"A creative man is motivated by the desire to achieve, not by the desire to beat others."
Ayn Rand
CHARACTER SNAPSHOT
Introducing The Magic Man ! A goodhearted yet cunning and resourceful lawyer turned con-artist who will do anything to secure Mister House rule over New Vegas. He believe in the vertues of capitalism and meritocracy as well as the right to undertale freely with as little limits as possible put on individual rights. As a master of speechcraft, every problem The Magic Man can solve diplomatically will be solved diplomatically and that's what make this character fun to play as. To be abble to uncover every route in the game that might be locked behind a speech or barter skill checked or any other skill that you couldn't invest into due to the game pushing you to prioritize fighting skills. I will dive deeper into this when i will explain how this character will interact with the world around him, but for now, let's dive first into his backstory !
BACKSTORY
Jimmy Taggart was born in a small settlement of Nevada, controlled by the NCR. Both of his parents died from raiders when he was seven years old and from this point he had to learn to work for a living and defend himself against all sort of threats of the wasteland and gready men wanting to steal the fruits of his labor. He worked several small jobs from a farmer to a shoeshiner and house cleaner and tho the pay he recieved was never great, he was abble to afford food and a roof over his head. He was an extrovert who just couldn't let a day pass without having small talks with random people or spending some valuable time with the many friends he had. To summer up, he was just a nice worker, completely unremarkable and despite the poor cards life gaved him, he managed to play them right and win the game.
Tho he was just a chill guy living an ordinary yet peaceful and hoarding no grudge or hatred toward anyone or anything, there was something in this world that was despicable to him: taxes.
The very idea of taxes sickened him to his core. It was repulsive to him that the NCR allowed itself to take a chunck of the paychecked someone worked hard to gain. He was fully aware that the money going to the NCR was partially used to make the wasteland into a better place and helping ordinary people like him in many ways. But he also saw the abuse caused by this system, wealthy men pigging out on money struggling workers desperately needed to survive. To him, making people pay taxes was little more than treating them like human cattle.
A growing angst was in his heart, that all of his hard work and the life of many people would be crushed under this kafkaïen burocratic monster that was the NCR taxes system. So, he decided to make the biggest gamble of his entire life and elaborate a crazy plan to fight the looming threat of taxes: become a lawyer.
His plan was as follow: he was going to learn every laws of the NCR, find loopholes in some of them, and exploting them to fraud taxes and help other people do the same in exchange of small amount of money.
He struggled first to sold his affair first, having to convince incredulous people and avoid NCR attention, but the word of his sastisifed first clients quickly spread out and he found himself with hoards of cases and cash.
He lend a hand to the less fortunate people of the NCR, those whom the republic wouldn't hear and would usually only solicit for work found themselves listned, helped and understood in the office of Jimmy Taggart. Its from his clients that he gained his nickname: The Magic Man. A hero amound workers that could make their law problems dissapear in the blink of an eye with one of his many tricks.
Tho he was greatly invest emotionally in each of his cases and the people he met, the one he prefered were the one involving elderly people. Grandparents not being abble to pay their mortgage or passing an inheritence to their grandchildrens because of opressing laws of the NCR found themselves appeased thanks to him. Most of them were very sweat to him and he relished that sort of parental affection that was took away from him when he was a child.
He becamed rich thanks to his activity. Building himself a nice office that also served as an appartement. He bought himself fancy pre-war clothes, consumed clean food, sleept in comfy bed (sometimes with prostitutes) and even bought a terminal on which each of his cases were meticulously ranged. He greatly improve his own life while helping other and abusing the flaws of a corrupted system. To his clients, he was The Magic Man, to the NCR, he was just an arrogant and scrappy lawyer.
But, it's only in movies that the good guys win at the end, and the reigns of The Magic Man met a brutal closure.
His affair grew too prosperous, so much so that the NCR started to send spies to investigate and they discovered that he was the cause of thousands and thousands of loss of caps for their armies. The worst part is, it was some of his most loyal clients who betrayed them by giving the evidence of his business to the NCR against a pitefull reward. One day, a battalion of rangers stormed his house while he was asleep. He had just the time to fill a briefcase with some canned food, clothes and money before jumping out of a window and fleeing in the wasteland.
He wandered for a time before taking a small job as a courrier in the Mojave wasteland. He thought it could help him sasiate his desire for human connection while keeping a low profile from the NCR. It was nice, for a time, until he got kidnapped and left for dead in the cemetery of Goodsprings.
ROLEPLAY
Exiting Doc Mitchell house, The Magic Man take things slowly. Spending time at the local bar to process all the things that has happened to him. He wants to take time to reflect and be sure to make the right choices.
Mister House could be the savior of the wasteland he aspire to be. A man that would rise up ahead of all factions and rebuilt the world like it was before the great war and beyond. But he is also dangerous because of his diseregard for the lives of wastelander and his disconnection for the people of the Mojave. As such he needs someone to advice and challenge him, someone who capable of making him see the flaws of his ideology and push him to be a better ruler. The Magic Man will do everything in his power to fit into this role. And he will do so with everyone in his travels.
Weapons:
- Lucky
Armor:
- Benny's Suit (+5 Speech : +5 Barter)
- Eulogy Jones's hat (Charisma +1)
Companion: Lily
SPECIAL
S 2
P 5
E 1
C 8
I 7
A 7
L 10
Strength isn't really needed for this build since he prefers to avoid conflict most of the time. Lily offers him all the brute force he need.
Perception is useful to detect ennemies and aim with his gun but it's not the most important stat. There are hoewever some perception speech cheeks so we will raise it later
Endurance is at one cause it force you to sneak or talk your way out of your problems.
Charisma is mostly for roleplay because it's not that usefull in New Vegas.
Intelligence is at 7 because The Magic Man is smart enough to understand complex situations and solve difficult problems
Agility is at 7 so that he can espace sticky situations with ease and gain useful perks.
Luck is at 10 because The Magic Man can make incredible stuff happens. Is he cheating ? Maybe. A magician never reveals his tricks.
Traits
Good Natured
Trigger Discipline
Skills
Tagged: Barter, Speech, Science
Minor: Gun, Stealth
Inspirations
- Better Call Saul (2015-2022) by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould
- Atlas Shrugged (1957) by Ayn Rand
- The Card Shark WIP build by Skypothesis
- The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) by Alexandre Dumas
- White Heat (1949) by Raoul Walsh
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