Post by Insano-Man on Sept 20, 2018 2:08:22 GMT -5
RONALD SCHWARZWALDER (Senior Affiliate)
Aliases: Li'l Bush, Stilts, Stompy, Bushmaster, Young Blood
Affiliation: Mercenary, Loonies
Species: Human (Male)
Birthplace: Forby Munti Mountain Range
Birthdate: October 15th, 1281 (OSC)
Height: 5'9" (1.75m)
Weight: 180lb - 200lb (81kg - 91kg)
SUMMARY
A little out of the ordinary, a little too normal. Ronnie's a mercenary fit for his home. A walker-saddled wingnut with Looney blood and a home in the bush. He's a hunter with a wild streak and a low-level folk hero for his home turf. He's fought cannibals, robots, and redworlders - sometimes, all at once. He's tracked down invisible super-predators at the dead of night. He's flown junk helicopters for a man ten times his age on hunting trips of legend. Somehow, in all that noise, he's still sane - mostly.
APPEARANCE
Ronald's not much to look at. He comes up to an average 5'9", muscled only enough as a hand-to-mouth lifestyle allows for. A hard face with an angular jaw usually hides behind a few layers of camouflage facepaint. Nape-length pure-brown hair sits over a heavy brow and deep blue eyes. A hard, clean-shaven jawline occasionally goes to blows with stubborn stubble. A prominent claw mark cuts into his face on his left cheek, ragged and ugly. Surrounding it is the aftermath of a nasty brush with deadly venom; badly-disfigured skin with more than a passing resemblance to an acid burn.
Similar scars populate the rest of his figure. Gouges, bites, and odd wrinkles - all the marks of a seasoned hunter. A few tattoos keep them company on his chest and back. On the rear side, an angular set of black wings dive down from his shoulders. They end in a straight-edged, evil-eyed falcon around his waist, beak open and empty. Its talons wrap around and dig into his stomach, "1304" in tidy letters right in between them. Up on his chest are a few more wavy things without much of an identity. On most days, they're hidden under a few layers of patchy hair.
Ron spends most of his hunting trips out in an olive-drab tank top and a worn-black pair of cargo pants. A patrol cap in hand-dyed woodland camouflage keeps his hair in line. A combat vest in precision-printed camouflage covers up his top on most days, usually decked in ammunition or hunting tools. A heavy backpack usually rides light with just food and water. Dark-toned hiking boots keep his feet dry. Sand-toned fingerless gloves pop in every once in a while. True to his heritage, everything he wears is sourced from the Loonies - even his hat.
In other parts, his weapon of choice would be a bit overkill for hunting; a hard-hitting, semi-auto Jackersumb 8 marksman rifle, ripped right out of a cannibal's hands. A few internal upgrades and a Looney-quality scope make it a powerhouse for sharpshooting. A collection of handmade suppressors make it a prime option for hunting trips - two-legged game or otherwise. Hand-loaded ammunition, hand-painted camouflage, hand-modified furniture - Ronald's put his heart and soul into the tool of his trade.
On rowdier occasions, Schwarzwalder's go-to gun is his dad's old IM38LV railrifle. It's everything his longarm isn't. Short as a carbine, bulked up with a grenade launcher, and trimmed down to nothing more than open ironsights. Woodland camouflage covers up everything but its muzzle, trigger, and magazines. On noisy days and dicey hunting trips, Ronnie pries off the grenade launcher and keeps the rifle as insurance. Same as everything he's wearing, his angry heirloom's got the blessing of local Loonies - most of the time.
Ronald doesn't keep a consistent piece of electronics equipment with him. Not many people out in Forby Munti even know what a computer is. Back home at his shack, he's hiding a few of his pa's old things; a tablet, a few widgets, and a combat helmet with all its parts still working. A small radio station covers up one corner of his humble home. Most times, he's just chatting with Looney patrols and Hardy comms techs. About once a month, he'll hear chatter from someone else - the call, from the Old Man of the Mountain.
