negotiated for, tested and inspected.
I will (not) fail- I will not prove myself a failure- even showing my hand will (not) stop me- it only proves me I can overcome adversity!
*clasps hands to head and starts breathing heavily as sirens sound and spotlights shine at the Dam*
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I think about Nora sometimes...
And I was thinking up different justifications for her knowing things like “how to handle a 10mm as soon as she steps foot out of the vault” and I have a few theories that I like to RP with and so can you!
1. Nate, being ex-military, taught her most of her basic survival and weapon training skills. So, the population pre-bombs was probably preparing more for nuclear inferno. It also explains why we’re finding things squirreled away: more people thought they’d survive.
2. mnemonic impressions left over from Kellogg: Amari said there might be some left over for Valentine, but she never said something from Kellogg wouldn’t be imprinted onto you as the sole survivor. And it makes sense: After that moment, the PC is expected to run into the glowing sea. (gameplay aside) This place is supposed to be one of the most dangerous places in the commonwealth and I feel like the pace of the whole game shifts after that. You can choose to run head first into the glowing sea, or (the way I play it) is you RP that, despite the fact that Kellogg was an evil, murderous pos, he wasn’t a LIAR. You got no reason to suspect Shaun is in danger or that you need to run off.
Also: Now that you know Kellogg is telling the truth about Shaun, you need time to rehearse your speech, find the entrance to the Institute, and maybe get to know your new home. Shaun is safe, you can relax. Until, of course, you actually get to the Institute.
Also, also: I like to RP that the people at The Slog helped Nora through the worst of her “home sickness”. It was Nick’s idea and gave him an opportunity to confront Danse about Nora’s mental state.
PS: I’m just rambling. I’m also ex-military myself and want to play FO4 with how I would personally do it.
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A continuation of this post about what happened to Texas in the fallout rp I’m working on, but this one’s about an OC:
Warnings: Slavery, violence, psychological torture, the Legion are their own warning, Fallout-typical angst
Shenandoah “Darling” Walker is one such talented Farrier, he makes good conversation and had claim on one of the shorter paths until he left for Oklahoma. He also offers to shoe Brahmins and Bighorns for extra money, and is one of the very few trade farriers left, making him popular with caravans and travelers alike.
“Me? Name’s Shenandoah Walker, but you can call me Darling. Mama did, and now everyone else does too.”
Born in Killeen, Texas, Shenandoah was raised on the outskirts of the Tri-City Commonwealth, what was built upon the combined ruins of Waco, Houston, and Austin. Despite it’s size, most of the communities are remarkably poor, though they reliably trade with each other.
When the Walker farmland began to fail, his father took up extra work as a caravan guard. His previous experience as a former member of the New Marshals made him an easy hire, despite his age. The New Marshals are as close to their old west counterparts as anyone has ever come, wandering cowboy-types that keep law and order across the various commonwealths within the Hoof.
After his mother became pregnant with her third child, Darling (13 years old), who had always been in charge of helping to protect his mother and younger brother (11) while their father was away, was suddenly given his father’s lucky coin.
Item: Daddy Walker’s Lucky Coin, a pre-war silver dollar with the face side melted off, +5 Luck
He told his son: “for a little extra help, since your mother’s about to pop, and not on her feet much anymore”. He never returned, confirmed over a month later when the caravan company finally delivered the news that the brahmin and all merchants and guards were killed by raiders.
Life went on, and they continued to scrape by with what Darling made selling game and what their mother made as a clerk when she was well enough to return to work. But, things continued to worsen when an unknown disease hit their town. They believe his mother brought it home from her job, and everyone fell ill except for Darling. The baby (now 18 months) did not survive.
When Darling was 19, he was approached to be a Farrier, but declined because his younger brother (17) had already agreed to train to become a Marshal and he did not want to leave their mother alone. Less than a year later, his younger brother would be killed a few weeks short of finishing his training, in a shootout in Plano, TX.
Ever optimistic but clearly beginning to fray from his family dwindled down to just two, the last straw was coming home, flowers in hand, to find his mother passed away upright in her favorite chair.
