Sunday 12 September 2021

Post Apoc Lone Traders























So on the road merchants are fairly common encounters especially at various camp sites and even in settlements. Many towns have converted old rail sheds into caravan stops, even merchants caravans often support these endeavours. So here are a d12 lone traders and will do d12 caravans next. Caravans operate more like a business with many employees, hired guards and more. These loners mostly are alone but may also act as guides, escorts and even take passengers. These characters can be met regularly on roads and make good contacts.

d12 Lone traders
1 Pappy Scraps - carries a large backpack trading with various prospectors and mostly trading in scrap and gets left alone by non-psychotic bandits who have come to know him. He knows lots of road stories and local prospectors and has visited several ancient coastal capital cities. He drinks only tea not grog as he wont risk not being alert. Once a year he gets a fancy bath in a trading town. With his old hat, beard and goggles he is easily recognised. Has a single huge loaded backpack 
2 Trader JoJo - a young trader who still takes some risks with her dog Billi. She is just getting the hang of the routes and is usually covered in wrappings to conceal her appearance and look poor. She carries a few molitov incendiaries and a scrap SMG and a crossbow and hates bandits who killed her family. 
3 Doc Abby - wandering healer trading in medicine, doctoring and ingredients. Quite a few towns let her stay for free and provide her with a stove and a shack to brew more meds. Bandits have tried to kidnap her to make narcotics and she has avoided this so far by luck. She offers good prices but is a bit crotchety as her services are always in demand. She trades with local healers and is essential to trade route medical supplies. She also trades with tribal folk and beast folk. She dislikes the healer cult for its religious elements. She uses a small cart occasionally when loaded up which slows her a bit
4 Trader Boon - deals in scrap but also in old scrap built weapons he makes when he stays in a town and uses local equipment. He leaves a few guns in return and also carries an assortment of bullets and knives. He always carries a few surprises and has killed many bandits whom he happily loots for extra stock. He has a bit of a deathwish and will even attack bandit camps preemptively and even takes a few heads for bounties of famous criminals. Plenty of angry enemies know of him and want revenge. Has mutant green donkey named Charley
5 Bluey Tucker - a trader who deals with tribals and ferals for exotic plants and animal products to civilisation. Occasionally these peoples have rescued him from some predicament. He travels light and near-naked with metre long ginger dreadlocks, beard and tattoos. His goods require little space and he always has a d6 dingos that come and go as they please and are well behaved in his presence
6 Latoya Star - operates a ground car interceptor for high-speed treks between ruined cities. WIll sometimes take one or two passengers and usually goods dependant on speed. Most trips she comes into bloody conflict and she takes delight in finishing off wounded bandits with her machete. She stops in quite a few towns and never uses isolated campsites. A few favourite towns she uses for fuel and repairs. Her car Black Beauty has a 5.56mm machine gun and smoke emitter and she carries a few pipe bombs and a sawn-off shotgun
7 Old Marge - pushes her trolley and several cats across the wastes, wearing clothes made of scrap. When she sits still most think she is a pile of garbage. She often deals with old garbage dump prospectors and buts their luckiest finds to gigger centres. She is quite canny and most of her goods are just scrap but she carries a few high tech electronic components. She actually has a knack for electronic repair and listens to the radio on her travels. She sometimes employs a few scrap built gadgets like a ground radar alarm for camping and even crude land mines
8 Old Barney - is a well-liked trader known for his drinking and wide wanderings. Originally a swagman itinerant worker, he took up trading on the side and never looked back. He usually has a giant mutant bearded dragon for a pack animal names Sammy. He is well known for trading in booze, tobacco and narcotics and bringing in feral orphans into towns. If anything happened to him these various orphans would hunt for him and seek revenge
9 Bug-Eye Bill - a scrap trader and under his wrappings, goggles and beard he is a mutant. He trades between mutants shanty towns and civilised people who shun them. He uses various giant bugs in his travels like a giant dung beetle for a pack animal and a few carab beetles or a giant mantis as a guard. He jokes his gal mantis is available for loving but don't lose your head. While a bit odd he brings in many rare scrap items and edible locusts from mutants who farm them. Honeyed locust skewers are his favourite and he often sets up his stall and wares and sells snacks when he visits a town. Won't stay indoors in a human town preferring to be outdoors and sing to insects
10 Bullwart Glumpkin - a cane toad trader, ex-soldier left in some wet season war decades ago. Bullwart carries his packs stoically across the wastes and despite his kind being unpopular he manages to sell quality weapons and goods he loots from his old army caches. Other can toads working for the army still hate him and seek to try him for desertion and thievery. He is notoriously well-armed and most don't know he poisons his bullets with his own toxic secretions. He is friendly because it's good for business and survival but prefers to be alone in one of the secret burrow caches he leaves along trade routes. He has killed and eaten many bandits with his commando training and resilience
11 Clara Kalooey - a small sparkly lady wanders the waste with her loyal military android companion Chaka. As she is safe she is surprisingly optimistic and unaffected by the usual melancholy and despair common to wasteland wanderers. She gets along with mutants, tribals, animal abhumans and all sorts who initially feared her laser rifle-armed android. She has a wide variety of quality scrap and exotic plant and animal parts for craft and medicine. Many fear the android at first but it has remained loyal and seems resistant to human killer viruses that brought down humanity
12 Diesel Jo - drives a slow-moving traction engine with a big load of scrap and a machinegun. The vehicle is so slow he occasionally goes to sleep driving or if in a fight he can let it go forward and man the guns. It mostly does 16 kph but can go 40 pm when cranks up the engine with special fuel. Collects roadkill and dead bandits or zombies for his biofuel converter. Friendly to travellers and always after a deal, will make tempting offers with his wide range of goods if you have something he wants. May take passengers he knows preferably only one or two but once had a dozen militia ride it to attack a bandit camp

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