The Wayward Vagabond is a mysterious wanderer who exists "years in the future, but not many" - in 2422, in fact. Prior to becoming an exile, he was a Dersite pawn known as the Warweary Villein. He becomes a playable character during Act 2. Like all other exiles, he lacks a sylladex and simply picks up objects when told so without further complication. Though this severely limits his inventory capacity - to the number of things he could reasonably carry - it also means he isn't prone to Fetch Modus-related shenanigans.
"Villein" means a "free person under the feudal system" as well as a farmer. To differentiate commands between his past and future selves, his past self's commands end with a question mark (?). All exiles each have multiple titles composed of two words. The first and second words of each title start with the same letter.
Biography[]
As Warweary Villein/Wizardly Vassal[]
WV leading the combined armies.
The Warweary Villein was WV's name while he still lived in the Medium. Once a part of the army of Derse on Skaia, he resigned from the war to work as a simple farmer, and used his uniform as part of a scarecrow. Already frustrated with the endless warring, he turns to blame the Black King after his crops are destroyed by fire. He stands up against the tyranny of war, uniting the pawns of Prospit and Derse in a revolution against their monarchs but as the rebellion was cornering the Black King, Jack Noir soars to assassinate the distracted monarch (the scarecrow was ineffective). The Warweary Villein seethes in anger as Jack coronates himself. He is a much beloved folk hero to the survivors of Jack's rampage, as shown in [S] Seer: Descend. He is known to them as "the dark kingdom's defector."
Jack confronts WV's troops.
The Warweary Villein watches as Jack Noir slaughtered all of his troops, irrespective of color, leaving just him standing there, traumatized, as Jack wreaked havoc on The Battlefield before causing part of Prospit to fall to the planet. To date, no reason has been given as to why Jack spares WV other than "only he knows." The possibilities that it could have been to leave a witness to his power or that it was out of respect for a fellow mutineer were put forward in the recap. After his failure he dons a Rag of Souls (Dream John's bedsheets).
While wandering The Battlefield he discovered the White Queen's Ring floating through some water. Some time later he sees Dream John on his Quest Bed rising to god tier. He travels across Skaia with John
, who regards him as a Wizardly Vassal. The time spent with John is most likely the reason why in his future, but John's past, he commands John to do The Windy Thing, as he saw John do it before and did not understand why he did not do it then.
He and John are joined by the Courtyard Droll and Liv Tyler (the bunny, not the actress). Due to his affinity for green things, he eats Liv's green hugifier eye, causing a disagreement between them. Fortunately, the Droll mediates between the two. John sends the three of them a mission: to deliver The Tumor, which he had retrieved from Skaia's core to Rose and Dave on Derse's moon. John relinquishes the wallet to him.
The three take a Dersite battleship to travel across the Incipisphere. However the Courtyard Droll betrays them, stealing the wallet and leaving the ship via an escape pod. Liv, fortunately, witnesses it and is able to steal back the card with the Tumor. WV notices the loss of the wallet, but is relieved that he still had the Queen's ring.
Unfortunately, the Droll then contacts Jack Noir, who teleports to the ship and shatters it with a blast of green energy. The side WV was on lands in a Skaia defense portal to future Earth, where he would become known as the Wayward Vagabond.
As Wayward Vagabond[]
What a dunce. (hey, he tried!)
The Vagabond was an exile wandering through the desert of the post-apocalyptic world. He stumbled upon a mysterious construct bearing the Sburb logo at the ruins of Rose's house. Opening the hatch, he descended into a derelict Underground Base. It contained a computer depicting John Egbert back in the story's present-day which allows him to command John.
He gets bored of it, and so founds Can Town. After some shenanigans including the rescue of Serenity from a piece of amber and eating a nugget of uranium he tries to escape the station before an ominous countdown he discovered got to zero. He fails and is carried with the station to a set of mysterious ruins.
