Vulcan

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Albert A. Vulcan was an only child, born in Pre-War New Jersey. When Albert was young, his father had abandoned his mother and her baby. Al's mother took her toddler and moved back to Ohio, where she had family. The streets of Columbus were harsh, and soon Albert had become a troublesome youth.

He joined a gang as a teenager, drawn more by the freedom it granted him than the "brotherhood" that was offered.

Estranged from his mother by twenty, Albert, now called "Vulcan" by his peers, was respected among local gangs for his ruthless efficiency in completing illegal tasks. If someone owed money, Al could make them pay. If they couldn't pay, Al was good at hurting people in ways that made them find the money very quickly. Al was good at holding up stores and businesses. He was good at shooting the cops that sometimes arrived, too. It wasn't long before Vulcan was contracting himself out for business, whether it was extortion, loan sharking, or even murder.

Vulcan had made quite a name for himself over the years. Cultivating his "skills" as a mercenary and thug for hire. Al did not discriminate between jobs that payed high or low, he simply enjoyed being bad. He was arrested one night after a spontaneous armed robbery went south. A cop has walked in the door, unaware that the store was being held up. Vulcan spotted the cop as the man went for his firearm. Al killed the police officer, and fled the scene with his companions. As police chase followed, and Albert. A. Vulcan was caught.



Al was charged with many counts, including Armed Robbery, Assault with a Deadly Weapon, Fleeing and Eluding, Obstruction of Justice, and the Murder of Several Police Officers. These were the charges that had supporting evidence, and no one but Vulcan himself knew the extent of the crimes he had committed. The verdict: Three Consecutive Life Sentences.

Albert A. Vulcan was imprisoned in the Ohio State Penitentiary the day he turned twenty-eight years old. Notorious immediately, Al was confined alone and was not allowed any time outside the stone and metal walls. Guards often "forgot" his meals, holding a grudge against the man who killed cops and innocents alike. Al stayed well-behaved for two years, and eventually the guards forgot he was even dangerous. He even manipulated a guard into providing him cigarettes and booze on occasion.

More years passed. Not many people were fond of Albert in prison, despite his charisma. On the rare occasion that he was caught outside his cell, inmates attempted to murder him. After several men had been beaten to death, Albert was transferred underground, to the Ward. In truth, Al only initiated few of the fights he found himself in, but it didn't matter much to the guards or the Warden. The doctors needed to understand what drove a person to kill others. Albert was scheduled for a full lobotomy, but they would not get their chance to examine his brain.






In October of 2077, the nuclear war that had threatened America for years had finally transformed into reality. Massive shock waves rocked the U. S., vaporizing entire cities and extinguishing a great deal of the life on the surface. Radioactive dust blanketed the country, and the world grew very quiet in the hours that followed.

The Psychiatric Ward of the Ohio State Penitentiary was two levels underground, surrounded by layers of concrete and iron. Most of it's residents, including Albert, were spared a quick death in exchange for a painful, long existence.

Albert was one of the first prisoners to come around. He was violently sick during the first few days, and his skin burned as if it were on fire. He was released from his cell a two days after the bombs had fallen by a man suffering some the same symptoms.

Vulcan stumbled through the collapsing corridors of the prison complex, his mind reeling from the excruciating pain that racked his body. The pain dulled over the next few days, and Albert Vulcan was finally able to eat without breaking his own skin open. A few small groups of survivors roamed the prison complex now, all of them experiencing the phenomenon of radioactive ghoulification.

Vulcan didn't think there would be any "government" left coming to round up the convicts, but he left as soon as he was able to anyway. The survivors had began to form a gang thugs, and Vulcan could not stand most of the ex-cons in the first place. He left during a gunfight between the survivors, able only to take a little bit of food and a strange kitchen knife with him as he abandoned the prison.



Albert Vulcan soon discovered that the world had moved on.

