Deathblow will constitute my second companion mod after my previous project Tags - A Powder Ganger Companion last year, who can be found on the Nexus.
The story centers around a former gladiator from Caesar's Legion's lands who can be purchased by the player and send them on an adventure for vengeance and redemption. The star will be the eponymous Deathblow, a mutant Ghoul who will have hundreds of lines of dialogue as the player gradually chips away at his subservient facade.
This is The Big Update! Writing for the project has officially entered the finalization stage and ALL roles found within the mod are up on the Project Profile for you to peruse.
Come check out a varied list of roles from a crotchety ghoul mechanic to a frighteningly well-connected agent of the NCR Military! There's plenty of male and female NPCs to choose from!
Hey everyone! Love the interest in Deathblow and this project! I have finalized the mod outline and have all the characters planned and sketched out at the moment, so there is more to come that I will keep you all posted on.
In the meantime, please look at the additional roles that I have completed writing on and have posted. They include a Ghoul Ranger, a homeless veteran, and a crotchety mechanic.
Deathblow is a ghoul who has been enslaved during Caesar’s conquest of New Mexico, where he lived in a ghoul-supremacist community who were powerful but cruel, and the many of the surrounding residents of the desert welcomed the arrival of Caesar as it signalled an end to their hegemony. The Legion’s conflict with Resurrection has been long and arduous, in the process captives have been taken by both sides and among them was a ghoul known as Arthur.
Arthur was eventually sold to fight in the gladiatorial pits of Flagstaff where he was given a new name and, after several years, sold once more to an enterprising prospector out of Utah named Lindley A. Whitlock. Lindley, a gambling addict, has made a pilgrimage to the New Vegas Strip with his slave-bodyguard in tow and lost all his money, he’s hoping to make it home and is willing to wager Deathblow himself on a game of caravan with the player.
I don’t have anything to say to you, talk to Mr. Whitlock.
{Defeated Sigh} Dammit- {Catches Self, Frightened, Embarrassed} I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I didn't mean to swear. I’m telling the truth, I was a clerk. I balanced ledgers.
The stuff that I’ve seen, what I’ve done, what I’ve helped others do. If there was a god I would have been put up on a cross somewhere. But here I am.
The child of Mormons in Utah, Lindley never took to the religious communes of his youth well and left as soon as he could to travel the wastes. He quickly took to prospecting quite well and had soon grew wealthy from it after taking on several risky, but lucrative, claims. He would trade and spend time in Legion-controlled Arizona periodically, which he enjoyed for it’s commerce and ease-of-travel, where he picked up a ghoul slave who became his bodyguard and traveling companion. He can be found presently on The Strip where he has fallen under hard times due to a gambling addiction that has drained his wallet considerably.
Oh why he’s my bodyguard, of sorts. Fella by the name of Deathblow. Not very talkative, I’m afraid. He’s quite the specimen, though. Isn’t he?
I saw him at a gladiator (pronounced slowly as glad-ee-ate-ore) show in Flagstaff, hell of a performance Deathblow here put on. I thought to myself “I need that ghoul in my toolbox.”
So I went and bought him! Took some haggling but once the money changed hands it was easy as pie. Best purchase I ever made.
A ghoul ranger veteran who has served in several wars and campaigns on behalf of the New California Republic. He eventually fell afoul of NCR military administration for political reasons and was pulled from more prestigious assignments and sent to man stationary locations in the Mojave. He can currently be found at Ranger Station Echo where he helps keep an eye on Legion troop movements in Cottonwood Cove.
You heard me. I’m not your guy, if you are coming out here then you are doing so because you want to talk to Erasmus. Maybe Greene. Not me.
(In response to a question about a secret he knows) Now why on earth do you think I would know anything about that?
You better not be taking me for a ride here. I was sworn to secrecy on this. But I have a story about something like that, sure.
A petty ghoul criminal who was ordered to join the NCR military by an old-fashioned judge as part of his sentence, Crash quickly took to military life and re-enlisted when his sentence was over. He served in the NCR’s general armed forces through several wars, only to get discharged due to cognitive decline. He can be found at the crossroads between Aerotech, Camp McCarran, and the Sharecropper Farms where he largely survives on the charity of caravanners and NCR soldiers.
Spare change, sir?
Best feeling in the world! I’m NCR til’ I die, I’d join back up if they let me. We fought for freedom, kept the wastes free of savages. Good times.
Also if the docs that discharged me from the army are right, if I am on the path to going feral. Well, I want an NCR man or woman to put me down.
An ancient ghoul mechanic who services the equally ancient fleet of pre-war trucks and mechanical equipment at Camp McCarran. He joined the NCR Army’s 1st Mechanized Battalion during the NCR-Brotherhood war and hasn’t looked back. He’s grumpy and poorly suited for social interaction, but will respect those who he can speak to about machinery.
Where the fuck is that welding- What the hell do you want? Leave me alone.
I do my best. That’s what. See these miserable excuses for equipment? These are my girls. And the goddamn Republic lets these roads chew ‘em up.
