CHARACTER CREATION | Origins

ORIGINS

The Origins page serves to provide players insight into creating a believable and immersive character backstory, giving broad templates to explain the motives behind a character and what their background may provide for a personal story.

It is recommended by the staff team for newcomers to the faction to stick to the suggestions within this page. While you are absolutely encouraged to be creative and make up your own stories, you should be careful to ensure that they align with ATF8's aesthetic and lore.

BARGEBORNE—THE NAUT

GREATER COALITIONER—THE LAKER

NORTHEASTERNER—THE YANKEE

QUÉBÉCOIS—THE QUEBECKER

CANADIAN—THE CANUCK

HURONI —THE COLONISED

THE WASTELANDER

BARGEBORNE—THE NAUT

Born aboard the scrap metal colossus docked on the isles, your home—Bargetown—is your greatest pride, your livelihood having been defined upon the waves of the Great Lakes. Whether raised by immigrants or settled for generations, you live and breathe the myriad of cultures aboard the floating jewel of the Barge and throughout her Coalition.

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY
A deep sense of patriotic fervour, spurred on by propaganda's promises, drowning in debt with no other way out or unceremoniously dragged from your home in a draft, the reasons for many Bargetown natives to sign up to the Gold Leaf Army are as vast as the Great Lakes themselves. Though many soldiers may share similar reasons for their recruitment, there is an infinite well of stories among the ranks of the browncoat.

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT
A hardworking city native determined to make something of themselves, a tradesman whose skillset proves itself useful to the town, or a person who cares deeply for the Commonwealth and its citizens—these are the parroted sons of the Government, though it's an open secret that many of these 'righteous' are nothing more than scum thrown in a suit and tie, only working to fill their own pockets at the expense of the people. Perhaps you are one of these selfishly devoted agents, or perhaps you are someone trying their hardest to succeed in a crooked system.

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN
A true criminal, the victim of a Registrar's self-absorbed rage, the victim of framing or unjust punishment, the Rooks of the programme may find themselves cast to its depths for the smallest or greatest of missteps. Most Nauts end up as a rook as a last-chance punishment for a serious crime, but it's not uncommon for one to find themselves with the patch for getting on the wrong side of a Registrar, or just about any other injustice. Whatever the reason, once marked, only sheer willpower and a hefty sum of luck will get you out of your sentence alive.

Flag of Bargetown

(2161 — Present)

GREATER COALITIONER—THE LAKER

From all corners of the Great Lakes—the towns, fields, and frontier—is you. Perhaps descended from one of the Coalition's countless settlements, who has joined in Bargetown's mortal struggle against her many enemies. Chief among her enemies is the Midwest, who threatens your own home and your own culture. You stepped aboard that dirty, crowded ship bound for Bargetown with a reason: to satiate your hunger for adventure, fulfill your patriotic obligations, or perhaps escape the vices of home. Regardless, you are but another colour brushed upon the vast, diverse canvas that is the Coalition.

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY

Posters of well-dressed servicemen stood proudly in line, marching to the patriotic rhythm of drums and the triumphant blare of bugles. Perhaps it was that image which stirred something in you—an urge to enlist, to fight for the Coalition and for your home city by proxy. Now, you find yourself stationed on the stagnant Sunrise Front, facing the secessionist New Model Army as part of the Interarmes Volunteers—those out-of-towners meant to bolster the ranks of Bargetown’s weary Gold Leaf Army.

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT

Although positions like yours are typically reserved for the natives of the town, you were inducted for your specialty or technical skill—something Bargetown has grown increasingly desperate for. Even so, you find yourself trapped within the city’s cutthroat bureaucracy in a government rife with corruption and scandal. Competing with Bargetowners proves difficult; they secure promotions and pay raises long before you ever have the chance.

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN

An uncommon sight, though it's anything but rare: You’ve found yourself unfortunate enough to land a place among the ranks of the Marked Man Program. Whether you crossed paths with a wealthy Bargetowner or made a costly mistake with the law during your stay, it’s clear you’ve drawn the short straw. The other Marked Men, mostly natives of Bargetown, know the city like the back of their hand. They stash goods away in hidden corners and swindle in shadows you’ve yet to uncover. Occasionally, inmates from the Stillwater Correctional Facility are lent out to the battalion—fresh faces doomed to the same fate as yours.

Commonwealth Flag of the wider Coalition (2165 — Present)

NORTHEASTERNER—THE YANKEE

"Yankees," as the locals call you, and thousands of other families of the Northeastern diaspora living in the Coalition. Northeastern migration dates all the way back to the Thirty Years War, with a recent spike since 2164 due to the Constitutional Crisis. You may be a frontiersman seeking refuge from the Biomass of the North Island, a political émigré from the mainland, or a faraway volunteer who has lived in one of the Coalition’s many cities (often sectioned off into "Yankeetowns," such as Hamilton's Little Douglass district) for generations. With the latest arrival of refugees escaping the Biomass on the mainland, the introduction of the Alien Integration Act has shifted Bargetown’s interest towards integrating the vastly untapped, educated class into their ranks.

