Setting of “Roads Untraveled”, a fan-made story set in the world of Fallout, New Vegas specifically (~10 years after the battle of Hoover Dam). It’s a postapocalyptic setting with new factions ruling what is left of the world, filled with radioactive wastelands, dangerous monsters and even worse people, with a few glimpses of hope and progress. Located south around the Salton Sea and Mexicali, at the American/Mexican border. Everyone is fighting for scraps, but it looks like some places have moved past the “apocalyptic” state of their world and new societies are being developed despite what’s around them.

Both NCR and Ceasar’s Legion are still butting heads, still fighting for their right to rule the land, but the location is more removed from the events of New Vegas. NCR has just started making their presence in the area with local gangs and other existing societies having more to say. The story follows two protagonists showing troubled viewpoints from both sides, while exploring their own insecurities and challenges (of which there are many).

(the story itself is on hold, written by monerelluvia and Adalbertus)

Born in Southern California, currently affiliated with the NCR where she first worked as a medic and later transferred to reconnaissance. She’s currently leading a small team of soliders, including Amberly Dale, and is predominantly tasked with gathering intel on local communities to investigate whether NCR’s position can grow in the area. A keen eye and a swift hand with sticky fingers, skilled in small guns as well as long-distance shooting and lockpicking.

She’s confident, motivated, and follows the rules of survival first. Sometimes naive and blinded by sentiment or false judgement, keeps to herself and sees no harm in occassional dishonesty as long as it keeps her safe. Generally kind and means well.

Happens to be mistaken for a raider due to her blue hair (people in the wasteland usually don’t dye their hair flashy colours, raiders are well known for it and the dye is usually car paint or something). They fade to white/grey over time, she makes her own dye from nigella or chia flowers and whatever else she can find.

Ruth isn’t good with animals, is afraid of wild dogs and is claustrophobic. Confused by technology she doesn’t know. Good with people who don’t pry into her life, a better leader than follower.

She’s very self-conscious about her body and past. Conflicted, tried her best to repent for the past she doesn’t like to discuss with anyone.

[Please be aware that this section will contain spoilers to the F:RU story]

Ruth’s original settlement was located East of what’s mentioned in the bio. Her family were one of the last remaining Enclave remnants who escaped the turmoil happening around Vegas and found peace near the border. This settlement was eventually discovered by a Legion recon team and destroyed, but some of the people managed to escape into the mountains. They knew there was an old Enclave bunker hidden underground, but they didn’t know of the hideout’s state. Thankfuly, nearby radiation fields and remoteness of the place left the bunker untouched and unopened. Ruth and her family establish themselves there and despite their fear of other wastelanders eventually set up a trading route with nearby locals, trading with her uncle’s medicine produced at a lab available in the bunker.

At age 11, Ruth is one of the people her uncle is testing his anti-radiation drugs on, which is what caused her to develop vitiligo patches on her skin and her hair to turn white-ish. David (uncle) reasons that the testing is to save all of them, to create a drug strong and reliable enough to help humanity withstand the lingering effects of the wasteland, even if it comes at a cost. This side effect that developed over time causes Ruth to wish to hide them and in the future dye her hair anything other than this.

At age 12-ish, a powerful raider gang finds the settlement and destroys half the population, taking over the bunker and staying. The Delassandis family manages to survive and establish themselves as the people responsible for the bunker to function and to produce meds for their captors, if it keeps them alive. This occupation lasts for 3 years. David is working on different drugs in secret, beign able to get more and more dangerous ingredients from raider trading. He not only gets them addicted to his mix, but also begins to develop a type of variant that messes with their minds enough for him to be able to somehwhat control them. Some of this testing is still going through Ruth, who is mostly kept in the lab “for safety” and all this is kept from her parents. The drugs make her memory very spotty, she constantly has lapses and David uses it to experiment with mind control as based on memory erasure and confusion.

At age 15, due to some alliances forming and opportunities opening up, Ruth is able to escape David’s testing long enough to retain consistent memory and with the help of one raider and a few slaves they manage to sneak into a nearby radiation field where a number of ghouls roam the area and lure them into the camp as a means of distraction to grab their things and run. Ruth, thanks to her hightened resistance to radiation, is the only one able to go into the field. She finds a way to attract the ghouls, but doesn’t realize how many of them are. The monsters emerge from nearby buildings and swarm the settlement causing utter chaos.

