HobbsReport

English：Hobbs　·　Characters

A mad old man full of legends, and the first free squadmate in most players' careers. Play along with his stories and he is yours — snap at him once and the chance is gone for good.

Hobbs is one of the easiest free unique recruits in the game to obtain. He most often turns up in the Fishing Village on the Northern Coast, usually propping up the bar or circling the village; beyond that he has a small chance of spawning in Mourn, The Hub, waystations up and down the map, World's End, and a handful of town override locations.

The legend of the wailing phantom

His recruitment conversation opens with him buying you a drink, after which he asks whether you have ever heard the story of the wailing phantom. The details vary from telling to telling, but the absurdity is constant: the thing dwells in a sunken cave south of the dunes (or else deep, deep in the forest), its bones are solid diamond, and a single tooth would fetch you "kabillions — no, poobillions" of Cats; it has the gigantic tongue of a lusty tree hag, a marvellous pair of bingo wings that droop like smooth potato butter, and a snout like a fondled truffle. Quaff its inner syrups, they say, and you gain the power of balmy immortality — and true love's smooch will transform the beast into a glorious man-cherub who will grant you your deepest hankerings.

When the player asks how one is supposed to find the thing, his answer is honest: if he knew that, he would have tracked it down himself — but if you are going out to look for it, you must take him along. Call it an old dying man's last wish.

How to recruit him, and the one landmine

Simply show interest in the conversation and play along with his legend, and he joins for free.

Statistics

His skill panel is not, in truth, impressive: Strength, Dexterity and the various weapon skills land between 2 and 8, while Toughness, Dodge, Martial Arts and the like sit around -2 to 4. The more usable entries are Athletics 7–13, Labouring 5, and Field Medic and Engineer at 2–8 each.

For an opening squad, though, the numbers were never the point — he is free. His overall level is a shade better than most paid generic recruits, and his spawn locations are thick on the ground, which is why he so often ends up being the first person a player takes on.

Once he is on the road

He goes on telling stories as you travel. He insists, for instance, that he once wrestled a randy gorillo with his bare hands, right here on this spot, and that he had sipped a very large amount of rum beforehand, so it was the most wobbly of battles; afterwards the two of them sat down together at the campfire and talked about those pesky cacti.

The real punchline comes later. After the squad has been travelling a while, someone asks him what became of the legend he signed on to chase:

Player: The legend you joined with us to search for. The wailing banshee or whatever it was… and something about truffles… Hobbs: Wailing banshee?… I don't know about that. Sounds awfully silly…

And then he yawns.