JoJo Nowhere (1983: Doomsday)

JoJo Nowhere is a legendary post-apocalyptic figure originating in North America. Considered to be a modern-day Robin Hood, JoJo Nowhere is known across the ravaged wastes of North America as a liberator of slaves and bringer of peace. He is iconic for wearing hippie-esque clothing and, according to some stories, drives a 1960's era Volkswagon Minibus. Legends surrounding his origins vary. Some of the uneducated or desperate in the wastes believe that JoJo Nowhere is a ghost, hence the name. Others believe that he uses sleight of hand, illusions, advanced technology, or even superpowers to appear and disappear at moment's notice. While many know that JoJo Nowhere is most likely a story, it does not stop them from admiring the stories or even traveling the wastes to learn tales of his exploits.

Origin of the Story
The first alleged sighting of JoJo Nowhere happened on November 8th, 1989, near Poughkeepsie. A farmer, struggling to survive, claims that a 'hippie wearing colors [he] hadn't seen since before the war arrived on his farm during a bandit attack and killed the bandits. He was gone before [the farmer] even got a chance to thank him." This story spread around Poughkeepsie and other post-Doomsday survivor states for years. While some remained skeptical of JoJo's existence, passing it off as a 'fever dream of a dying farmer,' the hopeless and downtrodden began to accept the myth as reality, believing that there must be some good left in the world. The anti-hippie crowd, or what remained of it after Doomsday, struggled to keep the story on the lowdown, but JoJo Nowhere's story spread. By 1993, the story had been passed along much of the east coast of the former United States.

Since JoJo Nowhere became more and more popular as a story, many people began claiming to be the farmer or have known the farmer to which JoJo Nowhere first appeared. As these claimants spread their stories, the legend of JoJo Nowhere grew.

The Story Evolves
By 1996, JoJo Nowhere was on the lips of the Eastern Seaboard. From Aroostook to Florida, JoJo Nowhere seemed to be everywhere. As the story continued to become more popular, JoJo Nowhere's appearance began to differ more and more, though general consensus still stated that JoJo wore stereotypical hippie clothes. Stories of an old Volkswagon Minibus began to become integrated into the legends of JoJo Nowhere. As time progressed, the story began to spread west, past the Mississippi river and into the American Midwest by 2000. Stories ranged from semi-plausible, such as a kind man passing out bottles of clean water to starving communities; to romanticized, including a valiant beatnik hero storming slaver bases to free slavers; to the absolutely insane, such as a teleporting hippie. Such fanciful stories became more frequent in disheveled, ruinous communities and smaller survivor states, though so were the semi-plausible stories. The romanticized tales of JoJo Nowhere became more popular in prosperous communities.

The stories of JoJo Nowhere kept up with the times too, including the various hurricanes that swept through the East Coast throughout the 1990s and 2000s. The droughts in the southeast and other natural disasters all spawned their own legends. Wherever danger was afoot, JoJo Nowhere was there to stop the danger and help people. The fanciful works of 'civilized' states were also produced in written form rather than in oral form. Such wild, romanticized adventures included JoJo Nowhere's origin stories, his fight against the mutated 'murlocks' of New York City, and other action-packed sagas.

In 2003, the legend of JoJo Nowhere reached as far as the United States and Lincoln. A number of writers in the area became interested in compiling the legends of JoJo Nowhere into one book. Dominic Rhodes, an aspiring author in Lincoln, traveled through the United States and Lincoln, compiling works by various authors into one saga: The Chronicles of JoJo Nowhere. The work was a hit. Radio dramas, books, and other forms of the work were distributed and sold throughout Lincoln and the United States. While Dominic Rhodes' Chronicles of JoJo Nowhere was a truly post-apocalyptic epic, they did not portray his altruistic, charitable side that had become so popular in less fortunate areas of North America. The works were unpopular in the areas where JoJo Nowhere legends originated. According to some, the saga betrayed the hopeful message in its very core in favor of yet another violent story of a hippie who did nothing but free slaves, beat up raiders, and kill fictional monsters.

Due to the uproar, Dominic Rhodes created a new work of JoJo Nowhere, an almost encyclopedic collection of his works, from those originating in the wastes to those originating in the United States and Lincoln. This new work, The Legend of JoJo Nowhere, took years to compile. In addition to rewriting the Chronicles of JoJo Nowhere, Dominic Rhodes hired travelers to bring back any stories they could find about JoJo Nowhere in the wastes. By 2010, The Legend of JoJo Nowhere was compiled and distributed. This work portrayed all aspects of JoJo Nowhere, from the man who helps the average Joe to the action-filled saga of a man who killed slavers. It was, overall, a grittier story, but a more hopeful one as well. The wastes were presented with realistic villains and victims. More abandoned towns than populated towns. It was met with success throughout the United States, Lincoln, and the wastes.

The Man
JoJo Nowhere is described as a tall man with long hair and, usually, a beard. He wears loose-fitting shirts and tattered jeans. On occasion, he has been portrayed as having a tie-die shirt, if not a vibrantly colorful shirt. He has a laid-back, stereotypical accent of a hippie from the 1960's and he usually is adorned with at least one peace sign. Overall, JoJo is just a stereotypical hippie making his way through the wastes with nothing but the clothes on his back. In many popular stories, JoJo travels the wastes in a beat-up, blue Volkswagon Minibus. The interior of the Minibus varies from saga to saga. In wasteland sagas, it sometimes contains water and food for starving wastelanders. In the romanticized tales, it contains an idealized stereotypical hippie paradise, complete with peace signs and bongs littered throughout the van.

The Legend
