Video Game / Russell

It's just a regular day in the Mojave Wasteland. For whatever reason, you decided to head to the 188. Maybe you're picking up Veronica for another romp through the rest of the desert, maybe you're taking a break from all this bounty hunting business, maybe you just want to buy guns, or maybe you just want to relax with a drink. Whatever the reason, you stop by.

As you arrive, you see a man in light combat armor and a Ranger hat sitting at the bar. You strike up a conversation with him, noticing his missing eye and scarred face.

He introduces himself as Russell, a Bounty Hunter who's lost track of a scalper named Glanton. Feeling that this is worth your time, you ask to come with. After some debating, you strike up a deal to split the bounty and head on to his last lead.

Thus begins a long quest throughout the Mojave Wasteland to find Glanton, and maybe learn a bit more about your mysterious companion on the side.

This is Russell, a companion mod by someguy2000 for Fallout: New Vegas. Up to par with the rest of someguy's works, Russell provides a new companion for your journeys throughout the Mojave, one that will definitely spice up the Vegas wastes.

Part of The Someguy Series, with Russell commenting on bounties and the unique quests of the other mods.

Tropes in Russell:

• The Ace: Russell can craft ammo, knows tribal remedies and is a Boone-tier companion...
  • Broken Ace: ... But he's lost his idealism and a lot of his dreams of the future, and he's had a pretty shitty childhood.
• Asshole Victim: Glanton butchers a group of Powder Gangers after they kidnap and murder a young woman from Primm.
• Badass Army: The Desert Rangers, Russell's old unit, and yes those are the guys whose armor you can get in Honest Hearts. They were a heroic band of survivalists who protected the people of the Mojave. They merged with the NCR when they were losing against the Legion, a fact which Russell furiously cannot accept.
• Bash Brothers: You and Russell can be this. Hell, no matter how nice you are to him, he'll never stop snarking whenever you go to a dangerous place in the Mojave.
• Berserk Button: Just like Boone, Russell has a rather low opinion of the Legion. Considering his Dark and Troubled Past which is just as bad as Boone's, that's definitely no surprise.
  • Asking him what happened to his face.
  • He absolutely despises the Ranger Unification monument, and bringing him to the Mojave Outpost will provoke an angry rant about it and the NCR.
  Russell: "A giant, iron dick pointed towards the Mojave would be more apt, in my opinion. NCR doesn't shake hands - they fuck you in the ass with a bear cock."
• Big Bad Duumvirate: Glanton teams up with Marko in the good ending.
• Blood Knight: Russell loves combat. However, he points out, he DOES NOT like killing innocent people.
• Bounty Hunter: Russell. By virtue of tagging along with him to bag Glanton, or if you've been doing New Vegas Bounties, you're one as well.
• Dark and Troubled Past: Russell was a slave whose tribe was burned, crucified,and by the legion. He was less than five years old at the time, and he was taken into slavery to a centurion who loved him just a bit too much... He was eventually saved by the Desert Rangers, who took him in and gave him a sense of power and agency, which is why he hates the NCR-Desert Ranger treaty.
• Death of a Child: The poor baby in Caruthers Canyon. You scout out the house attacked by Sand Wolves... And then there's a baby on the floor, knifed in the gut...
• Defiled Forever: One reason why Russell hates Titus Vulcanus.
• Depraved Bisexual: Titus Vulcanus the man who was Russell's owner when he was a slave, stuck a Flaming Sword into Russell's eye. However, his sexual innuendo makes it even more terrifying.
• Dirty Coward: The Silverwood sheriff has been nothing but a nuisance to the town, not even giving Charlie his soldier records. The first sight of a Legion attack, he and his men skip town. He's captured, and then the first one to die.
  • The mayor is also this, preaching and saying the tribals are savages while hiding in a cave.
• Dungeon Shop: Hendershot's shop is deep within Cholla mountains, past a crapload of ghouls. Justified, as the Van Graffs are after him because they don't like competition, so he works by getting advanced orders and using his train to skip the ghouls and meet buyers at the entrance. If you're nice to him, you can use the train yourself, and he gives you full access to his inventory.
• Expy: Russell is just like Boone: Both hate the Legion, both hate slavers, both were part of elite units, both use rifles and advocate swift and silent extermination of targets and both are powerful companions. someguy2000 even says that his stats are better than Boone's.
  • Benjamin Hines is an even more tragic expy of the Survivalist from Honest Hearts.
  • The Sand Wolves are an expy of the White Legs: Being sadistic jerks for no reason whatsoever. Psyche. They're actually more of an expy of the Dead Horses if you didn't spare Salt-Upon-Wounds: A once peaceful tribe turned violent by outside influence. Specifically, they want revenge for having their home stolen from them.
• Eye Scream: The OTHER reason Russell hates Titus Vulcanus. Russell lost his eye to Titus, who stuck a Shishkebab into his eye and let it cook half his face.
• Foreshadowing: The entire good ending foreshadows how your battle with Glanton and Marko will go down.
• Genre Savvy: Benjamin Hines, A Follower of the Apocalypse, found a home with the Sand Wolves... and was thus scared to death when he found silver in one of the canyon's caves. He became even more terrified when settlers started pouring in. Tragically, he couldn't stop what was coming.