Vulcan surveyed the broken, burning landscape. He observed the radioactive clouds rolling across the sky, suffocating the sun. Ohio had become a no-man's land. Wandering across broken streets and collapsed buildings riddled with scorched corpses, he fell slowly into depression. It seemed there was nothing left. Everyone was dead. Everything was dead. For all Vulcan knew, the entire human race ( with the exception of mutants like him ) had been extinguished over-night.





Vulcan eventually found himself wandering East in a stupor, away from the setting sun. Now and again he would dig up some Pre-War junk food and potato crisps from ruins. Once he even found a whole case of Pork & Beans. He continued on day after day, trudging through radioactive muck and trekking across scorched fields. He navigated toppled cities and forded glowing rivers. The world was dark and cold, as was Albert.

No frogs hopped skillfully into the creeks as he walked down the banks. No crickets could be heard at night, only the deadly wind. No birds sang when the sun rose. Life had been crippled on planet Earth, and the ambient stench of death and decay began to erode Vulcan's sanity. At least, what little sanity he possessed in the first place.

Vulcan traveled through the Pitt many years before humans reclaimed it. ( It had still been a shit hole, even before the war, in his opinion. ) He walked the ruins of Washington D.C. centuries before the Lone Wanderer was born, and long before the land had become plagued by super mutants. The Brotherhood did not exist on the East Coast. Only desolation had been left behind. The only people he met were other ghouls like himself. Many of them had gone insane already.

When he had finally reached the East Coast, Vulcan had still not found what he was looking for. Not that he was really looking for anything specific. He sat on the beach and stared out into the Atlantic Ocean, watching the crash against the shipwrecks. He watched a pile of dead fish and crustaceans wash against ashore with nearly every tide. The smell was rancid, but for some reason it no longer bothered Vulcan as it may have before his change. Actually, he kind of liked the stench. Soon, he found himself eating the rotting sea creatures. After his hunger had been satisfied, Albert came to realize another problem he faced as a ghoul: The ease of losing his sanity.



Along the East Coast, Vulcan began to investigate large houses. Those that still stood often contained treasures, tools, and trinkets. Al was able to find canned food in some of the houses, and would of sit on the scorched furniture, staring into the broken Televisions while eating the loot. Vulcan tried to remember things, and to work his mind as often as possible.

Coming across as crippled mansion in Northern Virginia, Al made a temporary home from the falling ash outside. While pursuing the possible goods and edibles of the structure, Al came across a steel door hanging partially open. Upon entering the freezer, Vulcan found two dead ghouls. It appeared to him that they had committed suicide with the man's Hunting Shotgun. Albert searched the room, taking the box of preserved food and the weapon into the kitchen. He loaded the shotgun as he devoured a pack of fancy lad cakes, then proceeded to discharge the shotgun in the home. Ceiling tiles fell across the floor as a gaping hole appeared in the ceiling. Dust fell lazily in the window's light.

"Oops." Vulcan said with a chuckle. No one replied.

A week later, Vulcan found the whiskey. After a bottle and a half, Al stalked through the quiet mansion, pumping buckshot into every painting, statue, and object remotely resembling a human being. He laughed the entire time. Al squatted in the mansion for a few years, reading books and searching through the wealthy former-occupants' belongings. Eventually the food supply in the basement had been exhausted. Taking everything he thought would be useful, Vulcan left the crumbling estate.



Armed with the quality Hunting Shotgun and the Cosmic Knife, Vulcan began a pilgrimage through Virginia and began the journey back towards Washington D.C. Years passed, and Vulcan had become very good with the shotgun. When Al came across a feral, he pumped some buck shot into them from point-blank range and laughed heartily afterwards. Al treated the mutant creatures that slowly appeared from the wasteland in a similar fashion, thrilled by devastating other living creatures. A hundred years had passed since the Great War, and Al was well on his way to crazy. Each day he seemed to become sharper, darker, more brooding.

And now? Well, now Albert is a walking nightmare. A murderer and mercenary without a soul. And over the years, he's made some dark business connections...