After arriving at the ruins of Jade's Island he helps the Peregrine Mendicant deliver John's package to Jade. He befriends her and the Aimless Renegade, and shows her his drawings and the computer in the base. The three are later joined by the Windswept Questant, Prospit's former White Queen. After a hearty meal together he goes back to his computer to see how John was doing.
Unfortunately John was in grave peril at the time due to the green flames summoned by Jack Noir. He insistes that John do The Windy Thing and eventually succeeds. However he has to use caps lock to do it, which also locks him inside the capsule. Though John survives he dies soon afterwards on his Quest Bed. WV, not understanding how time shenanigans work, assumes he was dead for good. Being locked in his station, he builds a fort out of the panels on the walls and takes a nap inside.
Wayward Vagabond's dream
WV's nightmare dream bubble seems more like the imagination world from Problem Sleuth than the player dream bubbles, especially since he is in a dream fort at the time. While a player's dream bubble is a collage of memories, his dream is similar to a more traditional one, which is far more abstract; however, he is besieged by Morse code narration about the admiration of anthropormophism. When he sees the fellow Dersites and Prospitians that followed him into battle many years ago, he reaches out for them with a bloody hand, but the blood becomes the Red Miles and kill them all, much to his horror. This most likely represents deep survivor's guilt over leading his friends to their death at the hands of Jack Noir. It may also mean he subconsciously knew what would happen if he put the White Queen's ring on but feared becoming similar to Jack Noir, who killed every single one of his comrades.
...which quickly turned into a nightmare
Near the end of his dream he sees a weird bug also speaking in Morse, which turns out to be a miniature version of Vriska telling him not to interfere with her fight with Jack, as she wanted to be the one to kill him. This was apparently a joint dream bubble Vriska had with WV shortly before she was challenged by Tavros.
The Windswept Questant states that a Wastlandic Vindicator will confront the Slayer using the weapon he protected. Soon after he awakens, however, Jack Noir (who arrives via the Lotus Time Capsule) senses the uranium lodged inside WV's gut and impales him. PM, who survived Noir's attack, finds the wounded Vagabond in his station. She takes his ring, giving herself the same powers of Jack Noir.
Dying and unable to be saved by PM he is transported to the Green Sun in hopes that the trolls and kids will be able to aid him. Rose assures the rest of the group (and an anxious Serenity) they'll be able to get him help on their way to the post-scratch session.
On the Meteor[]
Soon after his arrival on the meteor WV is healed by a dead Feferi who had managed to ascend to the god tier as the Witch of Life. Other characters start calling him "mayor" due to his hand-made sash. He is shown to have worked with Terezi, Dave, and Serenity to have built a new Can Town in the Trolls' meteor. Serenity ends taken away later in a dream bubble with a sleeping Roxy.
As the meteor was reaching the new session WV was still expanding Can Town and had enlisted Rose's help. In her drunkenness she professes WV to be the smartest one of the group.
After the meteor is intercepted WV is seen in LOHAC with Dave. In order to bribe Dave into engaging a training sword fight with her Jade pushes WV off Dave's roof and into the lava in an attempt to either kill him or persuade Dave to use Time powers to save him. Dave, however, dives down towards the lava and catches him in time. Dave shoosh/paps WV reassuring him that everything would be okay.
When LOHAC crashes into LOCAH WV likely dies due to collateral damage. During a conversation between Terezi and John, Terezi does not correct John's assumption that he died, although it's possible she simply did not look for him before meeting John.
New timeline[]
In the altered timeline the mayor is shown to be alive and well, and is seen on the platform along with the rest of the living humans and trolls. He later travels to the Land of Frost and Frogs with Karkat, Kanaya (who were on their way to see Echidna) and a sleeping Jade. He stays with Jade in her house where Roxy later drops off Calliope. WV is last seen in Earth C with PM.