The settlement becomes abandoned again. David and his brother (Ruth’s father) are taken by the remaining raiders, while Ruth faces the wasteland alone, her mother passing shortly after the incident. She barely survives the next two years, fighting with withdrawal at first, memory issues and general surviving in the wild. She has interactions with some communities, but doesn’t settle anywhere for long, learning a lot of life the hard way. She doesn’t want to appear sickly and suspects her appearance to be the cause of medication, so she starts to dye her hair blue, even if it made her look like a raider from afar, at least it’d be more intimidating.

She eventually finds the newly established NCR base she used to hear about from the locals, and chooses to join them at the age of 18. She’s initially taken in as a medic with her knowledge in chems and sewing, and spends her time at the clinic, working shifts with Amelie and learning from Clarence. Ruth also goes through soldier’s training as she’s soon sent out to be a field medic on various expeditions. She gets close with one soldier in a recon team and is inspired to join them as soon as the higher-ups deem her ready.

At 21, she goes through all the required stages and is promoted to Specialist, gaining herself a spot to lead a newly formed recon team assigned to infiltrate the local communities in the name of NCR, but not openly under their banner. This, and to find the last recon team to leave the base, as they haven’t returned long enough to be worried.

This is where Roads Untraveled begins.

[Personality]

Very confident in her skills, she knows her chems and her guns very well. Diligent in regards to her new role, wishing to prove herself to both her superiors and her own conscience. She’s a good leader, keeping track of her people’s strengths and is ready to throw herself into danger to save them. There is a lot she wants to redeem herself from and change what she used to be, which is what drives her forward. If joining the NCR also means gaining the skills and intel to maybe be able to find her family, she’s willing to spread their message and do their bidding.

Ruth can be rather quiet and closed off with most people, prefering not to talk about herself and focus on the task at hand instead, but still tries her best to be kind. Being the doctor for a while she’s grown to like claiming she knows what’s best for the other person, which isn’t always welcome, but mostly happens to be on point. Even though she has her own team, she’d not that great with people outside of her circle as she very often has to buy them in to like her, a barrier which is somewhat removed once you’re all here for some kind of cause.

On one hand she doesn’t need much persuasion to pull the trigger if she feels threatened, but not always to kill, and has been learning to try and resolve situations more dyplomatically, what should come with her current position.

Ruth often writes in a notebook everything that’s happening and as a way to vent her thoughts as she doesn’t trust a lot of people share them with, even if she has friends at the camp. This is partly to help her mind be put at ease, and help her remember everything, even though her memory has been quite consistent ever since leaving her home, she’s still aware that some elements just aren’t there even though she may not remember what caused them to disappear and how much is actually missing. She hates to talk aout her past, even the good parts, which drives Amberly insane the first few days they get to know each other.

[Design notes]

Always wears some self-made patched-up clothing, a bunch of bandages to seal them from the wind and sand, and a cowl with a hood to hide her hair and face from the sun and other people. This can also be replaces with a poncho or some loser clothing in general.

She’s naturally paler than most people in the wasteland, despite the heat her skin only burns red and rarely tans, especially the vitiligo patches. She has a scar on her cheek and her ear that came from a bullet, and a set of bite marks on her left shoulder from a wild dog attack in the past. Her usual expression is a slight frown if she’s not talking to anyone. Her nose is slightly upturned and sharp. Her face is thin and also kinda sharp-edged.

She should always be carrying her bag with medicaments, water and her journals, and her knives and/or sniper rifle for weaponry.

[Other notes]

Ruth loves to collect the comics about super heroes that can be found in the Fallout universe. Her favourite is Grognak the Barbarian. 

The original blue dye cam from the mushrooms growing in the bunker where she used to live, something her family used for clothing and food coloring as well which is why she likes the color.

There are a lot of thing she’s done before her time at the army, and one of those things was performing at a club in a mid-way tavern from one city to another, where she learned how to pole dance and got to experiment with old world striking fashion.