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"Hey, look: another asshole who thinks they know me. Listen buddy, you don't know shit about dick. Ya gonna buy something or ya gonna fuck off?"
— Rae Briggs
Raechael Julianne "Rae" Briggs is an independent chemist living in Field's shack in the Mojave Wasteland in 2281.
Background[]
Early life[]
Rachael was born to Ernest and Julianne on December 2, 2255 in the Angel's Boneyard; although, it may be more accurate to say Rachael was born to just Ernest, as Julianne died due to complications of childbirth. As a widower, Ernie raised Rachael on his own in the neighborhood of New Adytum. In an attempt to provide for her, Ernie worked increasingly long hours as a machinist for the Gun Runners for a meager wage. While Ernie worked, Rachael was looked after by Julianne's friends, until she was around seven years old and could watch after herself if left home alone.
The Angel's Boneyard may have been safe within the borders of the New California Republic, but New Adytum was still a tough neighborhood, and Rae quickly learned how to fend for herself. Intact clothing, three meals a day and not being harassed by Boneyard gangs were luxuries for the Briggs family. To keep her out of trouble, the Gun Runners hired her at the request of her father, who was their senior machinist, when she was only fourteen, and trained her how to assemble machined parts into functional firearms.
Joining the Followers[]
In 2271, Ernie fell victim to a machining accident when a pneumatic press crushed and crippled his arm. With his disability, he was forced out of his machining occupation. The accident made him skeptical about the industry and he urged Rachael to find a profession that was safer; the best way to do that was get out of the Boneyard entirely. The family was poor, but Ernie had managed to save up enough money to pay monthly tuition for Angel's Boneyard Medical College where the Followers of the Apocalypse could cheaply prepare Rachael to do good in the wasteland. Having never gone to school, Rae was excited by the prospect of learning and began attending the university when she was 16.
While at ABMC, Briggs enrolled in a curriculum focused mainly on pharmacology and biochemistry. The first semester was tough, but she later got used to the routine of schooling and began down the road toward a better life. After five semesters, Briggs graduated the university with her degree in pharmacology. Within a week, she had ensured her father she would send home monthly payments to help support him and was transferred to the Follower's branch in the Mojave Desert.
Practitioner to Pusher[]
Briggs did not take the transfer as well as one might hope and was always concerned about her father back home. Rae was provided a modest room and board, but distilling Fixer and Mentat tablets, Med-X, hydra and stimpaks earned Briggs an additional steady income of 60 caps a week. However, this proved to be barely enough to keep her father in clothing and fed on a mere two meals a day.
Ernie deserved better than that and Rae felt at a loss; the man who provided for her, kept her out of trouble, and paid for a better future for her was going to die in a gutter some day unless she changed something. Some people would pay a lot more for her pharmaceuticals than the meager donations the Followers got, so she left to establish her own market only four months after joining the Followers at the Old Mormon Fort.
She headed north after taking several pieces of laboratory equipment without so much as leaving a note. Knowing that chem addicts tended to crash in and about the ruins north of Vegas, she occupied a shack near the end of Highway 93, outside of Nellis Air Force Base and set up shop. After selling some rudimentary chems to these local druggies, word got around and Briggs built a reputation for herself among addicts. This caught the attention of the Fiends who roam around the northern Mojave, who soon negotiated a regular supply of chems as well as some unique chems of Rae's own design. It wasn't long before the Great Khans got in on the action as well and established a distribution contract with Briggs. Having been in the chem game for over five years now, Briggs is providing her father more than enough to live off of and isn't doing too badly for herself either. Does her father need to know how she's scraping together these funds? Not necessarily; that'll be her little secret.
Appearance and abilities[]
Briggs is of average build, standing five feet, six inches (1.67 meters) tall and weighing around 135 pounds (61 kilograms). She would be rather indistinguishable if not for her distinctly colored hair, which was bleached and dyed hot pink a while ago but has since faded into a pastel rosy hue. Additionally, her otherwise fair skin is dotted with a number of moles, including a beauty mark on her jaw.
With a diploma from Angel's Boneyard Medical College, Rae's forte is synthesizing and developing chemical compounds, be it for medical uses or simply getting high. To aid her in creating these compounds, she has a respectable knowledge of wasteland plants, and especially the chems from which these plants can be refined. She is also the perfect student, willing and able to learn new concepts very easily. However, she is not just some chem nerd; after all, she lived in New Adytum for most of her life, so she knows her way around a gun and isn't too shabby with a blade.
As a salesman of sorts, she can be convincing but only with her regular customers (i.e. crazed junkies who don't care what they have to pay to get their next fix). Because of her upbringing in a bad neighborhood, she is also slow to trust and easily gets pissy and passive aggressive when interacting with new people. Another of Rae's weak points is her father: he is the only person for which she has sympathy, and she would do anything to help her father, even if it meant making things more difficult for her.
Equipment[]
| Apparel | Weapon | Other items | On death |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raider badlands armor Bandana Radiation suit |
10mm submachine gun, ext. mag Combat knife |
10mm round (x80) | Briggs' chem notes |
Weapons[]
Rae carries a standard H&K MP9 10mm submachine gun with an extended magazine to ensure she has the upper hand if a buyer decides to go berserk and try to make off with her supply. She also carries a SharpWit brand Stallona combat knife, for use in cutting tubing, prying flasks of chemicals open and the occasional stabbing of customers who get too close for her liking.
Apparel[]
To identify herself as not one of the Followers or NCR, Rae wears common raider dress: cutoff khaki jeans and a cropped tanktop in addition to some makeshift armguards and a bandolier of ammunition; she commonly wears a bandana to keep her hair out of her face. She also has a radiation suit that is perfect for protecting her against caustic chemicals, should something spill or aerosolize, or keep her from contaminating a batch of drugs.
Miscellaneous[]
She keeps an audio record of her experimental chem recipes in order to keep track of her progress in addition to any finalized recipes she has created.
Personality[]
Rae is naturally cautious and secretive; working with drugged out maniacs can have that effect on some people. In order to sell chems more easily, she can put on the façade of someone who cares about her customers, but customers who waste her time can expect to be treated rather curtly. That being said, she isn't exactly ecstatic about being in the chem business, but in her words, she "finally [has] nice things for once." Additionally, she's a daddy's girl through and through and would do anything to help her father. She justifies herself peddling chems by rationalizing that she's not forcing anyone to buy her chems and they're doing it of their own accord; if she doesn't sell them, the addicts will just get them from somewhere else, so she would be crazy to not get some caps when the opportunity presented itself.
To put it lightly, people have screwed her and her father over a lot and they aren't exactly her favorite part of being a chem dealer. Therefore, friends don't come easy for her; it certainly doesn't help that she has to be cautious about everyone she meets and is close only to business associates from Red Rock Canyon and Vault 3. She becomes especially upset when someone brings up her occupation and tries to bully her with it. She enjoys experimenting with compounds much more than serving customers, but it's what she has to do to get by and help her father.
Theme song[]
Boogie at Midnight, Roy Brown