You originate from an affluent society, and generally hold a higher level of education on average compared to other groups in Bargetown. You come from a bilingual culture, with both English and Quebec French as primary languages, making you one of the largest French-speaking groups in the Coalition. In the Coalition, your tongue is known as a unique dialect of Québécois French known as "Yankee French." Your past affiliations and unique customs might attract attention from the rough-and-tumble locals, and not always the good sort of attention.

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY

Having fled from a country facing mass conscription and a culture that reveres its military, you may arrive in Bargetown with prior military experience. It is not uncommon for a Yankee—or even unlikely—to have served before, making the Gold Leaf Army a natural fit. While the fundamental reasons—such as money, stability, or use for existing skills—are universal, you may view this as a primary means to start a new life in Bargetown by leveraging your valuable military skills. You may also be a recent draftee, pressured to utilize your skills and fight for a town that only reluctantly took you in. You may also be an unwitting volunteer or a draftee pouring in from other Coalition cities, willing to pay the price in blood to send money home to your family.

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT

Many Northeasterners were part of the law enforcement and security apparatus of their old homeland's far-reaching, all-seeing government. Thus, you may be inclined to take a job as an agent of Bargetown to put your skills to good use. After all, you may have poured years into taking on college programs or university classes to better serve your country away from the frontlines. Now, in Bargetown, their government offers a chance to reclaim the "cushy" professional life you may have left behind. Bargetown actively seeks to integrate the highly educated Yankee population, such as yourself, offering high-paying government jobs that remind them of the office roles you may once have taken for granted. Whether here or back in the Union, even privacy is merely a suggestion, and men in suits raiding rooms is something that would never change.

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN

You might find yourself in the Marked Man Program not just for conventional crime, but for politically motivated actions or even by simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The Northeasterners are heavily factionalised between two main groups: those who support the old regime—Loyalists—and those who support the new regime—Nationalists—and both are left with complicated feelings regarding who to blame for their situation. Tribalism between Loyalists and Nationalists within the Yankee community of Bargetown can quickly devolve into bitter violence, where foreign political divisions see bloodshed, lives taken, and survivors arrested. Newspaper sections that cater to the Northeastern community print stories that stoke fears and drive a further wedge between the two factions of the diaspora. Historically—and probably contemporarily—Northeasterners were usually looked down upon in Bargetown as "imperialists," with merchants raising prices on visiting frontiersmen. Some of these negative feelings are likely left over, and you might be impressed into the penal unit for simply speaking out against injustice.

Flag of the Coalition's Northeast Diaspora

(2164 — Present)

Flag of the New Regime

(2164 — Present)

Flag of the Old Regime

(2080s — 2164)

QUÉBÉCOIS—THE QUEBECKER

The dissidents, the crooked, the militants, and the displaced. Of all Québécois origin stories, one common thread is an abandoned homeland. Unlike most of the wasteland, the primary language of the Québécois is their own dialect of Québécois French, which is used primarily in the Northeast and Québec itself with limited usage in the other areas of the eastern wasteland.

The dissidents are refugees driven away from their homeland for not conforming to the military junta, hounded by zealous militias and an unforgiving government that dehumanizes you for disagreeing. The crooked often flee the persecution for crimes that they have yet to be tried for, knowing that they won't be chased to the Great Lakes, nor will anyone there know of their past. The displaced may have led a normal life, with a normal career once, the war had pushed them out. The militants may have once been courageous soldiers or cunning guerrillas—freedom fighters of independence against the tyranny of Canada. Now, with your home war-torn and your military demobilised following the end of the war, you've found yourself selling services to the highest bidder or resorting to marauding. You've gotten your act together, whether by choice or by force, and now you have put yourself to different uses.

Despite how jumbled the path to the Coalition is for many Québécois people, all of these various walks of life hold one key aspect: an insular heritage. Despite some having lived within the nation since its very inception and others for only a few years, the people of Québec have carved out their own unique position among the cultures of the Great Lakes. Even the expatriates and sell-swords have deep loyalties to their collective, complex, and unique culture.

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY

Many Québécois servicemen of Bargetown's finest share similar backgrounds as former guerrillas, frontline soldiers, and partisan fighters. You are an experienced soldier who had once shed blood for your homeland, and now you once again return to a new field of battle to continue the crusade against Canada's broken armies—or just to earn your keep. Though this doesn't imply that your peers are all united under one banner—many of them hail from a myriad of fringe militias, militias that share their own unique beliefs, vastly isolated from your own—many of which you may vehemently disagree with. Perhaps instead, you were once just a privateer or even a pirate, now bribed to fight by the Conclave's side or having decided to denounce your lawless tendencies, so your uncaring attitude for life is molded as a tool in a more noble profession, if you can call it that; you don't care for honor or glory, you don't care for myth or legend, you don't even care for the rush of battle. Maybe all you want is money. Maybe all you want is to belong to something.

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT

Like any other nation in the wasteland, Québec too houses civilised and peaceful people. You, who—despite the many barbaric stereotypes that plague your people—refuse to adhere to barbarity, live peacefully. You joined for stability. Holding an invaluable skillset, thanks in part to likely being bilingual, you've been given an advantageous leap above most of your peers. Or, for the wicked, returned to old routines and abuse Bargetown's own systems to satisfy a selfish agenda, using righteous servitude as a front to embellish in liberties that perhaps you should have never been given in the first place—others might label you as scum, or just plain smart.

