#legate lanius

"Your chariot awaits at Caesar's Legion!"

Founded by high school history professor Edward Sallow, Caesar's Legion gained notoriety for acquiring an ever-growing series of other small dealerships through technically legal but ethically heinous practices.

Yes, everyone still cosplays as Romans. It's the company uniform.

Head of Human Resources Lanius (still wearing the mask) ensures that only the worthy pass the interview process. Underperforming sales associates fear his wrath.

Head of Sales Vulpes Inculta is a smooth-talking conman who gets you off the floor and out the door before you realize you spent way more than your initial budget. He pits customers against each other to create false pressure for a great deal that's going to slip through their fingers and go to that other guy unless they sign right now.

Joshua Graham's name has been erased from all but the most mandatory company records. He was fired after failing to close a deal that would have led to the Legion acquiring New California Roadsters.

Ulysses was once a student in Sallow's class who met 'Caesar' after his former teacher bought out the auto body repair shop where he worked. Initially fine with working for someone he used to look up to, Ulysses became disillusioned by the Legion's poor treatment of its lower-ranking employees and quit after a few months.

Onsite security is technically provided by an independent firm, but the 'Praetorian Guard' gets paid extra if they cosplay. Lucius was the first to agree, and he didn't know about the bonus at the time.

His threats to rape/murder/nail the Courier to the Dam also make it much more rewarding to either kill him or con him into leaving right after. You get to beat him at his own game by out-bruting him or out-blustering him.

But I was not expecting how catty he is about Joshua Graham.

One of the ways you can talk him down is by conning him into thinking the NCR has set a clever trap for him like they did for Graham 4 years ago. It takes several speech checks to convince him, and during that convincing he says stuff like

"You dare speak that name? Comparing him to any man of Caesar will only earn you a slow death. You think me some lesser man, some other Legate? I am the first of the Legion, and this gate to the West shall be ours this day."

and

"Graham's overconfidence forever branded him with fire, I will not follow his trail of fire into the depths of the Grand Canyon."

and

"Hoover Dam has never seen the massed strength of the East. Only Legates such as Graham… who deserved the fire Caesar blessed him with."

(side note: He sure doesn't mind speaking that name.)

He spells it out even more explicitly if you fail a speech check:

"I am not another Legate, and I am not such a fool as Graham, to be painted in pitch and set aflame."

That attitude isn't just arbitrary trash-talk. It's a defense mechanism. Lanius knows dam well (huehue) that if he screws up this assault, he's going down the Grand Canyon next. Everyone in the Legion probably thinks like this. Everyone from the must brutally cunning Centurion to the mediocrest recruit who saw that execution learned one clear lesson: If not even Caesar's bestie and co-founder is spared his wrath upon failing him, you sure won't be.

It's such a well-known attitude that Ulysses outright tells us "oh yeah you can totally make him back down if you bring up Graham and make him afraid he'll fail".

That's why Lanius reassures himself that he's built different. He's a greater man. He's not overconfident or a fool. He doesn't deserve to be executed. He's way cooler and stronger and more competent than Joshua Graham and he definitely won't fail and get brutally publicly executed, no sirree. Retreating from the Dam after assaulting it is a sound tactical judgment and 100% different from failing to take the Dam.

Think like this face wise, I'll design my vision eventually, but I have this for now.

Also, he's from the series BONE

This branch would have its own way of functioning and such somewhat like how each brotherhood chapter has their differences.