Hey everyone. So, there were a lot of OCs submitted, and I accepted most of them, I believe. The OCs for this chapter (in order of appearance) are David Ambrose, Elizabeth Lowell, Quasar Jones, Dante, Katherine Jensen, Jack Devich, Jonathan Law, and Sarah Kastan

This chapter has a lot of basic introductions, so it's rather long. I didn't fit all of the OCs in this chapter, so if one of your OCs isn't in this one, don't worry. I will probably introduce the rest next chapter.


"This town used to be a transportation hub," a young bartender told the man sitting at his bar. "Subways and trains came through here," he added, lifting a glass to wipe down the table in front of the man. The man nodded at the information. He had a glass of neat bullet rye whiskey in front of him, and the sun had already set when he got back to Grand City some two hours ago.

He wore a bandana to keep shoulder length black hair out of his face, and he sported a trimmed black beard. He was older than the twenty-year-old bartender by around a decade, and he looked rugged and worn out from battle, with a scar over one of his blue eyes, and another on his cheek.

"It's the capital now. Of New York City. You want another?"

The man shook his head. He wore a type of ranger combat uniform that most locals wouldn't recognize. It consisted of a tactical breastplate and a long, brown duster that draped over his chair.

"Yeah. Have a nice night, man. What's your name, again?" The bartender pulled the man's empty glass under the bar and then wiped down the counter.

"David." He slipped over seven caps, and turned to look at the door to the place he was staying. He had one of the smaller rooms in Grand City's hotel, but they gave it to him half off for running raiders out of a nearby subway station. He swung his feet onto the ground and started to make his way towards the hotel. He hadn't done much exploring of Grand City; it was small for a city inside of an old train station, but the only places he had been so far were the bar and his room.

The motel was built over old train tracks on the ground level of the city, across from the bar, which used to be the ticket booths, David figured.

He got back to the room, undressed down to boxers and a t-shirt, and fell asleep very quickly without even getting under the covers.


In the lower level of Grand City – a restaurant that used to be a Shake Shack, now called Ethel and Bart's – an old ghoul couple served breakfast to travellers willing to pay for food that wasn't irradiated or lead-flavored. A young woman was sitting alone at one of the tables, talking to one of the ghouls who owned the restaurant. In front of her was a plate of Brahmin sausage, a radscorpion egg omelette, and sliced tatos.

"What brings you back here, love?" the elderly female ghoul inquired. "I thought you were on your way out of Manhattan."

Elizabeth shrugged. "Ethel, how could I ever leave you and your Brahmin sausages?" The elderly woman laughed warmly and put a hand on the young woman's shoulder. "To be honest, though, people pay good money for things I can do in this place."

Ethel sighed. "I don't like what you do. You're young."

"Twenty-seven."

"A baby! I'm one hundred and eight!"

Elizabeth took a bite of the sausage. She had high cheekbones, straight teeth, and wavy, layered butterscotch blond hair pulled back in a high ponytail. "Well, you don't look a day over one hundred and seven."

Ethel rolled her eyes. "I have to go make another omelette. Don't die."

"I never do." She stabbed her fork into a tato. She was wearing black pants and black boots, along with a buttoned flannel shirt under an open, flowing black jacket weighted with ballistic layering. She put the tato in her mouth and dug into her pocket for the caps to pay for her breakfast.


Quasar Jones woke up in Grand City's hotel well after dawn. It was at least an hour after Ethel and Bart's stopped serving breakfast, and he rolled out of the bed in a black t-shirt and grey briefs. He pulled off the shirt and threw on a light brown elbow sleeved t-shirt, a dark brown tank top, and tan combat pants and boots. He slipped on fingerless gloves, copper colored sturdy combat armor, and he fastened a watch to his left hand. Lastly, he pulled on a red desert scarf and a grey and red baseball cap. Grand City was a nice place to say, but there wasn't much to do there for Quasar. He threw everything he had into his bag and slipped his shishkebab into a holster on his back.

He popped into the bathroom, ran hand through his medium length brown hair, and turned on an electric razor, leaving himself with light stubble. He brushed his teeth and then made his way to the door. Quasar's eyes were a mix between green and hazel, and he had a faded scar running from his chin to the left side of his lips. Overall, he had a friendly face and he knew it.

