Richter "Bricks" Tonov

[Demented]

Richter "Bricks" Tonov

WIP

Description: Nobody is sure what caused Richter's mutations.  Richter himself thinks his mother caught the Infection virus while pregnant with him, and then then somehow it affected her and him very differently from normal, but it's a theory based on nothing.   Whatever it was, the result is eye-catching.  Richter is a mountain of a man, just under 8' tall, and heavily muscled.  His size can get awkward inside the confines of the tank, and he prefers to ride unbuttoned whenever the vehicle is not in combat.   The next thing people notice is his skin, a very unhealthy looking ashen pallor that belies incredible durability.  Richter has been shot by heavy weapons in the past, and it hasn't put him down.  Yet, at least.   His hide carries an interesting array of scars and tattoos left over from his raider days.  He wears long sleeves when in settlements to cover them up, in an effort to avoid his past catching up to him.

Richter, early in his raider days

Another fashion accessory is his shield, hanging on his left upper arm.  Originally a piece of armor from the tank, it was damaged in combat in replaced.  Richter was able to salvage a section and apply carrying straps to it, creating a movable piece of bullet-proof cover that has proved incredibly helpful in both firefights and close combat.

 

Richter often smells of either forge soot or engine oil, depending on what his most recent project has been.

 

Personality:

Penitent.  Richter is trying to make up for the sins he committed as a raider any way he can.  This doesn't mean he's sworn off violence, rather he's putting his varied and ruthless fighting skills to use on the behalf of those who don't have them.  When the tank arrives in a settlement, Richter always looks for some sort of charity work to do, provided the locals aren't too hostile.  Locales with a high degree of anti-mutant sentiment can solve their own problems.

 

As someone who used to have to regularly fight in order to eat, Richter takes weapons very seriously.  He spends a lot of time cleaning, maintaining, and even tinkering with weapons to find something to give him the extra edge.  He's expanded this to cover the tank itself since joining the crew.

 

Background:

Richter was born in the small village of Grenfield, on the outskirts of the wreckage that had been pre-fall Lubbock, Texas.  When he was a kid, Richter was small and constantly sickly.  This made him a popular target for the other kids' pranks.  That changed really fast when puberty hit and Richter started to grow real big, real fast, and the bullies moved on to less obviously dangerous targets.  Like his older sister, whom Richter happened to see being harassed in an alley one day, and came charging to her defense.  Though only 15 at the time, Richter already had a full head of height on the average man. 

 

Sometimes in his nightmares, Richter can still see the other boy's head spin halfway around from the blow before falling top the ground dead.  The other parents, long not happy with mutant in their midst, were extremely upset, and Ricther had to flee town chased by an angry lynch mob.

 

Out in the wasteland, he was discovered by a band of raiders, who decided to take Richter in after some consideration.  For over a decade after that, Richter rode with with with a succession of outlaw groups, plundering and repaying every insult and indignity the normies had heaped on him in blood.  He went through several groups through a series of groups thanks to the normal power struggles, splits, mergers, and absorptions such loosely organized groups regularly undergo, surviving the chaos by wit and sheer toughness.  His final outfit was the Dust Devils, a large warband that terrorized highways and byways in the heart of the continent.

 

One day, the Dust Devils had captured a small trading convoy.  Richter watched the gang's leader, Lorenzo "Razorback" Ortega, try to interrogate one of the merchants.  Then Richter watched in horror as Lorenzo drew his gun and pressed to the forehead of the trader's daughter-a daughter who looked exactly like Richter's sister!  Richter only barely restrained himself from jumping in like he had 10 years ago, and only because he knew it would end very differently.  As he watched helplessly, Lorenzo shot the girl, and it wasn't the blood spatter that made Richter sick to his stomach.

 

The sudden humanization of the enemy made Richter lose all appetite for banditry, and he started trying to figure how to leave a gang of cutthroat and paranoid raiders.  Luckily, fate intervened.  The Dust Devils had gown large enough and destructive enough to draw the attention of another power in the wastes, one of the few operational tanks had been hired to eliminate the threat.  The tank caught up to the raiders one afternoon, and the raiders' improvised combat vehicles quickly proved no match for a dedicated AFV.  Richter lost consciousness as his buggy exploded.

 

When he came to, night had fallen on a field of twisted bodies and burning wreckage.  Following the trail of destruction, he found where the tank had been parked for the night.  After carefully approaching and quickly spilling his life story, and his desire to make up for his crimes, the crew agreed to take him on as an apprentice.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Demented (see edit history)

[Demented]

@PaxonI'm finally ready to tag this as submitted.

 

Crew-wise, Richter is a deadly gunner.  He can also serve competently as engineer or loader.  And while technically lacking leadership skills, he can rack up a lot of damage with a pintle-mounted machine gun.

 

I keep toying with taking Oath of Offerings.  On the one hand, it does mesh nicely with his atoner sensibilities.  On the other, I want to get into rockets and grenades, and they aren't cheap.

[Paxon]

Sounds good, marking as submitted

[Demented]

So I found a neat combo.

 

Guardian Sphere + Endure Pain turns all your delayed damage into non-lethal, and the Quick Recovery Boon quickly patches that up.  It's not complete invulnerability, but definitely maddening to put down.  Before I start bulding for it, will you allow it?

[Paxon]

21 hours ago, Demented said:

So I found a neat combo.

 

Guardian Sphere + Endure Pain turns all your delayed damage into non-lethal, and the Quick Recovery Boon quickly patches that up.  It's not complete invulnerability, but definitely maddening to put down.  Before I start bulding for it, will you allow it?

Yeah, that's no problem. Endure Pain is already pretty awesome for tanking, Quick Recovery really takes it up a notch. But you're right, not impenetrable, just extra hardy.