BEHAVIOR
"Looney lite" - that's what Ronald's been called before. He's got the mind of a local with the spice of a caveman. He's ready to help people stay alive, but not a whole lot more. He's a loner out all by himself, but he's got that kind of outgoing kinship Forby Munti demands. At the end of the day, when you pierce past all the little quirks from his environment and upbringing, he's just normal. He's not a comedian and he doesn't have a stick up his keister. He's not a bleeding heart or an icy mercenary. Against a decent shake of the odds, he's just normal.
When it gets to his talents, it's hard to say that with a straight face. He's a skilled sniper that's matched the folks out in the woodlands. He's sat still for hours on end in pouring rain and summer heat just for the right shot on the right game. He's watched the Old Man, seen him nail rabbits from a helicopter with nothing but hate and age - and he's learned. Ronald's got rifleman skills from his heritage and a preternatural pathfinding sense from years out in the forest. He knows how to piece a gun together from nothing and keep it shooting for years. Put him in a kitchen and he's a fine chef, too.
The strangest part about Ronald's skillset is that he's one of the most accomplished pilots on his side of the mountain. He knows how to pilot a combat walker through a forest of wall-to-wall trees. He can pick up and put down a helicopter anywhere - the side of a mountain, the side of a tree, doesn't matter. He's stomped with some of the exiles from the Chopping Blocks, even put his arms around the controls of a hovertank once before. Nobody can figure it out - even the Loonies that let his dad out.
Ronnie's got a light voice with a subtle New York accent that sets him apart from the cannibals and Canadians out in the forest. He speaks two languages; English and gibberish. With his Looney background, English is a given, but living out in the woods means picking up on woodspeak. He's got a general idea of the bastard tongues and garbled dialects the inbred mutants choke on. On the cultural side, Ronald's mostly local. Light tinges of Looney customs wrap around a strong backbone of woodsman wisdom. Little traces of Chopping Blocks experience squeeze in through the gaps.
GOALS
RELATIONSHIPS
HISTORY
Ronnie's history starts off with his dad; Arnold Matthias Schnepfe, born and raised in the Hardy Communications Center. Arnie wasn't much out of the typical mould for Loonies. He was a no-nonsense family man with a wild case of cabin fever. He just didn't have much of a family - by the time he hit 20, his mom was dead in the caves and his dad was off in another bunker. Hardy was the closest thing he had to kin. That didn't stop him from jumping at the chance to go out on patrol.
GET A FEEL
For about ten years, Arnold was a patrolman. He spent most of his time bumping shoulders with Forby Munti's ex-mercs and backwoods clans. Rumor has it he traded shots with the Old Man in his Looney days, but no one's ever got proof to back it up. Either which way, all that running around outside, breathing fresh air, meeting new and interesting cannibals, it did something to him. He softened up to the idea of outsiders. He saw people fighting off man-eating raiders and sympathized. He fell in love with the outside world.
Literally speaking. Around his eighth year as a patrolman, Arnie started sneaking off his patrol route to meet up with a local girl; Eline Trebbie. She wasn't some kind of sixteen-toed mutant or baby-eating bandit, but, as far as Hardy was concerned, she was still an outsider. Slowly, but surely, his squadmates caught on. Word went back to senior officers. At first, it all seemed like Arnold was about to get a slap and a reassignment. Feelings and fondlings weren't enough for capital punishment.
SETTLE DOWN
At least, until Ronald came into the picture. When year ten hit in 1281 OSC, so did a baby boy. People were livid on all sides. Hardy wanted the kid stolen back - Arnold, they were on the fence about. Trebbie wasn't about to give up her son - and Arnold wasn't about to let her. Caught in the middle was Schnepfe's squad, who respected Arnold just enough to not know what the right choice was. As time went on, the consensus set in; Arnold was getting the boot.
That didn't stop him from living up to his Looney background. He went out on patrol one last time with his squad with the intention of staying at Eline's shanty. Around the time they got there, they were ambushed. Cannibals of the Kalvers family hit first, hurling spears and firing off muskets. Crabs and horrors followed after all the noise. When all was said and done, the Loonies were all fine - up until something else chased after the stink of dead crabs and dying yokels. Something big, angry, and halfway between a man and a lizard. Something fast, mean, and hungry for humans.