He shut the door behind him and made his way out of the hotel and into the heart of the city. The city was entirely indoors, but Quasar was about to hit the streets.

He walked down a long corridor, full of shops and bars, and pulled his .44 pistol out before leaving the city. He flashed two city guards a smile as he left.

He thought about where he wanted to go next, and figured it would be worth the trip to 60th and 5th, the pre-war Apple Store, now something of a fancy bar called the Apple's, meant for New York City's richest residents to gather and share stories. Not only did Quasar love talking to rich people, but also he knew they always had ridiculously high paying tasks and bounties he never minded carrying out.

He made it two blocks before he saw the first feral ghoul. It didn't notice him, so he got off a clean shot to the head. He heard a squeal behind him, and he knew it was from another ghoul. He whipped the shishkebab out of his holster without turning it on and sliced down the ghoul behind him. The first ghoul he shot made another noise, and Quasar only had a minute to be confused before he saw a Glowing One come out from inside the ruins of a Starbucks. "Oh, fuck me," he grumbled, the shishkebab roaring to life with dancing flames.


It was rare to find another traveller who knew how to play Caravan, a game almost solely known to folks from Nevada. When Dante asked anybody at the Track 21 Casino in Grand City if they could play a round of Caravan, he got rather mixed responses, ranging from confused to displeased. But, he and the deck he'd had since he left Nevada were determined to pass the time somehow.

Fortunately, a well-learned ghoul called Bart overheard him and offered to play a hand of Caravan with him at one of the tables at Bart and Ethel's. Ethel was at the register, counting caps, and there were a few costumers at some of the tables talking loudly and eating brunch.

Bart's caravans were currently 15, 4, and 25, while Dante's were 16, 20, and 6, respectively. The wager was low; Dante bet twenty caps, and Bart bet a plate of radscorpion eggs over easy and toast. Dante played a king on his caravan of 16, raising the value to 25. Bart used a queen on his first pile. Easily, Dante played an ace on his second pile of cards, winning him the game.

"I haven't played this game since I learned it in Vegas some years back," Bart explained. "But you won fair and square. Let me fix you those eggs." Bart stood, gathered his deck, and slipped it into his pocket.

"Bart, honey," Ethel said from the cash register.

"Lost a game of caravan. I owe the man eggs," Bart pointed his thumb back at Dante, who was shuffling his own deck back into order. Dante's hair was dark brown and tied back in a small bun. He was very young, probably no older than the pre-war drinking age, thought Bart. Maybe a year or two older, but at one hundred and thirty, Bart tended to mix up the ages of smoothskins like Dante.

Dante had a strong jawline covered in a light layer of stubble, high cheekbones, and a gaunt face. There was a faint slit that used to be a scar on his right eyebrow. He rested his face in one of his hands and used the other to play with a joker from his deck.

Bart came back with the plate of eggs and Dante thanked him. "Good game."

"Sure thing."

"Hey, Bart?" Dante broke one of the eggs and watched the yolk spread over his plate and touch his toast. "Are you pre-war?"

"Can't say that I am," Bart admitted. "I'm old as all hell, though. I've seen lots."

"I don't doubt it." Dante wore a t-shirt, army fatigue pants, and combat boots. Over this, he had on an old ranger duster and a red cloth tied around his right bicep. "I've been looking for a game for days."

"I lived in Vegas for a bit."

"Me too."

Bart looked at the young man's face. He was handsome, and his eyes were tired and hazel. Bart wondered what this boy had been through, but he decided not to ask. "Stay safe, kid. It's hard out there. Too hard for an old ghoul like me."

Dante had toast in his mouth so he just nodded.

"Honey, could you give your new boyfriend a break and come here?" Ethel beckoned her husband over.

Bart laughed. "See you, kid." He left Dante to finish his eggs and toast. Dante liked Bart, and he liked he food at the restaurant, but he figured it would be in his best interest to move on.


Midtown New York City was many things. Some of midtown wasn't all that bad, but besides the East Village, it was the place in Manhattan where most of the borough's slavers scouted for victims.

