Pale, The Almost Nihilist Mutant
Hello!
Let me start off by being upfront. Do you like cooperative art? I do. My name is Jarrett and I want you to help me collab a Fallout side plot. Often We have seen community collaborations actually catch the eye and influence the development of some media. Like games. So guys, hear me out. If your an artist and want to be inspired to make original characters please remain checking on this page. If your a creator of story, like me, please continue to indulge in your great development process and inspire the artists with your written description of unique scenes and characters! ...if your both of those together, well good for freaking you, you double-talented handsome jerk.
Let me begin this with my idea, which relates to the title you so awesomely clicked to investigate this topic.
My idea began as horde of Super Mutants stormed on me in the wastes of Fallout 4. They yelled and roared. Saying what seemed mostly incoherent babbling with a splash of obviously ignorant rhetoric. After I slayed the fiends with my trusty robo-butler by my side, I glanced over one of their hulking corpses and imagined how dangerous one of these guys would be if they were truly intelligent. And then, as character development randomly sparked, I thought a scenario up on just that!
For those of you who may be aware of intelligent Super Mutant that I may not be aware of, please refrain from casting me aside yet!
His name, as of now, is Pale.
So far as a imagine him, he would be standard size and bulk like his kin(maybe not as bulky?) but what makes him unique is that his skin is pale white, with splotches here and there of red colorations(more like stripes made of broken blood vessels that are so obvious with his white complexion). He, when you first see him, doesn't wear a lot like most of his kin. Only faded black leather strapped around his thighs then up over his waist. A thin tattered dark purple cloth hangs over his head, hiding his pale face from the world as two sides of the makeshift hood come down in front, loosely tucked into his trousers, while a large piece of the purple cloth hangs from the back of the shredded hood and is snugged in the backside of his pants. Think of his hood as like one of those jacked dudes at a gym who, for whatever practical reason, where's a hoodie with the sleeves and side of the hoodie cut out, and then a deep V cut into the neck of the hoodie to show off his(YES WE KNOW YOUR BUFF) abdomen.
Traits and personality is where it gets good! (please for the love of all make suggestions and criticisms, I want you too)
As far as I have fleshed him out in this short time, I think of him being born with higher intelligence than his peers. He still deals with great aggression but it is withheld. When you look him in his eyes you see them flickering around, examining you and the world, a sign that there is more behind him. A sense that his extremely quiet demeanor is not the sign of a hostile brute, but dare we say a thinking creature. I imagine meeting him through the perspective of a player entering a damp, half water logged mine.
You, the player, meet some men in a nearby place. They tell you of things going missing in the town. Food, materials, books. The only sign of the suspect(s), large footprints. The town is small and the people are afraid for their lives at what this could be. So as it would happened they offer you a meager sum to investigate the old mine near their town. Being the semi to full paragon and adventurous man/woman that you are, you refuse the payment from these poor folk and take the case(for those of you who scoff as you read this, saying no way you'd do it for free, you should be a ashamed you renegade scum!) Entering the mine, you noticed there are no enemies on the first level, but as you enter deeper you run into several booby traps along the way. Easy for you to disarm your way through(because you are an adventurer darnit!) you notice the place is getting very cramped and partially filled with water. Slogging through, you come to a dead end where the only way to proceed is into a not so comforting water hole. Diving in, you are relieved to see its only a short dip until you spot the what seems the surface on the other side. But once you come up and out of the other side you see nothing but cage bars to greet you. Naturally you are confused and curious and walk forward. Then SLAM! The racket of cage bars shut behind you. At this point you look around panicked to figure out what happening and see that you have been captured. Before you can react to pull out your weapon as your first instinct, instead your camera is guided to a looming figure in front of you, his side barely lit by a candlelight on a table to the left. He is obviously a mutant but you will watch as he quietly approaches you and with his glowing eyes looks over you. Then the dialogue begins.
He will not speak but you are given the option to!
Do you say
"Let me out, you monster!"
"Mutants? Greaaaat..."
"I shouldn't have come in here."
or
"How fast can I pick this lock before you try to eat me?"