The squad's official story was that Arnold sacrificed himself to save the rest - blew it up with a grenade he rammed down its throat. Hardy honored him as a hero in death, but did its best to forget he'd ever existed. It was only half of the truth. In reality, Arnold survived, after muscling down the thing with nothing but a knife and rage. He'd played his part as a hero. For that, his squad did him one last favor; they twisted the truth to let him keep his gear and live in peace. He went to Trebbie with a mangled leg, his squad went home sans helmets.
UPS AND DOWNS
Ronald took on the name of "Schwarzwalder" out of a bit of mutual shame. Eline was a castaway from a clan of cannibals, Arnold a Looney exile. Neither of them much liked what their surnames meant. They invented a new one on the spot for the mutt - an attempt to wipe the slate clean for Ronald. Beyond that, Ronnie's childhood wasn't much different from any of the other kids out in Forby Munti. His limping dad went trapping, his mom went hunting, and the odd-name-out learned both skills before he was 10.
When Ronald hit 13, disease caught up with Eline. She picked up something horrible that locked her in bed for a few months. By the end, she was gone - a slow, stubborn death she would've shrugged off if she had a doctor. It was a painful process for everyone involved. That didn't much do away with the daily struggle for survival. Ronnie and Arnie cremated her, buried her ashes, and kept going - with Ronald picking up the slack. Things were hard and sad early on, but the two managed.
It took about a decade for anything major to follow. Ronald grew up into a talented hunter that did both sides of his family proud. He could pull fieldcraft better than his mom, pull off shots with a railrifle better than his dad. He was the diplomat and the breadwinner for his home. His dad just kept the food cooking and the floors clean. Even after losing his mother early, Ronald's teen years worked out a kind of scrappy comfort. By 23, he'd even started chatting up Looney patrols.
PREDATOR OF PREDATORS
Around the same year, things took another turn for the worse. The monster that'd sent Arnold off from his squad wasn't alone. It had a family, too. Two decades after that encounter, they came to collect their due. Ronald came home from a hunting trip to find his home on fire and his dad as a mangled corpse. It was the story the Loonies had written down; he'd been ambushed and pulled a homemade grenade out as a last resort. Arnold didn't survive. Ronald got what he could out of the house, father's bones included, and ran.
About a week later, after burying his father's ashes beside his mother, Ronald went hunting. He was going to settle the feud for good. He'd heard his pa's stories, seen some of the blood left behind in his home. He knew what he was tracking. Another week went by in the woods. He ate bugs, bathed in dirt, and spent every day covered in mud and ivy. These days, Ronald won't tell you how he did it, but he's got proof enough. Hanging over his parents' graves is a skull, half-shattered by a railrifle slug, from that same monster that came for his dad. It still doesn't have a name - and Ronald doesn't think it deserves one.
GET STOLEN
That kind of story didn't go by in Forby Munti without someone coming wise. It wasn't a cannibal clan coming to pay homage or any Loonies coming to pay respects. It was something more. Something ancient. It was the sky god himself; the Old Man of the Mountain. Around the end of 1303, Ronald was called. He was visited. He was taken off to some awful junk monster of a helicopter, strapped in by a raging corpse, and told to fly. The Old Man had watched. He had listened. He knew Ronald had Looney blood - had that technological savvy deep inside. He wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.
Somehow, against all odds, it worked. Ronald wasn't exactly an accomplished pilot on his first try, but he did well enough. It was the start of something strange and terrifying for him - something he still won't talk about to this day. Time went on, the Old Man kept coming, and Ronnie's skills improved. Every encounter begot more; the Old Man came back sooner, settled on Ronald more than others, and Ronnie grew more and more warm to the idea. Even to this day, he's still flying the Old Man's birds - and he's still not saying a word about it.
A couple years went by. Ronald had a new home built not far from his old one, still in earshot of his parents' graves. Life was decent, honest, and full of work. Hunting trips on his own, odd jobs for families around the valleys, and pathfinding contracts for Loonies. The Old Man spiced things up on occasion. Every so often, Ronald bumped elbows with mercenaries coming up from the Chopping Blocks. On at least one particular occasion, it was after the Old Man had gotten through with them.