These farmhands they send me can’t drive anything that doesn’t have hooves, they act like the suspension springs for these things grow on trees.
A researcher with the Followers Of The Apocalypse who specializes in mutant health and physiology. She gave up a prominent professorship in The Angel’s Boneyard to volunteer in the Mojave Wasteland, where she can be found at the Old Mormon Fort. She is kind and a good listener despite an overworked schedule, but could be mistaken as callous due to her academic tone and use of words.
I’m sorry, I’m afraid I can only treat mutant patients. If you’re in need of medical attention might I direct you towards my colleague, Julie?
Doctor Alicia Lopez, it’s a pleasure. I have volunteered my skills to assist my colleagues in The Followers of The Apocalypse here in the Mojave.
Wait. Listen, I know we just met and all. But I was curious if you could do me a favor. You seem well traveled and I need someone checked up on.
A pencil-pusher in the NCR military bureaucracy who enjoys reading comics on the job and has become an expert on doing just enough to avoid arousing suspicion. He can be found at his office in the personnel records room at Camp McCarran, where he spends as much time doing as little as possible.
{Bored} Yeah just put it right- {Normal} wait, you aren’t NCR. I technically shouldn’t let you be here, you know. You lost?
Hm. Specialist Alfred Lange. No battalion listed. Those files get kept in the locked cabinet behind me. Here’s the key. I expect this back, by the way.
Ah that’s why it got misplaced. He’s 3rd Recon. His unit got rotated out of the Mojave, they are supposed to be on homefront duty back West now.
A high-ranking NCR Military official attached to its top-secret nuclear program, James Willems is presently working in the Mojave where he monitors the program’s intelligence assets. He is secretive, confident, and a die-hard supporter of the NCR’s expansionist goals. He also is currently involved in a campaign to purge the program of potential defectors, a wave of assassinations that The Courier has stumbled on.
My name is James Willems. I work for the New California Republic. I hope that is comforting to hear, there’s no need for pomp and secrecy anymore.
There will be answers to your questions but I want to start things off by saying that I don’t see any reason why you and I can’t be friends.
You haven’t really made a name for yourself with the NCR yet, have you? I would be able to help with that significantly.
The personal army of the New California Republic’s deep state, who distrust the NCR Rangers, NCR 3rd Recon is operating covertly in the Mojave as an assassination team hunting defectors from a top secret military program. When not in the field they can be found at their supervisor’s hideout in Aerotech Office Park.
Hold up! Let me see those hands! This is a restricted area, civilian. You better have a good explanation for being here.
You getting smart with me, civvie? Wrong answer. If you aren’t here with something we can use then get lost.
Alright we should be good. Behave yourself. Willems is two doors to the right, keep that mutie on a leash.
A former fusion engineer who felt as though the “freedom” offered to her after leaving her mutant-supremacist home for the NCR had turned into captivity as she was expected to live and work in secrecy on the nation’s nuclear research programs. She has escaped and began working odd jobs as a scavenger, and fled to the highly radioactive Vault 34 where she hides from assassins.
Vault-Tec Vault 34. A pre-war sanctuary from nuclear weapons. This one has obviously seen better days. I hope you brought Rad-X.
Making a living, what’s it look like I’m doing here? These places are packed with salvage, and most prospectors steer clear of this one.
You know the drill, smoothie. No sudden movements.
An intelligent super mutant who fled east following the events of Fallout 1 and climbed through the ranks of the mutant-supremacist military at The Reservation. He presided over much of their weapons programs before defecting in a secret deal with the NCR. He currently lives in Jacobstown where he presides over a small collection of books that he retreats into in order to forget about his past.
{Suspicious} You again. Hm.
I read, mainly. I’ve assembled my own little library here and it keeps me occupied. I never liked the cold.
I served in The Masters Army, after that I fled, served other masters, then fled again. Here at Jacobstown I don’t have to flee anymore.
A quick tempered centurion for Caesar’s Legion who can be found at The Fort, where he waits on transportation for his men to Dry Wells where he will join forces with Gaius Magnus. He also owns Mason, a ghoul slave captured during a slave raid in Nelson, who he plans on sacrificing to Mars.
I smell the scent of profligacy on you.
I am Xanthus. Centurion. A servant of the mighty Caesar and a living act of worship to Mars.
A profligate disciple of Mars? I don’t believe it. Perhaps if you proved your worth in battle… {Thinking}
A ghoul from the Reservation who was filled with resentment after her colleagues escaped and left her behind, Clarice spent years attempting to formulate her own plot to flee the totalitarian mutant-supremacist city state before eventually manipulating Deathblow (then named Arthur) to do exactly that. She now hides in the sewers as her only friends in the Mojave are hunted down by the player one by one.
Awfully nosy aren’t we? Who’s your friend, Arthur?
You smoothies name yourselves the weirdest shit after the war, I swear. That still doesn’t answer the question of what you’re doing here.
Everyone who actually knows me either wants me dead or is dead, thanks to you. Your “friend” was a pawn in my game, nothing more.
