This is the first issue of “Characters, Diaries and Stories”, a collection of fan-fiction stories regarding peculiar RPG characters of my own invention written as tales, but based on the action of the actual character and together with screenshots. I would like to promote in these articles the connection between character creation, fictional tales and free roaming games. I will also add in future articles describing videogame session/mission written as diaries of the main characters.  As first article, I will tell the story of a character I played in Fallout 4, creating for him a story together with screenshots. I hope you will appreciate his dark tale of a superhero in search of the absolute fame. 

In a world ruled by radiations and mutants, where mankind is wildly living in almost barbaric conditions, the memory of baseball was able to create a hero. Well, or at least this is how it started.

Diamond City is one of the last light still shining in the wasteland of Fallout 4. The city was built inside a baseball stadium, a sport long forgotten but still integrated in this new culture. Many people born protected and inspired by the Baseball, safe inside the wall of the stadium. Several people watched at baseball like at a forgotten art, a discipline to be mastered to achieve the true power. And our hero was one of them.

Inspired by the baseball statue outside of the city, he started his travel to master the ancient art of baseball to become the hero that the city deserved. Thanks to the help of a local business man, who was running a baseball museum, our hero started a long journey toward a gym with ancient baseball artefacts. His dream was to find gear able to provide him the strength and the power to actually become a superhero. The travel was long and harsh, but our hero learned how to fight and how to survive in the Wastelands. However, the tragedy was behind the corner.

He was resting in an abandoned house, very close to the gym hiding the forbidden baseball treasure. The site was empty and silent, but during the night, a green light broke the darkness in a small burned forest in front of the house. A glowing Deathclaw, irradiated from toxic wastes, was staring at him in the night. Huge and green, with horns and long claws, a proper demon born from the contaminated wastelands. Our hero used all his weapons to face the creature, but the fight was lost since the beginning. Scratches and wounds opened his body, while he screamed with all the possible pain when his body was ripped open and irradiated. The Deathclaw flew, thinking that its job was done. But our hero was hard to kill.

Half dead, wounded and irradiated, he laid in the empty house for who knows how long. Suddenly, his wounds started to heal, while his body recovered from the trauma. Surprisingly, something changed in his body and now the radiation wahealing him. He couldn’t believe what was happening. He really gained a superpower, and now was immune to radiations. Following the enthusiasm of this new epiphany, our hero reached his destination: the baseball heaven. With effort and time, he was able to build armours, masks and weapon using baseball materials. He wore the head of a mascot to hide his identity, while learning how to fight with baseball bats. He trained to transform a common baseball ball into an explosive, or how to attach circular saws to a bat. A standard baseball uniform became his bulletproof armour. No, not only a simple armour, but a superhero suit. After months of training, he finally came back to Diamond City as the hero he was supposed to be: the Bloody Captain of Diamond City. Or just for friends, the Captain.

Now it was time to truly build his name, fighting the evil and achieving heroic challenges and epic deeds to reach the absolute fame. It was time to become a superhero not only for himself, but for the people around him. After all, he was immune to radiation and a master of the ancient fighting art of Baseball. While criminals and gangs were fighting using military weapons and guns, he was fighting only with his baseball bat. Dozen of criminal lairs were cleaned up by a crazy guy wearing the head of a bear and wielding a baseball bat. But strangely, he was really difficult to kill, and with time his name started to be on the mouth of the every criminal.

But for the Captain it was not enough to be only the scourge of the criminal underworld. He wanted to be a hero, responsible of legendary deeds that a common human could only dream of. He started to use his legendary baseball bat to challenge colossal and ferocious creatures in deadly duels. Of course the trail of blood and fights started with his revenge against the Deathclaws. The Captain was able to defeat in close quarter combat, after a deadly and brutal fight, several Deathclaws by using only his modified baseball bat. He was now the real alpha predator.

But this was not enough. The next opponents were really colossal creatures, such as the Mirelurk Queens. The Captain was able to track one of this ancient beasts, and was able to inflict the final blow with his faithful bat. Deeds and epic challenges continued, but his name never became a legend in the mouth of everyone. He was able to control the atomic power, unleashing a rainfall of bombs on the main quarter of the most notorious gang: the Gunners. The Captain took also control of several weapons of  mass destruction, including an old submarine and some cannons. He became a hero even more powerful than the statue that inspired him at the beginning.

He also never forgot the ancient art of Baseball, that was always part of his deeds. A museum of baseball was opened by him, showing the hugest collection of balls and bats. The technique called “Manrun!” was also perfected by him, who was able to send humans directly flying in the sky with one hit of his bat. He also achieved to build the biggest baseball field in the world by positioning baseball bases on the extreme corners of Boston.

But it was never enough, and his name never became famous such as the notorious Silver Shroud or Grognack. The alcohol and the grudge became his hideout. The fault of his failure was in the hands of the other heroes, for this reason he started to discredit them. First thing, he found ancient clothes of Grognack the barbarian in a comic shop. He hired an incompetent sidekick to dress as Grognack, always making him fail in every deed, always hurt and exposed to the enemy fire. Second, he challenged Silver Shroud by freeing his city from crime, taking his name and role but dressing anyway with his iconic baseball uniform. But this was not enough, so he started to impersonate them by dressing with their costumes, to discredit and ridiculed them. It was never a hard deal, sometimes he got drunk dressed as Grognack, or he broke a window as Silver Shroud.

But whatever thing he made, it was still not enough for him to be a legend. He was famous, but was not “The Legend”. Nobody was making radio shows or writing books about him, he was a minor celebrity according to his own eyes. Something in him broke, and something new born in his mind. When the atrocious crimes started in Diamond City, he couldn’t believe a human being could be responsible of such monstrosity. At the third killing, the local newspaper started to address the killer as the “Deathclaw Ripper”. The serial killer used a homemade Deathclaw’s hand to make his victims in pieces, with a inhuman barbarity and a sadistic violence. He also always left on the scene of the crime a real severed Deathclaw’s hand.

The city was shocked by this rampage of violence, but the guards couldn’t stop him. The Captain placed all his effort to catch the criminal, but the Ripper was always one step ahead of him. For how much he tried, he was never able to collect a single clue. The crimes continued and our baseball hero became the worst nemesis of the Ripper. The citizens appreciated his effort to catch the monster, and he became the most beloved hero of the town, often collaborating with local authorities.

Of course, a part of him always knew what was happening, especially when he found the homemade claw full of blood hidden in his own house. His mind just couldn’t accept that he had another personalities, something so dark and evil that was harvesting the people of the city, something arising from the traumatic attack of the Deathclaw. Because what every hero needs, it’s an evil villain to stop.

He continued trying to catch the Ripper, but always failing. Of course: who could be able to catch himself?