ONE AND DONE
Theo Mackenzie and the Needlenose poked up around Forby Munti around October of 1308. The Old Man took the hovertank for a deserter, rode out with Ronald, and put a hole clear through its rear. Ronnie showed up about a day later to find Mackenzie banging his fist against the Needlenose. It didn't exactly start off with hugs and handshakes, but the two worked something out. Ronald helped Theo get his beast moving again, Theo helped Ronald out with a few technical troubles. An off-and-on partnership started up. After that, Ronnie was Mackenzie's specialist for Forby Munti - on the rare occasion the spacer actually had work up there.
For Ronald, it wasn't much out of the ordinary. His reputation around Chopping Blocks mercs was strong. If the Old Man didn't vaporize them, Ronald was there to get them integrated. He was the one to help them get settled in with decent towns and friendly families. He helped them figure out cannibal culture before raiders could turn up at their doorstep. Around 1310, it all paid off. A bounty hunter left Schwarzwalder a light walker as payment. The man himself went native and did his best to lay low.
Having a walker was a bit of a mixed bag for Ronald. On the one hand, it was more than he'd ever really need - machine guns and rocket launchers weren't exactly a hunter's choice. On the other hand, it meant he could pull bigger and better jobs alongside the mercs trickling in from the south. People from the Chopping Blocks were more ready to trust someone who had their credentials in vehicular format. Likewise, a proper vehicle - especially one that could navigate a forest - meant he could haul back more on trade runs to towns. If worst came to worst, he could scuttle it for parts to fix his dad's old gear.
PRESENT DAY
Not much has changed in the single year since. Ronald's been trying to build credit with the Loonies to try to make it back where his dad came from. He's kept up his trade as a woodsman and a hunter. Mutants and yokels invent new gossip and legends about him just about every week; what he's doing with the mercs from the blocks, what the Old Man's doing with him. Meanwhile, Schwarzwalder's just doing his best to survive. He might've picked up a course for the strange from his father, but the man today is more like is mother. On the inside, he's just normal - sort of.
Aliases: Li'l Bush, Stilts, Stompy, Bushmaster, Young Blood
Affiliation: Mercenary, Loonies
Species: Human (Male)
Birthplace: Forby Munti Mountain Range
Birthdate: October 15th, 1281 (OSC)
Height: 5'9" (1.75m)
Weight: 180lb - 200lb (81kg - 91kg)
SUMMARY
A little out of the ordinary, a little too normal. Ronnie's a mercenary fit for his home. A walker-saddled wingnut with Looney blood and a home in the bush. He's a hunter with a wild streak and a low-level folk hero for his home turf. He's fought cannibals, robots, and redworlders - sometimes, all at once. He's tracked down invisible super-predators at the dead of night. He's flown junk helicopters for a man ten times his age on hunting trips of legend. Somehow, in all that noise, he's still sane - mostly.
APPEARANCE
Ronald's not much to look at. He comes up to an average 5'9", muscled only enough as a hand-to-mouth lifestyle allows for. A hard face with an angular jaw usually hides behind a few layers of camouflage facepaint. Nape-length pure-brown hair sits over a heavy brow and deep blue eyes. A hard, clean-shaven jawline occasionally goes to blows with stubborn stubble. A prominent claw mark cuts into his face on his left cheek, ragged and ugly. Surrounding it is the aftermath of a nasty brush with deadly venom; badly-disfigured skin with more than a passing resemblance to an acid burn.
Similar scars populate the rest of his figure. Gouges, bites, and odd wrinkles - all the marks of a seasoned hunter. A few tattoos keep them company on his chest and back. On the rear side, an angular set of black wings dive down from his shoulders. They end in a straight-edged, evil-eyed falcon around his waist, beak open and empty. Its talons wrap around and dig into his stomach, "1304" in tidy letters right in between them. Up on his chest are a few more wavy things without much of an identity. On most days, they're hidden under a few layers of patchy hair.