He will then respond quietly. His voice gravely but still noticeably softer than his brutish fellows. He says he knows who you are. Knows what you've done. He watched you from afar.
"With this, I watched." he says as he points to a large makeshift binocular that hangs from his neck.
You notice he speaks very well for a mutant, still often he pauses between some words and grunts quite a few times, but soft grunts at that. As you continue the banter as you would imagine it, you will get the feeling that this confrontation wont end with violence as he walks away from you towards the candlelit desk huddled under a roof of collapsed rock. You then begin to ask him who he is or either what he wants while you watch him sit in his chair and dump a book and some comics onto the table from a small backpack he straps around the back of his waist. Astonished as I'm sure you'd be, you continue the conversation as you watch him gently flick the tiny pages in the book he carefully holds in his hand. After you finish your dialogue, he reads a page from his book. Its an excerpt from one of the Nihilist philosopher Nietzsche's works.
"Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man." he quotes.
Immediately he stands up and walks towards you. He stares at you a moment then bows his head, looking back and forth from the ground to you, as if embarrassed or shy.
"Is it true?" he whispers.
"What?" you probably will say.
"Is it true, that hope is evil? That the world, doesn't matter?" he asks.
Now at this point because your probably interested in him you can totally say "I don't know." or "No, hope is real. Its not an evil. Its a good" but im sure some will be like "dude ya totally, might as let me go and off yourself cause nothing matters." Whose the real monster here???
If you chose neutral or positive response he will then come closer to the cage.
"Will you show me? If I let you go? Will you let me come with you? I want to...learn. I want to know, for myself, if we can even do that." he says.
You can say "Ill show you." or "Figure it out yourself! Be an Ubermensch, you sod!" or "We can try and learn together.
He lets you out and tells you his name. "Pale."
As you travel together you notice he is mostly quiet, occasionally quoting different philosophers with varying opinions. Like in his own way of trying to make up his mind about life. He'll somewhat happily chuckle and quote a philosopher's positive view for life, then grunting and huffing like almost to cry he would say "no. no. because..." and then continue to quote a negative philosophical view on life. I can imagine for funny moments he would hum a song softly but poorly or mimic something brutish his kinsmen say often in the lore in a bittersweet joking manner. His character as I see it is one of seeking answers in others. When you first meet, he only seems to quote things as though he seeks thoughts in them and not thoughts of his own. He is frustrated, undecided, vulnerable, and this all leads to how he taps in partially to his brutal nature at times during combat. I really like the idea that as your friendship continues he asks you the player hard questions. Like "Why do I exist? Why does anything? Am I a person? Do I matter?" and as your friendship meter builds your conversations can go 4 roads as I see it.
1. You remain neutral in your philosophical opinions and encourage him to make his own, where that would lead him? Who knows.
2. You encourage him to see the positive light of the world in which will cause him to become a little more charismatic(maybe even spiritual?) and his quotes will reflect that in lines that pertain to your friendship or beauty. his dialogue through the game becomes more talkative and friendly to allies.
3. You encourage him to see that life has no meaning, if any, only what you make it. He probably will take that in a negative sense and become more depressed, quieter, darker, but as a by-product he will lose self identity and become more of just an extension of you since you give him some purpose. his dialogue regresses to nothing but grunts, "it doesn't matter.", or nothing at all.
4. You, with high charisma needed, convince him that all this "thinking" isn't natural for his kind and that's why he's so confused. You basically convince him to give into aggression and the effect of this after awhile makes him only roar or say short words. His dialogue through the game is more agitated and straight forward.
I hope those of you who read this enjoyed the sad but fascinating idea of this character! If you have any ideas for his backstory! Why he's different, how he learned to read, why he is all alone, who he knows, and what his sub-plot would be, please let your minds go and enjoy story telling as mine has writing this!
If you are an artist please feel free to draw Pale in various forms that please your wonderful minds. As long as my depictions inspires my fellows to create an image of a living creature then I have done my job!
For all those who enjoyed this and those who love to create story, I salute you!
-Jarrett