Slavers' favorite kind of people were children, and after that they liked women. At the current moment, a small squad of six slavers really liked the looks of a pretty woman with sleek black hair that stopped just below her jaw. The woman was young and in her early twenties with an oval shaped face with hollow, high cheekbones, the left one of which had a deep scar the size of a bottle cap.

"Dee," one of the slavers addressed another. "See that broad?"

Dee nodded. He saw her. She had watery, wide, grey-green eyes and pouty lips. "Imagine my fucking pay day."

The 'broad' was on her way downtown, wearing form fitting leather pants and a dark red shirt, a utility belt, and brown hiking boots under combat armor.

"Looks like a tough bitch," Dee said

A new slaver piped up. "Sure, but we're six tough bitches. That's just one."

Dee almost cackled, but didn't want to make noise. He pulled a mesmetron out of the back of his pants. "Let's fucking go."

Four of them popped out from behind a ruined CVS and the woman immediately noticed. She drew her two .44 pistols and aimed one at Dee, and one at the next most threatening-looking man. "Boys," she acknowledged.

Dee almost lowered his weapon, feeling some sort of intimidated he did not expect to feel from a twenty-something, five and a half foot tall woman. "Uh." Dee looked at another man for advice. "Hey."

A bullet flew from the .44 in her left hand and struck down the man Dee was looking at. Dee took a step back and the mesmetron accidentally fired into one of his slaver companions. "Shit!" He fumbled to reload. "Fuck!"

The woman fired another bullet and took out another slaver. "Maybe the rest of you should go back to where you came from. Better men than you have tried worse." Dee fell to his knees, trying to reload a gun he barely knew how to use.

"Guys!" he wailed.

That was when the woman remembered. Slavers travelled in packs of six. She barely turned around before two more slavers came onto the street, too close to her for comfort. She aimed one gun at each man, but the one with full combat armor and a stun baton didn't seem to care. She shot one of the men, whose mesmetron fell to the ground with a thud, but when she tried to hit the man with the stun baton, his armor absorbed the hit.

She dropped one of her guns to try and grab his arm as it came down, but he was too strong, and they both fell to the ground.

"Dee," growled the man on top of her.

Dee, having finally reloaded his mesmetron, took aim at the woman.

Everything went dead silent for a moment, but the woman was not about to give up. There was a whirr – the unmistakable sound of an energy weapon going off, and she heard Dee scream behind her. The man on top of her looked up, and something blew him off of her. When she looked over at where his body would be, she saw only a puddle of goo.

She sat up and looked towards the source of the shots.

It was another woman with butterscotch blonde hair in a dark jacket and plaid shirt. She was holding a plasma pistol by her side, and with her other hand she gave a wave. "You looked like you were in some trouble. I'm Elizabeth Lowell."

"I had it under control." The woman pushed herself to her feet. "Katherine Jensen."

Elizabeth debated offering a hand, and was relieved when Katherine offered hers first. "You're good with those guns."

Katherine raised an eyebrow. "How long were you watching?"

Elizabeth gave an unhelpful and vague shrug. "You had it under control until Grognak the Barbarian over there came out of the jungle with a stun baton."

Katherine gave a laugh. "Fair enough."

"It's unfortunate," Elizabeth commented. "The slaver problem in this city."

"Every city has slaver problems," said Katherine. "But slavers here are dumber than boxes of nails."

"Sure," agreed Elizabeth. "You heading my way?"

"Which way is that?"

Elizabeth looked south. "Downtown."

"What's downtown for you?"

"Cocktails," Elizabeth replied.

"You're going into slaver territory for cocktails?"

Elizabeth thought about this. "Vault 113," she said after a moment. "And cocktails."

"Well, I'm always in the mood for a cocktail. I'll walk with you. Hey, Elizabeth, where are you from? You don't have a local accent."

"Boston. Sort of. Commonwealth of Massachusetts."

"Boston sort of? You want to elaborate?"

Elizabeth gave a lighthearted laugh. "It's boring," she said. "My parents were boring people, and we lived in a boring white house. I ran away… sort of. I mean, they died, so running was easy."

"Me too. I also ran away – sort of. No one quite died, though. But I don't think you're quite as boring as you let on. Where'd you learn how to use that plasma pistol? Not a lot of people know how to fix those up."