Ron spends most of his hunting trips out in an olive-drab tank top and a worn-black pair of cargo pants. A patrol cap in hand-dyed woodland camouflage keeps his hair in line. A combat vest in precision-printed camouflage covers up his top on most days, usually decked in ammunition or hunting tools. A heavy backpack usually rides light with just food and water. Dark-toned hiking boots keep his feet dry. Sand-toned fingerless gloves pop in every once in a while. True to his heritage, everything he wears is sourced from the Loonies - even his hat.
In other parts, his weapon of choice would be a bit overkill for hunting; a hard-hitting, semi-auto Jackersumb 8 marksman rifle, ripped right out of a cannibal's hands. A few internal upgrades and a Looney-quality scope make it a powerhouse for sharpshooting. A collection of handmade suppressors make it a prime option for hunting trips - two-legged game or otherwise. Hand-loaded ammunition, hand-painted camouflage, hand-modified furniture - Ronald's put his heart and soul into the tool of his trade.
On rowdier occasions, Schwarzwalder's go-to gun is his dad's old IM38LV railrifle. It's everything his longarm isn't. Short as a carbine, bulked up with a grenade launcher, and trimmed down to nothing more than open ironsights. Woodland camouflage covers up everything but its muzzle, trigger, and magazines. On noisy days and dicey hunting trips, Ronnie pries off the grenade launcher and keeps the rifle as insurance. Same as everything he's wearing, his angry heirloom's got the blessing of local Loonies - most of the time.
Ronald doesn't keep a consistent piece of electronics equipment with him. Not many people out in Forby Munti even know what a computer is. Back home at his shack, he's hiding a few of his pa's old things; a tablet, a few widgets, and a combat helmet with all its parts still working. A small radio station covers up one corner of his humble home. Most times, he's just chatting with Looney patrols and Hardy comms techs. About once a month, he'll hear chatter from someone else - the call, from the Old Man of the Mountain.
BEHAVIOR
"Looney lite" - that's what Ronald's been called before. He's got the mind of a local with the spice of a caveman. He's ready to help people stay alive, but not a whole lot more. He's a loner out all by himself, but he's got that kind of outgoing kinship Forby Munti demands. At the end of the day, when you pierce past all the little quirks from his environment and upbringing, he's just normal. He's not a comedian and he doesn't have a stick up his keister. He's not a bleeding heart or an icy mercenary. Against a decent shake of the odds, he's just normal.
When it gets to his talents, it's hard to say that with a straight face. He's a skilled sniper that's matched the folks out in the woodlands. He's sat still for hours on end in pouring rain and summer heat just for the right shot on the right game. He's watched the Old Man, seen him nail rabbits from a helicopter with nothing but hate and age - and he's learned. Ronald's got rifleman skills from his heritage and a preternatural pathfinding sense from years out in the forest. He knows how to piece a gun together from nothing and keep it shooting for years. Put him in a kitchen and he's a fine chef, too.
The strangest part about Ronald's skillset is that he's one of the most accomplished pilots on his side of the mountain. He knows how to pilot a combat walker through a forest of wall-to-wall trees. He can pick up and put down a helicopter anywhere - the side of a mountain, the side of a tree, doesn't matter. He's stomped with some of the exiles from the Chopping Blocks, even put his arms around the controls of a hovertank once before. Nobody can figure it out - even the Loonies that let his dad out.
Ronnie's got a light voice with a subtle New York accent that sets him apart from the cannibals and Canadians out in the forest. He speaks two languages; English and gibberish. With his Looney background, English is a given, but living out in the woods means picking up on woodspeak. He's got a general idea of the bastard tongues and garbled dialects the inbred mutants choke on. On the cultural side, Ronald's mostly local. Light tinges of Looney customs wrap around a strong backbone of woodsman wisdom. Little traces of Chopping Blocks experience squeeze in through the gaps.
GOALS
- Ronnie's hopes and dreams mostly tame. There's only one exception. He wants into a Looney bunker. Not to loot it blind, not to hijack its systems - not any of the things an outsider might usually want. He wants to be part of the family again, and not just from the outside. There's an old frustration driving him, that discontent with the raw deal his dad got. He wants to make it right, even if his pa's not around to see it. How he's going to get that, he doesn't know. It's not going to stop him from trying.
