BOOM! NEW SECTION! Also, some extra bits to pass the time. · 8:15pm Apr 17th, 2016
Two months of reworking medications, 3 heavy helpings of Reworks, and several rows of edits. It is finally here. Big props to everybody who helped out! I owe a lot to Nasty Hooves for his advice in some of these reworks.
The story is taking form. The main villain of the story has reared their head, and the next couple chapters are going to be out of this world. I hope people take a liking to it. So ask your self the question, "Does it hurt when you bite your tail?" I'm really curious on that one.
So, I thought I might drop some knowledge about the world.
Joker's Wild is a place with some familiar settings, the where is simply wasteland, but the important factor is when it is. The story is 50 years before the adventures of Littlepip. To understand the state of the world, it is important to go back and understand it's history. The wasteland is a very different place 50 years ago. It has been quite some time since the stables reopened (or most of them anyway), and communities have started to build up, but the struggle is still real. Joker's Wild is set in a critical time where the establishment of caravan routes is underway. Through connecting towns, the merchants can stabilize lifestyles. Merchants need communities to survive, and that is what Tumbleweed's job is. He is a trailblazer trying to connect up caravan paths with communities, investing in the survival of the wastes.
Now, there are a few things that will stand out to you as different than the usual wasteland that is familiar to you.
Magic: Everypony has magic. It is an incredibly magical world. It is so magical that if you stay in some of those pools of condensed magical energy, it will rip your body apart! That is magic radiation! It is also a fantasy setting on top of being a sci-fi ish setting. We know unicorns and pegasi have magic, but the story goes out of its way to present the magics of Earth ponies, Crystal ponies, and Zebra. Any pony can have magic, as it is an extension of the soul. It is a major variable in how interactions and fights go down in the story.
Plantlife!!! : So, in FOE, there is like no agriculture at all, because of radiation and cloudcover, but from a realistic perspective, 200 years of that would mean that survival would not be possible. Production is an absolute must. Particularly for these environments to sustain giant animal life. Radiation actually doesn't kill plant life, and in places like belarus, animals even have better life expectancy in irradiated areas (because hunting is down). The big killer is the cloud cover, kills everything. But Fallout is not the story of the end of the world, it is the story about how the world kept going. With so much magic affecting the environment, plants have adapted into all sorts of new forms. They adapt to function off of other things being sort of dark plants. Earth ponies are another big influence on plants, as they are tied to the earth. Where there are earth ponies, agriculture is possible. There are still problems, but it is the foundation of setting up communities.
For now, those are some of the basic elements that show up in the story that differ from the usual stuff. So, let me drop some stuff about some of the characters.
Tumbleweed our crazy main character!
Age:28
Race: Earth pony
Coat: Piss Yellow
Mane: A brown orange mix.
Mark: Dunno, maybe you'll have to keep reading and find out...
Magic: Tumbleweed can sense structural instability and tension. In a world that is falling apart, he is perfectly at home. He can run through a building that is collapsing and not get hurt.
Notes: So, if you've payed attention, Tumbleweed has dropped many notes about his history. He is a pony born tribal, who has adapted to much of the life of the wastes. His mother is strong tribal warrior, who raised him in absence of a wishy washy father. His father, was a stable dweller. Tumbleweed draws from his parents in peculiar ways, but he also has his own elements on things. Despite his upbringing, he doesn't wear it quite as much as a stereotype would dictate. He is trained in the sweet science of martial arts, and over time he has found himself working for a company called "Glory Road". Tumbleweed is a strong, educated pony who is tactical, but arrogant and irreverent.
General personality: He thrives in the freedom that the wasteland provides and does many things on a whim. It makes the most of an uncertain life. Tumbleweed is an energetic bastard, contrarian at the spur of the moment, and prides himself on his ability to manipulate others in arguments. He is the type to scorn others for the logical fallacies they use on him, while at the same time applying logical fallacies of his own to grab hold of the argument. One of his personal flaws is a tendency to overlook things. It can sometimes lead to consequences being lost on him. He sometimes overrides judgement out of mischievous urges, curiosity ('research'), or just to piss somepony off. Also, he tends to be deceptive. Hmm... he is a bit of a liar huh? Maybe there is more to him than he lets on... oh those wastelanders. They've got history, don't they?
Greatest Fear: Large numbers of ponies. He knows quite well how powerful the 'magic of friendship' is.
Optimism: Tumbleweed's greatest strength is his ability to roll with the punches. Like a tumbleweed, he keeps rolling. He is able to take the wasteland in stride, which sets him apart from the typical stable dweller protagonist.
Martial Arts: Using hooves when fighting against body ripping bullets requires you to know what you are doing. Tumbleweed takes a bit longer to deal with his foes than other protags, but he tends to have more versatility with what kinds of controls and damages he can deal. If a gun can't work on an opponent, a good understanding of the martial arts might help him figure out a way to deal with them.
Cooking: Tumbleweed has an intense love of cooking and it is his way of life. Unlike the scavenger, who feeds on 150 year old tasteless garbarge, Tumbleweed grew up in a tribe living off of the land. With the times he easily embraced the new carnivorous elements into his diet. But food is not just something to get you to keep living, food is enjoying life. To Tumbleweed, it isn't food until it tastes good. They say that in the wasteland, ponies will kill each other over food. If that is the case, Tumbleweed is the kind of character who can make ponies stop killing each other over food.
The Box: Tumbleweed has this strange box thing that seems to be nearly indestructible. While he uses it as a fridge, with a crudely affixed cooling talisman, the anti-gravity and structural talisman structures inside give the impression that it was intended for something less... pedestrian. It has the symbols of Rainbow Dash, Twilight, and Applejack on it for some reason. Still, it doesn't matter to Tumbleweed. In the wasteland it has found new life.
I figure that is just a little bit for now. I can't give away all the juicy bits. Next time, I can break down some bits of the other characters.
... have I been OC-ized? LE GASP.
3891155 Has my protagonist become a human being?!? Le gasp!
hehehehe, I've seen your name around, and I can't lie, it's peaked my interest in the past. I'm kind of humbled that it's gotten your attention. Hey, if it gets you to read my story, by all means...