“The… doctor said her heart gave out on her. I can’t say I blame her, after losing her husband, all her babies… But wasn’t I her baby too?” - Darling, on his mother’s death
So, Darling (19) left their farmhouse for the last time, now empty and with four white crosses on the hill, and headed to the northern border to see if that Farrier job was still open. He would work the Hoof for about 8 years, until a merchant he was escorting complimented the shoes he put on his Brahmin, telling him he should consider coming to Oklahoma, and that the reservation was open to those with useful trades.
Originally resistant, Darling eventually decided it might be a way to settle down, living safely within the reservation walls and forming long-term friendships that weren’t other mercenaries.
After what turned into a much longer journey than he anticipated, with plenty of bullshit to be sidetracked by, he finally made it to the reservation—and pressed the call button on the gate.
To his horror, the doors did not open. No voices respond to his questions, and the call box is quiet, filled instead with eerie static.
“They have never been quiet. The Reservation is notoriously picky, everyone in the Plains knows that—but they have always had an answer.” - Darling, on the Worst Day Ever
And as he pleads with rising succession, he begins to panic at being out in the open alone, hearing the footfalls of Legion troops in the tree line—waiting, hoping to ambush travelers on their way to the reservation gate, or upon rejection. As he begs for his life, Darling chooses to flee, running the wall just long enough to attempt to find an opening—and is unsuccessful.
Captured, his hands are bound and he’s made to walk behind the Legion soldiers back to the nearest Legion occupied town. There, the troops begin to sell off their slaves, but stop when they realize they are in the presence of their leader: Nero, who became unchallenged upon Caesar’s death in the Mojave.
“As intelligent and narcissistic as Caesar, except he loves so-called ‘degenerate’ pleasures and excess. Twice as dangerous, because he ain’t afraid to spread the Legion to the Pacific Ocean at the cost of every soldier and every innocent soul from here to there.” - Darling, on Nero
When Nero saw Darling in the market, he stopped the sale, demanding the troops relinquish him, and paid accordingly: 1000 caps.
“How the gods have smiled upon me, to gift me a successor—finally—one with the beauty of Achilles and the mighty glare of Patroclus. I have waited for you, my light, as long as I have drawn breath.” - excerpt from Nero’s private journal, regarding Darling
Darling is brought to Ft. Carson, Colorado, where he is told by Nero himself that they were “destined” to meet and that he will not tend the fields or do the washing. He is to be Nero’s successor, to become his Legate and lead his army in the new march on the West. One last time, to succeed where “[they] cannot fail, because Caesar’s rot has finally died with him.”
For five years, he does not leave the Fort. He does not hear his name.
“Achillides”, the Legion calls him, both in and out of Nero’s presence on threat of death. He’s given robes suiting his status, fed at Nero’s table, bathed by other slaves, and studies under the tutor of Nero’s highest scholar: Cicero, all while the chain attached to his ankle clinks beneath his chair.
When Nero visits to check on the progress of his studies, Darling is given a smile and a “very good, Achillides”, regardless of whether his Latin was correct or not.
When Nero’s reach to touch him in any context is always met with recoil, he simply says “Do not be afraid, my light. I have too much patience to harm you.”
When Darling trains with the other officers, he is only given praise when he wins, when he stands over another soldier, chest heaving and knuckles bloody.
And when he’s tired, or bored, and loses control over his accent, or uses a contraction Nero disapproves of—he’s slapped across the face hard enough his ears ring. If his body weren’t honed from endless drills, he would have been knocked to the floor.
For five years, he does not leave the Fort.
Until one ordinary evening, when his unruly mouth earned him an evening off in his room, cursed to be alone with only the few books Nero approved for him and the harp he refused to learn to play, he meets a man. Covered completely in dirty, black armor, with a round, dark green helmet and goggles with red lenses.
The man fills his doorway, fills the silence with only the thump of his boots on the concrete floor, and Darling realizes that the bloody footprints he leaves behind him must be related to the guards he hasn’t seen walk by in hours.
Darling jumps up to run, cursing the manacle that keeps him tethered to the floor, and as he scrambles to explain himself, that he’s not Legion, that he’s unarmed—the chain snaps. And the stranger tosses it’s fragments elsewhere.
As it turns out, his belongings from his old life weren’t burned, and he flees the fort on the heels of this mysterious stranger, back in his old clothes, his cowboy hat and boots, and with his daddy’s coin back in his pocket.
On that night, all the slaves at Ft. Carson were free.
(Put your Fallout headcanons and rp lore in the tags so I can read them!)
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