- Past that, it's just normal needs and fancies. The biggest one is flying. Ronald's interested in seeing aircraft and getting stick time. He's flown helicopters, but never a proper Looney VTOL. He got one taste of a hovertank and now he wants more. He won't get himself killed just to get in the cockpit, but he certainly wouldn't mind it.
- Books and literature rank high on Ronnie's list. Being by yourself on a puny power budget means getting cerebral with entertainment. Whatever he can get, he'll find time to read - romance, fantasy, technical manuals on dreadnought gravity modules, doesn't matter.
- Parts and pieces for his old Gallagher walker are in high demand, but Ronald's not much of a mechanic. He can keep the thing running, but fixing a major breakdown isn't in his library. It's not something he'll shell out hides and hamburgers for. Couldn't hurt, though.
RELATIONSHIPS
- Ronald's family is a short list that only goes up. His father was Arnold Schnepfe, a Looney exile. His mother was a Forby Munti local by the name of Eline Trebbie, who only narrowly dodged her family's cannibal traditions. Neither of them gave Ronnie their name. Neither of them wanted him to have that kind of baggage. Likewise, neither of them are alive today, and Ronald doesn't know of any blood relatives he might have left.
- The Loonies are pleasantly ambivalent about Ronald. The Hardy Communications Center has a good relationship with him - lets him keep his dad's old gear, deals with him on a regular basis. That doesn't change the fact that his dad got the boot and promptly got cozy with a local. He still managed to pass some of that homesickness onto his son. Ronald's wanted to make things right ever since.
- The Space Loonies have a file on Schwarzwalder - somewhere. That's about it. He was tapped for mercenary work precisely once, and promptly forgotten by everyone involved. Ronald takes after his heritage when the subject comes up. Spacers don't get any sympathy from a Looney, exile's kid or not.
- The Cult of Meat is a bit of a blank subject. They don't know about Ronald and Ronald doesn't really know about them. He's knows there's a cult, and it might have something to do with meat, but not about the bona-fide Cult of Meat. The idea doesn't make him happy either way.
- When it comes to species, you wouldn't be able to tell Ronnie from a Looney. If it ain't human, it ain't for him. Redworlders and crabs get the worst of it. Paleworlders, he's not once considered sentient. Everyone else is just a space invader to him - even some of the stretched-out "humans" in orbit. The same goes for the half-sentient mutants and robots in Forby Munti.
- In Forby Munti itself, Ronald's a bit of a famous figure. He's got a strong reputation as a mercenary and a hunter. Mutant or cannibal, most people are ready to deal when he shows up at their door. Campfire tales adore the man; he's been the star pilot for the Old Man of the Mountain for almost a decade. Rumors and legends pop up whenever he's not looking. Ronald's a bit on the fence about being a folk hero, but he's happy at home. He just wouldn't mind being a few kilometers underground.
- Outside Forby Munti, nobody knows Ronald. No one. Nobody. Okay, maybe one guy, but just that guy. Just him. No one else.
- The Old Man of the Mountain selected Ronald as his pilot one day. It was the most terrifying experience of Ronald's life - and he's still doing it. About once a month, the Old Man comes around or calls him up on the radio for a hunting trip. He's airborne inside the hour. What the Old Man thinks, no one can say. Even Ronald's opinion is a bit of a mystery - ask him, he'll say nothing.
- Out in the Chopping Blocks, Theo Mackenzie is about the only person who knows Ronald exists. He's kept off-and-on contact with the woodsman for nearly a decade, but the relationship isn't exactly close. Mackenzie doesn't have much an opinion. Ronald's about the same. Between the two, it's nothing but business - and probably only once a year.
- Samski Gnomewood wants to kill Ronald or...something. No one knows why. His reasoning doesn't make sense. Ronald doesn't even know Samski exists. How Gnomewood even knows about him, nobody has an answer.
HISTORY
Ronnie's history starts off with his dad; Arnold Matthias Schnepfe, born and raised in the Hardy Communications Center. Arnie wasn't much out of the typical mould for Loonies. He was a no-nonsense family man with a wild case of cabin fever. He just didn't have much of a family - by the time he hit 20, his mom was dead in the caves and his dad was off in another bunker. Hardy was the closest thing he had to kin. That didn't stop him from jumping at the chance to go out on patrol.