• Gorn: The only one among The Someguy Series to be listed as adult content due to how graphic the deaths are.
• Gun Nut: Russell loves rifles, and notably as a companion he can even craft ammunition. He even considers marrying into the Boomers just for this reason.
  Russell: Maybe I should marry a Boomer girl. Least I'll get some badass weapons out of the arrangement."
• Hold the Line: Silverwood will be attacked by an entire legion detachment, 100-strong. This can go as simply as gunning in and killing everything in sight yourself or getting help from the locals and giving them the equipment they need to hold the line with you.
  • Of course, someguy2000 loved it when Al himself did a review of it.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: Russell does not like killing, he likes fighting. It pumps the adrenaline, gives you a rush of competition, mano-a-mano. It's why he took up bounty hunting.
• Innocence Lost: Go inside the Cave of the Warrior in the Sand Wolves' village and read the Diaries of Benjamin Hines... The people who Glanton just massacred were once innocent, happy, peaceful people who were constantly attacked and massacred by the settlers of Silverwood. By the time you reach Caruther's Canyon they've become the complete antithesis of what they were when Benjamin Hines first made contact with them.
• Instant Militia: When Silverwood is about to be attacked, Russell dismisses any notion of training a proper militia, so you need to choose some good men. Whether or not you do (you can) is up to you.
• Knight in Sour Armor: Russell is still moral, but his idealism has taken a blow from the NCR's bullshit. Whether or not he opens up again is up to you.
• Knight Templar: Glanton lost his wife to tribals, and thus dedicates his life to absolutely massacring every one he comes across.
• The Lancer: Russell is definitely this to the Courier. A Deadpan Snarker who advocates sneak attacks, points out good strategies and courses of action... And bemoans that you'll be the death of him.
• Last of His Kind: The Fredonians, Russell's tribe, were all crucified or burned to death by the Legion.
  "Russell: So yeah, I'm "The Last of The Fredonians". Sounds Fucking corny, huh?"
• Messianic Archetype: In the good ending, people debate what happens when the Courier meets Glanton. He/she either just dies and stays dead, or rises up to fight "The devil himself" (Marko).
• Minor Crime Reveals Major Plot: Well, scalping isn't exactly minor, but it's Fallout. You didn't actually think that this'd be a regular bounty job, would you?
• The Musketeer: Though he doesn't use a musket, Russell's default loadout alternates between using his Bowie knife and his assault rifle. Not at the same time, if only.
• "Not So Different" Remark: Benjamin Hines wonders if he's any different from Caesar because of teaching the innocent Sand Wolves how to fight. Not intentionally, but it still guilts him.
• Obstructive Bureaucrat: The sheriff of Silverwood hates Hobo Charile, and thus doesn't send for the records that prove him a hardened soldier.
  • Mayor Brandon is nothing but a hypocritical coward. Spare him and make him continue being a mayor, he becomes this.
• Ragtag Band of Misfits: Silverwood will be attacked. There's no time to get a real militia. Who can you call? A drunken soldier, a swift, moral villager, the cowboy bartender, the boxing foreman and the village whore.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: The Diaries of Benjamin Hines reveals this as the reason behind the Sand Wolves attacks.
• Settling the Frontier: Later half of the mod takes place in an NCR pioneer settlement called Silverwood, where the locals are getting harassed by the natives. Glanton comes to the town to exterminate the natives and The Courier has the choice to either work with Glanton or help the town defend itself as it gets attacked by a Caesar's Legion Century.
• Shout-Out:
  • The bartender in Silverwood is a movie buff who loves the movies of one Albert Breach. You can tell him to follow in the man's footsteps and be a movie director or play it safe and remain a barman.
    • And if he does the former and survives the siege on Silverwood the epilogue states he eventually got decapitated by a vertibird blade in a set accident.
  • Russell being the last of the Fredonians.
• Sir Swears-a-Lot: Russell has a really bad mouth on him, and swears nearly every time he attacks.
  • The mayor of Silverwood is this as well.
• This Is Gonna Suck: Every time you head to one of the more dangerous places in the Mojave or do something stupid, Russell will calmly point out how pleased he is For example, to Vault 22...
  "Russell: Didn't you read the sign? The plants KILL?! *Beat* You don't really care, do you? Fuck me, should've stayed at the 188..."
  • This also happens when the Mayor Brandon hears of an entire Legion detachment attacking.
• Why Am I Ticking??: After repelling the Legion assault on Silverwood, a slave approaches the Courier with a message:
  Slave: Salve, Profligate. I come on behalf of my master, the dread centurion. Out of respect for your bravery, he will make no more attacks on the town. He entreats you to meet him in the canyon, where he will face you in a contest of arms, if you are strong enough. Upon delivery of this message, I am to be liberated… it hurts…
• Wild Card: Russell advocates the Independent Endings of New Vegas because he doesn't like how NCR works, he doesn't like putting all of New Vegas under one man (Mr. House) and he just doesn't like the Legion. He even says "Maybe we need a Wild Card".
• Zerg Rush: Reaching Hendershot in Cholla mountains requires to go through a long tunnel and defend against a rush of many feral ghouls.

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