Personality and Traits[]
Initially the Vagabond was rather rude, typing in all capitals, repeatedly referring to John as 'boy', getting angry at Rose for losing her connection while moving the car, etc. However after a flamewar an argument with John caused the Vagabond to switch off his caps lock accidentally, a compartment opened in the Vagabond's room, releasing a book on human etiquette, which he seems to have taken to heart (or stomach). Whether he is rude or polite, the Vagabond has a habit of barraging John with suggestions which causes John to zone out, much to the ire of Rose.
He quite enjoys TaB!
WV shows perfectionist tendencies. He is constantly smacking himself for doing stupid things and lashing verbally at John and Rose when they make mistakes. He also likes soda, specifically TaB, and flipped out in joy after discovering a stash of it within the base. He also displays a fondness for cookies and seems unable to understand how anybody else could fail to share this love, COMMANDING John to retrieve the cookies Nannasprite prepared and insulting him when he fails to do so.
The Vagabond appears to be intelligent despite the lack of etiquette; he knew how to operate a computer from the get-go, trumps the player's initial suggestion of retrieving one's arms by interrupting the command to point out that he had them already, figured that the Underground Base runs on nuclear power from the atom diagram on the power cell, and knew that his knife is actually a flag from a mailbox. He also appears to understand Morse Code, as this is the means by which Serenity communicates with him. He also has an uncanny knack for tracking precise distances he has already traversed, evidenced by his proficiency with selecting items to be appearified on the appearifier using coordinate and elevation dials on the machine. He makes no mistakes whatsoever while doing so, except when he tried to appearify a pumpkin he had previously already eaten, which would have created a paradox.
The mayor of can town.
The Vagabond has a deep, intense hatred for Kings, whom he sees as bossy tyrants, stemming from his past as the Warweary Villein. Instead of royalty, he likes the concept of democratically elected mayors, to the point of building 'Can Town,' a town made out of cans of food, and being its mayor. He sets the cans in a "military training" session that is remarkably like a game of chess, for four hours and nine minutes. (It is interesting to note that all his activities within the station seem to mirror various prophecies within the story, such as how "black defeats white" in his game of chess, and the uncanny correlation between his seemingly random city backdrops and actual planets within the story and their positions in the universe. However, this could simply indicate a lack of creativity on the Vagabond's part, seeing as all this would technically be history to him.)
While the Vagabond hates Kings, he is quite reverent and respectful of the the former White Queen. He and the Aimless Renegade quickly craft a crown to gift her upon sight.
He appears to have an unusual appetite for objects of the color green, edible or otherwise. Over the course of the story, he has eaten or attempted to eat a green potted plant, the stalk of a pumpkin, a green chunk of uranium, two sticks of green chalk, Jade's letter with green print on it, canned green vegetables, and Liv Tyler's green eye. Also, he referred to the green fire created by Bec Noir as "delicious looking."
As a Dersite, his skin is actually a "rigid carapace" and has a bar code pattern and four pointy fingers. He does not have nostrils, but has a sense of smell.
Though John usually does what the Vagabond suggests, he will refuse to do anything he finds personally distasteful, just like when he is being controlled by the suggestion box. He does not seem to understand the significance of being able to command John, nor does he show much interest in doing so.
The Vagabond is very critical of himself when he thinks dumb ideas (player commands), calling himself stupid and feeling dislike towards himself for a short time after. This could probably be because he has a permanent negative outlook on himself after the death of his fellow pawns at the hands of Jack. He therefore beats himself up on small mistakes he makes.
WV's Base[]
The four planets drawing, with LOWAS on the far right and LOFAF on the far left.
The room the Vagabond begins in seems to be a metaphor for the situation the Homestuck Kids are in, back in 2009. This includes the planets he draws on the wall in addition to some of the actions he does in the room.
In the solo game of chess he plays, Black prevails in the end, via the Black Queen, as in the battle between Light and Dark that Nannaquin describes to John.
The drawings on his wall approximate a viewpoint from within Skaia, his former home as the Warweary Villein. Prospit, and Derse are visible through the clouds, along the kids planets in right-to-left order. LOFAF is drawn with the forge erupting, probably a weird subconscious foreshadowing thing. The Dark and Light planets on the opposite walls represent Derse and Prospit, and their moons.