GET A FEEL
For about ten years, Arnold was a patrolman. He spent most of his time bumping shoulders with Forby Munti's ex-mercs and backwoods clans. Rumor has it he traded shots with the Old Man in his Looney days, but no one's ever got proof to back it up. Either which way, all that running around outside, breathing fresh air, meeting new and interesting cannibals, it did something to him. He softened up to the idea of outsiders. He saw people fighting off man-eating raiders and sympathized. He fell in love with the outside world.
Literally speaking. Around his eighth year as a patrolman, Arnie started sneaking off his patrol route to meet up with a local girl; Eline Trebbie. She wasn't some kind of sixteen-toed mutant or baby-eating bandit, but, as far as Hardy was concerned, she was still an outsider. Slowly, but surely, his squadmates caught on. Word went back to senior officers. At first, it all seemed like Arnold was about to get a slap and a reassignment. Feelings and fondlings weren't enough for capital punishment.
SETTLE DOWN
At least, until Ronald came into the picture. When year ten hit in 1281 OSC, so did a baby boy. People were livid on all sides. Hardy wanted the kid stolen back - Arnold, they were on the fence about. Trebbie wasn't about to give up her son - and Arnold wasn't about to let her. Caught in the middle was Schnepfe's squad, who respected Arnold just enough to not know what the right choice was. As time went on, the consensus set in; Arnold was getting the boot.
That didn't stop him from living up to his Looney background. He went out on patrol one last time with his squad with the intention of staying at Eline's shanty. Around the time they got there, they were ambushed. Cannibals of the Kalvers family hit first, hurling spears and firing off muskets. Crabs and horrors followed after all the noise. When all was said and done, the Loonies were all fine - up until something else chased after the stink of dead crabs and dying yokels. Something big, angry, and halfway between a man and a lizard. Something fast, mean, and hungry for humans.
The squad's official story was that Arnold sacrificed himself to save the rest - blew it up with a grenade he rammed down its throat. Hardy honored him as a hero in death, but did its best to forget he'd ever existed. It was only half of the truth. In reality, Arnold survived, after muscling down the thing with nothing but a knife and rage. He'd played his part as a hero. For that, his squad did him one last favor; they twisted the truth to let him keep his gear and live in peace. He went to Trebbie with a mangled leg, his squad went home sans helmets.
UPS AND DOWNS
Ronald took on the name of "Schwarzwalder" out of a bit of mutual shame. Eline was a castaway from a clan of cannibals, Arnold a Looney exile. Neither of them much liked what their surnames meant. They invented a new one on the spot for the mutt - an attempt to wipe the slate clean for Ronald. Beyond that, Ronnie's childhood wasn't much different from any of the other kids out in Forby Munti. His limping dad went trapping, his mom went hunting, and the odd-name-out learned both skills before he was 10.
When Ronald hit 13, disease caught up with Eline. She picked up something horrible that locked her in bed for a few months. By the end, she was gone - a slow, stubborn death she would've shrugged off if she had a doctor. It was a painful process for everyone involved. That didn't much do away with the daily struggle for survival. Ronnie and Arnie cremated her, buried her ashes, and kept going - with Ronald picking up the slack. Things were hard and sad early on, but the two managed.
It took about a decade for anything major to follow. Ronald grew up into a talented hunter that did both sides of his family proud. He could pull fieldcraft better than his mom, pull off shots with a railrifle better than his dad. He was the diplomat and the breadwinner for his home. His dad just kept the food cooking and the floors clean. Even after losing his mother early, Ronald's teen years worked out a kind of scrappy comfort. By 23, he'd even started chatting up Looney patrols.
PREDATOR OF PREDATORS
Around the same year, things took another turn for the worse. The monster that'd sent Arnold off from his squad wasn't alone. It had a family, too. Two decades after that encounter, they came to collect their due. Ronald came home from a hunting trip to find his home on fire and his dad as a mangled corpse. It was the story the Loonies had written down; he'd been ambushed and pulled a homemade grenade out as a last resort. Arnold didn't survive. Ronald got what he could out of the house, father's bones included, and ran.
