Avery Banks

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Not much is known about Avery Banks’ early life. He has only revealed bits and pieces of it to a select few, but from what can be stitched together, he was born in the Pre-War city of Camden, New Jersey, to working class parents shortly before the Great War. When the bombs fell, he was shielded from complete annihilation, but was exposed to high amounts of radiation and mutated into a ghoul. Little is known about his life during the interim, but by the late 22nd century, he was living in theDetroit Wasteland, working as a scavenger. Tension between different scavengers and scavenger groups was common at the time, and the threat of violence is what eventually led Banks to leave area.After taking odd jobs in the region, he began working as a caravan guard. Though his trips sometimes took him to parts west, he generally took jobs that took him east, hoping to travel to his youthful stomping grounds. Throughout his travels, he began making contacts from all different walks of life. Among them was Colin O’Callahan, the founder ofGarden State Shipping a shipping outfit that transported goods through the Jersey Wasteland, primarily to Delaware and New York. O’Callahan would prove a very important ally later in Banks’ life.In 2226, while doing routine work with a small trading company in the western portion of what used to be the state ofOhio in, his caravan was attacked by slavers from The Pitt. Like other members of the caravan, he was captured and enslaved. After years toiling and laboring in the slaver city, Avery was sold to The Authority, a violent mercenary gang that ruled Brick City, a settlement carved out of the ruins of Newark.From the very first moment of his captivity, he began plotting how to free himself and get revenge against the mercenaries, who went out of their way to intimidate and humiliate their slaves. In 2230, he finally got to act on that. Banks volunteered to be part of a taskforce that was sent south of Brick City to fight Jersey Devils, mutated monsters living in the Pine Barrens that periodically left the forests. The creatures were attacking small settlements that The Authority “taxed” in the form of a protection racket.During the excursion, the ghoul was able to secretly convince most of the other slaves on the expedition to join him in attacking the Authority members that were overseeing them. After the group encountered and dealt with the wayward Jersey Devils, they turned on the Authority mercenaries. Those that survived were free once more. Avery Banks was not content with freedom, however. Avery Banks wanted revenge.Traveling back north, he and a handful of other former slaves that also wanted revenge were able to meet up with a caravan from Garden State Shipping. After hitching a ride with them back to the organization’s headquarters, Avery was able to reunite with his friend, Colin O’Callahan. Avery pitched his plan for revenge, and O’Callahan- no friend of the Authority himself- agreed to it. The premise of the plan was simple, a strategy borrowed by from stories Banks heard in his youth about the Trojan War: using Garden State Shipping as cover, men would secretly enter into The Rock, the Authority’s headquarters in Brick City, and kill as many of the mercenaries as possible.For roughly a year, Banks and O’Callahan recruited local settlers who were harassed by The Authority that were tired of being pushed around. Mid-fall, as The Authority began importing food and other materials en mass to prepare for the winter, Banks and roughly 75 men and women were stowed away in Garden State Shipping wagons. They were smuggled into The Rock and the carefully thought out plan went off without a hitch. Overnight, most of The Authority was slaughtered. He sought to fill the power vacuum left by ousting The Authority with himself and his own men, and after a handful of conflicts with others with similar aspirations, cemented himself as the uncontested leader of the city.Since 2230, Avery Banks has ruled Brick City. Power has a way of corrupting, and bringing out the worst in people, and Banks is no different. Coming from nothing, Banks now wants it all. Slowly but surely, he has been working to expand his area of influence, using whatever means necessary to do so. While most smaller, nearby settlements have capitulated without argument, he is not above using any and all means to ensure compliance, and does not accept no for an answer. Where threats of brute force or promises of money or power do not work, Banks is not above subterfuge and intrigue. He has recently begun funding groups involved in illicit operations- chems, raiding, and other activities- to bring instability to other hubs in the region.