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN

A general distrust towards your population within Bargetown has existed for years, stemming from the constant, ever-lingering threat of Les Voyageurs, immigrants especially seen as nothing more than crooks and vagabonds. You are quick to fall to the judgment of a Registrar, who is either uncaring or even holds a deep-seated hatred for the 'savage' Québécois, and you are sentenced to service in the Marked Men. Whether or not you deserve it can be argued, only to fall on deaf ears. It is made constantly known to you the fact that most waterborne pirates who ravage the waters of Lake Erie are more often than not of Québécois descent, and as such they should be punished.

Cultural flag of Québec

(1948 — Present)

CANADIAN—THE CANUCK

You’ve run from something, haven’t you? Perhaps it was from the barbaric hordes of American soldiers who drove you south in search of refuge, or maybe you were one of the many militiamen or soldiers who lacked the faith to lay down their lives for King and Country. Or perhaps you fled long before that—a former troublemaker within the highly stratified and paternalistic society of Canada, modeled after some old monarchy you knew little of. But, that hardly concerns you anymore. Life for you is rife with struggle. Living day to day in a foreign nation where you are met with suspicion, it’s hard to say how you’ve made it this far alive—though you are thankful there’s a place for you in Bargetown’s society, meager as it may be.

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY

Due to the growing militarisation of your nation in the tense lead-up to the war with the Northeast, there’s a strong chance you’ve served in some capacity. Whether you were a member of the Canadian Armed Forces or a hastily-armed partisan thrown into the fray during the invasion, you are no stranger to discipline and military order. Yet the asymmetric, chaotic nature of warfare in Sunrise quickly shatters any lingering notion of competence or control you might have once held. It erases so easily.

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT

You’ve secured a place within Bargetown’s government thanks to your ability to read and write efficiently—a byproduct of the Canadian Government’s long-standing emphasis on literacy and education. Perhaps you once served as a low-level bureaucrat or a schoolteacher in Ottawa, but now you find the duties of an understudy increasingly simple with each passing day. Still, you harbour quiet ambitions—to climb the ranks, to grasp the social mobility that eluded you in your homeland, and to make something greater of yourself in this new and uncertain city.

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN

Once the brief target of discrimination amid the flood of refugees fleeing southward during the American invasion, you might have brushed shoulders with a bitter Registrar who accused you of attempted assault—landing you in the ranks of the Marked Man battalion. Or perhaps the cold hands of desperation drove you into Bargetown’s underworld, where theft became a means of survival, only for your luck to run out when you were finally caught and brought to justice, whatever form it had taken.

Former flag of the State of Canada

(Unknown — 2164)

HURONI —THE COLONISED

PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER PLACEHOLDER

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN

Flag of United Huron

(2165 — Present)

THE WASTELANDER

Whether you are a dirty vagrant from the streets or a raving tribal from the woods, you have sought refuge in Bargetown for any number of reasons. Perhaps you desired safety when the streets and fields of Sunrise ran red with foreign blood, as countless factions fought for control over your very home, while marauding raiders and the infectious Biomass ravaged the isles in the lawless vacuum left by years of ceaseless warfare. You may have fled from debt, or from a promise broken, or perhaps you simply wished to abandon your past and forge a new identity, despite the way the Nauts still spit upon your heritage. Many of your kind can scarcely read or write, treated as second-class citizens who have only recently been recognised as an essential part of society—thanks to the former Governor’s praise of your grit and industrious nature. Many, however, remain wholly ignorant of the daily struggles you endured in the wasteland to make it here.

INDUCTION: THE GOLD LEAF ARMY

Often divided into bands of so-called "Roughnecks", you’ve found a sense of solidarity among your fellow Sunrisers within the ranks of the Gold Leaf Army. Known for their ruthless nature and lack of discipline, you fight with a ferocity that few Nauts could ever match. You are no stranger to war or violence; the lives you take in the army are not your first, and will not be your last. Yet, the promise of a steady paycheck and a roof over your head makes the scorn and discrimination from your fellow soldiers just a little easier to endure.

INDUCTION: THE GOVERNMENT

Despite being viewed as uncouth, you can still carve out a place in the government—provided you are literate—serving as a Field Agent or something similar. You act as a guide and support for other agents when dealing with the natives of Sunrise. Your knowledge of the land, its customs, and its people makes you an invaluable negotiator, one that even the most reluctant Nauts recognise as essential to the government’s mission on the isles.

SERVITUDE: THE MARKED MEN

You come a dime a dozen once you fall into the vestiges of the Marked Man battalion. An easy scapegoat, you become a ready target for punishment, and it is all too common to find yourself on the wrong side of the law. Registrars, Constables, even servicemen single out you and your kin for the slightest offense. Yet not every Sunriser is falsely charged; among you are violent criminals and wandering tribesmen, whose capture earns them sentences very few live to see the end of.

Page updated

Google Sites

Report abuse