About a week later, after burying his father's ashes beside his mother, Ronald went hunting. He was going to settle the feud for good. He'd heard his pa's stories, seen some of the blood left behind in his home. He knew what he was tracking. Another week went by in the woods. He ate bugs, bathed in dirt, and spent every day covered in mud and ivy. These days, Ronald won't tell you how he did it, but he's got proof enough. Hanging over his parents' graves is a skull, half-shattered by a railrifle slug, from that same monster that came for his dad. It still doesn't have a name - and Ronald doesn't think it deserves one.
GET STOLEN
That kind of story didn't go by in Forby Munti without someone coming wise. It wasn't a cannibal clan coming to pay homage or any Loonies coming to pay respects. It was something more. Something ancient. It was the sky god himself; the Old Man of the Mountain. Around the end of 1303, Ronald was called. He was visited. He was taken off to some awful junk monster of a helicopter, strapped in by a raging corpse, and told to fly. The Old Man had watched. He had listened. He knew Ronald had Looney blood - had that technological savvy deep inside. He wasn't going to take "no" for an answer.
Somehow, against all odds, it worked. Ronald wasn't exactly an accomplished pilot on his first try, but he did well enough. It was the start of something strange and terrifying for him - something he still won't talk about to this day. Time went on, the Old Man kept coming, and Ronnie's skills improved. Every encounter begot more; the Old Man came back sooner, settled on Ronald more than others, and Ronnie grew more and more warm to the idea. Even to this day, he's still flying the Old Man's birds - and he's still not saying a word about it.
A couple years went by. Ronald had a new home built not far from his old one, still in earshot of his parents' graves. Life was decent, honest, and full of work. Hunting trips on his own, odd jobs for families around the valleys, and pathfinding contracts for Loonies. The Old Man spiced things up on occasion. Every so often, Ronald bumped elbows with mercenaries coming up from the Chopping Blocks. On at least one particular occasion, it was after the Old Man had gotten through with them.
ONE AND DONE
Theo Mackenzie and the Needlenose poked up around Forby Munti around October of 1308. The Old Man took the hovertank for a deserter, rode out with Ronald, and put a hole clear through its rear. Ronnie showed up about a day later to find Mackenzie banging his fist against the Needlenose. It didn't exactly start off with hugs and handshakes, but the two worked something out. Ronald helped Theo get his beast moving again, Theo helped Ronald out with a few technical troubles. An off-and-on partnership started up. After that, Ronnie was Mackenzie's specialist for Forby Munti - on the rare occasion the spacer actually had work up there.
For Ronald, it wasn't much out of the ordinary. His reputation around Chopping Blocks mercs was strong. If the Old Man didn't vaporize them, Ronald was there to get them integrated. He was the one to help them get settled in with decent towns and friendly families. He helped them figure out cannibal culture before raiders could turn up at their doorstep. Around 1310, it all paid off. A bounty hunter left Schwarzwalder a light walker as payment. The man himself went native and did his best to lay low.
Having a walker was a bit of a mixed bag for Ronald. On the one hand, it was more than he'd ever really need - machine guns and rocket launchers weren't exactly a hunter's choice. On the other hand, it meant he could pull bigger and better jobs alongside the mercs trickling in from the south. People from the Chopping Blocks were more ready to trust someone who had their credentials in vehicular format. Likewise, a proper vehicle - especially one that could navigate a forest - meant he could haul back more on trade runs to towns. If worst came to worst, he could scuttle it for parts to fix his dad's old gear.
PRESENT DAY
Not much has changed in the single year since. Ronald's been trying to build credit with the Loonies to try to make it back where his dad came from. He's kept up his trade as a woodsman and a hunter. Mutants and yokels invent new gossip and legends about him just about every week; what he's doing with the mercs from the blocks, what the Old Man's doing with him. Meanwhile, Schwarzwalder's just doing his best to survive. He might've picked up a course for the strange from his father, but the man today is more like is mother. On the inside, he's just normal - sort of.
