#cutthroats

Vaultoween 2022 No. 30: “Raider”

Leadership skills, charisma.... David was a full package, really! Not to mention just a whole lot of tall, dark, and handsome.

The Bolton Cutthroats, painted in fabulous house fuchsia.

“It is not happenstance that they put a flayed man on their banners” - Jon Snow

the cutthroats are a notorious superhuman crew of thieves and mercenaries operating primarily in the big cities of the northeastern USA.

maiden mayhem- a selkie far from her native waters, mahina morcant / mina morgan is the captain and mastermind of the cutthroats. although she’s armed with siren song— and forced therefore to sustain herself primarily on human flesh— her brass knuckles, silver knives, and mercilessly precise streetfighting style can do almost as much damage as her voice.

vulture- a bald, mutated harpy from the streets of chicago, the vulture has leathery, talon-like hands and black wings extending from her back. she acts largely as a lookout and getaway driver for the cutthroats, often circling high above their operations. greedy and cruel, yet unfalteringly loyal, she’s generally found at the right hand of another cutthroat, looking for her next (preferably human) meal.

molotov- cursed with a destructive midas touch, any inanimate object that comes into contact with molotov’s bare hands becomes a superpowered grenade. she grew up as a delinquent in aberdeen and got her curse from a bad run-in a witch on the scottish highlands, and eventually was recruited as a cutthroat when mina met her in glasgow.

nobody- a “straight up hunk” who was raised in a temple of the goddess isis, nobody is a steady, vengeful presence on the crew. although complex enchantments take lots of time and preparation, his magic tattoos allow him to blend into his surroundings at will. his actual species is unknown, but he’s clearly inhuman (and a crack shot with a handgun).

Thanks for picking my brain! Overall, I like the Christmas Flood of 2082 that wiped out the initial Responders base in Charleston quite a bit as a plot device. It's a good piece of storytelling that adds to the whole saga of how the Responders (and everyone else) died out thanks to their inability to work together. David Thorpe jumping to conclusions that Rosalynn was dead, deciding to enact revenge with a mini nuke and blowing up the dam, thus inadvertently killing her himself along with a ton of innocents is classic Fallout tragedy. The raiders being split over this decision to the point of some defecting entirely is realistic. The Responders deciding to pick up what was left and move north is inspiring in the saddest, most world-weary way.