Van

On the outset, Van seems a cheerful and bombastic man with unflappable confidence in himself. However, in time, one would find his brain injury has left him wild and unstable. He’s unpredictable and prone to wild mood swings and fits of violence. He’s impulsive but is surprisingly cunning and wily with a silver tongue that allows him to trick others. He’s more clever than he looks and is not above manipulating others to get what he wants. He often speaks in sarcasm and snark, coming off as more hostile than he really is.

If you do count yourself as one of his friends, you’ll find a loyal and determined ally that will do anything for you. If you are unlucky enough to be deemed an “asset” to him, you’ll find him helpful up until he turns the tables on you with no lack of glee. His enemies find him manic and downright terrifying, resorting to violence with no lack of excitement. Despite all this, he has a fondness for the underdog and the downtrodden, willing to go to bat for them and this being his primary motivation. He’s accepting of people from all walks of life, even the likes of super mutants and robots. While he is an uncannily sociable person, he doesn’t mind being alone and even sometimes craves it. He doesn’t tend to show sensitive emotions, often trying to work through them himself before he turns to others.

Van fancies himself an all-purposes gunslinger, being skilled in both guns and energy weapons, though he prefers good ol’ traditional guns. He’s good at sneaking about and getting into places he’s not wanted. He’s good with his words and able to get what he wants most of the time with nothing but his words. He’s no stranger to manipulation, using it to get what he wants and achieve his ends. As a courier, he’s agile and able to move fast over all terrain. He also is knowledgeable in surviving in the wastes, as he’s spent long stretches of time there.

His arsenal consists of an anti-materiel rifle he’s dubbed “Clarabelle”, Medicine Stick, a modified Ranger Sequoia, and a switchblade.

Van is an average height (5’8”) and lean man with somewhat tan skin. He has white hair styled in a side mohawk/mullet fusion with the sides of his head shaved. Reaching around the right side of his head is an incision scar. He has scraggly white hair on his chin and unusually long eyelashes. His eyes are teal. He has a surgery scar on his chest and a surgery scar running down the length of his spine.

Van’s favored wear consists of a tattered brown duster with a painted black spade on the back over a black button-up shirt, dark brown pants, black leather boots, a dark teal bandana and grey-brown bandages around his wrists. He wears gold hoops in his ears. Occasionally, he wears a wide-brimmed dark brown hat with a dark teal band. When he’s out in the wasteland, he wears his Pip Boy on his right wrist.

A lot of Van’s history has been lost on him, as he suffered from near total amnesia after being shot in the head. What he does know is he’s a well-traveled courier who spent a lot of time in the west and is notorious for taking the jobs no one else would, including making the Divide run multiple times (and accidentally causing its destruction in the form of making a delivery of a detonator there).

Upon waking up in Goodsprings after being robbed, shot and left for dead, Van’s only thought was revenge and once cleared for travel, set out to do just that. His travels to New Vegas left him with little love for both the NCR and Legion. Once at the Strip and having met with Mr. House, he found he didn’t like the man either. After enacting his revenge on Benny, retrieving the Platinum Chip and meeting Yes Man did Van find his motivation: use Yes Man’s assistance to assume control of the region and turn it over to the various communities wherein.

With his plans set up and plenty of detours along the way, Van was able to play his hand at the Second Battle of Hoover Dam, utterly crushing the Legion and ousting the NCR from a newly independent Mojave.

“Clarabelle” – Anti-materiel rifle (GRA) Medicine Stick – Brush gun “The Ranger” – Ranger Sequoia Switchblade.

A lot of Van’s history has been lost on him, as he suffered from near total amnesia after being shot in the head. What he does know is he’s a well-traveled courier who spent a lot of time in the west and is notorious for taking the jobs no one else would, including making the Divide run multiple times (and accidentally causing its destruction in the form of making a delivery of a detonator there).

What he doesn’t know is he came from a large family in the NCR who had a large farm. As the eldest child, he had a lot of responsibility—that is until he left one night without telling anyone. To this day, no one knows why, even his family.

After Van’s incident, he awoke in Goodsprings—angry with only the memory of the man in the checkered coat to spur him on. He left after helping the people of the town fend off a group of raiders. His travels sent him through Primm, where he was soured to the NCR by their desire to take control of the town, and Nipton, where the horrors caused by the Legion traumatized him. In Freeside, he spent much time helping around initially to gain money to enter the Strip then to genuinely help out.

In Vegas, he immediately went to Mr. House to talk over his job and disliked him, first from his small payment then to his blasé treatment of the Freesiders. He pushed this aside to fulfill his long-held vengence, viciously tricking and murdering Benny. What he did not expect to find was Yes Man who became the answer to his reservations with who got the Chip….

After putting down Mr. House and starting his plans with Yes Man, Van quick found himself overwhelmed by the enormity of his plans. Stressed, he impulsively took a job going into Zion, hoping the familiarity and distance might calm him. But what he got was his group killed and himself stranded in Zion. After meeting Joshua Graham, he decides to do what he must to return home: help the tribes of Zion oust the White Legs. However, he found himself disturbed by the sheer violence of doing this but also Graham himself. He ends up leaving Zion rattled and realizing he sees a little too much of his own angry vengeance in Graham.

In his travels in the Mojave, Van’s PIP Boy picked up an odd signal that bid the listener to the Sierra Madre. Impulsively curious, he followed it and was kidnapped and brought to the Sierra Madre. There he was roped into helping Father Elijah under threat of death. He was able to ally himself with the other three prisoners but the experience still was extremely taxing on both his physical and mental health. By the end, instead of killing Elijah outright, he tricked him into the vault out of spite and a desire to see him suffer. He begged his new friends to come back with him but they all had their own desires so Van had to make the long journey home alone.

The experience of the Sierra Madre did not dissuade Van from following another strange radio signal, this time at a drive-in. He ended up having his brain, heart and spine taken out by the Think Tanks and ended up having to play along with them to get his brain back. Despite his varied (mostly negative) feelings towards them, he still felt they might be able to help him and thus, helped them. Encountering Mobius, he found not the genius mastermind he imagined but a sad old man. In the end, he got his brain back and killed no one, a departure from his previous adventures.

The finale of Van’s machinations were coming to their conclusion when Van got another radio signal message but this time addressed to him specifically, bidding him to come to a set of coordinates. Curious, he slipped out in the night to follow it. What he found was the Divide and a mysterious man named Ulysses who claimed to know him before his incident. Growing more and more curious and angry, he was unknowingly baited deeper in until he was face to face with Ulysses, having to try to talk him down in a panic. Somehow, the pair came to an understanding and Van was able to disable the nuke, unable to bear the blood of thousands of people on his hands.

The Second Battle of Hoover Dam came soon after and Van was able to finally and decisively put his plan into motion, ousting both the NCR and Legion from the Mojave and focusing on those that mattered: the people of the Mojave. Nowadays, Van enjoys a calmer but still somewhat busy life, helping the various groups of the area.