#btw Boone would lose his fucking mind

[viperra1]

I got questions I got questions about vulture a lotta questions! 3, 4, 6, 7, 18, 25, 37, 39

i took so long to answer oh my god sorry!!!!! here it is!!

3. What is their SPECIAL?

Answered here!! <3

4. What perks or tagged skills do they have?

Tagged skills: Speech, Survival

Perks: Terrifying Presence, Animal Friend and Sniper

6. Were they born pre-war or post-war?

Vulture was born post-war, and is close to Boone's and Veronica's age!

Though, there's no trace of his date of birth in his diary and his memory never returns to him, so he doesn't know how old he is. He only knows that he wasn't a ghoul before the Divide, and he knows his approximate age thanks to Ulysses' observation of his pre-Divide self.

7. Do they wish they lived before the war / could go back to life before the war?

Oh yesss, for sure.

It intrigues him, and he would certainly bug Raul and every other pre-war ghoul about that era.

Still, I doubt that Vulture would love the real life before the war (not the one that's just his impression of it), or that he would wish for it for more that few seconds of lazy daydreaming.

Even in those few seconds that he would wish to live before the war, he would probably think about it more like: "Man, I wish I lived before the war, it would've been so cool to not be ghoulified. Right?"

18. Do they have any disabilities, mutations, or implants / enhancements? Do they have any chronic illnesses?

*prepares a list*

So.

He's a ghoul and a Marked One. His skin was literally torn off from his body by radioactive winds. His flesh is slowly decaying and degrading. His left side suffered so much damage during the atom blast that his left eye is about to pop out of it's socket because his eyelids are literally too weak and rotten to hold it.

Y-yeahhhhh...... Even though he probably restored an extremely thin layer of his skin somewhere along New Vegas storyline, his eye will need to be removed. And he's probably suffering from chronic tendonitis or something along the likes of it because of the degrading flesh from ghoulification.

And yes, he has implants in his spine (Old World Blues) and the implants on intelligence, endurance, perception and strength from Dr. Usanagi.

The perception implant, I believe, would be a direct eye and an eyelid implants to replace Vulture's bad eye.

25. Are they quick to trust others?

I'd say yes, but probably not.

Let me elaborate!

Vulture is quick to make you think he trusts you - he's gonna show you his vulnerable side, he's gonna go belly up for you in terms of the rules of the survival in the Mojave.

He's gonna trust a complete stranger with his things and his food and his life, but oh! What's that? Show you his skin without the disguise? Nope. Even Boone saw his truly vulnerable parts just by accident, and even then Vulture took his time to open up to him enough to show it on his own much, much later.

He trusts his fears and insecurities only to his companions and close friends (which are few), but yeah, he doesn't give off the impression of a closed up person. He's quick to open, just not in the way that truly matters lol :D

If it's important, then he's gonna think for a loooooong time before trusting someone.

37. What is the worst injury they have experienced?

If we are not counting The Incidents that were the Divide and the Benny Disaster (and we're not), Vulture was gravelly injured only once.

Sure, he's constantly nursing broken bones and concussions, but it wasn't ever that serious as this.

I won't spoil when exactly it happened, but a Legionary almost gutted Vulture, stabbing him in the torso multiple times with a poisoned blade. That was NOT a fun experience, Vulture almost died, and would have, if not for Boone's quick thinking with stimpacks and healing poiltice AND radiation treatment from a nearby medic.

Vulture hates being healed by radiation because of the rumour that it might turn even sentient ghouls feral, but he certainly would have died from that injury if he were a baseline human (even with the other treatments that he received, only his ghoulish healing factor saved his life).

And the crowd goes... yay?

39. What is their favorite song?

Something's Gotta Give!!!

It's a song that reminds Vulture of his and Boone's relationships, so he listens to it religiously every time it comes up. Tbh, he was in love with that song even before he met Boone.

"That Domino guy is such a prick. How the fuck he managed to create a song as good as this one???", Vulture would say about that song. He has huge beef with Dean after Sierra Madre, but well oh well, a good song never dies in Vulture's loyal heart.

Btw, I made an animatic with this song :) It was just such a good fit for them that in the end I couldn't resist lol

[warsofasoiaf]

On the mercenary issue: In a Renaissance-ish series, there's a plotline about a city under siege. The besiegers take out massive fraudulent loans to bribe defending companies, said to be necessary because a company that betrayed a gate would never get work again. Later, captains are trying renegotiate for extra death benefits, the ruler says Fuck no, we have a contract and advisors say that was a bad move. Later one merc captain personally stops the bribed companies from opening a gate.

Mercenary ask2: After helping the gate hold long enough to win the siege, the captain asks for a bonus and is told "nope, that's what you were paid to do, you're not getting extra for refraining from betrayal." Are those kinds of events realistic? Was the ruler just not being a pushover or imprudently taking too hard a 'letter of the law' line, WRT usual dealings with mercs? BTW, when debating hiring the mercs, the ruler's advisors all but quote Machiavelli, so clearly they're based on history.

Well, a little contextual reminder, Machiavelli's view on mercenaries is influenced significantly by his own life. Born in a tumultuous Italy, Machiavelli observed a lot of government toppling and condotierri switching sides, so he was inclined to look upon mercenaries incredibly poorly. Much like I always say to keep GRRM’s views on war in mind when parsing through his novels, all authors are products of their own time and life experiences and understanding it helps piece together characters, settings, etc.

Mercenaries often did try to demand or wrangle extra payment from their employers. Sticking directly to a contract is one tactic that a contract holder can use to justify not paying a bonus. As you might imagine, a lot of the resolution of this would be based on power politics and the relative strength of each of the parties in the contract. In political wrangling, cash bonuses and gifts were the carrot to induce desired mercenary behavior, while those who failed might lose their command, their wages, even their lives, which was the stick. So in your example, while the principal probably was not obligated to pay out a bonus to the captain who saved the city, it might have been wise for him to grant an unofficial boon of payment for the fulfillment of their duty and saving the city, especially if the principal wanted to hire the same free company again.

Typically, those who contracted a free company were explicitly limited solely to wages paid; they were not liable for benefits to be paid out to widows and children. Hence there was often a conflict in strategic planning. Employers wanted a swift, decisive victory to minimize the amount of time the free company spent under contract, and didn’t overly care about the casualties that the mercenaries might suffer. The free company wanted to reduce risk and extend campaign time as to increase their wages and continue to command a large number of mercenaries, as a large company was likely to be more famous and more capable, which meant a higher chance of steady work, along with the standard "not wanting to die" motive.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King