Barkar Massani

## History

### Prewar:

Barkar Massani was born to a blue collar family, working near Pittsburgh. When he was seventeen he enlisted in the armed forces, where he earned a marksmanship badge during his first four years of service. Eventually he was approached by a gang operating in Pittsburgh who offered to pay him for removing an officer that was a witness in a trial against a member of theirs. Promised he would be paid well and protected, he agreed and the officer was not much later shot dead by a bullet that went stray from the shooting range. While Barkar was a prime suspect, the gang held up to their word and he was given a general discharge soon after.

Unable to confront his honest family after, he moved to the heart of Pittsburgh and took up a day job as a metal worker. He also continued working for the gang though in a less violent manner, starting as a lookout and graduating to a debt collector, he was even brought into the planning for a bank job, tasked with providing and handling explosives that would be able to blow the vault doors. The studying and practice took months, but it was all for naught as sirens and news broadcasts announced the coming end of civilization mere weeks before the job was planned.

As atomic fire raged above, scouring life from the surface, he joined the many unprepared and poor who scattered to the subways and sewers of the city.

### Aftermath:

The child who was brash, ambitious and running from guilt over his choices became cold, hardened by the harsh life of constant violence and starvation in the makeshift shelter filled with various gangs vying for the position of 'government' to control what remained and ration out the largest portions to themselves. He had however, put the time to good use as he used whatever calm nights he could find with good lighting to read through chemistry books, expanding his knowledge on the subject that piqued his curiosity what felt like a lifetime ago. And when Barkar emerged, he like everyone who went into those tunnels three years prior, was a different man.

The gang, having taken the name 'Pitt Wolves' immediately set out for the industrial district. Aiming to secure whatever remained of the metal works with ambition to produce ammunition, armor and fortifications. True to their name, they held a strong pack mentality and anyone who wasn't them, was fodder. Either to use as bait for hunting, or slaves for labor. Barkar oversaw training and handling slaves to work the forges, and was proud to have a record low number of fatal accidents at only three a month on average.

He lived fairly comfortably for over a few decades, but grew to question the necessity of the sadistic treatment for slaves, and set about using his chemistry knowledge to brew a form of day tripper for the other slave drivers, hoping it would ease their anger. This kindness had not gone unnoticed however, and he found himself growing ostracized from the ever more violent gang members. He was tasked with leading groups of fodder slaves into the city to scavenge for more usable metals, where his knowledge of making improvised explosives served to break debris apart and enter previously untouched ruins.

### Exodus:

The explosion shook his shack, pieces of rust falling from the ceiling as he startled awake. He exited to see the slave pens below, their wall blown to rubble with accelerant spreading flames into the guards barracks. He heard the screaming of those trapped inside. Knowing immediately what had happened, the slaves smuggled materials of their own to help facilitate a breakout. Barkar also knew he would be blamed for this, his kindness perceived as a betrayal leading up to this event. Without any other choice he packed his weaponry, donned his armor, and set fire to the chemicals stored in his home before setting off into the waste as the prison break went on.

Traveling aimlessly for months, he came upon the tracks of a large group and set off to follow them. The seasons went on, from freezing to burning heat, the only constant being the radioactive hostility of the land as he trailed. Either he would find whatever promised land these people sought, or he would find their remains and take what supplies they had left. Life was harder now for him than ever before, forced to live off whatever raw meat or fungus he could find while drinkable water was scarce. Confronted by monsters fiercer than anything he'd seen in the Pitt, even something that appeared to be the cross of a demon and a dinosaur, stalking the ruins of a town covered in the gore of unidentifiable creatures.

He will never forget the way his blood burned and his bones ached. The way his chest tightened as life found its way back into the soil under his boots. Following the tracks through fields of tall grass, across ruined bridges and canyons. As the fifty year old wanderer laid eyes upon the hills of Appalachia, he knew this was his home now. No matter who, or what made their lair here. He would never return to circles of hell that the wasteland had shown him.

## Appearance

Barkar Massani stands at a fairly average height, with a stocky build. While not particularly 'buff' he does have the muscled physique of a runner. His skin is a darkened tan from dozens of years working in harsh sunlight and heat from the forges, while his hands are heavily calloused. He is also covered in scars, varying from old gunshot wounds, to deep gashes and claw marks. The left side of his face and body is heavily scarred from the shrapnel of an IED he set in the ruins. His eyes are Brown, his hair is grey (though it was a dark brown when he was young), and he keeps his head shaved.

## Personality

Barkar is a somewhat gruff man who can be blunt, but he isn't without his ability to charm. When he speaks, its usually accompanied by eye contact, and a firm handshake when called for. He comes across as an honest man, and indeed tries to be that as well as fair. His life has taught him that kindness is a human construct and simply not how nature can be, this has left him distrusting of anyone seeming generous.

Fun trivia

* While he was raised as a good Christian American, he has long since abandoned his faith in any greater power than a well placed bullet.
* He has a fear of deep, or running water. This is due to watching a girl drown while swimming through a storm drain while he was still in the subway tunnels, and later seeing a slave who fell into the heavily tainted waters of Pittsburgh dissolve in the harsh chemicals in a matter of minutes. He doesn't swim, or bathe in lakes, using a bucket to 'shower' instead.
* He holds a small amount of resentment for the settlers at foundation, recognizing some of them as the slaves who broke out of the Pitt, and blaming them for his life being turned upside down. But deep inside he understands why they did it, and respects them for earning their freedom the only way one can.