"Call it a knack?"

"Elizabeth Lowell, you're lying out of your ass."

"We're not at the stage in our relationship where I tell you about what happened to me as a kid. But I'll give you this." Elizabeth rolled up her right sleeve and turned over her arm. "This arm is not real. My original right arm got blown off when my parents died. Some of my organs aren't real either. It was a hell of a time."

"Who built you?"

"Who built me?"

"The robot half of you. Who built it?"

"I did."

"That sounds like something we could talk about over drinks. You said there were cocktails downtown?" Katherine changed the subject, although she was still curious, she figured Elizabeth would talk more once she had a whiskey or two in her system.

"I like the way you think."


Jack Devich was a quiet man. He was average height, very young, and he had black-slicked back hair, black stubble, and dark eyes. His cheeks were rounded and his lips were pouty. He was sitting on a bench, at an abandoned public private park on Sutton.

He had on a brown t-shirt and matching boots and fingerless gloves, and a dark green jacket with dark green pants.

He had just finished a bounty hunter job taking down a retired slaver who had killed a man's wife. Courtesy of that old slaver, Jack had a bottle of whiskey he was drinking from. He had taken it upon himself to loot the man's liquor cabinet. The man's house had been littered with mines, but Jack knew how to walk over them without setting them off.

He wasn't quite drunk, perhaps a little buzzed, but nothing that would dull his senses too much. He knew nobody harmful was ever on Sutton, but he wasn't willing to take chances.

He screwed the cap on the whiskey bottle and stood up when he heard a noise behind him. He aimed his shotgun at the man standing at the park's entrance. "Stop," he said.

"Hey, man, would you chill?" Quasar pointed his .44 at Jack. "I'm just a dude. Standing in front of another dude. Asking him not to shoot me with his bigass gun."

Jack raised an eyebrow. "You're covered in ghoul blood."

"Could it be I just fought some ghouls?"

Jack holstered his gun and crossed his arms over his chest. "Devich," he eventually offered.

"Have a last name?"

"Devich."

"Your name is Devich Devich?" Quasar joked.

"Jack Devich." He cracked a smile. "I never see people at these parks."

"I read somewhere they're nice to relax. Kick back. Drink alone." He gestured to Jack's half empty bottle of whiskey. "You look young."

"I'm twenty-one," Jack replied.

Quasar would have believed that he were either five years older or five years younger. "Where you headed?"

"Anywhere that pays. What did you say your name was?"

"I didn't. But, it's Quasar Jones. Do you want a drinking buddy?"

"Not especially. I don't know you. You could be a slaver for all I know."

"For all you know, I could be a ghoulified Benjamin Franklin. I'm not, though. I'm better looking. Look, Devich Devich, I'm just a guy who wants to have a drink. I'm harmless enough," he assured Jack. "Drink with me."

Jack thought for a long while. "Sit," he eventually offered.


A super mutant with moderate intelligence was a rare sight. Most people were rather prejudice against mutants despite some of them being benign. An old mutant who called himself Hamilton sat on a park bench with a man named Jonathan Law. Hamilton's skin was wrinkled, yellow, and peeling, and he had no hair on his head besides a wiry grey beard.

Jonathan was six feet, five inches tall, and possessed a good deal of muscle. He had a good deal of stubble and black hair that looked wind blown and pushed back. "Did you have a name before Hamilton?" he asked.

Hamilton said, "probably. I don't remember, though." He had the beady black eyes of a mutant, while Jonathan had almond shaped deep blue ones. "I think I was born before the war."

Jonathan on the other hand was born twenty-eight years ago. "Do mutants get along with you?"

"They don't. I'm old and they don't like how I speak. They call it 'human talk.'"

Hamilton and Jonathan had similar scars across their faces. Jonathan's ran from the right tip of his left elbow to the corner of his lip, and Hamilton's slashed across his right eye, leaving him blinded there.

"I think you're an alright guy," Jonathan offered. "What do you do in your spare time?"

"I read," said Hamilton. "You a lover or a fighter?" he asked.