When the Vagabond presses tab on his keyboard, a picture of a planet representing Prospit falls on the floor and the TaB cans come out. This mirrors Prospit's moon falling onto The Battlefield and Dream John and Dream Jade entering. The TaB can explosion after the chess game he plays could be seen as Dream Jade's death. The Vagabond seems to "mourn the loss of the citizen tab", while the Grandpa does the same with Jade.
The Vagabond seems to "decide" how the planets look like and if they have any moons. He recreates the world he knows, either from his memories or due to some subconscious knowledge he has as a game construct.
Relationships[]
Serenity[]
This energetic little firefly became WV's loyal companion after he rescued her from the amber she was trapped inside of. She constantly blinks messages to try to aid him, though he doesn't always understand her morse code.
Peregrine Mendicant[]
WV initially met and befriended PM when they crossed paths during their time in exile, and they appeared to become close friends. During their time spent with the Aimless Renegade, it became apparent that he harbored some level of romantic feelings for her, as he tried to win her over with gifts. After WV was unceremoniously gutted by Bec Noir, PM donned the Queen's ring and teleported him to the meteor crew in a desperate bid to save him. The pair reunited later in Act 6.
Aimless Renegade[]
After initially greeting WV with several rounds of rocket propelled grenades, as well as a significant amount of gunfire, they too became close friends with one another, although they were constantly fighting for the affections of PM and the Windswept Questant in the short time they knew one another. During Cascade, AR hesitated to blow up Rose's Sburb station, as WV was still trapped inside. This hesitation cost AR his life, as well as very nearly WV's own.
Dave Strider[]
WV seems to be quite close to Dave since Dave helped him rebuild Can Town. When Jade almost killed WV Dave saved him and seemed extremely relieved. Dave goes as far as admitting that he loves the Mayor. It is unclear whether or not he means platonic love, and whether he's being ironic; either way, Dave is best bros with the Mayor.
John Egbert[]
WV is seen to trust John, despite his original rudeness. This may be due to their many encounters, the first of which was their meeting on the battlefield when he was WV?, in which John gave him the wallet and the ring to keep safe. The many commands that WV gave John, while delivered in a seemingly rude manner, shows that WV at the very least trusts John enough to carry out actions that decide the fate of entire planets. While they have not interacted much since then, it can be assumed that the trust remains. (Though, if Dave and WV are best bros, what about John?)
Karkat Vantas[]
When using the command station, WV has stated to John that he does not like Karkat, noting that he is an "unpleasant human" (soon to be corrected by the narrative, reminding WV that Karkat is not, in fact, a human). In the new timeline, WV and Karkat seem to have become friends. Karkat is seen conversing with him about making a real life version of Can Town as an actual city.
Gallery[]
Trivia[]
- On this page
WV is seen with 5 fingers on one hand and his usual 4 on the other. - Unlike the other exiles, who all have a somewhat special build, WV shares his stature with other Prospit and Derse standard pawns. Having been a mere farmer before his revolution, this is unsurprising.
- Here WV learns that Karkat's class is Knight because he was told so, either from Andrew Hussie or the MSPA reader.
- In [S] YOU THERE. BOY., if you go to John's room and click the Con Air poster behind the door, the dialogue option "IS THAT JOHN CUSACK?" appears, suggesting that WV has at least a passing familiarity with Earth movies or universal constants.
- WV is depicted on the "King of Pentacles" card alongside Serenity in the Homestuck Tarot card deck. Kings of Pentacles are self made men who wish to be seen as important members of their community and consider it their job to encourage others and work hard. He is also on the "Five of Pentacles" card.
- WV's mayoral sash doesn't flip turnways when he's turned left.
- It is possible this prisoner is post-scratch WV as they have the same appearance. Following this speculation, he probably went against The Condesce and got arrested.