"If I had to pick," Jonathan wondered. "Fighter." He tapped the sniper on his back. "Gift from a friend. The gun's called Peacekeeper."

"Where's that friend now?"

"The friend's not around anymore."

"Most of my friends aren't either," Hamilton offered his condolences. "When I was a kid, I had a toy gun I called Pop." There was silence for a little bit, but Hamilton didn't mind. He liked that Jonathan talked to him. "Can't remember my name, but I know my old toy gun was called Pop. Where you headed after this, boy?"

"I'm just trying to go around and do as much good as I can."

"I respect that," Hamilton said. "You have any friends?"

"Not really," said Jonathan. "Most people aren't quite my type." Jonathan wore desert ranger combat armor from Nevada. "Where are you from?"

"Texas. You?"

"Nevada. I was a desert ranger."

"Sounds noble," Hamilton commented.

"It was."

Hamilton stood. "Well, boy, I need to go off and feed my dogs. It was worth the talk. Always nice to talk to a friendly face," he turned and walked off.

Jonathan pulled the sniper from his back and began to methodically clean it. It was a calming task that he often found himself performing. He held no prejudice against super mutants or ghouls, and often found that they made very nice conversation.


An old protectron that usually guarded a pub downtown had recently broken. The owners were not willing to give slavers a chance to come into their store, and so they hired a young woman to fix their robot for them.

The woman was tall and lean with red hair and green eyes. She had a scar from the top of her right cheek down to her lip. Her eyebrows were thin, her face was round, and her nose had never been broken before. She was fully invested in the work in front of her, and a few steps away, the owners were speaking about her.

"She's a bit odd," a thin man commented in a whisper.

"She's doing the work, so let me tell you: I do not care," a stout man responded. "Zero percent care. You don't have to see her ever again, you know."

The woman was wearing an armored jumpsuit, and she had knives and a machete at her belt.

"She could probably kick my ass," the stout man commented.

"Probably."

The woman finished the protectron, closed the circuits, and walked up to the men. "Done," she said, extending a hand.

The stout man looked confused, and then shook it.

"No," she said. "Pay me."

"Oh, right. That's 75 caps for that." He handed her a baggie full of caps, and she dumped it in with the rest of her money on her belt.

"Bye," she said.

"Well, sure," the stout man tried to get a sense of the kind of person she was. She was pretty, but he was certain that he'd never met a weirder girl in the wasteland. She was friendly too – not the dangerous kind of weird – but something about it rubbed the stout man the wrong way.

He shrugged to himself. Wasn't his problem. Not at all.

She made it a few steps outside of the pub before she bumped into a man wearing a red bandana. "Sorry!" she announced.

"Alright," he said, moving to let her pass by. After a moment of her walking away, he shouted after her. "Ma'am," he said.

"Sir!" she said back.

He pulled his assault carbine off of his back and aimed it past her. "Spiders to your six," he told her.

She spun around and pulled a knife from her pocket. "Spider!" she agreed quickly.

A hairless tarantula the size of a bear had just turned the block. Its eyes moved from Sarah to David, and it began to crawl towards them.

David pumped four bullets into the spider, and Sarah threw one of her throwing knives into one of its eyes. The pair waited a moment before it dropped to the ground. "You have a good arm," he told the girl.

"You shoot well." She walked to the spider and pulled her knife from its eye. "Were you Brotherhood?"

David shook his head. "NCR. I don't mind the Brotherhood though."

"I was with them for a bit," Sarah said. "But they ran me out."

"Why's that?"

Sarah hesitated, but David seemed to be warm enough to be trusted. "They found out about me. I'm a synth."

David nodded. "That's unfortunate."

She nodded again. "I'm good at fixing things. But I need to find a scientist."

"Why?"

"So he can fix me."

Something about her eyes and her mouth and the way she stated her goal so earnestly drove David to offer, "Want me to help you out? I'm sure the city's got tons of men who know what they're doing."

"Do you know?"

"Do I know science? I'm afraid not. But I know the city, and I know where you could start looking."


PM me if I forgot anything crucial about your OC, or if I made an incorrect characterization. Also, leave a review if you're enjoying the story! Let me know which OCs you think your OC would get along with, or any plot points you want to be included in the story with your character.